ALICE Ch 153

“This will escalate quickly,” Lora promises as she perches on Glynda’s bathroom sink with her newly-mixed drink in hand.

Glynda, soaking in the bath, doesn’t move a muscle. She doesn’t even open her eyes. Steam rises from the water and Lora watches her face.

Seconds go by.

“You don’t know Annette like I do,” Lora warns.

“I know her perfectly. I know about her little kink. And I know how fast she is to seize profit,” Glynda adds, irked. “Might as well just say it.”

“She’ll lean in.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know what that’ll mean for Faye. It may also mean that we have a second Irina Orlova situation on our hands,” Lora adds with a scowl.

“Really?”

“Really. Do you remember Riley Jameson and Adella Salazar? Do you know why they really left FUTA?”

“Because of Annette? Doing something inappropriate?” Glynda looks over curiously. “Is it true?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“We are going to bring in a great deal of money. Alice already has. You think it won’t be enough?” Glynda asks.

“It’s never enough for her, Glynda.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Make sure that Alice is ready. That she understands. Right now.”

“Right now, Alice Wilde is…” Glynda grabs her drink and gulps it. “I prefer not to think about what Alice Wilde is doing at this moment. Maybe it’s Annette who’s in for a surprise. I forbade Alice seeing my daughter.”

“And right now they’re probably shagging. I know,” Lora says bluntly. Glynda twitches at hearing it said aloud. “But what do you think Alice will do if Annette comes onto her?”

“Alice doesn’t want old…” Glynda trails off, unable to finish the sentence. For god’s sake, Alice has even flirted with Glynda. Alice doesn’t care about age or… probably any details. There’s nothing she won’t put her dick in. That’s half the reason Glynda doesn’t want her seeing her daughter.

“I don’t want to see Faye hurt,” Lora says, as though she can read Glynda’s mind.

“I don’t know how to stop that,” Glynda snaps. “I can’t control Alice. I certainly can’t control Annette.”

Lora smiles and raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Glynda frowns. “What are you thinking?”

“Alice and Annette aren’t so different. We know what they want. Instead of them always coming round trying to take it, why not go about this another way?” Lora leans forward. “Why not make the first move? Why not take control? There’s nothing stopping you. Between us, we’ve the resources.”

“How long have you been doing this scheming?”

“Ever since I realized how good a driver Alice Wilde really is.”

“You expected this?”

“Not so soon. But I knew it would come,” Lora says.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“You hired me to be a strategist.”

“Dear god. Just what I need. More bloody Game of Thrones shite.” Glynda gulps her drink and rubs her face, then splashes water at Lora, who flinches.

“Scheming makes the world go round, Glynda.”

Glynda considers it. “Alice, I can see,” she admits finally. “She does seem attached to Faye, though.”

“She likes Faye,” Lora agrees. “But she’s in love with Kylie.”

Glynda feels a flash of temper. It’s not as though she didn’t suspect.

“And Annette? How do we keep her distracted?”

“I can call in some favors.”

VOTE

It's time for some voting. The story will not go on pause because the vote won't take immediate effect; it will continue Monday like normal. Readers have consistently made choices attaching Alice to Faye. The consequence is that the MC is now in a committed relationship. She's not going to cheat on Faye and break her heart, and neither is Faye going to spontaneously change personalities to allow Alice to hook up with whoever and do orgies and stuff. Faye has some kinks, but she's absolutely vanilla when it comes to exclusive monogamy. Ironically, readers may be annoyed by having stumbled backwards into locking in a Good End, even though it's not actually the end. We have two options for FF1: continue with Alice as the primary POV character with occasional POV hops so that we have lewd scenes involving people other than just Alice and Faye OR we change POV characters to open things up again. (Alice and Faye would still be around; we still have more to do with them, but if readers want to pursue relationship choices with different characters we'll need a new POV character for that.) There is no right or wrong answer. If we vote to move to a new POV character, we'll have a couple more votes to fine-tune what kind of character we're shifting to. The timeline will not reset; the story will continue from this point in the season. Other POVs and Alice and Faye will be involved no matter what; this vote determines where our focus is.

Stay focused on Alice and Faye's story?

Or shift emphasis to a new, to-be-determined POV?

NEW: Or, a third option (see the comments): Faye becomes... suspiciously mellow about certain things.

[ No longer open--the antics continue next chapter ]