The RA

Volume III: Violations

By Isaac Byrne

Copyright © 20 23  by Isaac Byrne

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition, 20 23

Chapter One: Fall Break

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

“Yeah, I think so. During the hiring process last year, right? We didn’t do interviews together, but I remember walking into the room as you were on your way out. I remember doing a double take and then feeling like a real heel about it. But, um, yeah. You looked good, boss.”

Ramona let my cock slide out of her mouth and shifted to a two-handed grip. I’d never had anybody two-hand me before. It felt like there were a lot of ways it could go wrong, but my manager made it feel all too right. “Wrong answer, master, but it’s sweet enough I’ll let it slide.”

“Oh?”

“It was RA training. Not here, but last year. My first at Lakeview. I did a campus-wide training session. Creating community buy-in, or something like that. It wasn’t very good.”

“Oh yeah! Yeah, now that you mention it. Your hair was different then. Like… not blonde, but… orange? Kind of?”

“It was a phase. It needn’t be discussed. I’d just gotten married and I was already chafing. My hair was something I could rebel with.”

Ramona gave my shaft a few slow, sensuous licks to maintain lubrication. Or maybe she just needed another microdose of whatever it was whoever  it was had pumping  out of every pore in my body. “The Spencer effect,” we’d taken to calling it.

“That doesn’t count as meeting , though. Every RA on campus was there. I went to a Taylor Swift concert in high school but I don’t tell people I met Taylor Swift.”

“Don’t think I won’t be asking what baby Spencer was doing at a Taylor Swift concert–”

“I went with my girlfriend.”

“–but it wasn’t just the presentation. Afterwards I was talking to some of the other HD’s and you walked up to ask John something. We were introduced, very briefly.”

I shook my head. “Dang. I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I mostly remember noticing you were cute, though then less in the sense of wanting you for myself. At the time, I’d noticed the half dozen RA’s watching your every move and being glad I didn’t have that distraction on my staff.”

“And now you’re on my  staff.” I couldn’t help myself. Puns were the worst jokes and sex puns were the worst puns, but still. A whole week of lounging around the empty residence hall with nothing to do but fuck my manager had worn out my premium pillow talk.

“I thought you said you preferred we maintain the illusion that I am in control of Higgins Hall,” she said, moving her knees a little closer so her breasts brushed against my shaft. “But if you prefer we inform your coworkers that they now report to you…”

“I was kidding!”

Ramona smiled, then split that smile to make room in her mouth for my cock. It still looked like a smile, though. Maybe it was that joy in her eyes. We’d had sex so many times I knew every tiny bump inside her vagina by heart. As for her, she’d had no complaints, to put it humbly. Yet it was my cock inside her mouth that truly drove her wild.

Did it matter, whether it was my semen, sweat or saliva? Did it matter if it was swallowed or if I just cut loose and delivered it to the face? Once, or five times a day? Did it affect different people differently? There was so much I didn’t know.

The sensation of a woman’s mouth fervently worshiping my cock made me miss Savannah something awful, but she was keeping busy back at her parents’ place. We’d texted a little this week, but she’d finally sent a message last night that said she needed  to see me, appending it with her intended arrival time Sunday. I somehow doubted talk was what  she had in mind. If there had ever been a woman who loved sucking a man’s cock as Savannah loved sucking mine, I’d never heard of her.

Ramona nuzzled it with her cheeks as she responded, like she did pretty much whenever she had to interrupt a blowjob. Cock addiction from the Spencer effect, or just part of her own slave/master kink? “I know you were kidding, master. I was only teasing. Though, if the Spencer effect is as pronounced as you say, it seems it will wind up that way anyway.”

“Hmm. You’ve got a lot of jokes for a lady who was told to blow her master.”

Those words were hard for me to say, but less hard than they’d been a week ago. Still, Ramona was not kidding about her enjoyment of serving as my sub, so I’d been teaching myself to be more domineering. It was a favor to her, really, not that I was pretending it was an onerous one. I’d always thought of myself as a giver in the bedroom (not that mine and Ramona’s living spaces had distinct bedrooms), but in this case, giving her what she wanted from me meant taking what I wanted from her. The more greedier I was, the more commanding, the less solicitous of her preferences, the more it got her off.

Case in point, my manager’s eyes slid shut as she took my mild rebuke to heart. The woman really knew how to put her whole body into a blowjob. Jerking me off while her mouth worked the top, her tits brushing against it with each bob of her neck, bobs that shook through her entire chest. She brushed her hair back at frequent intervals to make sure I had an unfettered view of her at all times. Like in porn, she’d said, and I had to concede that porn was doing sex right in this particular instance.

Marisa would hate  to hear me say that. Professionally, she found pornography fascinating; privately, she found the whole industry morally complicit. Less so for the way it often mistreated the people who produced it, though there was that, too; for her, it was about popularizing so many stupid, backwards techniques and positions and styles. Maneuvers that showcased massive cocks and jiggling tits were so often less pleasurable in the thick of it. How had she put it? Something like, porn was to good sex what a slam dunk competition was to a good game of basketball.

Oy, Marisa. I hoped she was doing OK. I hadn’t talked to her in weeks now, ever since she told me she couldn’t keep helping me puzzle this out. She’d worried my feelings for her would keep me from looking at the Hancock Institute, where she interned for her grad studies on human sexuality. I didn’t like it, but part of me was glad she was keeping her nose out of this.

What they were doing to me, through me, was worrisome. I’d made my peace – or was trying to, at least – with what my presence was doing to my residents and my coworkers. Whatever this was, they didn’t want to hurt us, at least. My Hotties were hornier than womankind was meant to be, but they were happy with it, and so long as we let them – as in They, them – conduct their creepy little study, they seemed content to let us stay horny and happy. If Marisa compromised their operation… Who knew what they might do? Besides, she loved what she did. If I ever got serious about going after whoever was doing this within the Hancock Institute, helping me take them down could wreck that for her. Maybe there was some shadowy biotech cabal churning out pheromone sauce in the basement, but on Marisa’s level, there was a simple and honest effort to better understand sex. She deserved that chance.

“You’re not coming, master. Am I not pleasing you?” asked Ramona, vigorously working my shaft. Her accent was there, thicker than usual. It got thicker, the hornier she got. It was usually pretty thick of late.

“No, you’re good. I’m sorry, let my mind wander. Was thinking about Marisa again.”

Many women would have gotten angry that the man whose dick they were sucking openly admitted they were idly thinking about their ex-girlfriend. Not Ramona. If anything, she seemed to like it when I got distracted. Probably why she talked so much while we fooled around. Rather than slap me, like I probably deserved, or try to refocus my attention with some extra elbow grease, she took the opportunity to slow things down. Which, for her, meant climbing into my lap backwards, placing my hands on her boobs, and grinding that dynamite ass of hers against my slobbery wet cock.

“I keep telling you, you ought to simply march over there, whip it out, and make her one of us. You obviously want her. She obviously cares about you, too.”

“I thought you said you agreed I shouldn’t look my gift horse in the mouth, poking around at Hancock.” I massaged her tits while I spoke. Having serious conversations in the midst of intense intimacy had become normal this past week.

“I did say that, and I stand by it. You’ve been given an incredible gift. As have I. As have the rest of your ‘Hotties.’” She always used the term with a heavy injection of bemusement. “Look too hard into your gift horse’s mouth, and this little paradise of ours could crumble beneath our feet before we know it.”

“I know, I know. You drive me wild, boss, but I do listen when you talk. And you’ve said that one a lot. And with cleaner use of the idiom, I might add.”

Nitpicking her English never sat well, but rather than take me to task for it – such a self-proclaimed slave could of her master, anyway – Ramona sighed delightedly at my use of her pet name. It was so steeped in irony, a reminder of everything wrong about our relationship. Everything hot  about it, too. I did my best to be this “master” she was so infatuated with, but all the inverse nicknames were sour on my tongue. Slave , pet , toy , slut… Not for me, no sirree. An ironic “boss” for this woman who’d left her husband for me? I could do that much, at least.

As for her point… I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t deny that her position had an argument. Right now, the Spencer effect wasn’t hurting anyone. It felt like some shady character had handed me a winning lottery ticket, stuffed it into my hand with the sole caveat that I let them watch how I spent it. Metaphors, whether it was a horse or a lottery ticket, weren’t a good basis for decision-making, granted, but the basic point stood. I’d denied it and denied it, but aside from the fight with Quinn and Leigh back in August, everybody who’d been subjected to this stuff seemed more than pleased with the results.

It wasn’t that simple, of course. Leigh had  been hurt, if not by me. So had Quinn, also not by me. We had no way of knowing if, when this experiment ended, my Hotties would snap out of it horrified by the debauchery they’d previously basked in. No assurances another melee wouldn’t break out over jealousies. Hell, we were dealing with cutting edge neurochemistry – there was no telling what might happen if somebody had an allergic reaction to it, or god knows what else. Even on a humanitarian level, I had real feelings for Savannah, yet the Spencer effect only invited opportunities to cheat on her and keep her at arm’s length. Or worse: it enabled me to cheat on her and make her accept the betrayal as the cost of getting her fix.

That had been my line. Even after all those hypothetical discussions before break with my coworkers and the Hotties… I’d still had misgivings. My boss, however, took the opposite position. Girls fought over boys sometimes, no chemicals needed. People were intimate with people they enjoyed in the moment but later regretted, Spencer effect or no. Nearly every hottie had licked my sweaty, bare-chested body at massage night, and nobody had gotten brain damage from it, nor hives, nor even an itchy tongue. I wasn’t exclusive with Savannah, but she’d requested just that. We still had the option to stop seeing other people at any time if we wanted.

“Yes but–” I’d said to her, over and over. Every time, though, she was making her case. It was an easy one to make – I envied her side of the debate. For one, the sex was incredible. For them and for me. Second, the influence their infatuation gave me was making me the best RA I’d  ever been. It put me in a position to exert tremendous influence over them, which I’d been using to help steer them in developmentally positive directions. Third: even with everything else going on, Savannah and I were getting along great. Vickie, too, and while I didn’t think of her so much as girlfriend material, she was cool company and an amazing lover. We had fun, no complaints on either end.

Plus – and this was the real sticking point, the rationale that had finally gotten me to shut up – the alternative was… bleak. If this really was some kind of sexual mind manipulation conspiracy, and I unmasked it…? I didn’t know if it was even possible for me to put a stop to it. There was a very real chance that exposing the sorts of people who would do something like this might not take the publicity kindly. Without even lifting a finger, they could get their revenge by simply leaving me like this, a pleasure factory in human form, forever. This stuff was so strong that it hadn’t taken twenty-four hours to make Quinn so besotted she’d climbed into my bed and put a finger in my ass. Shit, Dana’s mom had been making eyes at me in seconds, before I’d even laid eyes on her. How long would this stuff take to do that to my mom, or my sister? Everyone in my life. I’d get to talk to my family on Zoom, I supposed. The notion that they could succumb to it seemed unthinkable, but then, I’d had three minor celebrity triplets agree to suck my balls and kiss my ass, together. They’d taken it as a favor.

Supposing the Hancock people could reverse it, or that someone else could figure it out, that would be a brutal return to reality. I’d only just found out about it all, but that didn’t mean a jury would believe me. (I’d wondered aloud if perhaps nobody would try to take me down over it, but Ramona reminded me that Janis existed.) Which, whatever. She’d gone on with a point that made all too much sense to me about what the revelation could do to the Hotties, to my coworkers. They would be devastated when they found out. As it stood, they took it as a flirty little game, kinky college experimentation with a good-looking RA. Tell them the truth, and kinky became traumatizing, experimentation became victimization. Many of them would carry this as a memory of a violation of their innermost selves, not only of their bodies but of their very minds.

I’d pointed out that the fact that the truth could be so damaging was only proof that going through with this was wrong, but that had devolved into all sorts of late night between-coitus debates about morality and ethics that I had frankly lost, badly. “If a child falls off the bed and lands on their teddy bear with a bounce and a giggle, you don’t do them a favor by throwing them off again so they know how painful it ought to have been,” she’d said. Cleaner than her allusions to the gift horse, and a better point.

However immoral it would be to take advantage of the Spencer effect, doing so was also the most ethical course. The wrongness of concealing the truth was injurious to me alone; its revelation would be painful for everybody. Looking Andi in the face and extolling the virtue of Truth wouldn’t make her feel any less violated. Inviting her and a few of her friends into my bed, however, would be her dream come true.

Additionally, of course, Ramona was only too eager to use her own case to make her point. She never shied away from an opportunity to remind me how offering herself to me as a sex slave was the best she’d felt in years. Maybe ever.

“Would you fuck me, master? Please? My pipa  aches to feel you inside me. I promise you, I will be worthy of your permission.”

Like that.

“You’d better be. Gonna be hard enough, transitioning to a new normal around here where I let them all just… yeah.” Hard for me , that was. My residents had all made it plain they wanted nothing in the world more. (Except maybe Tori, who’d somehow retained some semblance of awareness that thirty-some girls all throwing themselves at the same guy was a little icky. It hadn’t stopped her from stuffing those big brown tits of hers into her Higgins Hotties half-shirt, though.) “I’d really rather not have to figure out how to explain that my boss moved in so she could be on hand for quickies.”

“Not too quick I hope, master,” Ramona said with a tantalizing smile over her shoulder as she wriggled her pussy down over my giddily awaiting cock. Most girls I’d been with needed to use either their eyes or their hands to guide me in, but Ramona, she’d spent so much time on my cock this week that she could do it by instinct.

I fucked my boss, and I came inside her, and she came all over me. She thanked me for letting her. When we were done, she sucked our cum off of my cock unasked. Her eyes locked on mine in heavy-lidded bliss.

It was after midnight, though, and with Savannah and my Hotties returning in the morning, I wanted some sleep.

“Keep sucking me off while I drift off,” I instructed her. Her eyes flashed with delight. Nothing turned her on more than commands, especially ones that were nakedly selfish. Ordering her to fuck me was mutual, she’d explained, but making her perform for my amusement was an acknowledgment of her desire for subjugation. It was an explanation I didn’t understand, but like the rest of it, I didn’t need to. If there was one thing I’d learned from Marisa, it was that a good lover tries their best to fulfill their partner’s desires and fantasies. It didn’t mean phoning it in or doing things you weren’t comfortable with, but if you could swing it, swing for the fences.

I was still in a roleplay mindset as a dom, but if our plan to go all in on the Spencer effect panned out, who knew? Pretty soon, I might be the domineering sex god she dreamed of instead of a poser doing his laughable best.

I supposed, as my eyes slid closed, my boss’s lips closed snugly around my cock with sound bubbling up from her well-stuffed throat that was pure ecstasy, giving in wasn’t so  bad.

************************************************

I woke up to the sight of Higgins’ hall manager clipping on her earrings, her work outfit on point. It was weird, seeing her clothed but knowing the tapestry of tattoos her sleeveless blouse and skirt were hiding. This past week, she’d only gone down to her office in the center building a few times, in part to correspond with the exterminators tending to an ant infestation on mine and Janis’s floors. On the plus side, it had given Ramona and I an excuse to get a hotel for a couple nights to have some really loud hotel sex. My six years in the residence halls had meant six years of learning to keep the volume down, especially recently, surrounded by my nosy, horny Hotties. Ramona and I had been able to cut loose with just the two of us. Plus the hotel returned me to a world of eavesdropping neighbors, which had turned me on more than I’d expected. I might not be the quintessential guy’s guy, but I was guy enough that having people know I was fucking a woman like her was pretty damn hot.

The other reason Ramona had put in some office hours, though, had nothing to do with ants or their persecutors. She wanted me to fuck her in her office – which, as it so happened, was exactly what I wanted. Whatever reticence I’d felt at first about taking advantage of a woman whose attraction to me was in no small part a reaction to the chemical soup I’d been unwittingly marinating her in all semester had cleared up early on. I simply couldn’t see a woman enjoying herself that  much and still beat myself up over it. Her recurring lectures, often mid-coitus, as to why I was wrong to hesitate to enjoy myself had helped. That smoking hot body of hers had helped even more.

It had  been some incredible sex, this week. I’d never had any urge to use or degrade women. The opposite, in fact. I wanted to give as much as I got and then some, shatter that sexual glass ceiling with trills of female pleasure. Ramona, though, had out-paced my best efforts. She wanted to be put on her knees before a subordinate. She wanted to have to beg permission to suck my cock. She wanted me to bend her over her desk, rip her panties off, and test if she could breathe evenly enough while she came that the resident’s parent on the other end of the phone call couldn’t tell what a fucking slut she was.

(Nothing like an ant infestation to provide a flood of such phone calls to provide fresh tests.)

Outside of those visits downstairs to fuck her in her office, though, we’d been hanging around Higgins 3 mostly or completely naked. I’d chuckled to myself the day before when I realized I’d stepped out into the hall without a stitch on, not having even consciously considered that the Hotties weren’t back from break yet. Soon my state of dress or undress wouldn’t matter. Seeing Ramona dressed again, knowing I had to let her stay that way, it was a sobering reminder that it was finally time to get this slutty show on the road.

“Good morning, master.”

“Morning, boss. What time is it?”

“Early. Not quite eight. The locks are programmed to let residents’ key cards resume working at eight on the dot, though. Since you said you wanted to ease your way into this, I thought it would be easier if we didn’t risk any of your women seeing me exiting your room first thing in the morning.”

“Smart.” Intrusive little scamps that they were, they’d likely find out about Ramona and I eventually. For now, though, our alibi in regards to her presence was that after the drama and irregularities endemic to Higgins 3 this year, the Lakeview Office of Housing and Residence Life had posted a full-time professional staff member to help keep an eye on things.

(We’d notified Bob. There had been no reply, but whatever filter he was employing to scrub evidence of this whole fiasco had deleted our message from the servers within minutes.)

“Do you feel ready? Not that there’s a timeline. Only that… Well, I think we both know how quickly your young women tend to heat things up. Do you think you’ll be ready to reciprocate?”

I stood out of bed, shrugging. “I don’t honestly know. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Duh, right?” I laughed, but she merely humored me with a smile. “I figure I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done, and if it feels right, I’ll go with it, and if it doesn’t, I won’t. Best thing for everybody. But… I dunno. This probably sounds cheesy as hell, but I really like these girls. Best floor I ever RAed , hands down, even without all the… yeah.”

“Though ‘all the yeah’ helps, I imagine.” Her eyes were locked on my flaccid penis, head tilting to the side as she studied it.

“Sure. But I’m just saying, I don’t want to do anybody dirty. Open communication, honesty, empathy. No going door to door for the pair of tits I feel like seeing that day, snapping my fingers and putting a girl on her knees to blow me.” I pinched Ramona’s butt, snapping her out of her stupor. “That’s what I have you for, right?”

She slid down to her knees by reflex. “So very right, master.” No way of knowing how much of her submission was chemical and how much her fetish. She’d confided that it had never been that way with her husband, but he hadn’t turned her on like I did. She hadn’t wanted to, and he hadn’t had the stones to try. So she said.

“I thought the locks opened any minute now?” Her presence at my feet was already stirring me back to action. I swiveled  my hips, playfully tapping her cheeks with my growing shaft.

“I’ll be fast, master. Please? Please, I promise, I’ll be so fast. Just let me–”

“Later. If you’re good. And if I have energy after Savannah tears into me. Said she’d be getting back late afternoon.” Man, it wasn’t easy being that cold. It was honest, though, and whether we were still boss and RA or if we’d crossed entirely over to master and servant, we had agreed honesty was important. Besides, the dismissiveness only turned her on more. One less thing she had to decide on. She would get fucked when and if master decided, and until then, she had a building full of residents to welcome back, and to reassure about the insectoid menace.

She left to go man  her battlestation. The other HDs weren’t working today, as it was a Sunday, but we anticipated some students and parents upset about the ants. I’d already helped prepare and post signage around the building for her to explain the situation, but the price tag of campus housing and tuition ensured that there would be those who felt entitled to the revocation of natural law, as if we could enact policy that ants would follow.

I had a bowl of pineapple chunks for breakfast and headed for the gym. I’d long thought all that stuff about pineapple changing the taste of semen was an old wive’s tale, or more likely an old husband’s, but Marisa had sold me on the science of it. I figured it’d make the impending good times that much better – at least my libido-enhancing cum would taste good going down. Plus, after Bob had explained that whatever my body was emitting was even in my sweat, I thought greeting residents ripe and ruddy would help get the ball rolling. It had been over a week, after all, so who knew if the Spencer effect had waned while the Hotties and I had been apart.

After a week in which my only exercise had been sleeping with Ramona, my workout took a toll on me. It felt good, though, to ache a little. As I did my reps, I contemplated who would be first. Someone I’d already hooked up with, like Andi or Casey? Somebody who’d been throwing themselves at me extra hard, like Leigh or Lexi? Somebody I hadn’t gotten to know as well yet, like Danielle or a triplet? A whole week I’d been ruminating on it, and I still hadn’t decided. I’d decided some of them were off limits, namely Dawn, Peyton and Sydney, our lesbian contingent. Sleeping with happy, horny girls who loved cock and none more than mine? Sure. Not so hard to make my peace with that. Worsening the confusion of those three? I’d sooner have Ramona move them to another floor. I still might, depending on how they reacted to what was coming.

(Oh, and no cock for Sammi, either. Not until she’d properly apologized to Kyu-Ri for her racist stunt and proved she’d learned a lesson. Frankly, I suspected being denied access to me was going to be a better teaching tool than any amount of community service Ramona might have assigned her.)

Afterwards, as I made my way to the Lakeview chapel. It had been years since I’d set foot in there . I knew I’d been, but the why of it had faded. Knowing me, probably giving my Rowland guys their campus tours in Welcome Week. They’d renovated it, I knew, though aside from it looking cleaner and brighter, I couldn’t have said what was different. To my surprise, there were even some students in there .

Oh right, Sunday.

I kept quiet and distant, taking a spot on a bench near a stained glass window. My hands sort of folded themselves; I wasn’t especially religious, but this was a religious place. It felt right. The late morning sun filtered in red on my left hand, blue on my right. It felt like that was significant somehow, but I couldn’t articulate how.

Were they watching me – Hancock, or whoever it was – even here? It was hard to imagine. I’d been looking over my shoulder the whole walk here. Hardly anybody was out and about on campus, so it was hard to imagine I was being followed. If they were using hidden cameras and spy-tech like that, no way they’d have bugged this place. While I’d scoured every room on Higgins 3 for surveillance and found nothing, Bob had seemed certain that “they,” whoever “they” were, wanted data and were getting it somehow. I’d even wondered if the exterminators were part of it, sneaking into the empty building to plant fresh bugs. (The other kind, that is.) I’d not dared voice my suspicions of them at Higgins; at our hotel room, though, Ramona assured me at length the exterminators’ presence was nothing nefarious. They’d even shown her pictures, little dots in various student rooms.

However the folks behind the Spencer effect were doing it, though, they were getting their data somehow.

In fact, I hoped they were.

Aloud, I’d capitulated to Ramona’s logic on its merit. Inwardly, though, my conflict raged on. Conventional ethics didn’t apply to a situation like mine, and I’d given up analyzing it through that lens. You couldn’t cleanly analyze who was hurting and who was benefitting when people’s very minds weren’t their own. As far as Ramona was concerned, and likewise I hoped for anyone else listening, I’d shrugged off these dicey issues and accepted my calling to bang hot college chicks. Yeeha, and all that.

What had sold me, however, was what I’d learned in my three semesters as a business major. Innovation like the Spencer effect doesn't just go away. Whether it was a beneficial technology like the internet, or a global threat like the atomic bomb, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle once you rubbed the lamp. Someone had found a way to make a person ooze aphrodisiacs, and whatever I did wasn’t going to uninvent it.

I’d found nothing whatsoever about it online, which meant the tech was almost certainly in its infancy. Plainly, the data they needed was not only about how it affected people in prolonged cohabitation, or there wouldn’t have been any need to fill Higgins 3 with the hottest freshmen at Northside. If all they wanted was to see if anybody had some allergic reaction or psychotic break, they could have learned that from anyone. The more I thought about it, the more sure I felt that they wanted to know something more nuanced. Could my cum could charm those who swallowed it in a single dose? How long could a woman shower beside me before she felt moved to touch herself? Would spending the night in my bed, bathing in the full potency of the effect, break the will forever – or if not forever, how long, exactly?

So I could fight them, deny them their precious data and shake my fist at these invisible meddlers, maybe even expose them and drag them through the courts of law and of public opinion, do some damage. Their technology would still be there, though, and it would be even less understood for my refusal. Or I could give them what they wanted. Endure – or let’s be real, enjoy  – my situation. Help some nice women enjoy themselves, too.

Use the ultimate motivator to create the ultimate community.

I didn’t have the delusions of grandeur some college students had, that I would be the one to change the world. I was going to give my residents the best year I could. For myself, I would get by and graduate. With luck, I would help make a dangerous thing safer for whoever it was injected into next. Maybe next time, there wouldn’t be a Quinn. If I’d known then what I knew now, I might have just walked into the next stall, offered my phallus, and taught the girls to share. Quinn would still be Katrina’s roommate, not some outcast. I could create a little epicenter of semi-consensual bliss, no one the  sadder for it.

I looked away from the window. How long had I been sitting there? Long enough that both hands were red now. That, too, felt like it should mean something, but I didn’t like any of the interpretations that suggested themselves.

I was alone in the chapel, so I tarried  a little longer. I didn’t expect to have a lot of time to myself for the foreseeable future.

Back at Higgins, the parking lot was rapidly filling as our residents returned for the second half of the fall semester. There was a line outside of Ramona’s office of grumpy fathers and a few mothers, all of them there to make a proper show of looking out for their daughters. As if the only thing preventing Ramona from sanitizing the already sanitized building was a stern lecture from Mr. So-and-so.

I saw some residents in the breezeway, though none of them mine . No, there was one, actually; I just hadn’t recognized Jo in baggy jeans and a cozy, spacious hoodie. My sense was that we were too far off to wave or anything, but the moment she saw me, she altered course directly toward me and picked up her pace.

“Oh, hey, Jo. Did you have a nice–”

“You’ve got to talk to Lexi!” she blurted over the top of me. That tone was something new. Early in the year, the two had had a bumpy relationship that to my knowledge had never blossomed beyond mutual tolerance. Lexi with her preference to sit around the room naked or nearly naked, and Jo, somehow, not. Back then, I would have assumed “you’ve got to talk to Lexi” meant “I’m going to kill her so you better step in.”

This was not that. This was concern . Grave, alarming concern.

“Let’s go.”

************************************************

We passed a few Hotties on our way in, but my pace conveyed to them that I couldn’t slow to socialize. There were some parents around, too, checking out dorm rooms and meeting roommates they’d only barely been introduced to in August, but who were now integral parts of their daughters’ lives.

Jo was ahead of me, and I was struggling to keep up. We reached 316 quickly, a few doors past mine. I heard it before I saw it, but when Jo stopped, smoothed her hair and gently opened the door, I saw it.

The crying I’d expected from the moment Jo caught up to me in the breezeway. She hadn’t said anything about why on the way up, aside from “she’s not good” in response to my inquiry. It would have been surprising if she weren’t crying. Indeed, Lex’s face was beet red, blotchy and tear-streaked. Her hair, a frizzy dark brown mop full of tangles, looked like it had been an outlet for her emotions, too. Likewise not a shocker.

What I had not anticipated were the two huge, perky, stiffly-nippled titties fighting to burst through her tank top.

To be clear, it’s something I expected from a good many of my Hotties. Whoever had created this floor roster with instructions to “make ‘em eye-popping” had certainly had a taste for the busty ones. Lexi, though, had always been an exception, and if her body wasn’t quite “boyish,” as I’d heard her teased (including by her roommate, though you’d never know it to look at the concern in Jo’s face now), she wasn’t far from it.

Or rather, she hadn’t been voluptuous, like Leigh of Kyu-Ri or Destiny. Now, we could add Lexi to this sub-roster of busty babes boasting bodies begging for bikinis.

She… She was…

“Oh my god, Jo, you did not just bring our RA down here!” Lex hissed at her roommate.

“You were freaking me out and I just happened to bump into him and he followed me up. That’s all.” Jo looked at me. She’d done her part by going to get help; now she plainly expected me to work my magic.

“It’s good to see you, Lex.” I winced the moment the words were out of my mouth. I’d only meant to open with something friendly, but suddenly I felt like I’d told a blind girl to make sure she dotted her I’s. Or, more aptly, told the girl who’d sprung for a radical breast augmentation to cross her T’s.

Lex wailed, mortified, flinging her arms over her chest. It didn’t help. If anything, now I could see the newly expanded acreage stretching out a tank top that had once been merely snug to the point that now, there was squishy white sideboob oozing out her arm holes.

Gently, I sat down beside her, patting her back softly. Predictably, it brought out more tears, but sometimes it was best to just get it all out so talking could ensue. Jo hovered near the door, watching anxiously. Voices came and went from the hall beyond. Finally, Lex shuddered, drew a few ragged breaths, and attempted words.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. Then there were a few rounds of me reassuring her there was nothing to be sorry about, her apologizing for her misperception, insisting she was fine, apologizing for over-apologizing, and so on.

“So what’s going on? I can see you’re upset.”

“Well gee, what do you think? Not like you haven’t been staring since the second you came in.”

“It’s the, ah… Your… The procedure to make your, um…”

“My titties honkin’ huge? Can’t sneak anything past you, can I.” She bucked my hand from her shoulder with a sneer. Even so, Lex looked like she felt bad the moment the words left her lips, though.

“Can you say more? I can see you’re upset, but do you mind telling me why?”

“Because I’m the stupidest fucking bitch on the planet, maybe?!”

“Hey! Hey. You’re not stupid. Why would you even say that?”

“You have to say that because they pay you too. But look at me! I’m a total fucking freak! Everybody who knows me here is going to know what I did! They’re gonna know I’m some weird ho who blew a semester’s tuition getting these ridiculous, ginormous… things ! I can’t hide these! The other girls here, my professors, the people I work with at Target…? They’re all gonna take one look and know what a stupid ho-bag  I am!”

I moved around in front of her, pulling up a desk chair. “Why would people think that? What difference does the size of your breasts make in what kind of person you are?”

“Easy for you to say! You’re half the reason I got them to begin with!”

I wish I could say I did one of my classic Spencer blinks of surprise, but… well… “Me? What do you mean, you got them for me?”

“Because I’ve seen the way you drool over Kyu-Ri and Jean and Angel and all the other massive knockers around here, and how you ignore girls like me and Georgia and Jacqui because we’re founders of the Higgins 3 itty bitty titty committee!”

“OK, whoa, let me slow your roll. I haven’t drooled over anybody on this floor, and if I were going to, cup sizes absolutely would not be on my list of criteria. I happen to think you’re beautiful. Before, and still. OK?”

But the newly busty girl barely heard me. “What was I even thinking? I’m going to wind up needing a semester off to pay to get these suckers taken back out. My parents, they said… They said I was…” With that, the valve on the water works reopened.

While Lex was burying her face in her pillow, Jo crept over to murmur in my ear. “Drugs,” she whispered. “Painkillers for her surgery, but… she took three of them since she got back, and I googled it, and…” She shook her head.

“WHO FUCKING ASKED YOU, JOCELYN?!” shrieked Lexi. “I’M GOING THROUGH SOME SHIT, OK?! MIND YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!”

I patted Jo’s knee and nodded to the door. People needed to grieve and process and have their meltdowns in peace sometimes. Me, too. I could always check in later, as I’d found being seen at one’s worst could tarnish an entire relationship. Honestly, if not for the fact that I’d been explicitly blamed, I probably would have sent in her friends and recused myself. She was upset, and a friend was better than, as she’d suggested, some guy who was paid to care. Even if he would have cared anyway.

Except… those things were for me. She’d said that, right? After a week of psyching myself up to take on the task of taming Higgins Hotties one at a time, maybe it was hard to put that down and do my job. Get on with collecting that data.

In fact…

“So… can  I see them?”

In my defense, the opportunity to bask in my sexual admiration was usually a welcome boon around here.

Slowly, Lexi pushed herself upright and scooted to the edge of the lower bunk. Her face was positively frightful. Plus, sure enough, as I studied her I could see her eyes a little out of focus, her head swiveling a little, off balance. Jo’s tip rang true, it seemed. Still, my own sightline couldn’t help but fixate on those two whoppers jutting out from her chest.

“You want to see them.” It sounded more accusation   than curiosity .

“I mean… I’d be lying if I said I weren’t curious. I know you’re upset and all, but, I don’t know, maybe you at least deserve some validation from the guy you got them to impress, right?” I ventured a curious smile.

“Vali…” Her jaw dropped. And not in an excited way. “ Validation?!  I basically stole seven grand from my parents to make myself look like a pint-sized porn star, because I let a stupid crush and some cunty comments spiral into an even stupider competition to impress some guy who’s already ruined like three of our lives just by being good-looking and dorky sweet–”

“I… what? Three…? What now?”

“–and here I am trying to figure out how best to fucking die, but lucky me, my fucking RA is here to see if he can’t squeeze in a quick honk on my way out!”

“Whoa, hey, I didn’t mean–”

“WOULD YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

So, yeah. That didn’t go well.

After what she’d said, I couldn’t simply walk away, but she was so distraught, and so pissed off at me, that staying wasn’t an option either. None of her close friends were in yet, so for now, I settled for a few friendly types to take turns keeping watch on her. The Lakeview health center wasn’t open on Sundays, so there was no rushing her off to see a counselor, at least not without going to the hospital. For now, it was a Hottie solution to a Hottie problem.

When the line to yell at Ramona thinned out, I popped in there to consult her. By then, it was taken out of my hands altogether; after investigating things herself, Ramona told me she’d received what she felt were believable assurances that Lexi wouldn’t do anything drastic tonight. Tomorrow she’d let some friends take her to the health center and touch base with her afterward. I didn’t miss the exasperated look my boss shot at her master, no doubt for my less than savvy handling of the situation.

All in all, it was one of the biggest fuck-ups of my RA career, and they hadn’t been back from break for a whole day yet.

Then someone knocked on my door.

“Come in,” I said, turning my chair to face the door.

I’d expected Casey, Sammi, or maybe even Andi, here to chew me out on Lex’s behalf. The optimistic part of me thought maybe it was Savannah or Vickie stopping by to see me. I could use some pick-me-up sex right now.

The woman standing with her arms folded imperiously in my doorway was not here for that.

“Mrs. Dana’s mom…?” I almost rolled my own eyes  at my chosen term of address . I’d taken to calling her that in my childish (yet so very adult) fantasies, and now I’d let it into the real world. Well played once again.

As for Mrs. Dana’s mom, she was a vision. I’d been telling myself my memory of her attractiveness was exaggerated, but nope. She belonged here as much as Dana. That gleaming blonde mane, eyes so blue they shone. That body – basically what Lexi had bought, only with matching everything else, and for the low low price of a winning ticket to the genetic jackpot.

Unlike my mental image of Dana, however, her mother was very much not smiling.

“Spencer?”

I took my feet. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”

“Please, have a seat.”

It was not a suggestion.

 I sat back down. She let herself in, closing the door behind her. I offered a seat, but she declined. “So what can I do for you? And sorry for the ‘Mrs. Dana’s mom’ thing. She talks about you so much it feels like you’re one of my friend’s mom, and I–”

“I’m sure you do.” She folded her arms beneath a pair of tantalizing breasts, cleavage freely offered in a low-cut dress. “Dana and I had some very interesting talks this past week about the sort of show you’re running her, Spencer my boy.”

“Interesting… how?”

“Oh, don’t  you ‘interesting  how’ me.  My daughter told me plenty, and I’m sure there’s more she managed to hold back. But what she did  tell me…? Underwear massage nights and bikini day at the lakefront and those obscene shirts with your floor logo. Her RA  having sex in the showers, multiple girlfriends coming and going. I’m glad you’re having fun here at college, but I’m trying to make sure my daughter doesn’t get knocked up pursuing an M.R.S. with some gigolo degenerate.”

“Pursuing a… what? I thought she was majoring in pre-med, going into nursing…?” Her irate expression held while she waited for me to process the term. It was so irate, in fact, I leapt to the assumption that I was learning a bit about how Dana came to enter this world. It would help explain why her mom looked closer to a big sister. “Oh, M.R.S.… I see. Well you have nothing to worry about. Dana’s a great student, and an absolute role model behavior-wise. I promise, she’s doing really well.”

“Good.” The fire behind those icy orbs didn’t diminish, though. “Because I promise, if I find out you’ve violated my daughter in any way whatsoever, I will make it my mission in life to take you down. See, I liked you when we first met.”

“Same, totally.” Not that I could reconcile this enraged mama bear with the over-flirtatious vixen I’d met in August.

An admonishing finger cut me short. “Don’t make me stop liking you.” She’d been moving gradually closer the whole time she’d been in here, and by then, she was looming  directly over me. That seemed not to be enough, though, because then she was placing a hand on either shoulder and leaning right down in my face. “I can be an absolute fucking cunt when I don’t like someone, Spencer. You get me?”

Maybe it was her use of the c-word. Maybe it was her breasts threatening to spill out of her neckline. Maybe it was all the dreams of her I’d had these past months, and plans I’d been cooking up this last week of what Dana and I would do when she got back.

Anyway, I kissed her.

She only resisted for a moment, but the instant my tongue made it past her teeth, she was kissing back, no bones about it. She squealed for a moment, tried to pull back, but my hand on the back of her head was firm – for a moment, at least, after which there was no more need. I pulled, and she stumbled right into my lap, my lips finding hers again immediately. My hand moved up her side and came to rest on her breast. God, they felt amazing. My brain tended to interpret amazing form as amazing feels, and boobs had a way of always feeling amazing, really.

And then there was air moving between my lips again, and a moment later, a slap so hard it knocked me out of my chair.

“You horny little shit!” she hissed. Then she kicked me in the stomach.

“I… I thought you…!”

Another kick, though this time I blocked it with my forearms. “ Just you wait  until your manager hears about this!”

She stormed out before I’d come close to recovering. At least she had the courtesy to close the door behind her so I didn’t have to explain why I was curled up on the floor groaning in pain.

************************************************

I made my way across the street to the Penderdast food court and went to the traditional meal line, where indifferent gray-haired ladies served up vats of carbs on your plate same as they had in high school. I needed mac & cheese today. Comfort food.

I went up for seconds.

Then thirds.

A handful of Hotties came through while I was sitting around undoing my morning’s exercise. They barely looked in my direction. I didn’t know if it was because word had gotten out that I’d asked a distraught, potentially suicidal resident to show me her fun new titties, or that I’d made a move on Mrs. Dana’s mom. If the latter, hopefully they at least didn’t know I’d also gotten my ass kicked.

Which, to be clear, I totally supported in principle. Good on her, and shame on me. The only Hottie I knew of who had a boyfriend was Casey, who’d repeatedly insisted her long-distance beau Tommy was glad I was around to keep his girlfriend horny as hell. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t become a homewrecker, but with my milf fantasy made flesh before me, I’d gone from pushing a woman to cheat  on a boyfriend and right on up to husbands.

Maybe Dana’s mom could commiserate with Ramona while she was down there wasting her time trying to get me fired. Even if the woman got frustrated and tried to go over the Higgins hall manager’s head, she’d only be confronted with Bob, who was much more interested in furthering his secret backers’ research than employee accountability. Good luck, lady.

My phone buzzed. We need to talk, master , said the notification. I sighed and put it away unanswered. So far, my big perk from the miraculous Spencer effect today was that I could put off being lectured by my boss for my two colossal fuck-ups.

Finally, a food court worker came and gently asked me if I was done, and if so could they have my tray and dishes. Right, they closed early Sundays. I surrendered my stuff and headed back over to Higgins. This time, I made my way straight down to the basement. My ambitions to be the Higgins Harlot seemed to be DOA. Right now, what I really needed was genuine human connection. Somebody who actually cared about me, not merely wanted to fuck me.

Relieved to see light coming from underneath, I knocked on Savannah’s door, forcing a smile in case she looked through the peephole. I heard shuffling, murmured words – must be interrupting a phone call, or perhaps she was fielding resident crises of her own. But the door opened, and there she was. Savannah. The most beautiful woman I’d ever shared air with, to say nothing of fluids. She was looking good, too, a cute little off the shoulder top and a pair of leggings that… damn.

“Oh, Spencer, hi,” she said, perhaps a bit less warmly than I’d have hoped.

“Hey, Savannah. Boy are you a–”

A sight for sore eyes, I’d been meaning to say. Only she cut me off, firmly. “I know, so late, right? Don’t worry, I got Carmen to cover for me. Price and I were really slow heading out this morning – or should I say afternoon?”

She turned, and it provided a window to see who she’d been talking to when I knocked. There in the bed was Price. I’d seen him before, tagged in her social media. He was even better looking in person. His shirt was so tight over his pecs, I thought that perhaps I should send Lex to ask him where he bought it. He nodded in acknowledgement, though didn’t bother looking up from his phone.

“Oh. Um, yeah. Was the drive good, or…?”

“Yeah, little traffic as we got close with the whole campus heading back in, but not too bad. How about you? Good drive?”

“Um, yeah. Yeah, not too bad.” Shit, but it felt horrible to lie to her, even over something small like where I’d spent my break, even just to play along with her own lie of omission about why her ex-boyfriend – presumably no longer ex – was driving her across the state, laying in her bed, not even trying to hide an erection.

“So, um, can I do anything for you? Sorry, Price is only here for the night, so unless it’s urgent, maybe we should talk tomorrow…?”

“Oh, yeah, totally, sure, yeah, sounds great, totally, yeah,” I heard myself say. “I’m Spencer, by the way,” I said to the guy in my girlfriend’s bed. Ex-girlfriend, I supposed  now. Like the last kick in the gut, it was only fair, even deserved, but that didn’t make it easier to walk around bearing the weight of it.

“Cool meetin ’ you, brah.” No name. Just… brah.

“All right. Talk to you later, Spencer. Have a good night,” she said in that gentle voice of hers, right before she closed the door in my face.

I didn’t dare try to see Vickie. If one more encounter blew up in my face, my fault or no, I wasn’t sure I could keep going. So I climbed the stairs right past the ground floor door, past Carmen on 1, past Vanessa on 2, and back to Higgins 3.

Home sweet home. Only…

Something felt different.

Doors were open, but only a few. Parents had gone back home by now, leaving their babies in my care for better or worse. It was quiet, even subdued. No warm greetings, though. No hugs, no inappropriate comments. No Higgins Hottie shirts with Jordyn’s badass logo in evidence. It was fall now, I supposed, and a cool day even if it was warm here in Higgins. Maybe that was it.

I didn’t make it far onto the floor before one of the open doors suddenly had a person in it. “Hey, Tori,” I said. I couldn’t even make myself smile.

The floor governor fixed that confident gaze of hers on me. “I was looking to schedule a floor meeting for tomorrow night. Floor government business.”

I nodded. “Sure, sounds good. I’m on duty, but I should have plenty of time between rounds.”

“I wasn’t informing you as an invitation,” she clarified. “As you may – or may not – be aware, the RA isn’t an official part of floor  government, merely the intermediary through whom we gain access to our funds. In fact, the reason I’m bringing it up at all is to ask you not  to come.”

“Not to… what? Is it some kind of surprise or something?”

She chuckled, but not in a happy way. “It shouldn’t be, but after hearing what you did to Lexi, maybe it is. In fact, you’re the only  member of the Higgins 3 community who isn’t invited.”

“Oh. So you heard, huh. Yeah, I… Well, never mind. What’s on the agenda?”

“You.” She gave me a few slow nods as I struggled to puzzle out what that meant. “We’re holding a forum. Your days of treating this community as your personal private pussy buffet are over.”

Her door shut in my uncomprehending face. A moment later, the stairwell door opened, and there was Casey, bags in hand. “Hey, Casey. How was–”

“Leamme the fuck alone, Ra!” she yelled, but there were already tears pouring down her cheeks as she blitzed past me.

What the…?

I sealed myself in my room. When Ramona knocked gently a bit later, finally free from her office, I calmed myself long enough to ask her if we could talk tomorrow. Whatever her response was, I lost it in tears of my own.

Chapter Two: The Forum

“I wish you hadn’t had to find out like that.”

“Or do you just wish I hadn’t found out at all?”

Savannah glowered. She was bad at it. The woman had resting  goddess face, with a general tendency toward beatific smiles. “You want to maybe slow your roll? I’m not the one with two girlfriends and who knows how many ‘innocent’ hookups with my residents.”

My turn to glower. I probably wasn’t any better at it. She was completely right. I had no room to be mad at her for getting back with Price after what I’d done with Vickie, and Andi, and Casey, and Terri and Toni, and Ramona. With everybody, really, after massage night.

I hung my head. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just… I was really looking forward to seeing you again, and I had a really lousy day. Then instead I saw your ex-boyfriend lounging in your bed.”

“Which I get. Like I was trying to say, I wanted to talk to you, but not with Price around. He, um, doesn’t really know about us.”

“Is there still an us?” There it was.

I contemplated scooting closer. She was on her bed, and I was all the way over at her desk. Did proximity matter for the Spencer effect? Marisa had been so adamant that pheromones weren’t it, and indeed it sounded like it was much more contact, or contact with objects I’d had contact with, that did it. It wasn’t the foremost thing on my mind, though. There was too much of me that was wallowing in entirely unearned self pity.

“I… I don’t know. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I like you, Spencer. I like you a lot. And I think we know attraction isn’t a problem.” Her cheeks flushed briefly. Not a lot of women who proposed the pet name of “cocksucker” for themselves who still blushed. “But I think we moved faster than I was comfortable with. We didn’t set boundaries. Honestly, I think I was losing myself a little. I’ve never been like… that  with a guy before. Not even close. Especially not a guy who’s, you know, a player.”

“A player…? Me?” My indignation kicked in instinctively, followed a moment later by the remembrance of that list of names of women I’d been with these past months. “Sorry. You’re right. I, um, haven’t been myself lately either.”

She nodded empathetically. That was my  nod, damn it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“With my girlfriend? Sure. With the girl who’s very sweetly dumping me? Appreciate it, but I think I’ll pass.”

Savannah’s lips – god, her lips  – pursed to one side. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I get it. Price is safe. Devoted. You two have history. I’m graduating in May and you still have two years to go. We’re coworkers. I apparently have commitment issues. You could pick any one reason, but there’s plenty. I have no room to judge.”

Savannah crossed the room and gingerly bent down and kissed my cheek. “Are you mad at me? You’re right that you shouldn’t be, but… are you?”

I could kiss her, I realized. She was vulnerable, sweet, unquestionably willing to indulge her now-former boy toy in a goodbye kiss. Whatever was swimming in my spit would dive into hers, ignite the fires, and before I knew it she’d be too hot for me to even dream of letting Price have yet another crack at her.

All this temptation was getting really  freaking annoying.

I gave her a hug, then I said some words, and then it was over. I was gone.

************************************************

“At least you still have the other  girlfriend, I guess.” Before I could tell Janis that no, Vickie had also dumped me, she held up a finger to forestall me as she spoke into the walkie. “Secondaries starting rounds.”

We proceeded onto Higgins basement . The small delay made me feel even more pathetic somehow when I corrected, “Newly embachelored , actually. A euphemism a buddy of mine came up with that feels a little better than saying ‘I got dumped.’”

Many possible reactions. A chuckle at the plagiarized witticism; sympathy and/or empathy; an invitation to vent. Janis instead went with, “Yeah, I guess we all sort of saw that coming.”

I sniffed indignantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ordinarily I’d let her snarky personality slide, but I wasn’t at my best.

“It means, duh.” She shrugged. “You were having all that intercourse, noisy and promiscuous. Did you think it ended with bringing Vickie and  Savannah back to meet your parents? ‘Hey mom, hey dad, these are the two girls I’ve been cheating on with each other.’ Come on.”

“It’s not cheating if everybody knows what’s going on. We just hadn’t decided to be exclusive is all. They were fine with it.”

“So fine that Savannah dumped you for her, frankly, way less good-looking ex-boyfriend?” It was a small boon that we were walking past Savannah’s bedroom when she said it, but not much.

“Yeah, well, better than being dumped for nobody at all by Vickie, I guess.”

I paused for Janis to check the bathroom; she barely glanced, but I wasn’t in a mood to stand on ceremony . The odds someone was passed out drunk and drowning in a puddle of vomit on the bathroom floor on this particular Monday evening seemed low. “What did Vickie say? I’m kind of surprised, honestly. She doesn’t seem like she could do much better than you. No offense.”

Was that racism? Condescension? A jab at the godless Jezebel of Higgins Ground? And why would I  take offense? The only reason I might was the implication that I should. “She said she wasn’t looking to handhold anybody. That we were having fun, but that maybe I needed to sort myself out. Or… something. I don’t know. She was being roundabout, I think on purpose. I don’t know. All I know is it freaking hurts when–”

“HEY.” Janis was peering into an open room. “HEY. You need to turn that music down. Way too loud. NOW.” She took a step down the hall, maybe a step and a half, before grumbling at full volume, “Some people are just animals, I swear.”

I grimaced. The music hadn’t been that loud, but it was the kind of music someone like Janis would prefer didn’t exist, especially in her hearing range. I wasn’t about to second guess a coworker, especially with my list of allies dwindling, so I simply flashed a sympathetic expression and held up two fingers to indicate that just a little quieter would be fine. Janis didn’t care.

When she didn’t prompt me to continue, I continued, “Anyway, yeah, it sucked. I think it might have been sort of a game to her from the beginning. Stealing time with Savannah’s boyfriend was exciting; consoling her mopey reject  wasn’t.”

“Vickie can be kind of a b-i-t-c-h sometimes, all right,” Janis concurred, despite that not being my point at all.

“You can just say the word, you know.”

“I don’t use that kind of language.”

“You just…” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

We made our way onto Higgins Ground, Vickie’s floor. I took the split that her room wasn’t on, though Janis cattily passed on that it was dark and quiet in there when we met back up. “Probably off finding a new boy to aherm-herm  with, knowing her.”

“You know, slut-shaming isn’t a very cool thing to do.”

“I didn’t say she was a slut. Although, interesting that that’s where your mind immediately went.”

“You said she was off finding a new guy to sleep with. You said it with a tone that said you disapproved.”

“I do. Ugh, people can be so PC. Like I’m supposed to just accept people’s gross behavior, but they can’t accept the way I speak. It’s so unfair.”

Silence was my most diplomatic response to the pretty white blonde Christian college girl’s sense of aggrievement, and I let that ride until we were climbing the stairs up to my floor. I paused right outside the entrance. “Look, so you know, there’s a meeting going on in my lounge right now. I’m, um, explicitly not invited. So we can just skip that, OK?” Better to say it there in the stairwell than in the hall where my sulking might be overheard. I’d kept to myself today, hanging out on campus when I wasn’t busy being rejected or dumped, but I’d be shocked if today hadn’t entailed a lot of bad PR for me as news of yesterday’s fiascos spread. Poor Lex.

“Why aren’t you invited? Your girls are so into you it’s actually kind of nasty. Like you’re their brother instead of their boss.”

“I’m not their boss! Or their brother. But, well, I managed to put my foot pretty deep in my mouth yesterday, a couple times. It’s nothing big. I think they’re a little upset, which they have every right to be. Ramona’s attending. She’ll help calm things down.”

She’d better. I’d given her explicit orders, or what to anyone who didn’t self-identify as my love slave would be called “pleading.” Since the official line was that she’d moved onto the floor to help provide oversight for the controversial male RA, she was a natural fit for the task. I loved Tori, all her brass and bluster and self-assuredness, but finding myself on the wrong side of it this time was daunting.

“I can’t believe she lives  in our building now,” observed Janis as we entered Higgins 3, about twenty feet from Ramona’s door. “It’s so creepy having a grown adult staying here with a bunch of kids.”

“Why is that creepy? She’s about as much older than me as I am to most of my residents. Lots of schools have HMs who live in their halls.”

“It’s creepy because she moved onto your  floor, which – no offense – is already about the creepiest place I’ve ever been.”

Again, not taking offense proved difficult. “What’s creepy about it? This is hands down the best community I’ve ever lived in in the halls.”

“Sure, for you. But your girls, they worship  you. I bet half of them have little crushes, or pretend they do to get away with stuff. And they’re all so… yech. Huge breasts and big child-bearing hips and skimpy little outfits… It’s not decent. And yeah yeah yeah, I know, I know, you’re totally fine with it and I’m probably some kind of terrible person for the crime of saying out loud what we were all thinking.”

So far, the floor was dead silent. Andi and Jean’s room had a TV running, but the door was ajar, and no sign of them. Tori really must have whipped them into a frenzy with this forum of hers. A forum to complain about me. Even so, it was incumbent upon me to defend them.

“They’re nice girls. And if they’re comfortable in their own skin, what’s wrong with that? They’re not ‘getting away with stuff.’ They like me, and I like them. If some of them get a little flirty about it, if it doesn’t cause problems, who cares?”

Janis sneered. “Yeesh, defensive much?”

We split. I took the side of the floor opposite my room, like usual, though still  nobody around that I heard or saw. On the far end, I did the bathroom check. Janis was lagging behind, having stopped at the drinking fountain as she often did. The girl could hardly seem to go five minutes without drinking. I forged ahead, pausing near the stairwell door to see what I could hear from the lounge.

The door was closed, but Tori’s voice carried. “… on ourselves. Some of us, and I won’t name names, have taken things too far. Hell, all of us, probably, at one time or another. Me too. But MeToo is exactly what I’m talking about here! Where did all our flirting and placating land us? Look around, ladies. Stuffed into shirts that don’t fit, for a guy we can’t have. One some of us don’t even want. One none of us agreed to!”

Janis caught up with me, but seemed as willing to eavesdrop as I was. Tori preached on. “I’m not shaming any of us. You are gorgeous, glorious, go-getter girls, all of you. Maybe we’re not a sorority, but I think of you as my sisters. But is this what you enrolled in Lakeview to do? To flaunt yourselves, competing for scraps of one man? Men don’t split thirty ways, ladies, especially RA men who aren’t supposed to have relations with their residents in the first damn place!”

A grumble of malcontent echoed her sentiment. What was Ramona doing in there ? She should be defending me! I wasn’t the bad guy here! I mean, in the sexualizing and the licking and the impropriety, sure, but not in general!

“Um, hi,” came a voice from behind me. I jumped in the air, startled, then turned to find Emma standing behind me. She’d sounded irked, catching me in the act of eavesdropping.

“Hi, Emma. Um, we were just… yeah. Doing rounds.”

“ Sure taking  your time about it,” she said with a frown, walking around me as far away as she could physically get, then into the lounge. More than a few eyes saw me standing there.

Shit.

I made for the stairwell, Janis in my wake.

“Geez. Maybe I called it wrong. Maybe they actually hate you,” said Janis, though it was merely a casual observation rather than accusation.

It was in that  moment when I decided to make her pay. I didn’t know how, exactly, but if my beloved Hotties were downstairs plotting a coup, then I was going to at least make the damned Spencer effect help me out with something .

At last   rounds , I met her at the center desk with a bottle of green tea and a feeble excuse for why the seal was broken. To her credit, she did notice, and even said something about how if I were anyone else, she wouldn’t dream of accepting it. As we made our way through Higgins a second time, though, she drank it down – along with some blobs of semen and all the spit I could manage. Luckily, Janis didn’t know what semen tasted like, and the tea absorbed and masked it all nicely.

She stopped to get a drink on my floor again – this time, I was sure it was so put me in position to eavesdrop again – without suspecting I’d taken advantage of the forum to lick the hell out of the water fountain’s spigot.

“I really like being on duty with you,” I said as we stopped by her room on Higgins 4. There were a few rooms at the end of the hall unpatrolled, but I’d go back down to my floor that way. “You’re a really interesting person.”

Janis’s smile was automatic. It didn’t take whatever it was I’d force fed her to be taken aback by a compliment from a cute boy, especially one who tactfully stuck to purely platonic praise. “Thanks, Spencer. I, um, hope your girls don’t all rag rage at you.”

“Thanks. See you around, yeah?”

“Yeah!” She winced. “I mean, yeah.”

************************************************

Truth be told, I didn’t think much about what I’d done to Janis for some time. Whatever this thing inside me was, it wasn’t a magical potion. It had taken time to work on Ramona, and it would probably take more on a frigid bitch like Janis. (One thing we had in common was a distaste for the b-word, but on the J-word, it applied.)

In the meantime, I had bigger fish to fry.

I’d told Ramona not to contact me that night. It was too conspicuous. If the Hotties started seeing my boss coming and going from my room at odd hours – to say nothing if their general inclination toward snooping revealed something tawdry – then her status as informant was wasted. She’d infiltrated as a supervisor seriously concerned with the behavior of a male subordinate. They couldn’t know she was here to gather intel on her supposed subordinate’s behalf. As far as the Hotties were concerned, she was here to guide me, not them.

The next morning, I made for the bathroom like usual – like usual before Casey had started bathing me pre-break, something she had not emerged to do since her return and I wasn’t about to risk making things worse by asking. There was no door, but right inside the doorway was a sign. No words, only a symbol.

The male symbol.

“What the hell…?” I wished I didn’t know what to make of it. We’d have to have a talk about this; Higgins 3 couldn’t split the floor’s two bathrooms as one for its sole male resident, and one for the thirty-three female. Clearly Tori wanted to send a sign. Literally. For the time being, I showered quickly. Once I was dressed, rather than passive aggressively tearing down the men’s room sign, I simply put up a post-it. Done for the day – all yours, ladies! A little smiley face, for good measure.

Then, downstairs to Ramona’s office.

“My man! How’s the wind in those sails?” asked Marcus as I slipped into the center desk area.

“Brisk, but coming from the bow.” I thanked my sister for the quick nautical lingo; she was big into kayaking. We were hopeful she might even get a scholarship out of it.

Marcus nodded like he’d expected me to extend the metaphor. “Sounds like it’s time to perform some maintenance in her engine room until that more favorable wind comes her way.”

“That’s why I’m here.” I nodded to Ramona’s open office door. “Need my bilge pump.”

Marcus laughed delightedly at my engagement. “You’re lucky she’s on the phone, my man – not too sure you want her to hear you call her that.”

With that, I let myself in. She was, as he’d said, on the phone; Marcus was either an expert eavesdropper or else he’d simply noticed the red light on his desk phone indicating her line was in use. I’d forgotten that should mean I’d wait for her on the bench outside her office, or at least knock. Oops.

She noticed me enter, and gestured to close the door. “Mhm. No, I realize. As I said, we’ve already had exterminators in, and I haven’t had any complaints from our residents since they returned.” Rolled eyes. “Mhm.” A sigh, the mouthpiece covered. “Mhm.” Gritted teeth. “No, I realize that, and I do apologize.”

I spoke softly, but firmly. “Hang up.” I really hoped it wasn’t anyone important. Ramona did go nuts when I got authoritative though, and I could use a little fangirling. We’d done some feng shui over break with minor sound-proofing, nothing overt and insufficient to fuck at full volume, but our testing confirmed we could at least speak freely.

Ramona said not a word. She simply set the phone on the receiver and pressed the button to hold her calls, the one she normally hit when we were starting a one-on-one. “Good morning, master.”

She was already working on my fly. “On your knees, boss. I need to sit.”

I took her chair as she obediently vacated it. Wild, how quickly I’d gotten used to ordering her around like this. I’d dated a girl freshman year who’d had a propensity for licking my face, and it got worse when she was drunk. (She drank a lot.) I’d somehow gotten used to that, though; Ramona’s fetish was a lot easier to endure.

My supervisor seized the bottle of lube we’d stocked her desk with last week and prepped my shaft and her hands. We both preferred blowjobs to handjobs, but she knew why I was here. I had other needs for her mouth at present. She could worship my cock another day.

“So. Total shit show?”

Ramona considered, long enough that I expected a euphemism, a soft touch. “Pretty much,” she said instead. “Nearly perfect attendance, only missing Ellie, whom you should know was home attending to a death in the family. You can follow up with her when she gets back, if her roommate will let you see her.”

Ellie’s roommate was Tori.

“Let’s see. Everybody knows about the Lexi situation. Or is it Lex? I heard both.”

“She answers to either – just don’t call her Alexis.”

“Good to know. We got her in to see a counselor–”

“Right, I read your email from yesterday.”

Ramona calmly stroked my shaft, two hands pumping and twisting in a gentle pattern. “Of course. It seems to have gone well; she’s going to be continuing to go in and process things. I think she’s going to be all right. As for the Casey situation, your girls are likewise all informed, and likewise, rather perturbed.”

“Casey situation? She’s barely said a word to me since we got back except to yell at me a bit. Was that not because of Lexi? What happened?”

“Ah. Evidently, she has a boyfriend back home.”

“ No I know . Tommy. She’s mentioned him. Apparently he has some kind of cuck fetish or something. Gets off to having  his girlfriend driven wildly horny by  another man.” Ramona stole a lick on my shaft as I spoke. “And focus, OK? This is serious.”

“Yes, master. Apologies.” She planted a remorseful kiss on my balls. “That actually helps provide context. Reading between the lines of what she said, and what you just told me, I think her boyfriend wasn’t as aware of the source of her appetites as she might have led you to believe. Apparently they had a rather ugly fight, and he broke up with her. He said some rather hurtful things, and she’s distraught.”

“Fuuuuck,” I sighed, and not because of that thing Ramona was doing with her thumb on my glans. “She told me…! Damn it!”

“Those issues were secondary, however. Tori had her speech prepped  and rehearsed. She’s quite the orator. She claimed she’d been in talks with you about her concerns with your demeanor. Is that true? You didn’t mention that in our one-on-ones.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it sort of slipped my mind with all the fuck haze permeating every other inch of the floor. Sure didn’t stop her from taking her lick at massage night. I sort of blew it off. I didn’t think she’d get so serious about it. And let’s hike up that skirt. I think I need a lap dance.”

“Early in the day for dancing, but gladly, master.” She stood, raising her skirt over her hips in the same motion, and wasted no time descending her ass into my crotch.

“No panties today?”

“I had a sense you might have urgent  need of me .” She nestled my cock between her soft cheeks and began to writhe. Was she really that wet from being bossed around and used, or was the lube that effective? “Would you like me to proceed?”

“No, just the lap dance, boss. You can ride it later, maybe.”

“I meant go on about the meeting, master, though I hope you’ll give serious consideration to that ‘later.’”

“Oh. Right. So yeah, what all…?”

Ramona began unbuttoning her blouse as she expounded, raising her bra over her breasts and placing my hands on them. Despite the distractions, her report was thorough and detailed. Tori had argued that I was, in short, a creep, using my place as their RA and the good will of the Hotties to take sexual advantage of them. There had been some tough love, gently reproving the girls for indulging me, though mostly her telling of our story was one in which I was the clear villain. She even speculated as to whether that fight in the shower during Welcome Week had been staged, inviting Quinn to do what she did so I’d have the opportunity to show off my penis to the impressionable newcomers.

“I mostly listened, but I did push back on that,” Ramona assured me, teasing her vagina against my tip.

“Bad boss! I said later .” She moaned delightedly at my reprimand. “What else?”

Ramona complied, moaning even louder when I gave her ass a little slap for not doing so more swiftly. Tori said she’d taken time to reflect on how out of hand things had gotten over break, and soon Hottie after Hottie was echoing that they too had grown much more clear-headed about things in my absence. They chalked it up to a return to normalcy rather than removal of mind-altering chemicals, thankfully.

Their remission was in many ways a relief, in some ways, thinking about Bob and his threat to weaponize the Spencer effect against my family if I made waves. Bastard.

Still, Tori had taken their disillusionment and ran with it. Words wouldn’t suffice, she said. By the time the forum concluded, she’d filled out a list of new rules as long as the ones we’d made after Marisa’s sexpert night, when they’d rolled out a host of ways we could all be more intimate. Some of them actually sounded like common sense – no more changing with doors open, no more masturbating in the showers, especially no showering with the RA.

Then there were items Ramona did her best to capture the spirit of. Resegregating the bathrooms; approaching Ramona or one of the female RAs instead of “feeding my ego” by acting like only I could help them; floor programs were henceforth to be approved of and designed by Tori and Katrina, governor and vice governor. And, of course, some solidarity: no masturbating outside my room, no ears to my door when I had someone over, no public nudity, and absolutely no licking.

“And no more floor shirts,” concluded my shirtless supervisor.

“Wait, what? They love those shirts!” I also loved those shirts. I’d have loved them even if they were a more conventional cut on more conventional women, but it would be lying to say I didn’t especially love them stretched taut over the Hotties’ tits. I’m only human.

“They loved showing off their bodies to flirt with their attractive and chemically enhanced RA, Spencer,” Ramona corrected me, moaning softly as my cock teased at her clit. “Either way, Tori had them all go to their rooms and retrieve them. She threw them in the rubbish bin.”

“She what?! ”

“Somebody really liked those shirts, I see.” Ramona swiveled around to face me, as if to offer her tits in the stead of the sixty-four others I was to be deprived of going forward. “It’s going to be fine, Spencer. Soon enough, they’ll breathe you in, soak you into their pores, and they’ll forget all about Tori’s lectures. Give it a week and they’ll be throwing themselves at you again. They’ll compete for the opportunity to regain your favor the fastest.”

I let her nipple free from my mouth with a wet noise. “You’re sure? Because back in August, Quinn was climbing into bed with me opening night, and Leigh was plotting to sleep with me by the following morning. Dana’s mom was flirting with me totally inappropriately in minutes. Seconds, really. They’ve been back for forty-eight hours now, and not one of them has reached out to me. Not even smiled at me in passing.”

“Well they’re people, not sex robots, Spencer. You make us horny – so  horny – and we act on it as we will. You sat through two weeks of RA training and didn’t kiss Savannah until after the residents arrived. Vickie took you even longer, as did many of your other conquests. Myself, for instance, and as we discussed, I was spending more time with you than any of them.”

“That was me dragging my feet, though, not them. Not you.”

“Perhaps. I was entertaining more than a few inappropriate fantasies involving you for quite some time. Maybe as far back as training.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Oh yeah? What kinds of fantasies?”

My supervisor leaned close, her breasts pressed against my chest, her pussy dribbling  onto my cock. “You said ‘later,’ master. And ‘maybe,’ ” she  whispered.

I lifted Ramona by her ass and spun her, bent her over her desk, her cheek resting on her keyboard. “It’s getting pretty late, I guess, boss.”

“It feels like it’s been eons since you used my pussy, master,” she murmured elatedly  as I lined up to penetrate her.

I considered . “Just thinking out loud, but… if I have you, maybe I don’t even need them. You know? If they’ve snapped out of it, maybe I just… let them. Be a normal RA. And I’ll have you for everything else.”

“My master shouldn’t have to settle. Please fuck me?”

I slid into her hot, wet little box and gave her another little slap. Her back arch, and her moan was loud enough I slapped it again. “This isn’t settling, I promise you.”

I stood my ground a moment, basking in the way Ramona’s entire body trembled like a leaf in anticipation. I drew back, readying my thrust – when there came a knock at the door.

“Ramona? Your ten o’clock is here.”

She whimpered in frustration, and likely in something else as well. I traced my fingers over some of the lines of artwork etched into the flesh of her back. I didn’t withdraw, didn’t grant permission.

“We’re still pumping the bilge. I’ll be with them in a bit.”

“Good boss.” I drove my cock into her full force. And again. I didn’t let up.

“It’s the dean,” she murmured, eyes glazed.

“Shh.” I thrust into my supervisor’s needy cunt until my cock was tickling the back of her throat. I held it, just for a moment, as I patted her ass possessively. “You work for me now.”

She came, but that didn’t stop me.

************************************************

Once I was back from classes, I left a message with Tori asking if I could speak with her when she got back from classes. As the day wore on, I grew more and more impatient. I told myself I had to play this cool. Not only would I get better results showing remorse, but frankly, she was right. My girls were due apologies, as a group and in several cases as individuals. After all, flirty fun Lexi, lobbying for her Tits Out schedule, was fair game for ogling. Confused fragile Lexi, struggling to rationalize why she’d gotten her tits enlarged for her RA, needed my support. And Casey. God, Casey. I left my door open, hoping to catch my next door neighbor on her way to her room, but no sign of her either.

It was going on ten, in between first and second rounds, when finally Tori darkened my door. She looked gorgeous as ever, and if she made it plain she wasn’t aiming for sexy, it was hard for that body to avoid it. This was the exact opposite of the sort of thought I ought to be entertaining right then, however.

“Spencer.”

“Hi, Tori. Come in? I wanted to talk with you about, well, everything.”

She didn’t budge from the doorway, though. At least, not in the direction I’d asked. “We can speak in the lounge.”

I didn’t give her the satisfaction of rushing after her. It was a power move, and while I wasn’t interested in exerting power – Ramona was draining me dry of my capacity for that – I didn’t want to open our talk by ceding any more to her, either.

I caught up with her in the lounge, where Jordyn was at work on her easel, but more pressingly, Katrina and Jo were also sitting, flanking the floor governor on the couch. I pulled up a chair opposite them, smiling into those defiant visages.

“You have something you wanted to talk about?” Tori asked coolly.

“I talked to Ramona today about the concerns you raised last night. If you’d like to repeat them so I hear it the way you want it said, I’m happy to, but if you want to cut to the chase, we can.” No answer, which I took as my answer. “Right. I wanted to start by saying, I hear you. Things did get out of hand, especially right there before break. I crossed some lines, made some bad decisions.”

“You hurt people,” Tori corrected firmly. “It wasn’t ‘bad decisions,’ like you turned left when you should’ve gone right. You used your role in this community to prey on young women who didn’t know any better. You pressured Lexi into mutilating herself for you; you broke Casey into a thousand and one pieces; you used and humiliated pretty much everyone. I’m sure that’s  what you meant to say.”

Katrina nodded supportively. Jo was simply glaring. Me, I was only glad she left Dana’s mom out of it. Did they know? Did Dana?

“I… Yes. That is actually more or less what I meant to say. Honestly, I feel terrible. I thought Casey’s boyfriend knew about everything, and–”

“What about that bullshit you said to Lex?” demanded her roommate. If looks could kill, Jo would have detonated half of Higgins in a radius around my person. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days. Up plotting revenge, I supposed. “She does what she did, for you – and for the life of me I cannot imagine why – and your response is to go ‘show me your tits?’ What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“If you’d let me finish, I was going to say I’m incredibly sorry for what I said to Lexi Sunday… It was horribly insensitive. Lexi and I have always had such a flirty sort of camaraderie–”

Tori’s turn to interrupt me. “Flirty? Are you supposed to be flirting with your residents?”

“I’ll be making it my mission to try to make things up to Lex and Casey the best I can,” I said evenly. “But that’s between me and them. Clearly you have issues besides matters with those two, so I wanted to see what we can do to rectify things.”

“Resign.” Tori shrugged. “Resign, and let Ramona replace you with the female RA we should have had in the first placer.”

What?! “Resign…?”

“We gave it a shot. Obviously it didn’t work. At best, you’re a child who couldn’t keep his hands out of the cookie jar. At worst, you’re a sexual predator. Either way, you shouldn’t be here. Resign.”

I was on my feet without realizing it. “Where is this coming from? We had a good thing going, all of us. People were engaged. They were excited about programming. They felt comfortable coming to me with their needs. You suggest I’m  a predator?! Do I need to remind you about the time I had a girl over and I found half the damn floor huddled outside my room, listening to us, touching themselves? The million times I’ve been flashed, wolf-whistled, cat-called, leered at, pinched, butt-slapped or otherwise propositioned? The time I was assaulted in the shower?! But I’m  the predator?!”

Jo didn’t flinch, nor did Tori. I was relieved to see Katrina having the grace to look embarrassed. Maybe she remembered me and Carmen walking in on her right before break, masturbating loudly to the unsanctioned blowjob recording Toni and Terri had made. But she hadn’t said anything in my defense, either. Maybe a weak link, but if she wasn’t taking an active role, there wasn’t much I could do with it.

I caught Jordyn glancing in our direction, scowling. That girl lived in her own little world of paints and pencils, and even she had attention left over to be pissed at me? Shit. Too much to hope that her scowl was at Tori? Not with the luck I’d been having lately.

“To those whom much is given, much is required. Luke 12:48.” I’d forgotten Tori’s dad was a minister. He’d taught her well. “You have a responsibility to us. We don’t have one to you . As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done too much damage to this floor to be able to repair – especially considering how you seem to like to console people. You need to resign.” She spared a glare at my crotch.

“I am not resigning. I’ve done my best with a tricky situation, and where I’ve made mistakes, I’m willing and eager to make things better. I know tempers are running hot right now. I get that, I really do. But I’m your RA, like it or not.”

“Not,” said Jo hotly.

“Not,” echoed Tori.

They looked to Katrina . “Yeah. Not,” she said, though with notably less vigor. Still, she said it.

“All right, then. So in the meantime, can we at least address the bathroom situation? There’s thirty-some people on this floor. We can’t force them to all share one bathroom just to avoid me.” To give them another reason to be angry with me was more like it, but this was a time for diplomacy.

The pivot seemed to work. Soon, instead of us yelling at one another, we were making progress. For the time being, I agreed to post the hours I’d be doing my morning routine, so those who wanted to avoid me, could. (Jo wondered aloud why I would think anyone on the floor wouldn’t want to avoid me.) For bathroom use, being less predictable, I’d post an occupied sign when I was in there. Considering there were gender neutral bathrooms in most public spaces on campus, it felt regressive, but if it gave them some small measure of restitution, so be it.

“I know there’s some bad blood right now, but I want to say I’m glad you were willing to talk with me. Maybe soon we can talk about the Halloween program? Katrina, I remember before break you were excited about–”

“Resign. Resign. Resign.” Respectively, Tori stood, walked to the lounge exit, and opened it with each utterance. Katrina departed on Tori’s heels, chin on her chest. Jo would have, except I hastily interposed myself.

“The fuck do you want.”

“I need to talk to Lexi. I only wanted to know if she’s in and awake . I wanted to give her some space, but–”

“About fucking time.” She shook her head, but her expression softened a hair , from vitriolic to merely acerbic. “She’s in.”

************************************************

Of all the problems before me, I tackled Lexi first. Jo allowed me in, standing watch inside the room by the door. It was plain she had no intention of leaving me alone with her roomie. To think, I’d never even thought they were all that close. Lex was hunched at her computer, dressed in a simple pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt I remembered seeing hang loosely over her once meager chest. Now, the fabric was thoroughly distended by two proud, perky, preposterous breasts that seemed to have forgiven me entirely for asking to see them.

“Hi, Lexi.”

She neither looked up nor responded.

“I’ll get out of your hair soon, I promise, but first I wanted to apologize for the other day.”

Nothing. She wasn’t typing, wasn’t clicking, simply staring at her monitor, stock still.

“This isn’t an excuse, but I want you to know I only said what I did because we’ve always gotten along so well, and how many hours we’ve spent in here  talking about, you know, your boobs.” Ugh, I was not saying the right things. I rushed on. “I’m sorry. If you want to talk about it, why you did it or whatever, I’m game, any time. If it’s three in the morning and you can’t sleep and you want to talk, cool.”

Lexi sniffed. Rubbed her nose. Resumed her pose.

“And, um, I hope this isn’t out of line, and I’m only saying it because maybe nobody else has said it, but…” I braced myself. Almost certainly the wrong thing. Still, I couldn’t get Tori and her words – mutilated herself  – out of my head. “You look great. You looked great before, and you look great now. I hope you’re not letting anybody make you feel different.”

“Oh my GOD would you seriously get the fuck out?!” snapped Jo, who apparently shared my reservations about that particular approach. I’d had  to say something, though. If Tori were half as crass at the forum as she had been just now in the lounge, I shuddered to think about the grief this poor girl might have taken for those things.

Nothing like assuring her she’s satisfying the male gaze to patch things up, right? Fuck, I was stupid.

“Yeah. So, um, I’m sorry, and I’m here for you. Anything you need.” She still didn’t look away from her screen. Before Jo could drag me out, I made my retreat. The door slammed on my heels, Jo shoving it hard enough to elicit yelps of surprise from several nearby rooms. I gave myself a minute to clear the water from my eyes, then headed back toward my room.

First, however, I stopped next door at Casey’s. I knocked, but said nothing.

“Fuck off, devil Ra!” came a voice from the other side of the door. How she knew it was me, I had no idea.

“Casey? Please, I need to talk to you. Please.”

“I SAID GO AWAY! FUCK OFF! FUCK OFF! ” There was another repetition, but she was already crying too hard to be understood. Even if I hadn’t heard her twice, though, her tone would have conveyed the sentiment.

“I’m sorry.” There was no way she heard me, though. I could hear her sobbing through our shared wall for a good long while after.

In the morning, I woke up to find a piece of paper slid under my door. It was a petition with a lengthy intro that could only be of Tori’s drafting, calling for my resignation. Some of the signatures were illegible, but counting them up, there were twenty-eight signatures. I studied it for a while, trying to see who the holdouts were. I was surprised and relieved to find that Lexi hadn’t signed, not spotting any L’s in the hard-to-read ones. That is, until I recognized what had to be a lazily scrawled Alexis.

It was early enough I caught Ramona before she’d headed down to her office in the center building.

“Spencer? Are you–”

“I quit.”

Chapter Three: Discord

For the second time in as many weeks, I found myself walking into the Lakeview Recreation Center’s squash courts. I was dressed for battle. I’d waited half an hour for Bob to finish a match with some man I didn’t recognize, but he wasn’t leaving until he’d dealt with me.

“You again,” Lakeview’s housing director grumbled, inspecting his racket for who knew what. “Didn’t think we’d need to talk again so soon.”

“I’m only here to tell you I quit.”

“We haven’t even started a match yet, and you’re quitting already?”

“I’m not talking about squash. I’m talking about your little science experiment. My job. I quit.”

“No, you don’t. Now  either pick up a racket, or get off my court.”

I had no interest whatsoever in squash. Not with Bob, anyway. I’d come here for a reason. Although, as the sweating 50-something director of residence life disdainfully ignored me as he checked his phone, in spite of myself, I found I actually felt like playing. Half his age and twice his physicality, a chance to kick his ass at something was oddly appealing.

There was an anticlimactic moment as I excused myself to check out equipment from the desk and made my way back, strutting as best I could. I wasn’t really dressed for it either, but so what? If I could handle all those hours of running on the track upstairs, I could hustle around an old man down here, jeans or no.

“Jeans, huh. Well. Don’t expect me to go easy on you.”

I hefted the squash ball. I’d played a few times before, enough to know the rules and the physics. “Age before beauty.” I tossed it Bob’s way.

He grunted a laugh, and served. I hadn’t stretched, or at least I told myself that was the problem as I failed to intercept the bounce in time.

“Nice one, handsome. One serving zero.”

I hit it back this time. Once. “Two serving zero.”

By the time he was up 10 to 2, I’d not yet broached the subject I’d come to broach. Bob was all business, except his business was humiliating me at a game he played like a part-time job.

“Game point.”

We had a decent volley this time, and I at least had the satisfaction of seeing his gangly body crash into the wall right before his power swing sent the ball breezing right past me.

“Your serve. Unless you’re looking to quit at this, too. I can allow mercy rules on this one.”

“Allow’s got nothing to do with it. I already told Ramona. I’m only here to tell you because of the situation with, you know, the pheromones.”

“It’s not pheromones. And you’re not quitting.”

I served. This time, controlling instead of reacting, I could put some real power behind it. Bob’s swing was too slow. “One serving zero. And yes, I am. You’re done controlling me.”

He tied things up. “I don’t control you. From what I hear, even you barely  control you . But you’re not quitting.”

I put my fervor into the game for a while. It was more even now, but he kept a point ahead of me most of the way to game point. “I hurt people. I know it doesn’t matter to you, but it does to me. One of my girls got a whole boob job just to get my attention. Only the effect dulled over break, so by the time she got back she was left wondering why the hell she’d do something like that for some random guy who lives down the hall for her. She’s been to–”

“The counseling office, I know. I do read my emails. They look good?”

I snorted contemptuously, wiping the sweat from my forehead on my sleeve. “ That’s  your reaction? Do they look good?”

“It was your reaction. Why wouldn’t it be mine? At least I’m not enough of an asshole to say it to her face. Little Lexi Marie does all that for you, though, and you’re bailing on her?”

“I think she’s going to have them ‘undone,’ or whatever. Either way, I’ve done enough damage.”

“Been listening to your floor governor, huh.”

“She’s got some solid points. Eight serving nine.”

Bob dove for it this time, and missed. It felt good. He might know the game better, but I had stamina and athleticism on my side. “Bah, she’s full of shit.”

“Tell that to Casey, who got dumped by the love of her life when he found out she was throwing herself at another man. Nine all.”

“A college freshman breaking up with her long distance boyfriend? Unprecedented, that. ‘Love of her life.’ Listen to yourself. Think love’s supposed to conquer all? That shit you’re pumping out, that  is what conquers all. Handsome.”

“Respectfully? Fuck your cynicism. These are people. I care about them. I’m done hurting them. I quit.”

“People who say ‘respectfully’ before saying something disrespectful can go to hell. Now shut up and serve.”

“I’m already there. Nine serving ten.”

“You forgot to say–” Bob put the ball on a nasty little spin, twisting right past my reach. “–game point. That’s 2-0. My serve, I believe.”

He was unrelenting this time. Every time I tried to drive home the message I’d come to deliver, he served, and there was no talking during a game like this. I might not be breathing as hard as Bob, but I wasn’t scoring like him. I was off balance, underprepared, and ill-equipped.

“Ten serving nil. Match point.”

“Hold it.” He paused. I hadn’t thought he would. “You can beat me at squash, great.”

“Not yet, I haven’t. Unless you’re quitting.”

“I am  quitting. Quitting this stupid game, quitting that stupid job, quitting that awful experiment. Don’t think you can threaten me this time – I’ve seen how quickly it wears off. We can talk about how we get this crap out of me another time. I’m sure the real power behind this shit doesn’t want it walking off into the world. And that’s fine. But no more.”

Bob served. The ball crashed into the far wall, then bounced back and hit me in the hip. He hadn’t put much into the swing; I barely felt it. “That’s a match. Props for seeing it through. Talk to my assistant if you want to schedule another one sometime. And wear some proper clothes – bet you’re sweating your magic balls off in that.”

“Whatever. I’m done.”

I was almost to the door when he stopped me. “Damn shame. Going to be hard to replace you.”

“You’ll find somebody. They’re good girls; they don’t take much oversight. Just love.”

“God damn, boy. You are a piece of work. Maybe the most dedicated RA I’ve ever known, and I’ve been at this a while. I’ll bet your replacement, whoever he’ll be, won’t care half as much when – if – he figures out what’s up. A tenth as much.”

“He? Maybe try a woman for a women’s floor this time.”

“You think the experiment ends with you, gorgeous?” Bob chuckled. “No, I’ll have to find somebody else to fill your shoes, get that data. It’ll set things back, but I have a hard time imagining the next guy will be so hesitant about dipping his wick. Maybe he’ll be able to tell me about Lexi and her pretty plastic sweater puppies.”

My blood went from boiling to freezing, like that.

Bob pressed his attack. “It’ll take Ramona a bit to adjust to a new hand on her leash, I expect, but I’ll give her some leeway. The girls won’t like it, at least for a few days, but you know as well as I do they’ll fall in line. Better than they did for you. All you had was that pretty face and a big bleeding heart. I’ll find somebody on the alternate list with an ethical red flag or two. Once they’re filled up with all that special sauce and finally let those poor clingy coeds scratch that sluttish itch you’ve neglected – mostly – there won’t be a resident in Higgins 3 who won’t be grateful for your noble sacrifice.”

“You son of a–”

“Staff, too. What’s that girl’s name on the basement floor? Grey? Bet he’ll mine some serious data out of her.” Bob shrugged. Like that, he was done with me, walking over to his gym bag and tucking his racket, the balls, his arm- and headbands inside while I processed.

“I’ll expose you,” I managed.

“No you won’t. You don’t know anything, can’t prove anything. Even if you could, you know what it would do to those girls if you did, especially when they find out you volunteered – unless you can prove you didn’t…? Which, considering some of the papers you signed without reading when you thought you were just getting your wisdom teeth pulled, would be a tough case.”

When I…?! Holy fucking shit .

Reeling, I shook my head. “What the hell made you this way?” I croaked, throat  parched.

“We’ve been over this. If you can’t figure out why somebody would want what you have, you’re an even bigger pansy than I pegged you for when I picked you. Don’t think I regret it, either. You’re the right man for the job. If anybody can mollify those moody girls of ours, put that mess of a floor back together, it’s you.” Out of nowhere, he jabbed  his finger into my chest in that way only old men seemed to know how. “And don’t insult me further by pretending that’s not what you really want, too.”

Bob strode past me, not even slowing when he slapped me on the butt. “Good game, Spencer. Keep practicing, yeah? I want a real challenge next time.”

************************************************

Ramona, at least, was happy to hear I’d changed my mind, even if the rapidity of it all was giving her emotional whiplash. She used the staff meeting that night to host an ethics training session using an adaptation of the trolley problem. It was supposed to get us thinking about when and whether it was better to do a write-up and put someone through the judicial system, or to let something slide and let the unaddressed actions damage the community. Really, she wanted me to think about whether it was better for me to fuck the Hotties lovingly, or to let someone else make a harem of them in my absence. It was nice of her to let me come to the conclusion without another of those high pressure sales pitches she’d tried over break.

(It would have been nicer if she hadn’t split the staff into two discussion groups, placing me alongside Vickie and Savannah while she talked with Vanessa and Janis. Nominally, it was a test that we could honor our pledge to continue to have work relationships after our romantic ones fell to shit. One more lie.)

When I told Tori I was staying, she was less supportive. Ellie was there, back from family matters; I took the opportunity to ask how she was holding up. She was fine, thankfully. It was her great aunt who had died, and while they weren’t close, she’d stuck around to be there for her mom. That was as much as I learned before Tori told me she wasn’t comfortable having a man of my character in her dorm room.

(“Residence hall room,” I muttered once the door was firmly shut in my face.)

What to do, then? My commitment to data collection, the greater moral quandaries, all forgotten. This was about Higgins 3 now. Our community. Our home.

So I went to my strong suit. Face to face conversations, small scale. I knocked on doors, ready to make apologies, listen to grievances, start us all thinking about how we could mend things. I was ready to make concessions, to grovel if needs be.

After the first half dozen doors refused to open to me, I decided another tactic was warranted.

It had been stupid to start on Tori’s end of the hallway. Her door was open, if barely. I had to hand it to her – that was real solidarity. She’d no doubt heard me trying to get Amy in 300 to open her door and warned  them off via text, or that discord server Terri and Toni had told me about. It was like a labor union of pissed off Hotties. How the hell was I supposed to figure out how to make it up to them if I couldn’t even talk to them? And how had she gotten the word out so quickly?

For once, I figured out the answer to my riddle quickly. All I needed was a weak link.

Hey. I need to talk to you. To someone. Please.

We’re not supposed to talk to you. Some people are really mad.

I frowned. Not what I’d hoped for. But then the text window said she was typing again.

Are you OK?

No.

Do you have somewhere we could meet privately? Not here at home.

I waited ten minutes in the formal lounge, where the scent of Ramona’s coffee from our staff meeting still tickled my nostrils, before Charlie entered. Sneaking around like this seemed a bit too cloak and dagger, but avoiding attention was important to her, and she was taking a social risk. She came right up to me and hugged me, resting her cheek against my shoulder and patting my back until she brought the tears out. Once they’d stopped, she finally let me go, and curled up beside me on one of those too-formal couches they stocked this place with.

“Thanks for coming to see me, Charlie. I know things are tense. It means a lot.”

“What are friends for?” Her smile was fleeting, though. “Not that I’m not… Um..”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “It’s OK to be mad. I don’t blame you – I’m mad at me, too. I really made a mess of things. That’s what I wanted to talk about, actually.”

She nodded. “I figured. I knew you would want to make things right, even before you texted me. I’m glad you did, though. Things are so bad now. I hate it. I didn’t want to sign that petition, but Destiny was right there and I didn’t want to make her feel like I was or wasn’t, so she’d have to, or not… and it looked like everybody else had, and… I’m sorry, Spencer.”

“Don’t be. How are you, Charlie? I’ll bug you about my junk soon enough, but tell me about you.”

She brightened. “I’m… OK. Going back home, seeing my kitty and my family and my friends, it was like… Man. Things are like, really  horny around here. Which was fun! Don’t get me wrong. But I think we let ourselves get carried away. You’re such a cutie patootie, and the way you never took advantage when somebody flirts I think just made some of us feel like it was OK to try harder…” The way her cheeks colored, clearly she considered herself among that number.

“You don’t have anything to be embarrassed of, Charlie. I’ve been as bad about it as any of you.” I considered . “Well, except maybe Leigh and Casey.”

“Oh, Casey.” She frowned. “I’m really worried about her. If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t get anybody in trouble over it?”

“I don’t get people in trouble. People make decisions sometimes that get themselves in trouble, and…” I cut my rote line short. “Sorry. Stupid reflex. Yes, I promise. Though if I were guessing… Drugs?”

Charlie nodded. “And alcohol. Lots  of alcohol. She’s been kind of… upset. Nikki crashed in Emma’s spare bed last night because she couldn’t sleep with Casey and the crying and the yelling and everything. Plus I think she was kinda afraid you’d come over and she’d get busted for all the booze and stuff.”

“Good for Nikki, and good on Emma. I heard some of it myself, through the wall.” I cleared my throat. “Actually, that’s kind of what I was hoping you could help me with. I need to know what’s going on with people, and they’re not talking to me.”

“How can I help? Name it. I just want things to go back the way they were, when everybody was getting along and happy and having fun.”

I took a slow breath. This was going to be a big ask. “I need to see the discord.”

She stiffened instantly. It was harder not to notice the way her nipples were jutting out with that rigid posture. Oh, Charlie. “Um… what discord?”

“Terri and Toni told me about it. It’s OK. I don’t want to do a deep dive or anything, but I need to know what people are feeling, and they won’t talk to me. I know some of the issues, but I think a lot of us had time and space to clear our heads over break. I suspect you’re not the only one who regrets how far we let things go.”

“I’m not, no. But…” Charlie shook her head. “That server is sacred. It’s Hotties only. Andi let it slip that she’d been showing some of my – I mean, some of our , um, doodles, and, um, scribbles? To her friends from home. And she got banned, hard. She had to beg  to be let back in. They made her tell everyone about what it was like to…” Her cheeks flushed deeper. “They made her earn it.”

They’d made her tell them about having sex with me, I surmised. Valuable currency, until this past week.

“Please, Charlie. You can watch me, point me to the hot spots. All I want is to know how my Hotties are doing. I screwed up bad . Maybe I can’t fix what I did, but I need to know if there are other fires to put out, and to just make the floor livable again.” I grunted. “Have you ever seen so many doors closed?”

Charlie smiled slyly. “Sure. On all the other floors.” The smile faded then. “But… look. I can’t just… People would be so  mad. Like, however mad you think they are now, times a hundred. They’d be less mad if they caught you peeping  over a shower stall than peeping on the Hottie Haven.”

“It’s called the Hottie Haven…?”

“Don’t hate!”

“No, I love it. It’s perfect.” I flashed my most pleading smile. “Please Charlie. I only want what you want, to make sure everybody’s safe, and to make things happy and chill again. Please?”

After a final moment of consternation, just to drive home how big of an ask this was, Charlie plucked her phone out of… I wasn’t actually sure. Her shorts didn’t have pockets. She swiped in and brought up the discord app. I couldn’t help but notice the channel names. Normal sounding ones like #gen-chat, #gamer-girlz, #calc-support and #comp-support and #study-buddies. I knew plenty of RAs who had a floor discord they’d created for their residents, and that was about what I’d been given to understand they were for.

The rest, though…

#spence-scribbles.

#ra-writes.

#spence-sightings.

#dicky-doodles.

“I’m sorry, is that… dicky doodles…?”

Charlie winced. “It’s not what it sounds like! Um, Jordyn, she likes to, uh, draw. Um, you. Um… naked? Ish? Sometimes just you. Sometimes she draws you, uh, you know, sort of… doing… stuff? With, you know, some of, like… us.”

“Charlie, that’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“You are not allowed to look in there, understand? I would die  of embarrassment.”

“So you’re saying she drew you and me.” I smirked a bit. Who wouldn’t?

“She said she needed a model! I was only posing to be nice!, Ugh, I can’t believe I–”

I put an arm around her and gave her a half hug. Before I could remove it, she took my hand in hers, locking it around her. Then she put the phone in my spare hand. “Tori made a new channel. It’s… yeah.”

I’d tapped before she needed to identify it by name. It was obvious: #ra-revolution. The both of us fell silent as I began to peruse. It was generally easy to ID the Hottie from her handle. Most had used an obvious nickname. They’d probably set it up way back before they all knew each other, so ease of identification had been important.

There wasn’t as much as I feared; perhaps unsurprisingly, most of them were more occupied with their own classes and problems and social lives than they were with the floor governor’s crusade to oust me. Tori herself had authored easily half the posts. Mostly familiar beats: that I was a lecher, that it was sexist to have only one women’s floor on campus with a man RA, Lexi, Casey. There were less vociferous mentions of Andi, Terri and Toni, Kyu-Ri, even Quinn. (Nothing on kissing Dana’s mom, thank goodness.) Tori recapped points from her forum, the issues raised and solutions decided upon, which were noted as temporary stop gaps until she could persuade Ramona to fire me, should I refuse to resign in disgrace. (That phrase, “in disgrace,” followed every mention of “resign.”)

All in all, nothing surprising. The depth of her passion aside, I agreed with a lot of it. It was more forgiving or simply turned a blind eye to the indiscretions of the Hotties towards me, and it was obviously impossible for her to construct a benign interpretation of events without knowing about the Spencer effect. Maybe not even then. I couldn’t explain that, nor could I tell her my resigning would usher in the perviest asshole Bob could find. A bluff, maybe, but I wasn’t so humble about being a relatively decent dude that I held out hope that my replacement would have even the crumbling restraint I’d had.

Maybe the distinction between me and the hypothetical him was that between a free love sex commune and a full-blown harem, but it felt like a heck of a distinction to me.

Perusing the reactions to Tori’s screed, I saw Casey had been fanatical. Lots of devil horns, and she’d dredged up a guillotine emoji somewhere. It was less about what I’d done and more about the results, a portrait of a deeply, deeply sad young woman raging at an injury for which there was no bandage to be found. I told myself she was only acting out of pain, lashing out because self-reflection required emotional energy she didn’t have as yet. A few others had cheered her on, some maybe only because they were friends, but there were some names that recurred frequently, echoing Tori’s points. L.E., Jeanetic, DamnDanielle, and JustEmma, all vocally in lockstep, echoing Tori’s rants.

We ought to tell the police!!!  wrote a livid SammisAran, who evidently hadn’t gotten over the slap on the wrist she’d received from Ramona for what she’d done to Kyu-Ri.

we oughtta chop his dick off and stuff it up his fuckin ass , countered KmothafuckinC. That certainly upped the ante.

JoJoClownGirl took the cake with, We should bury S up to his ball sack in fire ants and feed whatever they don’t eat to Preacher Dan so he can choke on the only bigger asshole on campus .

Oof. Preacher Dan was a Lakeview institution, probably schizophrenic but unquestionably disturbed. Whenever the weather permitted, he’d find a spot on campus and heckle students. Godless whores, all of us, so sayeth whatever Biblical-sounding thing he was claiming to quote that day. He’d pulled that shit on Marisa once. She’d stopped and told him she agreed completely, and offered to suck his dick for a hundred dollars. She kept it up, shouting over him shouting over her, until he retreated to another nook of campus.

She probably wouldn’t look on it favorably if I fed the guy.

Charlie snuggled in beside me. Every so often I caught her glancing up at me, monitoring me, making sure I could take it. Whenever she looked too distraught, I gave her a little squeeze, which kept me from getting too distraught.

The rest were the classic silent majority. Reading between the lines, their absence painted a picture of girls who were upset about recent events and embarrassed they’d gotten so worked up over their camaraderie in their quietly competitive collective crush. They just wanted to go home for winter break and be able to answer their parents’ questions about how they were liking college without blushing. Having avoided my own family last week, I empathized . I’d barely spoken to my folks in weeks.

It was a relief, at least, to know my Hotties were mostly mad for the right reasons, and for the right amount. Janis was wrong. They didn’t hate me. (OK, so Tori might hate me.) I could work with that.

By the time I finished reading and analyzing, Charlie had nestled in and fallen sound asleep under my arm. I gave her a little squeeze.

“Mmm,” she purred, snuggling in tighter. One of her hands found my thigh, rubbing it softly in her sleep. I let her keep at it, and it wasn’t long before it drifted higher and she was clumsily pawing at my crotch with a beatific smile spreading on her lips. Before I could stop myself, I found my finger drifting toward them. When it tapped that glossy pink entrance, it parted and sucked me right in.

Charlie stirred, barely, but that ounce of awareness only made her suck harder.

I could probably fuck her right here, tonight, in the formal lounge. The girl who’d I’d noticed on move-in day, helping her up the stairs, following that tight, beautiful behind of hers in those tight, beautiful shorts, who’d first made me wonder if I could be trusted to watch over a girl so flagrantly sexy. Then I found out there were dozens more.

None quite like her, though.

I wasn’t about to be that stupid, though. With effort, I made myself withdraw my finger. Her neck followed as far as it could. She’d only woken up that little bit, though, so after a pouty noise, she drooped  back down against me. Her hand at my crotch didn’t stop. Her other took my hand and placed it softly on her breast. Then, like that, she fell right back asleep. The scent of her shampoo filled my nostrils.

I couldn’t bring myself to wake her. I’d seen all there was to see about the state of my community. I’d left my own phone in my room.

There was only one thing left to do.

I tapped on #dicky-doodles, and soon gave Charlie something to fill her hand. Damn, Jordyn really knew her stuff. As she felt me growing, her hand made its way down my pants. The good old Spencer effect, triggering unconscious handjobs. Finally, something was going right.

Charlie was a sound sleeper. By the time she stirred, it was going on two  in the morning. I’d navigated to #ra-writes and was finishing the most recent chapter of Hearts of Fire , a serial by C.A.Rebear, a username that could only belong to Charlie. It was about a devoted CEO and widow who was being drawn into a passionate (and incredibly graphic) love affair with noble-hearted investor Lawrence Svenster.

I didn’t notice her wake up until I heard her gasp. “You weren’t supposed to see that! Oh my gawd  I am so embarrassed I could die. Please tell me you just started.”

As her hand tried to extricate itself from my boxers, I dropped her phone and gently took her wrist. “I’m almost done, actually. This is…”

“What? It’s what? It’s so stupid. This is why I’m studying to be an actuary. I am so bad with words. Stupid stupid stupid!”

I planted a kiss on her forehead. “I adore  it. You’re so talented, Charlie. This is my new favorite thing. Did you really write this all on your own?”

The compliment halted her fidgeting. She nodded, grinning bashfully. “Um, yeah. Destiny helped me proofread, though.”

I glanced at her hand, still stuffed down my pants. “Do you mind, um, keeping at it while I finish? You don’t have to if you don’t–”

“Sure! I mean, it’s fine. Though, um, would you… No, never mind. That’s so dumb, forget I said anything.”

“You didn’t say anything. What is it? Whatever it is, I don’t mind.”

She resumed stroking, and I let go of the wrist I forgot I’d been holding. “Would you… read out loud? I like your voice.”

“Of course.”

Her phone had locked while we were talking, so I had to have her swipe back in. She did all this one-handed, lovingly stroking my cock all the while. As I found my place, she used the swamp in her own underwear to moisten her hand, her pussy providing nature’s own perfect lubricant.

I cleared my throat, and resumed. “‘I love the taste of you, Scarlotte,’ cried Lawrence Svenster into my tight pink pussy, which had bounced back incredibly after giving natural childbirth three times. ‘Thank you. Thank you for letting me sample the sweetest treat this tongue has ever tasted. I worry I’ll never be able to settle for less delicious pussy ever again.’”

I closed my free hand back over her breast while hers sunk into her panties and began to play. “My late husband never acquired a taste for it. He made me feel like there was something wrong with me. And maybe there was. Maybe whatever sweetness you taste in the honeyed nectar of my cunt was saving itself for you.”

I paused and gazed down at the budding young author until she realized I’d stopped. “Um…?”

I opened my mouth, and after a moment, she caught on. Charlie slipped her hand out of her panties and slipped the glistening digits into my mouth. My turn to suck on her fingers. She didn’t hold them there long, or maybe just not as long as I wanted her to. “Honeyed nectar,” I confirmed.

“Oh god. God. Oh god. Go on.”

She resumed masturbating the two of us as I read her fantasy. “I couldn’t help myself. I wanted his mouth, his tongue that he could maneuver like a finger only gentler, to touch me forever. Instead, I exploded. A tsunami of hot, wet female cum flooded out of me, splashing his chiseled jaw. He didn’t flinch, though. Not Lawrence Svenster. It only egged him on, proved  his mastery of my pleasure. He wore a crown of my cum, proclaiming him king of my pussy. That wasn’t enough, though. He wanted to rule me as a god.”

She’d managed to lift her shirt over her chest. No bra. “You can squeeze harder, if you want. I know they’re not huge, but I can take it . If you want.”

Tit play  with my left hand while reading and being jacked off wasn’t easy, but I did my best. “‘Please, Mr. Svenster, let me return the favor. Let me get on my knees and blow the thick, glorious scepter of your cock. I want to see if you taste as delicious as you do in my nightly dreams ever since we met last week.’

“But Lawrence laughed away my offer, though it was a rich, warm laugh that filled my heart the way his tongue had seemed to fill my shockingly tight pussy. ‘Favor? Scarlotte, you’re the one who’s done me a favor – and I don’t just mean your juicy, cummy panties, which I’m keeping as a fragrant trophy of the best sexual experience of my entire life, by the way. You know I’m a man who sees a woman he wants and takes her, a lover first and all else second. Between your warm, cum-soaked thighs, however, I’ve been reminded that sometimes, it’s best to slow down, savor, and learn one body until it’s completely and utterly mine to pleasure when and how I wish. I’m not done with your pussy yet.’”

Charlie’s body was quivering as she diddled and jerked us off. “Oh gosh, it’s s-so bad…”

“I love it. I love  it. You’re unbelievable.” I read on with confidence. I could see we were very nearly at the end.

“Lawrence Svenster stood over me, a tower of turgid manly desire. In that moment, I gave away all rights to my womanhood forever. It was his do with as he willed. I had no fear that he would take good care of it. He already had, but from the gleam in his eyes, I could tell he wasn’t done with me. Not by a long shot.”

Her hips were bucking against her fingers. She paused to refresh the lubrication on the hand servicing me, and from the same source. It came out of her panties glazed with her wetness.

“‘Tell me your pussy is mine,’ he said, as if reading my mind.

“‘It’s yours! It’s all yours!’ I wailed, but quiet enough that we wouldn’t wake my sweet, slumbering children, who had school in the morning.

“‘So do I have your permission to fuck it as absolutely mind-meltingly hard as I can?’ Lawrence asked. The request was so sweet, I fell in love with him and his massive, ember red rod of fuckthority  all over again, down to the last vein.”

Charlie was coming, and she was coming slowly. I took her nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinched down, and she shrieked so loud it echoed.

“‘Always, Lawrence. Always. I love you. My pussy loves your cock. My pert, not-too-big and not-too-small tits love your hands. My children will learn to love your love,’ I promised him. ‘Now please, I beg you, stick that monster-sized dick in my snug, gushing wet cunt and fuck me until I black out from more pleasure than my late husband gave me in his entire lifetime. Make me your lifelong fuck vessel, until the rivers of our ecstasy runs dry.’”

Charlie knew what she was about. When I erupted, her hand was there to catch it. Reading and coming at the same time was a tall order, so with only a small block to go, I paused until I’d filled her delicate hand and then some. She hadn’t let up on herself, though, and by all appearances was still riding a slow, dreamy orgasm through the chapter’s end. Her cum-filled hand went straight to her mouth, lapping thirstily at my donation.

“Lawrence Svenster drove his purple pleasure pillar into me, his body held aloft by my delicate, freshly manicured hands. He was heavy, though, so I nimbly maneuvered him onto his back and mounted him, a warrior queen of my own private phallic legion. The delight in his eyes as he watched my body bounce atop his inverted pogo stick dick, I would never forget it. I cried out in excitement as he delivered a few firm slaps to my impressively toned ass for a mother of three.”

Charlie, still toying, still wriggling, still panting, giggled to herself. “I’m, um, not into spanking or anything. That’s just for the girls. Some of them, you know, like that kind of kinky stuff.”

I laughed with her, and read the chapter’s conclusion. “He flooded my body with so much cum that I would never doubt how sexy he found me, perhaps even as sexy as I found him. I found myself praying that it would catch, that tonight, my fourth child’s story began in the loving, commandingly slappy hands of Lawrence Svenster. Would he even want to raise a child with me? Much less four? But as we collapsed into one another’s naked, sweaty embraces, he asked me if it would be all right if I had dinner with the family tomorrow night, and read my children their good night story – right before he dragged me to bed, ripped off my designer suit and rocked my body as only he ever had, and no one else ever could.

“‘I can’t wait for you to meet them,’ I told him, my heart swelling the way my sizzling hot wet cunt swelled for his incredible supercock. I turned then and smiled to my secretary, who had watched it all unfold patiently. ‘He’s all yours, Mrs. Queensley. But save some for me for tomorrow, eh?’”

“‘You’re the best boss I’ve ever had,’ she said as her lips descended to suck my cum off Lawrence Svenster’s swiftly reinvigorated megadick. ‘I love you like a sister.’”

That was the end of the chapter. Love and sisterhood, the hallmark of its author.

Still riding the final trembles of her orgasm, Charlie watched me for a reaction. “That was so, so hot, Charlie. I’m sorry I snuck a peek without asking, but I’m also really, really not sorry. That was so good.”

“You’re not just saying that? I know it’s really silly. It’s just random fantasies and stuff that I think about in the shower.”

“You have good fantasies,” I assured her. “In fact…”

I lifted my arm off of her and rolled to my knees at her feet. Her head cocked to the side, not following my intent until I lifted her to her feet with two handfuls of firm, warm ass.

“Oh god. Spencer, you really don’t have to… I mean, you shouldn’t, right? Like…”

“I want to, but if you don’t want it, I won’t,” I told her, admiring her simple white cotton panties from inches away. They were a murky gray at the crotch, where she’d flooded them thoroughly. The scent of her filled the air, and if it wasn’t honey, it was damn sweet.

“I… I, um… You won’t tell Tori?” I tensed, the reminder snapping me out of the moment. “Oh shoot, I did not  mean to say that. Pretend I didn’t, OK? Please? I want it. Please.”

I smiled up at her. “Nice to know I’m not the only one who says the wrong thing at the wrong moment sometimes.”

“I’m sorry! I–” Her eyes shot wide as my tongue touched the space between her legs. “Oh. Oh…”

She looked so cute in those panties, I hated to ditch them. Instead I used a simple trick Marisa had taught me, twisting the waistband around her body a bit so that the clit emerged. Didn’t work on all bodies, but these were relatively skimpy panties on an incredibly tight body. Her little pink nubbin had a dribble of cum beading off of it. I took a taste.

“Did you know how sweet you were when you wrote that, or was it just a lucky guess?”

“I… I’ve, maybe, um tasted it sometimes. Just… oh god.. oh god oh god… Just curious. Is that weird?”

“From where I’m sitting, I think you’d be crazy not to,” I said as I dove back in.

If not for my hands clenching her butt, Charlie never would have been able to stand up for what I did to her marvelous – and yes, tight and pink – pussy. She was still sensitive from her own ministrations, so everything I did was pure electricity. She alternated between grabbing my face and humping her slit against my mouth and positively mauling her tits. She hadn’t been kidding when she suggested they could take a pounding.

My fingers sunk into her ass, and slowly I came to the realization that squeezing her boob hadn’t been the only hint I’d been given on how to kick her into overdrive. Without warning, I slapped down hard on her ass. Panties made for a surprising buffer, I’d learned from past experience, so I didn’t hold back. Charlie’s neck whipped back, gasping, pony tail flying, and only a firm grip on her hips kept her from falling backwards.

“Do it again!” she whimpered.

I did it again. Then she asked again. This went on for some time, Charlie pleading for me to smack her perfect ass, me lapping up her juices as fast as she could dribble them onto my chin. To think I’d spent all that time last week imagining blowjobs and handjobs and steamy shower sex, when it turned out what I wound up needing was to take one of the most beautiful women I’d ever laid hands on and lick her into sweet oblivion.

Finally, she signaled that she couldn’t take any more. I tried to ease her onto the couch, but Charlie being Charlie, she stood her ground and insisted on offering me a hand up. Then she kissed me, licking all around my mouth and cheeks for stray dribbles from her pussy.

“Save some for me,” I chided, but then her tongue was back in my mouth, her arms around my neck, and I savored another flavor of Charlie.

Finally, she was steady enough that she didn’t need me to help hold her up. “Can I…?”

I shook my head. “I’m good. No, I’m great . Thank you. I needed that. You always know exactly how to take care of me, Charlie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She snickered. “You call that me taking care of you? I’ve been masturbating to that story for months now, and you just blew it off the map. I know you can’t, you know, date residents, and right now it’s probably bad for both of us to have everybody know we… yeah.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“But once things calm down, and people remember why we like you so much, and you figure out how to patch things up… I hope we can do that again. I mean, if you want.”

I gave her butt a playful slap. “How could anyone not want you? Gorgeous, kind, creative… You’ve got it all.”

“You really  liked it? You’re not just saying that?”

“You better send me a copy. And if you ever publish it, I want mine signed.”

She grinned. Then, without fanfare, she turned her back to me and peeled her panties down over her hips, letting them slide down to the floor. Charlie held the pose, her ass a perfect peach. “One more…?”

I took a moment enjoying a few squeezes, as if testing for the ripest spot. Then I gave her ass one final slap. She moaned, then stood up and pressed her panties into my hand. “Your trophy, Mr. Svenster.”

I pressed the sodden things to my nose and inhaled. “Mm, fragrant, Scarlotte Andersen.”

We dressed, and I walked her to the doors to the center building. The RAs on duty had locked up the center building hours ago, but the doors still opened from the inside just fine. I promised I’d give her a head start so nobody would think she was crossing the picket line, and thanked her one last time for everything.

“I think I might like you even better as Spencer Lawrence, you know?” She kissed me once more. “Good night. Great  night. ”

Chapter Four: Networking

Dear Higgins 3,

Welcome back from fall break. I hope everybody had a restful and restorative time, and that you’re feeling ready to tackle the tail end of the semester. I know I did.

I know I said I wouldn’t bombard you with mass emails like this, but I think we’re all aware by now that things haven’t been very smooth since our return. Some of that is on me, and I regret and apologize for those mistakes sincerely.

First off, I’d like to thank Tori for taking the initiative as floor governor to address some of the missteps I and, let’s be honest, most of us, were involved with prior to fall break. There was a lot of fun being had, and not a lot of thinking being done. That goes for me especially, though I won’t point fingers at anyone else. The best any of us can do is acknowledge our errors and do better.

To that end, I received and read your petition. I am receptive to your concerns, but I have decided not to resign. Instead, I will work to repair the damage I’ve done to your trust and restore Higgins 3 to the best place to live in all of Lakeview, which I truly believe it has been since day one.

I know my decision may disappoint some of you, but I hope not all. If you have feedback on how I can better serve this community, or if you just want to air your grievances, you know where to find me.

Speaking of, we’re still having Thursday movie night tonight at 8, like always. I’ll be arriving at 7 and staying as late as needed for anybody who wants to talk to me but would prefer to do so in a more public venue.

See you in the halls, ladies.

– Spencer

I received my first reply in the middle of C313. I didn’t normally check my phone in class, but it was a lecture, and I was burning to see if I’d snagged an attaboy. Casey had hit Reply All, and… what a reply.

dear ra,

knock konck

whos there

spencer

spencer who

spencer nights itching her crotch because you have herpes fuck you

– errybody

I did manage a little chuckle on the second read. On the third, I managed not to cry. Poor Casey. I really needed to intervene there, but so far I hadn’t been able to get a foot in the door. The harder I contrived to do so, the bigger the risk of worsening things. Right now she was heartbroken and blaming me. The Spencer effect was the real culprit, but even absent that, her lying about the boyfriend being in the know was almost as responsible. None of that excuses my indulging her, knowingly inviting her to cheat on him and accepting her bullshit because it was the bullshit I wanted to believe. Nevertheless, we weren’t going to have a very nuanced and productive discussion when she was in this headspace.

I received three more replies as the day wore on. One from Shauna, one of my few non-freshmen. I don’t want to get people in my face by showing up, but fwiw I think you’re a good RA. We all teased you so bad and you’ve been really chill about it. Plus you actually give af unlike the other RAs I’ve had. Hang in there.  

So yeah, that made me cry my whole walk home.

Another came from Jo, who, after what I’d spied her saying on discord, was actually rather measured. I am not forgiving you for what you said to Lex until she does, and maybe not then. What was done to her is unforgivable.  Diplomatic, considering.

Lastly, there was a message from Dana. Hi. I know my mom (stepmom) came and probably chewed you out, but just so you know I told her it wasn’t your fault I was being bad. She’s just really overprotective of me, and it’s this whole awful mess. It sort of always has been.

Aaaaand I just deleted like five paragraphs because it got out of hand, but tl;dr it’s not your fault and like you said, we’re all responsible for our own mistakes so like you I’m trying to do better. Not having much luck getting my mom to see that, so I guess we’re sort of in the same boat having a hard time fixing stuff. (You should of seen  her face when she found my HH shirt in my laundry over break – like I was turning tricks behind the dumpster of a 7/11 or something. Blergh.) I guess your boss is mad at you kinda the same way. I’m sorry.

I promise I will be good around you from now on though and not get you (or me) into any more trouble.

I can’t make it to movie night tonight. Sorry.

I wanted to know about those five paragraphs more than I could tell her. For now, I rested easy knowing her mother must not have told her what had happened between us. Ramona hadn’t mentioned it either, come to think of it. The Spencer effect? Or had I done something so shameful that she couldn’t even repeat it aloud? For now, though, I was glad for another ally, at least insomuch as avoiding me made for an alliance. It was well-intentioned, and I could use all of that I could get my hands on.

There was technically a fourth response. That, however, came in person.

It was going on 7 :30. Nobody else had taken me up on my offer, so I had the lounge to myself. I’d gotten used to constant social interaction on Higgins 3, so this past week of ostracization had meant lots of time-wasting on my phone and reading ahead in classes. On a whim, I’d gone for some nostalgia and brought my guitar down, trying to trick my fingers into remembering some chords.

Then the door swung open, and in walked Tori. Katrina was behind her, though oddly, she stayed in the hallway as the governor planted her feet a frosty distance away. I didn’t know what that meant, but Tori wasn’t giving me time to ruminate on it.

“Nobody’s going to come tonight if you’re here. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull with your little cute-college-boy-with-a-guitar routine, but it’s not fooling anyone.”

“Trying to pull? Tori, it’s movie night. We’ve been doing it since August. And I was bored. For some reason, nobody wanted to come hang out with me.”

“Resign.”

“I told you, no.”

“Then tell me something different.”

“Since I’m not leaving, and I can only assume – and I hope – you’re not moving out, don’t you think it behooves us to at least talk about how we can move forward? I’m willing to listen. I really am.”

“Yeah?”

“Try me.”

Tori’s eyes narrowed, and she tapped her lip. Finally! Finally, something other than–

“Resign.”

“Nice. And no.”

“Well I can’t make you – yet – but what I will say is, a lot of us still want movie night. We just don’t want you to be part of it. So you can sit down here by yourself with your little guitar and keep everybody else away. Or, you can acknowledge what we’ve been telling you, that you’re not wanted, and let us have the lounge.”

I sighed. This was so much more annoying when she made sense. Even Shauna and Dana had said they like me, but not enough that they were willing to be seen with me. Not even Charlie and her big soft heart were willing to cross the picket line. I didn’t want to just fold, though, so I called out, “Katrina? What do you think?”

“Don’t ask–”

Katrina opened the door, and Tori fell silent. Presenting herself as the decider worked better when nobody else had a voice. Not a great style for a leader, but she was only eighteen, and her prior leadership experience was limited to vice president of her student council in high school. She was still learning.

“What’d you say, Spencer?” Katrina asked. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t sneering like Tori, either.

“We were talking about movie night tonight. Tori thinks it’s best if I make myself scarce, but I was thinking it would be nice to start getting back to normal. Or the new normal, anyways. What do you think?”

“Oh. I, um…” She looked at Tori. I was a bit surprised, myself. Katrina had always struck me as a very self-possessed person, and our floor government meetings had more or less disregarded who was governor and who was vice. Good ideas were good ideas.

“I can see there’s at least one of us uncomfortable being in a room with you,” observed Tori.

“Is that true?” I almost babbled out another apology, another roundabout explanation for what boiled down to the Spencer effect. I stopped there, though. Let her speak for herself.

“Yes…?” Katrina mumbled to the floor after a pause that was almost as uncomfortable as that question mark.

There was a lot left unsaid there, but rather than press the issue, I stood up, put my guitar back in the case, and made my exit. “Then I’ll leave you two to it. Excuse me.”

Relief washed over Katrina’s face, but it wasn’t washing away fear. It was… something else. I’d have to follow up with her later, if I could. She might not be deep in Tori’s pocket, but she was in there. Plus the two lived right across the hall from one another, so unless I was prepared to stake out the end of the hallway for a time when Tori was in class and Katrina wasn’t, getting in there wasn’t going to be easy.

I retreated to my room. With nothing else to do, I kept on strumming. I’d made a big fat batch of popcorn, the nibbling of which only made my fingerwork lousier with butter. As 8:00 neared, I heard the Hotties making their way down to the lounge. Were they expecting to see me down there, or were they attending only because Tori had assured them I wouldn’t?

I’d talked to Ramona that morning, fucked her from behind while she proofread my email. She hadn’t had any notes. I went ahead and confided in her what had gone down with Charlie; she said it confirmed what she’d been telling me, that it was a matter of time before the Spencer effect (and my leadership skills) brought them back into the fold. I wasn’t so sure. I was on duty tonight with Savannah, and those skills weren’t going to do jack squat to get her back.

I made sure to be fashionably late picking up my walkie at the desk so our paths didn’t cross. Carmen, the night’s primary, gave me a knowing, pitying look when I skulked in and out. I felt simultaneously pathetic and comforted. Back home I resumed playing, shifting to some more melancholy tunes. My distraction was succeeding for the time being, enough so that I didn’t hear Leigh let herself in.

“ Ahem .” It sounded like it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get my attention.

I’d been looking out the window, so I spun, startled. “Whoa, sorry, didn’t hear you. What’s up, Leigh?”

Leigh tended to have a bit of a Barbie look about her. Not just because she was tall and blonde and busty and beautiful, but because she wore an expression that conveyed that nothing she saw merited her taking it seriously. It was a sort of blissful disdain.

Tonight, she looked uncharacteristically serious.

“Hi. Can we talk?”

“Absolutely.” Thinking back to Katrina, I quickly added, “Is here  OK?”

“Here is fine.” She sat down on the edge of my bed. While I’d noted many of the Hotties were adopting fairly typical fall wardrobes (or at least the hot girl versions with sweaters stretched tight across their chests and their comfy jeans snug in the one place that counted), Leigh had not gotten the memo. A white shirt with a deep V for incredible cleavage, a skirt only a couple inches beneath her ass. It had probably left her freezing her butt off if she’d worn it to class.

“So what’s up? Everything OK?”

“Uh, ya. Why wouldn’t everything be OK?”

I chuckled self-consciously. “Sorry, been  a bit of a week for me. Glad you’re doing well, though.”

“Yeah, well, you might be Mr. Role Model, but just because you fucked up everything in your life doesn’t mean I’m gonna.”

“That’s, um, good.”

She crossed her legs, a portrait of casual sex appeal. “How’s it feel, being the least popular dude in the building?”

“I’m the only dude in the building, so technically, I already was the least popular before all this.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nice. I bet your mom is in stitches with jokes like those.”

“Can I help you with anything, or…?”

“I’m not being a bitch. Chill.” Well that was a relief. “You know, I’ve been there, where you are. Last year, I was dating this guy who went to another high school – super hot, maybe as yummy as you – but this girl I was almost best friends with, she started a rumor behind my back that he was my cousin, only nobody told me, so… Yeah. It’s that sucky thing about having everybody like you, that you can actually become even more unpopular than the actual losers because you have so much farther to fall, ya know?”

“I… think I follow . And I’m sorry that happened. This was a friend, you say?”

“Meh. I probably deserved it. Don’t ask.”

I did not.

“Anyway, I read that crazy long email you sent out this morning. Well, I skimmed. You know, you’re actually pretty good at that? Are you majoring in PR or something?”

“First, that’s not a major; second, no; and third, it wasn’t PR. It’s just my job.” I did think I was pretty good at it, usually, but these were humbling times. “What makes you say that?”

“I dunno, you fucked up so royally, but it made me all… aww. You know? Like, you asked a girl who’s about to slit her wrists to flash you her tits on her way out, and brought that bleh supervisor lady in here to spy on us.”

“And the Casey thing,” I added. It was perfunctory at this point.

“Oh fuck Casey. That ho was begging for a dicking all semester long and she couldn’t stop bragging to everybody when she got it.”

“She couldn’t?”

“Well, you could kinda see it in her face. Anyway, she’s the fuckin’ slut who cheated on her guy. I scoped him out on her insta and he’s a total fucking burnout pleb. Don’t know what she was even doing with him. Maybe she’s from a small town, and he’s like the only non-troglodyte she could find? If she had any brains in her stupid little hat she’d have left him before she even came here and not shit on you for just being a guy, doing guy stuff. If I were a guy, I totally would have fucked her, and if anybody tried to blame me for it, well then fuck them again.”

“I, um… Thanks? I think?”

She smiled, and somehow even looked innocent doing it. “Don’t mention it.”

“Popcorn?” I held out the bowl. “And how come you’re not at the program?”

She grabbed a handful, nibbled at it, like a bite would violate her sacred diet. “Angel’s telling everybody I got the squirts, so nobody’s gonna come looking. Just you and me.”

Nothing suspicious about that. “Why is it you needed an alibi, exactly?”

She tossed the rest of the handful in her mouth, answering as she chewed. “Because you’re a pariah? And I was thinking, you know… It sounds like you could use a friend. Friend.”

I immediately stood up. “No way, Leigh. I know where you’re going with this, and I’ve created enough problems for myself already. Not happening.”

“Cool your boy boobies, Spencer! I’m not here to fuck you.” Her head cocked to the side slightly, and her smile became classic impish Leigh. “Well, not only  to fuck you.”

“I said no. Seriously. I cannot keep risking my job fooling around with my residents.”

“You didn’t hear me out!”

I folded my arms. “OK. Other than that, which again, nuh uh, what?”

“I’m talking about saving  your job, Spencer. I know your boss is super pissed. Probably worried Lex’s folks are gonna sue or whatever. Sure as shit can’t like living in one of these tiny-ass rooms. So I’m guessing she wants to see if you can fix things, right? One big Hottie family again?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“So I figured, it’d probably be helpful if you had a friend or two, right? Somebody to be seen with, so the gang all sees it’s cool again. We could have lunch at the food court, hang out with the door open… You could even play that shitty guitar for me. You are really not good at that. Has that worked for you in the past or something?”

“Sometimes people just do things for fun, you know.” And yes, as a matter of fact it had  worked for me, but any decent looking guy who could hum and strum at the same time had at least a fighting chance.

Then the rest of her meaning sunk in. She’d been waiting for me to comprehend her real offer.

“Wait. Are you saying… What are you saying?” Was she asking me to…?

“Be my fuck buddy.” She grinned that beauty queen smile. (Not that she’d ever worn the crown, but she’d competed for some a handful of years back, she’d told me once.)

“Leigh, I am not prostituting myself for good optics! Jesus!”

“Does it help if you think of it as me prostituting my time for good sex?”

“No!”

“Oh come on! Like you haven’t thought about it. For one, it’s sex. Don’t act like you don’t want to fuck me. You’ve been staring at my tits since I walked in.”

Fair. “I didn’t mean to – pre-break habit. I’m sorry.”

“For two, you need  this. Tori’s out for blood. Hillary Clinton ass bitch who’s looking to get her résumé kick started by taking down the matriarchy.”

“I think you mean patriarchy.”

She waved it off. “And I think you mean, Tori can go fuck herself. Seriously. Only reason she hasn’t called up The Lakeview Legend  to do a report on the pervy RA and his floor of megababes – so far – is because one of her friends begged her not to, said she’d be too embarrassed if people ever heard about all the fun we get up to around here.”

I grimaced. Shit. The student press. Someday, I reminded myself, I’d actually be out in the world trying to land a job, start a family. It wouldn’t bode well if the first thing that came up when you ran a search on my name was “Local RA Fucks Absolutely Everybody, Is Fired, Disgraced.”

Still. “I can’t, Leigh. I… appreciate it, kind of, but–”

“Oh come on! It’s not just me you get, either. Throw me a bone and you get me, you get Angel, you get Jean. I bet I could pull Kendall and Georgia for you – they’ve been carrying a torch for you ever since you busted their asses but wouldn’t bust their cherries. Before you know it, Tori’s going to be the one hiding in her room while you’re hanging out with everybody. This floor will be yours again.”

Could she know how perfectly she’d hit the mark? From what I’d read last night with Charlie – before I’d gotten sidetracked by Hearts of Fire  – what she was proposing could well work. There was a sizable chunk of the floor that was only siding with Tori because the Spencer effect had ebbed and, for now, hers was the side with momentum. If they saw me and a handful of their floormates hanging out, suddenly I wasn’t Spencer Lawrence, untouchable, but rather good ol’ Spencer, scrumptious lickable nice guy.

It could work. It wouldn’t solve everything, but it could get things moving the way I needed them moving.

Except, you know, it was exchanging sex for favors. It felt… icky.

Leigh saw my resistance holding, and crossed the room, squatting at my feet. She placed her hands over mine, but softly. “Look, I know what I’m saying. I just… Please? Is it easier for you if I say please? I’ve wanted this for so long. Like, I thought you were cute on move-in day, but after the fight…”

“Your knight without his shining armor, huh?”

But she shook her head. “No, not because you stood up for me. Well no, that too, that was sweet. But I don’t usually go for sweet guys. I do, however, go for guys with big . Fat. Dicks.” She leaned closer. Her breasts were resting on my lap, and there was no pretending we weren’t both acutely aware of it. “When we were all struggling and rolling around and everything, I was mostly scared out of my fucking mind, but there was this moment when… You know…” She cocked her head, blue eyes sparkling up at me like sapphires. “Do you remember?”

“The whole thing was kind of a blur.”

She nodded. “Same, mostly, but this one moment. That psycho cunt jumped on me again, and you pulled her off, but you lost your balance. The way you fell, your cock, it landed, like, right  there. If you fell  another inch different, you would’ve been inside me. But I got the tip of you, just for that second…”

“Oh. I… wish I remembered.”

“I’ve wanted you inside me ever since. All of you. As much as I can fit of that  horse dick, anyway. I’ve dreamed  about it. Ask Angel. I’ll wake up so horny I can barely stop myself from coming in here and jumping you in your sleep.”

“You actually tried when I was awake, if you’ll recall. And what did I say then?”

“Your mouth said no, but your big fat hard cock said ask me again later.” She scooted closer. My boxers and zipper, and Leigh’s top and bra, were the only thing keeping me from titty-fucking on the spot. Dang, they were nice. “It’s later.”

“I… I can’t.” Right? I mean, I’d planned to, very much looked forward to, worried I shouldn’t, said something bad to Lexi or something…? Boobs like these made it hard to prioritize.

“Why not?” she whined. “I’m begging you! You fucked that stoner ho Casey, you fucked that hillbilly Andi, you let Toni and Terri tag team you on a live mic, you banged that megababe RA downstairs, and the black one, too. I asked your boss if that’s allowed, and she said not normally – but you did it. Why not me? I’m as hot as any of those girls.” She paused, frowned. “Most of them, at least.”

“It’s not about hotness. If it were just that, we’d have done this in August. You’re… so  hot.”

“Agreed!” She beamed. “So let’s do it then!”

“But…”

“Is it that girl? Savannah? The one who was always in here slurping your cock? I heard you two broke it off.”

Tiny buildings had a way of maintaining a healthy rumor mill, I supposed. “It’s… complicated. Yes, I guess.”

“You did, eh? So then, there’s no reason we can’t…” Her grin broadened like she was auditioning for the Grinch, staring down at the hapless Who s  of Wh oville .

************************************************

“It’s not funny,” I insisted, again.

Ramona lightly tugged, and her black silk nightie came apart like the string she’d pulled was a rope in a Pirates of the Caribbean  movie. I’d felt self-conscious, at first, staying the night at her house, sleeping with her in her and her husband’s bed. She swore he was out of town for the week on business, no chance of his return, but… I wasn’t the sort of guy who’d ever had to worry about another man catching me with his girlfriend, much less his wife.

Not until Casey, anyway, when I’d nonchalantly accepted infidelity as the cost of having a shower playmate who’d help wash her cum off my cock when she was done with it. He was grateful for it , I’d let her tell me to tell myself. Ugh.

Ramona wasn’t laughing, but she hadn’t stopped smiling. “There are many types of funny. You’re thinking of it from your perspective. You have to think of it from theirs.”

“She wasn’t laughing either.”

“That’s what I mean, master. There’s  funny to  her, but there’s also funny   about  her.” She invited me to tug another string, and off went her panties. Only one string? Surely it had to be one per hip. Women’s fashion was bizarre, especially skimpy, lacey, strappy little numbers like this. A wedding gift, from her to her husband, she’d said, buried in a drawer since returning from their honeymoon; tonight, we would reconsecrate it.

“I don’t know. You didn’t see–”

Ramona shut me up in the only way a slave was permitted to silence her master, with her tongue in my throat as she eased my cock into her pussy.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to board.”

She purred at the reminder that decisions about what I did with her body were not hers to make. Earlier tonight, on the drive over, we’d stopped to grab fast food. Neither of us could decide where we wanted to go, a classic couple’s dilemma. That, she’d said, was what our arrangement was like for her. Like she was hungry, so hungry, but she never had to make the decision about what to eat for herself. I simply told her what she’d be eating, and she ate, loving the meal all the more for not being burdened with any steps in acquiring it. Metaphorically. Thinking back to dozens, scores, hundreds of those awful discussions about food venues, I felt like it helped me understand her just a little bit better.

“May I keep you inside me, master? Please? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

I bopped her with one of the dozen excess pillows littering the empty spaces of the bed and floor. “If I keep indulging you, you’re never going to learn.”

She giggled. What a difference between a womanly giggle like hers and a girlish one like Leigh’s. “Here. Let’s make it fun. Tell me the story again, except this time, from their perspectives. You want to rebuild those relationships? Call it an exercise in cultivating empathy, a little one on one training between boss and master. And while you work on that…” Her hips performed one positively divine rotation. “I’ll work on you. If it pleases you, master.”

“OK,” I agreed after a moment. “But only if you put that nightie back on. That thing was seriously hot.”

She rolled her eyes, but with a toothy grin. “It will take a moment. It’s much easier to take off than to put on – sort of the point, really. But… as my master commands, I obey.”

I’d thought she’d hop off, dress herself, but Ramona opted to comply with my request while she was still impaled on my shaft. She’d have to skip the panties, but I could live with that.

I thought back to last night. “All right. So, Leigh comes into my room while I’m playing the guitar. I jump, since the last person to come into my room was you, last Saturday, but–”

“Focus on her . What was she   feeling.  And skip to the good part.” Ramona sought the sleeves of the nightie, twisting this way and that to insert her arms. It felt divine.

“OK. Right. So… Leigh. Yeah. She’s… You know, that’s really distracting.”

“Apologies, master. Would you prefer I dress without your cock inside me?”

“Point taken.”

Ramona’s brow arched. “It was a serious question, but I suppose I can infer your answer from that. Go on. I’ll be gentle.”

She resumed trying to find the armhole in the maze of gauzy fabric. “All right. So she comes in. She’s feeling sly. Hopeful. Horny. Thinks she’s got me on the ropes, she’s finally going to fuck the forbidden fruit.”

“But instead, you say…”

“Did you want me to skip to the good part or not?”

Ramona genuflected, such as she could riding  my cock.

“OK. So she does like I ask and comes back later with Angel. I’m figuring, she  doesn’t like it, but Leigh’s hounded me harder than most, since Welcome Week. Her anxiousness shows on her face, but she’s still right on time. As for Angel… She’s nervous. She doesn’t know why she’s here yet, but she’s a follower, and her leader said come .”

“I hope my leader says come.” Her attempt at being sexy-cute only lasted a moment before she belted out a rough laugh. “I’m sorry. That was terrible of me. Wykorzystaj swoje   atuty , Ramona . So. You don’t think Angel knew why she’d been brought in?”

“No way. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have been so anxious. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have done what I asked. Leigh, though… She’s uneasy. She’d figured all she had to do was pop in, get dicked, then honor the agreement as much or as little as felt good – what recourse would I have if she blew me off, right? Now that Angel’s there with her, though… I have alternatives. Yeah, she’s confident big-titted gorgeous blonde trumps enormous-titted pretty brunette, but… what if it’s just size? What if Angel sees an opening, cuts in line?

“Which, frankly, is when I decided to pull the trigger. I wasn’t sure I’d want to go for it, not until I saw that chink in Leigh’s armor. It was…” I groaned, and not only at the memory of Leigh nervous at losing my cock to her minion. Ramona had secured the sleeves, and was starting to work her hips. “It was so hot.”

“That’s a turn-on for you, is it, master? Beautiful, confident women made me anxious and obedient?” She smiled knowingly.

It hadn’t been one I’d given much thought to for Ramona, but by now she’d sold me her servility would be a turn-on for pretty much any man. “Lucky for you. So… yeah. The two of them are sitting on my bed. I explain to Angel what Leigh offered. Leigh interrupts me a lot, trying to control the flow of conversation, present  things her way. I think she was even trying to present it as ‘we’re going to restore Spencer’s good name, be the heroes Higgins needs right now’ without mentioning the getting to fuck me part. Guess she does have some shame, after… What? What’s that moan about?”

I hadn’t done anything, just laid in her marital bed like a slug letting my boss try on slutty lingerie for me while she rode my cock. Plenty for me, but I hadn’t expected that sudden squeezing in her pussy.

“No, it’s just… The way you said it.”

“What’d I say?”

“You said ‘getting to fuck me.’ Like it’s a privilege. Like you’re doing her a favor, the same favor you’re doing to me now.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s just extremely arousing to hear you acknowledge what you’ve done to me as a positive.”

I wasn’t sure that’s what I’d done, but if my incidental phrasing worked for her, who was I to argue?

“You’re welcome. So anyway, Leigh, she’s tap-dancing around it, but I can see something in Angel’s eyes. She knows Leigh doesn’t operate like that, doing favors for no reason. She’s also, if I were a betting man, been listening to Leigh masturbate down on the bottom bunk all semester, moaning my name when she comes.”

“So sexy, master.” The strings were resisting her efforts to tie them back together, with her hands shaking like that. “So, you tell her, do me this solid, make me look good to the rest of the floor, and in exchange, Leigh  gets to fuck you.”

I nodded, offering a finger to help hold a knot in place. “Angel, she’s… She’s good at what she does. Her first instinct, anywhere else, is to giggle along with Leigh, spur her boss bitch on–” I felt her tense up. “What?”

“It’s just… I hate that phrase. Such a desperate attempt to rebrand degradation as a badge of honor.” She made a disgusted face.

“My slave prefers her degradation unvarnished? C’mon, it’s just a colloquialism.”

Her eyes narrowed.

Ramona slowly lifted herself off of my shaft, then even slower, crawled backwards, tits swaying beneath her in the translucent black film of her nightgown, until her lips hovered over my cock. She merely regarded it for a moment, so close it made her cross-eyed, as if in reverence of its “overwhelming” size. Her breath was hot, but at the same time cool on my pussy-moistened skin. She licked, once, and once only, making a show of lapping up her wetness. She kissed it, then, kissed it over and over, like a teenage girl practicing before her first big date. Wet and hot and hungry. Something high-pitched, a whine but more assertive, leaked from her lips, and then she was all tongue again, lavishing adoration on me until I very nearly came on the spot. She must have felt my balls tense in her gentle grasp, because then she scaled back to slapping herself with it, in the cheeks, in the nose, the forehead, as if she’d forgotten where her mouth was and wanted to simply pound my cock into her throat right through her face.

Her lips encircled my tip, tongue swirling, lips suckling. My eyes slid close, and I fell prone, helpless.

Then she stopped. Fuck. I craned my neck up, and watched her crawl back toward me, breasts dragging tantalizingly against my bare skin. She lifted herself over my twitching hard cock, holding herself carefully just above it.

“May I, master? Your humble slave begs the opportunity to pleasure you the way her body was designed to.”

I nodded, my blood roaring in my ears.

“Are you sure? Perhaps instead, you would rather call me degrading nicknames.” Her body lowered, but it did so with my penis nestled right along her slit, pulsing against her belly. “Just something to reflect on while you tell your story, master. You were saying, Angel is a follower, and Leigh was her…?”

“Strong, assertive leader…?” Ramona grinned, gave me a nod, and resumed working at the strings of her nightie. “So, yeah. Angel, she’s usually pure unfailing support. A one-woman cheer squad. But here, there’s something she’s actually wanted more. She’s in my den, Spencer effect working its magic I guess, and I can see she’s thinking… ‘What about me?’ Leigh doesn’t notice, but I notice. It’s what I’d hoped for.”

Ramona decided to take a turn at the mind-reading game. “Because Spencer is being strategic, for a change. Manipulative. It doesn’t come naturally, but he’s desperate. He’s hurting. He needs a win, allies. But he’s not all needs. He has wants, too. He’s wanted Leigh since Welcome Week, since he fought over her wet, naked body, rock hard and abashedly proud. He spent all last week expecting to finally get her. Now he can get her back on track.”

She smiled as she tugged the nightie back into place. God, she looked hot in it. So hot I almost didn’t blush at her spot-on assessment.

“Um, right. So I tell Angel, if she agrees to help Leigh, she gets the same offer. Unlike her roommate though, she hadn’t been mulling this over the past few days. Toadying for Barbie has been pretty fun so far this semester. Cool parties, lots of guys, clicks on her socials. The voyeurism of seeing the elite operate up close. Her social potential, for the kind of society she’s been coveting at least, grew in with her tits – so, recently, after being scrawny, skinny, tiny Angel through age sixteen or so. Transitioning to college helped, but Leigh was her foot in the door. Now, though… It’s about her, not Leigh. She’s the one who has to decide something, and the something  is big. It’s… slutty. It’s the kind of thing she spent fall break remembering was kinda fucked up.

“Leigh, though, she’s horny. She’d figured she’d have my dick in her over an hour ago when she first came in to make her deal with me, and she didn’t like being made to wait – especially with the Spencer effect faded from its peak. That suddenly whether or not she gets laid is contingent on Angel, instead of the other way around… Doesn’t sit right, the queen waiting on her handmaiden.”

Ramona planted her hands on my chest and scratched teasingly. “You’re a very good storyteller, Spencer. I’m… engaged.”

“You’re horny because you like fucking your master in your husband’s bed while he’s away. The story’s just a garnish.”

She grinned, nodded. “You’re not wrong. It’s been a long time since I had a proper orgasm in this bed. From a man, anyway.”

I let my hands explore the lacey contours of her lingerie. It was so soft, slick, sexy . “So Angel’s on the fence. She didn’t come to college to trade favors for sex. But this is sex she really  wants. Double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, fucking Leigh’s fantasy guy? Heady as hell. On the other , it’s probably gonna piss her roomie off big-time. Is it worth it?”

“If only someone were prepared to give her a nudge in the right direction.”

I laughed. “So… I gave her a nudge in the right direction.”

“You whipped your cock out.” She shook her head. “A persuasive argument, master.”

“Evidently. I wasn’t at my, you know, fullest, or whatever. But they didn’t care. Leigh saw her opening – for the first time in months, there it is, out in the open where she can see it. This time, no psycho getting  in her way. In seconds, she’s egging Angel on, but in that way she has where Angel caving is a foregone conclusion. She figures Angel’s in her pocket like Snooki’s dog is in her purse.”

Ramona paused her rocking. “Snooki…? Is that a person?”

“What? Jersey Shore ? Not advocating for it, but how could you possibly not have heard of Snooki? My grandma knows the name Snooki.”

“Immigrant, Spencer.” She grimaced. “Sorry, I meant ‘immigrant, master .’”

I gave her ass a playful swat. “If you’re going to remind me about your immigrant status, it’s going to be way less comfortable for me to treat you like a slave. That’s some seriously–”

“Perhaps we’d best return to the story, master? I’ll be good to you from now on, I promise.” At last, she mounted me properly. I slid in like a spoon in soup, no resistance at all. I had to hand it to the fashion designers; her body really did move hotter in that outfit.

“All right. So Angel’s still nervous. She asks, ‘You mean, right now?’ ‘Yep,’ I reply . ‘Like… both of us?’ ‘Yep again.’ ‘Together? At the same time?’ ‘Yep.’ She’s struggling. She wants it, but not like she did back on massage night. It’s a consideration now, not a dream come true. Honestly, I was struggling too. One thing to throw  in the towel and give my ladies what they’re begging for, but I don’t want to coerce folks who don’t want it.”

“Like the time you dribbled your semen in my coffee?” She smiled, caressed my nipples. “How unnecessary that turned out to be.”

(Oh yeah, Janis! Hm, I ought to check in on her sometime.)

“I’m doing the best I can, OK? Ugh, sorry, I know you weren’t accusing. So yeah, I’m sensing her hesitation, so I come over and sit down between them and tell her if she doesn’t want to, it’s fine. Nobody’s going to pressure her into anything. Say no, and I’ll apologize for misreading her interest, send her on her way with warm regards. If she still wants to help me out, but no sex, great; if she’d rather not, I understand.”

Ramona’s eyes slid shut as usual when she was nearing climax; I paused the story, focused on her needs for a moment. I pulled her body down against mine, kissed her, ran my fingers sweetly across her back.

“I’m going to make you come right here in your husband’s bed,” I whispered. “Then I’m going to come on your face and have you wipe it on his pillow. Let him know his wife belongs to me now.”

Her back arched as she spasmed through one of the most explosive orgasms I’d yet seen her have – and that was not a small number. She gasped, then babbled through gritted teeth. “Oh thank you master thank you master fuck me master I’m coming master fuck me master fuck me fuck me fuck me master I’m coming I’m coming I’m coming masterrrRRRRR!” Two handfuls of my boss’s ass let me rock her slight body on me, lifting and pounding her back down. It was a workout, especially when she kept on coming. I didn’t let up until I couldn’t help but join her. So much for the facial. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Soon she collapsed on top of me, the two of us panting giddily, our sweat commingling. Only hers wasn’t laced with addictive sex chemicals.

I hoped, as I did whenever I remembered in the act what I was doing to these women, that it was worth it. It sure felt like she deemed it was.

“Tell me about how you fucked them, master. Tell me everything you felt them feeling,” she murmured, stroking my hair, resting her cheek on my chest. I was still inside her. She knew how to work her pussy too well to let me go soft on her.

“I meant what I told Angel,” I insisted first. “I did. I think I knew she wanted it, that she’d be happier if she did it, but I made sure to leave her an out . Leigh was upset – she didn’t want to share, especially not on equal footing with her own subordinate – but she still wanted it. Angel, though, she wasn’t…

“So Leigh begged. Took Angel’s hand and wrapped it around my cock, begged  her to say yes. That was really all it took, getting to hear her leader, her hero, turn to her with all the need and desperation for a Yes that Angel had given her a dozen times. The cock probably didn’t hurt her pleading, but it was Leigh, the chance to have power over her, that did her in.

“Angel caved. I’d sort of expected her to just start making out with me or something, maybe go right for the cock, but instead she got verbal. Wanted to hash out play dates – that probably felt safer than diving headfirst into a threesome with her roommate and her RA. So instead I kissed her.

“She was nervous, at first. Tense. I turned my back to Leigh and worked on relaxing her. Slow touches, over the clothes. It didn’t take long for her to get into it. We didn’t even notice Leigh taking her clothes off, but once we saw she was picking up the pace, it was on. Leigh forced her tits in my face, and by the time she let me breathe again, Angel’s were out, too. Along with the rest, but with those things out… Damn.

“There was this amazing moment. Like, when Leigh cut in, some of the tension returned. But when she saw my jaw hitting the floor at the sight of her naked body, this little smirk. One of those moments where I could tell she’d remember this. Maybe forever, even if it won’t be a story she’ll be able to share much. I think Leigh saw it too, because she threw her lips at mine then, tried  to refocus me, but that time Angel was there, too. Lots and lots of tongue, hands.

“It was Angel who started the blowjob, I remember. Leigh was moaning, theatrically I think. She needed to get my attention back on her, was  afraid she was losing me to those whoppers. And she was. You should’ve seen them. Biggest boobs I’ve ever seen. As big as her head. All natural. Her arealoe were so big I couldn’t even fit them in my mouth.

“But with Angel down there sucking my cock, all the sexy moaning in the world can’t compete with that. Leigh followed her down, so there I am, sitting on the edge of my bed, while my two insanely busty next door neighbors are competing to see who can keep my cock in their mouth the longest before their roomie snatches it away. Leigh was almost feisty about it. My dick was supposed to be hers , damn it. This whole thing had been her idea. Angel, though, she took it because every time it went into her mouth was validating. It said that she could get the prize cock as much as the classic gorgeous busty blonde Barbie girl.

“‘Use your tits,’ I told them. I didn’t even know what I meant by it, really, but that much boobage, it was all I could think about. I don’t think they really knew, either. Easy to forget sometimes that even though my Hotties could have their pick of most of the guys at Lakeview, or anywhere, they’re still pretty inexperienced.”

Ramona’s sighed  fondly. “They won’t be for much longer, master.”

“No, I guess not. But it became this kind of weird boob-mashing thing. Angel tried to put me between hers, I think, but Leigh felt like if I got to tit-fucking her roommate, I’d never stop. I could tell she felt weird about it at first, mushing her tits against another woman’s, but they’d already been sucking one another’s spit off my dick, so what was a little boob on boob contact. Angel was loving it, watching Leigh try to compete with her. I guess I was, too, though I tried not to show it. Anyway, it might not have felt as amazing as the blowjob. Kinda clumsy? Not that I’m judging – that stuff probably takes practice. But it looked hot as hell, which is all it was really for.

“So then I told Angel I wanted them in my hands, in my mouth, and that was all it took for her to climb aboard. She still had her panties on, which I hadn’t even noticed before then. They were the only thing keeping me from going inside her. I could sense a little nervousness returning, though, so I stopped and asked if she was feeling it.

“‘I’m a virgin,’ she told me. She was pretty embarrassed, I think. She’d been keeping up, slut for slut, but suddenly there’s an admission to be made. Leigh full on gasped . Evidently Angel had spun a few yarns to the contrary, which she promptly accused her of. Angel only got more embarrassed, though. Said something like, ‘I didn’t want you to think I was some loser who didn’t know anything about guys. Then once we got to be friends, I felt stupid going back and telling you I made it up.’

“‘Yeah, well, he wants somebody who knows how to use her pussy. Watch and learn!’” (Not my best Leigh impression, but Ramona was starting to squirm a little again; her pussy was distracted enough for her not to make fun of me.) “But I wasn’t about to let Leigh shame her like that. Angel took a risk, so I wanted to protect her, you know?”

“I know, master.”

“So I told Leigh to wait her turn, and focused all my attention on Angel. Mid-threesome isn’t the best time for speechifying, I know, but I made sure to tell her I was glad she felt safe sharing, that there was nothing wrong with it, that if she didn’t want to keep going she didn’t have to. If she did, I’d love to be her first and I’d do my best to make it fun, but if not, totally fine.

“Leigh decided it for her, but not the way she meant to. Her whole ‘yeah Angel, you don’t wanna punch your v-card in some random hookup with your RA, do you?’ thing didn’t land. The chance to defy Leigh was what sold her. I remember when she pulled her panties off, she was all, ‘I didn’t shave this thing for nothing.’ Ya know, I don’t know who’s out there telling girls they need to wax their pubes to turn guys on, but for a virgin who wasn’t expecting to have sex any time soon…”

“You’d like me to stop shaving, master? Only my pizda , or the legs and armpits too?”

I frowned. “I mean, it’s your body, so…”

But she rolled her eyes, tapped my nose, and rose back up to display herself as the vision she was. “Teasing, master. Now show me it’s your  body, and keep going to the funny part.”

It was hard to feel master-ish when I was lying there letting her do all the work, so I stood her up and bent her over her bed. His bed, technically. I propped one knee up on the bed, too, and planted my feet between hers. It was a good pose, one I had to credit to Marisa. With my cock back inside her, my weight resting on one hand on her lower back and the other planted behind her raised knee, she was helpless. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even fuck me back. She could only lie there as I did as I pleased. Which I did.

“Leigh warned me Angel might bleed everywhere when I busted her cherry, but Angel said she’d done that years ago on accident  with a tampon. Not that I would have cared. I let her climb on top so she could control the pace, stay in her comfort zone. Bonus, it put those jugs of hers where I could play.

“Leigh was getting desperate. She’d been sidelined in the threesome she’d fought for. ‘What about me?’ she asked. Very direct, I even thought at the time. It was a fair question – Angel had my cock, my hands, my mouth. I wasn’t even trying to be a jerk about it or anything, but I just gave the first suggestion that came to mind. ‘Why don’t you get down there and use your tongue?’

“‘On your cock, while it’s inside her?!’ She didn’t like that. I told her she’d get a turn when we were done, relax, but seeing Angel get picked first at gym class really riled her. Before I knew it, she was kneeling beside the bed, licking my balls, my cock, and probably a good amount of Angel’s pussy and ass. It was… insane. 10/10 can recommend. It was like having sex and getting a blowjob at the same time.”

Ramona was gripping the sheets, fingers clenching and pulling. “That’s what it was , master. Do you think you’d like to do that at a staff meeting someday? Put one of your ex-girlfriends on her knees to lick my ass while you fuck it?”

I could have come right there. Instead, I went on with my story, which didn’t help all that much. “Um, so yeah, Leigh meant to show me she could be a team player, act humble, see if it panned out for her like it had for Angel. Only now I was so delirious with pleasure overload, I was fucking Angel as hard as I felt safe doing. Every time I checked, though, she said it was great, keep going, don’t stop. I’m not proud of it, but I came a lot faster than I meant to. Before she did, which… blech.

“‘My turn!’ yelled Leigh as she tasted me leaking out of Angel. But I wasn’t about to let her first time be three minutes of riding me until I came and tagged Leigh into the arena for round two. Plus, like I said, seeing Leigh have to work for it was doing it for me. So I told her to wait her turn, keep doing what she was doing while I made sure Angel was good and taken care of.

“I think her breaking point was when Angel turned and asked if she would lick her ass while she was back there. For a first-timer at sex, much less threesomes, it was… Wow. Ballsy. Leigh… She was pissed . But I didn’t say no. Also pretty ballsy. Leigh’s tongue in her, it kicked Angel into overdrive, and I swear, this sneaky little smile on her face as her roommate ate her ass… I think it was the power more   than  the tongue. And for me, seeing the power Angel was holding over Leigh, and then the power I  was holding over Angel…”

I picked up my pace. Ramona let out little grunts with each harsh thrust. She was pulling each handful of bedding in opposite directions with force like she was trying to restrain a wild horse.

“I’ll make it up to her, I promise. But last night, Leigh… Geez. I can’t imagine. Going down on Angel like that, her own pussy neglected, her own amazing tits ignored, her faithful sycophant cucking her without warning as my cum dribbled out of her pussy and down Leigh’s chin, right down onto her tits… I hadn’t planned it to go that way. I don’t think I could have. But when I came in Angel  again, this time after delivering adequate pleasure in return, the timing of it…”

Ramona groaned. I heard something rip. “Go on. What was she thinking, master. What was she feeling.  Don’t stop. Nie przestawaj . Please.”

“Right. I mean, in my defense, I only wanted to make her a little jealous. You know? When she went back to Price, at first I was like ‘oh well, I still have a floor full of Hotties,’ you know? Only then I didn’t, and I guess… I don’t know. It was juvenile, but–”

“ Her  feelings, master.”

“Yeah. OK. So I’d turned the walkie off – didn’t want to have to explain to Angel and Leigh why I was ignoring another RA trying to summon me for rounds. I’d already dodged her at check-in, so she was getting antsy, feeling the awkwardness. And yes, I know, you warned us. Anyway, when I didn’t show a second  time, I guess she figured it’d be less weird to just start rounds without me, knock  at my door when she got to 3. I’d thought, depending on how negotiations went with Angel, I’d at least have Leigh there, let her wonder if the girl she’d caught trying to fuck me, twice, was cashing in on my loneliness.

“No way could I have planned for her to be standing in the hall when Leigh started yelling, ‘It’s my turn now! Give it to me!’ and Angel, power tripping, ‘I want another one first! You can play with my titties some more too, if you want, Spencer!’”

Even as she shredded her husband’s sheets with the power of her orgasm, Ramona laughed. Far too much Vickie in her at times. I was inches away myself, but I wanted to finish before I finished.

“I don’t know how long she’d been out there listening. But it was Tori who let me know she was out there, funnily enough. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s in there having himself a pity party with his guitar, lady . Go on in if  you want.’ Movie night had let out, and folks were heading back to their rooms. Tori had mistimed things, though, hadn’t heard what was happening in there .

“For Savannah… I honestly don’t know what she was thinking. Not sure who opened the door, either, but I’m ninety percent sure it wasn’t her. Guess somebody thought it’d be funny. Maybe Tori. But…” I grunted, pounding as deep into my boss’s cunt as I could go, and came. It barely interrupted the conclusion of the story. “If I had to assess that wide-eyed stare on her face when the door swung open and there I was, throwing a sheet over myself as Angel and Leigh lit into each other about whose turn it was to have a go at me…?”

“Envy?” suggested Ramona, the air sliding smoothly out of her in a blissful sigh as my cum dribbled smoothly onto the carpet. Right where her husband’s feet would land when he rolled out of bed. Jesus.

“Disappointment, I was going to say.”

Ramona curled around so she could look at me. “And you don’t see why that’s funny?”

Chapter Five: Emergency Response

“So you don’t miss it, like, at all…?”

Vickie held the door to her floor for me as we made our way through our first set of rounds. “Well… I mean…”

I grinned. “Yeah?”

“I mean, it was  pretty good.”

“Right? You were amazing. Best of the best, for sure.”

We hit the split; Vickie peered quickly into the restroom, perfunctorily, distractedly. She looked back and said in a small voice. “Vickie wouldn’t mind a quickie.”

“Seriously? You mean… seriously?”

Then I was being flicked in the  forehead. “Ow!”

“No, not seriously. You have such a one track mind. Half a track.”

We went our separate ways around the dual halls and rendezvoused on the far side. Another glance in the second restroom. “Unlike some people, I don’t do the whole catch and release, catch again, release again thing.”

I tried not to look like I was pouting. “I guess I can be glad of that, at least.”

“Can you? I feel like I just heard somebody low-key begging me for a lay.”

“I wasn’t begging . I was only observing that you and I had some good times.”

We hit the stairwell, headed for Higgins 1. “Spencer, we had sex like… four times?”

“Six. At least it felt like six.”

“Sure, let’s go with six then. And you were good! Nice body, great cock, high energy. But you’re clingy. You get attached.”

“What’s wrong with being attached to someone you like being with?”

Vickie responded like she had a prewritten list waiting for the question. She counted off her reasons on her fingers. “We’re coworkers; you’re four years older than me, which means I was 11 when you were losing your virginity; you’re graduating in the spring; I’m bad at commitment; you fucked, what, five other women while we were hooking up…” Her count spilled over to her other hand, but really, that one digit probably summed it up for her. “Oh, and you’re in love with Savannah.” Vickie shrugged, holding the door to Carmen’s floor. “Pick one.”

“It wasn’t five,” I grumbled.

“Was it six? Because it felt like six.”

I paused to re-hang a flier that had been partially torn down from Carmen’s bulletin board. “And I’m not in love with her. I like her, but I don’t like that she’s dumped me for that loser Price now twice.”

“Nothing says loser like hooking up with Savannah Grey.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Bah. I could hook up with Savannah any time I wanted. I’m that good.”

After our rendezvous on the Higgins 1 split, she called back from the bathroom, “You know, Carmen’s in. If you’re looking to bang a cute RA. Weird type to have, but we all got our kinks.”

“Do you think it’s nice to be saying stuff like that in the open? I can hear one of the showers running.”

“Two showers, plus two closed stalls. But you said no, right, so where’s the gossip?”

I frowned. “Are you mad at me for something?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

We started up the stairs to Higgins 2. “That’s not a no.”

“You really want me to shoot you down twice? You could at least wait for midnight rounds. Pace yourself.”

“I’m serious. You said you didn’t want anything serious, same as me. So what did I do wrong?”

“Why do you even want to talk about it? You got to have amazing sex with an amazing girl. I had some good sex with a good guy.”

“Why was my sex ‘amazing’ and yours was only ‘good?’ It was the same sex.”

“If a girl gives you an amazing blowjob, did you both have an amazing time?”

“Fair.” I still didn’t like the implication that I’d done her wrong, but she apparently wasn’t interested in discussing it. Sometimes that’s how it was.

We finished the rest of our 10:00 rounds in relative silence. I told her I’d meet her at the center desk for closing at midnight, and headed back to my room.

It was quiet. This hour on a Saturday, the Hotties had places to be. Girls like mine got more than the normal share of party invites. Plus, ever since fall break, the doors had been a lot less open than they used to be. Before, it had gotten to the point where half the doors on the floor stayed at least cracked open even if somebody was changing inside. Now, doors opened to permit passage in and out. We may as well have been another Rowlands 6. Ugh. I could hear signs of inhabitancy. Someone talking in Katrina’s room, TV in Jean and Andi’s, music from Casey and Nikki’s. In my own room, though, it was all too quiet.

An extrovert like myself didn’t fare well in silence and solitude. Plus, I was horny. I tapped softly next door at Leigh and Angel’s room. No answer. I wasn’t about to put Charlie in an awkward position of being seen with the untouchable after she’d stuck her neck out for me. Even if I felt like risking blowing our cover as concerned  overseer and on-the-ropes employee, Ramona was spending the weekend at her house, packing and conducting inventory per her divorce lawyer’s counsel.

The music from next door got me thinking. Or maybe I was just bored and antsy. I’d been meaning to force a dialogue with Casey for a while now, so if that was her in there making that racket, maybe this was my chance. I knocked and announced myself.

Still nothing, not even another irate and profane shout. So much for interventions.

I was weeks ahead on my  class work. Unlike Rowland, Higgins didn’t have a fitness room where I could burn some energy. My fingers were sore from over-doing it on the guitar, and my mediocre ability had even begun to annoy me. I tried video games, but couldn’t sit still. I even called my dad just to talk, but there was no answer. Apparently even my parents had more of a life than me.

Was it really possible to grow so accustomed to constant sex that a single day without it could make me this stir-crazy?

The wait for midnight felt like a year. Vanessa was primary; she’d already done most of the work of shutting down the center desk before I arrived. We double-checked the loading dock doors and the computer lab, and then Vanessa went to her room for the night while Vickie and I resumed another set of awkward rounds.

“Let me make just one more pitch,” I said after two flights of tedium.

“Oh man, desperation is a major turn-on for me. I can’t wait. Hit me with it, Daddy.”

“I think you want this as much as I do.”

“I do? Grand Vizier over here, reading my mind. Do go on.”

“Be sarcastic if you want, but I think the sex was amazing for you, too. We had good chemistry. You get to be the sexy, impish vixen, making the cute guy with all the random floozies swarming him for attention drool over her and only her. You get to ride that D knowing a certain downstairs neighbor knew who and what that was pounding on her ceiling. And me? I get… well , I get  Vickie. That’s win/win all the way, right?”

There was a pause in her banter. Vickie never lacked for a witty rejoinder; something must have gotten through. “You were fun,” she said at last. “And it’s fun, making that walking airbrush suck off my leftovers. I ain’t the sort who needs a morale boost, typically, but… Sure. I’ll grant, that   was  good times.”

“Right? I mean, not as stoked about the Savannah part, but it didn’t cost me anything to let you thumb your nose at her.”

We were nearing Savannah’s room. A light was just visible under the door. Was Price over? Was she in there now, sexting him? Or was she doing her laundry, wishing she had someone to…

Damn it.

To my surprise, Vickie had the grace to lower her voice. “Didn’t it?”

I waited until we were at the far end near the laundry room. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I screwed that up in a lot of ways. But so did she.”

“Oh?”

“We had chemistry. I’ll be honest, you’re definitely better in bed. But she and I had a connection. We could’ve been… I don’t know. There was potential. But no, she’d rather coast on some dude six zip codes away because… I guess it’s a habit by now, taking him back.”

“Mm.”

“I mean, we had these moments where… Have you ever been to the gazebo, by Salmins Hall?”

“To it? I mean, I’ve seen it. I didn’t know until right now you were even allowed to go in it.”

“Why wouldn’t you be allowed to go in it? It’s outdoors.”

“Do you want to debate gazebo protocols, or did  you want to keep mooning over your ex.”

“No, just, we had this date, and we ended there, and she followed me in – across the grass! Which I guess sounds crazy, but she has this thing about walking on grass. I told her I’d carry her, but she thought I was kidding, I think. But we sat there and it was just one of those perfect moments, you know? I bet you she never had anything like that with that fuckwad Price .” I sneered.

“Probably not. Sounds really special.”

“It was. It was!  And now my Hotties hate me, and she dumped me, and you’d rather toy with me than give me a straight answer…”

“Do you seriously want to go back to my room and have insane, meaningless Vickie sex?”

I tripped, and in about the worst place. I only barely caught myself on a stair in front of me, except I pushed off too hard and stumbled back down to the landing and crashed into the wall. Vickie smirked down at me. This was one she’d remember.

I cleared my throat, acting like it was nothing as I rejoined her on the stairs. “I absolutely do.”

“How about right now?”

“I mean… yes? If you’re serious. I’m game, right now. Sure.”

Vickie beckoned. “OK then. Come with me.”

Holy crap, that worked. How could that possibly have worked?! It felt like I’d been whining about Savannah, not seducing Vickie. I wasn’t about to question it, though. I followed Vickie’s sweet swaying ass down the hallway of Higgins Ground and straight to her room. Vickie sex. Sex with Vickie. Vickie wants my dicky. Hot damn!

She was turning her key in the lock when our walkies squawked out Vanessa’s voice in unison. “Primary to secondaries.” She was speaking quickly. Shit! Damned interruptions!

I answered while Vickie opened her door. “Go, primary.” And make it good.

We entered her room. I prayed whatever it was could wait. “We have a situation on Higgins 3? I think you better get up there. Fast.”

I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. They were talking really fast, and there was  a bunch of them, I think. But they sounded upset. Seriously.”

“Great. I wonder what Tori’s got them ready to riot over now.” I sighed, then hit the button and responded, “Secondaries en route.”

I walked faster than usual. Not much, but enough that I could pass a lie detector if they asked me if I hurried. Had I pissed in the wrong bathroom? Knocked on a door without prior authorization? Was she tearing out the urinals? Maybe the chastity belt she’d ordered for me had finally arrived in the mail. Vickie looked more concerned than I was, which I took as a good sign that she was less in the loop about how shitty things had been on my home front this past week.

I heard pounding before we opened the door to Higgins 3, but when it did open, there were voices, too. One of them was yelling my name – must be my door being pounded on. The other voices were a cacophony of what I immediately recognized as raw, unbridled panic.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh

I ran. At the split, I went toward my room, where Andi was beating down my door with a fervor. “SPENCER! SPENCER, WAKE UP! SPEN–” She at last saw me approaching from the side. “Oh thank god! Hurry!”

She ran, and I followed on her heels. Around the bend, at the entrance to the “men’s” bathroom, I could hear a shower running back there. Gazing around, the steam was heavy in the air on account of the shower stall door being wide open. There were more girls gathered in the bathroom: Dawn, Jo, Tori and an unidentifiable triplet. The four of them were pointing at the shower and babbling over one another in a panic.

I peered into the stall, where I saw a fifth.

Casey.

She was on the floor, face down, her limbs sprawled in disarray. A pool of vomit had formed near her mouth. She was clothed like she’d been in bed, and those clothes were soaked. Her eyes were open, but rolled back so far into her head it hurt to look at them.

I pushed through the girls and knelt down beside her, checking for a pulse. “What the hell happened?!”

“Oh thank god!” cried Dawn.

Even Tori looked relieved to see me. “We – Maddison – found her like this. She tried to get you, but you weren’t in so she got me. Nikki wasn’t in – I don’t think anybody knows how she wound up here.”

A heartbeat. Racing. Not great, but better than the alternative. I put my hand in front of her face to check for air. Fuck. Oh fuck. “Vickie, we need paramedics. Can you handle that?”

Vickie was staring, wide-eyed. The closest thing she’d handled to an emergency this year had been two girls having an ironic shouting match about quiet hours in their room. I snapped my fingers. “VICKIE!”

She blinked, snapping out of it. Her walkie was at the ready. “Primary, we need an ambulance, right now…”

She was backing out around the corner away from the chatter, girls speculating and suggesting and panicking. I ignored it. Deep breath. What the hell came first. Right, look for danger. Nada. Good. I made to roll  her onto her back, but remembered the next step just in time. She’d already puked, and there was probably more in there. On her back, she could well have choked. Choked worse, that is. She didn’t need CPR, I didn’t think. No, this was asphyxiation.

God, I hoped I was right. The body wanted to breathe; it would resume doing so as soon as the airway was cleared. It was a lot less resilient when it came to restarting the heart.

No time to be squeamish. I swept two fingers in her mouth, scooping out whatever slime and chunks I could find. More than a little. A pill capsule in there, I noted. Fuck. Satisfied it was as clear as I could make it, I lifted her up with an arm around her waist. She wasn’t a big girl, but she was still heavy. “Tori, help me hold her?”

Our governor was at my side in a blink, and followed directions about how to help hold Casey up. I needed her on her feet, but bent double. Gravity would help me expel anything in her windpipe. Once she was as good as we could get her, I slammed the heel of my hand down between her shoulder blades.

Again.

Again.

On the fourth blow, I was finally rewarded with a spasm. On the fifth, she finally coughed, a wet, heavy cough, and finally out came the vomit. There wasn’t much, but then, the lungs weren’t designed to hold liquid. Her stomach was, though, and a moment later it joined in. Andi was crouching there beside us, telling Casey she was going to be OK, let it all out. Dawn and Maddison watched in silent horror. I thought I heard someone else arriving, but I was focused.

Vickie returned while we were still coaxing the rest out of her. There were more pills in that puddle. Pills, and from the smell, more vodka than any one person ought to have drank in a week. Fuck.

“Vanessa’s coordinating it,” she notified me briskly.

I considered what I knew about Vanessa. “You trust her to handle it?”

Vickie nodded. “She’s got it. 911, then campus police, then Ramona. She’s handling it.”

“Good. Do us a favor and clear the room?” That was it. Casey was breathing now, alternating between gasping, wheezing, and breaths so small I was worried she’d stop again. Plus I’d only just noticed that there was a bloodstain blooming beneath her cap, probably from where her head hit the ground when she’d passed out. Oh fuck oh fuck fuck fuck!

“Stay with me Casey. Stay with me.” Now that she was breathing, Tori and I helped lower her back to the ground, away from the puddle.

“Spence… Spencer?” she murmured. If it hadn’t been my own name, I doubt I would have understood her.

I smiled, rubbing her back. “That’s right. The devil Ra himself.”

“Not… Not so  bad…” Her eyes fluttered and fell shut.

I shook my head, trying to goad her. Anything to keep her talking, keep her awake. “No, I’m the worst. Remember? I made you cheat, ruined your life. Remember? C’mon Casey, yell at me. Tell me what an asshole I am. Bonus points if it’s in knock-knock joke form.”

She tried to say something, but between her state, the shower, Vickie doing crowd control, and the gathering crowd itself, there was no making it out. “That’s right. Keep talking. Help’s on the way, but you need to stay awake, OK? Stay awake. Please, please stay awake, Casey. Come on.”

Half of a grin attempted to assert itself. “Since y’asked  suh nice…” But it faded immediately.

I didn’t dare peer under the cap. Right now it was helping stanch  the wound. My medical training extended to what I’d done so far and fuck-all else, so there was nothing to be gained by my inspecting it.

“Tori, you need to go down to the circle drive and wait for the EMTs. OK? Bring them up here, make sure they know she can’t walk.” Tori was staring at her floormate, aghast. “TORI.”

She shook herself, then nodded and ran off without a word. A moment later I remembered it was going on midnight  and Tori had been in the bathroom, so I dispatched Andi behind her with a reminder to make sure she had her keycard with her to get back in.

Casey had stopped responding altogether by the time they arrived. I was sobbing, blubbering out attempts to get her to respond. As it was, a fresh round of tears was dripping onto her face along with the smears of puke and trickles of blood. That red spot was getting bigger by the second. I got myself out of the way and let the professionals do their thing. In moments, they’d intubated her and loaded the body – loaded Casey  – onto a stretcher.

Half the floor was there, some still dressed up for whatever parties they’d returned from, but most looked like they’d been in bed or on their way there. The EMTs hadn’t spared any time explaining things to me, so I didn’t have much to share. “They’re taking her to the hospital, everybody. I’m going with. When I know something, I’ll be in touch. If you pray, pray.”

Andi spoke up, her tiny voice penetrating the susurrus. “Is Casey going to live?”

God, I hoped so. She looked horrible. Pale, slack-jawed, saturated in all of the body’s worst fluids. I put my hands firmly, confidently on Andi’s shoulders. “Hell yes she is.”

I paused by Vickie. “I have to–”

She nodded. “Yeah. Go.”

“Try to round them up, put them in the lounge and keep them calm? Easy to go crazy when–”

“I got this. Seriously, go.” Her turn to fake confidence with hands on shoulders, and then she shoved me in the direction Casey had been wheeled out.

************************************************

Naturally they wouldn’t let me ride with them in the ambulance, so after asking Nikki to let me into their room to get a change of clothes for when Casey woke up, which we assured each other she would, I hopped in my car and tried to remember not to let my emotions make me do anything too stupid. Stop for yellow lights, signal when turning. Deep breaths. At the hospital I ran into the emergency room, where I was quietly but firmly told to calm down, take a seat, and wait. I wasn’t family, so I’d learn something when Casey was alert enough to ask for me.

Assuming she ever became alert enough, the receptionist left unsaid.

I took a seat. To think, an hour ago I’d felt like I was going crazy because I hadn’t gotten to come since the night before when Leigh collected her end of our bargain. This kind of waiting, a minute was  a year.

Ramona called a little before one. She’d already gotten most of the information already, but after I brought her up to speed, she talked me down to the extent anyone could. She’d been drinking – cleaning out a couple of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s favorite bottles of wine – so she was in no state to drive. She’d called Casey’s mom at least, and let her know what was going on. I told her not to bother getting a ride over, but the offer was appreciated.

Around two, I asked the receptionist if there were any updates on Casey’s condition, and was again told that I wasn’t going to be told anything.

At three, Vickie texted me that she’d sent my girls to bed, made sure everybody had a buddy who wanted one. I asked her to check specifically on Nikki and Lex, and she promised she would.

I was sound asleep, slumped over in the crappy uncomfortable ER chair ignoring the looping ads for medications I didn’t need, when someone tapped my shoulder. I shot awake in an instant.

“Buh?” Well, mostly awake.

A nurse was standing over me, his scrubs bright pink. “You’re Spencer? Spencer… Ra?”

“Spencer Lawrence. I’m her RA.”

The man smiled. “Casey’s awake.”

“Oh thank god. Is she OK?”

“She’s asking for you. It was the first thing she said, your name.”

Was that good? Bad? “Can I see her?”

The nurse escorted me upstairs to her room. He didn’t provide me anything by way of details except that he stressed three separate times to keep her calm and still.

It was dim in her room, the sun only teasing its arrival out the window and a single tiny light in the corner. Casey was in a pale blue hospital gown, and a large white gauze pad was fixed to the top of her forehead near her hairline. Her eyes were open, and they swiveled slowly toward me as I entered.

“You forgot this,” I said, holding out her cap. I’d washed out what blood I could in the bathroom downstairs, but it would probably need replacing, not laundering. “Can’t have much of a shot of a full recovery without your soul, you know.”

“Spencer,” she said. Just that.

I placed her ski cap gently onto her chest. I could see she wasn’t up to moving her head much, so I stayed standing so that she could see me. “I’m so, so sorry this happened, Casey. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you’re awake. How are you? Are you OK?”

She attempted a smile. It looked like the effort took a fair amount out of her. “Better now, homie.”

“I want you to know, I’ve felt awful over what happened. I tried to apologize so many times, and I let you push me away. I wish I’d just…” I shook my head. “So, you know, now that you look too weak to fend me off…”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she murmured.

God, it felt good to see that lopsided smile again. Her hand lifted, if slightly, and I took it in mine, pressed my lips to the back of it. “I’m sorry I put you in that position, Casey. This apology is long overdue, but… I’m so sorry. I knew what I was doing and I did it anyway. I believed what I wanted to believe, and it was selfish and cruel and I’m so, so sorry I hurt you. You’re one of my very favorite people.”

Her voice was a whisper, and barely that. “Spencer?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I made myself smile. It wasn’t easy.

“Whip it out?”

And suddenly, it was. I laughed. “Oh my god, you are incorrigible.”

“Whip it out.”

I stroked her mussed hair, careful to avoid the bandage. “Nobody here to chant it with you, hon. Sorry.”

Her grip tightened, though it was still weak. “Please? Whip it out. Fuck me? Fuck me. Fuck me, Spencer.”

“Um, pretty sure you’re supposed to be resting, Casey. We can talk about it when we get back home, if you still want to. Whatever you want.”

Casey tugged. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to pull me closer or to extricate her hand. I assumed the latter and let her go. Sure enough, she rolled away from me. Rejection still stung even when–

Casey tossed her sheets aside. The back of her hospital gown was split wide. There was her ass, scooting toward my side of the bed. Her slit, plainly visible through the gap.

It was the juiciest pussy I’d ever seen. For a moment, I thought she might have had an accident, but I knew the sight of those puffy, swollen labia too well. A thin trickle of moisture dribbled out while I watched.

“Please. Whip it out. Fuck me. I’ll rest. Be so good. Won’t move. Do anything you want. Anything. Every thing. Do it all. Fuck me.”

The scent of her hit me. For a girl I’d found in a puddle of blood and puke not so long ago, there was no trace of that now. They’d cleaned her up good . Now, there was only willing , eager, desperate girl.

She slipped a hand between her thighs, started toying with herself. “Ready. I’m sorry. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me, Spencer. I need it. Need you. Sorry. Just please. Promise I won’t move.”

I chuckled nervously. What was she playing at? “I really only stuck around to give you your hat back,” I said with a little chuckle. An unpleasant habit I’d picked up from my dad, that, resorting to humor to deflect uncomfortable situations.

“My soul,” she breathed, inhaling a deep whiff of the blood-stained orange ski cap. “She escaped. Need… Need a new one. Put one in me. I need you. Need it. Please. Fuck me whole.” Or had that been “fuck my hole?” She was facing away from me and talking into a hat. Talking like a fucking crazy person.

“Casey, you’ve had a heck of a night. Come on, why don’t you–”

“Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me fuckmefuckmefuckme  oh fucking shit fuck me…”

On and on she went. She wasn’t getting riled up about it or anything, just murmuring, as if to herself. Whatever she’d taken must’ve been one hell of a drug. I stood there, staring, no idea what to do. I couldn’t exactly fetch a nurse for this, could I? Or should I? What was the medical protocol for a volcanic eruption of horniness?

I made my way to the other side of the bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Tears were leaking out. Shit. I crouched down, brushed her hair out of her face, carefully avoided that giant bandage. “I think I’m making things worse, so I’m gonna head out in a minute. Is there anything I can get for you before I go? Some water? A little jello? Whatever you want. Besides, you know…”

Her eyes slid open like it took effort, and from the tears that burst forth, no wonder. They’d been a dam, holding back the river. “TOMMY!” she moaned, this time with real volume. “I destroyed him. I was all he ever wanted! I could have just broken it off but I was such a stupid, stupid fucking stupid bitch, I took his little heart and I smashed it into nothing so I could get my rocks off. Stupid, stupid fucking slut bitch, stupid!” Her piteous sobs made her almost impossible to understand, but aside from poor Tommy, I was the next best-suited person to make sense of it. I wish I wasn’t.

I took her hand again, but there was no stopping her. If I’d tried to butt in, she’d have kept on berating herself over me, so I just let her get it out. “Was so.. cute . Wholesome, lovely, sweet, pure. My lil Tommy bear. And I broke him. Now… ruined.” She sniffled, then coughed up some snot. “Bitter and dark and empty and ragey, ‘ nother  broken asshole, black hole in his heart. All ‘cause I’m a stupid slut bitch.”

She was crying so hard I could barely understand her. I squeezed that hand hard, and she crushed mine right back. “Shhh, Casey. It’s OK. Getting dumped hurts. Believe me, I know. It’s all going to be–”

“Didn’t get dumped,” she blubbered. “I dumped my Tommy! Would’ve kept me even after I… after we..” She shook her head so vigorously that some of her tears flipped out and spattered on me. “Sweet lil Tommy bear, all his stuffing ripped out…”

Hold on. She dumped him? All week long, I’d been excoriated over getting her dumped by her one true love, but Casey had dumped him?

No. As I felt that surge of indignation rise up, I choked it back down. It didn’t matter. I’d been wrong either way, and right now, my feelings weren’t the ones that mattered. “It’s going to be OK, Casey. He’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. I’m here. I’m here.”

She was pulling, though, pulling me closer. Pulling hard . “Make it right. Fuck me right again. Fuck me. Fuck me. I need it. Need you. Inside me. Fuck me. Fuck me fuck me. Please, Spencer. Fuck me.”

“I… I should go.” God, what a mess. I wanted more than anything to give the poor thing what she wanted, a life raft of peace and happiness in this sea of misery she’d been adrift on these past weeks. But I couldn’t–

“ NO! ” she screeched. “Don’t go. You can’t go. Need you. My soul, stuff it back in, stuff it back in me…”

I looked at the door anxiously, but I didn’t hear anybody rushing this way. “OK. Shhh, OK, I’ll stay. But you have to stay calm for me, all right? Deep breaths. Breathe for me, Casey. Shhhhhh, breeeathe , baby.”

“Whatever you want. Just stay. Fix me. Fuck me fixed. Fuck me. Heal me. Fuck me.”

************************************************

“How’s she doing,” whispered the pink-clad nurse when he checked in later. We were spooning, Casey breathing slowly, deeply in my arms. The sun was beaming hard against the blinds by then.

My arm snaked out from under the sheets and flashed a thumbs up. “Good,” I mouthed. “Real good.”

“Good. When she wakes up, come find us. She ought to be ready to get checked out, but we’ll look her over, make sure you both know what she needs once you get her home.”

I nodded. Casey squirmed softly, frustrated that I’d stopped thrusting. I pinched her nipple with the hand wrapped underneath her. She sighed happily and behaved. “I’ll tell her.”

I fucked her all morning long. Every time I stopped, or even slowed, she begged and pleaded and tried to hold me in place with sheer force of cunt. It was a paradox, that fucking her kept her calm and trying to let her sleep sent her spiraling into a panic, but labeling it that didn’t change anything. So I stayed, and I kept myself inside her, and she melted into me and around me and relaxed. She came and she came and she came, somehow even sleeping through some of it I thought. Her overwrought pussy soaked me and the sheets and the mattress in a steady deluge of her cum. It was happening mere minutes apart, and had been for hours. I actually started to worry she might dehydrate over it, making her suck ice chips off my fingers. It was the only way she’d eat them.

I’d never seen anything like it. Nothing so far with the Spencer effect had been this intense. It was orders of magnitude beyond even Savannah and her blowjob fixation. Withdrawal? I didn’t know, but if it helped keep her calm and happy, I was going to do my part.

All the crap in her system seemed to be wearing off, though, and by the time the nurse checked in again, she was coherent enough to answer a few questions, get dressed, and endure a few moments without me inside her without having another meltdown. The paperwork signed, I walked her out to my car. She put my hand inside her back pocket without seeming to realize she was doing it, her soft round rump rippling in my grip.

“I’m sorry,” she said as I started my car.

I wanted to tell her she had nothing to be sorry for. Something I’d learned about myself in recent years, however – I think as I was finishing up my Spanish elective – was that when I apologized, I meant it, and having my apology dismissed left me hollow. I had no way of knowing how Casey felt about it, but I applied the same compassion I’d want.

“All forgiven, Casey. I don’t know if you were with it enough to remember what I said earlier, but I’m sorry, too.”

I saw in her eyes that she did. Her fist raised, and we exchanged knucks. “Forgiveness, yo. You’re still my homie.”

She fished my cock out of my pants and sucked me off the whole ride back to campus, fingering herself while she did. Thinking about that all-important data, I glanced at her seat when she got out in the parking lot, licking her lips in satisfaction at the load of cum she’d finally coaxed out of me. There was a big damp spot on her seat, to match the damp spot on the back of her shorts.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, Casey,” I said softly as we neared the doors to Higgins 3.

“Shower with me? We both got nobody else to wash us up good , you know? Make the dirty dirty clean clean.”

I nodded. “OK.”

I led her into the women’s restroom, past the interested eyes of so many Hotties. Some reached out to wish her well, but for most, their relief was mixed with anxiety. She shed her clothes haphazardly as she walked, dropping her shirt in the hallway, her bra by the bathroom door, her shorts by the sinks, her panties on the floor outside the shower area. Charlie was brushing her teeth, brightening at the sight of her floormate even as she gaped at the girl’s shamelessness. Or heck, maybe she was just shocked to see Casey without her hat. Next to that, the bandage was easy to miss.

She turned on the water and stood beneath it, legs shoulder-width apart, hands planted on the wall. She peeled the bandage off and tossed it into the next stall over. There was a nasty bruise, a clot, but no liquid blood. She leaned her head against the wall gently, but I slipped her hat between skin and tile before it hit.

With that, I took off my clothes and folded them on the seat in the changing area. I called out, “Charlie? Can you bring my shower caddie?” She nodded and hustled to retrieve it. “Thanks.”

I rubbed her back. “You want me to wash you, or fuck you?” I asked gently.

“Yeah.”

“You got it.”

Chapter Six: Floor Apparel Revisited

The next few days were, by all accounts, pretty Casey-centric. Ramona had to step in to do some real hall managing. We had to check Casey’s room for more drugs and alcohol, and found plenty of both. A whole gym bag full of mostly empty bottles of prescription pills. There was a long talk between the two of them in her office to talk about what had happened and how, and what happened next.

A more coherent narrative of Casey’s breakup emerged compared to the babbling micro-version I’d gotten at the hospital. The whole thing was almost surprisingly humdrum. Casey had wanted to break up with Tommy when she left for college but he’d talked her into sticking it out. They’d adopted a caveat that cheating wasn’t to be regarded as cheating, but any such activity would signal they’d tried long distance and failed, and could part amicably. A pact I’d heard described many a time  in the past, and one that had never to my knowledge worked.

(Needless to say, no part of it entailed sleeping with her RA to rev Tommy up.)

Casey had a sweet spot for the guy, though. Plus, later she confided (to me privately, not to Ramona) she confided Tommy was also her dealer, which complicated things. Then over fall break, she’d been overwhelmed with guilt and confessed that she’d been with another man. Besotted Tommy forgave her, begged  her to stick it out anyway. It had gotten ugly, Casey demanding he respect himself enough not to put up with her unfaithfulness, Tommy insisting he loved her enough that he could take it. She’d finally said some harsh things and formally ended it the night before returning from fall break. Wounded and bitter, he’d flung his share of hurtful words back her way.

In short, it was a simple variation on the same thing that Andi had gone through, and Savannah, and thousands of other college students trying to make a long-distance relationship with the high school significant other work in spite of human nature. Heck, maybe that was why Casey had taken Andi under her wing, empathizing with her plight.

As for how it had all blown up in my face with Casey lashing out, that was just girls being girls. Back at school, the version Casey presented to her friends had been interpreted as a clear indictment of myself. Why wouldn’t it be? They’d only just heard about my mistreatment of Lexi, and Tori had already been haranguing people over discord before they got back. They were primed to identify me as the villain.

Casey knew full well she owned a share of the culpability, but she’d been too ashamed to correct them, too hurt to let the blame for all that pain fall on her slumped shoulders. Every day as people got angrier at me and more  protective of her, it felt harder to push back, explain  that she’d cheated with her eyes as open as her thighs. The guilt had made her usual inclination towards weed and alcohol worse, and she’d added pills, swiped from Tommy, into the mix.

Ramona encouraged her to see a counselor and put her on a 0 tolerance policy for further infractions. That was that.

As for the rest of the community, this was trickier. We had a dozen or more young women who’d seen a floormate wheeled off the floor, in a condition much closer to death than made for sweet dreams. I was still unnerved by it myself, and I’d been there to see her bounce back with that otherworldly mania for my cock. The other Hotties didn’t even have that as comfort.

We needed to process, to pass on what information we could, to make sure my women were OK and to avail resources to those who weren’t. I called a floor meeting, and crossed my fingers that Tori would let me do my job.

************************************************

Attendance was decent, if not the usual Higgins 3 perfect. Casey was sitting it out, per my advice. The last thing we needed was to risk the meeting turning into ganging up on her for having misrepresented things, or for scaring the shit out of everybody last night. People had a right to be upset. It was natural. Aiming that at her in a face to face confrontation, one girl vs. the masses, was a real possibility and not one I would subject Casey to.

Other girls were absent, too. The triplets, unsurprisingly. Jacqui, Sammi, Lex, Danielle, Peyton and Sydney, Jordyn. All the non-freshmen, actually. I decided to see this as a positive; if they weren’t motivated to show up, it probably meant the whole incident hadn’t gotten in their heads. Ramona was sitting this out, too, but she was right down the hall in 303 if anybody wanted to talk to her instead of me.

True to form, Tori made an entrance by arriving with Katrina, Nikki, Jo and Ellie in formation. It may well be the boldest display of authority by the lowest actual presence of authority in Lakeview history. She said nothing, merely stood to one side and looked imperious with her posse flanking her on either side.

“Good evening, everybody,” I said after waiting a minute for stragglers. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but I think we’d lose an hour talking it out, right? For now, let’s just say I’m glad to see so many of you here, and let’s dive into what happened.”

Casey had given her blessing to share whatever I felt needed sharing. I didn’t see an upshot to stripping her of still more dignity diving into the details of her situation with her ex, so I simply said she’d been depressed about a recent breakup, and had turned to substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

“Aren’t you supposed to stop people from doing that?” demanded Tori. Her first interruption.

“Raise your hand if you want me coming and going in your room looking for contraband whenever I feel I ought to,” I countered. That shut her up. I went on. “Unfortunately it all came to a head last night when she overdosed on a combination of pills and alcohol. The doctors said she was never at serious risk of death from what she took, but hitting her head and choking on her vomit… Well, if you see Maddison in the hall, pass along your gratitude for catching it and taking the right steps to get her help. She did exactly the right thing that night.”

“Assuming we can tell which one’s Maddison,” joked Kendall, but nobody was in a mood to laugh.

“Casey’s OK. Bump on the head that they’re treating as a mild concussion but might not be that severe. Here’s hoping. We’ve put her in touch with campus counselors. From a disciplinary perspective, both for the drugs and alcohol, and for the impact her actions had on the rest of you, last night was strike one and two. We want to see her get her crap together, and we’ll help her do that, but we don’t want to risk a repeat. That’s not what you all signed up for when you came here.”

“Snitches get stitches,” warned Georgia.

“OK, so let’s address that. Yes, if there’s another incident, and you involve me or another RA if I’m not around, it’s going to mean Casey’s leaving our community. But imagine Maddison had adopted that mindset last night, and instead of getting me involved, she tried to keep it quiet. Casey could have choked to death on her own vomit. So ask yourself if you think that’s a preferable outcome.”

Georgia looked contrite, at least. I nodded in acknowledgment. “As for the rest of you. That’s a heck of a thing to see, or even to know happened down the hall from you. You might be carrying some feelings that are hard to know what to do with. That’s normal, and there is help out there for you.” I talked them  through ways they could get someone to talk to, whether they wanted professional therapists at the health center, Ramona, or even little old Spencer.

It was at that last suggestion that Tori finally made her move.

“And why, pray tell, would we want to talk it out with the guy who put her in that position to begin with?” she said. At her side, several of her staunch supporters nodded along.

“Respectfully, it’s not OK to put something like that on me. Casey and I have reconciled, I hope, but even so I think it’s worth stating that when somebody  harms themselves, it is never, ever anybody else’s fault.”

But Tori sputtered a mocking laugh. “Oh right, and you’re not biased, huh? Got her cheating on her guy, dumped on her ass, and look who’s there to swoop in and fuck her again while she’s still ten feet from death’s door. You all saw it, right? Brings her home from the hospital, and first thing – first damn thing! – this man walks her right into the shower and takes advantage of her. The goddamn nerve!”

“She was hurt, and she needed a friend. That’s all I can say. You want to hear it from Casey, ask her. Or better yet, mind your business.”

The governor was already turning to address the larger audience, though. “Do you not see what he’s doing? He broke her down, and now that she’s got nothing left, there he is to be the hero and reap the benefits. Do any of you think he wouldn’t do the same to you? Terri, Toni. You had him come down to talk through some arguments, and what happened?”

The influencer and her roommate looked embarrassed to have the incident aired so publicly. More embarrassed than they’d been to have the whole floor jilling themselves blind with the recording of it. “We, um… He…”

“He had his weiner out inside of ten minutes, and inside of the two of you in the eleventh!”

“We never had–”

Tori wasn’t letting them clear the record, though. “Andi. Where’s Andi?” The girls sitting in front of her scooted apart, and all eyes went in her direction. “Care to remind us what happened when you told him you needed to talk about your  breakup?”

“He helped me!” she whimpered.

“He helped himself ,” thundered Tori. “Another of us on the ropes, reeling from a breakup, and look who’s waiting in the wings. Spencer Lawrence, stud RA. And if I remember, didn’t it take him like a week to even see you in the first place? Too busy to stop in and ask how you’re doing until he figured you were good and ready for him, vulnerable and lonely.”

The whole last week, I’d felt pretty good about keeping myself from taking Tori’s attacks personally. This was starting to get to me, though. I gritted my teeth, not wanting to respond emotionally.

“Kendall, Georgia, those two he good-cop/bad-copped his way into his bed.”

“I what?! Maybe shut your mouth if you don’t know what you’re talking about!” All right, so much for not responding emotionally. Shit.

“I was right there across the hall. You send the other RAs in to bust them for a few cans of beer, put the fear of the Lord into them, and suddenly there’s our boy ready to tell them everything’s OK, and hey, why don’t we talk about it in my room? All damn night.”

I could see even the girls involved in the incident were suddenly questioning whether I’d set that whole thing up. I shook my head. “I wanted to–”

“You don’t need to tell me what you wanted . Bringing in your little girlfriend from the sex academy to tell sexy stories about you, riling everybody up, preying on crushes until we agreed to those awful, misogynistic rules. That massage night. Do you all not remember when the man actually told us to go strip  to our underwear? Started all that… That licking  nonsense? The man wields peer pressure like a damn scalpel!”

“I was the one who said you all had to wear at least  underwear, not at most! ” I protested. It didn’t sound as persuasive aloud as it felt in my head.

“Time and again, this man has used his looks, his charm, and his authority to pressure the lot of us into situations we never intended to find ourselves in,” Tori said, ignoring me most effectively. “And tonight, he comes in and tells us to stop by his room so he can do to you all what he did to Casey! Namely, to spin you around until you don’t know what’s what and dive into your panties! I guess we ought to count ourselves blessed if we don’t wind up bleeding and puking before it’s done and over, too, huh? Why, I bet–”

“Would you shut the fuck  up, you fuckin’ toy-ass ungrateful-ass floor dictator wannabe?”

Every eye turned to the door, where Casey now stood, arms folded across her chest haughtily. The bruise on her forehead still looked ghastly, but aside from that, she was a vision. Her breasts were straining the limits of a tight v-neck dress that both hugged and threatened to eject her ass and pussy from the bottom. No hat, but she was sporting a red choker that didn’t go with the charcoal gray of the dress, but didn’t need to. It held its ground all on its own.

Casey wasn’t alone, either. Perfect attendance was back in effect, or close to it. No Lexi. No Jacqui, either, but she had an away game that night. (I made it a point to know her meet  schedule so I could wish her luck and congratulate her upon return.)

“Casey,” Tori said, taken aback by the rebuke but ready to bluster through it. She attempted to pivot to concern and empathy. “You poor thing. That bump on your head, it’s–”

“It’s my own fucking fault is what it is,” snapped Casey. “I fucked up, got dumped, and you made me feel too fuckin’ shitty to reach out to the one dude I know who would’ve gave some shits and tried to make things better. You think last night was his  fault? ‘Letting’ me cheat? Sure, giving me what I wanted, that’s on him, but the cheating was all me.”

“Oh, honey. I’m sure that’s how he made you feel, but the man is in a position of authority. He’s been at this for years. He–”

“I was here less than a week before I decided I wanted to fuck him. I saw that fat fuckin’ hog in the shower fight, and I felt something come alive in my puss-puss. Don’t blush, bitches. I know y’all felt it too. All of us did. You’re in here acting like the Ra’s  some puppet master tricking us puppets, but I was there that night where all y’all were petting your kitties outside his door, purring sweet and wishing you were the one whose strings he was tugging. Am I wrong? Was that him that ‘made’ you do that? Him, that got you so fucking turned on that when he said we could have a taste, you stood in line and felt grateful to get some?”

Casey paused – a good thing, too, considering her fragile state – but suddenly Jordyn of all people was stepping  in front of her, looking at least as pissed. Maybe more. “You threw away our shirts, you fucking bitch!”

Nobody had ever heard Jordyn yell before. Our dreamy, disaffected art major was all of the sudden an entirely different woman. Tori held up her hands. “Whoa now, Jordyn, nobody made  anybody turn over their–”

“You did. You so  did ! You’ve been sharpening your dagger for a while now!” roared Sammi. “I dunno if you’re pissed off he’s not into black chicks or what, but–”

“Hey now, who said I’m not into black chicks?!” I shouted, right as Tori and half a dozen others lit into Sammi’s allegation.

But it was somehow Jordyn, visiting reality from the strange little dreamland she usually occupied, who finally refocused things from chaos. “I loved  those shirts! Most of us did! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to create something people actually love? Do you have any idea what it feels like for you and your Brownshirts to take that success and torch it to ashes?”

Katrina, this time, took the initiative in inquiring whether that was meant to be racist too, but Tori waved the issue aside. “Your design was great, Jordyn, but those shirts? They were objectifying and degrading! They–” Several voices cried out that Tori had worn hers as much as the rest of them, maybe more, even. Tori pushed through. “And yeah, I wore mine, too. But that’s what makes someone like him so dangerous! Weaponizing cliques, demanding conformity. Remember Marta and Kim, and, um… Yeah, he made sure anybody who didn’t fit into the ‘Hottie’ mold couldn’t even stand to live here!”

“Maybe not everywhere is supposed to be accommodating to everyone all of the time!” snapped one of the triplets. (Addison? I’d been watching for it , and I thought Addison parted her hair just left of center.) “You think the sororities are out recruiting uggos? Fuck no! It’s not a crime to have spaces for hot people, and we shouldn’t have to apologize for the way ugly people feel when they compare themselves to us!”

Her tirade was met with more murmurs of agreement than I personally liked. Yeesh.

“How can you of all people take his side?!” demanded Tori of Casey. “After the way he played you, used you, wounded you? Damn near killed you!”

Casey shuffled toward me, pressing herself against my side, fawning, and not ironically either. “We were both dirty with the hornies , Tori. He didn’t play nothing, except my pussy like a fucking cello, like Yo-fuckin’-Yo fuckin’ Ma. I was lost in the darkness, wandering the desert, yo, but in the distance I see the light. It came to me, blinded me, but when I could see, there… it was…”

It happened so fast, and I was so captivated by her delivery, that my cock was out in the open before I even realized she was moving on it. Stupid gym shorts! Stupid elastic!

She was already kneeling at my side, my dick hardening with shocking rapidity. (Some subconscious exhibitionist inclination? I had no idea.) Her mouth lunged at my shaft, tongue lavishing absolute worship on it. It rose so fast it slapped me in the tummy.

“BEHOLD, THE STAFF OF RA!”

It was chaos. Girls covering their eyes. Girls craning necks for a better angle. Girls shrieking in shock or embarrassment or something else. Girls pawing  me, kissing me, caressing my newly exposed skin. Girls demanding I put it away, demanding I resign, demanding I stay right where I was, as I was.

It took me longer than I’m proud of to get my gear tucked back away, but doing so at least made restoring order possible, if not easy. There were numerous conversations being shouted all at once, none of which seemed to have any reaction to the others.

“All right, I think everybody could stand to calm down a little so we can talk this out!”

“Do you not see what he’s doing? Whipping that beast out like we’ll all lose our minds over it, forgive him for everything he’s done?!”

“Oh my god, whatever this is, we ought to be charging admission.”

“That’s right, the choker says ‘Hotties.’ That’s H-O, T-T, E-Z. Because you can take our shirts, but you can’t make us not what we are, yo!”

“Tell Ramona? Please, that bitch hasn’t done anything about him, and I can’t imagine she’s gonna start now! This is on us , ladies!”

“Whip it out! Whip it out!”

“Kick him out! Kick him out!”

“–a line in the sand, or before you know it we’ll all be–”

“–because he’s ours, and we’re his! Get yours while supplies–”

“–just want to get my degree in peace without all this–”

“–even bigger than I remembered from–”

I left the lounge. Shouting was never a way to get good results, and there was nothing that could be said in there without having to shout it.

************************************************

That was the beginning of the escalation. It was a war fought along lines both covert and toe to dainty red-painted toe. That night, I went down to pee and found a paper sign dangling down on long pieces of Scotch tape over the bathroom entrance, so low you had to crouch not to be hit in the face with it.

A SPENCER SPACE

DO NOT USE IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE OUR

I tried to figure out the pictogram at the end. The male symbol was clear enough, but then a plus sign and after that this clipart of Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend? It was an hour later, long since back in my room, before I pieced together “man” + “doll,” ergo handle our man-doll. A stretch, but even though I’d taken it down on my way back out of the bathroom, two more were hanging there when I went to shower first thing in the morning. They probably thought Tori or one of her close allies had taken it down.

Casey was waiting for me in the bathroom, emerging – naked, save for her choker – from a closed shower stall the moment I made my way into the nook. She followed me into my shower like she had a perfect right to. Maybe she did.

“Can I suck your cock? Please?” she opened. “I’ll wash you up rull  nice after, but… please?”

I adjusted the stream so it would mostly go down my back and not my front, make  things more comfortable for her. “Go ahead.”

“Oh thank you. Been in here dying of thirst half the night waiting for you.” She sank down, and it was strange imagining this wet blonde mop of hair, a purple and green knot protruding from her forehead, was my orange-capped Casey.

“Half the night? Naked? I don’t want you catching a cold because you want to shave a few seconds off of how long it takes you to be ready for me. You ought to be resting, in your bed – especially after that fiasco in the lounge. Which was valiant, I suppose, but I’ll thank you not to just expose my penis whenever you feel like it.”

“Bah, if I exposed it whenever I felt like it you’d never get dressed again, Ra.”

Hmm. I’d associated her use of “Ra” for RA as a derogatory term, but perhaps that whole “staff of Ra” thing meant it was evolving. Or maybe it had always meant whatever she wanted it to mean in a given moment, which seemed to be how a lot of Casey’s communication went.

“You, um, seem to have regained your appetite,” I said as she sucked me back into her mouth, head swaying like she was trying to brush her teeth with my cock. I sure didn’t feel any in there, though. All smooth and wet and pleasing. Even in the shower, I could feel Casey’s drool running down my shaft.

She took her time getting to a response, and I was in no mood to hurry her. “Missed it. Got pretty bummed for a while there, kinda dried my snizz out, you know? But you… You brought it back. Fuck, I could do this all day. I fuckin’ love the way you taymmmm …” Her desire to speak was forcibly overpowered by her desire to suck me off.

I processed (slowly, what with the gorgeous blonde babe bobbing on my cock). Before break, Casey had gotten more of me in her than most, so I’d chalked up her distaste for me last week to the faded Spencer effect and her emotional state, which seemed to be more the former in light of what I’d since learned. So why, then, had she gone from 0 to 60 so damn fast? Savannah had swallowed way more of my cum than Casey, but she hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to rekindle things. OK, maybe Savannah had Price to help her work out her urges, but it wasn’t like Casey couldn’t easily find a guy to fool around with. My Hotties were all of them attractive, but Casey was one of the handful who was truly, staggeringly sexy . Perfect body, gorgeous face, even her smile just made a man hard and pliant. If Savannah didn’t need me, neither should she.

It was early, not even seven, and I was in a hot shower with an even hotter girl delivering me a blowjob that was, one might say, quite warm. My eyes had slid closed, and while I wasn’t in danger of falling asleep standing up or anything, my mind certainly did wander. Was my plan to avail myself of the affections of my girls going to succeed after all? Did I still want it to? If some of them objected to it so strenuously, the May forecast didn’t portend well for their reactions.

Maybe we could transfer Tori and the others who didn’t want to be a part of all this to another floor somewhere? Surely the campus had a couple dozen open spots around campus. There were several right here in Higgins. History wasn’t generally kind to regimes who’d rounded up dissidents for deportation, I considered as Casey wriggled her throat down my pole until her nose was firmly buried in my pubes. Surely the scale and stakes here were different though?

Or maybe Tori was right, and I was making excuses for the inexcusable. It sure felt that way sometimes in the dark, alone with my conscience. Resigning remained impossible, but perhaps I should simply be firm, draw and enforce hard lines, and be a good, normal RA who didn’t ever do anything sexual with his residents. Would Bob and them allow that? Surely at some point, if their experiment ceased to yield results, they’d use any of the thousand excuses I’d given them and fire me, replace  me with someone who’d dance to their twisted tune.

Something felt different. I looked down, and there was Casey, rubbing my cock all over her face like it was part of her morning skincare routine. She hadn’t been like this before break, that was for darn sure. Horny, sure. Shamelessly. Not like this, though. Almost possessed. She was mumbling something, whispering to my cock with an intimate little grin on her lips. Was she flirting directly with my dick? She had  hit her head, I reasoned, or maybe it was some kind of withdrawal symptom Savannah had somehow managed with more discretion.

“Where did you get that choker, by the way?” It was the only thing she was wearing. Red latticework, with letters in solid black and silver studs. H O, stud, T T, stud, E Z, on repeat around her neck. It felt like I’d seen it somewhere. Probably the sort of fashion statement some sorority or another was trying to popularize.

“They sell things on the  internet,” Casey purred into my cock like it was a microphone.

“In a day?”

“Your girl’s got her ways, yo. You like it?”

“It looks great on you.”

After a few more licks, Casey slithered to her feet, sparing no friction as she wriggled herself to let my cock rest along her crack. “It’s gonna look great on errybody.”

“About that…” I rubbed myself against her gently. She carefully leaned forward into the wall, keeping her bruise protected from contact with her arms. Less tenderly, she squirmed her hips to try to ease me inside her, but I held back.

“Casey, this thing you started last night – OK, we  started  – with Tori … It’s not going to end well. I appreciate you going to bat for me. Not necessarily so much jerking my shorts down in the middle of the lounge.” Her ass received a playful slap, the water spraying off of its glossy roundness. “But the spirit of it, absolutely.”

“Past due, homie. These bitches been letting the fascists pull a fasht  one on them. This floor was the shit. We could just be, you know? And you were chill with it, and we were chill with you. Then along comes the Brownshirts–”

“I really  don’t like that term, by the way, for so many reasons.”

Casey nodded acquiescently, reaching back and guiding my tip to her pussy as her reward for instant compliance. “Along comes Tori and Katrina, acting like we din’t  like it, and suddenly everybody’s judgey and pissed off and looking over their shoulders all the time.”

I didn’t start putting it to her, yet. I needed her to hear me. “People are allowed to have different perspectives, Casey. Obviously Tori and I don’t see eye to eye, but I believe she cares about this community. You can’t patch things up with someone if you’re gaslighting them about their sincerity from the get-go.”

“The fuck you think I want to patch shit up with her? I just want her to shut up and fuck off.”

This smack was more stern. “Don’t start stuff with Tori. I’m serious. I’m going to restore harmony, and I can’t do it if you’re picking fights.”

She tried to press herself against me, get me inside. “So… Stay out of her grill, or you won’t…?”

Casey’s voice was uncharacteristically small. With how needy she’d been for me since her accident, I didn’t doubt for a second that if I said yes, behave or be celebate , she’d cave in a heartbeat. How far could she be pressed?

For a moment, with my cock throbbing inside of that throbbing cunt, I imagined a whole floor of Hotties, perfectly behaved, perfectly attentive and courteous and adoring, so long as they got their turn in the rotation. Someone gets out of line, and I literally put them out of the line. They’d have to regain my favor and the favor of their floormates before being allowed to pleasure me again.

I could hold court, determine restitution for infractions. Quiet hours violation? No clothes for a week. Alcohol in your room? Suck me clean after the next orgy. Say or do something racist? Lap my cum out of a girl of that race. Forget your key card somewhere and get locked out of your room in the middle of the night? An immediate spanking, and then crash the night in my room and let another RA key it open in the morning.

Ramona would have loved it.

Me, I shook my head and lifted her up for a kiss. “No, Casey. If we want to have sex, we’ll have sex. No conditions but that. OK?”

She laughed, throaty and self-satisfied. “I think maybe you’re forgetting how good I am at making you wanna have sex, Ra.”

I held her against me with two firm handfuls of those big, beautiful Casey tits, and began to pound that achingly needy pussy with all the energy I thought she was ready to handle. “As if I could ever forget this.”

Our bodies melded together as we did our favorite thing in our favorite place. “You know, maybe we’re actually gonna be better than sucky?”

I turned Casey’s chin and kissed it. Then her lips. Then that awful wound. “I’m going to make sure of it, Casey.”

************************************************

Leigh and Angel showed me their chokers when we crossed paths at the Penderdast food court over lunch.

“Check it out! Choke me, Daddy,” giggled Leigh.

“Choke us , Daddy!” corrected Angel.

Even as I braced for an acerbic retort from Leigh, I was pleased to see her redouble her giggles. “Right, he’s got two hands, doesn’t he, girlfriend!”

“Too bad he doesn’t have four!”

“Tits like ours, I bet he wishes he had eight!”

“Stay classy, ladies.”

“Bye, Spencer!”

“Byeee!”

So at least they were getting along well enough. Even honoring our bargain – and then some.

Back home, I bumped into Jo in the bathroom. She was doing her makeup, but paused to glare at my reflection. “You’re not supposed to be in here without checking to make sure we’re not. You can’t wave your dick at us like a magic wand and unilaterally change the rules we voted on.”

“Right, sorry, just… the sign. I thought you all had changed your minds.”

“When and how are we supposed to vote on new policies when you’re busy trying to hog the spotlight at floor meetings?”

“Last night was only supposed to be about Casey. I didn’t mean to–”

“Oh I know what you meant  to do. Now are you going to stand there staring, or can I have the bathroom? Don’t let me cut you off or anything if you wanted  to ask to see my tits first.”

No progress there. I surreptitiously knocked at Jo’s door while she was occupied to see if I could touch base with Lexi, see how she was holding up, but nobody answered. Hopefully she was in class and not simply dodging me.

I texted Tori with a not-quite-apology for how the floor meeting had gone. It seemed the best route, splitting the difference between a cold, ignorable email and an urgent, invasive knock. Resign , was her response.

I tried Katrina. Talk to Tori.

Andi stopped by to ask how I thought she looked in her choker. “I think that dress deserves most of the credit,” I said, deflecting. If I endorsed those things, soon enough every girl who wanted to follow in Casey’s footsteps and trip me into their bed would be wearing one. Which would be… bad?

“Do you think it would look better crumpled up on your floor?” Andi asked, blushing.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Casey.”

“Um, I heard that from Lexi, actually.” Then, quickly, “Before break, I mean.”

“It’s a good slutty line,” I conceded. She lingered a moment, long enough I thought she might try to rejoin the roster of girls I was actively sleeping with, but then she ducked her head and shuffled out. That was fine, too.

The Spencer effect sure was taking its time, I considered. Girls on the fence, girls ignoring it altogether. Maybe I needed to eat better? Worse? Who knew .

I was on duty that night with Vanessa. We hung out at the center desk together for a while, her because she was primary, and me because I wanted to let the drama subside a little up on Higgins 3. Vanessa asked a lot of questions and didn’t say much to suggest questions to pursue of her . Not the most scintillating conversation, but she was a sweet girl, and easy to get along with.

“Did Savannah really dump you?” she asked at one point when I let conversation stray to my romantic life.

“Vickie, too,” I added. No point beating around the bush.

It reminded me, suddenly, that Vickie had been in the midst of inviting me back to her room when the Casey incident started. How on earth had I forgotten that? A Vickie quickie!

“I’m sure a guy like you will find somebody again soon.” She smiled, and I didn’t know if she was implying I was kind of a slut, or if she might be interested in being that somebody. Shit, or was I just becoming a complete egomaniac. I accused myself of that last possibility and made sure not to say anything flirtatious.

When I made it back to my room, for the second time this year, there was a big round Asian ass waiting for me, posed  invitingly over my bed.

I really needed to remember to lock my door when I was away for the evening.

After a moment of gaping, I cleared my throat to announce my presence. “Hi, Kyu-Ri. Did Sammi tell you to come down here and do this again?”

“No.” She was emphatic. “I come myself.”

“Oh. Can I ask… why?”

“For punishment. To ask you if you will spank  me.” She arched her back intently. Her cotton shirt was paper thin and latex tight. Gravity looked like it would break those suckers free any second now. Her tartan skirt was folded up over her lower back, pale blue panties painting a bullseye.

I shook my head. “We’ve been over this, Kyu-Ri. Remember? If you break a rule, nobody is ever allowed to lay a hand on you for it, not in any way. Why don’t you stand up and we can talk about what you think you did wrong this time.”

She shook her head, black hair whipping side to side. “No! Not school   rule . My rule, for myself.” Her fingers seized twin grips on my bed sheets, as if she were worried I meant to pry her loose.

“Uh, what…?” We’d have to update RA training if we were expected to know what to do for residents prescribing themselves corporal punishment.

Her voice dripped with self-loathing. “I lied to you. Before break , I come  to you and asked you to punish me, and say other girls made me do it. But I  did it. I must tell you this now, be honest. The other girls are be so  mean to you, but even though I like you very much, I let them make me be mean, too. I am sorry. No more. I want to feel you touch me. I want to make you horny, like I am horny for you. They thought they tricked me, but I knew. You get them in trouble, but it was my   being bad .”

“But they didn’t know they weren’t tricking you. Sammi thought she was hazing the pretty Korean girl. She was trying to pick on you. To embarrass you.”

“I don’t make excuses for myself. She gets in trouble for what I did. It is not fair to her.”

I nodded at that plump, round, gloriously contrite behind. “I think if that’s how you feel, you might feel better going down to apologize to Sammi instead of coming in here to have me… Yeah.”

“No!” She stamped a bare  foot insistently. It rippled up and down the whole length of her legs. “No. After break , I want to come for  you and apologize. But suddenly everybody is so mad! I was…” She tried a construction in Korean, processed it in Korean, and finally attempted a translation. “I was stupid! I felt embarrassed, worried they will  get mad at me, so I go along  with everyone else. But I am not mad! I am stupid. I was so… so bad !”

Oh gosh. “Kyu-Ri, it’s OK. A lot of us got caught up in the drama, myself absolutely included. It’s really, really OK. I’m not mad.”

“I am mad at myself!” she whined into my mattress. “I like you! I am attracted  to you. You make my body feel so many good things. But I listened to the wrong people, people who say you are a mean boy. But you are not a mean boy. You are a very good boy. But I treat you like I don’t like you, like you are not my friend.”

She was sniffling, I realized. Without quite meaning to, I planted a hand on her bottom and patted her reassuringly. She wriggled into my grasp imploringly. “It’s OK Kyu-Ri. I did some bad things myself. We can’t always be the perfect, um, friend in the moment.” Why did it feel weirder to call a resident my friend than to fuck one in the shower? “Whatever you did wrong, I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me for all the stuff I did wrong.”

“Of course I forgive you! I love being one of your Hottie girls. My friends, my  Korean friends, they have  RAs who cannot even pronounce their names. Who do not  even try. They act like because we are not fluent in English there is no reason to talk to us. But you learn my name. You help me make friends. You want me to be part of everyone, a Hottie like the rest. You help me… fit on?”

“Fit in.”

She turned her head, smiled. “And, unlike my friends’ RAs , you are, um, very hot.” Her pale cheeks colored. “Is that a bad thing for me to say to you?”

“You’re fine, Kyu-Ri. I… Yeah. I try .” I smiled awkwardly. Gave her another pat. Told myself she hadn’t invited me to fuck her. Damn.

“So I want to make up with you. I feel very sorry for how I treat you, and I want you to spank me.”

“Really, Kyu-Ri. I’m not mad. You don’t–”

“Please?” She glanced back at me, widening her stance a few inches. “I think you like my bottom, and I want you to enjoy it. I like it to be touched. Touched hard. Is that bad?”

I sidled up closer, gave that ample ass a thorough squeeze. “Well it isn’t good.”

Kyu-Ri sighed happily, folding her arms and resting her cheek atop them. It sent that big ass soaring. “So show me now what happens to bad girls at Lakeview University, Mr. Spencer.”

“Mr. Spencer, eh?” I shook my head as I moved into position. “All right. Are you ready?”

“Spank me, Mr. Spencer,” she pleaded, eyes sliding shut in anticipation. “Please.”

I gave her a smack. Not hard, but not gentle either. A little gasp escaped her lips.

“You didn’t count, Kyu-Ri. If you don’t count them, they don’t count.” I rubbed a little circle around my target. “Unless you need me to help you with the English numbers.”

Kyu-Ri giggled. “I am getting high  A in calculus. You forget once how many girls live on your floor. Do you need me  to help you  with English numbers?”

Another smack. “I never say no when a pretty girl offers to help me with something.”

“That is two, Mr. Spencer. May I have third  spanking?”

“Of course, sweetie.” I let her have it. Her gasp was even higher pitched this time.

“Three, Mr. Spencer. I’m so sorry.”

I targeted the other cheek. “Four, Mr. Spencer. You can go harder. If you want. My bottom is very soft. It is made for spanking, I think.”

I put some force into the next one, and even more into the next. “Six, Mr. Spencer. If you want, you can tear off my panties, so you can spank on bare skin? If you want.”

I wasn’t one for tearing off panties. Not because I was too gentle; no, the red handprints blooming on Kyu-Ri’s ass could attest that I went hard in the paint. It was actually an incident with Marisa when she’d made that same request, back when I was working out five days a week instead of three and was pretty pleased with my muscles. Then I met some quality Hanes elastic and accidentally threw her on her ass trying to break it. She never let me hear the end of it.

So instead, I crouched down behind her and eased them down her hips. She was so wet that a thin line of lubrication followed her panties halfway down her thighs before breaking and splashing onto her unblemished skin.

Ordinarily, I would ask before I helped myself to a taste, but when a girl opened with “spank me, Mr. Spencer,” she wanted you to take the initiative.

I decided immediately that it had been far too long since I’d eaten pussy. So did Kyu-Ri.

She stopped counting pretty soon, and dropped the mister act soon after. Or maybe that was what all that Korean that was tumbling from her lips as she pounded the mattress in a cascade of orgasms meant. I slipped up and forgot I was supposed to be doing more than tongue-fucking her, but the frantic abuse she delivered to her own beet red behind was a reminder that she hadn’t atoned to her satisfaction yet. A steady stream of frantically oversexed Korean two octaves over her normal speaking voice pretty clearly translated to some more eloquent version of “more, harder, please” spilled out into the hallway as Kyu-Ri rode my face, humping my tongue as I beat her fat round ass like the bad girl we both knew she could never be.

If she were really a bad girl, I wouldn’t have spanked her so damn hard.

“May I use my titties on you now?” she asked. At least that’s what I heard. Her ass was still perched right in front of my face, the ooze of her cum trickling onto my chest as she panted onto my pulsating cock. “I want to be nice  girl to you now. Like you were nice to me. A good Hottie girl for you.”

I patted her ass again, even more gently now. “Next time, Kyu-Ri. I am beat. Plus I’m on duty, and if you let me at those  things, I might just sit here playing with them while the building burns down.”

She laughed. There was such a delightful earnestness about her – even when she was trying to trick me, she was heartfelt as they came. “You say such nice things, Spencer. I am so glad you would let me be spanked.”

Kyu-Ri pivoted around and gave me a kiss that made me instantly regret rejecting her offer, but tonight it felt nice to just be a giver. Or so I told myself as I watched her leave.

“Oh my god, how was it? It sounded amazing ,” I heard somebody say in the hallway. Other voices, quieter. Staking out my room again? At least this time it was on account of the sounds of one of their own speaking in tongues while the echoes of flesh slapping on flesh reverberated through the door.

Kyu-Ri’s laugh rang above the din as she closed the door behind her. “Everyone! Everyone, I earned my choker!”

I sat up.

Oh, fudge.

Chapter Seven: Pranks

Dear Higgins 3,

Me again! Keeping it short and sweet this time. Just writing on the subject of floor apparel with a few points:

I don’t have any chokers to distribute. I know it’s becoming a trend, but I have nothing. Sorry!

Let’s try to disagree without being disagreeable. Remember your sneetches , ladies. Let’s maintain civility (dare I suggest friendliness?) to those on the other end of the star-on/star-off machine. (If you haven’t read it, check it out !)

The university cannot reimburse you for your floor shirts, since they were surrendered voluntarily. And please see the previous bullet if you have feelings about their absence.

I know tempers are hot for some of us right now, but rest assured we’ll come together and talk about new floor apparel in a future floor meeting. (If we’re really nice, maybe we can even talk Jordyn into pitching in with another amazing design!) It’s only October, and we’re in this together until May.

Happy tidings,

Spencer

“You didn’t send this already, did you master ?”

My head lolled against the back of Ramona’s office couch. I wriggled my hips a bit, adjusting. Here I was, with my knees hooked over my boss’s shoulders while she blew me as  I read to her. It was honestly shockingly comfortable. Why hadn’t I been receiving blowjobs in this position since forever? It was a bit too possessive, holding Ramona’s tits against my thighs while she sucked me off, but she didn’t mind. Being owned was kind of her thing.

How much of my Spencer-effected whatever was soaking into the couch cushions? How much was being absorbed by my coworkers? By Savannah?

I shook my head, refocusing on the present. “No. I figured I’d run it by you. I wanted to make sure people aren’t going after Tori. As for this choker fad, I don’t even know what’s up with that. The cliquishness, though… It’s not good.”

“Your girls are waging a campaign to recruit the floor into displaying their fealty to your leadership with a sexy little neck piece, using peer pressure to promote submission to the ‘staff of Ra,’ and–”

“I told you not to call it that.”

“Apologies, master.” After this, her fourth use of the term this meeting, I began to doubt her sincerity. “But you don’t see that as a positive?”

“Positive? No! I can’t restore community  to my floor by letting Casey bully people into submission. That’s just going to leave Tori and her people resentful of me and of them in perpetuity. More than anything, I need those two to get along.”

“Once they feel the pleasure of submission, do you truly think they’ll resent it? They’ll resent themselves for not giving in sooner, not each other, and certainly not you.”

“Not everybody gets off on being brought to heel, Ramona. If they did, I wouldn’t have this current predicament in the first place. The girls who want that are getting it now. I can’t just force it on the ones who don’t.”

“You can , master–”

“No.” I forced her mouth down onto my cock, ignoring my boss’s throaty gurgles of surprise, and tried to think. Yes, it was probably a bad email. It had started because I’d been asked by three girls yesterday what they had to do to earn a choker – specifically Dawn, Kendall and Georgia. And Dawn was a lesbian, or at least on the spectrum. Hard to gauge such things with the Spencer effect seeping into everybody. I’d certainly never seen a girl hanker so openly for her roommate – Peyton and Sydney were lovers, and they were still more discrete.

Then again, as near as I could tell Kyu-Ri simply thought she’d landed an exceedingly courteous and generous roommate, which she in turn took as a reflection on the kindness of Americans. Undeserved, but we could use the press these days.

At any rate, it turned out having a girl like Kyu-Ri stagger out of your bedroom visibly dribbling  her own cum down her legs and squawking that the production of it had earned her a token of membership in the cool chicks club made for some pretty impressive PR.

I’d opened our one-on-one bringing Ramona up to speed on it all; she’d returned from her house to Higgins 3 the night before, but we were maintaining her cover as my overseer for the time being. (How long we could maintain it before Tori exploded over her apathy at my openly fooling around with the Hotties, I didn’t know.) No insights on Casey’s out-of-whack libido yet. She’d snuck into my room the night before, stripped naked, and slept coiled around me. At least until I woke up from an immensely enjoyable dream and told her she needed to sleep in her own room.

(I did relent and let her blow me back to sleep before she left. That wasn’t a term I’d ever imagined before, but she knew precisely what it meant. I’d slept  like a stone.)

Speaking of not sleeping in one’s own room, there was the Nikki problem, too. She’d not stayed the night in 308, her shared room with Casey and next door to mine, since before the incident. She’d been staying with Emma last I heard, but there was only so long that was tenable. Emma was paying for a single room, and Casey wasn’t. The issue was more than fiscal, but it was that as well. I’d have to check on that, maybe later today. I didn’t want to start letting people slip through the cracks on account of the larger drama.

Ramona tapped my thigh gently; I apologized and let her up for air. She sucked it down hastily, then pounced back onto my cock. No surprise there. The less decision-making power I allowed her, the harder she got off. It kept surprising me that the arrangement didn’t disturb me more than it did, but so far, catering to my own full-time live-in sub had been remarkably comfortable. Never pegged myself for a dom, but it worked, somehow. It hadn’t gelled with me as a feminist at first. As Ramona herself pointed out when we’d gotten to talking about it late one night, though, what was the point of feminism if not giving women what they want?

“Get on. I’m going to finish inside you,” I instructed her. That was a recent discovery, the distinction between I want to  and I’m going to . The latter drove her wild. The trick was not to let it leak over into my normal conversations.

Ramona dawdled for a few more sucks before obeying, but only because she knew her lack of immediacy would be rewarded with a firm smack on her ass once she’d mounted me. “Someone’s giving them those chokers, master. Casey, probably. But it’s being done, whether or not you do it. You know how it is. The more you denounce it, the sexier it becomes.”

I grinned at her ability to multitask. Or maybe she knew I fucked longer if she kept me distracted. “Surely Lakeview has some kind of policy we could use to ban a type of apparel. Like one of those shitty racist things from the 80’s where they wanted to make sure black students didn’t start gangs or something?”

She rolled her eyes. “If there is, that’s not how you want to go about this, master. Especially when you can let it happen and everyone will be the happier  for it.”

“I seriously doubt Tori will be happier if I rub my cock in her face until she loses her mind with the need to have it come all over her.”

The Higgins hall manager leaned down and shoved her tongue so far down my throat she could probably tell what I’d had for breakfast. She was more attentive than I’d been to my breathing requirements, though, and eventually withdrew. “Really? Because that sounds positively divine to me.”

“You are such a little sub slut, I swear.”

“You say the nicest things, master.” She grinned, but it faded after a moment into an expression of contemplation. (And a little sexual delight.) “Do we have anything in place to verify whether the Hotties are on birth control? We’ll want to make sure, if possible.”

I blinked. “Uh, yeah, good call. Um, are you…?”

“Of course, master. I think if you wanted to fuck a baby in me, I might have to actually assert myself and conduct a guided conversation on the matter.”

“If I ever suggest that, please do.”

A knock at the door interrupted our sweaty one-on-one diversion. “Miss Ramona? You  going to be all right if I take my lunch?”

“Go ahead, Marcus. Spencer and I are going to finish banging a few things out, and I’ll cover the desk.”

There was a chuckle from the far side of the door, probably of the “that’s what she said” variety at her too-accurate summation. Ramona didn’t stop fucking me, didn’t slow. If he’d listened closely, he might have heard her ass cheeks clapping together as I bounced her on my cock. Rather than riff off her phrasing, though, he answered, “Go easy on my man, Miss Ramona. He’s not so bad.”

“Guess the rumor mill has reached the mail room,” I grumbled once I heard his laughing trail off.

But Ramona was ready to come, and she didn’t like to have to do it alone. She was on a timer now, besides, so she was bucking and rocking in earnest. Her lips moved to my ear now, one of my greatest weaknesses. Her voice swept hot and breathy into my ears. “Am I earning my choker, master?”

“No chokers,” I grunted, nearing the edge.

“But how will my master leash me without a collar?”

Ramona didn’t receive a choker, and after making me come like a volcano to the thought of clipping a leash around her neck, she left to attend the center desk with no panties, too. I wiped our cum off with them and tossed them in the trash. She complained that she’d be leaking my spunk into Marcus’s stool; I told her that she was welcome to close the center desk and put up a sign saying she’d be back once she’d gotten cum-free panties.

“Let them earn them!” she  called after me.

************************************************

As luck would have it, Emma and Nikki were in when I stopped by their room that evening. Not sure whether they were backing Tori or Casey, I stepped gingerly and respectfully. The talk went well. Casey’s behavior had made cohabitation pretty difficult, and after her episode, Nikki simply didn’t feel comfortable returning. She could keep the peace, but Casey and her propensity for drama was more than she wanted to share four walls with. Understandable, I assured her. Better still, Emma turned out to like having her as a roommate, and the three of us decided to request a formal room transfer for Nikki. She was worried it would impose financially on Casey, having to shell out for a single, but like Katrina’s open space after the dismissal of Quinn, housing didn’t charge someone more if your roommate moved out. They simply reserved the right to move someone in without notice.

I left it unsaid that Ramona, or more to the point Bob, was unlikely to start filling vacancies on Higgins 3. It was one thing for a young woman to move in during Welcome Week and watch things build to where they left off at fall break. Moving in with the whole floor in their fully lustful state? Poor new girl wouldn’t last a day before her hair lit on fire.

I was on my way back out, feeling good about doing my job the normal way for a change, when Emma said my name. “Um, could we talk for a minute? Sorry, Nikki, it’s… We, um..”

But Nikki waved it off and excused herself. “I’ll go start packing boxes. I’ll, you know, knock.”

“We’re not going to–” But Nikki was gone before I could finish. It might well be bullshit anyway. I still remembered her running along in my wake that day at the gym just to stare at my ass while she exercised. “What’s up, Emma?”

“Sorry to spring this on you. I just, um… Yeah. Things have been so weird since break, you know?”

“I know.”

“And… yeah. They were kind of weird before  break, too.”

I took a seat across from her. “You sound like you have something particular in mind. You can say anything you want, Emma. This is a safe space.”

“It’s my room, so it better be,” she said with a laugh that died in its infancy. “It’s about that day at the gym. A few weeks ago? You remember?”

“I remember.”

“And… that guy. On the racquetball court.”

“Squash court.” I rolled my eyes at my correction immediately. “Sorry, that was stupid of me. Go ahead.”

“Um, right. So…” She shifted in her seat. Emma wasn’t a bombshell like Leigh or Casey, or a cover girl like Sydney or Shauna. That was no slight; that she looked like a real, approachable hot girl and not a touched up poster of one was a plus in my book.

Remembering my screw-up with Lex, I was trying my absolute hardest not to notice. “So, you know I had a crush on you,” she managed finally, embarrassed but soldiering through it. “Not like a stalker thing or whatever, but you know, like a lot of us. You’re… attractive. That’s all I mean.”

“Thanks. I’d return the compliment, but I’m sensing that’s not where this is going.”

“Yeah, no. Um, you invited me to run with you, and that was cool, and maybe it was a little childish, checking you out, but I couldn’t keep up anyway. You’re a beast, you know? But it was just fun, being flirty and checking out a cute boy. The other girls do it all the time and you seemed not to mind, so I hope it doesn’t sound really weird.”

“It sounds fine, Emma.”

She took a deep breath. “But… then there was what happened with that guy. Like, he… touched me. And I guess I was so worked up I sort of let him? He was being really crude, like how if I kissed you good, you might sleep with me, and that you… I mean, both of you, you and him… That you’d… share. Me.”

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh “I’m so sorry that happened, Emma. Really.” fuck oh fuck oh

“I appreciate your saying that, but like… It’s been in my head ever since then. Over break, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I let some old creep squeeze my butt and talk about tag-teaming me like it was just… normal. I forget how he said it – I was, you know, ‘distracted’ you could say – but he seemed pretty unsurprised that I let him do what he did. That I let you do it. Like he just… took it for granted I’d do anything to sleep with you.”

Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck oh fuck! “Yeah, he really was awful, wasn’t he? Again, I’m sorry. I feel awful that I didn’t apologize before now.”

“Who was that guy? You said your professor, right? I didn’t imagine that?”

“That’s, um, what I said, yeah.” Was it?

“But… What professor treats their students like that? Like we’re Ken and Barbie, and he’s the little girl playing with us. That came out wrong. But you know what I mean, right?”

I nodded seriously. “I know absolutely. I wish you hadn’t been there for that. I’d been trying to track him down for a while, and I hadn’t meant for anybody else to be around when I confronted him.”

Emma shook her head, lost. “Confronted? About what? Because he seemed like he… knew. Like he knew I was into you. And sure, here at home, I guess that’s sort of our little inside ‘joke,’ but it was like… I don’t know. Like he wanted you to… use me. And knew that I’d let you. Not that I’m saying I would have!”

She’d stood there letting Bob manhandle her and suggest we fuck her from both ends, if memory served. Emma didn’t really need to say whether or not she would have allowed it. But what did I tell her? That Lakeview’s director of residence life was in cahoots with a secret biotech experimentation cadre, and that he’d staged our living situation as an experiment to see how hard I could make a girl come just by living near her?

It may be the truth, but I couldn’t just say  that. After what Marisa – and yes, Bob – had said to me, I was afraid to go digging too deep myself, and I was their golden boy pumping out the Spencer effect so they could have their little show. To them, Emma would be nothing more than another disposable Hottie, like Quinn. I’d been concerned about Tori going to the school paper over the state of affairs here, but she didn’t suspect more than a horny douche of an RA was to blame. Arming Emma with the truth…

“He’s my dating coach.” My what?!

Emma arched an eyebrow. “You have a dating coach?”

I nodded, way too hard. “Yep. I do. I sure do.”

“But you said he was your professor.”

“That’s just what he likes to call himself. Professor Sex.”

“Like the bald guy from the X-Men? But… gross?”

“Uh, huh. Yep, that’s him.”

“But… why? I mean, you’re like every girl’s dream guy. You’re good looking, sensitive, a good listener, kind eyes, kinder smile, great hair, perfect–” She caught herself. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine – keep going.” I paused for a grin. “But you see, that’s how good my dating coach was!”

Emma wasn’t sold, though. “But he was… awful. Like, that was the creepiest creep who’s ever crept. What could someone like that possibly have taught you?”

Lying didn’t come naturally to me, especially without notice. I did my best. “That’s the thing, see, is I finally saw through him. I wanted love, intimacy, real  connections. Sex, sure, but more than that. That’s all he was selling, though, so I called him out for it in front of everybody.”

“Everybody? You had a whole class or something?”

“Um, yes?” Damn it, Spencer, sound confident!  “Yes. So, yeah, he kicked me out, and then tried to charge me for the rest of the course. I tried to get ahold  of him but he was ducking me, so I had to track him down, detective style, to tell him no way, José.”

“Oh. I guess that… yeah. But then, why did he just… touch me? Why was he sure I’d be so… yeah, that I’d just let him… yeah?”

My Spencer effect for a smoke bomb, so I could dash away and come back with something coherent. “I guess I told him some about how some of the women on my floor were into me, and I guess he believed me. That’s what I get for always telling the whole truth, huh? People believe me.”

Her lips pursed. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

We both sat there for a long moment. “I’m so sorry I didn’t apologize sooner. You left for break, what, the next day, and by the time we were both back I’d made a royal mess out of everything and it slipped my mind. I really am sorry. I promise. I will never treat you like that, or let anybody else treat you like that, ever again. You have my word.”

Emma nodded, but then after another moment, grew a bit of a grin. “I mean, you don’t have to promise that you  won’t ever treat me like that. Otherwise, how am I ever going to get one of those chokers everybody’s talking about?”

I made myself laugh. “I don’t know who’s distributing those, but it isn’t me.”

“Sure, if you say so. But whoever is… They must be watching.”

This wasn’t the time. Hot on the heels of a bald-faced lie – Professor Sex?!  – and giving in to keep her happy and distracted and disincentivized to wonder where her hunky RA had gotten his mojo. It felt dirty. Transactional – for both of us. I subdued troublesome suspicions, and she got… a choker? To proclaim herself one of the girls I was fucking? I guess I was glad she felt like there was something to be gained from that.

“Probably, yeah. Though Nikki said she’d be back soon, so…”

“She said she’d knock.” Emma fidgeted. “But if you don’t want to, I get it. I mean, there’s so many stupid pretty girls around here, and I know I’m… Yeah.”

“Hey there, whoa. You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever been in a room with. It is not about that.”

Her smile fluttered on and off, caught between a compliment and a rejection. “Oh. So then… what  is it? Am I not, I dunno, slutty enough? I know you have your type, or whatever. Not judging, just making an observation.”

“I’m not exclusively into ‘slutty’ women. It just so happens there’s a lot of sexually aggressive women here on Higgins 3.”

“Oh. So you’re saying, if I…”

Emma took her shirt off in one deft motion. I sat there numb as she reached back and undid the clasp on her bra, letting it slide casually off her shoulders as she stood and bent down to pull off her pants. Emma looked like a normal hot girl, and dressed like one, too. Those cozy mom jeans had fit loosely, but underneath was that girl I’d admired panting in my wake at the gym. She was fit, but not ripped; perky, but not busty; smooth-skinned but not unblemished. The girl was gorgeous – a bona fide Hottie.

“Fucking wow ,” I heard myself say.

“I look a little better when I’m not red-faced and sweaty, huh?” Emma preened under the lens of my admiration.

“I, um, actually thought you looked really good sweaty .”

Emma stepped closer, blushing at her own boldness. “Yeah?”

I let her lift me to my feet. She was shorter than I remembered. “Yeah. Really  good.”

She stepped closer, her pointy nipples brushing my chest. “So… why don’t you help me work up a sweat?”

We’d both worked up a good sweat by the time Nikki’s knock sounded at the door. Emma seemed to have inferred a fondness for athletic girls, so we were in the midst of trying to fuck standing up, splitting her weight between her arms around my neck, mine hooked beneath her knees. Frankly, the cock felt like it was doing the lion’s share of the work. We were struggling – I’d dropped her twice, but both times on the bed – but we were both of us laughing  off the struggles while getting off to the successes.

“Come in!” Emma called out.

However Nikki managed to open the door with her hands full of boxes of clothes and personal effects, she dropped them when she saw me splitting her new roommate in half. “Emma!” she squeaked in shock. I did about the same, only with a modicum of manly dignity.

Emma only laughed, though. “I’m sorry!” she wheezed, panting  with giddy exertion. “I couldn’t help myself.”

I didn’t know what to say. Nikki was staring, though, ignoring her scattered belongings. “Wow. You two look… wow.”

My muscles were burning, but there was nothing like a gorgeous woman admiring them to give them a second wind. As we performed and Nikki observed, Dana walked past, doing a severe double take when she saw what was transpiring. “Holy frick! You… You guys are…!”

“Nikki, shut the dang door!”

Dana’s eyes were threatening to pop through the lenses of her glasses as Nikki scurried to comply. “Sorry! I… Wow. You’re really earning that choker, huh…”

“Get in line, roomie. Get in line.”

************************************************

Both girls wore their chokers proudly the next day, smiling when they saw me noticing as we passed one another in the hallway. I asked where on earth they’d gotten them, but they merely shrugged. I asked Casey, too, when I stopped in to talk to her about Nikki’s departure (which segued quickly into her insisting she was “hella distraught, yo” and asking if I would console her with a good hard fucking, which I of course did). In regards to the chokers, she simply repeated that they sold them on the internet and shrugged off further inquiries.

Recruitment was on the rise. Now Casey, Andi, Kyu-Ri, Leigh, Angel, Emma, Nikki, and Jordyn were all wearing one (though I didn’t remember sleeping with Jordyn, so the choker rules were anybody’s guess). The other girls were taking notice. Was this really a way to reassemble the pieces of my perfect community, fucking my way down the roster until the Spencer effect combined with this slutty status symbol? It couldn’t be, whatever Ramona thought. She was fangirling over me so hard that she just wanted everybody to join her in it. Perhaps, I considered, she hoped that once I was openly fucking the whole floor, she could get in on it too without the sneaking around we’d had to resort to since break. I didn’t know if that would ever be possible, but it was tomorrow’s problem.

Today, I wanted to keep on chasing that good-RA high by getting out ahead of the next floor program. We hadn’t had one since massage night, unless one counted the movie night at which I had been banished before it started. (I did not.) Better still, with Halloween coming, there was an obvious target.

Heart in hand, I knocked on Tori’s door.

Ellie opened it. She didn’t look too thrilled to see me herself. Tori was at her desk, though it looked like she was eating, not studying. Chinese food, from over at Penderdast. The aroma filled the tiny space.

“It’s Spencer,” she announced, quite unnecessarily I thought.

Tori scowled. It was the scowl I felt attached to every doubt I had about how I was handling this whole mess. “Resign.”

“Hi, Tori.” I ventured a step into the room, which as it so happened was as far as Ellie had permitted me. “How are you holding up?”

“Have you resigned yet?”

“I’m not resigning,” I said resignedly.

“Then shitty.” She chopsticked a dainty load of rice into her mouth.

“I’m sorry. Can we talk? Not about all the… you know. Unless you want to. Really, I just wanted to talk about trying to do some kind of Halloween program, and I’d rather do it together if we could.”

She chewed much longer than the size of her bite suggested was necessary. (Also, it was a bite of rice, so.) “You want my blessing for whatever disguise you’re going to put on having us parade around in slutty costumes for your approval?”

“First off, no. Second off, while I do concur with some of your criticisms, and I am trying to do better, I didn’t exactly invent the tradition of college girls dressing sexy for Halloween. That one’s on you all.”

Another slow nibble, still no eye contact. “Yeah, well, I’m sure most of them would rather go out and party than sit around Higgins in the dorm lounge with the same thirty women they see every day.”

Residence hall lounge , I corrected her internally. “Oh, sure. I wouldn’t anticipate everybody coming.” Never mind that so far, almost everybody had attended every meeting and program I’d invited them to attend. “Still, bound to be some homebodies, people with early classes the morning after, whatever. Or if you don’t think a formal ‘show up at X o’clock to do Y’ style program would be fun, maybe we could just organize, I don’t know, like some trick or treating before people head out.”

“Trick or treating? We’re not little kids.”

Patience,  I reminded myself, banishing thoughts of some of my female friends back home who’d still been trick or treating through the end of high school. “Sure, that’s fair. Just brainstorming, you know? Maybe it would be better if you and Katrina and I could sit down together and talk it over, with the benefit of a little time to think instead of me just tossing out ideas. If now is a bad time, we can schedule a–”

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Tori finally turned her chair to look at me. “You think if you come down here, flash that pretty white smile, act like we’re good, then we’ll forget every f-ed up thing you’ve done this year and you can go right on collaring us like your goddamn pets. You want my permission to have nasty-ass sex with us in the showers, all-night booty calls, using that poor Korean girl like a damn toy.”

“She was waiting for me in my room when I got in from rounds, and she begged me. I told her no last time, and it humiliated her. Am I supposed to see how many times I can hurt her feelings before she gives up?”

“She… begged?” asked Ellie incredulously. “ That  girl…?”

Tori threw her hands in the air. “Yes! Do you ever hear yourself? ‘Am I supposed to tell my residents no when they want me to do something I shouldn’t do?’ I don’t know how many ways there are to explain it to you, but your job is not to give us whatever we say we want!”

“Oh yeah? You know so well how to handle having thirty-two gorgeous, sexually excitable women, many of whom have massive boundary issues? Go on, educate me. Tell me how you  would handle having your date night interrupted by twenty guys eavesdropping at your paper thin door, masturbating in the fucking hallway! One of whom, need I remind you, was you! ”

Tori wasn’t about to let me stand over her and thunder accusations, though. “I wasn’t… doing that ,” she shot back, a bit less feisty than my own attack. “I saw half the floor crowding the hall and wanted to know what was up. I didn’t expect my RA to pause, mid-coitus, and come out into the hall with his dick poking him in the chin to yell at everybody for being curious!”

“So, what, I was supposed to finish up first, let the girls who were  ‘doing… that’ have their fun, then come out and address the invasion of my privacy when I was nice and flaccid? Or maybe I should keep a bucket of ice in my room for emergencies, so the next time there’s a mass masturbation incident in the hall, I can just dump it down my pants before I address it?”

Tori wasn’t about to let me win this, or likely any, argument. “You want to focus on that   like it happened  routinely. You know what routines I’ve noticed? You peeping  in our doors when we’re changing. You encouraging  us to wear those slutty Hottie shirts.”

“Yeah, well, maybe people shouldn’t change with their doors open if they don’t want to be seen changing! And I almost got fired because of those shirts!”

“If that Ramona bitch were  going to fire you, she’d have done it by now! We’ve laid out all the evidence, but she’s all ‘I’ll continue to monitor and address infractions privately’ like we don’t all know it means ‘my husband left my ass and I’m living in a dorm room the size of my old closet and I don’t give a shit who does what!’”

Huh. As flawed assumptions went, it wasn’t a bad line of reasoning. Better than the truth, though. “Or maybe she’s heard about girls ambushing me in my room, or waiting for me to go into the shower so they can do inappropriate crap next to me, or chant ‘whip it out’ at every program, or any of the other things I’ve had to learn to deal with? Maybe she sees I’m doing the best I can, even doing some good now and then, and doesn’t want to dump this whole crazy situation into less capable hands!”

“If you resent it so much, why won’t you just quit!”

“Because I love this floor!” I roared. Only my frustration with Tori kept me from wincing at one of the hokiest things I’d ever said out loud – and I was a man prone to hokey  sayings.

“Bullshit! You love the way the girls on this floor make you feel. Like you’re not just another douchey, rapey college guy trying to fuck every innocent young girl he sees. Like you’re one of the good ones.” Tori shook her head. “You know, maybe that could be your Halloween costume. Go as a guy who doesn’t exploit his position for pussy.”

My jaw clenched. I shouldn’t let her rile me up like this. She was wrong about me, even if she was right about some smaller aspects about me. Maybe Ramona was right, and I should just rub my cock in her face and let the Spencer effect bring her to heel.

Like some rapey guy trying to fuck every innocent young girl he sees.

Fuck!

“Good suggestion. Costume party it is. Thanks for your input.” I about faced .

“Resign!” she  called after me.

“WE’RE HAVING A COSTUME PARTY FOR HALLOWEEN!” I bellowed into the hallway. “TORI APPROVED IT!”

Next door to Tori and Ellie’s room, Ramona’s door was open. She was right there in the doorway, and beckoned me with a stern crook of her finger. “A word, Spencer.”

My outburst had every door in that section of the hall open. My Hotties saw my boss summon me for a thorough chewing out. Knowing full well how poorly the doors kept sound in, I made sure to fuck her tits as quietly as possible while she phoned in the appropriate lecture for my outburst. Like I deserved.

************************************************

I woke up the next morning to find someone had drawn a pair of penises on the wall on either side of my room. One was comparatively small, wedged into the few feet between my door and Leigh and Angel’s. The other was close to twenty feet long. Both penises featured all sorts of hateful slurs, in all caps. SLUT. PREDATOR. PIG. CREEP. MAN-WHORE. I didn’t like the notion that “whore” was implied to be a female-gendered term that required “MAN-” for disambiguation, but that was beside the point.

I documented it, took pictures and wrote a brief report that I sent to Ramona. It took the rest of the the  morning scrubbing at it until my fingers hurt to get rid of it. The nice thing about the layers and layers of paint on residence hall walls was that if one applied enough elbow grease, a layer would eventually rub off and even permanent marker would go away.

To the Hotties’ credit, I received several offers of help. Charlie. Jordyn. Andi. Several more who stumbled onto it on their way out to class who said they’d help if they could. Others who simply expressed condolences and a pat on the shoulder (or the butt) and left me to it. The kindness meant more than any help. Not that I accepted help.

Shauna knocked urgently at my shower stall that afternoon. Figuring it was probably something serious, I threw a towel around my waist and opened the door. She was standing there in a fluffy pink towel spotted with red hearts. It was struggling to envelope her bust. Before I knew it, she was removing the towel, holding the ends out at arm length and flashing me. She bounced in place, setting a set of incredible boobs bouncing. And how.

“So… can  I have my choker now?” She smirked, which I barely saw in my peripheral vision.

“For the hundredth time, I don’t have any, and if I did, I wouldn’t be giving them out for women busting into my shower and randomly exposing themselves!”

She nodded, frowning. “Right, I figured.”

Rather than leave, the dark-haired beauty dropped to her knees there in the changing area of my stall, jerked my towel down to my ankles and used it as a kneeling pad. She sucked me between those plump red lips of hers, sucking me off with relish until I came. Shauna delivered herself a thorough facial, too, then rinsed it off under my stream and made her way to her own stall. “Don’t know why I thought that would be hotter,” she muttered, maybe to herself, but it carried between our stalls. She was riding her shower nozzle when I headed back to my room.

Around four in the morning I awoke in terror, coughing and choking. By the time the dust (actually baby powder, I soon learned) settled, I’d identified it as an old and nasty prank. I’d never seen it done, but I’d heard of it. Fill one of those big manila envelopes with baby powder. Slide the open end under the crack of someone’s door and give it a good stomp. Most of it would just spurt out onto the floor, but a good amount would aerosolize . I was lucky I had my laptop in my backpack; one of the crueler side effects was the stuff getting inside of electronics and fusing to the circuitry, quite possibly destroying them. By the time I opened the door, the culprit was long gone. 1

My whole room was coated in white powder – the floor, my bedding, my desk, my nightstand, the clothes hanging in my open closet… Everything. I had to pause the cleaning process to get ready for my nine o-clock class, but when I got back, it was only a couple more hours of sweeping, brushing, dusting and laundering every flat surface in the room.

Dawn stopped by that evening. She spoke in a rush, the cadence of her words coming off as rehearsed because she’d anticipated they would be hard to get out. “So I want you to know, I totally support you staying. This floor is so cool, and you’re such a  cool dude, and I want you to know I’m a choker, not a broker, all the way.”

“What the heck is a broker?”

I may as well not have asked. “So, you know how I’m, you know, not really all that into guys…? I know I said, um, and I… yeah. Sometimes I thought, maybe, if I met the right one, so I… I mean, you know what I did, you were there. But I think it just showed me I’m really just… not, right?”

“Which is totally fine. Dawn, you can be and like and love anything and anyone you like and I’ll back you trying to get it all the way. Why, did somebody–”

“So I, you know, didn’t totally want to… ‘earn’ the choker, because… yeah. And I knew you’d get that, because you’re you. Still, all my friends are choker girls, and I think they think I’m one of Tori’s broker girls, but I’m not! I’m not. So I wanted to–”

I cut her off this time. “Dawn, if you want me to tell everybody you did whatever it is that whoever it is is telling you that you have to do to ‘earn’ that silly thing, I’ll make up whatever lie you want. You don’t have to do anything. OK?”

“No, I do. Need a witness, right?”

“Witness? Wait, what do you mean–”

“So I figured, Kyu-Ri is super hot for you, and, um, I thought maybe you and I could go down there and…”

We had Kyu-Ri  lying face down on her bed before Dawn even finished her pitch. She had the delectably round Korean girl at “dual massage,” evidently. Unasked, Dawn stripped down to her underwear, which was more than Kyu-Ri wore. We oiled, kneaded, caressed, and squeezed every inch of her body. (Yes, those inches, too.) Finally Kyu-Ri asked if I would mind fucking her – “even though there are girls who have not had a turn yet, so you can spank me for being a bad greedy Hottie if you want instead” – so I figured why not. When I at last bucked a moaning, trembling Kyu-Ri off my shaft, she turned, frowning, and asked if I wasn’t going to take care of Dawn, too.

“She needs her choker, Mr. Spencer!” she insisted.

I looked at Dawn. She seemed anxious. “I don’t think she’s really in the mood,” I said.

Kyu-Ri looked at her roommate in shock. Had she always been so unabashed about nudity, or was this the Spencer effect? Or maybe some kind of Spencer side  effect, immersing herself in a new culture that happened to be especially naked? I was here for it, regardless. “Really, Dawn? Oh wow, if he say  you can do it, you should do it! He is very good to have sex with.”

Dawn’s lips twisted, pursed, and tried to eat themselves for a moment. “I… I’m sort of… into… other types of people?” She winced.

Kyu-Ri nodded. “Oh! That is too bad. I think you would look so good on him. Is that bad for me to say?”

“I think she’d look better on you,” I suggested, flashing a comforting smile at Dawn.

“On me …?!” Kyu-Ri’s eyes widened. “But I have never done with  a girl before! I read that in America this is something college women do all of the time, but I never…!”

Dawn shook her head vehemently. “You don’t have to! It’s fine. I’m, err, not sure I’m ready for the major leagues.”

Kyu-Ri shook her head, puzzled by the idiom. I translated. “The major leagues are professional baseball, where the best play. She’s saying you’re very, very pretty, and she’s a little intimidated.”

“Oh! Oh, that is so very nice for you to say, Dawn. But you know what? If I am going to American  university, maybe I should be American  college woman.” She smiled sweetly at Dawn. “How do two girls do this? I have never. You do not have jaji . ”

Kyu-Ri didn’t notice me making my retreat, as she was clutching a pillow over her face and shrieking something possibly Korean or maybe just pleasure overload babble into it. Dawn didn’t take her mouth from between the girl’s legs, but her eyes darted to me, sparkling with gratitude. I thumbs- upped  her. I was halfway back to my room before it occurred to me that weird  little gesture she’d made at her neck meant she’d earned her choker.

And what the hell was a broker?

“It’s ‘cause she broke the floor, homie. Or, I dunno, Jordyn was saying some badass commie  shit about power brokers or something, but I was…” She made an over my head motion.

I kept my pace. It was nice, having plain, vanilla, missionary sex in my own bed. Uncomplicated, no wondering about ulterior motives or the bizarre politics that had gripped Higgins 3. Plus, it was sexy as hell, watching Casey and her big, heavy tits shudder with another orgasm. They were coming so fast – she  was coming so fast – that I would have thought she was faking it if not for everything else I’d seen . Whatever had happened, it was like her body felt the same way about me as the floor had felt about me as their RA before break. It was… devotion. Did it make me smug  to enjoy it? Maybe, but… I could take the hit to my nice-guy rep for more of this.

“So obviously you’re paying attention to all this. How many choker girls are there out there?”

“All of ‘em, Ra dawg.” (Or was that raw dog? Both applied equally, I supposed .) “Some of ‘em just forgot is all .”

“I meant, how many, you know, remembered.”

“We’re getting there. You’re being that good  you now, homie. Keep reminding ‘em. And god, keep doing that thing you’re doing.”

I hadn’t been aware I’d been doing anything more involved then casually paced fucking, but in case I was a sex prodigy without having realized it, I asked. “What thing?”

“Me, homie. I’m the thing.”

I smiled. She really was too adorable. “So am I homie, or am I Ra? Trying to keep track of what all I need to answer to when  you call it.”

“You’re Ra, because you’re my Ra. And you’re  homie, because you’re my home.”

I kept doing the thing, all afternoon and into the night.

They went after my laundry that night. Higgins was a small building, and we hadn’t gotten complaints of anybody stealing clothes or anything sketchy. The lack of men probably helped, no panty raids for frat house initiations or old-fashioned freelance perverts. I usually sat down there while my clothes were tumbling anyway, just to get out a little and meet people from other floors, and to be honest, to maybe catch a glimpse of Savannah down the hall. The dumping broke me of that. Except when I went downstairs to pick up my last load, there was nothing there to pick up. Three empty dryers.

In the morning, I read the duty log; Carmen had gotten a call that there was a bunch of clothes strewn around the parking lot, with a speculation that they were men’s. As the only man living in Higgins, I felt like a phone call would have been nice. I gathered what I could and put them back through the laundry.

I got that glimpse, too. Savannah looked back, expressionless, and then left.

It got me thinking about where I’d left things with Vickie, though. She’d been on the cusp of inviting me back to her room when we’d gotten the call about Casey. It said something about the tenacity of the choker girls that I’d had my hands so full I’d barely thought of it in the days since it happened, long enough that the bruise was mostly gone. So when Danielle swung by that evening and bluntly said she’d heard I’ll fuck anybody who wants a ride, so how ‘bout it, I politely told her she’d have to ask again later and headed down to Higgins Ground.

Vickie answered the door with a raised eyebrow. It took real effort to keep mine in check at the sight of the squalor sprawled out behind her. I wished I didn’t recognize some of the detritus from where it had littered her room before break. “Uh, hi.”

“Hey, Vickie. Can I…?”

The eyebrow lifted higher, but she shrugged and let me in. “Oooookay.”

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” I joked.

She grinned. “Yeah, that’s me all right, total slob! So I’ma give you another six seconds to tell me what you want, or get in one more insult. Your pick.”

Oh. That was a sarcastic  grin.

“Sorry, let me start over.”

“Yeah, you got a ladder that tall?” When I cocked my head to the side like a confused labradoodle, she rolled her eyes. “Because your hole’s so deep. Keep up, bud.”

I laughed. She didn’t. “Right, yeah. So I’ve been thinking about the other night, when we were talking, and we sort of got interrupted.”

“Talking about…?”

“You know. Us. Remember?” I hoped my smile landed. It worked pretty well upstairs.

It took a moment, but then her eyes widened. “Oh! Oh fuck! Yeah, about… us. Which, to be clear, was code for us fucking , right?”

“Um, well, I didn’t mean only that, but…”

“But you miss Vickie?” Suddenly she was holding me by my belt line, pulling me closer. I cursed under my breath when I stepped on an upside down shoe and nearly tripped. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I have. So much.”

I felt my zipper lowering. “Did you miss Vickie a little?” There went the button. “Or a lot?”

“A lot. For sure a lot.” I’d aced quizzes harder than this one.

She crouched down, lowering my jeans and boxers. “Oh my. It looks like you did. All this Spencer for one tiny little Vickie…”

I stroked her hair gently. “There’s plenty more on the way, I assure you.”

I stepped out of my clothes as she nudged me toward the bed. There was a pile of clothes on it. Clean, I hoped, but I’d deal. “Mmm, Vickie remembers.”

“Does she? Because I wouldn’t mind refreshing her memory. Err, your memory.”

“Turn around? Show Vickie that cute little dumper.”

I chuckled, spinning slowly, cocking my hips side to side. “Your wish is my crrrrruhohhhh !”

Suddenly I was in the hallway. Naked from the waist down. I heard the door lock, but I tried it anyway. “Vickie! What the hell, Vickie! Let me in!”

“Vickie remembers. Remembers you saying she was a fun fuck and that bitch downstairs was the real relationship material. Remember? You and I had fun; you and her had  ‘connection.’ ‘Chemistry. ‘Potential!’” A contemptuous noise permeated the door. “Fuck off, ya baggadicks .”

I pounded harder. “Just give me back my clothes, OK?! I’m sorry! Whatever I said, I’m sorry!”

“What, you wanna fit me for one of those collars all your girls are wearing? Open the bag and eat one.”

“Eat… what?! Come on!” A door opened down the hall. A girl I thought I remembered meeting on move-in day stared , aghast, despite my best efforts to keep a hand over my junk.

“I’ll leave these in the parking lot like you like, yeah?”

Further begging and pounding did nothing. I only remembered halfway up to Higgins 3 that I couldn’t get onto the floor without my student ID card, which was in my wallet, which was in Vickie’s room. Or maybe the parking lot, if she used the window.

One of Janis’s girls passed by, staring as I muttered an excuse about being the victim of a prank. It felt like an hour (but was probably only a minute) before the Higgins 3 door swung open. I sprinted past a thoroughly shocked Katrina only to belatedly realize I couldn’t get into my room without my card either. Thank god Casey was at home, and happy to receive me in my present state.

I used her phone to call the center desk while she greeted my cock like an old friend. A friend she loved to suck on. A familiar voice answered. “Higgins center desk, how can I help?”

Well, great. “Hi, Savannah. It’s Spencer.”

“Oh. Hi.” Pause. “So, what’s up?”

I tried to keep my voice steady despite the way Casey was fervently worshiping my balls with her mouth. “Having a little predicament. Um, I forgot, sort of, some things in Vickie’s room. Including my, um, wallet.”

“Oh.” Casey got in three tongue swirls and a rapturous sigh before Savannah said more than that monosyllable. “So… what do you need?”

“I… left my phone, too? Using a friend’s. So I can’t call her. And my wallet has my card, so. Yeah. Could you maybe…?”

“Ah. Yeah. I’ll… yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“Yep.”

Carmen delivered my things, leaving them on the ground outside my room. Pants, underwear and all. She’d indubitably pass this information on to Savannah, just in case she’d had doubts as to what had happened and how. Considering where trusting people with my clothes had gotten me the night before, I asked Casey to run out and retrieve them for me. She agreed on the condition I not put them on for the remainder of the evening.

I was in no position to bargain.

************************************************

“Hi…”

“Allison.”

I nodded, stepping aside to let her in. “Allison. You know, I’ve felt less bad about always being off with you and your sisters’ names since reading up on your profile. How much energy goes into maintaining that identicalness? Because… yeah, wow.”

“You were reading up on us?” Her smirk technically counted as a smile, which felt like the first time I’d seen one of them smile in person. No surprise these triplets had teeth, though. They just didn’t tend to show them except online.

“Me and a million other guys, I’m sure, though in my case my interest is strictly professional.”

“Sure, whatever. So, we need to have sex.”

Of course. “Aaaaand so much for professional .”

Her hands settled on slender hips. “I’m serious. Are you going to make jokes, or are you going to hear me out?” She glanced at the bed. “Or do you even need… reasons.”

“It generally takes more than walking into my room and demanding I put out for me to put out.” Generally. “That said… yeah, I know there’s been that whole ‘choker’ trend going on. I also know you all don’t care about fitting in with the cliques around here, though, so… what’s your angle?”

This time, the smile was genuine. Pleased I was cutting to the chase, I surmised. “You’re right, we don’t. That said, we have an interest in this particular trend.”

“Do tell.”

Allison helped herself to a seat on my bed, sitting with her legs crisscrossed , arranging her dress for modesty. Or just to keep me wanting a glimpse. “Several reasons. First, to get it out of the way, I’m attracted to you. Not romantically, to be clear, but sexually, yes. That little fiasco after massage night…? That was… interesting.”

Here I thought I was getting to a place in life where it took more than words to inspire a boner. The memory of that fiasco was fresh; some combination of Allison, Allison and Maddison tried to manipulate me into doling out opportunities for them to lick me like the other girls had done at the program. Only they’d played themselves against each other, pretending to be their own sisters to score further opportunities. It had all ended with me calling them out on it and telling them they could take those licks off my ass and balls, or not at all.

Had Allison been remanded to the former, or the latter? I couldn’t recall.

The inflection she added to her use of “interesting” had me checking my assumptions about what those girls – or this one, at least – were into. My girls were all looking for something different, it seemed.

“That’s a good reason.”

She seemed less convinced by it, and went on. “Second, we’ve discussed it, and we actually want our chokers. Our brand analytics say chokers are going to be in vogue this season, and it’s always best to be out ahead of impending fashion. We’re thinking these work with an ironic dissonance, these slutty ‘Ho Titty Easy’ chokers against hyper-wholesome outfits. Pastel sundresses, pink nail polish, pigtails, all that jazz. Fuck slaves of Christ kind of thing.”

“Yeah, sure, fuck slaves of Christ are all the rage these days.”

“Show me your browser history or can the sarcasm .”

My eyes darted to my laptop. “Canned.”

“Plus, whether or not my Maddison, Addison and I are invested in this dramatic little sexy-wholesome fucknasium community of yours to the degree you want, we do live here. Increasingly, the absence of one is seen as approval of that fat bitch’s agenda to remove you.”

“Hey now, language. Let’s be civil.”

“Is she hiding in the closet?” The rail-thin blonde sneered. “Would she even fit?”

“If Tori’s 140 soaking wet, I’ll fuck whatever you want me to fuck.”

She shrugged. “Regardless, my point was, we like you as our RA. You keep things about as interesting as cohabitating  in a shitty wood-paneled closet can be. Plus we’ve heard about how much of a cunt that cunt upstairs is. Your replacement could be another like her. We’d prefer not to trade you in for a roll of the dice.”

Allison wasn’t the only one nervous about what a replacement Higgins 3 RA might do. “I’ll take it as a compliment, I guess.”

“And finally,” she went on, plainly disregarding my feelings about her position, “it’s sort of fun living amongst people who see you as celebrities. We have no delusions about our standing in the grand social order, just some giggly identical titties for guys to beat off to and girls to model their wardrobes off of, but to them… Look, whatever. It’s nice to know you’ll always have a phase in your life to look back on and wallow in your own legend. Maybe the hunk of Higgins knows something about that. So since it looks like you’re going to win this pathetic battle, we want to make sure we’re on the right side of pathetic history to keep the rest of the year cozy.”

I held out a hand palm-up. “So you don’t care at all about who’s right? All that stuff you were saying in the lounge the other day?”

“That was Addison, not me. I don’t yell over people in tiny rooms. Très gauche. Not that I disagree with her, but still, what does   who’s right  have to do anything?”

I sighed. “So why you? You pull the short straw? Or did they? I’m not sure how straw-pulling works.”

“I volunteered. Like I said, you do it for me, in your wholesome gee-gorsh kinda way. And we both know I do it for you.”

“You do it for pretty much every hetero guy, Allison.”

The smirk returned. “Or so our social media metrics suggest.”

I folded my arms. Time to see what leverage the Spencer effect secured me. “So you want to sleep with me, and in exchange you get your three little bullet points. What do I  get?”

There was the classic triplet scowl of condescension. She finally looked like the resident(s) I knew. “What do you mean, what do you get? You get… this . You get to die someday knowing you put your dick in someone who’s personally banned over six thousand commenters who begged to do just that.”

“OK, that’s one thing. If you get three, I want at least two.”

She folded her arms. “We’re not doing a foursome. No way.”

I’d never thought to ask for one, honestly; all well and good to drool over identically gorgeous faces and bodies, but I wasn’t about to extort the girls into actual incest. No need to tell Allison that, though. “Fair enough. In that case, I want you to do a little favor for some friends of mine.”

As it so happened, I’d finally figured out where the chokers had come from, and how Casey had gotten her hands on them so fast. If I’d been paying attention, I would have remembered Toni and Terri chattering at each other about going formally into business together with their streaming. That HO-TT-EZ logo was their new brand for their streaming, only they’d launched it over break and I’d been too busy fucking Ramona and throwing myself pity parties to catch a broadcast yet. While I was taking time to reflect on being supportive for individuals and not just spending all my energy on the strife with Tori, I’d been going down the roster and remembered. Their stuff was good, too, I’d discovered. I was no connoisseur, but I thought it was hot as hell.

(Not for nothing, why did it feel weird to jerk off to my residents making sexy ASMR plainly intended to help guys jerk off, but actually fooling around with them felt increasingly normal?)

Terri and Toni had only just gotten the merch in the  very morning of Casey’s injury. Casey had apparently heard before her accident, because when I went down to talk to them about it they said she went down there literally minutes after getting back from the hospital. (Minutes after I finished face-fucking her in the shower, that is. (At her request, to be sure!))

“She bought thirty-three of these things from you?” I asked Terri, examining one of the few they still had in stock.

She shook her head. “No. We donated them. After what I did, you know, recording you without telling you… I felt really bad. Like that story you told us, right? We can’t go back and pick up the feathers once we’ve set them out there, they’re all blown away. But I thought maybe this would help make up for it.”

To think, I’d figured Casey had just gotten lucky with an Amazon shipment coming ultra-fast, some tawdry commercial transaction as a veneer for a slutty accessory. But this…? This was an RA wet dream. The other  kind of RA wet dream.

I sniffled. “It helps. You didn’t have to do that. I can pay you back for those.”

“No! No no no. Free advertising. And…” She lowered her eyes. “That night, with the, you know, conflict mediation or whatever… People have been saying we faked everything to reel you into our reel, but they don’t even know. We were actually struggling down here. Like, I was so… grr. Yeah.”

Toni nodded. “Very yeah. But now we’re, like best friends! At least, you’re my best friend…”

“You’re mine, too.” Terri hugged her co-streamer/roommate/bestie. After a moment, though, they remembered someone could see their sappy display and turned back to me, blushing.

“And, um… That night? That was the hottest thing I’ve ever done,” mumbled Toni.

“Oh GOD yes,” echoed Terri. “You know, when I first started doing the insta girl shit, part of what I loved was that it made me insanely horny. The modeling, the attention, celebrating my body, horny guys and jealous girls… But then it sort of got old, became  routine. A job job, kind of. But ever since that night…”

“Oh boy, she’s not kidding, Spencer. She’s not kidding at all.”

So I’d invited them to do it again. I sat in Toni’s bunk watching a stream they’d done last week at Bear Lake in “fall bikinis,” which sounded anachronistic as hell to me but they just rolled their eyes at my skepticism. Meanwhile, I was treated to Terri tutoring Toni in her editing processes, in this case, the recording of the two of them slobbering up and down my cock so thirstily that it felt like it would never be dry again.

Allison craned her neck, waving a hand to regain my attention. “Hello, earth to Spencer…?”

“You’re going to do a collab stream – I think that’s the term – with Terri and Toni. All three of you. And you’re not going to tell them I had anything to do with it.”

She glanced at the door as if to remind herself other people existed on the floor. “Who? That dyejob  redhead and the one with the eyebrows?”

“And you’re definitely not going to say anything even a little bit like that. Tell them you’re feeling philanthropic, encouraging new talent. Tell them you’re impressed with their work and thought it could be fun. Brand ambassadors or some industry jargon. Just be nice, and keep my name out of it. OK?”

She sighed. “I guess they’re not totally hopeless – but those eyebrows are getting tweezed before I tag her in a single pic. Fine. So… we’re good?”

“I’ll be better when you get on your knees and put that mouth of yours to good use.”

Allison’s nipples hardened before my eyes. Guess I’d read her right. Marisa would be proud. “You can’t talk to me like that,” she mumbled, the least convincing thing she’d said to me since entering my room. “I don’t have  to do this, you know.”

“You want to play hard to get, fine. I’ll go get Maddison or Addison. Heck, maybe both. Maybe they’re more invested in your brand.”

“I’ll do it!” Allison gasped, launching herself off the bed and onto her knees. “Just… a little respect is all I’m asking.”

I pulled out my cock and gave her a few teasing slaps to the cheeks and forehead with it. “Or… you could say please.”

“I… no. No, right? No, I won’t.”

I rubbed the tip against her lips. She opened up immediately, tried to take me in, but I pulled back as she lunged after my cock. “Are they in right now? I bet they’d appreciate an opportunity like this.”

“Please,” she whined. “OK? Now can I just…?”

“Please what?”

She scowled up at me, but there was no mistaking the delight shimmering behind those eyes. “Please can I suck your cock.”

“Suck your cock…?”

It took her a moment, but she got it. “Please may I suck your cock, sir . Oh my god, I can’t believe I just called my RA ‘sir.’”

“Don’t disappoint me.” Whatever Allison was about to retort with was lost when I thrust my cock into her open mouth. She squealed, looking sulky over it, but didn’t try to back out or reneg . “And how about a little eye contact, for fuck’s sake.”

I’d never choked a girl during sex before that night, but Allison asked so many times it basically became a fourth bullet point. I was nagged after the fact for being too gentle, though I protested that it was better than the reverse. Seeing her crying had almost made me stop altogether, but when my hand withdrew, she grabbed my wrist and put it right back into place.

“Squeeze me dry, sir,” she demanded.

I did my best to give it to her like she wanted. We finished it out with me fucking her up against my closet door, the flimsy wood pounding against its frames so loudly Janis stomped on the floor in irritated response. (Oh yeah, Janis!) I pulled out and came on Allison’s ass, then gave a clean spot a slap and gestured. “Thanks. Door’s on the wall.”

She turned to me with what looked to be genuine rage, then whimpered needfully and pulled my lips to hers with a handful of my chest hair. She tugged her panties back on, and nothing else, before departing. “I fucking love this floor,” she said as she sashayed into the hall.

When a triplet came to my room a few hours later to make the exact same pitch, I genuinely didn’t know whether it was Allison again or one of her sisters; whether this girl knew I’d already put out to her sibling or not; whether the first one had even been Allison in the first place. Shortly after as I hit the lights, a third followed up, or a second, or the first for a third time. I shrugged and made the same deal a third time, had the same amazing, alpha male. The C-list celebrity in triplicate was made to ask permission to suck her sister’s, or her own, cum off my cock, and after the first two romps, she had to work for it. I folded my arms behind my head and told her to do her best to keep me awake. The pleas for a nice hard nipple twisting helped, her cries spilling into the hallway as I tweaked those stiff, puffy pink nips. She rode me, she came, I came, and that was the end of the night’s sex with whoever she was.

The new Spencer Lawrence was apparently the kind of guy who wasn’t even sure which women he’d fucked in a given day.

************************************************

The brokers struck again that night, this time taking retaliatory action against the entire floor. The whole building, really, as the fire alarm triggered an evacuation of all six floors. Desperation must be setting in.

It was late October now, and chilly. Tori and her dwindling supporters made a circle in the parking lot as Savannah and the other off-duty RAs waited for the on-duty RAs to escort the firefighters upstairs.

Meanwhile, my choker girls and I crowded into Dana’s minivan. It was a giggly, gropy dog pile, warm and soft and happy.

“Ra!” shouted Casey, and the others soon joined in.

“Ra!”

“Ra!”

“Ra!”

Chapter Eight: Switches

HIGH PRIEST OF THE CUNT CULT  

That was the extent of the next morning’s “prank.” Back in August, I’d made a door tag for myself like everyone else, with the addition of “RA” beneath my name. Now someone had taken nail polish and painted on a new title. Whoever had done it – it probably wasn’t Tori, I told myself, again – hadn’t planned well, part of the title spilling onto the wood.

I suppose, after having a pile of giggly girls on top of me chanting the name of the Egyptian sun god in reference to me, it wasn’t the least suitable criticism.

If it struck me as a bit sad compared to the grandiose acts from earlier in the week, I could take comfort in what it seemed to signify. Namely, that I was winning. Tori and her people had made their case and made it well. As their primary piece of evidence, I should know. It wasn’t the victory through reasoned debate and mutual conciliation that I’d wanted, but I supposed it would have to do. It turned out, apparently, that people who wanted to spend their college years having hot sex with no strings attached out-numbered those who took exception to that lifestyle.

If things weren’t as nutty as pre-break, maybe the Hotties simply needed time. There was no line-up to masturbate in the shower stall next to me, no more stripping with doors open, no walking down the hall to hear the muffled noises of every last Hottie frigging themselves to an unauthorized recording of two of their number blowing me. Just smiling faces and straying hands. For most of them, really, not even that.

Most gave the impression that they’d earned their chokers and didn’t feel the burning need to do more. Maybe the Spencer effect had even diminished a bit. Bob had said something during our first confrontation about how it had started with me going through rooms during RA training before the girls arrived, touching everything to do their RCRs, getting my not-pheromones all over their rooms. Maybe the stuff had faded over time, and they weren’t stewing in the stuff so much. Or had we simply achieved a natural equilibrium? Regardless, Higgins 3 was finally becoming a nice place to live again. Once these so-called pranks subsided and the girls perpetrating them moved on, hopefully we could all move on happily. I’d patch up what I could, and where I couldn’t, I’d remember how to tolerate not being universally beloved by my residents.

All I had to do was not have any more fuck-ups.

All I had to do.

************************************************

“Holy SHIT! ”

Lexi’s head cocked to the side, eyes still blank, empty. “What.”

It was the first word she’d spoken to me since I’d idiotically asked her if I could see those two stupendous things straining at the delicate wrap of her towel. They were… fuck. Even only seeing the top halves, I was awestruck. Big, round, impossibly perky, so perfectly spherical I couldn’t believe modern surgery could do such a thing. The kinds of tits that struck down the objections of every dude-bro out there who claimed they thought fake boobs were anathema. It was possible the towel obscured some imperfections, but what I could see merited my verbal outburst and then some.

“I’m sorry. Fuck! Fuck. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting…”

She waited. Kept waiting. “Wasn’t expecting what?”

Casey squirmed around me to exit the shower. “Hey, Lex. Nice tits.”

“Back at ya.”

As Casey swaggered out of the bathroom, though, Lexi was still watching me. “Sorry. You’re just… They’re just so…”

Her frown deepened. “So… what?”

Fuck! All  I had to do! “It’s just nice to see you. That’s all. We’ve been missing you.”

“We?”

“I. Sorry. Don’t know what’s wrong with my tongue. I  missed you. Wow. So, yeah, have you been doing OK?”

With a roll of the eyes, Lexi entered the shower stall I’d just left, brushing me aside and saying nothing.

Jo was in my room tearing me a new one within the  hour. Tori went to Ramona first, who texted a heads up about her on-the-warpath status that I received while the galled governess was down in my room, thundering away at what a misogynist asshole I was to leer at Lex once more.

Soon after, Katrina, whom I’d thought had been a weak link, came down later with another lecture no less vehement.

“Katrina, wait,” I said as she stormed out. “Please.”

She paused, but didn’t turn back around. “What, Spencer.”

“I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. I’m embarrassed, and there’s no excuse, but I am very sorry.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “So…? I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

“But Lex won’t talk to me. Or if she would, Jo would kill me if I tried to get close. Just… tell her I’m sorry?”

“You think she’d believe it? You think that makes it OK, even if she does?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I know I keep screwing things up with her. I’m not being glib. I really am sorry.”

Katrina sighed. “No offense, Spencer, but so what?”

I regarded her gravely. “You’re a good leader, Katrina. Maybe I can’t claim the same, but I’ve at least had some training in it, behind closed doors and here in the halls. You’re one of the smartest people I know, and people are going to keep following you, so let me pass on something I’ve learned.”

Her eyes narrowed, but one thing she’d already figured out for herself that Tori hadn’t was to listen as much as she talked. “Go ahead.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned trying to fix fights between people, Katrina… Nothing makes old wounds OK, but you can’t start on a path to earning forgiveness until you apologize. If I screw up again, if I turn out to be such an idiot that I screw up a dozen more times, I’m going to keep apologizing.” I made a sour face. “Though I promise I won’t screw up that many more.”

A thin smile formed on thin lips. Then an even thinner laugh. “Sorry, I can just hear Tori saying something like ‘sounds like he lifted that off a damn greeting card’ or something.”

“Cool. Maybe when I get myself fired and have to figure out how to pay down my loans, I can get into the card writing industry.”

Katrina turned back around. “I think we both know you’re not getting fired,” she said softly.

“I hope not. I like living with you guys. And not just because of… that.”

“But that, too.” She sighed. “You have a kind disposition, Spencer. I like you. I just wish I could respect you.”

Katrina left. Her parting words burrowed down deep. I locked the door behind her and didn’t open it for the rest of the day. I ditched classes, too.

Well, I opened it for Casey, but only after several hours of trying to ignore her imploring me through the wall. There was no making out individual sentences, but “cock” and “pussy” and “please” and a dozen vulgar terms recurred so often that the theme of her pleading was apparent. I took out my ear buds every half hour or so, and every time she was still at it. It was the middle of the night when the loneliness and self-loathing finally won out. I knocked at our shared wall, and seconds later Casey was in my bed, naked, literally drooling around my cock.

“You’re all I got now, homie,” she murmured. Fuck, she was literally weeping with relief to be let in. “I can’t quit you. Wouldn’t want to.”

I promised not to make her wait like that again if I could help it.

I’d ignored the Lexi problem because it was hard and made me feel things about myself I didn’t like feeling. I’d been doing the same with Tori, with Savannah, with the mountain of doubts I’d cast aside about what I’d resolved to do. I’d ignored Casey until it blew up in my face, and now I was doing it to her again. She didn’t sleep that night. She just sucked my cock, even when I was sleeping, even when it got soft as I dreamed of realer  realities.

Something was wrong  with Casey. My wonderful, witty, worshipful Casey.  In the case of this something , it wasn’t a Spencer problem that I could have a well-planned heart-to-heart to solve.

This was a Spencer effect  problem.

That was what sold me on what I had to do next.

************************************************

“I’d say it was a pleasant surprise to see you, but it’s not really a surprise.”

I smiled hopefully. “So you’re saying it’s pleasant.”

Marisa unfolded her arms and gestured for me to enter her apartment. “It’s not un pleasant. You look well.”

“Is that the Spencer effect talking, or just being polite?”

She chuckled dryly. “I’m sorry, the ‘Spencer effect?’”

“You know, how whatever your bosses did to me–”

“I know what it does. Thanks to this little stunt you pulled, I know better than you.”

I sighed with relief. “So it worked? They really…?”

She nodded. “They did. There I was, sitting at my desk collating survey responses – me and Tomas are doing a study on the effects of ASMR on libido – and suddenly I’m being summoned to this creepy basement dungeon to get filled in on my ex-boyfriend’s harem management efforts to find out if he’s going to rule the roost or wither on the vine or… whatever shit metaphor they used.”

“Harem?! It’s not a harem!”

“No, it’s just a group of young, attractive teenage girls who perform any sex act you can dream up on command and thank you for letting them pleasure you. Oh, and they’re unpaid and they live in a convenient little pod for you to harvest their cum. But not a harem.”

“Harem girls have costumes.”

Marisa laughed in spite of it all. “Cute. Go on, have a seat. Don’t worry, I’ll disinfect anything you touch. Though it sounds like I won’t need to, maybe. Do you want to start with what on earth you did to trigger my getting brought into all this?”

“Sure. So I have this resident–”

“No, not the problem. How did you get in touch with them in the first place? Even I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced the HI’s involved, and I’m there almost every day.”

“Ah, sure. So I’ve been figuring for a while now that they have to be recording somehow, or there’s no data to be analyzed. Exit surveys are impractical; there’s no way to ask those types of questions without exposing themselves.” I paused for Marisa to snort or laugh or do a dry “phrasing!” quip, but she was listening uncommonly closely. “I’m pretty sure there’s no cameras. They’d need line of sight, and that’s way too big a risk of discovery. All it takes is one girl noticing a camera and all of the sudden it’s national news, Lakeview putting spycams  in the girls dorm, which is a big nudge for Lakeview to start wondering what’s going on in its residence halls. Clearly the folks doing this don’t want that attention.”

“Clearly.”

“So I figured audio makes more sense. Mics can be hidden more easily – in mattresses, concealed in a hole in a bedpost under some wood putty, or even parabolic mics around the vicinity. Same with infrared scanners, so they know where to point them. Ramona – my boss, kind of? She’s, um, working with me – agreed that makes the most sense, since using a few devices remotely is a lot cheaper and less conspicuous than bugging the entire floor.”

Marisa shook her head. “You know, I haven’t not  been thinking about you, but… This is some serious shit, fucking Jason Bourne shit. OK. Go on.”

“So I wanted to make sure they were listening. Most of the time I’m just sitting around, right, so I invited one of my girls in, had her wear some headphones while she… ah…” I looked at my ex-girlfriend awkwardly.

Marisa sighed, annoyed. “While she sucked your dick? How many times do I have to tell you, if you can’t say the name of a sex act, you shouldn’t be allowed to do it.”

“Apologies to the sex police. Anyway, I figured that’d get their attention, make sure they were listening. I made sure she couldn’t hear me, and told them – just talked out loud and hoped, I guess. But yeah, told  them I needed to know what happened to one of my girls.”

Marisa nodded. “And I want to know more about that, but… how did that get back to me ?”

“I know you weren’t convinced, but the more I poked around, the more certain I was that it had to be Hancock. It’s an experiment on human sexuality, so who else could it be? I’ve looked into every research foundation for a hundred miles, mostly IT startups. Nobody else I looked at makes half the sense as them. There’s one other person I know who’s connected to them, our housing director. He helped place the women, covering for the red flags it could raise in the system. I don’t trust him, though. I told them to send a reply through you.”

“I’m flattered, I guess, that you decided I’d definitely want to stick my neck out for some kid in your dorm.”

Marisa was only being fussy because I hadn’t thanked her yet. First, I finished answering her question. “I said if they didn’t pass on what I need  to know in three days, I’d start making things difficult. Felt like the sort of vague threat I could figure out how to satisfy if they tried to treat it like a bluff. Has to be lots of ways I could piss them off, waste their time and money at minimum.”

It hadn’t been a bluff. I did have ideas. Go visit a buddy out of town for a week. Return to celibacy. Find a girlfriend out of Higgins and fool around exclusively outside their surveillance. I had a whole list. Since they knew I knew – quite possibly knew how fully I’d planned to embrace their experiment thanks to all those talks with Ramona over break – I figured they’d rather compromise a little to mollify me than test the limits of the creativity of a twenty-three-year-old college boy with very little to lose.

From what Marisa had said so far, it sounded like I’d been right.

“Ballsy. Then again, your balls are probably one of the reasons they picked you.”

I gave a perfunctory laugh. “So that’s how I got through to them. Then what happened? You said… a dungeon?”

“A modestly furnished windowless basement room, to be clear. But it sure felt like a dungeon. Bet you anything it was one of those kinky fuck bins the place used to be known for back in the day.”

“Yikes.” I remembered she’d once put it that the Hancock Institute had been founded to satisfy sex curiosity , and only after some time passed had it become a place for sex science . From my own plight, it sure seemed like they had plenty of the former still alive and well down there.

Marisa continued, “Got led down there by some creep in a mask. They confiscated my phone, I guess so I couldn’t record anything or call for help. Nobody even came to talk to me. Just used this TV on the wall, typed words and flashed docs and pics and shit. It moved fast – I think they wanted to overwhelm me, make it look like they’re some all-knowing fuckers condescending to include a lowly intern in their brilliance. Like I said, it was something out of a spy movie, right down to the ambiguously brown hot girl romantically attached to the hero.”

“I’m definitely not a hero, Marisa. And I’m really sorry that happened. It sounds terrifying.”

“It was. But…” She grinned. “But it was pretty fucking cool, too. I thought it was pretty sweet working for one of the world’s foremost authorities on human sexuality. Finding out they’re also a shadowy harem-crafter cabal? Some heady shit.”

I leaned forward. “So what did they tell you? Did they say how to fix Casey?”

“Casey…?” She shook her head. “No. I asked a lot of questions, and they ignored most of them. They had a script prepped in their little presentation, and they pretty much stuck to it. There was… a lot of data. Most of it moved faster than I could even read, unfortunately.”

“But what did  you read?” I pressed.

“Chill, OK? I’m getting to it. Unlike them, I didn’t get the chance to work up a slide show.”

I held up my hands apologetically. “Sorry, Greenberry. Take your time.”

“I was going to.”

Yet she dove right in, passing along everything she’d seen the best she could. I didn’t have her background in the sciences, but it sounded like they’d gone over her head, too. Me, I sat back and tried to keep from losing my goddamn mind as she told me the story of my story.

Her eyes had caught a “date of insertion” on one of dozens of rapidly transitioning reports they’d flashed before her. Sure enough, Bob hadn’t been lying about my wisdom teeth removal. Right there in the health center, while I was under for the dental work, they’d stuffed in their insidious little implant. They must have somebody on the inside there, too, same as they’d pulled in Bob to set up their playground on Higgins 3. It made me glad as hell I’d decided not to go there and ask someone to help find this thing inside me.

As for why it hadn’t done anything in the months between then and Welcome Week, she inferred that it had some kind of remote activation, could  be toggled on and off. She wasn’t sure – Marisa said she wasn’t sure before almost every tidbit she shared – but she thought one of the charts had suggested they could even adjust the strength of the effect to a degree.

“I know you’re not a doctor or anything, but doesn’t that sound crazy to you? You can’t just switch an organ on and off with some device.”

Marisa laughed, rather unkindly in fact. “I’m closer to being a doctor than you, Dougie. At least I’ve heard of a pacemaker.”

“You can’t bluetooth your pacemaker on and off!” I snapped.

“Yeah. Because people don’t want to shut their fucking hearts off. You don’t think people spreading around top secret sex chemicals might want to–”

“All right, all right! Sue me if finding out this crap is inside me  is freaking me out a little! Just… keep going.”

Marisa measured me, and seemed to decide to let me off the hook. Her explanation went on, though t he how of it was, needless to say, complex. Still, what they’d said to her was that it wasn’t only  chemical. As she launched into an explanation with so much scientific jargon I mentally prepared an apology letter to my high school chemistry teacher for not having paid more attention, she finally accepted that I was overwhelmed and tried another tactic.

“OK, dummy talk time.”

“Hurtful. Thank you.”

Marisa steepled her fingers, the way she subconsciously did when she was lecturing me. “So you know how chemistry is everything, right? The whole universe, atoms and molecules and reactions.”

“Sure.”

“Now with inorganic matter, the chemistry is comparatively simple. Sodium meets chloride, makes salt. Hydrogen sticks to everything. Et cetera. But when you get to biochemistry, you have molecules that took billions of years to progress and evolve. As organisms become more complex, the reactions become more complex. Still with me?”

“I think so. Living stuff tricky .”

“Good boy. Get to sufficiently evolved life forms, and the chemical reactions can start to blur with psychosocial reactions. Take penicillin, at one end of the spectrum. Breaks down most bacteria’s capacity to form cellular walls that can hold in their gunk. At the other end, take something like, say, zoloft. It stimulates production of neurochemicals that change how dozens of things work throughout the whole body. Messes with your appetite, your serotonin, your energy levels. But there’s so many little things happening that it can take months before the dosage is right for a given person, and it can be hell until it’s right. It’s not just headaches or diarrhea – it can completely change the way you interact with others.”

“Yeah, all those commercials, with the side effects. Take this for depression, but it might make you suicidal. Like that?”

She nodded. “Like that. And that’s medicine, but the brain takes social cues from all kinds of stuff. Classic example is a crying baby. Most people’s brains react pretty negatively, part of an evolutionary mechanism so we’re less likely to neglect our kids. Some people, especially pregnant or recently pregnant ones, have chemicals that make them react more strongly. It could trigger mood swings, depression, or stimulate lactation. Some women report that it arouses them, others that it makes them feel happy because they’re needed, loved. If something as stupid as a baby can love someone.” She shook her head, forcing down her tendency to baby shame. “It’s reacting to our physiology, yes, but also to things as complex as our memories and traumas.”

“OK…”

“So this stuff is deeply at the second end of that spectrum. From what I could gather, it stimulates neural activity tied to sexual arousal, obviously, and perhaps most prominently, but it’s other stuff too. It breaks down social inhibitions, similar to the way alcohol does. It even hits some of our dormant social triggers that we mostly stop using after infancy – feelings of need, calm, safety, belonging. The shit we get from being held and breastfed and lullabied  by our parents, you know? Except here, those feelings are being projected onto you.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not that  bad at my job, that my residents only feel comfortable around me because of some chemical sludge. No way.”

Marisa smiled sympathetically. “Hey, nobody’s saying that. Honestly, that might be part of why they chose you for the experiment. You’re conventionally attractive, yes, which I suspect played a big role.”

“Why would my looks matter if I’m pumping out this stuff?”

“Think about it. Imagine you’re really aroused. As aroused as you’ve ever been.”

“Mm. The time you fucked me on the balcony of our hotel in Cancun on spring break.”

“That was very specific and very quick. Also, god yes, that was incredible. Anyway, now imagine instead of it being me you were rooming with, it was my friend Carol. You remember her, with the… yep, from the face I see you trying not to make, you remember.”

“Yep, understood. No offense to Carol.”

Marisa rolled her eyes. “So yeah, your ‘sludge’ isn’t some love potion that magically points horniness at you specifically, but having a hot, slightly older but not creepily old Daddy figure, and no other male presence in the building, I’m sure helped point a lot of it at you. But the fact that you’re a natural nurturer, empathetic, protective–”

“All the stuff you usually only bring up to make fun of me, you mean?”

“Right, that stuff. That stuff is in there, making sure your girls don’t just want to fuck you. They want to belong  to you. The connection isn’t merely attraction. (Not to discount the potency of attraction! Listen to a murder podcast.) It’s also social and emotional. It’s probably why your girls aren’t staging a mutiny now that they’ve switched you off.”

Marisa started to say something else, but must have seen a look on my face. I don’t know what it might have been. I didn’t know words for whatever this feeling was.

“Spencer…? Spencer, say something.”

Switched me… off? Mutiny. A mutiny? Switching me off …?!

“Spencer! Whoa, baby, take a breath for me. Holy–”

OFF?!

Marisa caught me just in time. It took two cups of tea before I felt stable enough to be allowed to continue our discussion. “I wasn’t going to faint,” I grumbled, taking another sip.

“You said that. And what did I say?”

“I was listening, OK? I’m fine.”

“What did I say. ”

“That you don’t let liars or idiots in your home. Har, har.”

“So if you keep saying things like that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. So drink your tea, and then try saying something that makes sense.” She raised her own mug to me.

I downed the rest of mine and finally tried to put it into words. It came out in a babble, one she listened to without interruption. I wouldn’t have described Marisa as a great listener when we were dating, but girlfriend Marisa and sex researcher Marisa utilized two distinct standards of attentiveness. Tonight she was the latter. She heard me out about all of it, from the insanity of massage night, hooking up with Ramona, and everything that happened since break. I even spoke plainly about my fuck-ups with with Dana’s mom, with Casey, with Lexi. (Though I’d forgotten where Marisa’s prejudices lie.)

“Ugh, girls who shell out for gigantic tits and then get embarrassed about people taking interest in them can tongue-fuck my barely orgasmic asshole to completion.” She made a thoroughly displeased face. “And I mean right first thing in the morning, too, not some rosy post-shower rimjob. We’re talking–”

“Yep, I get it. And maybe cut her a little slack, since Lexi only did it because the Spencer effect convinced her to go the extra mile to get my attention.”

“Bah, you don’t even like huge boobs.”

“For one, they’re not ‘huge,’ they’re just a lot bigger than boobs that perky are supposed to be. And for two, I like huge boobs just fine.”

“No you don’t, honey. That’s not just my ego talking, either – though if we wanted, we could enter me into  evidence as exhibits A, B and C.”

“C…? Do you have a third boob I never noticed?”

She pointed to each breast respectively, then swept across both. “A. B. And they’re C cups. Why do I even bother being clever with you? But the point is, you like hot  boobs, hence your fixation on mine. Size is one factor, though several studies have shown that’s only true to a degree and to a certain size, at which point it tapers off. Furthermore, issues such as asymmetry, sag, perception of excessively sized nipples and areola – they’re all negatively perceived and correlate positively with larger bust size.”

“Just… fucking fascinating, really. But did you hear what I said? My residents had a whole week to cool off, but in two weeks they’ve gone from united in demanding my head on a plate, to a rising tide of wanting to pleasure me for a token of membership in the Spencer’s sluts club. Casey started having some kind of sexual panic attack at not getting to fuck me for most of a day. I am not ‘switched off!’ Those fuckers lied to you! To us!”

Marisa nodded, transitioning back to the topic at hand smoothly. “That’s certainly one possibility.”

“Possibility?! I have a resident who had a meltdown because she had to wait a few hours to get me off!”

“Yeah, that’s a tricky one. Hmm.”

I waited, but she was thinking. I didn’t have the patience for Marisa’s silent introspection. “What? You don’t really think they meant it, do you?”

“I’m. Thinking. Shh.”

Getting angry wasn’t going to help, and although I wasn’t going to faint (and hadn’t been about to earlier, either), another cup of tea sounded better than pacing around like a caged animal. By the time I was seated again, Marisa’s not-quite-scalding I [heart] Hancock mug in hand, with its lettering designed so one’s knuckles obscured the Han , she at last deigned to speculate aloud.

“I agree that it seems suspicious. They obviously got your message or they wouldn’t have contacted me. They also obviously want to continue to keep this on the DL, or they would have ignored your threat. Only, if they take your threat seriously enough to tell me all that… Why lie?”

“Because they’re a bunch of–”

“Don’t get all histrionic on me. I’m serious. Why gaslight you? We don’t know what hypothesis they’re testing, whether their focus is on the efficacy of the tech, or something less obvious. Personally, my sense is that this implant works much too effectively for them not to have already ironed out a lot of the kinks. Or ironed them in, if you think about it.” She chuckled.

Hmph. If I made a pun I was a hack, but she never tired of her own.

“Marisa…”

“OK, thought experiment. What if it’s true – you’re ‘off’ – and the ‘Spencer effect’ has been offline since sometime during fall break.”

“Which it can’t have been, or my boss would have snapped out of it.”

“You say that, but how do you know? She falls for you because of it, or in part because of it. But when you stop pumping it out, it’s not like she’s suddenly not attracted to you, or doesn’t enjoy great sex with a reasonably talented lover like yourself.”

“Reasonably…?”

“Eight out of ten, can  recommend.” She smirked fetchingly. “But I’m saying, it’s not like there’s some sudden dropoff or system shock to it. At least, I didn’t see anything in there about withdrawal symptoms. Plus, this is a synthetic organ, not some machine. Biology doesn’t really ‘switch off’ so much as it becomes more or less active. Your penis doesn’t switch off when you’re not using it, but what it’s doing right now versus what it would be doing if I settled into your lap…” She shrugged. “If you spent a whole week fucking night and day, maybe there’s still trace amounts leaking out that help maintain things.”

“OK, I see what you’re saying, that if they already were into me, the switch-off wouldn’t necessarily make them not into me. What about Casey, though? She ignored me just fine for a whole week, and then out of nowhere…”

“We’ll come back to Casey. Look at the rest of them. They show up to a freshly decontaminated building–”

“Decontaminated…? What do you mean?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I say? I mean, you were there all week. They didn’t sneak a bunch of guys in hazmat suits past your vigilant RA gaze, did they…? Shit, I remember the time you interrupted making out because you thought – correctly – you heard something different about a can hitting a surface in your neighbor’s room.”

I groaned as comprehension dawned. “The fucking exterminators! ‘Ants.’ Ants! I should have figured! Never a word about them in the duty log, and all of the sudden…! Dah!”

Marisa shook her head consolingly. “There’s nothing obvious about this, Spencer. Though… Well, almost nothing.” Nobody I’d ever dated had condescended to me quite as adorably as Marisa. “Anyway, your residents come back, and no more of you sticking  to everything. They haven’t had a dose in a week. Socially, plenty of them probably had some jarring experiences. Catching up with their family and high school friends, sharing stories – only nobody else’s stories involve floors full of gorgeous women and one gorgeous man, no weird massage orgies or being so persistently turned on they stopped caring about when and where and why they were masturbating.”

I nodded, trying to follow her reasoning despite Casey’s case looming in my mind. “Then they come back, sobered up. Some of them are embarrassed, self-conscious, whatever. Add to that your Casey, your Lexi, your milf, and it’s enough to push through past experience. Suddenly you’re a Carol.”  

“Oh, shit .”

“Should I tell her ‘no offense’ for that, too?” she asked dryly. “But yeah, y ou said Tori had already been on your case before break. There were probably some others who choked down their doubts, too, not to be on the outs with the perceived majority. Or others who felt weird about it, but not weird enough to jeopardize their shot with cutie RA boy. In a world with flat earthers roaming the streets, some girls in denial about their crushes getting out of hand is …” Marisa shrugged.

“OK, but then Casey makes her speech, and they’re back to their old habits just like that. Explain that , if I’m turned off.”

“Let’s stick to switched . ‘Turned off’ means something else, and something not inconsequential to our discussion.” Marisa stroked her chin, looking like she wanted to do her usual contemplative thing and strike a sexy pose. I was glad for it. It meant she was applying that big wrinkly brain of hers. “So… Hmm. It’s all conjecture, really, but if they were attracted to you before, made themselves vulnerable and available to you before, and now there’s reasons not to be, that leaves them two options. Change their minds, admit they were wrong to feel what felt so real only a week before, and embrace a new reality.”

I saw her point, and finished it for her. “Or, keep quiet during a low ebb in my polling numbers, then when they see an opportunity to revert and tell themselves they were right all along, re-embrace the bullshit.”

Marisa nodded. “‘He didn’t do it; or if he did, he didn’t mean to; or if he meant to, he had his reasons; or if he didn’t have good reasons, well we all make mistakes; seems like the kind of guy you could grab a beer with.’ If there’s one thing people hate–”

“–it’s admitting they’re wrong.”

We raised mugs to each  other. “OK, so… maybe. I still think if you’d seen some of what I’ve seen, it’s pushing it, but… Sure. Say they were horny for me for months and just kept on being horny. I guess. Kyu-Ri invited me to bend her over for a spanking and whatever before break, so I guess maybe she just didn’t dump the fantasy just because it stopped feeling as visceral. But that still doesn’t explain Casey.”

“Yeah, then there’s Casey. Nothing like this before break? You’re sure?”

I shook my head. I’d pondered and pondered this one, and I was certain. “We had a lot of sex before break, and I know Bob said something about the steam in the shower spreading things in the air, but I’ve neglected Ramona for days at a time with no such problems. Savannah was swallowing my cum, actual ingestion, multiple times a day for weeks, but nada.”

Only I could see I’d said something thought-provoking. She took a moment, but at least I didn’t have to prepare another mug of tea before she spoke. “Ingested, you say. Hmm. Not that’s interesting. I’m trying to remember, but it was too fast for me to rely on it. I definitely saw there were a couple slides referencing what seemed like dosage methods. Ingested, cutaneous exposure, respiratory – there’s that steam you mentioned. And… fuck, it went by so fast! But I’d swear there was something about the excretion type.”

I made a face. “The… what? I didn’t pee on them or anything, Jesus.”

“First off, don’t kink shame. For a guy who had to adjust his boxers after vaguely referencing his spanking of the little Asian girl, that’s some nerve. Second, excretions aren’t just toilet stuff. Your sweat is an excretion. The oil on your skin, which seems to work well. Semen. Blood.” She snickered. “And not to break my own rule, but from an aesthetic standpoint, I really don’t want to imagine her drinking your blood.”

“My…? No. One or two goth girls, but no vampires.”

“Hmm. And you don’t think she’d try to go into a bathroom stall after you–”

“Yikes, no! God no.”

Her lips pursed, but in frustration instead of her nasty suggestion. There was no such thing as objectively nasty sexual urges to Marisa. “There was this little bar graph, came  and went like…” She snapped her fingers. “But it looked like it was saying some of your stuff was orders of magnitude stronger than others. You said you did mouth to mouth?”

“No. She didn’t need CPR – she was choking on her vomit. CPR would have made it worse.”

“And since we can assume there’s been plenty of saliva exposure in the community – I know how you get when somebody lets you start kissing on them  – then… Hmm. OK, any chance of a vomit chain reaction? You know, how someone starts going hwuhhhhh , hlurrrrg , hyummmngk –”

I stood up, recoiling. “Would you stop that?! And no! No, I didn’t puke on her and forget to mention it.”

“All right, all right, don’t get your dick in a knot.”

“Besides, what would it matter if I did, if I’m turned  – sorry, switched  off?”

“Spencer, I’m not the mad scientist here, OK? I’m the ex-girlfriend of their guinea pig, so I make for a convenient messenger, disposability and all. Thanks for being concerned that I’m neck deep in this top secret covert woman sex slave cabal, by the way. It definitely wasn’t fucking terrifying being led around by masked weirdos into secret chambers where nobody would hear me scream if they murdered me.”

Oh shit. “Oh shit, Marisa. I’m so sorry. I just… Sorry, it’s been crazy, and I’ve been… I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got involved. But I knew if you were working for someone who could do something like this, you’d want out of there, so I just thought–”

“How about I get to decide who I want to intern with, OK? Plus, if I quit, who’s going to get you the inside scoop on what the big bads are up to?”

“I’m not convinced you have, but…” I nodded. “I won’t involve you again without asking. If, um, it’s OK if I contact you now? I know you said–”

“I said I didn’t want you to stick your head in the sand to avoid messing up my internship. It looks like we’re past that, now. Although, given what a chore it’s going to be to keep the ‘Spencer effect’ from soaking into my entire apartment and turn  me into a diddling mess, maybe we meet  somewhere else next time.”

“Sure. Whatever you want. I wasn’t thinking – I’m sorry. I figured if I was wrong, you’d never know, and if I was right… Well. Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t start crying on me now – heaven only knows if that’s the magic excretion.” She laughed. “I don’t suppose Casey’s one of your one or two goth girls, gets off on twisting your nipples and licking up your tears or something.”

“Much more of a Cali stoner chick if we’re stereotyping. Blonde, tan, hardly any nipple twisting, even less tear drinking.”

Marisa’s eyes narrowed, trying to see through to the truth of it, but ultimately she shook her head. “So we’ll have to put a pin in that. Still, it could be an unintended side effect. Allergy, something activated by all the drugs in her system, a negative reaction to some chemical inhibitor that’s keeping you switched off…? I don’t know. Those are guesses, and they may as well be sci fi for  all we really know about the particulars.”

“I guess that could be it…” It wasn’t much but my sister was allergic to tree nuts. We’d found out the hard way – took a bite of a sandwich with a little nutella on it and the hazelnuts sent her to the hospital. They’d had to intubate her to get oxygen through her swollen air passage.

Marisa tapped her lips, considering. “The rest of them, though… I guess you have a decision to make.”

I nodded. Then, “Wait, what? What decision?”

“I mean… whether you want it turned back on or not. I told you when you first came in, remember? Rule the roost, wither on the vine…?” I did not remember. “They want to know whether or not you want to go forward with it, or if you’re out. I guess your threat rattled them a bit.”

I stood up, backed away until I hit the wall. “That’s an option? Shutting it off for good? Like, remove the implant and all?” My life back? My boring, stupid, peaceful life back?

She shook her head. “I don’t think they mean to remove it, but maybe. For now, it’s just a question of whether you’re going to get them their data or not. That was the end of their slide show, a tidy, binary A or B. That was when I finally got to demand some answers before I’d agree to pass on their question. Not that they told me much – pretty soon they just flashed them up again on loop. Rule the roost, wither on the vine. Mixed metaphor  if you ask me, but they’re social scientists, not English majors.”

“If I turn it off… is Casey going to be OK? That’s the whole reason we’re playing this stupid game of telephone.”

“Sounds like Casey’s getting her fix as it is – you’re already switched off and you’re keeping her satisfied with the trace amounts.” Marisa contemplated and gave a shrug. “So when they black bag me and demand your answer… what do you want me to tell them?”

I planted my hands on my hips. “What do you think I want you to tell them?!”

Marisa nodded, a little smile sneaking onto her lips. “I’ll be sure to phrase it as a ‘ no thank you ,’ so they’ll believe it came from you.”

“And if Casey doesn’t snap out of it soon, they’ll get a lot rougher language than that.”

“Heaven forfend.”

Chapter Nine: The Dean’s List

It was something, watching Marisa begin to wipe down and sterilize everything I’d touched in her apartment. Marisa, one of the least squeamish people I knew, bordering on gross. Sweat, spit, cum… she loved it. The only woman I’d ever been with who’d taken a facial for her own enjoyment. Before the Spencer effect, anyway. Yet there she was, making sure not a drop of me remained. She’d even remembered to get that spot where I’d bumped my shoulder into the wall/

Smart, especially considering that stuff about being switched off was pure bullshit.

Rather than head home, I made my way to the student union. It was a castle of a building with two tall towers jutting up from its three-story limestone foundations. Floodlights shined up at the heights, rendering it a beacon visible from anywhere on campus. I’d been on several tours there over my five years at Lakeview, including one from a buddy’s girlfriend who was interning with the building’s art curation department. She’d shown me and my four Rowland guys, the only ones who’d joined us for the program, a variety of the interesting works, some quirks of security, and, pertinent to my business tonight, a studio nominally open to the public. The art was nothing special to my simple eye, except it was up six flights of stairs so nobody ever slogged up to see it. Even the curators seldom went in there.

There was, however, dim lighting and a fantastic couch on which to view the paintings, old and plush and velvety soft. I’d brought dates up here in the past. It was the sort of cool, classy thing that scored easy points. The stairs didn’t help, especially for this one girl Gina who’d broken her foot between our first and second date but wouldn’t let me cancel the destination I’d promised her on night one. She’d been in agony by the time we got up here, and then I’d had to carry her back down. The taste it had left in our mouths left both of us relieved not to have a third date.

Tonight, I was alone. I slept fitfully, but uninterrupted.

It was so hard to know what to make of everything Marisa had said. All I’d wanted was to give Casey a little respite. She was acting like some kind of addict except for my cock instead of her usual vices. Frankly it was a lot hotter in concept than I was finding it in execution. Ramona, she really liked  my cock, but she liked it for the regular reasons. I was young, good-looking. We had chemistry. She was on her way out from a marriage with minimal excitement. It was a little wrong, and I dommed her close enough to what she craved. Savannah, she’d been pretty fixated before break, but she’d quit cold turkey no problem. Even at massage night and its aftermath, the Hotties had been horny, slutty, licky, but nobody else was having actual withdrawal shakes.

Instead, I got a science lesson that even the scientist explaining it to me barely understood. The Spencer effect, which I’d been glibly reducing to horniness pheromones, was so much more. Party drug, social conditioner, memory editor and sleight of hand artist. It was in everything I touched, everything I put in my mouth, everything that breathed the steam off my body in the shower. I was pissing it into the goddamn water supply.

Then there was this nonsense of switching it on and off. Was there some fucking wifi bluetooth shit inside me or something? That question was its own freaky little nightmare fuel, but if they expected me to believe women acted like my Hotties had been this past week without the Spencer effect prompting them to, they had another think  coming.

Unless the effect had spawned their crushes, and circumstance gave them the chance to once more express them. I suppose it was possible that…

But Casey! Marisa had said some stuff was “orders of magnitude” stronger. Had I dribbled snot in that bump on her head?

Or was this whole thing just some bullshit they’d fed Marisa to keep me on the ropes? Sons of bitches! I demanded one, just one  goddamn thing, help for one of my girls to reverse the damage they’d done to her, and instead they come at me with this bullshit about switching on and off, and do I want to be done with it for good. Like this secret biotech manufacturer was focused on the humanitarian element.

I’d be glad to be done with it. Yeah, yeah, I’d lose the blind adoration and unbridled lust of a bunch of hot college girls. I’d have to go back to landing dates the old-fashioned way. Big deal. I’d managed before, and I’d manage again. For crying out loud, I’d started this school year intending not to date at all.

I’d done enough damage to Casey, and to Lexi, and Tori and who knew who else. There were only two ways to fix it. Use the Spencer effect in all its hamfisted, guileless chicanery, or don’t. Do it the old-fashioned way, with words and actions. Regain Katrina’s respect. Show Tori I wasn’t some sexual predator lurking in the weeds. Prove to Casey she was going to be all right without her ex. Tell Lexi that…

Fuck. I sighed. What excuse could I make for how I’d behaved? I’d figure that one out eventually.

Had they really shut anything off? Would they? Could  they?

I shook my head. No. I could only control what I did. What they did, what my residents did, that was up to them. Today, I was going to go back to Higgins and start putting things back the way they belonged.

************************************************

“I swear, I’ve never gotten turned on just from having my tits fucked before,” Danielle confided, dragging her finger through the cum I’d deposited on them and giving it a taste. Her nose wrinkled and she didn’t sample further. “Kinda fucked up. Don’t see what everybody made such a big deal about it for.”

“It was your idea,” I reminded her. “You wanted your choker, so now you’ll get one.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She snickered as she began mopping up the rest with my sheets. Normally I’d complain, but… Well. “Honestly I just wanna see the look on Dana’s face when she sees me in it. She’s been wanting hers sooooo  bad. It’s kind of pathetic, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, she’s an OK roommate, but god, what a little priss.”

“Why doesn’t she just come ask me for one? Not like I’ve been extorting anybody for them.”

“Pff, I heard what you pulled with Shauna.” She snort-laughed. “Besides, Dana’s worried about her mommy and daddy finding out. Like she’ll get tagged on facebook wearing it and they’ll pull her out of school and lock her in a closet until she’s menopausal or something.”

“Your parents don’t care about seeing you in that thing?”

Danielle scowled, dabbing more targetedly  at her big soft tits. “My parents lost their bitching rights the moment they blew all the college savings on my dipshit older brother who was too fucking dumb to apply for loans on time but still wanted to live it up at his expensive-ass out-of-state college. Fuckwad.”

“Fair enough.” Danielle picked up her shirt and tugged it back on. No bra. She’d come down here with a purpose, and that purpose had been well-suited to an assist by a shirt that didn’t want to accommodate her bust. “Are we really getting new floor shirts? I heard somebody saying we needed to hold a meeting to remove Tori and Katrina if they won’t shut the fuck up about you. Is that like step one, or…?”

“We’re not ousting Tori and Katrina,” I said, more heatedly than I’d meant to.

“Right, just let them keep covering the floor in dicks and hate speech. Cool.”

“I don’t know who did that, and I don’t think it’s them. They raised some legitimate points and made their case with integrity and passion. We could use more of that in this world, if you ask me.”

I didn’t have to turn my head to hear her eyes roll. “Right, so can we pay for the new shirts with integrity, or does the shirt shop accept a down payment in passion?”

“We’ll figure it out, but not right this minute. I’ll keep everybody in the loop. OK?”

“Fine, whatever. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s chokerin’ time.” Danielle hopped up to her feet, tugged her shirt on over the cum splotches, and began singing to herself as she made her exit. It carried down the hallway.

“H, is for the way he humps, on me… O, is for the other girls, he’s pleased; TT’s, damn right I’m smirking, big and proud and perky; E, is EZ to break down his guard and make him hard…”

Switched off, my  ass.

I decided to take some time that afternoon to conduct some RA business – normal, sexless RA business. I’d gotten more than a few queries about the Halloween program I’d accidentally announced, and the date was fast approaching. I once more emailed Tori and Katrina to get the conversation going. No sense trying it face to face considering how my previous attempts to talk to them had ended, with a tantrum and an existential crisis respectively.

The girls wanted to do costumes, that was clear. I could only imagine what they’d pick, considering the necessary disclaimer at massage night that they had to wear at minimum their bras and panties. In order to make sure everyone was comfortable, chokers and brokers alike, I suggested we include a disclaimer to keep it PG-13 or less. From there I simply made suggestions and invited them to decide – like whether we would have a costume contest, play games, watch a scary movie, and so on.

Tori replied in minutes, writing simply: You know what would really freak the girls out? If you resigned. oooOOOoooOOOooo!

Katrina, however, took the high ground, and soon they were writing back and forth, with Katrina repeatedly adding me back into the cc list in each of her replies. Before long we’d made a plan. Tori still insisted girls wanted to go out and party, so we slotted our event for the 30 th  instead. Low-key, just punch and candy, costumes optional. Tori offered to make fliers which would no doubt emphasize her wish not to over-sexualize things. The two of them would cobble together some spooky events – stick your fingers in the pot of noodles we’d pretend were brains and so on – and that would be that. Not at all ambitious, but that the three of us had reached an agreement, worked together (however loosely), felt like my biggest achievement in weeks.

In the meantime, there were a couple of work orders needing filing. A burnt out lightbulb in the triplets’ suite, and the keyless lock on Kendall and Georgia’s room kept failing to lock correctly. Ah, the joy of solving simple problems. I passed them onto Marcus, who would nominally pass them onto Ramona, who would rubber stamp them because her master decreed it so.

Speaking of Ramona, I finally scrolled down past the lengthy discussion with my floor governor and vice governor. There was an email from my boss making a vague reference to an incident the night before she’d  like to talk about if I  had time, please. It was the post Spencer effect equivalent of “something came up, come downstairs and see me.”

It was getting close to evening, but still early enough to catch her in her office – or so I’d thought. Marcus said she’d headed out early. He was on his way out himself, with Janis soon arriving to cover the desk until duty started. I texted my boss a picture of her office door with the words Come. Now.  

Two minutes later, Ramona literally ran into the center building.

Marcus looked up, surprised. “Whoa, didn’t expect to see you so soon, Miss Ramona. Everything OK?”

She laughed, a bit winded. “No, I realized I had tickets to a show tonight and I almost forgot them in my office. Oh, Spencer. Did you need something, or…?”

I smiled. “If you have time.”

“For you? Always.” There was some playful sarcasm to it, enough to make Marcus laugh it off as he packed up his things and bade us  a good evening.

“You left before I could get down here and talk. About the email?”

She nodded. “I was just across the street grabbing an early dinner. I hope I didn’t make you wait, master.”

“You did. Now bend your sweet ass over, and I’ll see if I can’t find a way you can make it up to me.”

I should mention, I was not the biggest fan of anal sex – for lots of reasons. Hygiene issues. Comfort issues. The simple controversy of broaching the prospect. At the risk of being immodest, I wasn’t small, and at least one girl I’d been with had said it was simply too much. Not a brag, just the way I was made.

Ramona wasn’t a fan, either, which ought to have been plenty excuse  for both of us to simply get each other off in alternative ways. I was new to being someone’s “master,” but whatever she made of me being a prick for its own sake, I didn’t like the idea of using sex acts as punishment. Except then she brought it up over break one night. My supervisor had never tried anal before me, never desired to, but we’d been looking for something new to try, so…

Once we’d done it, we’d both found something to like. She liked that I had the power over her to make her do things she didn’t like doing. I liked that I could make her like something she disliked. It made no sense, but it was pleasing nonsense.

We heard Marcus greeting Janis as I was easing myself into her. Fuck, it was tight. Even with all that lube, it was imperative to go slowly. “Tell me what you are,” I said softly.

Ramona had been clenching her jaws to avoid making any telltale noises as I stretched out her asshole. “Yours,” she grunted.

“Yours…?” I pushed just slightly harder, enough to go all the way in, enough that she felt it as deep inside her as anyone had ever been.

“Yours, master . Your ass slave, master. Use me, master. Take everything from me but my obedience, master.”

She was really laying it on thick today. “So what happened last night?”

The woman managed to keep her voice low and even as I began a slow, steady butt fuck. I was impressed. “Oh, nothing serious. Casey was causing a commotion again. She… Ungh. She… oh god. She kept banging on your door, calling for you. I could hear her all the way down in my room. We ignored it until quiet hours, at which point I asked Carmen – secondary last night – to stop by and talk with her.”

Meek little  Carmen, forced into confrontation with Casey in heat. “How did she do?”

As Ramona replied, I started setting objects on her bare back. Her mouse. A picture of somebody and their baby. Her pencil cup, which fell over and spilled everything almost immediately. Childish and a bit demeaning, maybe, but I think she liked being reminded that she was only one more desk toy for me to play with.

“Not well enough, evidently, because Casey woke up half the floor at close to two in the morning. I handled it myself, which is why you didn’t see it in the duty log. I… I… Oh, fuck …”

I didn’t want to risk spanking her, not with Janis right out there, so I settled for a nice hard pinch, jiggling her padded ass around and against my cock. “I asked you a question, boss.”

“Yes, master. Yesssss …” She took a deep breath, steeling herself as I expanded her ass. “So I threw on a robe and brought her down to my room. She was drunk. Distraught. Crying, incoherent aside from your name, or one of those pet names she devised for you.”

“Sounds like Casey, all right.”

She started pushing back into my thrusts, groaning softly at the added friction. “I wasn’t sure if you were out or in another bed, but neither suggestion quelled her pleading. She asked me if I could let her into your room, to make sure, and maybe wait for you in your bed.”

“Shit. In the future, if I’m not in, feel free to let her. She’s not gonna steal from me or anything, and if it calms her down…”

Ramona tried out a few wide sways of her hips, with mounting vigor. Her reflection in the dimmed screen of her monitor showed eyes squinted shut, and a mouth slightly ajar. “She’s worse than you described, master. Perhaps it was only the addition of alcohol that pushed her limits, but the girl has a fondness for drink.”

“It sounds like you’re saying I need to figure out a solution.”

“I wouldn’t dream to issue orders to my master, master.” Ramona craned her neck, looking up at me with a strained groin. “Nor any man with a cock quite that huge shoved quite so far up my ass.”

I gave her a few loving pats and a few moments to acclimate before I resumed. “Well, you’re not wrong. And I think I might have–”

There was a rap at the door. “Ramona? Ramona, can you gimme a hand?” Janis’s voice.

“She knows we’re in here,” she whispered. “I need my clothes!”

But I held her in place. “See what she wants.”

Ramona trembled in anxiety, then realized what she was trying to resist. Her fantasy was real. She twisted – but not at the waist – toward her office door with a sly grin. “What do you need, Janis?”

“One of the foreign kids needs to buy a book of stamps but I don’t know how much to charge them.”

Ramona and I groaned softly and in unison, and not from the delirious tightness of my dick up her butt this time. “ ‘Foreign kids…? ’” I mouthed incredulously, right as Ramona called back to her, “They’re 58 cents apiece, Janis. It’s written on the stamps.”

“I know,” said Janis with a great deal more disdain than most people would show their supervisor. Even I wouldn’t, but only because I wasn’t an asshole. “But I don’t know what to charge for tax. I’m not going to defraud the government so they can keep not teaching their families about email.”

Something occurred to me somewhere in the midst of that horrible, horrible thing Janis was saying. I grinned, then hastily clamped a hand over Ramona’s mouth. “Answer her face to face,” I whispered.

“One moment, Janis,” she called, then much more softly, “My clothes, master?”

Instead, I hauled her to a standing position. She gasped, loudly, at the sudden shift of my cock inside her. Hands clamped firmly on her exquisitely decorated hips, I marched her toward her office door one awkward shuffling step at a time. It wasn’t pretty and it took a minute, though I’d be lying if I said the vibrations were entirely unpleasant.

Then I opened the door.

Ramona peered around the crack, breathing heavily, her skin flushed. Janis cut her off before she could speak. “Um… am I interrupting something…?”

“I was getting a workout in before I head to my room for the evening,” Ramona lied smoothly.

“Oh. So what’s the state sales tax? I thought it was 7%, but they’re trying to convince me they’ve got some kind of tax exempt status.”

“All I said was we don’t pay sales tax on stamps! As in we, all of us, nobody!” called an Australian accent from down the hall. Carmen’s residents, I recalled. I felt a little ashamed to be relieved she hadn’t been speaking that way against a person of color. Not that  relieved, though.

“See?” said Janis.

“Then they’re due an apology, becau-HOUSE…!” I wished I could see the look on her face as I reached around, probing her clit, my cock listing hard to the left so I could reach.

“Uh, are you OK…?”

Ramona nodded vigorously, her voice shooting up an octave. “Yes! Ahm, yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes.” Her legs tried to seize my questing fingers, but that was on her for maintaining that thigh gap. “I, um, almost pulled a muscle in my shoulder. Very… very painful.”

“Oh.” Janis’s voice carried all that disappointment the untested harbored for the struggling.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, they’re correct. Postage stamps aren’t subject to sales tax.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

The two stared for one last moment, and then I closed the door in Janis’s face. I followed by thrusting Ramona hard up against the door.

“Are you OK?” I whispered, gently.

“Are you OK…?” Janis asked, annoyed.

“Yes. Just… stretching… stretching…” Ramona moaned into the wood.

I took her hips in hand and helped my boss stretch to her fullest.

************************************************

“Heya, Janis.”

Ramona waved. It was a little vigorous for a girl who’d been instructed not to let my cum dribble out of her ass. “Well hello, Spencer.”

Janis looked at me, at the door to the center building, back at me. “Spencer? When did you get here?”

“Uh, a minute ago?”

“We were in the computer lab for like ten seconds.”

“What can I say? When I move, I move fast.” I smiled what I believed to be my most charming smile without overdoing it. (Any charminger and it would just be douchey.)

Ramona took a moment to pick up a couple things from her office and made her exit while I feigned looking through the contents of my mailbox and Janis sat there frowning at the mailers she ought to be stuffing in our residents’.

I eased myself down on the desk beside her. “You know, the two of us haven’t hung out much since fall break.”

“Um, we didn’t hang out before fall break.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Weird, don’t you think? It doesn’t feel that way, but yeah, you’re probably right. So how was your break? You get to spend time with your family and all?”

“Um, yeah. Why?”

“You probably have a lot of friends back home, too, I bet. Must have been nice getting to reconnect with them all.”

She folded her arms. “I have the amount of friends I want to have.”

It sucked not to have any intimate connections left on staff to share this with. I laughed like I would have if I were telling Vickie about it later in bed. “I’ll bet. Do you, um, have a boyfriend back home? Get a chance to see him at all?”

Janis shook her head. “Spencer, don’t. I know what you’re trying to do, but don’t.”

“ Whaaat ?” Man, didn’t know I could hit that octave. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not ‘trying to do’ anything. Just trying to get to know the girl upstairs better.”

She shook her head as if this were a tired old speech she’d delivered many times before. “Spencer, I know I’ve been giving out signals to you that I might be interested. Frankly, I’m ashamed of how I’ve behaved on occasion.”

“You are…?” No, seriously. She was…?

“Maybe I’m not as shameless as some of your residents, but I think we both know lines were crossed.”

“Maybe some lines were meant to be crossed.” God, to think once upon a time I’d thought those “maybe [whatever you said] was meant to be [the opposite of what you said]” lines worked wonders with girls.

(Maybe those lines had  worked wonders…?)

“Come on now. Think about it. It would never work! You’re so old, and your field of study is going to leave you destitute into your 40’s. Plus, I know you have a type, and that’s fine – to each their own. But I actually value my reputation – I don’t want people thinking I’m yet another staff mattress for you to lie on.”

“She’s–! They’re not–” My jaw clacked  shut and I forced the smile back. “That’s one thing I’ve always respected about you, Janis. Your integrity. Hard to come by in a woman, it feels like. Especially a woman like you.”

“Tell me about it.” My compliment, heavy-handed as it was, absorbed as a matter of fact. Her expression softened. “Look, I think you’re a sweet guy, Spencer. Really. And very handsome. Maybe almost too handsome.” Her eyes strayed, but barely. “But I think we’ll be better off just being friends.”

So, was she really not…? Even after I…? I had to be sure.

I leaned down and kissed her.

It felt wrong almost immediately – like I was kissing a rubber doll, only one that was particularly unaware of what its lips should be doing. She wasn’t pushing me away, though. What in the hell was she trying to do with her lip? Did I need to meet some threshold of discomfort before I could withdraw? Was she waiting for me to apologize?

Surely someone should have to apologize for this!

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, pulling back.

Janis was smiling, though. “No, don’t be. That was nice. Not amazing, not enough to change my mind, but… nice.” She patted my knee. “Maybe someday. I’m still young, so who knows?”

“Yeah, someday. Sorry again.” So sorry.

As I extricated  myself from that mess, Janis smiling pityingly after me, I felt like I could at least trust one thing.

I was switched off.

I went right upstairs and straight into Casey’s room. She was naked except for her choker, aggressively humping what I deduced by the lack of case was Nikki’s old pillow. I kicked the door shut behind me and shucked my pants as I approached, sliding into bed and immediately into Casey’s willing, buttery pussy.

“I’m going to make you whole, OK? I’m going to take care of you, for as long as you need me.”

Casey was already melting around me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, pulling our bodies together. For a girl so cool, she sure was a loving fuck. Nothing wrong with all the variety I’d had on my plate this semester, but this was my ideal. Face to face, eye to eye, lip to lip. Maximum contact. “Mmm, never not gonna need this , homie.”

Savannah had gone down on me a single time, and thereafter been so excited to keep doing it that we’d had an actual fight over it. Ramona, when I’d stirred a blob of it into her coffee, had thrown herself at me within days, invented a whole blackmail narrative to justify putting me inside her.

For Janis, it had been weeks and… nada. She might be an obnoxious prig, but it wasn’t like she was physiologically frigid. Two weeks, and not a single sly double entendre text, no “accidental” planned crossing of path. If there was anything ongoing to the Spencer effect, I’d be wincing through a sandpaper handjob in the hall manager’s office right now while Janis patted herself on the back and told herself she was Aphrodite.

Whatever had happened to Casey, whatever fluke had given rise to this fixation, it came from the Spencer effect at its weakest. It would pass. Casey could snap out of it, realize I was way too wholesome for her, and we could be next door neighbors who blushed a bit when we walked past each other in the bathroom.

From here on out, things would just be… normal. No more random sucking and fucking, no more casual nudity and spontaneous shower comes. Just me and some nice young women doing our best to get an education and have a little fun. Normal fun, with our genitals separated.

Damn, it sounded boring, after where we’d been. Still, it sounded like I wouldn’t be shouting into hidden microphones to set up covert briefings for my ex-girlfriend to deliver before she sterilized my corruptive influence, too. Win some, lose some.

We’d ease back out of it, I told myself as I assured Casey she could stay the night. (She’d asked if we could have a “fuck-in” which I assumed is what that meant. She woke me up in the midst of mounting a cock she’d been nursing to erection covertly for half an hour, grinning as she proclaimed she was “waking with the sun god.” This was the sort of adorable gesture I’d miss, when things got back to normal.)

The following night was duty, once more with Savannah. Things hit a little harder that night. It stung to realize she’d only been into me because of the Spencer effect, and as soon as it wore off, she’d gone back to Price.

“Were you aware there are two girls in… let’s call it their PJs, waiting in your bed…?” she asked when we met back up on the far side of the split on our midnight rounds.

“Yep.” Kendall and Georgia had knocked a little while earlier and asked if we could have another slumber party. They’d done so already dressed for the occasion, each in a set of pajamas that looked like they were sized and patterned for girls half their ages. They wouldn’t fit over their asses without riding deep up the crevice, and the way their pussies were outlined, there was no chance of panties under there. Their breasts surged and heaved at splits at least three-button deep, bulging out. Better yet, the pajamas looked like that’s exactly how they were made to fit. Kendall’s were cut from a cookie monster pattern, and Georgia’s deep red with pink hearts.

Really, really going to miss these days when things went back to normal. Not many chokers left to be earned out there.

“I’m aware.”

Savannah’s lips pursed, but she said nothing more. If Ramona tolerated this, there was no point in her wasting her own breath on lectures.

Kendall and Georgia turned out to be a little bit shy, and at the last moment pulled up short of a threesome. So I had sex with Georgia in my room, then went down to theirs where Kendall sucked both my and her roommate’s cum off my shaft. Then I went down on her, though then she went down on me again. With that out of the way, we all went back to my room to cuddle and watched SpongeBob  until we fell asleep.

Hope surged for a moment that we’d get to have that threesome after all when they took turns kissing me, but it turned out to simply be giggly goodnight kisses, after which we all slept soundly in our respective PJs. (Naked, in my case; they hadn’t objected to that.)

Normal would be nice, I told myself, with a reminder to stop letting my mopy wiener try to argue the point.

There were still some aspiring choker girls out there to deal with first, though. I had to hand it to Jean; she really went the extra mile. It opened with a text: there’s something oozing out of that door behind the showers???  There was a literal bathroom back there, with a tub and everything. It was locked, so nobody really used the thing, which made her warning all the more worrisome. I hurried down to the center desk to get the key, then back up to Higgins 3.

There was Jean, kneeling in what looked like a tub full of blood. Her awe-inspiringly busty body was totally nude and already sporting a choker which, to my recollection, she was yet to earn.

I supposed I should probably address the dozens of gallons of blood before I moved on to the sex part.

“It’s a bath bomb,” she said before I even asked. “Get in.”

A few sniffs were sufficient to verify her claim. Not that I’d really thought… Anyway, here we were. I made sure my clothes were very secure on the little shelf in the corner of this tiny, seldom-used room, imagining having to leave here soaked in what people might misconstrue in the same way I nearly had. Tori had issues with me sleeping with her floormates; if she thought I’d murdered one, I’d never hear the end of it.

It was dark, too. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling next to a pull string, but either the light was burned out, or Jean hadn’t wanted to test it. The only light was a thin sliver under the door and what I surmised was the flashlight on Jean’s phone as it was filtered through her panties, which she’d discarded atop it. All I could see was Jean’s ghostly white body, and her eyes, blazing in the pale light but ringed in darkness.

Really just a trick of heavy eye shadow, but very theatrical, I had to admit.

Jean squeezed into the narrow space between my legs and fixed those haunting eyes on mine. “I was starting to think you didn’t like goth girls.”

I helped myself to a couple handfuls of those stupendous tits of hers. The red water trickled down their slopes, coating them in darkness that looked like the tongues of black flames rising up to engulf them. Enchanted, I scooped up handfuls of water and dribbled it down her body to replicate the effect.

“I was starting to think you didn’t like your RA.”

Her lipstick – black, or as good as in this lighting – smiled at me. “I like some parts of him better than others.” With that, she dove down and sucked me into her mouth, her lips engulfing me snugly enough that it almost felt like her mouth could hardly fit me. After a moment of harsh tongue-lashing, Jean emerged, the red waters flowing down her chin, down her entire body, in thin lines. It was slow motion black lightning. If she’d planned this, she had a future in special effects. If not, she ought to consider changing majors.

“I’m going to put your dick… right here ,” she announced, guiding my finger to her lips. “And you’re going to make me make you cum, and you’re going to force me until I can’t breathe.”

This was escalating quickly. “Um…?”

She took that same hand and repositioned it on the back of her choker. By touch, I suddenly realized this wasn’t the same one everybody else was wearing. Those were cloth with metal letters glued or sewn on. They were… cute, by choker standards.

Jean’s was all metal, and it felt like there were spikes jutting out. In the dark, I couldn’t tell. There was scarcely room to fit my fingers between her neck and the chain links that formed it, but she forced my fingers into the slim gap, then twisted my hand to make it tighter yet.

“I’m going,” she said, pausing every few words as she proceeded, “to drown, to suffocate, or to learn, to breathe…” She slid down, her tits grazing my shaft, mouth only just out of the dark water. “… through your dick.”

“Just… be careful, OK?”

“Oh I’m a fast learner.” She twisted my hand to squeeze even tighter. It reminded me oddly of trying to hold back the Kraken, our family dog, from jumping on visitors by his collar while he strained and strained with all his loving might. If it had ever felt this tight on him, I’d have let him go.

I did not let Jean go.

“I CAN DO IT!” she growled when I pulled her up for air. “JUST LET ME–” I shoved her back down. The next time I pulled her up, I buffeted her anger with a sharp command to use her tits.

She fought to take in air. I didn’t make it easy, only possible. “You don’t think I can.”

“I don’t care. I like your tits. Use. Your tits.” I gave those hanging humps a hard, wet slap.

It was an act of mercy disguised as basic tit lust, but Jean let me have it. Literally. It was excruciating how hard we were finding it to get any friction, but the torturous teasing titfuck felt on brand for her. When I finally thought I was getting close, I plunged her face back underwater and held her there until I’d unloaded every drop I could muster.

Jean came up, gasped, coughing up dribbles of what I was pretty sure were cum.

“Are you OK?” I asked cautiously.

“We’re doing that again.”

I grinned. “You get one breath, so make it good.”

“Just give me a–”

Down she went. Jean was humping my ankle while she worked this time, but I made sure to pull her tits up in my face and finish her off by hand while she tried to swallow my second but still copious load in time to take another breath before she passed out.

Aside: that bath bomb stuff tingled nicely in my mouth, but it tasted awful . She really was a trooper.

We went to rinse all the red off of one another in the showers. Before she could head back to her room, I dragged her by her choker back into the tub. The water had drained out, but dribbles of thick, chalky red goo coated the bottom of the tub. I used it as finger paint, scrawling across that incredible rack of hers: HO, TT, EZ.

“You’re mine now.”

Suddenly I was slammed hard against the wall, a tongue rammed down my throat. My balls were being held in an uncomfortably tight grip when she moved her lips next to my ear and whispered, “If you ever fuck that weepy redneck cunt again before you’ve given me my due, I’ll drain every motherfucking drop from these puppies, and when I’m done with them…” She smirked, releasing them so suddenly it felt like they might explode outward. “We won’t need the bath bomb.”

I made a note to keep an eye on her and Andi’s roommate relationship going forward. “Noted.”

************************************************

Brokers were down to single digits. Some girls made it a point to wear their chokers everywhere, even though a few seemed to have “earned” them through less traditional means. Jordyn wore hers as a prize for her contribution of making the Hottie t-shirts and for taking point in the meeting, for instance. Andi wore hers for sleeping with me before it had been a rite of passage. Charlie was indubitably entitled but hadn’t accepted one, though I wasn’t sure why. Still, for most girls, what I saw was what I had.

Tori. Katrina. Lexi. Jo. Peyton. Sydney. Destiny. Amy. A couple others I wasn’t sure about – Sammi, who’d been on rocky footing with me since the Kyu-Ri hazing incident, and Dana, who’d sent that quietly supportive email but espoused no public support. Regardless, Tori’s numbers were low and falling. I found my mind constantly going back to how I would welcome the rest of them back into the fold. They could hate me all they wanted, but I wanted their peers to accept them in their ranks as they always had. When they finally accepted the failure of their little “rebellion,” so to speak, I wanted to make sure they knew they were still respected and important members of the Higgins 3 community. I found myself practicing speeches, thinking about probable rebuttals and ways I could steer around them.

The pre-Halloween party was only a couple more days away. With luck, I could bring this all to a close before then so we could all just have a good time around each other with no drama or fighting. Punch and candy and games, fully clothed – the kind of boring night we could all use. If I couldn’t get it done beforehand, though, I could still maybe talk to Tori and whoever else aside and use the backdrop of our revels to make an impassioned plea. I’d make a concession or two, let them lose with dignity. It would be easy to promise to stop sleeping around now that the Spencer effect was being put to bed for good.

Easy-ish, anyway.

There was only one other thing I needed to put to rest so we could all get back to plain old RA stuff, where I didn’t get periodically duped to choke-fucking my residents in a pool of fake blood.

“Have I displeased you, master?” Ramona’s eyes were wide, upset. It felt a little weird, doing this at a Sonic drive-in, but I didn’t want to have to worry about anyone eavesdropping at home or in her office. Besides, I was hungry. Public restaurants posed the same exposure problem, and frankly, after months of watching my diet because I was constantly being seen naked by a bunch of absurdly attractive women, I wanted to eat some junk for a change.

“No! No no   no , no. You’re amazing. You’ve been nothing but amazing. You’ve been an amazing boss, an amazing lover, an amazing friend. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Then why–”

“Because it’s time. We need to get things back to normal before something blows up in our faces, again, or we do something that really hurts someone. Worse. Think about Lexi. Not the stupid things I said, but what her crush on me made her do.”

“But what does any of that have to do with us? If you want me to move out of Higgins 3, fine. It’s been a little uncomfortable at times, and there isn’t much point of living down the hall from my lover if we can’t go down and fuck when we want to fuck. But why can’t we keep on as we have been? Don’t fuck the girls, fine, but–”

“It’s all part of the same thing, Ramona. We hooked up because of the Spencer effect. It worked out well for us, and that’s good, but that was coincidence  as much as chemistry.”

“We do  have chemistry. We’re so alike. And the sex…! The sex has been so  good, hasn’t it? I’m not wrong. You’ve enjoyed it, haven’t you?”

“More than enjoyed . You’re… unbelievable. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but having a slave girl to use at my leisure… Actually pretty hot.”

“Nothing compared to being  a slave girl, used at your leisure. I’ve never come so hard in my life. I don’t know if I want to give that up yet.”

I shook my head. “What about your career? Clearly Bob has no respect for you or he wouldn’t have put you in my path in the first place. I’ll get my diploma in the spring, and then probably head off to grad school somewhere. Are you going to just… follow along?”

Ramona frowned. “Why wouldn’t I? My background is college  student affairs. You’re going to grad school at a college . It’s not like I’m a zookeeper and you’re moving to the Arctic!”

“That still leaves seven months where you’re my boss and I’m your employee. The other RAs already know you’re giving me special consideration. Rumors have to be all over the building about the choker vs. broker crap, all the sex the Hotties and I are – have been – having. Without the Spencer effect to make them ignore it, are we really going to try to get away with this, you and me, for the rest of the year?”

“So reinstitute the Spencer effect.”

“What? No! I already told them, I’m  done.”

“But your friend said it’s an on/off switch, didn’t she? The implant is still in there, so just tell her you changed your mind again. They want to study you, so you know they’ll do it.”

“I told you, I’m done having thirty-seven girls I’m fucking whenever however!”

Ramona surprised me with a grin at that, but as I tried to make sense of it, she pointed. I turned, and there on the other side of the open window was some pimply teenaged  kid holding our food.

“Thanks,” I said, snatching it off the tray.

“Do you… Are you really…?”

I rolled up the window. “No, just kidding around, stay in school and study hard!” I managed before turning back to Ramona, who was slapping her knees at the hilarity.

“It’s not funny!” She kept laughing, and damn it all, it was infectious. “It’s not that  funny,” I mumbled later as I took a slurp of my slush. Mmm, high fructose corn syrup, how I missed you.

“You don’t have to keep fucking them,” she said, popping a tater tot in her mouth. Ramona had more than a fair share of disdain for American fast food, but she’d permitted her master his request. She almost looked like she liked it. “Just turn it on, and they’ll love you and support whether you occasionally ass-fuck your dutiful manager-slave or not. And if it helps you build the most inclusive, supportive, academically successful community in Lakeview history, all the better!”

I shook my head inquiringly. My mouth was full of popcorn shrimp.

“I was going to announce it at the staff meeting Wednesday as a brick nomination, but mid-term results are in. There isn’t a student on Higgins 3 that has below a 3.6. Your entire  floor is on a path to be eligible for the dean’s list, Spencer. All because they wanted to be good students for their beloved RA.”

“Thuh ahwr…?”

“They are. They also have the lowest rate of incident reports of any residential community on campus and that includes married student housing , which is pretty much just a normal apartment complex full of real adults. Plus you know there are RAs who don’t lift a finger for policy enforcement. Marcus has even commented that custodial  has asked him what we’re putting in the water, because they’ve never seen a cleaner community. That’s girls who take pride in their home, who are embarrassed to be yucky, because they don’t want to be yucky around you .”

I swallowed my bite. “So you want me to keep on driving them up the wall with infatuation so there’s less mopping to be done?”

“No. I want you to switch on so you can have me over in your room every night and melt my brain with your cock, master. Sneaking around is a child’s game. I want to wear my choker and be fucked at your whim, and I want them all to want the same thing so badly they can’t even blame me.”

I let myself stuff my face again while I fought that  little sentiment out of my imagination. While I chewed, though, she pressed her attack. “Don’t pretend that you don’t enjoy it. Not the sex even, but just the adoration and the positivity. Did you ever watch Przygód Kilka Wróbla Ćwirka ?”

Was it wrong that hearing her switch into fluent Polish was a turn-on? “Missed that one,” I said after I choked down my shrimp. Mmm, fried shrimp.

“It was a children’s show. We didn’t have TV in the camp, usually, but after I left, in college, I used to get high with my girlfriends and watch it. It’s a little bird, Ćwirek, who flies around and meets other birds and learns about their families and their physiology and their culture and becomes friends, then flies on to the next. It’s… infectiously wholesome.”

“You’re saying I should go full Spencer effect, go back to girls who stake out my room for late night mass masturbation sessions, for the wholesomeness. Seriously.”

“Sometimes, my dear master, I think you like to focus on the negative – if you can call that negative – just to hear me make the case for you. Fine. I will play the devil’s advocate, then. If this implant of yours is helping you be a better RA – by any metric you could name–”

“How about ‘how many residents did you fuck?’ That seems a relevant metric.”

“Hush, master. Grades, behavior, cleanliness, hygiene, program attendance, and that je ne sais quoi  of strong community. You did some of that, but you did it all with the assistance of the implant.”

“Do I need to keep repeating: Lexi, Casey, Tori…?”

“Which, a perceptive devil might argue, happened only because you switched off. Otherwise, Lexi would have gladly flashed her big new breasts at you, Casey would have rebounded from her breakup with the help of her sexy RA and his habit of oddly early morning showers, and Tori would have quickly come to accept the status quo.”

“The status quo is sexual mind control!”

“It’s technology. Your women are using discord to build community and support one another. They’re also using it to distribute pornography. Many of the girls have posed with Terri on her instagram feed, playing model for a day. You don’t think the presence of women like that, showcasing themselves living their best lives, does harm? Ask Marta, or Kim, or Laura. Or ask Terri how it feels when she checks the follower numbers of Allison, Addison and Maddison.”

“Point being…?”

“A good RA uses the tools at their disposal, even if they’re not perfect.”

She pushed a wad of tots into my mouth. I nearly choked on them. (Mmm, chili cheese tots.) “My last year as an RA, I had an apartment building, each apartment three  double beds with a shared bathroom and living room. It used to be an army barracks, but–” She waved the tangent aside. “Anyway, it was a coed building, like yours was supposed to be, and it was right when those shooter games were very popular, the PUBG and the Fortnite. So, opening  night, I started a game of assassination.”

“Uh…” I muttered around my mouthful.

“I distributed squirt guns, those cheap ones you could get in a three-pack for a couple euros. I made everyone a list of targets, other residents but not suitemates. If you took them out and didn’t leave witnesses, they had to sign by their name. I gave out prizes for those who completed their list.”

“That sounds like a recipe for people scaring the shit out of each other.”

“It was, sometimes.” She smiled. “We had to pass some rules – no hiding in bathrooms, nothing in the middle of the night – but for the most part, it was a great success.”

I chuckled. “You sound like Borat when you say that.”

For once, her glare was not playful, but she quickly went on. “But my residents, they learned the campus so they could stake out targets. They met people they had nothing in common with, just so they could assassinate them with their water pistol for a candy bar. It got them out of their rooms and interacting and playing and forming a community. If it also gave a few of them complexes about someone jumping out of a trash can with a gun in hand, well…” She popped a tot in her mouth. “At least they live in a place where such things are only pretend.”

“Dark. Still, my Hotties came to Lakeview for an education first and a good time second. A distant second, I hope. I’m glad to hear grades are good, but none of these girls came here to be subjected to experimental sex serum.”

“You think this group of young women came to Lakeview not expecting to have sex with anyone…?”

“They expected to get a choice in the matter.”

“They didn’t expect to have the best fucking sex of their whole lives, either! Don’t you sit there and talk at me  like you’re that pizda  Janis, like you can’t imagine a spontaneous sexual encounter that exceeds anything you’ve ever dreamed of!”

“Language,” I mumbled.

“It was only one word. It means ‘cunt.’”

“I didn’t mean the Polish , I meant… Never mind.” I sighed as I stuffed the final, shriveled, partially burned piece of shrimp into my mouth. “I get it. We’ve had fun with each other. But that doesn’t change the harm it’s done. I know you’re only fighting this because you don’t want to break up.”

“ Kobieta to rzecz  bez fiuta i wielu motywów ,” she said solemnly. “A saying amongst the Traveling People. ‘A woman is a thing with no cock, but many reasons.’”

“Kinda weird.”

“Cocks connotate drive, ambition. A sexist male notion, but you get my point.”

“I do. But I still can’t.”

Ramona and I ate and slurped in silence. Aside from the slurping.

“What if I can tell you what happened to Casey?”

My head spun of its own accord to regard her with raw suspicion. “How would you know what happened to Casey?”

Her look was an irritated rebuke. “Spare me the ‘you’re in on it’ bullshit, master. You trusted your friend, and she pays her rent with money from the people who did this. Trust the woman who is making a pitch to have you allow her to continue fucking you.”

“I’ll ask again, how do you–”

“Because I paid attention to what young Ms. Gutierrez told you. Because I know you. Because I am smarter than the average sex slave.”

“OK, so what happened then? Exactly.”

“Switch it on, and I’ll tell you.”

“What? Pardon my  language, but no freaking way. I’m done with that stuff, I told you. I’m actually looking forward to a normal job, normal social life.”

“It happened when you were off, master. It could happen again if you don’t know how to prevent it.”

“It won’t if you tell me.”

“What if it happened next time to someone you care about? What if you subject Savannah to it one night, and she throws away her life as she knows it and her affection for her boyfriend so she can be some drooling pleasure slave? When she’s having panic attacks in the middle of class because she can’t stop pining for your touch?” My sex slave smirked. “What happens if you decide you like her that way? No more Price. Your beautiful, worshipful, hopelessly infatuated cocksucker, yours again?”

“God damn it!” I grunted. “Every time you have me close to wondering if it might be OK, you have to throw in something like that to make me feel like a fucking pig!”

“Apologies, master. Would you like to punish me, master?” She squirmed around to kneel in the passenger seat, pointing her ass at me. “So long as you recognize that my wanting to pleasure you doesn’t diminish my point.”

I spanked my boss’s soft round ass red, right there at the Sonic stand. Spanked her like she’d wronged me. Spanked  her like her ass was Price’s smug, clueless face. Then I pulled into a nook of the nearby Target lot and fucked her in the back seat. Someone must have seen, because we were interrupted midway through by the arrival of a squad car. A brief burst of his siren, and we hastily returned to our respective seats. Squirming over the center console while I pulled my pants back up was no mean trick.

“Let me do all the talking,” I told her as we hastily tugged our clothes back on. Ramona nodded.

“License and registration, sir.”

“Forget you saw us and she’ll hop in the back of your squad car and suck your cock until you’re satisfied she’s drained you dry.”

“Spencer…!” Ramona gasped.

Her reaction wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “This man bothering  you, miss?”

“Tell him you’ll do it,” I instructed her.

Ramona leaned across my lap, invited him to leer down her top. She smiled at me with a shake of her head. “Officer, if I’ve given offense , I’m too happy to make amends. As you see fit.”

I patted her head possessively. Like a trained pet.

The officer tried not to let it show, but he was already sold. I’d seen the way he looked at her. The way a man with moderate authority looked at a hot slutty piece of ass he wanted to use that authority on.

I knew that look  way too well.

“I’ve got a partner,” he said.

“Sure. She’s got all night, officer. And she’s a thirsty girl.”

I patted Ramona’s ass as she hopped out of the car a few minutes later. “Make me proud, boss.”

They dropped her off almost two hours after I got back home. She came straight to my room, tore off her clothes, and then my clothes, and rode me to more orgasms than I knew I had in me. All the while, she chanted, “Please master, please master, please master.” The woman didn’t need to say more. She never did tell me what all had happened.

It was incredible, in so many right and so many wrong ways. Even so, that was to be my last enjoyment from the Spencer effect.

Or it would have been, if not for Tori.

Chapter Ten: Halloween Eve

“I keep telling your little slut brigade, so now I’ll tell you: I don’t want one of your nasty skanky chokers.” Ellie folded her arms imperiously.

“No, yeah, I didn’t figure you did, but I’ll see if I can get them to stop bugging you about it. I didn’t know they were doing that.”

“Mm.”

“Actually, I came here to see if Tori’s in. We got the party coming up, and…”

The door opened wider, and sure enough, it was Tori doing the opening. “Spencer.”

“Hi, Tori. You look well.” I’d considered the phrasing I’d use at length. You look well  seemed  good. A compliment, not too blatant, not too banal, and not something easily spun to be taken as an insult or a misogynist come-on.

“When you look this good, it’s hard not to.” Oh dang, was that banter? I tried not to perk up too obviously. “What do you need?”

“Mostly to see what I can do to help the party happen. First, I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved last time I came to talk about it. I was rude, and insensitive, and I’m sorry.” There it was, no qualifiers, a true apology. Better yet, since she hadn’t let me into her room, it was a public apology, open to anybody in earshot. A public offense warranted a public apology, and it was good optics on top of it.

Tori studied me for a moment, then shook her head with a rueful sigh. “I probably could have handled myself better, too. Forgiven. For that, anyway.”

Wow. Just like that…?! I tried not to tear up. I’d always been an easy crier, and those words, that simple offer of forgiveness, it was squeezing my tear ducts with a vice grip. “Thanks. That means a lot. So, um, about the party…?”

I didn’t dare invite myself in, but to my relief, Tori yielded ground there once again. “Come on in.” She gave Ellie a stern look, and her mousy – mousy by Hottie standards, that is – roommate permitted me entry.

“There’s not a lot to it,” Tori said. “Katrina and I already went out and bought snacks. There’s some girls getting worried about their freshman 15, so we got some celery and peanut butter, some raisins. She figured ants on a log is Halloweenish . You know, bugs and whatnot.”

I’d have been surprised if the Hotties had averaged a freshman 1.5, but I wasn’t going to argue. Tori continued, “We got some candy snacks, too, though. We got a 24-pack of bottled water, a few gallons of Hawaiian Punch and some oranges to slice up for garnish and a little class. Not that I’ll be choking down any of that sugar water. My cousin lost his foot to diabetes.”

“Oh. Ouch.” I didn’t know how hard to empathize, so I kept it mild.

Tori moved on immediately. “Maybe you could snag us a punch bowl, though? The grocery store didn’t have one, but we thought it might be the kind of thing a boy like you knows how to get his mitts on.”

“I’m sure I can find something.” I had no idea where, but I’d go out and buy one if that was what it took to reform the Tori & Spencer program planning party! Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh

“Cool. So we got some tissue paper, black and orange, to put over the lights. Make it spooky but like Scooby Doo grade spooky. We googled a few activities and games. Lots of tactile stuff, like stick  your hands in a covered bowl of grapes and tell  them it's sheep eyeballs, that kind of thing. Low cost, low cleanup. Sort of cheesy, but nothing wrong with some cheese.”

“Totally agreed. Do we have music lined up?”

She shook her head. “No, but that’s a good thought. Do we want to just go with the Monster Mash lineup? Or we could do a haunted house sound effect vibe, screams and wolf howls and all that. I guess we could just say the hell with it and use a normal party mix.”

“You know, you and Katrina set the agenda, so maybe it’s best I stay out of the way and you guys – sorry, you ladies  – decide what fits best?”

Holy shit, Tori was smiling. In a room. With me!  My heart couldn’t have thumped harder if I were watching Savannah kick Price to the curb. “Yeah, probably best. I did most of the shopping, so maybe I’ll let Katrina decide, even things out.”

“Great. Do you want me to make fliers, go around and do announcements? Or I could just bellow it down the hallway again.” I winced, but I hoped humorously.

She rolled her eyes, but I hoped with dry amusement. “Don’t go straining your voice. We already told everybody electronically.”

Ah, the discord. I knew I wasn’t supposed to know about much of what went on there, but was I supposed to even know it existed? I couldn’t remember, so I simply nodded. “Sounds great. And so I know, what time…?”

“Eight. Enough time to have fun for a bit and still be packed up by quiet hours.”

“Smart. I mean, obviously.” Too thick. Blech. “Sounds like you two have everything well in hand. Looking forward to it.”

“Yeah, should  be good.”

At Tori’s suggestion, we moseyed down to Katrina’s room. They’d stacked the haul from their shopping trip in here, a big mound in the middle of a small room. I offered to let her store it in my room if it was underfoot, and she even opted to take me up on it. We revisited the music question. I double-checked that they’d kept the receipts for reimbursement. Katrina was all smiles. If anything, she seemed as relieved as I was to have the band back together. When we decided we’d done all we could, Tori even patted me on the back on my way out the door. Actual physical contact!

The moment my door closed behind me, those tears made a break for it, and I let them run. Fucking three dozen gorgeous women was nice, but have you tried planning a day-early Halloween party with girls who’ve finally stopped hating you?

Oh boy!

************************************************

I felt like getting out. A breakthrough like that gave me too much energy to want to sit around Higgins. I changed into shorts, then went over to the food court and grabbed something light, eating on my way to the rec center. All that Sonic bloat tasted my wrath. I ran – not jogged, but ran  – three full miles, and still had the verve to hit the free weights. People were feeding off my vibes, smiling and saying hi.

I almost showered at the gym but figured I hadn’t given Casey any attention since the previous morning, so I made my way back to Higgins. I called my dad on the way home. He had nothing exciting to report, which was all I’d wanted to hear. We talked haircuts, the news, how the Kraken had taken to diving into his leaf piles and wrecking all Dad’s work with the leafblower . It was trivial and light and perfectly tedious.

I bumped into Savannah on my way in. She was walking Price to his truck in the lot while I was on my way in.

“Hi, Spencer.” She smiled, faintly.

“Hey. And, um, it’s Price…?” I said to the man I knew damn well was Price.

“Price is right,” he said, as he’d clearly said a thousand times. If I were being fair, I’d have acknowledged it was probably a shtick he’d developed to cope with an uncommon name, a canned joke to stave off all the “can I see your tag , Price? hurr hurr” crap he’d probably gotten time and time again. I was not in a mood to be fair to him, however, so I denied him even a smile.

“Visiting for the weekend?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yep. Got work  in the morning bright and early, though, so I gotta get headed back. We live pretty far away.” She  lived fifty feet from where I was standing, I thought at him , but let him pretend she was still his little hometown honey bunny. Asshole.

“Cool cool. Well, I won’t stand between a man and his goodbye kiss, so…” I headed into the building, waving over my shoulder.

Suddenly, right as I was about to swipe my key card through the slot, a hand on my shoulder spun me around. “Are you freaking kidding  me?!” snapped Savannah.

I frowned. I’d been a little dickish, but only a little. I hadn’t thought it would warrant any backlash. “Um, sorry? I just wanted to get out of the way. So it wouldn’t be awkward.”

“You thought  that  wouldn’t be awkward.”

“Um, no…?”

Her glare nearly melted through my body and right through the Higgins door, but luckily for Ramona’s maintenance budget, it landed fully on me. “You are something else, Spencer.” She stormed back over to Price’s truck, and, conscious I’d likely be looking, shoved her tongue down his throat like the man’s neck had wronged her in a past life.

Dang. Sensitive much ?

Back home, I made the rounds, knocking on doors and checking in on people. How ya doing, how are classes, maybe we should think about retiring the chokers, going to the party tomorrow?

I made it three doors before someone told me.

“Um, did you know you have a sign on your back?” Nikki asked anxiously.

“I… what?” I reached back, squirmed, finally  got a purchase on it. It was a simple piece of printer paper, printed in deep red ink and held on with a couple pieces of tape.

HI! I LIKE TO FUCK WEAK SLUTS!

It took me a good four seconds to realize where the sign had come from. My hands clenched around it. It crumpled. That wasn’t enough. I tore it into halves, quarters, eighths, confetti . Stormed down to my room and flung it in the trashcan – most of it landing near  instead – and cut loose with a howl of primal rage into my pillow.

My mind raced through an assessment of how many people had seen that. People in line with me at the food court. The folks who made my food. The guy at the register. The gym. The gym! All those people staring at my wake, and me thinking they were just impressed by my hustle, maybe checking out my butt.

How many Higgins residents had seen it? How many had thought that, with all the rumors, I was just bragging? How many recognized it as a prank but thought so little of me they’d ignored it?

Savannah. No fucking wonder she chased after me! Did Price even know about she  and I? Had he known she was one of those “weak sluts” I was boasting of preying on? Did she  think I knew that was there? Oh fuck! Did she think I’d staged that encounter just to piss off her and her boyfriend?

Had  Katrina seen her do it? Did she think so little of me…?

Had she really referred to the rest of my  girls as weak sluts ?!

************************************************

As a younger man, I’d been kind of a dick.

It’s the sort of thing people who meet me and get to know who I am now have a hard time imagining. That’s good. Back in high school – ugh, or worse, middle school! – I’d been a real piece of work. I was a guy who checked all the boxes of privilege, plus being good-looking, athletic, and if I wasn’t a straight A student, I never got below a C. Yet I’d been repeatedly unkind to those who didn’t have it as easy. Guys who showed emotions were fags. Girls who let me round the bases were sluts. Girls who didn’t were bitches, fatties, uggos, or all three. Before I’d realized I was climbing a ladder, I’d already been kicking anybody beneath me and pulling up rungs as I ascended.

I cringed to look back on it sometimes, but when I was able to reflect clearheadedly, I was glad for the perspective. It helped me understand how people could sometimes just… be assholes. It didn’t take a sob story. If anything, I saw it more often in people like Janis who’d never, to my knowledge, experienced substantial hardships. It was easy to bully when you had been led to believe you were a paragon, especially if your status was unearned. If you could be hot and popular with so little effort, why didn’t those other losers?

They say the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them, but that hadn’t been my experience. Those fags just needed to beef up their babydicks and get laid if they wanted anybody to respect them – or so the Spencer Lawrence who’d first arrived as a freshman at Lakeview might have said.

No, what I went on to learn was that the only way to stop a bully was to teach them.

It was the job that saved me. I’d applied to be an RA because it provided room and board. (As it turned out, college was expensive.) Then the office of housing and residence life made me take a class and go through two torturous weeks of training during my summer vacation to learn about faggy bullshit like “tolerance.” “Diversity.” “Empathy.” “Community.” I phoned it in, like a lot of people did. I put up their signs, got guys together to play some football, and did my stupid rounds – usually not paying any attention to what anybody was up to.

Then one day, I found out I’d phoned it in too well because suddenly there was a resident in my room, crying, asking for my help. A guy . Crying . His name was Brad. I’d liked  Brad. He was a chill dude, decent wide receiver, solid  teammate in Call of Duty . I mumbled a question as to what the heck was bugging him, and before I knew what was happening, Brad told me he was gay.

Nobody had ever come out to me before. In the years that followed, I’d learn I’d had a gay friend in high school, one who’d never felt comfortable outing himself – and while he’d never said it, I’m sure me and my casual bigotry played a role in his decision to stay in the closet. Brad, he’d been fortunate to have support back home from family and friends, but at Lakeview he was struggling with his identity.

I didn’t have a clue what to do. At the time, I was anxious about having a gay guy alone in my dorm room. To my homophobic relief, Brad didn’t make a pass at me. As I grappled with the simple task of not being an asshole, I remembered that in training they’d made us tour the culture centers. So I told Brad to get his shoes on, and we went down to the LGBTQ Center (now the LGBTQIA+ Center, or to those of us who know it well, the Plus Center).

They welcomed us warmly, both of us. Somewhere in the middle of drinking fresh espresso with Brad and a handful of folks from the center, I realized I was the only straight guy in the building. Yet somehow, I hadn’t turned gay, been harassed or even flirted with. Just… people being people. Being really nice people, actually. By the time we left, Brad was smiling ear to ear. They knew what to say, where to steer him. I found myself taking mental notes, in case any other gays came knocking.

I’d helped somebody – or at least, I’d helped him find help. It was about the best feeling I’d ever had.

So I started chasing that feeling. Selfish of me I guess, but I’ve never wanted to live in a world where we shame people over their motives for kindness. I stopped doing those bullshit movie programs where we ordered pizza and watched a Fast and Furious  movie, and asked my supervisor if there was something more meaningful I could do. I’d still yell down the hall to see who was up for a game, but I’d try to include guys I hadn’t seen come out before. Fat guys. Dorky guys. Guys I’d pegged as lifelong virgins the moment I’d met them. Guys I soon learned were actually decent guys, some of them better companies than the dude-bros I’d been focusing my community-building on theretofore. If they didn’t want to join us for football, I’d round them up for dinner later. I started learning to read facial expressions, body language. I asked questions and paid attention to the answers, didn’t  storytop. I got to know people.

When we came back from winter break for more RA training, I paid attention. I began to understand the rules as more than just arbitrary requirements, as tools for making Rowland a better place to live. Some I learned to fudge, some I wrote in my heart as scripture. ( Most , I simply attended with a basic knock-and-nag.)

I started feeling good  about myself. Not that I’d ever lacked self-esteem – that had come too easily, really – but it made such a difference having earned it. Not that I was some kind of res life  messiah, but it was nice to know I got to make those little differences in my residents’ lives. Throughout my four years in Rowland, I’d gotten to be such a dork over it that I’d actually moved to Higgins this year thinking things like “how exciting will this be, to experience gender diversity in my own community?!” So  dorky, enough that if I’d ever let people hear me say it out loud, not even the Spencer effect would never have been enough to get me laid.

Why had the Hancock Institute picked me? Because I was cocky and handsome, so I wouldn’t notice the excessive female attention? Because I’d made some kind of impression on the wrong member of Marisa’s work friend circle at a party? For the first time, huddled in my bed and trembling with anger, I wondered if they’d simply reached out to Bob and asked him for a total sap who’d do anything to ingratiate himself.

Whatever it was, I’d done my part. I hadn’t asked for this, and I did my goddamn best to treat my Hotties with respect, kindness, patience and dignity. As much dignity as they’d let me, anyway. I dared anybody who’d been saddled with this to do more good, or less harm. I shuddered to think what I would have done in this circumstance in the mindset I’d had as a first year RA. I’d built an accepting, loving, judgment-free zone that promoted peak academic success, and if I’d gotten to have a few orgasms doing it, I’d doled  them out as generously.

And yet: HI! I PREY ON WEAK SLUTS!

Luckily, I had two days to calm down before I had to look Tori in the eye again. I won’t lie; I’d been pissed . For all those shitty pranks, I’d been hoping she wasn’t involved. I could reconcile a difference of perspective, even one as big as mine and Tori’s. In the end, though, a man can’t reason with people who are dunking on him for sport. Dicks on the walls, powder pranks, clothes flung in the lot, fire alarms pulled… My inclination to defend her against suspicions was gone.

Two days was a long time to sit in your room and seethe, though. At some point, you have to take a step, and the only choice you have is whether it’s forward or backward.

I successfully avoided her until the party. I’d run out of olive branches, and Tori had run out of fig leaves. Around 7:30, I started hauling party supplies down to the lounge. Katrina was already down there putting up decorations, the tissue paper Tori had mentioned. Some cheap cardboard cutouts of witches and pumpkins and a black cat were already taped on the walls. Our vice governor was already in costume, a simple kitty tail clipped onto black jeans, some whiskers drawn on her cheeks with an eyeliner pencil, and a headband with cat ears.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” I said. “Kat-rina, huh?”

“Yep!”

That was that. I didn’t know if it was worth trying to say more. Tori’s actions weren’t hers, I reminded myself, and I wasn’t going to blow up at Tori either. No matter how satisfying it might be. What she’d done was definitely an actionable offense, especially knowing my hall manager would be as harsh as campus policy allowed and then some if I told her to. Hell, Ramona had point  blank offered to  when I unloaded it all on her, but we’d helped talked  one another down.

As we turned our attention to the impending party, Ramona had scared up a punch bowl for us, ironically a wedding gift she and her husband had never gotten around to using. She arrived soon after I did in what looked to be a fairy princess costume. It was cute, even provided a peek at some of her tattoos. She poured the punch and then assisted Katrina while I spread peanut butter on celery and raisins on peanut butter, filled the cooler with ice and the ice with bottled water. Katrina restricted her conversating  to Ramona, and if it was awkward for her, it was as awkward for me.

Around ten til, the vice floor governor started up the music. Cheesy, she’d evidently decided, opening with Purple People Eater . Fine by me. I grabbed a bottle of water and manned my station at the snack table.

People began to filter in. Charlie, dressed in a white sheet with a homemade halo as an angel. Apt, and punny. Solid. Jacqui came in camo as a soldier, or maybe Rambo. Angel came in, took one look at Charlie, and about-faced, Leigh  in her devil costume trailing after her and insisting no one would have said anything. Emma as Rosie the Riveter, then Andi as a farmgirl. Not really a costume, but she was looking way too good in overalls with no shirt underneath for me to complain. She arrived with Casey (no attempt at a costume); Sammi, who’d taken Andi’s sexy farmgirl look as a dare and cut her own overalls into Daisy Dukes, her enormous tits spilling out the sides; and Lexi as a Statue of Liberty. I didn’t know if there was a message behind it, but I wasn’t dumb enough to ask. Proving I could be in a room with her without shoving my foot in my mouth was a first step to reconciliation.

Tori arrived late to her own program. Uncouth, in my opinion. I didn’t recognize her costume. My first impression was something out of The Handmaid’s Tale . This wasn’t the sort of party people bought fancy costumes for, so it was hard to be sure. She didn’t seek me out any more than I approached her, but after hearing her explain that she was Sojourner Truth to three of her floormates while working her way through the game stations, I knew what to call her when she eventually made her way to the drink station.

“Ms. Truth,” I said as evenly as I could.

“And I suppose you’re a fireman, eh?”

I nodded. I’d had the costume for years, from a time when I’d seen no problem wearing pants, suspenders, a hat and nothing else. It was less sensational than some of the outfits – Kendall had come down in a leopard print bikini and the same kitty-cat trappings as Katrina – but I knew I looked decent in it. “Guilty as charged.”

“Trust me, I know,” she commented dryly. Both of us gazed around, realized  that everyone in the lounge was watching us. Some subtly, but most simply stared. Had we set aside our differences, agreed to party together? Were we opponents circling one another, looking for weaknesses?

“So can I get some water or what?” Tori had raised her voice, let her sass carry to the ears of all her allegedly weak slut floormates.

I forced a smile. “Here you go.” I held out the bottle in my hand.

Here it came. Her last chance. Would she take it? Or–

“You think I’m just going to drink from an open container? From you ? Sorry, I’m allergic to roofies.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just opened it – haven’t  even sipped . It’s full, see? And it’s freaking water .” I gave the bottle a shake, spilling a bit down my arm. “God, Tori, do you really think I’d try to freaking date rape you? Do you not remember me putting on a program on how precisely to prevent something like that?”

She snorted. “You probably wouldn’t need to with most of these girls.”

I bent down and picked another water bottle out of the cooler and held it out. When she grasped it, I didn’t let go. “You know, Tori, I’m sorry. I wanted to be able to work things out. I know I screwed up. I agreed with you on a bunch of it.”

She twisted the cap and took a sip, looking me in the eyes all the while. “Not enough to resign. Not yet.”

“Yeah. Well. Best of luck on that.” I raised my water bottle to her, and chugged the thing like it was cheap beer at a frat house. Tori lifted hers, and took a few more gulps.

“More cum?” Ramona asked me softly a while later, catching me studying Tori finishing off her bottle. The girls were thoroughly distracted, rocking out to “Thriller” with hysterical giggles. All in all, a decent party by residence hall standards.

“I would never,” I answered, smiling softly. “Not a third time, anyway.”

Ramona downed the last of her cup of punch. “Well there’s enough in the punch bowl I’m frankly impressed nobody’s noticed the texture.”

“The citrus in the orange helps mask the bleachy after-taste,” I observed.

“Some of us happen to like the bleachy after-taste.” She slurped at the dregs. “In some cases, anyway.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“I wouldn’t know, master. What did Marisa say?”

“She said she’d tell them, but not when. And I can’t imagine she has any way of knowing how quickly those Hancock assholes will see to it, or how long it will take to work once they do.”

“Their investment in the Higgins experiment seems significant. I would think it’s a priority.” She shrugged, then refilled her red plastic cup with more punch, despite her admission of its secret ingredient. “Regardless, we’ll have plenty more opportunities, if tonight doesn’t prove to be the jumpstart we hope for. To your effect, master.” She kept her voice low, but raised her cup high. I tapped my water bottle against it and took a drink. “May it make your Hotties happy.”

“Looks like. Still not sure how I feel about–”

“Master…!”

I made sure nobody heard her hiss of rebuke. Nobody was paying me any attention, though. “I’m not equivocating again, relax. At this point, I just want to get things moving. If we’re doing it, let’s get the transition over with as quickly as possible.”

Ramona put her arm around my waist. At this point, it didn’t really matter if anyone saw. “I’m still surprised you relented to my plan for the beverages without asking after Casey first, master. But I’m glad. Selfish of me, I know, but still.”

“I know. Me too, really. We were all pretty trapped inside our own little worlds. It’s going to be good to come back together, to face this year with a united front.” I put my arm around my boss, my hand right on her ass. She tensed, but only for a moment.

“As for Casey,” I went on, “I would have asked, but… I figured it out.”

Tori looked over at us, scowled balefully at the position of my hand, Ramona’s arm. She fanned herself. Took another sip. Another. Drained the bottle.

What a long two days these past ones had been. Movies, it turned out, had been a big help. Mr. Holland’s Opus .   Fox and the Hound .   I Am Sam .   My Girl . Each Toy Story  movie received a repetition of viewings equal to its release number. The internet had recommended a little gem called Hachi: A Dog’s Tale  that claimed to be based on a true story, which had in turn led me down a rabbit hole of accounts of various dogs throughout history who’d been loyal to their humans unto eternity.

My face still hurt . It was an old joke I had with my mom whenever she complained of aches or pains, where I’d express excess concern and ask for more information about where it hurt, gesturing to steer the source toward the region of her face. Sometimes she humored me and I got to do a “yeah, I bet it hurts, ‘cause it’s killing me!” Sometimes she rolled her eyes and told me to fetch her some tylenol.

This time, I’d needed  the tylenol.

Marisa had put the idea in front of me and I’d dismissed it with a laugh. Ramona, however, had pieced it together. Like she said, she knew me.

I’d been over and over my every  interaction with Casey since the return from fall break, the highs and the lows. The night of her injury was my focus, but all I’d been able to make myself see was checking for a pulse – and god, I could go forever without reliving that . Sweeping the vomit from her airway with my finger, hefting her to her feet. A big moment emotionally, but no big gestures when it came to the Spencer effect.

I thought back to that empathy exercise we’d conducted about Leigh and Angel, and then I went back and relived the night the way Ramona would have imagined it. I finally realized what I’d done.

I arrived in the bathroom, found Casey, checked vitals, tried  to give her some air. She resumed breathing, thank god, but stayed unconscious. After a few minutes, nothing I was doing was producing any results any more. I’d thought I was watching – maybe had already watched – this spunky, clever, warm, beautiful, unfathomably groovy girl die in my arms. I hadn’t even processed yet that if she had, I would have blamed myself forever. Casey had lain there motionless, slack-jawed, bleeding, and all I could do was hope the EMTs would arrive in time to save her where I’d failed.

I’d been sobbing. Standing over her, my tears raining  down onto her face.

Into her open mouth.

How much? A few drops, probably. A person only cried so much, and as Jurassic Park  had taught us, water had a funny way of running all  sorts of directions when it ran down a person’s skin.

Compared to the 13 ml I’d harvested from my eyes (using the food coloring pipette for the green brine the grape eyeballs were floating in, so thanks Katrina!), what Casey had swallowed was a pittance. 13 ml give or take, injected into the neck of a sealed water bottle with the syringe from the first aid kit at the Higgins center desk.

If Tori had taken the bottle I offered her, shown the slightest inclination towards trust  and reconciliation… she would have been 13 ml less hydrated, and could have gone on hating me all year.

I liked Tori. I really did. You can like someone, though, even agree with them, and still have to accept that they were out of line. That was a big part of what being an RA was all about, being the tough love who helped steer their residents towards honoring the social contract when they forgot how.

Our social contract on Higgins 3 might not be like other floors. What passed for commonplace here would be outrageous in most communities. Though as the great Deepak Chopra had said, you accept things as they are, not as you wish they were. My girls and I were a tangled snarl of never quite satiated appetites, a sucking fucking caring nurturing tapestry of lives.

I’d been hired to help make a small group of Lakeview students safe and successful, happy and healthy. Thanks – in part – to the Spencer effect, I’d achieved that goal and then some. There was no getting around the fact that yes, doing things this way meant I got to have a ton of incredible sex with a ton of incredible women. Motives, however, are never pure. When I’d escorted Brad to the LGBTQ Center, it had been at least as much to escape the awkwardness of a weepy gay dude in my room. I’d volunteered to help lead RA training this year to be of use, yes, but also to build up my resume and because I like being in front of people. Always have. When Dana and her mom showed up for early move-in while I was crawling around making those already obsolete door tags, I’d hopped up to escort her to her room to be courteous and welcoming, but also because of how it had felt having Dana’s insanely hot mom wolf whistle at me.

I was going to give my Hotties the best year of college possible. There were a lot of reasons why, and a lot of reasons to harbor some guilt over my methods, but damn it all, I was going to do it. I loved these girls. These strong  girls, who’d resisted a stable diet of hormone overload for months. They weren’t sluts, as had been recently suggested, but loving, passionate women who were guilty of nothing more deviant than enjoying getting together with a guy they liked, and helping each other come.

I loved them. I missed  them. I missed seeing us at our best.

If that meant doing like my boss, my lover, my slave and my mentor said, and using every tool in my kit, well… I’d had the bully educated out of me. Tori would probably come to enjoy the process even more than I had.

************************************************

“Spencer…”

“Tori.”

“Can I come in? Please?”

I smiled. “Of course you can. The formal lounge is for all of Higgins.”

“I thought he said RAs weren’t allowed to hold ‘mandatory’ floor meetings.”

“Especially at almost midnight! I have an 8:00 tomorrow.”

“Technically it’s Tori’s meeting, though, right?”

“If it’s just going to be another screaming match between brokers and chokers…”

“Then we’re gonna win this one and force that bitch to do like she keeps saying and resign, yo.”

“I wish I was still wearing my costume! We do not celebrate Halloween in my country.”

“I wish you were still wearing it too.”

“Come on, you guys. Those two have been having it out for weeks now, and that post made it sound like maybe they’d finally worked something out. I really hope so. All this fighting has been so bad for my skin.”

Tori and I listened to their grumbled conversation as the Hotties filed back into the lounge some hours later. Puzzlement was the main reaction at seeing the two of us together. She’d tagged the whole floor in her discord post inviting them, but after a few minutes arrivals stopped with only about half the floor in there. More than enough, though, and perhaps better than perfect attendance.

Charlie, however, lit up at the sight of us, clapping her hands giddily. “You guys…?!”

I nodded. “Welcome back, everybody. I know it’s late, but Tori thought it would be best to do this ASAP.”

“Uh, why is she on your lap…?” asked Katrina.

“I’m sorry!” Tori whined.

“I know. You keep saying that.”

“I am! Please? I want to earn a choker. Please. I’ll do anything. Everything. I want to earn one for my neck, one for each wrist, one for each ankles, one for each titty. Please. I’m sorry!”

“I don’t hand those out personally, but I’m sure we can get you at least one. If anybody on Higgins 3 is earning theirs, it’s going to be you.”

“We wanted to make sure there were enough seats,” I joked. Muted laughter. There were clearly more than enough, and the Hotties had never been shy about sitting on the floor when needed.

Tori said nothing, simply nuzzled her cheek against my chest and teased her fingers up and down my abdomen. I was still in my firefighter costume, and Tori still  as Sojourner Truth.

“So I know there’s been a lot of hostility on the floor lately. Harsh words, cliques, pressuring, bullying, pranks that have gotten out of hand. I’ve played a role in some of that, and for that, I apologize.”

“Please? I’m naked. Why aren’t you? I’ll be so good to you, I promise. Show you how sorry I am. I’m so sorry. Please?”

“In time. I didn’t invite you down here to have sex with you, though.”

She gazed up at me from her knees, panic-stricken. I hadn’t put her down there, but she didn’t seem to mind. “What? No! Please! You have to! You did it with all those other girls!”

“Everybody contributes something different to the community, Tori.”

Jo shook her head. No Lex this time, but she looked pissed enough for both. Less pissed than normal, though? She’d drank  a lot of Ramona’s punch. “An apology isn’t going to make up for what you did. You can’t treat people like dirt and just… move on.”

I nodded. Tori sighed dreamily. “You’re right, Jo. I did screw  up. I’ve let a lot of you down, made mistakes, let ill will take root and fester. I want things to start getting better around here. Does anybody think that’s going to be easier for us if I try to do it without starting by apologizing?”

Jo wasn’t having it. “You’ve apologized over and over. It’s all you fucking do. Apologize, and fuck things up again.”

“I’ve fucked up some, yes. But I’m not the only one, and I think it’s time we stop focusing so much on placing blame, and start asking how we can start to make things better.”

There were murmurs of agreement, including by a couple of Tori’s broker girls. Tori didn’t notice. She’d started moving her hips again, wriggling herself atop the cock I’d impaled her on under the billowy skirts of her costume. She’d made quite a few concessions to be permitted that, but she’d made them.

“Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it. You want to spank me? I know you went to town on Kyu-Ri. You like my ass, I can tell. Do it. Bend me over and punish me. Whatever you need to work out to let me at that  thing.”

I let her continue to rain kisses on my zipper as I responded. “I don’t want to punish you, Tori. I kept trying to tell you, I think  you made some good points.”

“So can I–”

“I didn’t like the way you made them, though.”

“I’m sorry. Punish me. Punish my ass. Punish me. I’m sorry. Please.”

“So again, I’m sorry. Anybody who’d like a more specific or lengthy or individualized apology, come find me and I’ll make it. From now on, though, I’m going to go back to doing everything in my power to make Higgins 3 the best place to live at Lakeview.”

A few whoops went up, but not many. It was late, and they didn’t yet comprehend what “everything in my power” entailed. Basically one way of saying “fucking anybody who’d like me to until they dribble school spirit out their pussies.”

“We’re going to have fun programs again. Another massage night before finals, at least. We’re going to go on trips, see  if mother nature is going to gift  us a warm enough afternoon for another beach day. We’re going to have open doors, open arms.”

“If you won’t punish me, then how can I earn my choker? I want to be a choker girl. Please. Do you want to choke me? I heard you did that to some of the girls. You can–”

I held up a hand and she instantly fell silent, apart from the kisses on my jeans. “We did a lot of damage to our floor, you and I both. That means we both need to help fix things.”

“Do you… do you want me to fuck some of the girls with you? I’m, um, not into girls, but if you want… Maybe they could show me how you like us to…”

“You can’t earn your choker by getting me off, Tori.”

She peered up, eyes wide and pleading. “Then how? Please. Anything.”

Excitement was building, though as Tori became more obvious about grinding on my cock, more attention was being diverted to speculation and pointing.

“To that end, Tori has something she’d like to say.” I patted her hip. She moaned. Moaned. Nothing subtle about it.

“Um, are you two…?” Dana pointed, pointedly.

I gave Tori’s hip a firmer tap. “Tori.”

“Mmmmm…”

I slapped her ass “ TORI. ”

She blinked, looked up at me. “Spencer… Mmm…”

“Tori, don’t you have something you wanted to say?” I prompted.

“Thank you,” she murmured, rocking her hips harder.

“We’re bringing everyone back together. Starting with you and me.”

“Another orgy, like massage night? OK,” she agreed immediately.

“No. There’s something we have to do before we can have sex, Tori. Something important. Something that feels even better than sex.”

“A blowjob? Or… anal? I’d let you, if you want. It’s always  sounded gross, but maybe… With you, OK. I’m so wet , Spencer. I’m such a stupid fucking bitch. Please do whatever you need to do to make it right. Then fuck me. Please.”

I brushed her hair to clear a path to Tori’s ears and whispered into them, “Tell them what you said you were going to tell them, or I’ll stop.”

“Noooo!” Tori shook her head. It was the most frightful look anybody had worn in this lounge all Halloween Eve. She spun, rotating her hips delectably, facing the crowd. “Um, yeah. So… you can all use whatever bathrooms again. And showers. You can use the nozzles again to get yourself off i-if you want. You… Oh…”

I took hold of two handfuls of tits, probing for nipples, and twisted . Scandalous, sure, but considering what they were already watching…? More and more, I saw girls realizing she wasn’t just grinding. “Oh. And we don’t want him to resign any more. And I apologize. I’m sorry. I’m sorry everyone. I want him to stay. Ungh, god, don’t want him to ever leave me for a second…”

“Are you guys seeing this?” murmured Jordyn. “They’re just… fucking. In the middle of the lounge!”

I slipped her costume off her shoulders. It was loose, and slid down easily, exposing two big brown titties. “What else, Tori?”

“I… I think that’s everything…?” she sighed, lifting my hands back to her tits.

I spoke softly, but everyone probably heard anyway, except the ones sputtering in shock. “No no. Remember, we agreed I would apologize and say a few words, and then you would say…”

There was no getting a straight answer out of her while she was this desperate. I let her take off my clothes, then guided her onto a sofa. The same one I’d made out with Charlie on. She spread her legs instantly, and widely. I eased my cock inside, and her eyes rolled back into her head, a dizzy smile forming on her lips.

It took three thrusts before she shuddered, gasped, and came. She wept with relief. “More. Don’t stop. More. Please. I’m sorry. Anything. Please. I’m begging you.”

I continued, but slowly. “I need you to listen to me, Tori. Pay close attention, and I’ll keep going. OK?”

She nodded, hair bobbing. Not a word in response – afraid she’d speak over me, I realized.

“Do you feel at all bad about what you did to me? And before you answer, I want to ask you to be honest. I’ll keep fucking you no matter what you say, as long as it’s honest.”

I had to hand it to her. I’d never seen anyone so horny, so pliable, not in all my life. I don’t think I could have made her any more attentive if I’d put a gun to her head.

“We can fuck him again?” Tori said. It sounded like a guess.

“And…?”

“And… god, your dick, it’s melting my damn brain ,” Tori whined.

“OK, that’s enough for you, then.” Tori wailed in alarm as I lifted her off my cock and deposited her gently (as gently as her panicked thrashing would allow) on her knees. Suddenly my cock was out in the open air. Tori lunged, mouth open, but I backed off to keep out of her tasting range. When my butt hit the heat system beneath the lounge windows, I planted a firm hand on her desperate forehead.

“No, Tori. Not until you say the rest.”

After a moment, she remembered I was more than just my cock. She turned, a little, to address the room. Everyone present was watching us in rapt fascination. “Rest? OK, yeah. The rest. So we can fuck him again, and suck his cock, and let him touch us. And, what else.  God. Oh god. Floor government will work with him to, um, do… whatever. Programs. Yeah. Please, can I just…?!” Her tongue reached out as far as it could, but those few inches were insufficient.

I looked around the room. There were a few hands down the fronts of shorts and PJs and panties, girls diddling themselves in relief. That punch had worked   fast . Good on Marisa for getting the word to Hancock so quickly.

“What else?” I prompted.

“I… I was so mad ,” Tori said, rocking her hips to maximize friction as I gave her the mildest dose of what she was losing her mind craving. “The stuff you said, the stuff you did, and you kept getting away with it.”

“Yeah. A lot of them would have let me get away with it, but not you.”

“I’m sorry. About the pranks, the dick, the fire alarm, all of it.”

“Was it just you, or did Katrina–”

“Katrina’s… ungh… my friend. Don’t want to…”

I nodded, giving my thumb a lick and easing it against her clit. Tori’s howl echoed around the room deafeningly.

“Can’t believe I fought this so long. I’m so stupid. I was–”

I silenced her with the subtlest increase in pressure on her clit that I could manage. “You were my conscience, Tori. You were there to hold me accountable when nobody else would.”

“Mmm, holding you…”

I placed my hands on those incredible soft brown tits. Tori moaned, clasping her hands over mine and fixing them in place. “I think if you hadn’t drawn a line for me, I would have done a lot of things I would have gone on to regret.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. She was probably coming again. Hard to tell as quickly as it was happening.

“No! No, that’s what I’m saying, Tori.” I leaned down, my cock plunging deeper than I’d let it thus far. Her back arch, and she wailed out confirmation that it was hitting the spot. Our bodies pressed together, RA and governor  as absolutely united as our bodies would permit.

“I forgive you.”

“We forgave  each other,” Tori said, smiling at me, smiling at my cock, smiling at the assembled Hotties. “I want him to stay our RA.”

I nodded. “And I need you to stay our governor.” I removed my hand, and Tori plunged face-first onto my cock.

In the middle of the gathering, a girl stood up. It was Casey, wearing a massively oversized white t-shirt that hung most of the way to her knees. Shit, that was one of mine, I realized belatedly. She could have fit three of herself in there. She moved carefully through the crowd, making sure to step gingerly where Charlie was sprawled, eyes calmly sealed as the gorgeous blonde amateur eroticist casually jilled herself beneath her skimpy shorts.

Tori saw none of it, not even when Casey walked up behind her and lifted her baggy shirt over her head. She’d worn nothing underneath it – no bra, no pajamas, no panties. Just a perfect body that needed no adornment. A Hottie body.

Until Casey removed it from her wrist, I hadn’t even noticed the choker.

“The girls need to see us come together,” I told her. She was riding me now, her big bouncy boobs parading in my face.

“I’ll come as often as you want. Whenever you want. Fuck me whenever. Every day. A thousand times a day.”

I grinned. How long would it be before this wore off? Part of me hoped not soon. “I meant come  together as RA and governor. Show we can work together, do our jobs.”

“I’ll give you whatever kind of job you want. Blowjob, handjob, titjob–”

“Very funny.” She did grin, a little. It was the first time she’d looked anything other than vacuously slutty since arriving. It was fleeting. “But that means your people and my people need to make amends.”

“With Casey, you mean?!”

I nodded, a bit unnerved that the girl’s name had gotten her so excited. I could feel it fluttering in her pussy. The preacher’s daughter was no longer a virgin. “Yeah. With Casey. She said she’d come to the meeting tonight, but she expects you to extend an olive branch.”

“Extend the Staff of Ra,” she moaned.

Casey unclasped the choker around her left wrist, then knelt down and wrapped it around Tori’s throat. Stripping her had dislodged her mouth from my cock, but Casey kept a tight grip, preventing her from sucking it back down. “Tell them you were wrong,” she whispered.

“I was wrong!” Tori conceded instantly.

“Tell us you’re sorry for trying to get rid of our guy.”

“I’m so  sorry! I’ll make it up to him! To everyone, however they want, I don’t care! I’m sorry, Spencer! I’m sorry, Casey! I’m sorry, everyone! I’m so so  sorry!” She made another spirited lunge, still held back by her floormate’s grip on her choker. The choker was earning its choker status, too.

“Tell us you’re going to do better from now on.”

“I’ll do better. I swear. Please. Please, let me… Please. I’ll do better. I’ll do the best I’ve ever done. I’ll serve this floor with passion, integrity, and love. I swear! Please!”

Casey looked up at me. I nodded. She wasn’t quite ready, though. “Tell us you belong in this collar, Tori. Tell us what you are, from now on.”

I’d wondered at Tori’s phrasing, how it had seemed significant to her somehow. Something she’d said at that first floor meeting, when I’d been disinvited maybe? Casey was plainly looking for something specific, too. Something which Tori grokked to immediately.

“I’m a choker girl. I’m your choker girl, Spencer,” announced Tori, eyes questing up towards mine penitently. “You win.”

I gestured, and Casey knelt down on my left. Tori scooted to take a place on my right. My facing her floor governor, massive tits brushing against massive tits.

“Things are going to be different from now on,” I instructed her as she feverishly slobbered up and down my cock. Had  she ever given head before? I doubted it. As good a time as any to learn.

“OK,” she said. That was as long as she could make herself pause.

“There’s going to be sex. Me and the girls on the floor. Sometimes more than one at a time, probably. Sometimes where people can hear it.”

“OK.”

“Sometimes, it might happen where people can see it.”

“OK.”

“Sometimes, it might happen to you  where people can see it.”

“OK.” Then, after a moment of frantic licking, “Thank you!”

“You’re going to help make sure I treat the girls fairly, though. Make sure I’m not neglecting, not coercing, not taking advantage. Help me make sure we’re all having a good time, as a community.”

“OK.”

I smiled, running my fingers through the tight curls of her hair. “What did I say?”

“I’m going to help make sure everybody has a good time with you. Everybody happy  and coming all the time.”

“No, Tori.” I smiled, and removed my hand. She was too stunned to act for a moment. “ We  win. All of us. You, too.”

Tori’s and Casey’s eyes met over the rigid beam of my erection. A moment later, their lips met under. Then they moved almost imperceptibly upward, and began to lovingly come back together around the focal point of their RA’s cock.

As the Hotties who’d heeded Tori’s call watched, the factions dissolved before their eyes as I sawed my dick back and forth between four frantically kissing, sucking, dribbling lips. Tori and Casey each somehow managed to smile while they did it. I wished I had a camera to record the moment. Fortunately the Hotties were too busy touching themselves to have the same thought.

Not everybody was masturbating. Peyton took Sydney’s hand and quietly led her toward the lounge exit. Lithe Sydney stopped her at the door, forcefully spinning her roommate and girlfriend around and pounding the dark-haired beauty into the wall, kissing her with abandon. Kyu-Ri, one of the first girls to succumb to the spirit of the moment, had eased a hand under a silk nightgown that was far too translucent to have been worn out of her bedroom. She soon had her hand replaced by Dawn’s mouth, on all fours, licking that imported pussy buffet for all she was worth.

It was working.

I wanted to save some energy for the meeting. Tori had sent the notice, and it was approaching fast. To keep her focused, I draped Tori’s oversexed body tits down on the table we used for our staff meetings, taking my usual seat and fingered her trembling, spasming pussy.

“If anybody else wants an apology, what are you going to do?”

“Beg forgiveness,” she murmured into the puddle of drool she’d spilled onto the tabletop.

“Are you going to mean it?”

“Yes. This… best I’ve ever felt. Should have been begging you to do me like this since day one. So stupid.”

“Not stupid, Tori. You just didn’t know better.” Thinking back to day one and that brief, crazy meeting with Quinn, I split my fingers to probe her asshole and her pussy together. Her back arched, raising her holes, pushing into my grasp. It gave me the opportunity to squeeze her tits, too.

“What about Katrina?” she asked when I slowed enough that she stopped releasing every breath in a moan.

She’d deflected the last time I’d brought up her vice governor. “What about her?”

Tori whimpered, shaking her hips to entice me to resume. “She’s wanted everybody to make up almost since this all started.”

“Well then, I guess we should let her.”

At Tori’s beckoning, Katrina was crawling across the lounge, joining Casey and Tori at the thrusting end of my cock. Without a word, she retrieved the choker I’d noticed wrapped around Casey’s other wrist. The high school salutatorian swept her hair aside and fastened the HO-TT-EZ apparel around her neck before wrapping her lips around my tip, lapping up Tori’s cum and the combined spit of her predecessors in cock-sucking.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, then nestled right back in.

“You’re forgiven. I’m sorry, too.”

The twinkle in her warm brown eyes was all the confirmation I needed. From now on, we would  be a team again.

Ellie stared  in puzzlement as her roommate fervently worshiped her as-of-eight-o’clock nemesis’s dick. The question on her face was easy to read, but as Tori and Casey laughed together in pure ecstasy and relief to be sharing their most favoritest thing, rubbing their fat titties together for no other reason than that titties were fun and rubbing was fun and fun was fun, Ellie’s consternation melted into an impish little grin as she slid her back down the wall, spread her legs, and joined the party.

Jo… Jo stormed out.

No sense in borrowing tomorrow’s trouble today, though. When the time came, I let Tori have the first taste of my cum, which she shared generously and unasked for with her vice governor and the leader of her rival political party. The girls swapped it back and forth, giggling delightedly at the absurdity of it all.

By the time they’d brought me to the brink again, I sat there marveling at it all, stroking the girls’ hair until I pried their attention from their diplomatic unity.

“Should we share, do you think?” I nodded to the lurid display spread across the lounge.

The three locked eyes. Tori nodded first, then Casey, then Katrina. With them on my heels, I walked out into the middle of the jiggling, giggling, diddling melee of Hotties as their elected representatives fulfilled their oaths of office – or in the case of Casey, who’d sworn no oaths, simply did the coolest, hottest thing she could think to do.

“Y’all’re sitting in the splash zone!” warned Casey.

Squeals, that was all the more reaction it got. Nobody made to evacuate . The floor leadership pumped my cock until it sprayed out across the gathering, girls squealing in surprise and squeamishness and delight as bits of me spurted out across their eager, perfect bodies. Quinn herself would have been proud of my range and volume.

“It’s time, Tori.”

She let me help her to her feet, but pressed her sweaty, naked body against mine. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we. ”

“Only if you want.”

She reached down and caressed my shaft delicately. “I want . I hated how bad I wanted it for a long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry I made it so difficult.”

Tori grinned, and at last, after god  only knew how many orgasms, there was a glimmer of her full, fiery self in those eyes. This had been fun, but I looked forward to seeing that look return full-time.

“You’re going to make my Daddy happy,” she said, laughing.

Remembering that her father was a reverend, I had to arch a skeptical eyebrow. “How, exactly?”

“I’ve been venting to him about all this – not all the details, didn’t  want him to make me leave the floor. But about you, and how mad I was, and… yeah.”

“Oh yeah? What did he say?”

“What he always says – the scripture. Luke 6:37 – Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

I kissed her, and she kissed back. “That’s some good advice. Let’s go put it into action.”

“This was a very good floor meeting!” declared Kyu-Ri as she dragged a finger through a blob of my cum on her silk nightie and shoved it into Dawn’s mouth. Dawn sucked that digit clean.

“I freaking love you guys so much!” exclaimed a teary-eyed Charlie, massaging the scant jizz that had landed on her neck into her tits.

Tori pulled herself to her feet, dragging her body up the length of me as she rose to whisper in my ear.

“I think that’s a great idea,” I answered. “Why don’t you tell them?”

Tori turned to her floormates, beaming. “What do you ladies say we have another, proper Halloween party tomorrow night? An actual  Halloween party! Yeah?!”

A chorus of cheers went up. I happened to notice the clock as excited titters of what we’d do to celebrate – no more rules, no more shame, no more guilt or inhibitions.

The second party would be tonight, technically. It was 12:00 on the dot, the start of a new day.

Chapter Eleven: Rounds

I carried Tori out of the lounge some hours later. She could walk, but she didn’t want to. Even in a room full of fingering, moaning, cocksucking Hotties, Tori’s fixation had been distinct. Ellie looked concerned at her roommate’s ragged state, doggedly sucking a cock exhausted from hours of labor. She tried to snatch it away from Casey at one point, but after the gentlest of rebukes she guided me into Casey’s pussy with her own two hands.

She stayed in my room that night, as did Casey. I didn’t mean for this to become any sort of permanent state of affairs, but for the night, it was the path of least resistance. In the week or so since Casey’s tantrum at my overnight absence that night I’d left Marisa’s apartment distraught and confused, there had been no further signs of distress. I’d been weening her, or trying to. She liked having sex with me – and me with her – so it was hard to say if it was working, but I thought it was. I hoped. Considering how much of those oddly infectious tears she’d guzzled down yesterday, Tori would have a ways to go before she recovered. I’d guide her through it.

“I don’t want to get dressed,” she protested in the morning. “Didn’t I agree that we could be naked again? If not, I do now. I don’t want anything between you and me, not again.”

“Follow me,” I instructed her softly. I led her – yes, naked – down the hall to her room. If she was concerned that the hall manager, dwelling in the room next door, would catch it and object, she kept it to herself.

In the middle of knocking, she told me Ellie would be in class, so in we  went. As it turned out, Ellie was sleeping off last night’s festivities. Not quite naked, but only a pair of skimpy, pale blue panties that fit loosely, hid little. She stirred slightly, blushed when she realized she was mostly naked in front of a man.

“So you guys are all made up now?”

Tori smiled. “Yes. He forgave it all.”

“And vice versa. Plus I addressed some of the many excellent points you all raised,” I added. “We’re going to be more sensitive to needs, more inclusive in our programming.”

“Oh. Um, so does that mean… I can have a choker now?” Ellie released her hold on the sheets she’d been using to conceal herself. She smiled impishly as I took in the sight of her cute little tits.

She was asking Tori, but Tori deferred to me. “If you want. Nobody needs to wear anything they don’t want any more.”

Tori brightened. “So I can stay naked?”

I stroked her hair, thick and frizzy and downy soft, then spoke softly into her ear. “Why don’t you find your sexiest underwear, and put that on for me? Something I’ll want to tear right back off of you.”

Tori kissed my hand, kissed each finger on it, kissed me. “OK.”

As Tori started combing her closet for an ideal candidate, Ellie was watching the two of us. “Man. So you guys really made up, huh.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I wish we’d done it sooner. Sucked, folks at each other’s throats like that.”

“Did you guys just make up for the sex, or…?”

“Can you blame me?” I gestured to Tori’s beautiful brown body, but made sure to laugh the idea off. “No, no no no. I can’t speak for Tori, but I’ve been ready to patch things up for a while now.”

Ellie studied Tori’s ass, bent over as she rummaged through her panties. “So, are you going to just have sex with whoever you want…?”

I shook my head. “I never did. I never could. If somebody wants to, and I want to, then great. That’s it.”

“But you said you’re not allowed to sleep with residents. I heard you say it. You said it like a million times.” She looked at the wall, the one bordering 303, Ramona’s room. “Does she really not care?”

“I’m not allowed to date  residents.” Ugh, what bullshit. I felt bad lying, but after what I’d had to do to Tori–

No. What I’d chosen  to do to Tori. No lying to myself. She’d been coerced last night, but I hoped in time we’d find it had been for the best. I very much hoped.

At any rate, the new standard was clearly doing and saying what kept everybody happy and healthy and sleeping soundly at night. Ellie would cope better with that story than telling her anything resembling the truth. It leaned a bit into the territory of ends justifying the means, but, well, sometimes they did.

“But you said… She  said…”

“I know. Ramona ran it up the chain, and we found out we were wrong. Hard to admit sometimes. Right, Tori?”

I don’t think she heard me until I said her name, but she immediately agreed. “Right. Yes. I agree. Is this OK?”

I inspected the bra and panties she’d chosen. “Try it on. Let me see.” To Ellie, I continued, “Plus I was dating somebody, or trying to, for a while there, so it was kind of complicated for me. But that’s all done and over now, so from here on out, we’re all good.”

The petite girl scooted forward, her legs dangling down from her bunk. She might be the tiniest little thing on the floor. Dawn or Georgia might give her competition. Lexi would have, if not for her recent, erm, weight gain.

Oh, Lexi.

“Oh. Man, lucky you, huh? Set up with all these girls, and, you know, lots of us single. Available. Interested. Not that I’m saying I am or anything, you know, but I mean, some of–”

“Would you like me to go down on you?” I patted her knee.

Ellie’s eyes widened, and for some reason that was the moment she decided she needed her glasses, snatching them from a little shelf above her bunk. “Would I…?!”

Tori halted in the middle of adjusting the little ribbons on her bra. Her expression was pure, undying envy.

“Sorry, maybe I misread things. It’s just you’re right there, perfect height. Perfect lots of things.” I aimed my smile at her breasts, not big, but big for her tiny frame. She was a cutie’s cutie, all right. “Apologies if I was wrong. I didn’t mean offense.”

“No, you didn’t…! I’m not…!” Her legs spread slowly. “I mean, if you want to…”

“I would love to.” I casually ordered Tori to continue dressing, then helped Ellie squirm out of her panties.

“C-can I have a choker? I’ll go down on you, too, if that’s what we’re supposed to do. I don’t care. I, um, wouldn’t super mind  anyway.”

Damn, but that cum punch had kicked in fast. “There’s no supposed to about  it, Ellie. Not any more. Personally, I don’t think there ever was.”

“Can I?” Tori asked. She was crawling around to the front of me in a bright red bra and panty set, inserting herself in the low space beneath her roommate’s bed, alongside her own.

I looked down. “Hmm. Not sure I like red. Try again, something skimpier, and then we’ll see.”

She nodded, hustling on hands and knees back to her closet. I stepped up and slid my tongue between Ellie’s sopping wet labia, and welcomed her back into the fold. I came in her roommate’s face, and she thanked me and made room for Ellie to have her turn.

************************************************

I took a page out of Ellie’s playbook and granted myself a day off from life as a student. I wasn’t missing anything crucial, it looked like, and I had people in my classes who’d pass along anything not on the syllabus.

Today, I was going to work on completing what I’d started the night before. No doubt word of what had transpired at Tori’s late-night emergency floor meeting had spread. (The Hotties had redubbed it  “the after-party” as we cleaned up and tried to figure out whose discarded underwear was whose.) Half the girls hadn’t been in attendance, though, and while a lazy RA might decide that a girl who’d come to his meeting and enjoyed a front row seat to seeing Tori suck the floor back together was herself mollified, I was not lazy.

I made myself a checklist, deciding who seemed to be doing all right, and who I ought to be touching base with. With that in hand, I made my rounds.

Room 300 received the first knock. Amy. After all the angst the brokers had expressed to me, I made sure not to even glance towards the peephole. If one of my women wanted to ignore me, they had the right. I wasn’t sure why Amy had even fallen onto that side of things, but it was worth asking.

Even without being able to see her, though, my residence life attuned ears filled me in. Two thuds a split second apart – feet hitting the floor. A barely audible grunt – stretching. A moment of silence – checking her phone for the time. “The fuck is it now…?”

Just now getting Tori’s invite to last night’s meeting? Very possible. It hadn’t been quiet, and the noise it made had been distinctive, but Amy’s was the furthest room from the lounge. We’d have needed a cannon down there to rouse her if she’d been asleep. Cannons would violate all sorts of protocol.

Footsteps, a click of the lock popping, that awful creak her door made every time it opened. You could hear it way down in my room. Then there was Amy, wearing a simple black tank top and some flannel pajama pants. Even in that, with her hair disheveled and sans makeup, she looked incredible. She belonged.

“Spencer? Um… yeah?” she grumbled, squinting into the fluorescent lights of the hall from her dark room.

“I’m sorry, Amy. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Yep. Well.” She yawned, stretched for the ceiling. Her nipples hardened as I watched. Yep, the Spencer effect was back, all right.

“I just wanted to touch base. It feels like we haven’t talked in a while, and I wanted to make sure you’re doing OK, that’s all.” I grimaced sympathetically. “If I’d known I’d be getting you out of bed to ask you, I’d have tried later in the day.”

“Yeah, I guess getting us into  bed is more your thing, huh.” She smiled, though perhaps sardonically. Hard to say. “You can come in, if you want. Sorry the place is a mess.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I answered, accepting her offer. She shut the door and sat down on the edge of her bed, the two twins pushed together to make a queen same  as mine, and gestured to her desk chair. “Thanks. I won’t be long. So, Tori and I have talked , and we agreed to bury the hatchet. However, just because we made up doesn’t mean everybody who shared her criticisms has, too. I wanted to see if you were OK, if we  were OK.”

“You and Tori…?” Her incredulity was thick. “Sorry, just… watch your back. The way you kept thumbing your nose at her, she’s out for blood.”

Me, thumbing my  nose…?! Hmmh. “I appreciate the heads up. But I’m not here to force another conversation about floor politics. I’m just here for you, Amy. I wondered if you’d be willing to talk to me about what I can do to make you feel more comfortable in our community. And speak freely – they issued me an extra thick skin when I took the job. Whatever’s bothering you, I want to know.”

I braced myself. Today had the potential for a lot of conversations like this. Recriminations, accusations, rehashing of all of Tori’s valid and less valid castigations. I didn’t know Amy as well as some of the Hotties. Would it be my insensitivity with Lexi? With Casey, and that awful incident in the bathroom? My sexual indiscretions? That I’d–

“You said you put in a work order for those squeaky-ass hinges. Like, back in move-in week. But they’re still loud as fuck.”

I blinked. Blinked again. My eyes fluttered, waiting for the next salvo. She didn’t continue.

“Oh. All right. I’ll see what I can do. So… what else?”

Amy shrugged. “ That about covers  my gripes.”

“Wait, that’s it?”

She shrugged. “I mean, that thing you said to Lex, asking some crying girl to flash her boobs, that was kinda fucked up, but that chick was always  busting those damn things out anyway. I know people got pissed, but like, whatever. Don’t want guys to ask to see your boobies, maybe don’t show your boobies so much.”

“But… what about, you know, the sex, and whatnot?”

“You mean, do I hate living down the hall from a super hot guy who can’t keep it in his pants? Oh, woe is me.” Amy laughed. “Just don’t get why you haven’t come knocking before now is all. I’m way prettier than most of these chicks. Just hate that goddamn door.”

“That’s it? Just the door? That’s really it?”

“You say that like it isn’t fricking infuriating. Every time I come and go it’s like a gong goes off. Drives me insane .”

I laughed. “Well hold up.”

Ramona dispatched Marcus with a can of WD-40; he was up to Higgins 3 and back on his way to the center desk in under five minutes.

“Wow. Thanks,” said Amy, swinging her door open and closed, marveling at its silence.

“I’m sorry it took so long. If it acts up again, come find me.”

“Will do.”

“Are you coming to the party tonight?”

“Wasn’t the party last  night…?”

“That was just the warm-up.”

Amy grinned. “Well I guess you got me feeling good and warm then, bud.”

************************************************

301 was up next. Katrina’s door was open. Her windows, too, an autumn breeze wafting briskly into the hall. She was sitting on her futon with a blanket wrapped around her waist when I tapped at the door. I waved gingerly. She looked up from her laptop, pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Spencer! Hi.” Her cheeks were already coloring. After last night in the lounge, no surprise. Mine were probably doing the same.

Unlike Amy, Katrina and I had well-established rapport. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “Hi to you. Am I interrupting homework?”

“A welcome interruption,” the high school salutatorian assured me. “I’m probably overdoing it, but better over than under.”

“Absolutely. In fact…” I passed along what Ramona had told me about the floor’s mid-term grades. “A lot of that is from good role modeling by floor leadership. I know it’s still early in the year and things could change, but I wanted to let you know I’m proud of you. I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve had residents who drag people down before, and it’s so refreshing to have someone around who lifts people up.”

The compliment landed. The best deflection the blushing brainiac could muster was, “You know I already gave you head, right? You don’t have to suck up.”

“Bah, that only means I need to suck up more .” On impulse, I crossed the room and settled in beside her. It was chilly by the window, but she radiated heat. “And that has nothing to do with this. That was amazing – you  are amazing – but you’re a lot more to me, and to this floor, than your lips and tongue.”

She turned crimson, giggling in spite of herself. “Sorry! I cannot believe a boy just said that to me, and I cannot believe it worked.”

“Sorry. I promise, no more complimenting .”

“See to it that you don’t.”

Near to shivering , I lifted part of her blanket and pulled it over my lap. In the process, I found Katrina wasn’t wearing pants. Oops. I pretended not to notice. “Enjoying the fall air, huh?”

“Pumpkin spice season, baby.” She laughed self-consciously and reached behind her awkwardly, but with obvious practice, and retrieved a cup from the window sill bearing the logo of the coffee shop at Penderdast, helping herself to a sip. “I love the smell of fall. I should probably leave the door shut, though, I guess.”

“You do you, Katrina. In fact, that’s sort of why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh. You wanted to… talk?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No, I just thought, after last night, maybe you’d come down because you wanted…”

I leaned closer. Then closer. Until I could feel her breath flowing warm and wet between her lips onto mine. They parted invitingly.

I doinked  her on the nose and leaned back. She burst into giggles. “I don’t not  want that, but that wasn’t why I came down. I wanted to talk bigger picture stuff, if that’s OK.”

She rolled her eyes, forcing her bemusement into abeyance. “You are incorrigible, Spencer. Sometimes, I don’t get why we put up with you.”

I shifted to Serious Stuff Mode, though, and her expression quickly matched. “I wanted to thank you, first and foremost, for everything you’ve done these past weeks since break.”

“But–”

“I know, I know, we were in opposing camps. I want you to know, though, when I tried to tell you guys I understood and empathized and all that, that wasn’t bullshit. I know I made mistakes. You and Tori helped pull me back from making worse ones.”

“Worse ones? Spencer, Casey almost died .” Dang, she really had joined me in getting serious in a hurry. “Lexi too, and maybe in an even sadder way. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we made up, and I’m personally glad you decided to reform rather than resign. Still, you have a lot to make up for.”

I nodded. “I do. I really do. You know, everybody’s been so flirty with me this year, and so…” I didn’t want to say slutty , but–

“Kinda slutty?” Katrina supplied.

“Your words, not mine.” Boom, verbal integrity maintained. “I let myself get used to it. By the time break was over, I’d been worn down. I was ready to give in, just do whatever felt good. You helped me see that even if that’s OK to do sometimes, I need to think about what’s best for the community, not just what’s going to be fun for me for an evening.”

“Like that time you stood there and let me and Tori and Casey go down on you,” she observed dryly.

“Exactly like that, actually. I know it’s not the conventional way diplomacy is achieved, but it worked for us, here, on Higgins 3. Sometimes it’s signing a treaty, sometimes it’s smoking the peace pipe, sometimes, it’s…”

“Smoking a pole?” She chuckled. “No, I get you. This floor is… weird. It’s still hard to wrap my head around it sometimes. No joke, I lie awake sometimes, trying to think if we’re doing something… wrong. Like if I’m bad, or compromising my values, being a part of it. But every time I think I ought to be standing up to it – to you…”

She sighed, lowering her head with a little shake. “I just can’t get around that it works . We’re happy, in our weird little sexy commune.”

“We are.”

Katrina went on, though, taking on a pedantic tone that honestly kinda did it for me. “I’ve been reading up on the philosophical arguments for and against hedonism as a social order. Are you familiar with hedonism?

“Yeah, the pleasure principle thing, right?”

She nodded. “For the individual, it works great for what it’s meant to do. It sounds so obvious – chase pleasure, avoid pain. Apply that to a society, though, and things get tangled in a hurry. Limited resources that can’t be shared and enjoyed by everyone, demands for labor and productivity and so on. Capitalism offers an avenue for this, or at least it claims to, converting labor into transmissible goods we can exchange for hedonistic enterprise, but then the root of it isn’t hedonism any more but rather anti-hedonism, counter-hedonism, wherein the foundations of pleasure are those things that are innately unpleasurable. Ipso facto pleasure comes from displeasure, which…”

Katrina paused, caught my eyes boggling. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get heavy-handed about it.”

“No! It’s fascinating. Don’t stop.”

“The second time in 24 hours you’ve said that to me.” She smirked sweetly. “Anyway, all I mean to say is that we’re somehow resisting that transactional dynamic. We were sharing nicely, each receiving pleasure according to their need. It was… communal hedonism. Maybe that doesn’t sound strange to you – or maybe it just sounds like gibberish – but the more I read about it, the more inspirational I found it as a model.

“Until, right before break there, it started… changing. Instead of providing  pleasure to us, you started to, for lack of a better word, harvest it from  us. I don’t think it was conscious or even intentional. It just made me sad, seeing our little societal experiment stop being about us  and what we  wanted, and become about you  and what you  could get from it. The capitalist model – to the owners go the spoils, to the plebeian masses go the crumbs.”

“I’m sorry I let you down,” I said. I was. Too bad those Hancock bastards weren’t on Katrina’s level, using their technological sex marvel to better the world. “So how do I do better? What do your books say about using hedonism to better society?”

“It’s give or take,” she said. “Simple as that. I don’t mean ‘it’s making compromises,’ a give and  take. I mean or . These women adore you, Spencer. Even the ones who think this is all kinda messed up, the ones who think you’re too much teddy bear and not enough Teddy Roosevelt.” She hesitated. “Too dorky? Sorry, like I said, I think about this a lot.”

“You are the hottest nerd I’ve ever known. Go on.”

Katrina’s grin was fleeting, though. “But I mean it. Even Tori, even when she was so pissed that she was… Can she get in trouble if I say anything?”

“She did some bad things. Understood. Even then, she…?” I prompted.

“Even then, she still thought you were hot. I think that’s what pissed her off the most. It’s reductivist to say she wanted you out so she could invite you in, if you take my meaning, but between you, me and the pumpkin spice (which you’re welcome to a sip if you want), she definitely told me more than once that she had a thing for you. But that’s what I mean! You’re a very easy person to like, and, um, easy on the eyes. So you could use that, and a lot of us would let you have your way with us.

“Or, you use that, and give of yourself. Like, do you remember beach day?”

“Heh. I doubt I’ll ever forget beach day.”

“Be that Spencer. The Spencer who lets us flirt and flaunt and tease and, sometimes, ask a little more of you.”

“That euphemism is doing some heavy, heavy  lifting there, Katrina.”

She shrugged. “OK, so, fuck us, if we ask and if you want. Let us be wild and crazy and, yes, a little slutty. That’s what college is for, after all. Right? Let the community drive the hedonism where we want to go, instead of you driving us where you’d like us to be.”

We talked for a while about that. Mostly she talked, and I listened, which with all she had to say was for the best. Before long it was cold enough that Katrina decided to close the windows. She wriggled out from under her blankets, her seamless pink panties right there in my face as she grunted with the effort needed to close the building’s wonky old windows. I could have pulled them down and fucked her right there, her cheeks smushed against the glass while I plowed her genius pussy from behind.

Instead, I listened, and I thought about what she wanted, and remembered that my job was to lead through service.

So when she held the pose and asked me if I would rip her panties off and give her a nice thorough fuck while she admired the foliage and sipped her pumpkin spice latte, I told her I would be only too happy to give her what she desired.

************************************************

I skipped the rest of the doors on the east side. Kendall and Georgia, Tori and Ellie, Andi and Jean – I either knew where they stood or had talked with them recently enough. Next it was down the far side of the hall, starting with Jordyn in 309. (Terri and Toni’s door preceded theirs, but theirs was another room where I felt like I knew the score.)

There was a red-handled paintbrush  resting on the dry erase board mounted on Jordyn’s door, one of those delicate little brushes she did her art with. It was a familiar sign conveying she was out painting, meaning she was probably in the lounge. I studied her board for a moment. She liked to draw on it, these elaborate displays of swirls and careful smudges that were so elaborate it sometimes took me a moment to recognize what was being represented. Sometimes it was nothing.

Today, it was solid lines, straight and clear. The joint H’s of the Higgins Hotties logo from our floor shirts, wrapped in vines crowned by a single flower. I was never sure how much of what she did was creativity for its own sake or a reaction to something in her orbit, but this one was pretty clear. We were reunited, and she was proud to say it.

I made for the lounge, and was pleased to see she was there. The decorations from the Halloween Eve party were still up, including the tissue paper over the lights. There was Jordyn saturated in an otherworldly orange glow, her wild mane swirling this way and that as she came at her easel from different angles, making a stroke or two and then coming at it from another. The background of the canvas was black, though I could see brush strokes in it. It was early yet, too little there for me to understand the larger project, but it was fascinating to watch.

She humored my interest by continuing unabated, or perhaps simply didn’t notice I was sitting there watching her. Hard to believe someone could be painting in a smock and a thong without feeling self-conscious about it, but Jordyn was a person who lived deep in the forest of her heart. I don’t think I understood her, but it was pleasing to contemplate.

I’d always harbored a fascination with creative processes and creative people, despite my own general lack of such talents. My guitar playing was the closest I came, and that was not close at all. Being able to see a project unfold made it feel possible, the inverse of the way looking at a completed work made it look so unattainable. Jordyn had begun with lines of white over the black canvas, radiating generally but never directly upward. Blue then around the white, encasing it, extending it upward and outward.

Then people. Not distinct, only shapes that were distinctly feminine. They surrounded it, dancing, arms raised to the sky, faces fixed on the center. There was nothing firmly formed about them but they gave the impression of nudity. At least that’s what I saw in it, maybe because it was what I wanted to see, maybe because the painter’s tight round ass was waving around in my peripheral vision. Some of the women were embracing one another, and there was an odd sensuality to it despite the lack of obvious person parts. The way they blended together, I had no sense of number  except that it was many, many together.

Emma came in at one point, and the way her eyes were already aimed at the corner Jordyn used, the one by the windows for better lighting, it was plain that was why she’d come. She had a book with her, and settled into one of the other couches and read, Jordyn and her easel fixed in her peripheral. We said nothing, barely saw one another.

Our artist in residence had returned to the central component, the white flame, now delving into oranges and reds. Soon it was exploding outwards at random, around the women, between them, through them. Sparks everywhere, never quite erasing the darkness but brightening it considerably. Then she returned to the women, each of them surrounded by different hues of the fire, each basking in the incandescent radiance, the painting transforming from women dancing around a fire to a fire born of these otherworldly women, until it was unclear which was born of which.

Then, suddenly, Jordyn stepped back, dropping her brush and palette on the plastic sheet she worked on. Her breath was heavy suddenly, like she’d been holding it. Emma spontaneously began to applaud and I joined right in with her. Jordyn turned, looked surprised to see us even though we’d been there watching her for hours. Heedless of the paint coating her fingers, she reached into her mop of hair and plucked out two earbuds.

“That’s incredible,” I said immediately.

Emma moved closer, studying the canvas. “Is that us?”

Jordyn shrugged. “Probably? I, um, don’t know. One of my art teachers in high school – my dad, actually – he always said an artist creates art, she doesn’t describe it.” She snorted. “Never stopped him, though, but I guess he had fifty minutes to fill.”

“Your dad was your art teacher? How did I not know that?”

Jordyn shrugged. “ Like woman , I am mystery .”

“I love it,” Emma said. “You are so, so talented.”

Jordyn was studying the painting herself. “Yeah, this turned out pretty good. Wasn’t sure what I was gonna do when I started, but just sorta got what was in here out there.”

We talked art together for a while, at least to the extent that Emma and I had the vocabulary for it, and Jordyn the patience to talk about something that didn’t really need or want words. Finally I asked Jordyn if we could talk privately, and Emma excused herself, leaving us the  lounge.

“This about my painties?” she asked, giving her butt a couple audible pats. “I didn’t mean to weird anybody out, but I don’t like getting paint on my clothes.”

“After last night, I’m pretty sure the lounge has been designated clothing optional. You’re fine – and I don’t just mean ‘it’s OK.’” She snickered, but from the way she glossed over the other meaning, it seemed she was a woman who knew the quality of her own ass well enough without my heaping further praises on it.

I went on with my original point. “I know you were upset about the shirts,” I said.

Her eyes blazed at the mention of the destroyed floor shirts, though. “Tori had no right, Spencer. No fucking right. I know you two made up or whatever, but that was my  work. On our  bodies. In our  home.”

I nodded. “You know, when I first told Ramona about them, I thought she was going to ban them, too. The university has rules about how it lets itself be represented. Only reason we got to have them at all is because it didn’t actually say Higgins on it.”

“Yeah, I remember you said. Woulda fought that old bitch for ‘em too. Probably would’ve been easier. You don’t gotta pull punches when you’re fighting the man. When it’s your neighbor, though, you gotta keep the foundation stable. Tori forgot that. Glad you reminded her.”

“The chokers,” I said, gesturing to the one clasped around her slender throat. There was a little paint smudge on it, her fingerprints visible. “Was that your idea?”

“It was a lot of ideas coming together. I’m not, what, ‘political’ or whatevs. But when they start coming for the artists, you gotta stand up, right? Heard Casey next door, ranting at Terri and Toni. She wanted to do that Hotties thing, the HO-TT-EZ, on another shirt just like the old one. I’m like, you don’t run the same showcase twice dawg , so I ran over and we talked. Since they already had these slut-ass things,” she gave hers a tug, “and I knew that’d get Tori way more than more fucking midriff. That’s how you get at the censors. Offer to meet ‘ em halfway , they just take a step back. So you gotta innovate, do something wilder, bolder, cooler, sexier, something they’ll understand even less and hate even more, until they have nothing left but to go full fascist. That’s all they got, in the end. Should all be exposed for the fuckers they really are.”

It was hard to imagine a woke, passionate leftist like Tori as a fascist. Her objections were to the female body as a display for male gratification, not to women’s sexuality intrinsically. Or maybe Jordyn understood something I hadn’t. Either way, I was grateful.

“Can we put that on the new ones?” I pointed to her painting.

“We’re doing new ones?”

“I think the age of the choker is coming to a close. Keep wearing it if you want, of course,” I amended quickly, “but as a symbol of resistance, I think we’ve won the war.”

She snickered. “Yeah, there’s no waving of the white flag like getting on your knees and sucking the enemy commander’s dick while his soldiers jack it to ya. But the painting, actually, I was meaning it to be a tattoo design, actually. For me.”

I grinned. “Yeah? Do you have others?” Not on her backside, I was quite sure.

“My first. Gonna piss Dad off bigtime. He always said tattoos were too permanent, that art should be flexible, mobile, evolving. Blah blah blah. But I’ve been feeling it. Like, since I got here, you know? Like there’s something new inside me that isn’t going anywhere, like it can’t go unless I let ‘em take it.”

She suddenly shook herself. “Fuck, listen to me. I want a tattoo is all , same  as anybody. Anyway, that’s for me. Just need to find somebody around here who can do it justice.”

“You know, you might want to talk to Ramona. She’s a bit of an enthusiast, actually.”

Jordyn snorted contemptuously. “What, she got herself a lil’ tramp stamp or something?”

“From what I’ve heard, just about everything that’s not covered by clothes is covered by ink. Not really appropriate for me to ask for a tour, but she might show some of it to you.”

If Jordyn’s eyebrow raised any higher it would have merged with her hair. “Ramona. Like, the boss bitch down the hall Ramona? ‘Booby shirts are bad for business’ Ramona…?”

“Just talk to her – though maybe don’t call her boss bitch. Learned that one the hard way.” Jordyn snickered at what she took for a joke. “Worst thing that could happen is you don’t like her recommendation.”

“Hmm. Fair enough. Thanks, man.”

“My pleasure. And think about what we’ll do for the next shirts – or whatever we decide to go with. Could do the classic sweatpants with something written on the butt like the DAT ladies.”

“Don’t wanna look anything like those fucking bougie ass bitches.”

“All the more reason to start thinking about it. I’ll talk to Tori – maybe we can even arrange to see to it  your work is sponsored, this time. Least we could do.”

“Tori? Spending our money on something like that? You must’ve made her come her whole damn soul out if you think she’s gonna agree to that.”

Jordyn gave me a once over, intimately, then stood up and walked back to her painting, studying it from a new angle. I’d seen her work before; this was part of the touchup process, and it could go on for hours. But god, that ass.

“Thanks again, Jordyn. And, um, can I ask you something personal?”

She smiled at me over her shoulder. This woman who could work all day ignoring her observers sure knew when a man’s eyes were on her butt. “Pretty much got to now, right?”

“How come you never, you know, made a pass at me or anything? The way you fought for me at that meeting, and the way you look at me sometimes…? I’m not going anywhere with it or suggesting you should, but so many of the girls are so up front about it, and you… I just wondered.”

Jordyn’s smile spread. She knelt down, dragged her finger through a splotch of red paint still wet on her palette, and approached me. Uh, oh. I checked my outfit to make sure it wasn’t anything I’d be too sad to see ruined. I suppose an arrogant question like that deserved–

Her finger swiped at my cheek, then at the other. Then she planted it on the back of my head and pulled our lips together. She didn’t seem to want to let go, not any time soon. That she was rubbing paint into my hair fazed me not at all. This girl could kiss .

When she pulled back, my mouth followed her instinctively, but she halted my pursuit with her knuckles firmly on my chest, careful to keep the point off of me. (Aw!) “You ain’t my type, Spencer.”

I blinked. “Oh. Oh gosh. Are you… Are you a lesbian? I had no–”

Jordyn threw her head back and roared with laughter. “That’s what I’m slingin’. To you, there’s only the two types: girls who wanna fuck you, and girls who wanna fuck girls. Me? I go another way. Shit, a boy like you, you gotta suck him off in the restaurant parking lot to show him you’re grateful for a shot, you know? You put the fuckin’ ‘hot’ in Higgins Hotties, man. You are, way, way too goddamn pretty.”

************************************************

Before my next stop, I stopped by to check on Tori. Ellie said she’d headed down to my room; I found her in there rubbing yesterday’s underwear on her face and masturbating on all fours in my bed.

So, not great.

We had a talk about respecting boundaries and then I fingered her to a few – or a dozen – or a few dozen – orgasms. Still hard to enumerate. It only took a few minutes before she made a noise so loud I warned her that I’d stop if she couldn’t control herself, but she kept on making it. Bluff called.

“You told me you were going to work on planning tonight’s party. How’s progress?”

She frowned, soft brown eyes downcast. “I, um, haven’t…”

“Get on that, Tori. Ask for help if you need it. Katrina’s around.”

She shook her head. “I just… I need you so bad…”

I nodded patiently, patting her shoulder. “I tell you what. Do a good job, show everybody a good time, and you can stay in here with me tonight. We’ll have fun. How does that sound?”

Her eyes widened like I’d told her she’d won the lottery, and she was out the door before I could get another word in.

Back to my meet-ups. Next up was Jordyn’s neighbors in 311, Charlie and Destiny. The pint-sized redhead answered the door in a pair of headphones with pink kitty ears on them. It was pretty adorable.

She adjusted the headset to sit just behind her ear canals, so she could hear me and it. “Spencer, hey! Charlie’s in class.” Her eyes darted behind her. She wasn’t trying to signal it, but I suspected I was interrupting something.

“That’s cool. This was really an either/or or both kind of stop. Do you have a minute? And ‘no’ is a fine answer.”

She glanced anxiously behind her once again. On the monitor at her desk, a video game was playing out. Little animated monster dudes swarming and fighting. Or something. It wasn’t a game I recognized, though that wasn’t saying much. “Um, yeah. Sure. Just…” She cupped a hand over the arm bearing the headset’s microphone and spoke softly. “Sorry you guys, my RA just showed up. I’ll brb, OK?”

Their replies were just barely audible. “What? Tell her to go fuck herself!” “We’re in the middle of a match!” “This is ranked!” All male, unless I misheard. Not surprising.

“I can come back later – it’s not urgent at all!” I said, taking a step back.

“No, it’s fine. We’re totally boned  this match anyway.” She lowered her voice. “And between you and me, this new guild is tap-dancing on my freaking nerves.”

“I know the feeling.”

She smiled. “Come on in. You’re sure you didn’t want Charlie?”

“I definitely want Charlie, but I think that’s only because I’m a man and I’m alive,” I joked, accepting her invitation. Their room was full of rows of icicle Christmas lights, blinking softly in gentle blue rainfall patterns.

“Guess you’ll have to settle for me,” she said, but with humor. Destiny wasn’t a woman who didn’t recognize her own sex appeal. Me, I  wasn’t sure whether leggy blondes or busty redheads would go out of style first, but my suspicion was that the world might well end first.

I gave her much the same spiel I’d said to Amy. Coming around to check in with the brokers to make amends, apologies, and adjustments, and so on. Every so often I heard one of her teammates shouting something, something desperate sounding (“she better be making us one hell of a sandwich over there!” was the low point for me), so I tried to keep it brief.

“Is Finger ever coming back or what? We’re getting our asses handed to us out here!” yelled one guy.

Destiny winced and fiddled with a setting, and the banter quieted. It didn’t   silence , but that was fine. I pretended not to hear them raging at her inactivity. “Finger…?” I asked.

She looked a bit embarrassed. “I was a huge Game of Thrones  fan when I was little. Maybe, um, too little. So when I made my first gamer tag, I was big into Littlefinger, but that was taken, so I went with Mittlefinger and some numbers. It was really funny to a nine-year-old.” She grimaced.

I knew Destiny well enough to know she took her gaming pretty seriously, so I was surprised I hadn’t seen that user name on the discord with Charlie. Not that I remembered them all. If I had, I’m sure I would have assumed it was Leigh or Sammi or Danielle. “Pretty cute. Well it sounds like your guild guys are being fussy, so if you had anything you wanted to say, complain about, slap me around for, whatever, I wanted to make sure you got your chance. I’m just here to…”

As I spoke, however, her expression was shifting, looking more and more confused. “Why would you think I’m mad at you?” she asked, frowning.

“Um… You know. Because you were on Tori’s side, with the… You know.”

Destiny shook her head. “Tori’s side? I wasn’t on Tori’s side. Did she tell you I was on her side?”

Uh, what? “But, um, you don’t have a, um…” I pointed to her neck.

“A choker? No, I do!” She hopped to her feet and opened one of the drawers in her desk. Sure enough, there it was. It was in a plastic baggie. Was that how Terri and Toni packaged them or something?

“But, then… Sorry, did you just not like wearing it or something?”

Destiny looked flabbergasted to find me so ill-informed. “Did Charlie not tell you? I just assumed you guys talked all the time.”

“Tell me what?”

“Is Finger getting fingered by this bitch or what?! Come on already!” shouted a man, just audible through her headset.

“I think it’s a dude, actually,” said another dude. “Dude voice.” Oh, so they could hear us, too? I made a note not to casually discuss events like last night’s floor meeting.

Destiny was talking over them, though. “That we weren’t taking sides…? We were talking about the whole choker/broker thing – everybody was, but I mean the two of us in bed one night. Not in bed together! We’re not like that. Nothing against anybody who is  like that. The massage night was just…” Her cheeks were turning as red as her hair.

“Oh.”

I must have looked hurt by her pronouncement. Maybe I was. So uninvested  in Higgins 3 she didn’t even care enough to pick a side? It stung. I hadn’t seen Charlie in a choker either, but in her case I’d figured it was to cover for the covert help she’d given me with the discord server. Destiny continued in a rush, “No, not because we don’t like you! Not that I like you  like you–”

“Did Finger just say ‘like you like you?’”

“I told you she was fuckin’ twelve. Her voice is totally a little   kid voice . Creepy.”

“–not like Charlie does. I mean, Charlie’s like completely in love with you so I would never…” Destiny’s eyes shot wide. “Oh my god, do NOT tell her I told you that. Unless she already told you?”

“You’re fine, Destiny. But… then why…?” I pointed to the choker.

“We thought that was what you wanted! Everybody was all pissed off at each other, and the fighting in the lounge, and all those asshole ‘pranks.’ We wanted you to stay here, but we thought what you’d want was for people to stop taking sides and just get along, talk it out. Go back to how we were before, when things were crazy awesome! Oh my gosh, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I swear. Don’t be–”

As she clarified by misapprehension, I threw my arms around Destiny’s tiny freckled frame and tackled her backwards onto her bed. A second later, I was tearing up, and a second after that I was thinking of action movies and football games and anything else to make sure I didn’t accidentally have another Tori or Casey situation on my hands.

All this time watching my residents organize themselves into factions, bickering over whether or not I was fit to remain, it had been tearing me apart. As flattering as it was seeing them rally to me, and of course their exciting methods of declaring their support, I’d sat back and watched them light into each other and felt helpless to stop it. I’d been as guilty as anybody, letting them engage in their hijinks to gain their badges of membership and knowing it must be enraging people with legitimate grievances.

Meanwhile here were Destiny and Charlie, staying above the fray, keeping the lines of communication open, encouraging cooler heads to emerge and prevail. Showing tolerance and patience and love for everybody. I suppose I ought to have assumed as much of Charlie, but here was quiet  little Destiny, detached in her little online world, that I hadn’t thought to give credit for the same.

Oh, and she had a hand down my pants suddenly. Also very nice of her.

“Is… is this OK…?” she asked, smiling nervously.

“OK? Destiny…” I kissed her while moving my hand down hers. God, she was already so wet. The part of me that loved foreplay was continuously put out that the Hotties walked around ready to be fucked at a moment’s notice, putting so many of my hard-earned skills and talents to waste.

The part of me that loved fucking gorgeous redheads with big perky tits, though, was conspicuously devoid of complaints.

After a minute of frantic groping, we pulled back to get our respective pants off. It was an urgent affair, the way only spontaneous hookups like this could feel. If we slowed down, we’d remember I was her RA, she had a roommate who could be back any minute, she had a match to finish, that I’d been fooling around with her floormates all day. Neither of us wanted to remember any of that.

“Are we going to have sex…?” she asked meekly.

“If you want. Would you rather–”

“No! No, that. Sex. I want that. Just… don’t tell Charlie? She wants you so  bad. We’ll have to be quick!”

The goons on her squad interrupted again. “Wait, shit – are they fucking?!”

“When I told you to take some D, Finger, I meant defense!”

“Dude, no way. Can you hear…? Is she…? Fuck, maybe she’s not  twelve. ”

“You don’t get your cut of the loot if you’re just going to be a little ho , Finger!”

Destiny gritted her teeth and seized her headset, barking into the mic. “Would you guys shut up?! I’m trying to have a goddamn moment  over here!”

The guild chat banter had given me a moment to reconsider, though, and as much as I hadn’t wanted to, I was glad I did. I whispered into Destiny’s ear, covering the microphone with my hand. “I’m not going to have you keeping secrets from your friend, hon. Why don’t the three of us sit down sometime and talk, and see… Well, we’ll see what we see. But trust me, I’m not a good enough lay  to lose a friend over.”

“But…” She looked at my cock, pouting.

I grinned. “That said… you want to give these idiots something to cry over?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Oh yeah, baby. Let’s give them the Mittlefinger .”

“ OH MY FUCKING GOD! ” Destiny moaned a few moments later. “Your cock is splitting my little pussy in HALF! ”

“Little slut like you, I can’t believe you’re this fucking tight .”

Destiny’s jaw dropped in mock offense. Our pants were back on, but she was on my lap, and her humping wasn’t subtle. One of her headphones was turned sideways so we could both hear, and her mic was hovering right between the scant distance between our mouths.

“Dude. Dude! What a thot, dude, I told you–”

“ SHHHHH! ”

Destiny switched the mic off momentarily. “Oh my god, these freaking guys. It’s a newer game and I wanted to give it a try, you know? So I joined this guild like a month ago, and these fucking babydicks have been just… ugh.” She turned it back on, following with a lewd cry. “Oh god , nobody’s ever  made my pussy   this gushy! ”

“Guess you’ve been spending too much time around these beta pussies,” I grunted with all the machismo I’d learned in my years in high school sports.

Off again. “Oh man. Oh man  I fucking hate  guys like that!” she giggled hysterically. “But it’s perfect. I took a risk and used my actual face for the guild discord. Kinda gets annoying not being able to be yourself, you know? And these tryhard casuals have given me so  much shit saying I faked it. I didn’t even want to join voice chat, but it was the only way to convince them I was even a girl. Assholes” On. “Harder! Harder! Oh fuck, harder!  Don’t stop until you feel the splash, baby! ”

“No way. No fucking way.”

“She moans like a ten, dude.”

“She moans like a deuce and a half, I’m telling you!”

I rolled my eyes, both for real and in character, and spoke right into the mic. “She barely fits around my dick, she’s so small, you casuals.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the term meant, but Destiny had said it with a lot of contempt.

“I told  you that was her real portrait! I fucking told you!”

“What color’s her  hair?” asked one, seeming to be addressing myself. Testing to see if somebody not looking at her pic answered correctly, evidently.

“As cherry red as your mom’s baboon ass, bitch,” I said, making myself breathe hard. Destiny shook with silent laughter.

“I told you!”

“What about her eyes?”

“Grey,” I answered. Was there some blue? Hmm, I should see my optometrist next time I got  home. (Not that I didn’t wholeheartedly trust the folks at the campus health center or anything.)

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Drill me, baby, fucking drill  me! ” whimpered Destiny, switching off to let herself laugh.

We were both moaning out our fake orgasms when the door opened and Charlie walked in like she hadn’t heard what we were doing out in the hall. “Hey guys, what’s going on?”

Mic off. “I think we’re faking sex to make the dorks in her guild jealous, if I understand correctly…?”

Destiny nodded. “And how. Didn’t you hear us?”

“Well sure, but I know what he sounds like when he’s coming for real,” Charlie answered as if it were perfectly obvious. “I can give you the room, if you guys wanna for realsies.”

Apparently Destiny had gone hot mic in time for the gamers to hear Charlie, too. “Wait, there’s another one now?”

“She sounds hot, too!”

“Guild’s accepting applications, Mamasita!”

Destiny nodded to her roommate. “Or hey, do you wanna just share him? It’s been way too long since I’ve had a threesome with a smoking hot babe like you.”

Charlie giggled merrily, and sat down beside Destiny on my lap, their breasts squashed together so they’d both fit. “Oh god, that’s the biggest cock I’ve ever seen, or my name isn’t Scarlotte Andersen!”

We did not have a threesome that afternoon, but by the time our show was over, her party agreed that Mittlefinger was entitled to a double share of loot.

************************************************

The sun was setting when I knocked on 315. Sammi answered, scowling when she saw who it was. “What do you   want. ”

Jacqui was evidently out. Her team worked her to the bone, it felt like. “Just to talk. Is this an OK time?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice.”

“Well, then…”

The door shut.

Ah, well. They can’t all be winners.

************************************************

I skipped past Emma and Nikki, and then likewise Allison, Addison and Maddison. I felt like we’d talked as much as we needed to recently. Time to head back toward the east wing where I’d started this morning. I knocked at 318. I heard a voice mumble something, and a moment later the door opened and there was Dana, clad in a cute little dress that was more summer than fall. Danielle was lying on her bed swiping away on her phone.

“Spencer! Hey, what’s up?”

Again, the speech. I didn’t like sounding rehearsed, but there wasn’t any avoiding it. Without a word, Danielle got up and walked past me, then doubled back, grabbed her jacket off her bedpost, and out again. She wasn’t wearing her choker any more, but I saw it sitting on her desk.

“I guess she’s said what she needs to say,” I observed with an awkward chuckle.

Only then did I notice Dana wasn’t merely holding her phone, but had apparently been in the mist of using it. She raised it to her cheek.

“Yeah, mom, I gotta go.”

“No, it’s nothing. Somebody at the door.”

“It’s my RA. Spencer.”

“No, Danielle left.”

“Mom, I think I’m freaking safe in a room with him for crying out loud.”

“Yes, he’s fully dressed.”

“Of course I’m dressed, too! God, Mother!”

“I will.”

“I said I will .”

“I know .”

“He’d be gone already if you’d just let me hang up and talk to him!”

“OK.”

“OK.

“ OK. ”

“Mother!”

“I love you too. I’ll call back when we’re done.”

At last she hung up the phone with an apologetic look. I stood there like I hadn’t been able to hear Dana’s mom’s myriad insinuations and suggested precautions. “If I’m interrupting something, I can–”

“No, you’re fine. She’s just paranoid is all. Worried I’ll get raped and murdered or something.”

“I’m the one who’s here to prevent  that from happening,” I grumbled.

Dana shrugged. “I tell my mom everything. So, um, she sorta knows, you know, how you’re…”

“Ah. Did you, ah, tell her about last night?”

“Oh god no! I mean, there’s limits. I’m not sure I believe it myself. That was insane . This floor is so freaking crazy, I swear.”

I nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

“But I like it. I mean, it’s… fun? Like, there’s always something going on. And everybody’s so nice. I mean, not recently, but I guess after last night…”

I smiled. “On behalf of everybody… you’re welcome.” She humored me with a mild laugh. “But yeah, I think things are going to be getting back to normal. That said, I wanted to say I really appreciated that email you sent. I haven’t had the chance to follow up until now. Your mom, she and I had a talk, too.”

Here it came. Time to tell this sweet girl that I’d pulled her mom into my lap and made out with her for way longer than either of us should have continued. I wasn’t sure how to work up to something like that.

Dana wrinkled her nose. “Which one? The one where she was a gross giant hypocrite skank, or the one where she chewed out my RA even though I begged her not to?”

“Yeah, I have to say, there was a bit of mixed messaging there. The chewing out, I get. I didn’t exactly behave like a gentleman at times. In fact–”

“Might be more accurate to say you aren’t much of a gentleman.” Dana playfully nudged  me with an elbow.

That stung, oddly. Considering she’d watched me more or less compel a three-woman blowjob last night while the floor looked on with envy, I supposed she had a point. It was a character flaw I’d have to own.

“I guess not. Still, I have to say, very  different from her first impression. See, when she–”

Dana rolled her eyes, then nimbly vaulted up into the top bunk. “Oy, do not remind me. I am still so embarrassed about that. I don’t know what came over her. People flirt with my mom all the time, guys say gross stuff. ‘Duh, duh, I totally wanna bang yer  mom, Dana.’ Dash, every guy I went to high school  with.”

“Oh man, I bet.” I winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I agree with them or anything!” Oh and by the way…  Shit! How was I supposed to tell her what I’d done?

“It’s fine. I get it. She’s a milf.” She shuddered. “I know that’s a nasty word, but it’s better than when people think she’s my big sister. Now that  is creepy.”

That had very precisely been my first impression of the two of them. Cute as hell baby sis, and hot as fuck big sis. “And she’s your stepmom, right? I think I remember her saying that during the chewing out. You two just look so much alike, I assumed…”

Dana nodded. “Yep. I mean, I don’t even remember my bio mom, so she’s basically just mom. She busts out the ‘step’ once in a while. She thinks it saves explanations of why she looks so young to have a son and daughter in college. I guess my dad has a type, huh.”

I smiled at that. “And for my part, don’t worry about your mom. That thing in August? I’ve been harassed worse. And–”

Dana rested her cheek on her folded arms, glasses scrunching slightly to one side. “I have no idea what came over her that day. She was probably just tired. Our groomer was really late with Whiffle – that’s our doodle – so instead of leaving at noon, stopping in a hotel, and finishing the trip to Lakeview in the morning, we just napped hard that evening and drove through the night.

“I had my first marching band meeting for orientation super early, so my mom just came up here and crashed on the bare mattress while I was doing that. She’s always been kinda MREEEER  if she doesn’t get her beauty sleep. Must not have napped enough, because by the time I got out and we could start moving in, she hit on you like you were the freaking poolboy.”

“So… Yeah. Yeah! Oh my god!” I laughed so hard I had to use my knees to stay up. Even now that I’d learned a few things about the Spencer effect, I’d wondered how Dana’s mom had been hit so hard by it that she’d been after me in seconds. There at last was the answer. Dana was looking at me like I was crazy, though.

“Sorry. Just… that was a funny thing is all. Wow. But yeah, sounds like you two are really close, though. That’s good. Easier to forgive little stuff like that when there’s all that love.” Speaking of forgiveness, funny story…

Dana’s head bobbled a bit, considering. “Yeah, I guess. She’s kinda… smothery, though, if that’s a word. She doesn’t mean to be. She’s just really involved, you know? I think she’s having a hard time adjusting. When I was in high school, checking in all the time made sense. Some kids were out being bad, and doing bad things, and girls need to be extra careful, because…” She smiled at me appreciatively. “You know why. You’re one of the good ones, no matter what she thinks.”

“ I try .” Oh, and by the way, she actually knows how good I am firsthand!

Her rant went on. “But now that I’m here, she still wants me to call every night, to let her know if I’m going out, if I have any tests, how did I do on the tests, if the band is traveling somewhere I have to let her know where we’re staying and…” She sighed. “I like that she cares so much, but sometimes I feel like it wouldn’t be so bad if she cared a little less. And that’s to say nothing about how she is with boys. SO over-protective! Nobody wants to date the girl who has to be interviewed by her mom first.”

“I very much doubt there is a shortage of boys who wouldn’t gladly be willing to jump through hoops for a date with you, Dana.” Especially if the hoop is a little one-on-one time with your insanely hot mom. Which reminds me…

“Eh. I don’t have time to date anyway, but do you know what I mean? Like, you have some good emotional intelligence, for a boy. If it were your mom keeping tabs on you like this, what would you do?”

I propped my elbows on the edge of her bunk bed and leaned in. “Hmm. Well, since everybody thinks RA stands for resident advisor–”

“It doesn’t…?”

“Resident assistant. Anyway, here’s the thing about parents. You’re an adult now. You’re out on your own, and you’re only going to get more out and more on your own. If you want to create some space, protect your privacy and your autonomy, do it. Have that hard talk, tell your mom how you feel. Then tell her you love her.”

“You sound like Danielle. But… you know, less… not nice.”

“Hold on, I’m not done. Because you can also just… let her have this. I know people my age and older who still talk to their mom every day. If you think the good outweighs the bleh, there’s nothing wrong with having a tight relationship with your mom, either.” Hey, while we’re on the subject of relations with your mom…  

But I was already beginning to feel the truth setting in of what I’d worried I’d use an excuse. If Dana’s mom wanted to keep my little stunt a secret, it really wasn’t my place to betray it. The need I felt to do so was me feeling guilty and wanting to keep riding that forgiveness train I’d boarded with Tori and the brokers. Hell, with the Spencer effect at work, Dana might well be convinced I was the innocent one and her mom was the one she should be mad at.

I shook my head. If I was going to make up for what I did, it should be by honoring what Dana’s mom had come down to yell at me for in the first place. Taking care of her kid.

“Dana, just d o what’s good for you, draw lines where you need them. Just don’t let a nagging roommate or some dude you meet at a party, whose name you won’t remember this time next year, tell you how your relationship with your mom is supposed to be. If you love your mom, keep loving your mom.”

Dana smiled. What a smile. “I’m really glad you decided to stay.” She scooched just an inch closer, but we were close enough that inches counted. “Like, really glad.”

I leaned my head sideways, our faces aligned vertically but congruently. “Me, too. Although… I wouldn’t be too sad if you let your mom know I’m not all bad. My boss has been really riding me lately.”

Everybody is permitted the occasional inside joke with themselves, I told myself.

“I will. I told her I’d call her back. She’s probably sitting there scowling at the phone, wondering why we’re taking so long.”

“Want me to…?” I jerked a thumb at the door.

“No, you can stay. I mean, we don’t get to hang out much, so…”

Dana and talked, briefly, mostly just me checking that she was doing OK, not getting overwhelmed by school and band and Hottie drama. She told me she’d think about what I said, that she was looking forward to the party. I thanked her one more time for her kind words at a time when I’d really needed them, and made to excuse myself .

“Um, are you really not gonna kiss me…?” Dana asked, cheeks flushing. “I’m sorry, it’s just, your vibe, and you were so close, and I know how you like to, you know, with the other girls, and…”

I paused. “Did you want me to?”

“I mean, kind of…?” She looked like she might die if I made her say it.

“Call your mom back, OK?”

Her smile faded, her embarrassment spiked. “Yeah, you’re right. I probably should. Sorry, that was… I don’t know what that was.”

She pulled her phone out, hit a button. I could hear it ringing, though it only took one before her mom answered. “Took him long enough. What did he want?”

I was walking to the door. “Just to talk, Mom. He wanted to make sure I’m doing OK. I told you he’s a nice guy.”

“They always seem like nice guys until they get what they want from you, honey. That’s how boys are.”

My hand hit the knob. “He doesn’t want anything from me.” Dana sounded somewhat bitter. “Need I remind you that of the three of us, you’re the only one who said she wanted something from anybody.”

I pressed the lock, in case Danielle circled back. “Oh, will you just let go of that already! I was only teasing the boy. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to make a good impression for  you on your first day. It’s not like I was seriously inviting him to… do anything.”

Dana’s eyes widened as I turned back. She sat up, legs dangling from her bunk. She was a tiny thing, her hair just barely missing the popcorn ceiling. “I know you weren’t, but how was he  supposed to know that?”

I reached the bed, and with gentle pressure on her knees, spread her legs outwards. “A boy like that, I’m sure he gets hit on all the time. I’m sure he’s long since forgotten it. It would be nice if you would do the same.”

I tapped my chin, pantomiming consideration. I shook my head. No, I had not forgotten it. Dana tried to give me a stern look, but she was a hairsbreadth  away from peels of giggles. To help her keep them under control, I lifted up her dress, baring her thighs and exposing a pair of crimson red panties. They fit her little body tight as a glove, outlining her pussy lips clearly.

“Just because girls at Lakeview hit on him doesn’t mean it’s OK for their moms to join in!” Her eyes were locked on me, though. Nothing in her resisted my touch. Everything in her signaled permission.

I kissed the inside of Dana’s knee. Her eyes slid closed.

“Well you just make sure there’s one less Lakeview girl giving him any more attention, all right? It sounds like he’s got more attention than sense, and that hall manager of yours isn’t doing a darn thing about him.”

I kissed an inch higher up her leg. Another inch, another kiss. On and up the flautist’s  trim, tanned thighs.

“Well I think he does… does a good job,” said Dana, her voice trembling.

“That’s why I worry, sweetheart. You’re such a pretty girl, and you’re young and inexperienced, and boys like him see pretty girls like you and see only one thing. Believe me, he does. You know it wasn’t so long ago that I was right where you are. I was just like you, sweetheart.”

Right as my mouth neared her panties, I turned my attention to the other leg, starting over at the knee. Dana beamed at me radiantly, loving the tease. “You weren’t ‘just like me,’ Mother, and it wasn’t that short ago, either.”

Be nice to your mother , I mouthed, or else I will.

Dana’s body shook with barely suppressed laughter. You’re so bad!  she mouthed back.

“Dana! I don’t know what’s gotten into you. What did he say to you, really? Because we were having a nice conversation, then that RA of yours shows up, and suddenly you’re bent out of shape with me. I don’t know what–

This time, I didn’t tease. I put my lips right over the center of her panties, and planted a kiss.

“Mmmm…!” Dana moaned.

“Dana? What was that? Were you…? Was that…?” A pause. “Is he…?!”

“What? No mom, I banged my elbow on the bed post again. Mmmm, that hurt.” I extended my tongue, went right for where I hoped to find her clit. Dana gasped, her thighs clamping down reflexively. “Oh god , oh god oh god, oh wow  that really… really…” She let out a slow, ecstatic sigh. “Ow…”

“Oh, sweetie. You know, I bet they make some kind of, I don’t know, bed post cover or something. To pad it, so this doesn’t keep happening. Here, I’ll check Amazon. You poor thing.”

Dana didn’t seem like she wanted to release me, so I reached up under her dress and filled my hands with her ass, squeezing hard as I licked her through her thin, silky panties. “It’s… Yeah. Thank you. Oh god. Thank you. That’s so… Thank yooou …!” she whined.

“It sounds like you really dinged it this time. You’re sure you’re OK? Maybe you should tell the conductor you need a day off. You could probably get a brace at the health center or CVS or something, if you need to sell it. Just put it on the card, I don’t care.”

Dana squirmed in response to my efforts to pull down her underwear, assisting me in peeling it off. Hot damn, shaved bare. I didn’t have any particular objections to pubic hair styling one way or the other, but I’ll admit that being ambushed by a flat patch of skin like Dana’s always provided a moment of inexplicable awe. Only a moment, but what a nice moment.

“Thank you. You’re… You’re so good to me. I’m… I’ll… oh god…”

“Dana? Are you OK? It’s not broken, is it?”

I probed her moist pink nubbin, swirling my tongue around it in slow circles. She was shaking, gripping my head with both hands, holding her phone between her cheek and shoulder. “I… I… I’m OK. I’m OK. I’m… I’m so OK.”

Her mom evidently mistook her ragged breaths for an attempt at bravery in the face of serious elbow ouchies. “Oh, my poor baby. I wish I was there. I just hate not being able to take care of you. It’s the worst thing about you being gone, not being able to hug you when you’re hurting.”

I wish she was here, too , I mouthed, but my joke went unnoticed. Dana was panting now, on the edge, chin lifted to the ceiling. I wrapped my lips around her clit and darted my tongue in and out, pushing her over the cliff and swirling like a soft, warm tornado of drawn out orgasm. Dana fell back, thrashing.

“I LOVE YOU, MOM!”

I made sure she had her fill before I stepped back. Say what you want about bunk beds, they made for damn convenient cunnilingus positioning. I was a little sad the Spencer effect seemed to make my girls come so easily. It was going to make me rusty. I headed for the door, nodding in acknowledgment of the incomprehensible silent words of gratitude Dana was babbling after me.

“No, sorry.”

“I dropped the phone on the floor, that’s why.”

“You were being so nice, I wanted to make sure you knew I appreciated it.”

“I know you know I love you.”

“I know you love me, too.”

“No, I know.”

“I know.”

Giggle.  “I know .”

“I love you, Mom.”

I halted in the doorway. “Tell her I love her, too,” I whispered, and darted out just before Dana’s pillow crashed through where my face had been.

************************************************

Only a handful of rooms left. Down my side of the hallway, there was Shauna, an avowed choker girl, one of the first. No problem there. Leigh and Angel I’d keep my eye on, make  sure Angel’s act of liberation didn’t cause resentment from queen bee Leigh, but I’d not heard any cause for concern as yet. Casey, Dawn and Kyu-Ri were all happy as peas in a pod with the return to Higgins normal.

That meant there was only one door left to knock on.

As Dana chatted on with  her mom in the next room over, I approached 316 and issued a soft rapping. Right there on the other side of 1 & ¾” of door was, last I’d been permitted in the room, the Tits Out/Timeout schedule Jo and Lex had worked out during our roommate agreement meeting in August. Was it still up? Would I ever get a foot in the door to find out?

The door opened, but only a crack. It stopped with the precision and suddenness that said it was being kept from opening further by something firm. There was Jo’s darkly beautiful face, or at least a thin strip of it, glaring at me. “No, you can’t see them.”

The door slammed shut.

I shook my head. “I need to talk to you. Both of you.”

“Go away.”

“Lex?” I called out. “You in there? Can we talk, please?”

“She’s not in here, and you’re not getting in either. Go. AWAY!”

Hmm. Lexi’s absence changed things. There, I was walking on eggshells. Jo, on the other hand, was pissed at me on her roommate’s behalf. Justifiably – so very justifiably – but she wasn’t the victim.

Which meant…

“I’m Ennery  the Eighth, I am! Ennery  the Eighth I am, I am. I got married to the widow next door! She’s been married seven TIMES before, and eeeevery  one was an Ennery (Ennery)! She wouldn’t have a Willy or a Sam – NO SAM! I’m her eighth old man, I’m Enneryyyy, Ennery  the Eighth I am!”

“What in the fuck are you–”

“Second verse, same as the first! I’m Ennery  the Eighth, I am…”

I lost count of the repetitions in the sixties. At least I thought it was the sixties. Hard to count that many verses, especially in a song with a number repeated over and over. Emma and Nikki exited their room across the hall, gave me looks that were a nice blend of pitying, encouraging, and deeply annoyed. Dana politely closed her door on the third refrain. At one point Casey passed by on her way to the bathroom, and even she gave me an irritated look. She barely even looked at my crotch. I took it as a good sign of her recovery.

At last I heard footsteps thundering toward the door. I sang right up until it flew open, an enraged Jo looking like she might murder me where I sat. “ WOULD YOU SHUT! THE FUCK! UP?! ” she shrieked.

“Two minutes. That’s it.”

Her nostrils flared. I was surprised plumes of fire weren’t shooting out of them. “FINE! Two minutes. Starting now!” She snapped her fingers, and I scurried behind her into the room.

The Tits Out/Timeout schedule was down, I noticed as she closed the door behind us.

“My god  that is the most annoying fucking thing anyone has ever done to me! That’s FBI smoking out terrorists from their fucking caves level shit!”

I nodded. “Right? It’s from this old movie, Ghost . My dad loves it. Patrick Swayze’s character uses it to get Whoopie Goldberg to talk to him. And to make his dead wife go out with him, but that’s before the movie starts.”

She folded her arms angrily. “I don’t know who any of those people are, and I don’t care. You have ninety seconds left.”

“He made me watch it when I was a kid. They had it on a VHS tape, but the VCR was kind of dying so they wanted to watch as many of their old tapes as they could before it broke down, kind of a sendoff for the technological era. One of those things you hate at the time that later you remember fondly, you know? Like camping or something.”

“I hate camping.”

“I guess I don’t remember it so  fondly. There’s this scene near the end where the ghost guy gets his revenge on the guy who killed him, and there’s these dark evil shadow monster things that rise up out of the ground, moaning and howling, and they drag his spirit down to hell and then just disappear. Gave me such  bad nightmares. It took me a long time before I understood that’s not something that happens when people die. I was at my great grandpa’s–”

“Is this ever going to have a point?”

“–funeral and I started freaking out that they might come for him, and my mom had to take me outside and explain it to me. Really embarrassing. Not my fault, I know, just a dumb kid who didn’t know better, but still.”

“Is this some bullshit metaphor about forgiving yourself for what you did? Like you didn’t mean to be horrible, so it’s OK? Because it’s NOT  OK!”

I shook my head. “No, no, sorry. I know it wasn’t OK. Aside from wanting you to open the door and talk to me, I mostly brought it up because of that ghost thing. I haven’t thought about it in forever, but the past couple weeks, I’ve had dreams about it. Nightmares, kind of. Like I fucked up, and I’d ruined someone, and they were coming for me to give me my just desserts or whatever.”

“Hopefully they are.”

“But that’s between me and Lex,” I said. Firmly. “Right now, I wanted  to talk to you, about  you.”

“I think you might have another twenty, thirty seconds. Have at it.”

“Are you all right, Jo?” I asked softly.

She stared like she was expecting more. “Am I all right? What kind of dumbfuck question is that?”

“Just that. Are you doing OK, how are you holding up, how’s your life. That’s it.”

She frowned, but that was an upgrade. “What do you care ? Want me to smile and giggle and lick your balls like these other bimbos? Well guess again, asshole, I’m not–”

I held up a hand. “ Not , are you mad at me.  I know you are. But… Look, Jo, you’ve been carrying around a lot of anger. That eats at you. If we’re all three of us staying here – and I can’t decide for you, but I’ve decided for me – then I’d hate to think you’re going to spend all year seething.”

“Right, we’re supposed to move on, spread ‘em wide, spin the wheel and see which hole we give you like Tori and Katrina, right? Well maybe they forgot, but I can’t. Err, won’t.” She looked down at her toes angrily.

Hmm. “I don’t know a diplomatic way to ask this, but I guess since you hate me already it can’t make things much worse, so here goes. I thought you and Lex didn’t really get along. My sense was that you guys had made peace after the whole Tits-Out-Gate scandal, but didn’t hang out. I always saw her around with Casey and Sammi and them, and you with Shauna and Amy and your group.”

“So?”

“So, I guess I’m just sort of surprised you’re so concerned about her is all . I remember you complaining to me about wanting to change rooms because she was bugging you so much.”

“And I remember you calling her flat and ugly. What’s your point?”

“I did not  call her ugly.” Some defense that was. “I’m not after recriminations here. But her other friends have said what they wanted to say to me, chewed me out, called me names, all that. Sammi still isn’t talking to me, but the rest forgave me. I guess I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re taking this so much harder than her own closest friends.”

Jo’s jaw clenched. Trembled . “I don’t want to talk about it.”

So there was something there after all. “Please, Jo. Talk to me.”

“Your time’s up. Go.”

“I can see that you’re hurting. I’m not leaving you like this. No way.”

“I said, go .” She stamped a foot, pointed at the door.

“Please, Jo. Whatever it is eating at you, let it out. We’ll figure it out.”

“There’s no figuring it out, asshole!” she roared. It was so sudden, so intense, I actually stumbled back. “She was this close  to killing herself because of those things! Did you know that? She was texting one of her friends from high school, and I saw it.” Jo gestured illustratively, a line from her bunk up top to where Lex would be lying beneath her. “She was really thinking about it.”

I nodded. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh fuck you. ‘I’m tho thorry !’ I saw Casey, you know? Lying there with her head busted open. And all I could think was how that could’ve been Lex! Every time I’ve come home since then, I’ve wondered if I’m going to open the door and find her like that, like if that’s going to be one of those things that gets inside and poisons my soul and I’ll be like my fucking grandpa in the nursing home muttering out these creepy as fuck fucking ‘Nam flashbacks, except for me won’t be Charlie, but my own fucking roommate!”

“Jo, it’s not your fault. If she hurt herself, or god forbid…” I shook my head. “There’s nothing you  could do to fix the damage I  did.”

Her fists were clenched in rage, though her eyes were brimming over with tears. “I’m talking about the damage I  did, you egomaniacal dick! All you did was ‘hey baby can I see your fancy new tits?’ like a fucking idiot moron dickhead!”

Harshly put, but no time to push back. “Then what do you–”

“I’m the fucking reason she got those things in the fucking first place!”

I froze. “What…? Jo, what do you…”

“It’s my fucking fault! I was giving her shit. Just teasing, you know? Dunking on the flat girl. She had her stupid crush on you like half of these sluts do, and I could’ve just let her sit there pining and moping over it. But no.”

Jo suddenly cocked her head to the side, voice light and perky. “‘Maybe he’s bi, you know? Into little boys with overdeveloped pecs.’ ‘Tits out? I’m not sure those things can legally be called tits. More like big pimples than any tits I ever saw.’ ‘ Yawn, stretch , oh man these things are so annoying, you know? Oh right, why would you  know.’ I was such a fucking cunt  to her!”

Oh shit. I crept closer as Jo slumped down onto Lex’s bunk and started to bawl. “I did that same shit to these girls in high school. I don’t even know why, it was just like, ha ha, I’m prettier than you, like, like… Like I couldn’t love my body unless everybody else hated theirs, or… I don’t know. Just over break, I bumped into Laura Malone and some of her friends at Taco Bell while I was there with my friends, and like she just said hi to me, like in this normal way, like ‘hey, high school’s over, glad we’re both adults now’ or whatever, and I… I forget what I said exactly, but I remember my friends laughed so hard, and she just… she just, like her face just died , like she realized never get out from under me and girls like me, and…”

I sat down beside her and wrapped a gentle arm around Jo’s shoulders, and that was the end of her holding it together enough to get words out. That small, tender act sent her into a place beyond verbalization. Her arms flew around me, and occasionally she lashed out and punched me. It didn’t hurt.

Much. It wouldn’t matter if it did.

“I almost killed her!” she managed at length. Those words, again, over, and over, and over. She was sobbing too hard for me to say anything back and have any chance of being heard. For now, she just needed to let it out. For the second time that day, I cursed the Hancock Institute and the Spencer effect that at a moment like this, I had to force myself not to cry with her. I held her, and sniffled down any traces, and let her bare her awful secret.

“How many Lexi’s have I hurt?” she murmured into my shoulder some time later. She shook softly, but seemed to be running low on tears. “How many girls look in the mirror and hate themselves because of me?”

I shook my head. “Some, probably.”

Her head shot up, glaring venomously. “Aren’t you supposed to be comforting me or something? God, you are the suckiest fucking RA!”

“Sometimes, yeah. Not that I’m worried you’ve forgotten, but I hurt her, too, Jo. We both fucked up. I knew she was attracted to me. No girl finds that many excuses to cross paths with a guy with their boobs peeking out unless they’re looking for some attention. So maybe you made her think that was the only way to get it, but I was the one who treated her like a body with toys pinned on it instead of a person, with her heart pinned on her sleeve.”

Jo sniffled. “So you’re saying we’re both pieces of shit. Awesome.”

“No.” I shook my head, put my hands on her slender shoulders. “I’m saying, we both did something shitty, and to the same person. We can’t unsay the stuff we said. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Me too. I think she’s having an even harder time dealing with me now that I’m feeling so guilty toward her than she was when I was just being a cunt.”

“I can imagine. But let me tell you something.” Jo scared up some tissues and cleaned herself up while I told her, at more length than I’d ever told anyone, even Marisa, about Spencer the bully. It felt awful, reliving some of the shitty things I’d said and done, though there was a small comfort in sharing them with someone else who could appreciate the feeling of regret that came attached to them.

“Man, you’re like Andrew from The Breakfast Club , Spencer.”

I smiled. “So you have  seen an 80’s movie. Nice.”

“I thought that was 70’s .”

I considered . “Maybe you’re right. It’s old, is my point. But that’s a good call, too. Because just like the jock in The Breakfast Club , I couldn’t undo what I did, and hating myself for it didn’t make anything any better.”

“So what do we do, just… shrug it off? Trust me, I can’t forget what I did. Those things are way too big.”

She gave half a chuckle at her joke, and I echoed it in kind before shaking my head. “What did make a difference was opening up to the other kids in detention. You know? Me, I  realized I could look for ways to show kindness. Compassion. Empathy. Interest in other people and their lives and their successes and their problems.”

“And sometimes you tell girls on the brink of suicide to flash you their tits.”

“I’m not perfect,” I said, a bit gruffly.

“You don’t say.”

“But once I realized what all I’d done – probably only a fraction of the hurt I caused – that’s the only thing I’ve found that let me feel good about myself again. It’s why I get so hyped up over this stupid job. I mean, I know I’m a glorified babysitter slash narc.”

“Who’s glorifying you, exactly…?”

I flicked her shoulder. “But every now and then I get to actually help somebody. Sometimes just to let them vent, or get a work order done. Once in a while, I get to do something bigger.”

“You mean Tori’s big round ass.”

“Would you quit making jokes?” We were both smiling, a little, though. “So keep being nice to Lex. It sounds like she needs it. And when you’re feeling shitty about it – whether it’s her or the Taco Bell girl or somebody else – take a moment to do something nice. Doodle something on someone’s dry erase board. Invite somebody unpopular to lunch, let ‘em hang with the cool kids. Compliment somebody. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and see somebody crying, have a chance to get in there and be the light somebody needs in a dark moment. Whatever. I promise you, it helps.”

Jo sniffled, blew her nose and tossed the tissue down on the floor with the pile of others. “Or I could just find a floor full of lonely hot guys and fuck my way down the hall, eh?”

“That helps, too.” I rolled my eyes, though. “But I’m serious. You think I’m being cheesy, but try it and watch what happens. Apologizing is good, too, by the way. You could find that girl, Lauren, on facebook, I bet.”

“Laura. Laura Malone.” Jo studied the floor for a moment, but nodded slowly. “I bet I could.”

I squeezed her shoulder and at last let go. “I’ll get out of your hair, I suppose. If you’re going to be OK? I can stay if you’d rather.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re OK.”

“OK? I’m frickin’ great.”

“Do I need to remind you what you said to her…?”

“All right, all right. But I’m doing great today .”

Jo gave me a grudging smile, then stood and helped me to my feet, guiding me to the door. Before I could open it, though, she huggled  me hard against it.

“I’m sorry I was so mean to you,” she mumbled into my chest.

“I’m sorry I gave you reason to be,” I whispered into her hair.

Epilogue

“Hey Spencer, I think the party’s getting started soon. You coming or what?”

“I’ll be down in a few minutes, Kendall – try not to have too much fun without me.”

She scampered off, Georgia hot on her heels. I didn’t know what to expect from whatever Tori had cooked up, but my heart said it would be a night to remember. I’d had a lot of those around here with these incredible women.

Whatever it was, I hoped it would be something low-key. That had been one heck of a physically and emotionally taxing day already. Was this what life was going to be now, bouncing around from room to room, bed to bed? It was, finally, what I’d not dared to imagine it could be when I decided to embrace the Spencer effect over fall break.

Open doors, open hearts, open legs. A free love paradise.

I knocked on 303. The door swung open a moment later. There was Ramona – and behind her, there were boxes in various states of packing.

“Oh geez. Um, what’s up?”

She didn’t miss my look at her room. “Come on in.”

I weaved through stacks of boxes, almost knocking over one full of DVDs. Almost all Polish titles, interestingly. I wondered if she had any of that children’s show she’d mentioned. It sounded cute. “So, what’s going on?”

“I’m preparing to move out. With your blessing, of course, master.”

“I thought after we decided to… You know. Stick it out. I was looking forward to having you around.”

Ramona slithered into my lap, straddling me, her arms wrapped around my neck. It was a maneuver she’d had a lot of practice at. “Aside from the cramped conditions – you’ll understand once you get out of the res  halls yourself someday – I think this gambit has played out. The experiment can continue, and there’s no more need for the façade of me pretending to be your stern overseer. I dare say that the longer I remain, the greater the risk that your girls develop the same suspicions you did. ‘Why doesn’t his boss seem to notice all the hanky panky? Doesn’t she care? Why not…?’”

I frowned, but that was a good point. “I guess so. Do you have a place lined up yet?”

“I’m meeting with a realtor this weekend to look at some places. Until then, I’ll treat myself to a few nights in a hotel. Room service and someone to clean up after me sounds nice. Perhaps I’ll even get lucky and my master will come and provide them some  sheets in need of laundering.”

“I’d be happy to come on your sheets, boss.”

We kissed a little bit. “I’m going to miss you, though. And, you know, not to try to change your mind, but…”

I reached into my pocket. It took a little work with her wrapped around me like that, but after a moment I found what I was after and fished it out carefully. With a little grin, I clasped the choker around her neck.

Ramona gasped in pure delight, clutching at the symbol of ownership. “Master!”

“You like it?”

“I love  it! I have the sweetest, most thoughtful, most domineering master. Why, I’d beg you to let me suck out every drop of your cum right this moment if not for the party. I have a suspicion you’ll need your strength for this one.”

Ramona started laughing, though, quite non sequitur. I shook my head, uncomprehending, and after a moment my manager hopped back up and started setting a couple boxes aside.

“What? What’s so funny?”

She made me wait for it, though, and came back after a moment and set a cardboard box in my lap. The flaps were folded shut. “I got you something, too. I was going to deliver it to you at the party, but here you are. I’ve always thought of myself as a solid gifter. I didn’t want to be outdone.”

“Huh. Can I…?”

She nodded, and I tore into it. It only took a second before I saw the contents. “Oh my god. Oh my god!  I can’t believe you…!”

I reached into the box, and pulled out the topmost item: a piece of red fabric that unfurled as I held it up, but barely. A shirt, not even a foot from base to collar. I spun it around, and there on the front was a familiar logo, two H’s sharing a central beam, represented as a trellis on which grew a thorny vine. At the top left corner bloomed a single flower bursting with petals. Only after we’d put the order in at the shop had Katrina educated me that this was a dahlia, and that it symbolized devotion, beauty, and dignity. It wasn’t the flower Jordyn had originally drawn at the floor meeting, but she’d made a suggestion and our artist in residence had been happy to modify her design.

The box was stuffed to the brim with them.

“I thought you hated these!” I exclaimed, grinning ear to ear.

Ramona settled onto her knees beside, pleased with my pleasure. “Officially, I do. Off the record, however, while they’re a bit risqué for my tastes, I think they suit your girls perfectly.”

“Did you buy these yourself? That’s thirty-some shirts! Did you get everybody’s sizes? How did you even get the logo? We never–”

“They’re the originals, master.”

I blinked. “What? Tori threw those away, right after break. How…?”

“I kept her after the meeting and explained to her that she didn’t have the authority to confiscate her floormates’ personal property. I mean honestly. She’s a residence hall floor governor; she barely has the authority to choose her own clothing. We went back and forth, and I told her I would hold onto them until such time as she felt the ladies of Higgins 3 could wear them with pride, rather than to be objectified by the patriarchy.”

I grinned. “Yeah, they do kinda  do that.”

“She stopped by my office this afternoon and begged me to let her return them. I asked what had changed her mind, and she said that upon further consideration, she decided that she would be proud to be objectified in the name of her beloved patriarch.”

“Aw.”

“You’ll want to keep an eye on her master. If you’re not careful, she’s going to attempt a transition from the governor of your community to the high priestess of your cult.”

Hadn’t she said something about a cult? Right, one of her so-called pranks. “Aye, separation of church and state and all that.”

Ramona chuckled, but let it slide. “We can talk later, master. I’m not leaving tonight – someone has to keep the RAs on duty from disrupting your festivities, after all. And you have a party to get to.”

“That I do. Man, they’re going to be stoked. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

“You know, they offered to let me use the formal lounge as an office. Much larger, and exterior windows to boot. I wanted the one off the mailroom, though. I’m a bit of a voyeur as you know, and I’ve always said that the greatest thrill in life is an unexpected package.”

“Well you can expect my  package–”

“Har har. Don’t stoop to mediocre wordplay, master. You’re better than that.”

“Nobody’s better than you, boss. Now come on, get down on your knees and fluff me for the party.” She deserved at least that for saving the shirts.

************************************************

I was humming tunelessly to myself as I made my way down the hall. The floor was quiet, everybody already down in the lounge. What had Tori cooked up, I wondered? Last night had   been  cheesy games and cheesier music, the only real pizazz coming in the form of beverage offerings – not that any of them had known that. I reminded myself not to let any disappointment show if she’d dropped the ball, or if most of the girls had decided to party off campus. Nobody had planned on this, after all. Like so many happenings on Higgins 3, we were playing it by ear.

The specifics of the party were a secret, at least to me – probably dispersing info via discord. I had been told I didn’t need a costume, which was intriguing but a relief. My sexy fireman costume worked fine, once, but those rubber pants were hot as hell, and besides, repetition bred apathy. Maybe Tori was going to stuff me into one of these floor shirts as a gag? I wondered how we’d even be able to sort out whose was whose.

I was nearing the bend by the lounge-side bathroom when I heard movement behind me. Figuring I’d walk with whoever it was, I turned with a smile.

It was Lex.

Or rather, the hottest imaginable version of Lex.

Whatever Jo said, the girl had never been hard on the eyes. Petite, which wasn’t for everyone, and with a tendency to stuff her hair into pigtails or a topknot or some other simple restraint and let its naturally frizzy tendency struggle to assert itself. She was pretty, though, and with a hell of an ass, so even if she dressed plainly and didn’t bother with a lot of makeup, there was no doubt in my mind she belonged here amongst the Hotties.

This girl approaching me from the far end of the hall might have to be put on her own floor, left in seclusion until we could find anyone to match her.

She’d gotten a haircut. My latent boyfriend senses told  me she’d just  gotten it, too, as in she  was at this very minute on her way in from the salon. It was perhaps a tad lighter in color, chestnut rather than dark chocolate. It was shorter, shoulder-length at most, and rather than straightening it, she’d leaned into its chaotic tendencies with piles and piles of adorable curls that bounced along with every step.

It was a cute do , but my god , the rest of her. She looked to have scored a makeover as well. Every part of her was so pristine it was like I was looking at her through some camera filter. Her eyes shined beneath long, upward-tilting lashes, heavy lids dark and sultry. Her lips were ruby red, almost sparkling under Higgins’ harsh fluorescent lighting.

Then there was her outfit. Her chunky sandals gave her a few added inches, leather straps wrapped around her calves. That aside, there was… a dress. I’d bet good money that even the largest of these Hottie half shirts, even the one Kyu-Ri somehow managed to stretch over her laudable bosom, had more heft to them than that whole dress. If you could call it whole. It was so thin I could see the wall behind her through the space between her thighs – not only because it only came down three inches past her pussy, but even that scant length was translucent – through the front and back combined . The floral sheath clung to her body like spandex. Unlike spandex, it didn’t even try to restrain the tendency of all those curves to jiggle with every step. The neckline was so low that I’d seen bikinis that showed less titty, and then there were the cuts in the fabric to show off the inner, under, and side slopes of them as well. A little string knot cinched it together, or maybe just solidified the impression that she was a tasty little package.

Those tits. Good god . For the first time since I’d blurted that awful question, I wondered if asking to see them hadn’t been entirely my fault. They were so big, so perfectly round, so perky and for all their complete lack of bra, bounced less than they would have even before the surgery. It wasn’t natural, more like some hentai girl ripped out of the pages with her impossible proportions left intact.

She looked so incredible I didn’t manage to grunt out a single solitary word until she was standing right in front of me.

“Hey, Lex.” Oh man. I managed to not compliment her titties. I mentally patted myself on the back for my restraint.

“Hi, Spencer. Um, can I…” She gestured her desire to get past me.

“Right, sorry. You just… wow. You look amazing. I love your hair.” I barely remembered to add that last part. When was the last time a woman had me this tongue-tied? Quinn? Maybe when Ramona had pledged herself to be my sex slave. Maybe.

It made her smile, though, and if there weren’t teeth, I was more than happy for a reason to admire those soft, red lips. “Thanks.” She waited. Raised an eyebrow. Finally, “So, do you mind…?”

I rolled my eyes at myself and stood aside. She swiped her card in the key reader, and right before the door closed behind her I finally remembered who this vision of feminine radiance was. I shoved my foot in the door, but otherwise didn’t open it wider.

“Say, do you have a second?”

She looked back, surprised, but gave a nod. “Yeah, sure.”

I let myself in, setting the box on the floor beside the entrance. “Thanks. I stopped by earlier, but you were out.”

“Ah.” She waited, expectant. Or maybe annoyed.

“So… I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I don’t know if I ever really apologized for the way I spoke to you.”

“You did. Remember, you came by, and Jo tried to keep you out, and you said you liked them.” No need to explain the antecedent of that pronoun.

“I… I did? Right, I guess I did.”

“Seven thousand bucks to score a compliment from my man-whore of an RA,” she said dryly. “Yeah, a semester’s tuition well spent.”

I frowned sympathetically. “I could probably find some other guys to come by and compliment you if it’d help…?”

After a moment, a tense, terrifying moment, she grunted a single chortle. “Kind of you. I’ll wait here.”

“So can I ask… why’d you decide to do them in the first place? I, um, heard some people say you were trying to, I dunno…”

“To impress you?” She snorted. “No offense, Spencer, but there’s having a schoolgirl crush, and there’s being complete  lunatic. I mean, when I made the appointment back in September, was there some part of me that was like, hey, maybe my tasty RA might wanna…?” She shrugged. “Sure. But you were one name on a list of people I wanted to lord them over, trust me.”

“Why did you want to lord them over anybody? I mean, um, I talked to Jo earlier, and she told me she was giving you a hard time, but…”

“What do you care ? What’s one more set of huge titties on the floor, right?”

“I care. I mean, you’ve always been so nice to me. You’re one of the reasons I love this floor, this job. I’d care even if you were just some random girl I knew because I’m nosy and I’m a sap. But it’s you, so I really care.”

The speech didn’t look to have landed, but she didn’t look any less welcoming, I supposed. “My therapist says I don’t owe anybody any explanations.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. Forget I asked .”

“Then again, she also said I should try to look for things to occupy my time that don’t relate to my appearance, but…” She ran her fingers down the length of her. “She’s not the best therapist, I don’t think, because this is the best I’ve felt in weeks. The way your jaw dropped…”

Lexi’s grin was for herself alone.

“I’m glad. I mean, not just because…” I ventured a very brief look at her body before resuming eye contact. “But it’s great to see you smiling.”

She nodded, still looking pleased with herself. “Yeah. Feels good.”

I waited a moment to see if she’d say more, open up. She was watching me, though, waiting for me to speak. There was that smile, though, and I didn’t have it in me to start a conversation that could jeopardize it.

“Well hey, I just wanted to… yeah. But we’re having a party, in case you didn’t hear. If you wanna come, drop a few more jaws.”

“I’m actually going to a house party with a couple friends. Sorry.” She didn’t sound especially sorry, but it wasn’t sarcasm, I didn’t think.

“Oh. Well then have fun, and be safe, OK? If you need ride home–”

She nodded. “I know. I didn’t delete your number, Spencer.”

“You better not.” My turn to smile. Then I remembered what I was carrying. “Oh, and hey! Our floor shirts – looks like Tori hung onto them after all. Do you wanna see if we can find yours, or…?”

To my relief and delight, her face lit up. “Seriously?!”

She was already rifling through the box. “Yep! Did you initial your tag or anything? I’m not really sure how we’ll figure out which one is…”

She looked up with an expression I could only translate as Are you kidding me?  “Spencer, we’ve all taken these things off around each other so many times nobody knows whose is whose.” She pursed her lips, bobbed her head, relented. “OK, aside from Katrina.”

As if on queue, she found a shirt with Katrina’s initials on the tag in Sharpie. With a shake of her head, she seized the next XS one she found. “This’ll do. Hey, actually, is it cool if I wear this to my party tonight? I know we’re not supposed to wear them to class or whatever, but this is all the way off campus, and–”

“You mean, would you go out and provide free advertising for how awesome we look up in here ? Um, ya!” Heavy-handed? I winced. So did she. “But sure, go right ahead.”

She held it up, admiring it, like these three weeks with her tummy covered had been hell. I stood waiting, but finally she looked over at me, rolling her hand. “Um, are you gonna turn around, or…?”

“Oh! Fuck, right, sorry! God, I don’t know what I was thinking. In fact let me clear out of here so you can–”

Up until the moment the door closed behind me, I really thought she’d tap me on the shoulder and pull back in for a little Tits Out time. I shook my head. Alas.

Then I heard a voice from the lounge. “Where’s Ra at? I thought this was finna be a fuckin’ party , yo?”

I made it three steps before I remembered – shit, the box! I knocked hastily. “Lexi, sorry, I forgot the–”

Her door opened. She was kneeling over the box, flipping through shirts again. Her XS was plainly inadequate to its upgraded charge. She’d lowered the dress over her chest, but the bottom hem of the shirt was stretched so much that it looked like if she took a deep breath it would explode, the fabric stretched so tight it was barely even doing that hot distending thing that tight shirts did over great tits. Her nipples, the same old perfect pink pebbles, peeked out the lower edge.

She grabbed a Small this time. Seeing where my eyes were riveted, she shrugged and took off her old floor shirt. It popped over her shoulders like she’d fired it out of a slingshot.

There they were. The most amazing titties I had ever seen in my life. Even online. No contest.

Lexi pulled on the bigger shirt. It didn’t fit her well, but it was enough to cover her. Mostly. The lower third of her breasts still squeezed out the bottom.

Suddenly there was a box being pushed into my stomach. I accepted it, blinking.

Lexi folded her arms. Her tits threatened to make a break for it, but the dam just barely held. “So… there you go. Was that little glimpse worth it?”

“Th-thank you.” For the first time in years, my voice broke. I cleared my throat, reasserting my incredible manliness.

She rolled her eyes, and nudged me back out the door. I took a moment to slow my breathing, staring through it, her smirk burned into my eyes along with the rest of her.

She was going to be OK.

As for me, I had a party to get to.

************************************************

“Cute costume! Can I get you a lasagna?”

“It’s not Garfield, jagoff. Name on the package was ‘Chubby Orange Kitty.’ This kitty thinks lasagna sucks. Always too much goddamn green pepper. Can’t taste anything else.”

“I was just trying to be nice. God, take a fucking compliment.”

“You didn’t even dress up. Almost nobody did. I feel like an idiot.”

“Well, you look like one. How you  like that.  Ah fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick. Honestly, I would’ve. Just didn’t think I’d still have a job come Halloween. By the time the new chick talked Prime back into the study, I’ve  been too busy catching up on my transcripting to go shopping for a costume.”

“Yeah, about that… What’s up with that? I thought we weren’t allowed to intervene. Like zero contact. Shit, I’ve seen some of them around campus. Rode the bus with 1453. She was all painty  and everything, jamming to her little earbuds.”

“Yeah, you told me. Like, three times. Me? Shit, during the detox a few weeks back, I was scared to fucking death 6818 was going to recognize me as the same dude who installed Higgins new ‘sidewalk lights’ in June. Guess people really don’t pay attention to a working man.”

“I’m just saying. Since when did the Director greenlight inviting Prime into staff apartments for tea and pep talks? Bad enough he figured out we’re watching them, but if he knows we’re listening, and we start responding, then we’re just… talking. Like, how do you conduct a study like this when–”

“Director Tacker!”

“(Shit.) Sir!”

“Oh, sit down, both of you. Uh, what the hell are you supposed to be?”

“He’s a knock-off Garfield. Won’t stop asking for a lasagna.”

“Costume looks chintzy. Have some pride, man. So. How’s the party going?”

“More fun for them than us, that’s for sure.”

“What, sitting around watching the boy get tag-teamed isn’t sufficiently stimulating for the two of you?”

“You know how it is with these big group meetings, sir. Hard to tell who anybody is. We’re sitting here looking at three dozen lumpy orange blobs. But we’ll sort it out.”

“I count three dozen and one.”

“Sir…?”

“(You, Garfield. He’s talking about you.)”

“Oh.”

“So, you boys had some questions about our research methods, I heard.”

“Um, no. It’s not my place to, you know, ask what we’re hypothesizing here.”

“Damn right it’s not. You’re a technician, not an anthropologist. But since it demeans me to pretend I wasn’t standing around the corner listening to you two bicker, let’s talk about it. The new girl. You have concerns.”

“ He  had concerns, sir.”

“(Why, you little…) Not questions. I just don’t understand.”

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“Isn’t she Prime’s ex-girlfriend? Wasn’t she advising him on his role in the experiment? I know I’m not one of your upstairs Hancock sexpert people, but surely that muddies the waters.”

“She was  an intern. Now she’s a researcher. She’s going to help us take all that techno-gibberish your team cobbles together and turn it into something meaningful. And yes, the two have history, but need I remind you we almost lost the entire damn project.”

“Forgive me, sir, but… you said that was a risk worth taking. Your exact words, if I recall. Purge the site of the compound, see if he’s serious about committing to the project. If he asks to get back in, great, and if not, then… I guess that proves… something?”

“And, there’s  our proof. Of something. What of it?”

“But Prime was ready to walk away. She talked him back into it. I realize she wasn’t officially on the team yet, but…”

“But… what.”

“(Dude, shut up!)”

“But I’ve been over the transcripts, sir. According to her, Prime authorized the return to pre-break compound levels during their meeting. Reading through some dialogue he had with 6818, there’s reason to think he didn’t change his mind until most of a week later. Not until after 5288 provoked him by getting caught redhanded with that little sign stunt.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning? Sir, come on. She  is the one who decided to reactivate him, days before he assented. The ejaculate 6818 distributed at last night’s party, he’d already built it back up to 0.6 ppm . Those girls are literally cum-drunk right now, and he’s hoping they’ll be barely tingling. Why bother with securing his consent if we’re going to bring in somebody who can and will go outside the loop to fabricate it?”

“Not that we – either of us – would ever question your hiring decisions, Director. We’re confident your people know what they’re doing.”

“Huh. That’s… hmm. Good work, Garfield. Send me those transcripts. That’s… just send them. Solid attention to detail. And you… mind the orange blobs.”

“Yes sir.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Phew, god he creeps me the hell out. Man, what are you even doing? All we have to do is sit here and stare at the screen and type our reports. Why would you stick your neck out like that?”

“I mean, if I’m going to spend a year of my life on this shit, I want the experiment to have some integrity.”

“Pff. Yeah, right. Because nothing says ‘integrity’ like conditioning teenage girls into a brainwashed harem.”

“We know the implant works, dumbass. Whatever our data is for, it’s not the tech. It’s something else. You aren’t even curious?”

“Not if it means pissing off Tacker, I’m not.”

“That new girl is up to something, I’m telling you. She’s playing a game. Whatever it is, she’s not on our team. Or his team.”

“Metaphors are for dickheads. It’s just a job, it’s not a team sport, so shut up and watch these blobs with me.”

“You’re a blob.”

“Shut up, blobby cat.”

“You shut up.”

“Blob.”

“At least I wore a costume.”

“Dickhead blob.”

“God I hate when we’re on a shift together.”

“ OK shut  up. Prime’s finally heading to the lounge. Get your popcorn.”

“Candy corn.”

“What?”

“It’s Halloween, man.”

“All right, whatever. Candy corn, then. Let’s see what 6818’s cum punch was worth.”

“Bet you he fucks every last one of ‘em.”

“No bet.”

Supplemental Materials

Thanks so much for your support. I had so much fun writing this book! As a token of my appreciation, I’m including exclusively in this version of the book a catalog of reference images for the characters of the series, as well as the Higgins 3 floor plan (if, like me, you want to know who’s rooming next to whom). This roster is as of beach day, omitting Quinn after her removal from 301, and the departure of the Three in volume I.

Higgins 3 Floor Plan

Higgins Hotties

Amy (300)

Katrina (301)

(revised)

Quinn (301)

(Removed from Higgins Hall)

Georgia (302)

Kendall (302)

Andi (304)

Jean (304)

Ellie (305)

Tori (305)

Dawn (306)

Kyu-Ri (306)

Terri (307)

Toni (307)

Casey (308)

Nikki (308)

Jordyn (309)

Spencer Lawrence

310

Destiny (311)

Charlie (311)

Leigh (312)

Angel (312)

Peyton (313)

Sydney (313)

Shauna (314)

Jacqui (315)

Sammi (315)

Jo (316)

Lex (316)

(Revised, post-op)

Emma (317)

Danielle (318)

Dana (318)

Dana’s mom (non-resident)

Addison, Allison and Maddison

or

Addison, Maddison and Addison

or

Allison, Addison and Maddison

or

Allison, Maddison and Addison

or

Maddison, Addison and Allison

or

Maddison, Allison and Addison

(319)

Higgins Staff, et al.

Savannah Grey (RA, Higgins Basement)

(Revised)

Vickie (RA, Higgins Ground)

(Revised)

Carmen (RA, Higgins 1)

Vanessa (RA, Higgins 2)

Janis (RA, Higgins 4)

Ramona Tinsley (Hall manager, Higgins Hall)

Marisa Gutierrez (Intern, Hancock Institute)