The RA

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 tomorrow 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 merited 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.”

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 pumps like 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 all.”

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 somebody around here has.”

“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!

“Cool. So we got some tissue paper, black and orange, to put over the lights. Make it spooky but like Scooby Doo 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 its sheep eyeballs, that kind of thing. Low cost, low cleanup. Sort of cheesy, but nothing wrong with some of that.”

“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 haunted house sound effect vibe, or 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 a flier, go around and do announcements?” I winced, but I hoped humorously. “Or I could just bellow it down the hallway again.”

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 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. 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.

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

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 bloat from my fast food run with Ramona 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 his work with the leafblower. It was trivial and light and perfectly banal.

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 an adaptation for an uncommon name, a canned joke to stave off all the “can I see your tag , Price? hurr hurr” types of crap he’d 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.”

“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 right through the 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 just checking on in people. How ya doing, how are classes, that work order get cleared up?, 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 PREY ON WEAK SLUTS!

It took me a good four seconds to realize where the sign had come from. My hands clenched around it, crumpling it, tearing it halves, quarters, eighths, confetti.

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.

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 that…?

Had she really referred to the rest of the community as weak sluts ?!

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

As a younger man, I’d been kind of a dick.

It’s the sort of thing people who meet me, get to know who I am now, and 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 did fine. And 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, and girls who didn’t were bitches, uggos, or both.

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 yourself 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. No, what I learned 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 they’d made me take a class and go through two torturous weeks of training during my summer vacation to learn about crap 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.

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. Brad. I’d liked Brad. He was a chill dude, decent wide receiver. Before I knew it, Brad told me he was gay. Nobody had ever come out to me before. In the years to come, I’d learn I’d had a gay friend in high school, one who’d never felt comfortable outing himself. Brad, he’d had support back home from family and friends, but at Lakeview he was struggling with it.

I didn’t have a clue what to do. As I grappled with the simple task of not being an asshole, I remembered 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). 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 there. And yet somehow, I hadn’t turned gay, been harassed or even flirted with. Just… people being people. 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 felt great.

So I started chasing that feeling. Selfish, I guess, but I’ve never wanted to live in a world where we shame people for 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. If they didn’t want to play, I’d round them up for dinner later. I started paying attention to facial expressions, body language. When we came back from winter break for more RA training, I paid attention. I tried to understand the rules as more than just arbitrary requirements, but tools for making Rowland a better place to live. Some rules 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 – the opposite, 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. 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, 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 attention? Because I’d made some kind of impression on the wrong member of Marisa’s work friend circle? Or did they just reach out to Bob and ask him for a total sap who’d do anything to ingratiate himself?

Whatever it was, I’d done my goddamn 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 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. Me, I’d built an accepting, loving, judgment-free zone that promoted peak academic success, and if I’d gotten to have some thrills 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, but you can’t reason with people who are dunking on you for sport. Maybe she hadn’t been the one drawing dicks and spurting powder, but plainly she was in support of it.

Two days was a long time to 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. She was already in costume, which was a kitty tail clipped onto her jeans, some whiskers drawn 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 wrote it up. She’d offered to when I unloaded it all on her, but we’d talked one another down.

Ramona had scared up a punch bowl for me, 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 water bottles. Katrina restricted her conversating to Ramona, and if it was awkward, 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 punch bowl.

People began to filter in. Charlie, dressed in a 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 say 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 cute her 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.

Tori arrived late to her own program. Gauche, in my opinion. I didn’t recognize her costume. My first impression was something out of The Handmaid’s Tale . She didn’t seek me out any more than I meant to approach 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 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. The both of us glanced 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 weak slut floormates.

I forced a smile. “Here you go.” I handed her 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 rufies.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just opened it – haven’t even sipped. God, Tori, do you really think I’d try to date rape one of you?”

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 frathouse. 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.

“Nah. Been there, done that.”

“You don’t say,” she remarked dryly, downing the last of her cup of punch. “Well there’s enough in the punch 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.”

“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. “Regardless, we’ll have plenty more opportunities, if tonight doesn’t prove to be the jumpstart we hope for.”

“Looks like. Still not sure how I feel about–”

“Master…!”

“I’m not equivocating again, relax. At this point, I just want to get things moving.”

Ramona put her arm around my waist. At this point, it didn’t really matter if anyone saw. “I’m still surprised you relented without asking after Casey, 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, face this united.” I put my arm around my boss, my hand right on her ass.

“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.

It had been a long two days. 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 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 that 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.

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 in particular, but all I’d been able to make myself see was checking for a pulse – 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, but no big gestures.

Then I went back and relived it the way Ramona would have seen it, and I finally realized what I’d done. After a few minutes, nothing I was doing was producing results any more. I’d thought I was watching – maybe had already watched – this spunky, clever, warm, beautiful, unfathomably groovy girl die. I hadn’t even processed yet that if she had, I would have been at least in part to blame. She lay there, motionless, slackjawed, bleeding, and all I could do was hope the EMTs could 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 58 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!), it was a pittance. 58 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 she’d taken the bottle I offered her, shown the slightest inclination towards trust and reconciliation…

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. As the great Deepak Chopra had said, though, you accept things as they are, not as you wish they were in this moment. 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 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 dude in my room. I’d volunteered to help lead RA training to be of use, yes, but also to build up my resume and, if I’m being honest, 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 weeks, even months for some. 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.

If that meant doing like my boss, my lover, my slave, 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.

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

“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, 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.

“We wanted to make sure there were enough seats.” 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.”

Jo shook her head. No Lexi, but she looked pissed enough for both. Less pissed than normal, though? She’d drank a lot of punch. “An apology isn’t going to make up for what you did.”

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?”

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.

“So again, I’m sorry. Anybody who’d like a more specific or lengthy 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 that “everything in my power” was 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.”

Excitement was building, though as Tori became more obvious about riding 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.

I brushed her hair to clear a path to her 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 use whatever bathrooms again. And showers. You can use the nozzles again to get yourself off 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…? “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…”

“We can fuck him again?” Tori said. It sounded like a guess, but it had been her demand, in fact. She’d called it a dealbreaker if I even thought about pushing back.

“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 as gently as her panicked thrashing would allow on her knees. Suddenly I was out in the open air. Tori lunged, mouth open, but I backed off to keep out of her tasting range. When my back hit the wall, I planted a firm hand on her desperate forehead.

“No, Tori. Not until you say the rest.”

“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.

“Whatever you want, just let meeeee…!” she groveled.

In the middle of the gather, a girl stood up. Casey, wearing a massively oversized white t-shirt that hung most of the way to her knees. She could have fit three of herself in there. She stepped carefully through the crowd, careful to miss where Charlie was sprawled, eyes lazily sealed as the gorgeous blonde amateur eroticist 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.

Until she removed it from her wrist, I hadn’t even noticed the choker. She unclasped it, then knelt down and wrapped it around Tori’s throat. “Tell us 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, this time held back by her floormate’s grip on her choker.

“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,” announced Tori, eyes questing up towards mine penitently. “I’m your choker girl, Spencer. You win.”

I gestured, and Casey knelt down facing her floor governor, massive tits brushing against massive tits.

“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 move 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, slobbering lips. They 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 nightgown that was far too skimpy to have 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.

Before I knew it, Katrina was crawling across the lounge, joining Casey and Tori at the thrusting end of my cock. She retrieved the choker from Casey’s other wrist and swept her hair aside, fastening it 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.

“I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me.”

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 ecstacy 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. I let Tori have the first taste of me, which she shared generously with her vice governor and the leader of her rival political party. By the time they’d brought me around again, I stroked the girls’ hair until I pried their attention from their diplomatic unity.

“Should we share, do you think?”

The three locked eyes. Tori nodded first, then Casey, then Katrina. 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. They 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.

“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? 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.