At a fancy local steakhouse.

Chapter 3 – Putting a Plan Together (continued)

“They seem pretty busy, will we be able to get a table?” It had taken a few minutes to find a parking spot, and now they were sitting in the foyer area waiting along with a half dozen other people for a table.

“We should be fine. They don’t do reservations here, and I was planning on at least a little wait.” Jason reassured her.

She had her denim jacket on over the sweater, and he wondered if it was too warm now that they were inside, but she wasn’t complaining yet. “Do you eat here often? She asked, glancing around at what she could see of the room. The walls were lined with big flat-screen TVs near the ceiling, mostly showing sports footage, and there was a bar that dominated the middle of the room.

“Not as often as I would like. I do really enjoy the food here.”

“Didn’t know you were that into steak.” She gave him a playful grin.

“They have other food than steak, but their steak is still really good.”

“A lot of their food is pretty spicy, right?”

Jason nodded, “Yeah, it’s part of their brand, I think. But there’s plenty that isn’t hot, if you prefer.”

“Yeah, I’m a wimp when it comes to spicy food.” Chloe affirmed, not that he’d been unaware.

Jason wanted to bring up the issues that had been worrying him, but he would wait until they were at the table, and had at least a little bit of privacy.

Another 20 minutes, and two groups getting seated ahead of them, and finally a table opened up. Jason was happy to see it was along the back wall, though he’d have preferred something in the corner. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, however.

“Can I take your coat?” He asked, trying to keep the grin from his face as he considered how corny the line might sound, but Chloe just smiled, the twinkle in her dark eyes confirming that she knew it sounded cheesy, but liked it anyways. She turned her back on him, and allowed him to slide her jacket down and off her arms, revealing the top of her tattoos across her back and bare shoulders.

She adjusted her top as she sat down, though Jason couldn’t see exactly what she was correcting. The motion drew his eyes to her chest, however, and he quickly looked away and picked up his menu.

The conversation was light as they figured out what they each were going to order, and Jason was surprised when Chloe asked if he wanted a beer.

“I’m not… my birthday is in September.” He reminded her.

“I know, but mine was last month, and I haven’t had a chance to buy any alcohol for anyone yet.”

“Have you bought any for yourself?” Jason was curious.

But Chloe made a face, causing Jason to laugh. “Yeah I forgot, your tribe doesn’t believe in drinking recreationally.”

“Yeah, we use it in ceremonies only. First time I had some was when I was eight. But I never liked it.”

“Didn’t they give you something unusual when you turned sixteen?” Jason thought he remembered her saying something about that.

But Chloe’s face fell, and Jason knew he’d brought up something he shouldn’t have. “Sorry, we don’t have to talk about that.”

“Yeah, we came here to talk about you and Steph.” Chloe said, plenty eager to change the subject.

But before they could get to that, the waiter had returned with their drinks, just water for the moment, and took their orders. Once that was sorted out, Jason leaned forward a bit, and Chloe followed suit, bringing their faces only a couple feet apart over the table. “So then. You remembered to bring this evidence you told me about, right?”

Jason nodded, and reached for his phone, but decided to leave it in his pocket for now. “I did, but first, I should tell you what happened last night. Though, before that I suppose I should explain what led up to everything over the last few days.”

And so he gave her an abridged version of events. He told her that he’d discovered some information that Stephani’s name might not be Stephani, though he didn’t tell her it was due to a magic app. Chloe interrupted frequently to ask questions, but Jason wasn’t able to give her satisfactory answers, and asked her to let him finish before hitting him with any more questions. So he told her about intentionally calling Stephani ‘Chris’ and how that set off a string of back and forth messages with Stephani sounding a bit panicked and desperate to figure out what was going on with him, but he was so uncertain what to do that he didn’t directly confront her. They paused while the waiter brought their food, and then in between bites Jason continued, right up to their conversation after game night, where they finally confessed about the webcam, and the fake profile pic, and even tried to apologize, and pay some penance by having Christine flash him on the webcam before Jason was interrupted by Heather coming home.

“So ish tha’ it?” Chloe asked when he stopped talking, her mouth still half-full of steak.

“Almost. This morning Louisa sent a Skype message apologizing more, and Christina asked if I recorded her webcam reveal, and said she trusted me to keep it to myself.”

“How are you figuring out which one is sending you messages on Skype?” She asked after swallowing this time. “Isn’t it the same account they are both using?”

“Well yeah, but I’ve been able to…” He paused, trying to figure out how to explain the difference. He wanted to tell her about the app, and how the profiles kept moving, but something stopped him.

“Been able to what? Don’t tell me it’s all just intuition?”

“I guess that’s one word for it.” Jason responded before really thinking about it. But that wasn’t the answer he wanted to give.

“Bull shit!” Chloe’s sudden anger startled him. “If that’s all you’ve got, why are we wasting time with all this? You still haven’t told me what website you even found their real names.”

“I don’t remember the url…” Jason was even more startled at his answer, though it didn’t seem to show on his face. Why couldn’t he just tell her about the app? It was like he was being prevented from… That’s when he realized it, and if it hadn’t been for the Warding Masque perk, he was certain his shock would have shown on his face.

“Stop this.” Chloe was really upset now, her face even turning red as she scowled at him. “I thought you wanted my help? You said you brought the evidence you’d collected? But why haven’t you shown me? Is it on your phone?”

“No, it’s not.” Jason said quickly, trying to sound reassuring, but was afraid his true emotions weren’t coming through the way he wanted them to. “Here, tell you what, I need to collect my thoughts a bit, and you need to cool down a little, I’m going to go wash my hands, I’ll be right back.” His words sounded a little condescending, but they were all he could get out. But he got up to leave anyways, even as she was opening her mouth to yell at him again. “Please, just hold on for a moment.” He told her, and something in his eyes must have given her pause.

“Fine.” She said grumpily, settling down and turning away as he moved towards the men’s room.

He quickly scanned the stalls to make sure he was alone, and turned to the sink to wash his hands and splash some water on his face. Then he took out his phone and navigated to his own profile, and his list of active perks. He clicked on Warding Masque, and toggled it off, immediately feeling like a weight had lifted from his mind.

Then he quickly returned to the table, where Chloe was still scowling at him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say it before.” He said quickly before she could start. “Give me a minute to explain it now that I can. It might sound a bit farfetched at first.”

“Fine, but start talking, you’re already testing my patience.” She said, scowling at him and waving her fork in the direction of his sternum.

He took a breath, and began again, “On Friday morning, I found this strange app on my phone.”

“What kind of…?”

“Please don’t interrupt.” Jason didn’t like cutting her off, but he needed to get through this. She sighed, and he continued, “So this app has profiles on people I’ve interacted with. And it didn’t have Stephani McAllister’s name on it, but it had the names Louisa and Christine Dubois instead.” He could see Chloe wanted to interject but he kept forging on anyways.

“And I’ve been checking the accuracy of the app. It updates in real time, with the names moving to the top when I’ve interacted with them most recently. That’s how I was able to figure out which sister was Skyping me.”

“How does it…?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, and I don’t expect you to believe me right away. I’d show you the app, but it hides itself.” He could see the disbelief on her face, but he still wouldn’t let her interrupt. “It’s also why I couldn’t tell you about it before I went to the restroom. The app wouldn’t even let me try to reveal it because I got a perk that protects me from accidentally revealing information about it, even from coercion or mind reading.”

“Mind reading?!” Her eyebrows went up at that part.

“It describes itself as a magical app. And since I can’t show it to you, and I don’t expect you to just believe me, I’m prepared to do some work to prove it to you, if you’ll give me half a chance. So bear with me, please?”

He finally stopped, and Chloe was giving him a really frustrated look as he put his phone on the table between them. “Did you hit your head?” Chloe asked after a tense moment.

“No.” Jason said simply. “Well, actually, Marcus did throw a ball at my head on Friday, but I’m fine now.”

Chloe lowered her face to her hands, and Jason realized for the first time that she was wearing blue nail polish. He’d never seen nail polish on her before. And it looked a bit odd with her almost painfully short nails. He suspected she chewed them sometimes when she was alone.

“Look at my phone, tell me what you see.” He slid the device in front of her, and she pushed her plate to the side so she could get a good look.

“Looks like some kind of… like a puzzle game, I guess? There’s some geometric designs, and stuff moving around. To be honest it’s a little hard to focus on, like some kind of hypnosis image.”

He took his phone back, “I see a menu, with a pattern behind it that looks like some of those hermetic diagrams from my old alchemy books.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Here I can click on the list of profiles.” He watched her as he clicked near the top of the screen. Her brows drew together and she frowned. “And here is your profile, Chloe Yazzie.”

“Does it at least spell my name right?” She asked.

He spelled out the last name for her, and she nodded.

Chloe Yazzie

Relationship: Best Friend, Gaming Buddy

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Loyalty 86, Friendship 68, Affection 64, Trust 45 (-1), Protectiveness 41, Playfulness 40 (-1), Love 28, Lust 13

Special Traits: Confidante, Partner in Crime

Temporary Traits: Simmering Rage

“So your profile has a bunch of stats. First it lists my relationship to you as your best friend, and gaming buddy.” He started.

“I don’t see any of that.” She complained.

“Below that it lists ‘prominent attitudes out of a hundred’. Your highest value is loyalty, at eighty six. Next is friendship at sixty eight, then affection at sixty four, and then trust at forty five, but that one says it’s gone down by 1 point since the last time I looked at it.”

Chloe was looking a bit more thoughtful, but still looked angry, although she stayed silent.

“You’ve got protectiveness at forty one and playfulness at forty, also with a minus one, and then love at twenty eight.” He paused there.

“Is that all?” Chloe asked, sensing there was something he was leaving off.

Jason sighed, “No, there’s one more. This one’s a little embarrassing, but the last attitude is lust, with a score of thirteen. And this one’s new as well, it only awakened last night when I was flirting with you for the first time. And it’s one of the fastest growing attitude numbers I’ve seen since I first started using the app.”

Chloe sighed, “None of that is anything you couldn’t have figured out on your own, and it sounds a little arbitrary, if you ask me.”

“I can understand that, I’ve thought of that too, but it just seems too accurate for me to dismiss it. Anyways, after attitudes, there are special traits. Your first trait is called ‘partner in crime’. Should be fairly self explanatory. But then since last night you’ve had a second special trait; confidante.”

“Yeah, that does sound right as well.” Chloe acknowledged.

“The last section at the bottom is called ‘Temporary Traits’, and it only shows up when there’s something unique to your current situation with me. After you drove away last night, I checked your profile, and you had a temporary trait called ‘confused lust’.” Chloe nodded, and blushed a little. It seemed she was calming down finally. “Then after you ran back upstairs tonight to change into this.” He gestured to her gorgeous outfit, “The trait read ‘panic’.” She nodded again, “And finally, you’ve got a new temporary trait right now; ‘simmering rage’.”

“None of that should have been that hard to figure out either at the time or in retrospect.” She insisted, still sounding exasperated.

“Yeah I know. I don’t expect you to believe me just from that. So that’s why I’m going to do something else, something you’ll be able to feel tangibly.”

He backed out of her profile, and navigated to the perks section of his profile. “I still don’t see anything other than those strange patterns.”

“I know. But this app doesn’t just give me access to information on people’s profiles. It also allows me to accumulate energy, which I can spend to activate perks. I mentioned one of them before, the one that prevented me from revealing information about the app, it’s called ‘warding masque’.”

“Yeah, you said something about mind reading…” Chloe reminded him.

He nodded again, “Yeah, I deactivated that perk when I went into the restroom. I’m going to reactivate it now, and I want you to tell me what you’ve learned so far about the app.”

“How is that going to prove anything?” She asked as he clicked the button to reactivate the perk. Immediately he felt an urge to hide his phone, but he was able to suppress it, instead folding his hands in his lap. Chloe, on the other hand, seemed happy to slide his phone out of sight under a napkin, almost as if she didn’t realize she was doing it. “You’ve just been…” She paused, looking confused, “I don’t understand how you can just lose a URL…” She stopped again, and fidgeted in place. “We were just talking about the website where you…” Again she halted her words, and looked at Jason quizzically. Her anger seemed to have left her by this point. “You’re right, giving me that moment to cool off seems to have helped.” She said quietly. “Maybe you should step away again, give me a moment to collect my thoughts.”

Now it was his turn to be confused, at least until she slid his phone back over to him. “Don’t forget this.” She added, then got back to her plate and took another bite of her steak.

Jason smiled, and pocketed his phone as he stood up, walked to the bathroom, and turned off the perk once again before coming right back out and sitting down at the table.

“Holy shit, Jason!” She shout-whispered, looking at him with wide eyes. “That was terrifying. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t say it. It was just like… no, never mind, those are different…”

“I’m sorry.” Jason grimaced. “I thought that might be the best way to prove it to you. That’s kinda how I felt when I was trying to tell you about it at first. Different than what?”

“Never mind, it’s not important.” She shook her head, dropping her face once more into her hands. “Fuck! Okay, let’s start again. I’m not sure I understand all of this yet. So you know for a fact that these, these French girls, are both using the Stephani Skype account to message you, and have been catfishing you basically since you started dating?”

Jason nodded then added, “Yeah. As I mentioned, the app updates in real time, and I can use that to determine when they swap and the other sister sends me a message. Why did you call them French?”

“They have French names.” Chloe shrugged, still not looking at him, “Though that doesn’t mean they themselves are French, I guess.” Then after a moment she added, “Okay so… I believe you, but where does that leave things?”

“You sure? You don’t need more evidence? I know this is a lot. It took me a while to fully accept it myself.”

“I do not want another demonstration; that kinda fucked me up.”

Jason winced. “I’m sorry.”

She held up a hand and took several deep breaths. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal.”

“Um, okay…”

“Relax, it’s not bad, it’s just. If I’m going to do this, be your confidante, and be the person who actually knows about the app, then you gotta let me benefit from it somewhat too.”

“I don’t know if I can…”

“Just reserve some of your energy stuff for me, and let me help you choose how to spend it, alright?”

“Yeah, I guess I can do that.” He agreed.

“Shit, I woke up this morning not even believing in magic.” She sighed.

“But what about all that Navajo spirit stuff?”

She shrugged, “Just because they made me learn about it didn’t mean I really believed in it.”

“But you’ve always encouraged me to practice wiccan spells and all those hermetic magic tomes.”

“Yeah, I thought it was fun, but I never really thought it actually worked. It was a hobby. A wicked cool edgy hobby, but this…” She gestured to his phone sitting on the table in front of him. “This is real. I can’t deny it, or ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t affect me.”

“I’m sorry. I guess maybe I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

“No. Don’t say that. Best friends forever, remember?” She glared at him for a moment, “If you’re stuck in it, I want to be stuck in it too. Besides, now it means I get to help you sort out things with not-Stephani, and you can bet I’m going to have fun doing that. So yeah, it’s heavy, and a little scary, but there’s no one I’d rather be doing this with than you. Got it?”

“Got it.” He nodded solemnly. “So where do we start?”

“Well, for now, let’s start with those girls, what did you say their names were?”

“Louisa and Christine Dubois.”

“Pretty sure the S is silent in that surname.”

“Only if you’re saying it in French.” He countered.

Chloe shrugged, “Either way, we need to get them to admit there are two of them, and that they’ve been using a fake name.”

“Well, I already got them to admit they lied about receiving the webcam.”

“Yeah, and that’s what we’re gonna use to catch them. You need to keep getting them on cam, preferably when you know only one of them is around, and pay really close attention, looking for something you can use to tell them apart. Then call them on the difference.”

“You think one of them might have some kind of a birthmark or something?”

“We probably aren’t that lucky. No, I’m talking about grooming habits, the details of the clothes they wear, things like that. They might have a lot of matching outfits, but there will still be some differences. Like maybe a stain on one of them, or one of them nicks themselves shaving. Stuff like that happens all the time. You just have to catch them out at it.”

“But they could fake some of that, right? They’re identical in size, so they can just swap clothes. And if I see something that isn’t permanent, won’t they just tell each other?”

“Maybe, maybe not. It depends on if they realize you’ve noticed. I seriously doubt if one of them cuts themselves with a razor, the other is going to duplicate it just for their ruse. More likely they’ll put on matching bandages or something. But you need to be creative in what you ask them to do and show you. Come up with things that will potentially reveal things they might not have thought about.”

“This sounds a lot easier in theory than in practice.” He groaned.

“I know. But maybe your app can help. It already gave you an edge in figuring out when they switch, so maybe it can do other things as well. Have you looked over all the available perks?”

“Not all of them. There are a lot, and it seems like they change sometimes, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s only showing me ones I qualify for, or that it thinks I might be interested in. Should I…”

He paused as he noticed a waitress approaching their table then did a double take when he realized that not only was it not the waiter who’d been attending them for the last hour since they got their seats, but it was someone they both knew.

“Hi, my name’s Kate.” She said, her smirk letting them know she was playing around a bit since she recognized them. “I’ll be taking over as your waiter while Lloyd is getting off shift.”

“Kate!” Chloe surged to her feet to give Jason’s roommate a hug, obviously surprising the tall redhead as she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, one of which still held her tablet.

“Chloe uh… what are you wearing?” She asked, finally patting her a couple times awkwardly with her free hand.

Chloe stepped back and looked down at herself. With her high heeled boots, she was just about level with Kate’s height. “Oh uh, I had to put together something nice when I realized Jason here dressed up for our casual date.”

Kate turned back to Jason, who had also gotten to his feet, and looked him up and down. “Wow. You look… uh… really nice.” Kate said, her cheeks between her freckles turning a deep shade of pink. “Anyways, uh, I wanted to say hi when I saw you over here, but if you don’t need anything I shouldn’t stick around too much. But if you do need anything, feel free to wave me down, okay?”

She blushed as she turned away to check on the next table, and Jason sat back down, only for Chloe to push him across the bench seat closer to the window so she could slide in next to him. She moved his empty plate over to her side of the table and made sure there was a clear space on the table between them.

“Okay, get out your phone, and open your perks menu.” She said, as he was still staring at her in wonder. “Oh stop looking so surprised, we need to figure out this perk stuff. It’s not like we’ve never sat close together before.”

“Well yeah, but not when you were dressed so nicely.” He said, blushing as well now.

She smiled and looked down, color rising on her dusky cheeks. “You really like it, my outfit?”

He nodded, “Yeah, I didn’t know you owned anything like that.”

She chuckled dryly, “I don’t. Well, most of it. The boots, panties and skirt are mine. The rest I had to borrow from Lynn and Jenny. That’s why the girls are so loose.”

“The girls?” He blinked, then glanced down at her chest before swiftly wrenching his gaze away.

“You probably can’t tell through the sweater, and I’m wearing a tank top under it at least, but yeah. No bra tonight, just for you.” She grinned widely, and didn’t seem bothered at all at the reveal.

“I’m just surprised to learn you own a skirt.” Jason said, offering a shy smile in return. “And isn’t a strapless tank top just a tube top?”

“It’s not strapless.” She leaned back a little, reached into the top of her sweater just next to her arm pit, and pulled up a pale yellow strap that had been hanging loose under her arm. “Haven’t worn this skirt since prom night.” She added once the strap was hidden away again, smoothing one hand along her skirt.

“You didn’t go to prom.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to, and I bought a skirt for it. It’s the only one I own. Not really very fancy, and doesn’t quite match everything else, but Jenny doesn’t own any skirts, just dresses, and Lynn’s mostly don’t fit me. Now open the app, already.”

Jason grinned, and got his phone back out, but before looking at the perks he opened the profiles screen again.

Chloe Yazzie

Relationship: Best Friend, Gaming Buddy

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Loyalty 86, Friendship 68, Affection 65 (+1), Trust 46 (+1), Protectiveness 41, Playfulness 41 (+1), Love 28, Lust 13

Special Traits: Confidante, Partner in Crime

“Looks like you got those points of trust and playfulness back, and a point of affection.” Jason told her then went to switch profiles.

Before he could open Kate’s profile, a popup of sorts appeared, obscuring part of the profile.

“Why’d you stop?” Chloe asked.

“It’s recommending a new perk. For you!” He said, as he read it over. “‘Shared Masquerade’.” He read it aloud, “If I buy this perk for you, we could share information about the app even with the Warding Mask perk active, but it would still protect us from revealing information to others.”

“Do you have enough for it?”

He checked his energy, “I’ve got eighty-two. It only costs fourteen points.”

“Buy it.” She ordered, and he did as she asked without hesitation.

“Done.” He explained.

“Now turn the other perk back on.”

He navigated back to his profile.

“Hey stop!” She hissed, barely remembering to keep her voice down.

He paused, and she slid his phone closer to her, “What screen are you on?” She asked.

“That’s my profile. It doesn’t have a bunch of numbers like yours does, but it does have my active effects so I can toggle them on and off.”

“Okay, turn it on, and back out to the menu.”

He did as she instructed, and she gasped then grinned, looking at his face. “I can see the menu, but not your profile.” She told him then tapped at his screen. “It doesn’t let me touch anything though.” She slid it back to him, “Open the perks menu?”

“I was going to look at a couple more profiles first.”

“Alright, go ahead.” She allowed.

So he pulled up Kate’s profile, and let Chloe examine it now that she could see the app, if not interact with it.

Katherine O’Connell

Relationship: Best Friend’s Brother, Roommate

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Loyalty 53, Affection 33, Friendship 28, Trust 20, Nostalgia 18, Protectiveness 18, Worry 9, Admiration 1, Lust -6 (+1)

Special Traits: Childhood Crush

“It looks like Kate’s lust for me went up one point when she saw me dressed up just now.” He observed.

“When you said it updates in real time, you weren’t kidding.” Chloe observed, “Dang, negative lust? That’s rough.”

Jason nodded. “She seemed to be more attracted to me when I was in better shape.”

“Wait, how far back does it track things? You haven’t really been in that great shape since high school.”

“The app didn’t tell me that. Well, it kinda did. Her special trait is ‘childhood crush’. And when I asked her why we don’t hang out as much these days, she brought up that I’m not as into sports anymore as she is. So I’ve just kind of put the pieces together and figured out that she’d like me more if I was in better shape.”

“Well, you were crazy fast, weren’t you?”

“I was pretty fast, yeah.” He agreed.

“Any other profiles you want to show me before we look over the perks?”

“Yeah, the Dubois sisters.” He pulled up Christine’s profile.

Christine Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Remorse 31* (+1), Affection 24, Playfulness 3, Beholden 3*, Disdain 2, Worry 1, Fear 1

Special Traits: Internal Conflict

Active Affects: Attitude Amplifier (Beholden), Attitude Amplifier (Remorse)

“What are those asterisks on remorse and beholden?”

“That means they have active effects, look here.” He pointed to the active effects listed at the bottom of the profile.

“What’s that do? Wait, let me guess. It makes them increase faster?”

“Yeah.”

Chloe winced as she continued reading the attitudes, “Yeah, disdain, gotta find a way to change that, huh?”

“Assuming I’m still interested in dating ‘Stephani’.” He replied, and Chloe gave him a searching look, but then directed him to switch to Louisa’s profile.

Louisa Dubois

Relationship: Catfisher

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Remorse 43*, Affection 29, Beholden 7* (+1), Lust 4, Worry 1, Fear 0

Special Traits: Internal Conflict, Self Doubt

Active Affects: Attitude Amplifier (Beholden), Attitude Amplifier (Remorse)

“So, same catfisher relationship, and the same amplifiers.” Chloe observed. “Better overall attitudes, it seems.”

“Yeah, Louisa seems to like me a little more than her sister.”

“That could be useful.” She agreed, then turned to face him a little more straight on, so he did likewise, pressing their knees together on the booth bench. “So I guess the question is, what exactly is your goal with ‘Stephani’? Do you want to build a new relationship with them? If you can get them to admit the truth, do you still have romantic feelings for them, or do you just want to exploit them a little to get back at them for what they did?”

Jason sighed. That was a question he’d been avoiding asking himself, but this was a large part of why he wanted to get Chloe’s advice here. “At the moment, I no longer think of them as my girlfriend. But it’s clear they feel guilty, at the very least, so that gives me some hope that there might be some relationship salvageable once we get the truth out between us. But I feel no particular loyalty to that relationship in its current form. I guess that’s why I’ve allowed myself to flirt with you, and a few other people.”

“Who else have you been flirting with, Casanova?” She asked with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

“Well uh, Heather, and Allison, and maybe Kate, a little bit.”

“Who’s Allison?” She blinked at him.

“Miss Carn; my supervisor at work. She’s got… actually here, let me show you.” He pulled up Allison’s profile.

Allison Carn

Relationship: Subordinate, Potential Mister

Prominent Attitudes (out of 100): Lust 47, Admiration 30, Dominance 28, Submissiveness 9, Affection 6, Loyalty 2

Special Traits: Cheating Kink, Loss of Dominance Kink

“Dang. She’s a lusty girl!” Chloe observed, elbowing Jason in the side playfully. “She definitely wants a piece of you.”

“That’s part of the problem. I kinda flirted with her, and she’s been having me come in to work after-hours one on one, but I’m torn. Getting on her good side could help me out at work, but I don’t want to get too far with her.”

“Why not? Maybe you’ll get a raise, or other benefits.”

“I don’t want to cheat on… well, whoever I end up dating with Stephani being a catfish.”

“Have you decided who you want that someone to be?” Chloe asked, looking down at her lap.

“I’ve thought quite a lot about that, actually, but I’m torn. According to the app, it feels like I’ve got a lot of options, and it’s hard to pick between them. I mean, you’re my best friend, I’ve always liked Heather, and Kate obviously has some feelings for me. Heck, even Lilly has positive attitudes, though her boyfriend is a jealous prick.”

“You’ve mentioned Lilly before. She the girl who draws furries in your class?”

Jason nodded.

“Why stick to just one?” She asked him.

“Uh, I don’t want to lead anyone on…”

Chloe gave him an exasperated roll of her eyes, “Jason. You’ve been given a magical app that basically will let you get away with creating your own harem, if you play your cards right. Or at the very least, you could keep a girlfriend or two happy even if you’ve got multiple girls you do stuff with on a semi-regular basis.”

Jason gaped at her, “Yeah but…”

Chloe held a hand up to stop him. “I’m not saying you have to do it that way, just that you could if you wanted to.”

“Wouldn’t that bother you, though?”

She shrugged again, “This is still just a casual date, and I wouldn’t want to get in your way of exploring what you can do with this. Besides, the idea of you surrounding yourself with hot girls is kind of a turn on.”

“Really?” He blinked at her. “Wouldn’t that just make me the male equivalent of a slut?”

“It’s not really the same. A lot of girls like a guy who can attract the attention of a lot of other girls. Yeah it can make them jealous, but it also proves that they are confident and virile. Why do you think jocks and bad boys never seem to have to try that hard to get new girls?”

“I haven’t thought of it from that perspective. But it still feels weird to actively contemplate doing it.” Jason turned his thoughts inward. Did he want this to be more than just casual with Chloe? Or did he want one of the other girls the app had helped him see the potential in?