The Creep

Chapter Nine

The halls of the Lakeview University chapter of Delta Alpha Theta were quieter that Saturday evening. Senior dedications and wills had happened a week before, and closing ceremonies the previous night. A handful of girls were cleared to remain for summer school, though their rooms were clustered on the floor below. The officers had dispensation to come and go at their leisure, though only the vice president had exercised that freedom.

The door to the vice presidential suite was closed and locked like every other room on the floor. Two suitcases sat on the bed, both full to the brim with clothes and personal effects, though they’d scarcely put a dent in the closet’s contents. Books and notebooks, pens and pencils, odds and ends sat tucked neatly in drawers, under the bed, in the vacant spaces of the broad closet. The corkboard was a field of rectangles from where photos had blocked the sun since the new vice president took residence there last winter and filled it with pictures of her family, friends, sisters and lover. With one exception (a shot of the room’s occupant and her former bunkmate silhouetted together against the Beta Theta Beta fall bonfire, their first “date” date), the pictures sat in an envelope in the desk drawer.

It was a tidy room, per its occupant’s preferences. The room was poised to await her return in the fall. Everything was in its place.

Almost everything.

Every surface in the room lay bare, with but three exceptions. A lamp sat on the nightstand with a stained glass lampshade affecting the sky of Starry Night . Even that had been lifted so the dust beneath its legs could be wiped away. A matchbook sat on a shelf high above the desk, contraband even for house officers (though less so than the handgun recently moved into her suitcase). The matches had been concealed there three occupants back and were never discovered by her successors. And on the desk sat a bottle of tequila. Two bright pink spots graced the neck of the bottle on opposite sides. One was in the clear shape of a lip print; seeing that would prompt most observers to recognize the other as the same, only smudged horizontally to where it met the other. Its label, peeling slightly, read Vagabundo de Medianoche  and was framed in decals of phases of the moon. It was not a fresh bottle, two thirds of its original contents long since drained, but the cap was on, and would remain so.

The bottle had its own story to tell. The occupant of the room, DAT house’s vice president, already knew that story, though. Knew it so well she was almost tired of replaying it in her mind. Yet try as she might, she couldn’t pry her eyes away.

It was a day earlier, the afternoon of the final days of finals week, finally. The sorority imposed twenty-four hour quiet hours the entire week of finals to promote studying, and only in the past hour had people finally begun to play music, socialize in the halls, and restore DAT life to DAT house. Stacey had no part in it; she already had enough noise inside her head that the ruckus outside was too much. Only then, there was a knock.

“Enter,” she said after a moment.

Bryleigh timidly leane around the door, only enough so her face could be seen. “Boss? There’s some girl downstairs, says she needs to talk to you about something.”

Stacey Reeves halted her packing to face the sister in the doorway of her bedroom. “About what?” As always, she’d made sure the right side of the closet was closed before granting permission to enter. Everyone, even Sherri, knew to knock before entering the VP suite. She remembered the words she’d used upon announcing it after some idiot pledge got herself drummed right out for being too friendly. If your head’s on fire and the only extinguisher is in my room, then and only then do you have my permission – to knock insistently . But still knock.

“I asked, but she wouldn’t say. Has kind of a creepy vibe if you ask me, all glary. Happy to show her the garden if you want.” Bryleigh’s impish grin was at her final chance to employ a choice bit of DAT jargon for the academic year. The origin was from before the girl’s time, the year Stacey had pledged. Some freshman reject who couldn’t take no for an answer had at last been invited to wait out back in the garden to have her “rebuttal” addressed; there, the remote activated sprinklers had been set on her. It was quite the slight in the digital age, all the classic thrill of bullying someone without looking at them while still imposing immediate physical consequences as in days of yore. It would have made DAT legacies proud.

“ She  have a name?”

“Naomi, she said. Kinda short, blonde, dressed on the dollar menu?” Bryleigh wrinkled her nose. Stacey tried to ignore the disdain. The Reeves weren’t a poor family by any means, but she knew most of her sisters came from a lot more money than she had. Still, she knew as well as they did that she smoked all but maybe one or two from her pledge class on curb appeal, and likewise on her academics. Bryleigh, on the other hand, was a portrait of wealth without even having to paint below the neck. Nose job, too perfect teeth, cold fusion hair extensions – and, Stacey noted pridefully, the reflection of a mediocre boob job in her oily fucking cheeks. Even so, the cost of it all wasn’t a jot on the donations her alumni parents were donating.

Still, Stacey thought, they could have sprung for some decent toner and moisturizer for their kid. She tried not to hate, but Bryleigh had taken Stacey’s old spot with Sherri when she’d been bumped up into the VP suite. It had been a whole big fight, Sherri wanting her to stay, Stacey not ready to out  them to the  whole house, and now it was Bryleigh who got to sleep four feet above her every night. It wasn’t the girl’s fault, but Stacey hated her a little anyway.

So, Martin’s girlfriend was here? What the hell could she want? Surely he hadn’t been stupid enough to tell her what they’d actually been doing. The woman had to know something – or else be the biggest idiot to ever idiot their way out of Lakeview. Maybe Martin had an amazing alibi for why he needed his apartment to himself for a couple hours several nights a week, but it would be a rare woman who’d swallow that load.

(Not that Stacey knew anything about swallowing loads.)

(The sonofabitch had really turned her down? It was still hard to puzzle out.)

As for Naomi, while neither she nor her boyfriend would ever get the satisfaction of knowing, Stacey had looked into her. Tricky without a last name to get her started, but there were only so many Naomi’s in the area. It was all right there on her social media. Interests: food, music, travel, movies. Former major: undeclared. Employers included Target, Sandy’s Tanning Salon, and that pizzeria they’d closed Stacey’s freshman year because some disgruntled employee had been shitting in the oven and the place could never recover from the revelation, a rare scoop by the student press at the Lakeview Storyteller. (Stacey presumed the unnamed employee was not Naomi.) Her hometown was even smaller than Stacey’s, some rural nowhere that the girl had been lucky to escape even if it was just to work at a bigger Target than back home.

The research had all been to her satisfaction. Nothing the least bit threatening to her plans. Frankly, the woman had been an asset. Martin having something cute to bust his nut on kept him from growing emotionally attached to Stacey herself. They could charge one another up in their respective ways, and discharge (so to speak) on their respective girlfriends. It was an ideal arrangement. Why hadn’t she arranged it herself?

But now she was here in Stacey’s home, “all glary,” the day before her big day with Martin. If it was that. Ugh, this was all so confusing. “Tell her I’ll be down in a bit. Offer her something to drink, be DAT  hostess.”

“You got it, boss.” Bryleigh made sure the door shut tight behind her.

It was twenty minutes before Stacey headed downstairs. Most of that time had been hair and makeup – nothing elaborate, but making sure hairs were in place, flaws concealed flawlessly. Overdoing it would have ruined the effect; Naomi would deduce in a hot second that Stacey had been upstairs hurriedly assembling her best look as an intimidation play, and there was nothing intimidating about a try-hard. No, Stacey would present her normal, gorgeous self, and let the sight of effortless perfection do the work for her.

Naomi was still in the lobby, not the lounge that Bryleigh had assuredly offered her. No drink, either. No one was watching her, though women were usually trusted on their own recognizance downstairs. DAT sisterhood might be exclusive, but it was less exclusive where their own sex was concerned. She was on her phone, browsing her insta or something judging by the way her thumb was lazily scrolling, and looked bored. The moment she heard Stacey’s heels on the oak stairs, though, that glare returned.

“Naomi, hi,” she said, trying to act as though this were some strange but intriguing surprise. “Oh, I love your earrings.”

A smile cracked the girl’s façade for a mere fraction of a second, but it did crack. A compliment from a beautiful woman landed as well on a woman as a man. Disarming. “We need to talk,” she said imperiously.

Stacey made her wait until she hit the bottom of the stairs. No sense starting this where anybody eavesdropping on the popular veep might overhear any of it. The walls had ears in a sorority house. “Sure. Why don’t you follow me, and we’ll talk somewhere private. All right?”

“Lead the way.” Naomi gestured.

Once upon a time, the room off the basement meeting hall had been where DAT women had conducted their most secret activities. Financial planning and action for the house, of course; pledge selection and rankings, as well as officer inductions later in the year; rituals, such as last month’s trial of loyalty to determine whether DAT house blessed Aurora’s desire to accept her boyfriend’s proposal; brutal, at times humiliating, hazing rites that had probably attracted a ghost or two to the quiet chamber. Most recently, it had been converted to a hydroponic garden so that Amelia could keep the sisters supplied with weed – something she’d proven quite bad at, actually. DAT house had needed to bring in a pest control team to solve the problem, which had cost them an arm and a leg for the team to do it in the middle of the night on a Wednesday so nobody else on Greek row saw them come and go. Now it was a big empty room with dim lighting and a long table, but most importantly, no reason for anyone to come in or even come by.

“Am I supposed to be scared or something, you bringing me into this creepy room?”

Stacey actually hadn’t intended that, but it probably wasn’t a bad thing. “No, I just wanted someplace private. So you’d feel more comfortable speaking freely.”

“So you wouldn’t have your little girlfriends overhearing, more like,” Naomi countered. An accurate counter, annoyingly enough. “‘Cause I bet they’d, like, totally for sure be supes  excited to find out what you’re hiding under that trenchcoat when you skulk out of here at night.”

Stacey ignored the cliché sorority girl imitation. She’d heard more cutting from people who didn’t even hate her. “I don’t know what you want to talk about, so I’m not sure whether that’s even necessary. Why don’t you start with what it is you’re doing in my house?”

“You know damn well what I’m doing here.” Two hands planted themselves on admittedly sumptuous hips. The girl was at least a little bit hotter than Stacey cared to admit. Certainly more than she would ever acknowledge. “You and Martin.”

“What about me and Martin?”

“Don’t play innocent. I know exactly what you two are up to.”

“Oh?” Stacey’s face was a case study in gaslighting.

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ Your fucked up little experiment? Hypnotizing you into being straight? Or bi, or whatever. ‘Wanting to fuck him,’ he said. But yeah. He told me. ‘Oh.’”

“And?” Stacey gestured for her to get on with it, as if none of that were out of the ordinary. Growing up, she remembered watching The 300  with her dad, one of his favorite movies. Give them nothing, take from them everything  had become one of her life mottos. It lay buried right down there with all of the girl’s boyfriend’s kinky little mantras.

“And? And, now that he’s done what you asked, I know you’ve been using him as your personal practice dummy. Don’t even try to deny it, bitch.”

“OK. So?”

Obviously the girl hadn’t counted on Stacey caring so little about her little tantrum. It took her a moment to find words. “So, he’s my fucking boyfriend, you slut! I don’t know how you lezzies do  it. Maybe you swap back and forth or something. I don’t. You crossed a big, dark, scary fucking line when you touched my man, and now, you got me to deal with.”

Right, that was why she hadn’t pushed him to get a girlfriend. She knew there’d been a reason.

Stacey answered, bored. “So you want to fight me or something, is that it? Pull my hair out, spit in my face, that kinda thing? Because I’ll tell you, he’s not worth it to me. If he was going to tell you anything,” something Stacey’s expression clearly conveyed that none of her business would ever be Naomi’s, “he ought to have included that he had until today to get the job done. So he and I are done. He’s all yours.”

This was a lie. An enormous lie. Still, it might stall her, give Stacey the summer to break them up and clear the needed space. Unfortunately, her lie missed Naomi’s real objective. “Fight you? Why, so you can scream and have your ‘sisters’ run down here gang up on me? I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Then what do you want?”

“How about an apology, for starters?”

That one caught her by surprise, and she couldn’t hold in her laugh. “Apologize? To you? Might I refer you to the legal precedent of Finders v. Keepers , in which the Supreme Court roundly ruled that I got there first.”

Naomi gathered herself up, stepped up so close that Stacey thought she might get her hair pulled after all. “Girls like you… you don’t even know. You never think about regular people. You’re so up your own ass, you know? Just because you’re rich, and hot, and clever, and everybody kisses your ass all the time, you don’t even think about what it feels like to be other people.”

Stacey twisted her head, including just enough of a lean forward so that the girl wouldn’t miss that Stacey was literally looking down on her. “So tell me then, how it feels to be… other people.”

The girl’s head shook slowly. “Have you ever had a guy – girl, whatever – cheat on you?”

“No.”

“Always the cheater, never the cheatee , yeah? Well it fucking sucks, OK? You have no idea what it feels like knowing that whenever I’m with him, he could be thinking of you. When his eyes close, wondering if he’s imagining that’s your  mouth on him. When he rushes me at the door, not knowing if it’s because he’s hot for me or because you warmed him up.”

“Sounds dreadful.”

Stacey’s disregard intensified the girl’s tightly leashed rage. “Before you came along, that guy fucking worshipped  me! Do you know the lengths he went to, trying to get me to be in his creepy little act? To stay in it? To let him practice his stuff on me? I’ve had roommates who paid a lower share of my rent!”

“Wow. You sound like the best girlfriend money can buy.”

Stacey actually heard a knuckle cracking as it balled into a fist and wondered if she were  pushing too hard. Would anybody actually hear her scream down here? Probably not. “Yeah, ha ha, right? One of us nobodies got her heart broken by her creep boss. Must be real  funny to a bitch like you.”

Despair, self-pity. Good. Those weren’t dangerous. If she reported to Martin’s tomorrow covered in fresh bruises and scratches, it would not play well. If she wanted to play. Did she? This was all so insane!

Meanwhile Stacey examined the nails on her left hand, all disinterest. “You know, the first time I ever talked to him was right after one of your shows. Did he tell you that? At that comedy club by the courthouse. I saw a flier in the student center, wanted to see if la Mesmer was the kind of resource I needed. You two were good together. I really believed you were just another audience volunteer at first. Thought la  Mesmer had gotten real lucky to have some stacked blonde in the crowd, one brave enough to raise her hand. Had me fooled. But it didn’t take the whole induction to see you’re a fake.”

“Bullshit. People swallow that shit whole.”

“See, that’s your real problem, Naomi. You can’t see through your own lies. If you even know you’re lying to yourself. Me? I know exactly who I am, what I’ve done, what I’m after. But you, you come in here talking shit, calling me a bitch, trying to make me feel sorry for you? But you never actually let him in your head. You know what I think? Tell me how well I’m reading between the lines.”

“I don’t care what–”

“I think you knew exactly what he and I were doing before you ever started fucking him. Martin told me he was practicing for me, and I can only assume that meant on you . Is that right? Are you my practice dummy’s practice  dummy? Is that where all that rent money was coming from, bilking your ‘one true love’ to help him get good enough to be what I needed?”

Naomi’s jaw was snapped shut, trembling, as Stacey pressed her attack. “You think you know about girls like me? Well let me tell you what I know about girls like you. Girls like you see a guy like Martin with a woman like me, and they just can’t handle it. Like a dog, you told yourself ‘well she wouldn’t be eating it if it didn’t taste good’ so you dug right in, didn’t care if it was edible, didn’t care that my drool was all over it. You scarfed down my leftovers because  they were my leftovers. So you can come in here, accusing me of cheating and asking me to feel bad for you, but you know what? You only snatched him up because you wanted people to think you were me.”

Stacey bent down until their foreheads touched. Naomi flinched, but the sorority girl took a firm hold and kept her there. Her voice was practically a whisper. “I didn’t have to twist his arm to hypnotize me. He was happy to. He was still happy to after  you started going out. Do you know why? Because I actually wanted him to be him. I let Martin la Mesmer Manning work his magic on me in a way you never did, never could. No matter how much you charged for it. Was I supposed to give up what he and I both wanted because some nobody decided to throw herself in our way? Hell no.

“So yeah, I cheated. Hell, Nay-nay, I didn’t just cheat on your man – ohoho, and I bet he hasn’t even told you some of the wild shit he and I’ve done. Some of it right upstairs! I haven’t even changed the sheets yet. But yeah, I cheated on my own girlfriend, too. I’ve lied to her, hurt her, all so I could get my own selfish fucking rocks off. And I’m gonna do worse before it’s over.

“You call Martin creepy? You don’t even know what kinda creep you’re talking to. So if you thought you could come into DAT house and throw yourself a pity party with me in attendance…” She flashed a patently sorority girl smile and matched it in a chipper tone. “Mm, I’m sorry, but that’s not very cash  money of you . Mkay?”

Stacey released her, but slowly, and took a step back. The woman was floored, eyes popping out of her head. “Now. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

She folded her arms across her chest, flashing the smuggest, most condescending look she knew how. Even Bryleigh would have been proud. Check and mate. If this were a story, that would be the exact moment for a scene transition. Done. Over. Next thing.

“Well since you asked… there was one other  little thing.”

“And what’s that.” A weary sigh followed.

Naomi withdrew her cell phone from her pocket, thumbed it on. With rapidly waning patience, Stacey watched her tap buttons, swipe, but finally, she held up the phone where it could be seen. On the screen was a picture of Stacey in her French maid outfit. She looked to be dusting the window sill with the uniform’s feather duster, of all things, ass  presented to the camera. After giving her a moment to process, and wondering just when and how the little cunt got her hands on such a thing – though there could only be one answer – she swiped again, and again, through a series of photos that all amounted to about the same thing.

“Pretty hot, huh? Who knew you got off on that stuff, right? But you should hear the video – it’s even better. ‘Oh Martin baby, pwetty pwease let me come, oh, gawd…!’” Naomi put a hand to her forehead, feigning a swoon. “Freak.”

“Did he give you those, or were you snooping on his phone and stole  them?”

The girl’s eyes glittered in the dimly lit room, but it was the glitter of a girl who’d been given an idea, not one who’d already had one. “Wouldn’t you love to know.”

“Are there more?”

“Of course there’s more!”

“So show me. What else you  got?”

“Look, I don’t have all day to–”

But like at that hypnosis show, Stacey had already seen through her. “I don’t think you do. I think that little selection is all you have. But sure, I’ll bite. So you have compromising pictures of me. Now what?”

“Now you start showing me a little fucking respect, bitch. I bet pics like this would fetch a high price. Lotta guys around here who’d love to see Little Miss Thang strutting around in her slutty outfit. Outfits, I mean.”

“I’m genuinely curious how you foresee that business enterprise going. You  going door to door, or putting an ad on Craigslist for slutty Stacey pics, so I can just have you arrested for it?”

Naomi sneered. “Who says I have to sell them? I could just print off a thousand copies and throw them out the window of my car during freshman move-in week with your name, address and phone number on them. And while you’re fending off a thousand horny geeks breathing into their phones at you, we’ll see how your ‘sisters’ like the fallout from that .”

“OK, or…?”

“Or what?”

Stacey rolled her eyes. “If you were going to do that, you would do it and not sit there with your thumb up your butt talking about doing it. So what’s the alternative? If you’re going to blackmail me, you have to name the terms so I can decide if I want to go along with it.”

“Well for one, stay the fuck away from Martin.”

“Which I already told you I’d do. Is that it?”

“And… I want… ten thousand dollars!”

The number had been made up on the fly, it was clear. How had the girl imagined this confrontation going? Clearly she’d thought she’d be in the driver’s seat, and now that she’d been knocked off her game plan she was winging it, and terribly. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so offensive. “No.”

“No? You don’t think I’ll release them? And, and not just these. All of them!”

“No, I believe you, but I don’t have that kind of money. And frankly, if I did, I still wouldn’t.”

“Yeah? What about when your girlfriend finds out?”

“When my girlfriend finds out I look hot in a slutty costume? Believe me, she knows.”

“When she finds out you were dressing up like this for someone else! For a man! When she finds out you’ve spent this whole year trying to hypno yourself straight !”

“She’ll be hurt, I suppose. But you know, I’m pretty good at make-up sex. I think she’d take me back. And if she doesn’t, hey, I guess I could always just replace her with your boyfriend if I want, huh.”

“Look at you. You put up a brave front, but I think you’re scared shitless I’ll do it.” Naomi transparently thought no such thing. She wished for it, but Stacey had given her no grounds to expect that she would be intimidated.

She threw her hands up. “You know what? Release them. I’ll tell people the costume was for a Halloween party. If you really have a video, then I guess I’ll have to say I brought somebody back to my room and the fucker violated my privacy by recording me putting on a show. Jennifer Lawrence and ScarJo survived their leaks, and they had their tits out – and still star in movies that little kids watch. I’ll have a shitty week, and then life will go on.”

Stacey held her breath, waiting for the girl to reveal any of a thousand other images that would be impossible to explain away, or unfathomably more humiliating. What would she do if it turned out Martin had been sneaking pics of her this whole time? Security had been paramount early on, but once he’d finally gotten her in a real trance, the tape provided a recording to put herself under without his help. It was dizzyingly meta, recording him hypnotizing her so she could hypnotize herself and play a recording of her own self-authored mantras. Smart, though. It had made sure a few hard barriers were established, lines she wouldn’t cross no matter how craftily he delved inside her head. A damn good thing she had, too, or she probably would’ve fucked him already.

(Or would she? What did  she want?!)

Since then, though, she’d let her security slide. When was the last time she’d even bothered to set the camera up? Months, probably. Months of the most damning imaginable blackmail footage, if he’d had a mind to take it. God, she prayed it was a one-time thing.

“Fuck you!” the girl shrieked. She violently shoved Stacey aside, but that was all. Then she was gone.

That was it, then. Prayer answered. Yes , sayeth the Lord.

Stacey took a few breaths, trying to fight down a fit of triumphant giggles, but finally shrugged and let them out. She’d trampled that stupid little twat. Finally, she composed herself and exited the secret room.

Where Sherri stood with a wounded expression that needed no words to explain.

The following afternoon, the door to Martin Manning’s apartment swung soundlessly open. He ought to have been anticipating it – Stacey had said she was on her way – but he’d lost the time again.

“Heya, Mesmer. I–” She froze. “What’s wrong? You look like dog shit. That then got eaten by the same dog and shit out again.”

“Thanks. You look like trash, too.” He rolled his eyes at his own pronouncement. “God damnit, no, you look insanely hot as always. Fuck, but you’re unfair.”

“Oh, you say the sweetest things.” She eased herself down onto the couch, leaving a respectable space between them. Not the least of which was because she probably worried the wads of tissues littering the living room floor were from his nose rather than his eyes. “So what’s up?”

“I’m fine. It’s fine. Look, you didn’t come over here to listen to me–”

“Freaking tell me or I’ll go get my gun out of the car and torture it out of you.” She did smile, though, softly.

“That’s a really fucked up thing to say, you know.”

“Kneecaps, Martin. Think of your precious kneecaps.”

After a sulky pause, he let out a breath. May as well. “Naomi and I broke up.”

It was a little surprising, how unsurprised she was. “Yeah, that makes sense. Last night, I assume?” He nodded glumly. “Was it something to do with us?”

“No, we just couldn’t reconcile her love of country music with my preference for vintage death metal. Of course it was us! What else would it be?” He’d snapped, and moderated his tone hastily. “Sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m just… blergh. I was up all night feeling sorry for myself and now I’m just… Anyway, yeah. There’s  how my weekend’s going . How about you? But you really wanna fuck me now that I’m a drunk, sobbing loser, huh?”

“You’re drunk?”

He pointed to a bottle of kahlua on the end table. “Help yourself. Still some left.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Oh right, you had your, whaddayacallit . Lunch. Stacey’s parents warm up to you any?”

“Stacey’s parents love me, thanks. Sherri’s  parents, on the other hand… I don’t think they have a very strong opinion of me.”

His neck bent so he could see her. “Oh no! Didn’t go well?”

“We didn’t go.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Stacey’s hands fidgeted in her lap. “We had a fight last night. So I can only assume she and her folks went without me.”

Martin fought to sit himself back up. “Oh man, it’s making the freaking rounds. Do you wanna talk about it? What’d you fight about? You guys seemed so close. Fuckable titties like yours, I can’t imagine she could stay mad long.”

It earned him an eyeroll. Someday he’d get tired of the freedom to address her like that, but it hadn’t happened yet. “Believe it or not, we don’t titty-fuck as often as you think. Besides, you’ve never even met her. ‘You guyth theem   clothe .’ You ass. And we weren’t ‘close.’ I spent the whole first half of the year having a perfectly enjoyable live-in fuck buddy, but no, she had to go and get attached. It was either let her play wifey or lose her, so I caved. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t.”

“Whoa. So then what happened? She get  tired of being strung along, or…?” Immediately hooked by this tantalizing soap opera teaser, he leaned in until a thought occurred to him. “Oh crap, this isn’t about us and our thing, is it?”

“You know, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since we’re sharing, as it so happens it was your girlfriend. Your ex -girlfriend, I should say. She stopped by DAT house yesterday afternoon to confront me.”

“Oh shit! Oh my god, I’m so sorry! It’s… Oh shit, it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault! See, we were hanging out yesterday morning. Ya know, in bed, if you catch my meaning.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over how fuckable my titties are.” She punched his arm. It wasn’t entirely playful. “You were fucking. Got it. Go on.”

“Yeah. And anyway she… well , this is weird to talk about, but… she’s had this weird thing since like forever  where she, ah, sorta wanted to… um…”

“Martin, I swear to god, use your big boy words or I really will deck you.”

“She wanted us to have a threesome,” he blurted, holding up defensive hands. “You and me and her. She sorta thought, once we were done with the experiment, we might… yeah. And since you said once, when you were tranced, you had one planned, and–”

“I said what ?!”

“You said you had a threesome planned! This was forever ago, last year – I’ve barely thought about it since then,” he lied. “But since we were, you know, trying to make you wanna… you know, I guess I indulged her little fantasy about how things might turn out.” There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes, so he rushed on, hoping to dispel whatever he’d said wrong. “But I’d been lying to her about how things were going because I knew she’d freak out, and she was trying to push me into getting you to do things that you didn’t want, and… well, believe me when I say Naomi had some pretty particular ideas about your role in the threesome…”

“She did, did she?”

He nodded. “Kind of a dom-sub thing. Her dom, I mean. I think she was sort of jealous of you, and wanted to take you down a peg or something. Anyway, I’d been acting like I was going along with what she wanted because it was easier than telling her what we were actually doing, but finally yesterday she was going down on me and it caught up to me and all at once I got to feeling  bad for all the bullshit, so I told her the truth. Kind of.”

“Kind of. What’s kind of?”

“Pretty much I made sure she understood she shouldn’t expect to see you kneeling before her mistress.” He grimaced. “And she got mad and wanted to know why I’d been lying to her, and then all sorts of stuff came out.”

“Like?”

“Not the nitty gritty, but that things had gone well – or I thought they had, I’m sure you’ll tell me – and… Oh, you’ll love this. She and I got to rehash the same argument you and I had about conversion therapy, and you’ll be glad to know she’s solidly on your side and thinks I’m a hypocritical prick. Then I called her a manipulative asshole. Almost used the b-word, but smooth save, right? My mom would be proud.”

Martin snatched the bottle from the end table and took a long, brooding drink. “Well it sounds like it pissed her off enough to have her storm out my way and try to start a fight. Which I managed to prevent, except somebody tipped off Sherri that some pissed off chick was there for me, so she snuck down after us to make sure I didn’t get jumped or something. So in the process of telling off Naomi, Sherri basically heard everything, or enough of it, and when I wouldn’t fill in the blanks she basically went nuclear.”

“Oh god. Oh my god, that sucks. Is nuclear common for her, or…?”

“Sherri’s the kind of girl who apologizes when she’s interrupted. You could knock her over with a feather.”

“Oh man.”

“Speaking of, one of the little gems Naomi ambushed me with was a bunch of pictures of me in a French maid uniform. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“That little…!” He paled. “Fucking hell. That’s on me. She was getting suspicious, and pushy, and… Shit. I let her Zoom me during one of our sessions. Just once. I only did it because she was driving me crazy with all these questions and suggestions and insinuations – but I never thought she’d take souvenirs!”

“Only once. You’re sure?”

He nodded seriously. “She eavesdropped on part of another session a while before that, but I had an eye on her. That’s it. Geez, I can hardly believe she would do something like that, though. So what happened with  the pictures?”

“She seemed awfully stoked to show me the ones she had and totally unwilling to show she had even one other, so I kinda guessed that was it. They’re bad, but they’re PG-13. Skanky, but you should see some of the pics from the CEO’s and Secretary Hoes party last year. And girls posted those on purpose. I don’t think she’ll actually do it. It’d be bad for me, but that kind of crazy leaves a stink that she doesn’t want on her. Wouldn’t surprise me if she jumped some dude she works with or something and fucked it out of her system already.”

“Hey now. I’m right here.” Still, this was no time to be defending her. “I can’t believe she did that. Maybe I can get her to delete them? Or it’s probably better I don’t say anything until she calms down. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK. Hopefully I can keep Sherri’s mouth shut, too. I’m not sure she even caught , much less understood, enough to know the half  of it. Just enough to know I lied to her and cheated on her.” She gritted her teeth. “Thanks to that little blonde toad.”

“Damn. I can’t believe…”

“Martin. Dear. Start believing. Naomi sucks. She always sucked, and right now she’s just sucking a little louder than usual.”

He squirmed into the recesses of the couch with a pout. “Hey, too soon.”

“No. Pull that bandaid off and let me pour some antiseptic on it. Naomi used you. She got so used to using you that when she thought I  was using you, she didn’t get jealous because I’m prettier than her. Although actually that too – plus ‘richer’ she said? Blech, whatever. But yeah, Naomi was jealous because she thought I was getting more out of you. She got your money, a few stray hard ons to inflate that classic big-boobed blonde ego they all seem to have. So she threw herself at you to try to one-up me. That’s all it ever was.”

His shoulders slumped down, his ass shrunk deeper into the corner. “You don’t know her.”

“I don’t need to. For the past two and a half years I’ve lived in a building full of the cattiest, pettiest, most insecure hot girls on the planet. True story: I was almost booted from my pledge class because one of the senior sisters’ boyfriends asked her what my name  was after he saw me at a party. I know vindictive women. They’re not mysterious. She’s just another self-seeking bitch trying to get what she wants out of you because, guess what, that’s all that any of them are. Naomi’s not special.”

Martin squirmed even more squirmily, a fresh round of tears finally battering down the floodgates and starting another ugly cry. Finally she relented her tirade, seeing it had not had the desired, comforting effect, and offered him the box of tissues and a soft hand on the shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry. We’re both stressed. I shouldn’t have… yeah. I’m sorry about your break-up. Forget I said anything, OK? I’m too bitter to be trusted around people going through heartache.”

Little by little, he allowed her to comfort him back to functionality. Kindness only exacerbated the crying, until finally, his eye sockets seemed to run out all at once. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m letting you try to console me when I’m the one who got her riled up and caused your fight. I should be apologizing to you. Are you OK?”

She shrugged. “Eh.”

“Is the fight, like, a breakup fight? Or will you get back together?”

“Oh we’re broken up. I’ll call her later and let her know. No sense acting like we’re going to patch it up while we’re both away for the summer. Besides, I think I’d rather be single for a while myself . But it’s OK. It sucks, but it’s OK.”

He nodded.

She nodded.

It was a strange moment, that silence. It marked the end of the venting/consoling/apologizing portion of their evening, and the readiness for the transition to something else. Only they couldn’t simply dive right into that. That verdict had been awaited too long to blurt it out at the end of such a dark and weighty exchange. The only problem was, Stacey and he were not friends. They didn’t have shared pastimes. The only thing they had in common was the experiment – but again, not yet. Not then. And so…

“Wanna watch porn?”

“God yes.”

They took turns selecting titles. It was agreed that Stacey would go first considering it was his girlfriend who’d Godzillaed  both of their lives. She told him he was being melodramatic, but she didn’t yet know he’d put off starting his doctoral work to stay here with the woman. Now he had no job, no girlfriend, and no local friends. The closest thing he had was this weird sorority girl who’d grown to enjoy some of the same categories of pornography. For now, she clicked on Mind-fucked stepdaughter takes  care of the whole family  and sent the video to the TV.

Martin washed the appetizer down with Cheerleader brat learns to love her tutor!!  Stacey undid her fly and stuck to the theme with Three cheerleaders One coach . Martin ditched his pants, then instructed her to follow suit while he threw her a bone with Jennica finds a New Mistress . By the time My sister drives me CRAZY but I get payback  finished, her underwear was off, and they were taking turns edging her pussy. At last he remembered she was still wearing a shirt – and a bra, that had been a while – and the two stripped naked as the charmingly predictable opening of My Daddy My Master  played. Stacey sat sideways on his lap, one tit in his mouth, his hand playing with her thighs as she made a study on how many times she could come in one video. (Only two, but Martin helpfully replayed from the scene where Daddy came home and fucked his stepdaughter on the kitchen table while the girl did her homework to land Stacey a quick third.)

Martin, meanwhile, scored zero, attempted zero. A little light touching mostly to marvel at how insanely hard he was, but no more than. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t stop wondering if he ought to be saving his energy.

“Isn’t your family expecting you tonight?” he asked as she debated between Time stop suggestions  and Asian girl hypnotized and made to strip on public  bus .

“I’ll get home when I get home.” Suddenly, the porn was forgotten. Stacey stood up. “C’mon.”

Still rather drunk, Martin accepted her help getting to his feet. Her hand didn’t release his as she walked him down the hall. To his bedroom.

“Lie down.”

He complied as Stacey switched on the lamp, still covered with the red scarf Naomi had draped there for mood lighting. It mostly put him in a mood for fire evacuation drills, but it had seemed to create a little sexy ambiance for her so he permitted it and simply didn’t turn the light on when she wasn’t around. With Stacey’s perfect naked body glowing red as sin itself, his cock stood aloft, pulsing with his quickened heartbeat.

The sorority girl, every line of her sexual perfection, crawled into bed from the foot, making no bones about her destination, nothing coy whatsoever. Her procession came to a stop only when her hips were over his waist, her mouth inches from his. “I want to kiss you.”

He pulled her lips to his, as soft and wet and warm and eager as he remembered. Had it only been days? She proved her sincerity, soon succumbing to an out and out makeout session, lying atop him and letting his hands roam while keeping his mouth occupied. Still, her own hands were solely support , only occasionally caressing his cheeks or brushing his shoulder as they kissed. His cock remained sandwiched between their bodies, neglected.

“Sit on my face,” he managed finally when she let him breathe a moment.

Stacey’s crimson face grinned. “Don’t worry about me.”

“No, I want to. Seriously? Having that body, that ass, your goddamn perfect pussy on my face? You have no idea.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Climb aboard. I even shaved earlier, just for you.”

“I noticed that.” His chin received an appreciative stroke. “Almost girl smooth.”

“That was the idea.”

“All right. I’ve never actually done this before, so do I… which way do I face?”

“Headboard, I think? Yeah, that way my nose won’t get…”

“Good call. All right, Mesmer, let’s try one of those famous mustache rides I’ve heard the straight girls rave about so much,” she giggled playfully.

One hemisphere of Stacey Reeves’ tight, perfectly toned ass gripped in each hand, Martin Manning got to work. To think, once eating pussy had only been something he did as to entice or reciprocate a blowjob, or to try to ingratiate himself if the pairing was lopsided. (Which until Stacey and Naomi, it never had been. At least not the sort of imbalance he’d wanted.) Stacey’s pretty pink peach was sublime. There were a few minor adjustments as they hit their stride.

Then, it was pure rodeo. The tension building in the thighs wrapped around his face was a constant stream of feedback, yet unnecessary with the way she was gripping the headboard and grunting with effort to keep herself upright as her core routinely threatened to fail her. Thank goodness Naomi hadn’t had a sex drive like this or losing her would have been ten times as bad as it already was. It was alarming the first time Stacey came, her weight suddenly bearing down hard on his face, smothering him in gushing, juicy sorority pussy, but it let his tongue slide even deeper inside her, tongue-fucking the girl with a vengeance.

Then without warning, she was gone. His eyes, suddenly exposed to the bizarre red light, were useless, but even as they adjusted his cock told him exactly where she’d gone. Namely, right on top of it.

“Oh my fucking god, I can’t believe how bad I want to fuck you right now,” she growled. Her statement sounded almost grudging, yet nevertheless no less eager than she’d been for his kiss – a yearning that had culminated with her cum all over his mouth. Stacey wriggled her hips to sandwich the length of him between her labia. If she moved one inch forward, his cock would drive itself inside her without either of them having to touch the thing.

“I wouldn’t say no,” he said quietly when she didn’t.

Stacey fluffed her hair, teasing long fingers through her mane. Each black strand stood out individually like a tendril of flame. Complemented by the body beneath it, it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. “I know.” And if she were replying to his thoughts rather than his words, it wouldn’t have surprised him in that  moment.

She watched him, a pleased little smile on her face, but held absolutely still. It felt divine nevertheless. At last, he managed to think beyond the precipice of bliss on which she had him teetering.

Hang on. She’d said… what  had she  said? She had  said it, right?

“So… we did it?”

Stacey laughed at his belated realization. “ You  did it, Martin.”

“Holy… I did it! Oh my fucking god, I did it! I did it! Stacey Reeves wants to fuck me! I fucking did it! I’m the fucking man!” He let out a whoop of exhilaration that finally earned him a stomped reprimand from the upstairs neighbor.

She nodded, gifting  him a little wiggle of her hips. “You did it. You took a woman who wouldn’t have fucked you with a gun to her head, and now she’s sitting on your cock, wishing you were inside her. Trembling with anticipation of how good it’s going to feel if you penetrate her.”

In spite of her words, he was remembering others, from way back when they first met. She’d repeated it more recently in one of those weird mini-mantras he hadn’t put there, an oath that she would never, ever fuck him. Only want to, and only if he made her. “So, wow. Yeah. Great. This is a hell of a consolation prize, I have to say. Really awesome. I still have no idea what you got out of it, but–”

Stacey’s fingernails sunk into his chest commandingly. “Do you think you could do it again?”

Martin blinked. “Uh… what? Make you want to fuck me again? Or, like, actually fuck me…? You’re actually not fucking me right now; it has to go, like inside.”

“Not that, jackass. I mean, could you do it all, the whole process, again. With someone else?”

His jaw fell in slow motion. “That’s… is that why…”

“Just answer. Could you.”

That had been a recurring fantasy of his, mostly pre-Naomi when he’d had fewer outlets for his sexual frustration. Another hot girl begging him to hypnotize her into his bed. Fantasizing wasn’t the same as contemplating. After a brief consideration, Martin tossed out a guess. “In theory… maybe? I mean, it only worked on you because you wanted it to work.”

But Stacey shook her head. “I never helped you. Remember? Yes, I seduced you into continuing when you tried to chicken out, but that wasn’t to help me , that was to keep you motivated.”

It wasn’t easy thinking clearly with her pussy rippling around his shaft. “OK, yeah. So if we somehow found another lesbian who for some reason actually wanted to be turned very selectively bi…?”

“Forget the gay conversion crap. Just, if you could get someone to come to you for regular sessions, do you think you could do it again? Make her fuck someone she never, ever would?”

“Is this about Sherri? I don’t think you need to go to those lengths to make up with–”

“Forget Sherri. Just answer the–”

“Yes,” he interrupted right back. “If we could actually find somebody like that, I could do it.”

A smile that somehow chilled him even in the warm light, under her warm pussy, bloomed between her cheeks. “Good. Then let me make you an offer.”

He licked his lips. “I’m listening.” Was he? The blood was roaring so loudly in his ears it was like he was floating in the eye of a tornado.

“When I come back in the fall, I’m going to bring you a new girl. She’ll expect to be coming to you for hypnotherapy, to get help with some problems. Let me worry about what. But you’re not going to solve them for her. You’re going to–”

“Kira,” he breathed. Stacey’s eyes focused hard upon his, but she denied nothing. Which said everything. “Jesus Christ, Stacey, why?”

She went on with the sales pitch, unperturbed. “You’re going to hypnotize her, and while she’s under, you’re going to make her want to fuck me, the same way you made me want to fuck you. You’ll have the school year, like with me – although feel free to finish faster. Don’t rush it, though. The end result is more important to me than shaving off a week here, a month there.”

“Stacey–”

“In exchange, if you agree, you’ll get to fuck me. Twice.” A sudden, excruciatingly sweet twitch of her hips underscored the timing of the first leg of her proposal. “Once tonight. Which, god, I hope you let me. And again when you’ve finished her like you finished me.”

“I… I don’t…”

“The second time, you get to fuck both of us. Together.”

His eyes bulged, remembering those photos of the younger Reeves sister. Every inch the hottie her older sister was, a slight genetic twist on the classic with just a dash of exciting new original code thrown in to keep it spicy. He’d kept himself from looking too hard. Seventeen was seventeen, and even he had his limits of how much of a creep he would let himself become. Unlike the woman humping slowly against his cock with her slimy wet cunt. Still, when Kira came to Lakeview in the fall, as was evidently happening, she wasn’t going to be seventeen any more. She would still be Stacey’s sister, though.

“I… don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes.” Stacey raised her hips, guiding his cock to her entrance like she’d seen in porn a thousand times at his side. “And say thank you.”

“But… it’s your sister .” He frowned, trying not to feel her hand sliding up and down his shaft. “Is… is she adopted or anything, or…?”

One side of her lips turned up into a smile. “That’s important to you, is it? Sure, then. Let’s say she is.”

“But you could have so many other women without even needing some dude to break their minds for you. It’s a college town, for fuck’s sake! Find some hot drunk freshman and give her a story to impress her woke-ass kids with someday !”

“I don’t want other women. I want Kira.” She lowered herself just enough to let him feel her wetness. God. Naomi had never been that wet, no matter how much foreplay. It trickled down the length of his shaft as if to provide a sample of things to come. “And I want you. You just have to say yes.”

“This doesn’t feel right.” He looked around like there might be a referee waiting in the wings to bail him out. Surely someone would step in and declare that this was too much, not allowed. A ten yard penalty for unsisterly conduct. No one did, though.

“It’s going to feel so  right in a minute.” She smiled, but then the smile was washed away in a tide of raw arousal.

“H-how do you know if I agree, that I won’t change your mind? Err, my mind?”

Stacey’s tongue darted out, licked her lips. “You like changing my mind, don’t you? Maybe we’ll still have some sessions next year, you and me, and we can see what else you can make me want. If you can pry yourself away from Kira. You saw how hot she is. I know you did. And she’s so much more trusting than me. Already straight, too, so by the time you have her ready for me, she’ll be positively begging for a piece of you. I’ll have to fight her for time on your cock. The two of us, riding you and riding you and riding you and mmmm gawd fucking riding you, until we can’t suck you back to hardness any more.”

“I… but…”

She went right on. “God, I’ve been thinking about this for days, ever since you gave me that you-shaped dildo. Do you know how many times I’ve ridden that thing the past couple days? So freaking many, Martin. But not enough. You’ve made me want the real thing. God, I want to fuck you so fucking bad I can hardly stop myself. I stick it in me, and I fuck myself with your cock, and I say the words you taught me...”

Her body trembled, a little spasm that vibrated all the way down into her nethers and through them into his aching dick. “I am Martin Manning’s good girl. A good girl is hot, slutty, and obedient. He can touch me anywhere. Being naked with Martin Manning is exciting. Martin Manning can touch my breasts. Martin Manning can touch my ass. Martin Manning can touch my… oh god… my pussy…

“Oh fuck, you can’t…”

But she could, and she did. “Martin Manning can put his mouth on me.” Stacey leaned down and kissed him, rose up with her back arched to let him take a suck on her nipple before she was poised once more with her pussy on the cusp of engulfing him. “I like it when Martin Manning’s cock is hard around me because it means he’s enjoying it. It’s important to me that Martin Manning enjoys our time together.”

Suddenly she plunged downward, and her body convulsed like it had been struck by lightning. Then she was back up, the whole thing so fast he might have thought it a hallucination if not for the juices now coating his shaft. “I will use my dildo whenever I get horny. A dildo is shaped like a cock. Something shaped like a cock feels good inside me.”

Her eyes slid open like there were anchors attached, only the anchors were his words, his time and expertise with his craft. They bore into him. Through him. “I will never get tired of repeating these words. I am Martin Manning’s good girl.”

His mouth hung slack.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please let me. I’ve never needed a cock before tonight, and if you don’t say yes, I’ll never want one again. Please.”

He was in. Halfway, maybe, but every please  drove him a little deeper as she rocked her hips like a cowgirl. Holy fuck was she tight.

“Just say yes. Please, Martin. Please let me fuck you. Please. I want you so bad… You’re the only man who can give me what I want most.”

Martin placed his hands on her hips and firmly, decisively eased her down his shaft like a flag lowering in surrender. Her eyes squeezed shut and then flew open as she hit bottom, a spasmodic little breath wracking her young body. She reeled, almost losing her balance, but he held her firm. “I knew I’d found the right man the moment I laid eyes on you, Mesmer.”

Even so, although he was inside her, she didn’t move a muscle. Lesbian or no, he knew she knew how to move. They’d just watched professionals at work for the past three hours, and others for months and months before. If she was half the study at sex that she was a manipulation, she should knock this out of the park. But there was no game, no park, until she got what she wanted. The other thing she wanted. The one this had all really been about.

“Bring her to me,” he said at last. “I’ll do it.”