… no, it wouldn’t be workable.

“… Ann and Cheryl will be fine. They can afford a nanny or two, Ms. Prift’s loaded from that lottery win.” Leonard muttered. “Not that she isn’t investing it smartly, I mean.” Every so often he sees an article about her success story and stock strategies, finding it too complicated for him to follow. “But, Jenny isn’t going to have the same support…”

“… so we should help out…?” Erica finished, tentatively. “We do live next door, I guess. You wanna put potential future baby plans on hold then?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think it would be the best plan for now. Jenny probably doesn’t think she needs help, but…”

His bedmate winced “Yeah, her spaghetti didn’t turn out the best…” as she recalled the myriad burnt noodles in her bowl earlier that night. “Okay, so we’ll help her through it. Good, that’s a good plan. Responsible too.”

“Right.” Again, he nodded, feeling his chin press into Erica’s shoulder. “B-But, I mean, we can always try later, I just—“

“Let’s just get some rest, we can talk about this anytime.”

With that, he finally felt safe enough closing his eyes.

That morning Leonard awoke first, again. He kept from the Cauldrons, like he promised, and elected to try and satisfy Erica’s Mana requirements first and foremost.

“… h-how is this real?” he asked, toweling off his just-showered body. He felt brimming with the same overabundance of energy as when he regained consciousness at 5:00 that morning.

His roommate was huffing and puffing, though. She was still under the hot water as ivory seed drained from her lower mouth. Thankfully there wasn’t enough collected to make it mobile. “Do you… do you think your normal max life points got boosted somehow from the Cauldrons overfilling it…?”

“Assuming I was at 2000 before, that first round that barely let me survive the Transfers gave 1500. The next day you got lucid after drinking 3000’s worth.” Leonard muttered, calculating. “The next day I had 4500, then 6000 on the next, then 7500 yesterday morning. Assuming I gave you 3000 total each day, then that’s a surplus of 1500, 3000, and 4500. 9000 all added together.”

“But you also used a good amount with Ann and Cheryl on Monday, not to mention the events that led to last night’s cum-blob. Something like that has to be worth a hefty chunk of points.” Erica pointed out, staggering to her feet. “I hate to say it, but you might’ve irrevocably altered your body chemistry. It’s a small blessing you don’t feel an urge to have more drinks from the pots, at least it’s not causing a dependence.” she shrugged, stepping out from the tub as she turned the faucet off.

Lenny couldn’t help but agree with her. He’d promised her he’d stay away, and that’s exactly what he’d done. Even considering his worries about how well he’d deal with controlled substances, there was nothing hanging over his head that was driving his behavior.

“You’re right. Maybe things are gonna be okay for a little while?” he chuckled, for once not terribly worried about what the day ahead would bring.

“I need to fuck…! My dick needs to be inside something warm and wet…! No condom, just press it right at the end and go SPLURT.”

Things were not going smoothly for Leonard. Not in the least helped by the protege he still had to train. He’d basically showed her everything about the job, but Ann had specified that her education needed to last until the end of the week.

This led him to dub this current stage the “Practical Application Course” of her training, where they just both sit and do his job of monitoring the auto check-out machines in person. And they do this side-by-side, so he can watch her technique for errors while she watched him for pointers.

Except Mara was currently one of the worse people he could be around, on account of how attractive she was. Most women were attractive to Leonard, but normally his spirits would be so low that he wouldn’t really try anything that would jeopardize their relationship, working or otherwise.

Now though, he was a fueled-up rocket ready to lift-off. It was like being a teenager again, except even more misplaced confidence on account of the four different women he’d somehow managed to bed since last Friday. Every so often his eyes glanced at her body, imagining what it looked like without any clothes. And when she was about to look back, his gaze darted back to the various shoppers trying to make sense of the UI’s of the different stations.

Biting his lip, Lenny mentally asserted “I just have to make it to my lunch break, then Erica and I can go to town in the restroom. She held herself back this morning, right? She had to have, we weren’t late today.” as he flexed his thigh muscles every so often to prevent an inopportune erection.