College roommates messing with a device

Cadence knew she wasn’t stupid.

The object sat on her bed, rectangular and plushy, exactly where it shouldn’t be. She reached out and ran her fingers along its surface, feeling the soft fabric beneath her fingertips. Despite its cushioned texture, her brain insisted on its rigid purpose.

“It’s a chair,” she said, though something in her stomach tightened as the words left her mouth. How could it not be a chair? The early morning sunlight streaming through their dorm window shone on it perfectly.

There was no mistake about what she was seeing.

But her roommate, John, burst into laughter, his eyes darting between her and the sleek black device in his hand. The device was his “special” phone (though it looked more like a sci-fi device than a phone). John had been tapping away at it moments ago before he asked what was on her bed. “Come on, you’re telling me that you can’t see that it’s a pillow?” he asked, clearly having fun with her frustration.

Cadence felt a bead of sweat form at her temple as she picked up the “chair” from her bed. It was surprisingly light, practically weightless in her hands, and something about that wrongness made her fingers tremble. Still, she set it deliberately next to her desk, trying to ignore how it seemed to sink and flatten against the wall in a decidedly un-chair-like way. “What are you talking about? It's obviously a chair. Not sure why I was sleeping on it.”

Shaking his head, John crossed the cramped dorm room in three steps. He pointed at her desk chair (unmistakably solid and wooden) and then at the object she'd just moved. “You’re telling me that these two are the same thing?”

“No, they’re not the ‘same’ thing.” Cadence sighed as she sat on her bed, the springs creaking beneath her. Her head was starting to ache, and she pressed her fingers against her temples. “But they’re both chairs. I know what I'm seeing, John.”

“Uh-huh.” John slowly nodded his head as he pulled out his regular phone with his other hand. He held up an image. “What’s that?” he asked, showing a picture of a man sleeping on a pillow.

“A pillow,” she said automatically, then froze. Something cold slithered down her spine as her eyes darted between the image and the “chair” by her desk. They looked identical, except... except they didn’t. She knew they weren’t identical despite looking similar.

The contradiction made her head spin.

He pointed at the “chair”. “And what is that?”

“A chair,” she answered. It was obviously a chair, despite how un-chairlike it was.

“Aren’t chairs supposed to have four legs?” he asked.

Cadence opened her mouth, then closed it. Her mind scrambled for an answer, but everything felt like static. “Not always,” she finally said. She pointed at the “chair”. That chair doesn’t have legs.”

John scoffed. “Isn’t it weird how it looks more like a pillow than a chair?”

“I get it,” Cadence finally said, rolling her temples. There was something wrong with that “chair”, but it wasn’t a pillow. It can’t be a pillow. “Would admitting your device get you to stop asking dumb questions? It’s giving me a headache.”

John exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing but clearly amused. “Alright, but now you see that the device changes the definition of things.”

Cadence shrugged. “Not really.”

He rolled his eyes as began to type on his device. “Want to grab breakfast at the cafe?”

“Sure,” Cadence said, getting up from her bed. “Let me get dressed first.”

With that, she quickly pulled her shirt over her head, revealing her lacy black bra underneath. Unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them, Cadence exposed her smooth skin and the damp spot forming on her panties. Weird how getting dressed was making her feel this excited.

Glancing at her roommate, she saw John’s eyes widened as he watched her get “dressed”, his gaze lingering on her perky breasts and the curve of her hips.

She walked over to her drawers, her bare feet silent on the floor before she picked out nice socks to go along with her shoes. “What?” she asked, noticing John was still staring at her as she put her shoes on.