I'd rather be dreaming of someone than living alone

“Great. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

After a whole round of rooming with Gina, Kim thought she’d been through everything at this point. She thought she had finally gotten used to sleeping next to a woman who flailed about in bed like she was dreaming about fighting in a mixed martial arts tournament. She thought that there was no way her sleeping arrangement could possibly get more uncomfortable.

She was wrong.

Gina’s loud snoring wasn’t the only thing that had woken her up. Or the punk girl’s elbow bumping her in the face. There was also the feeling of something heavy lying over her stomach like a dead log, which Kim was very certain had NOT been there when she went to bed last night.

She glanced downward, and saw Dakota flat across her body, snoring away.

Kim’s eye twitched. Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me! She’s the host! I thought she couldn’t GO to sleep! What the actual fuck!?

This had Gina written all over it. Kim had been moderately concerned when her roommate said she was going out for a late-night drink, and even reminded her about the curfew, but as usual, Gina had just brushed it off. Saying something about how she was just getting a nightcap, as if “moderate drinking” were two words that ever found themselves next to each other in her brain.

Unable to stop her and too tired to care, Kim just enjoyed the fact that she had the bed to herself for once, and tried to fall asleep before Gina could come back.

Boy, was she paying for that now…

While Kim would have thrown Gina off the bed in a heartbeat, she couldn’t do that with Dakota. The host already had it out for her, and Kim was pretty sure that incident with Little Miss was just a token peace offering to get her to lower her guard. She was certain that if she did anything to keep Dakota from using her as a pillow that the spiteful woman would absolutely turn around and screw her over, with a punishment transformation maybe or just some twisted little **** scheme.

And since this was the last day of the round before the big challenge, that was the LAST thing Kim needed on her plate.

What is she even doing here?! What happened last night? Gina, what did you do?! This had her roommate written all over it. Out of all the contestants, Gina was probably one of the only ones who still thought pleasantly about Dakota and was interested in being her friend. Kim couldn’t blame her; she knew the history that existed between the two of them.

But why did she have to invite the psycho back to their room?! And to share their bed?!

Kim wished she could just close her eyes and go back to sleep. But of course life could never be that easy, could it? No, no, she was trapped here, unfortunately, trapped by her body’s natural compulsion to get up and start the day early.

It was her curse, being a go-getter. Sometimes she wished she really COULD just embrace her Slacker transformation path. But no- even if she did take the day off with Sick Day, her body was still telling her to get up and get out of bed.

And the elbow caving in the left side of her face was telling her that, too.

“Gina!” Kim did the only thing she could do at this point- hiss at her roommate to wake up and fix this mess already.

And when you had to rely on Gina for something, that’s when you were definitely “cooked” as the kids said.

It was a fool’s hope anyway. It would take a jackhammer to wake Gina up before she was good and ready, and unlike with Dakota, Kim didn’t have the leverage to boot her off the bed.

Great. And now I have to go to the bathroom.

The pressure Dakota was putting on her bladder went a long way in crystallizing Kim’s priorities. All of a sudden, the potential backlash from waking Dakota up no longer seemed like a big deal in comparison.

Without hesitating she turned her hips and rolled out of bed, pulling away from Dakota and scurrying towards the candy-covered toilet as fast as she could. She didn’t stick around to hear the “flumpf” of the other woman’s head on the mattress.

When Kim poked her head out of the bathroom a couple minutes later, Dakota was still asleep. She sighed in relief and tiptoed towards the door, grateful for once about her limited wardrobe options. Nobody would notice at a glance that her schoolgirl-themed pajamas weren’t an actual schoolgirl uniform, right?

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Kim froze, fingers on the doorknob, and her heart sank into her chest. You’ve gotta be kidding me!

Forcing one of her best cashier smiles to her lips, she slowly turned around and greeted Dakota with a grin.

“Oh! You’re awake! Yeah, you looked so peaceful sleeping there, I didn’t want to wake you up, so I just thought I’d leave the room as quietly as I could,” Kim said evenly, trying not to let on how she’d been trying to flee as far from the other woman as her little legs could take her.

Dakota looked at Kim with an even expression. There wasn’t a trace of tiredness or fatigue in her eyes, not at all what someone would expect from a woman who had just woken up from a deep slumber. Kim realized that it was likely because Dakota wasn’t like any ordinary woman; as a host, she didn’t need to sleep, and that clearly translated to what she was looking at right now in the lack of drowsiness in her expression.

Her eyes didn’t even have those little flaky, crusty things in the corners that always seemed to build up when you were dreaming.

Kim tried to hide her anxiety behind her smile, not sure how Dakota would react to this very awkward and uncomfortable situation. It didn’t help that the woman herself wasn’t saying anything either, just staring at Kim with an appraising gaze, like she wasn’t sure what to do about the other girl.

Not exactly a position it was comfortable to be in, to say the least.

Finally, Dakota rose from her seat and stalked towards Kim, her eyes focused and lacking fury. Which was a good sign, right?

Kim really hoped it was a good sign.

The smile on her lips? Less of a good sign.

“Sorry to intrude,” Dakota purred. “I ran into my friend here late last night at the bar, and we got to reminiscing. But of course, as the host, I had to enforce curfew, so… there she is.”

Dakota conveniently left out the explanation as to why SHE was here, too. Kim didn’t question it, she just left it out of her explanation as well.

“W-well, that’s nice then,” she said, like this was all perfectly normal. “That’s real generous of you, Dakota, making sure she got back home okay…”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand, Gina didn’t get smashed last night,” Dakota sharply corrected Kim with a shake of her head. “She has a date today, after all. It wouldn’t do for her to be hung over. We were just enjoying each other’s company, that’s all.”

“…Well gee, that’s real good of you…” Kim nodded slowly. Now she understood what was going on even less.

She really didn’t want to know more, though. She was fine with being left in the dark about this! All she wanted to do at this point was leave, and not have to worry about Dakota or Gina at all for the next couple of hours.

“But it’s a good thing you two are buddies this round,” Dakota mused, tapping her cane on the candy-coated floor like a ticking clock. “Saves me a trip.”

Kim’s heart sank in her chest. Here it comes. “I’ll stop you right there,” she interrupted, hoping the boldness of her voice would dissuade Dakota from coming to the conclusion that she was still thinking about how they’d ended up in bed together. Kim just wanted to move on! “I’m not taking a Sick Day today.”

Dakota blinked. She looked slightly perturbed, but only slightly. As if her offer would have been merely in a perfunctory sense, and not something she was actually that invested in. Kim guessed that maybe wasn’t too far off.

For Dakota to end up in their room like this must have meant she had something else going on, something Kim wasn’t privy to. And she was all too happy to let the host get back to that, rather than wasting her time with her.

“…Well, alright then,” Dakota said finally, not even bothering to go through the motions of trying to convince her. “I’ll be going. I’ve stayed here long enough as it is.”

There was a humorous note to her voice, as if the host were laughing at her own joke. Kim wasn’t sure she got the humor in this situation, but again, Dakota was the one in charge, and Kim knew better than to pick a fight with her.

With that, Dakota gave one last lingering look at Gina’s snoring figure, before turning back to Kim.

She wasn’t smiling. But there was something more complex in her expression that Kim couldn’t quite get a read on, and that made her even more uncomfortable somehow.

“Tell Gina… that I hope she has a wonderful time on her date today,” Dakota said finally.

Kim looked at her in shock. That was an actual nice gesture coming from Dakota, and she wasn’t even trying to leverage it for anything! An honest, sincere well-wish that left Kim stupefied.

“Err… y-yeah, okay?” She stammered, scratching her head. “I can do that, sure…”

She was very confused by all this. Very confused.

Dakota tittered and shook her head, giving Kim one last look.

“I must thank you, as well,” she murmured, pinching her lips together into a thin smile again. Not like her other ones that were loaded with malice, but far from a sincere smile, either.

If Kim (a master of the art of smiles) had to put a label on it, she’d call it a smile loaded with malicious compliance, like the kind she used to give to her bosses when what she really wanted to do was throw a chair at them. But not literally.

That was the closest she could compare. But at the same time, she could see it wasn’t that. Any anger Dakota might have had wasn’t aimed at Kim.

It almost made her want to know who she WAS angry at. Except she really didn’t.

She didn’t even want to know what Dakota was thanking her for. That was how much she just wanted this conversation to end.

“Uh… d-don’t mention it,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Anyway, I should get dressed, um… you can show yourself out, right?”

“How welcoming of you,” Dakota said sarcastically. “I wasn’t joking, you know. I really must thank you, Kim.”

Suddenly Kim was frozen by the touch of Dakota’s icy fingers on her cheek. The host caressed her face while those golden eyes drilled into hers, and as much as Kim wanted to pull away from her, her body refused to listen.

“Duh-Dakota…”

“If it wasn’t for you goading me with those harsh words of yours… I don’t think I ever would have stopped to consider it,” Dakota muttered cryptically. Her eyes were shining, but not with joy. “So thank you, Kim. I owe you… quite a great deal.”

That made two times this morning that Dakota made Kim have to pee. And she’d only been awake for like twenty minutes.

“I, uh…”

“…You have a good morning,” Dakota said with a sudden cheeriness in her voice completely unnatural for her prior attitude, and before Kim could even process what was going on she slipped out the door and left the stunned girl all by herself.

…Well, by herself, and with a snoring Gina. Which was, believe it or not, not better.

Shivering, Kim scurried back to the bathroom, having the foresight to at least grab a change of clothes before she did.

Always the efficient one, or at least she tried to be anyway.

Kim was not the only one who had woken up in an uncomfortable position that morning.

“…We really need to do something about this bed,” Emmy grumbled, staring up at the ceiling.

Without Sylvia’s presence, it should have been easier for her to get to sleep, right? After all, they had subtracted one entire person from the crowded bed, and it was just the three of them, her, her mother, and her Aunt Marley.

So why did she still feel like she could hardly breathe?

There just wasn’t enough room here for a growing woman, as simple as that. And as Emmy slipped out from her mom’s embrace, she found herself feeling a little…

Weird.

Yeah, she understood the rules of this show and how everything worked. She even understood that her presence here was rather nebulous and unaccounted for, since she wasn’t even technically supposed to be alive, let alone on the island.

But it was still really fucking weird for an 18-year-old girl to share a bed with her mother and her aunt. Right? That had to be weird. Emmy may not have much actual real-world experience, but the knowledge that had been placed in her brain made it pretty clear that this was weird- especially considering that her mother always woke up naked.

Yeah.

This was not normal. Not that Emmy blamed her mom for any of that, no, of course not!

But it was really, really weird.

Sighing, she walked over to the pile of clothes that she’d picked out for herself to wear today.

That was another weird thing. Because of a lack of space in the Garden Suite, Emmy’s clothes were all stored in another room of the hotel entirely. So before she had to go to bed every night, she would have to go over to Dani’s place and pick up some clothes for the next day to take back to her room.

None of this was normal teenager stuff. And Emmy herself not being a normal teenager didn’t make it better.

At least she could have some privacy in the bathroom, even if it smelled like weird herbs.

“Haaah… is this just gonna be my life from now on?” Emmy took advantage of the little privacy she’d been able to acquire for herself, and expressed her discontent.

Emmy didn’t sign up for any of this. She’d just been dragged into it. It may have seemed rather ungracious of her considering that, you know, she’d been brought back to life, but still, how long was she going to spend living like this before they were finally let off the island and could go back home to earth?

Another round? A month?

…A year?

The thought sent a shiver down her spine. A lot of the women in Nick’s harem seemed content to just let things coast by, including her own mother (Carly was a master at that, in fact) but Emmy was definitely not one of them.

And the weirdest thing was that she probably missed earth the most, even though she knew that in many ways, it would be her first real time visiting there.

“…That’s weird, right?” She mumbled to herself, sinking deeper on the toilet bowl as she cradled her cheeks with her hands. “I mean… there’s no other word for it. Like… do I even HAVE a home back there, really?”

From what she’d gathered, reality as she knew it had been rewritten a few times. Most strikingly, with Marley’s entire existence. Emmy didn’t question it at all, but she knew that Marley wasn’t technically “her aunt” in the normal sense.

Reality hadn’t been rewritten for Emmy, though. What would the reaction be when she came back home and Carly introduced her to her grandparents? “Hi, mom and dad, you remember when I lost my baby, and how I was emotionally broken for years after that? Well, don’t worry, because I got her back! Yep, this is Emmy, and she’s all grown up now! I know that seems weird, but it’s the truth. Oh and also I can change my hair to whatever color and length I want, and I also have to wear a new cosplay outfit every day now. And if me and my sister are more than 10 feet apart she’ll melt into a puddle of white goo. So how have things been with you guys?”

…

Yeah.

That was definitely weird.

Another loud sigh escaped Emmy’s lips and she shook her head.

She just had to make the best of this. That was really the only thing she COULD do. Just hold on and try to live her life as best she could, and hope…

Hope that this wouldn’t completely fuck her up in the head, living on this island.

There was another fear she had, too. One that she was too afraid to even share with her mother.

A fear she didn’t even want to confront herself.

Emmy was surprisingly perceptive for a teenager. She wasn’t born yesterday, after all. (More like a week ago.)

She could tell what was going on here. This whole island had been crafted by that Dakota woman to be a “paradise” for Nick, the only man on the island. All the women, with the exception of Dani, apparently, were meant to fawn all over him, and that included both her mother and her aunt, in their own unique ways.

So… what about Emmy?

The idea sent a shiver down her spine. She was just a kid! And she DEFINITELY didn’t want anything to do with the man who was sleeping with both her mother and her aunt! That was so, so gross!

She really, really didn’t want to be pushed into doing things with him. And Dakota had assured her that wouldn’t happen… but in the back of her mind she couldn’t avoid the fear that it just might.

“If only I could just go home… but I can’t do that to mom…” It would make things more convenient in a lot of ways if Emmy could just be returned to earth. But she doubted she’d ever be allowed to leave. And even if she could… she had just reunited with her mother.

She didn’t want to leave her.

But she didn’t want to remain trapped here forever, either.

This whole stupid situation, it was just so stupid and weird!

Emmy turned on the shower so nobody could hear her frustrated screaming.