I'm in the club, so damn gone, I lost my friends and I lost my phone

In spite of what Kim may have assumed, the reason Dakota was late to come see her that morning wasn’t just to leave her stewing in her punishment transformation a little longer to twist the knife in, no.

She had somewhere else to be at the time.

“Wakey wakey!” Dakota chirped, clapping her hands together loudly and tapping her cane on the floor. “Rise and shine!”

“Ugh… huh?”

For all the focus put on Dawn and her inability to get out of bed in the morning, she wasn’t the only woman in the harem who was struggling with that.

Gina turned over in bed and grumbled, trying to block out the obnoxious sound of Dakota clapping to wake her up.

Unlike Dawn, who had been affected by the enchantment of her suite, Gina had never been a morning person, and that wasn’t about to change now even though she was trying to improve other aspects of her life.

Dakota was fine with that. It made things more fun, anyway.

Of course, just because Gina was resistant to getting up in the mornings, that didn’t mean Dakota’s efforts were a total waste. Gina’s roommate was quickly shaken out of bed by Dakota’s loud clatter, and scrambled up, rubbing her eyes.

“A-ah! Dakota?!” Sylvia gasped, staring up at the host in awe. “Good morning! Um, good-good morning!” She stammered.

“Yes, yes, good morning,” Dakota said, lowering her hands. She barely acknowledged Sylvia’s existence though, she was far more focused on the girl sleeping next to her (and partially on top of her) to do something like that.

…With that being said, Sylvia still had her uses.

“How do I wake this one up?” Dakota asked, turning to the startled girl. “Even with all that time spent sleeping in the same room as her, I never quite WAS able to figure out how to bring her out of her sleep.”

“Oh! I know!” Sylvia sprung up out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Dakota heard the sound of a faucet running.

Sylvia rushed out a few seconds later with a glass of water in her hand, and tossed it in Gina’s face without hesitation.

“YOW!”

Gina sprang into the air like a cat whose tail had been pulled, and she floundered around like a dying fish for a few seconds, clawing at her soaked hair. “What the heck!? Sylvia?!”

“I-I threw water on you,” Sylvia stammered, taking a step back. “That’s what you wanted me to do if you overslept, right?”

“Urgh… uh… yeah, that’s right,” Gina admitted, pulling strands of black hair from her eyes and looking sheepishly over at the other girl. “Thanks.”

Dakota smirked, amused. “I must say, that’s a rather unique arrangement,” she purred. “That may just well be the first time I’ve seen that method of getting another contestant wet in your bed on this show.”

“Hah, very funny,” Gina said, rolling her eyes. “What’s going on, Dakota? Why are you here so early, huh?”

Gina may have asked Sylvia to wake her up early in order to condition herself into getting up at a respectable time (after all, if she wanted to be mature, she couldn’t sleep in until almost lunch anymore) but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She was in a sour mood, and Dakota was the perfect person to take it out on.

And she had a suspicious feeling that somehow this was her best friend’s fault.

“I came to check up on you, Gina,” Dakota said, sounding downright honest as she did so. “After all, today is a big day, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Gina blinked. “Why?”

Dakota gave her a dumbfounded look. “…Are you serious right now?”

“Party!” Sylvia cheered. “It’s the party, remember? The party!”

“…Oh, shit! You’re totally right!” Gina’s jaw dropped in shock. “Goddamn, I completely forgot about that!”

Dakota pinched the bridge of her nose in disbelief. “How could you have forgotten-? Never mind. It’s you after all, I’m sure there are plenty of things you’ve forgotten about.”

“Hey, I remember a lot of things too,” Gina snapped back. “Footie pajamas.”

A furious blush surged across Dakota’s face as Sylvia looked at Gina with wide eyes. “Eh!? What’s that? Tell me!”

“You shut your mouth!” Dakota sternly rebuked the nosy girl. “This doesn’t concern you. And besides, nothing happened anyway!”

She turned her sharp glare to Gina next.

“Right?”

Gina smirked, undaunted by Dakota’s intimidating gaze. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Dakota ground her teeth together and started wringing her cane. Then she calmed down and let out a breath. “…We’ve lost track,” she stated. “Now, the reason I came here so early is because I wanted a briefing on what you were intending for your party tonight. Remember? I planned the first go, but now it’s up to you. What sort of theme will it be? Will there be any requirements? Any activities planned, maybe?”

“Psst, Gina, by ‘activities’ she means are there going to be any challenges to earn boons for!” Sylvia pretend-whispered, more than loud enough for Dakota to hear.

Dakota grunted and rolled her eyes. “Yes. Precisely,” she said, giving Sylvia a sharp look and earning an earnest smile in response. “What sort of activity were you planning, how many winners can we expect, that sort of thing. It’s your responsibility as the host of the party, after all.”

Gina stared blankly at Dakota, wearing a vacant expression on her face like she’d just slipped back to sleep with her eyes open.

Dakota snapped her fingers.

“What?! Oh, uh… sorry, um… zoned out a bit there, heh,” Gina giggled, scratching her wet hair sheepishly.

Dakota sighed in exasperation while smirking at the same time. It was an odd expression, a look that you’d only give to someone you knew very well and cared about quite a lot.

Sylvia seethed with jealousy but she was also really excited to see what Gina would come up with.

But obviously, the punk girl hadn’t put any thought into this at all.

“It seems that I was setting myself up for failure when I used the word ‘responsibility’,” Dakota said in amusement. She shook her head. “So be it, then. You have until the end of the day to come up with a party theme idea, and a plan for the activities. Now, this doesn’t have to be strict, let me tell you. The criteria can be as loose as you want it to be, but to meet the requirement for the transformation, there must be something tangible.”

She tapped her cane and brought up a screen, displaying Gina’s transformation lest she forget the requirements.

• The Party of the Year: On Gina’s night with the master, she can invite as many girls as she likes up to the Master’s Suite with her for a party. There’s a 500 BP entrance fee, but any contestant who attends and participates in the fun will find themselves receiving a positive boon that will help them for the remainder of the round. [NOTE: Boons will be given at random, and the positive benefits will vary based on the enthusiasm of the participants in the night’s festivities.] (Party Animal)

“Note the positive boon here,” Dakota indicated to that section in particular. “Those are earned by contestants ‘participating in the fun’ as it were.”

“So I could just throw some big rager, and make the criteria be anyone who listens to the music, right?” Gina pointed out. “I don’t need to do some big fancy thing like you did last time.”

“Correct, as I said, the criteria can be very loose,” Dakota agreed. “But keep in mind, attending requires a fee of 500 BP for each contestant. And if the criteria is too loose, then the boons the contestants get will be less useful as well. After all, if everybody is listening to the music and having a good time, as in your example, everybody would get something, and that something could be as small as ‘you orgasm a little easier’ for the rest of the round. Certainly THAT wouldn’t be worth the entrance fee.”

Gina frowned. As much as she hated working hard at something like this, Dakota raised a pretty good point. “You might be right,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Maybe I could think of something… hmm…”

“That’s the spirit,” Dakota nodded. “You have until the end of the day, then. I expect a status update on your plans by lunchtime. Are we clear?”

“Sure, whatevs.”

Gina really sounded committed alright.

Dakota raised her cane and prepared to go pay a visit to Kim next.

“Wait, Dakota!”

“Hmm?” She paused and turned to Sylvia, raising her eyebrow. “What is it?” She asked, not even bothering to keep the annoyance at her sudden delay out of her voice.

Sylvia was a little wary, but her eyes sparkled with excitement. She shyly played with a strand of her hair.

“Um… what… what do you think of my new hairstyle?” She asked bashfully. “Do you think the red suits me?”

Dakota looked at her dumbfounded as if she had no idea what to say to that.

“…My thoughts on the matter are irrelevant,” she bluntly replied. “Does Nick like your hair that way?”

Sylvia deflated like a lead balloon. “Oh… um, yeah, Daddy said he thought it was pretty,” she mumbled.

“Well done then. You clearly made the right choice.”

Before Sylvia could even process that, Dakota was gone.

Gina looked over at her roommate, and saw the floatiest smile on Sylvia’s face that she’d ever seen.

“Oh my gosh! Gina! Did you hear that!?” Sylvia gushed, gazing ahead with stars in her eyes. “Dakota said that I did a good job dying my hair like this! She gave me a ‘well done’ can you believe it!?”

“Alright, nice work!” Gina nodded, giving her a thumbs-up. She wasn’t sure what other kind of support Sylvia would want from her, so she settled on responding to her positivity in turn.

Right now, she had bigger things to think about. Like what she would be doing for this party!

I knew I messed up taking on the responsibility for planning this whole thing out! Gina groaned internally. Every bone in her body was screaming at her to just pass the planning onto someone else who could do it better. Like Vivian! Vivian had planned a great beach party just a couple days ago, and Gina had a blast!

…But she wouldn’t do it.

That would be taking the easy way out, after all, and Gina wasn’t the kind of woman to do that anymore.

No, Gina was going to do this by herself! She was going to prove that she was competent enough to plan a party! Gina knew all there was to know about parties, she’d crashed dozens of them in her day. So to give up and pass the responsibility on to someone else?

She would basically be admitting that she wasn’t competent enough to be an adult even when it came to something she was an expert at.

That couldn’t happen. So Gina only had one viable option in front of her.

“Sylvia,” Gina said, turning seriously to the redhead. “I’m going to need your help with this.”

Sylvia blinked. “Eh? What do you mean? I thought you were going to plan this whole thing by yourself?” she asked, confused.

“I am,” Gina confirmed. “I want to prove to everyone that I can be a mature adult, after all. But you know what a mature adult would do?”

Sylvia considered that question carefully. “…Not throw a party…?”

“No!” Gina scoffed. Like THAT was an option. “They designate!”

“Huh? Designate what?” Sylvia tilted her head to the side in confusion.

“You know, when you tell other people to do things that you’re good at, because you’re not so good at ‘em!” Gina explained.

“…You mean delegate?”

Gina turned bright red. “Sh-shut up!” She stammered. “Yes, that, I just forgot, okay?! Look, the point is, I’m not good with challenges and all that shit. If I had to come up with something, it would just be beer pong or whatever.”

“Beer pong sounds fun!”

“…Okay, yeah, it is fun,” Gina admitted. She quickly backtracked. “…But that’s not the point! I’m not gonna throw some blackout college dorm bash with folks puking in the bushes, okay? NO, I’m gonna do something cool and classy. You know, grownup and shit.”

“…Uh-huh.” Sylvia gave Gina a glassy-eyed stare. She knew surprisingly little about this sort of thing, but even she had doubts about what Gina was proposing.

Gina just stewed awkwardly and looked at her.

“Sylvia, do you wanna help me or not?!” Gina demanded.

Gina was going to see this through and prove that she could throw a good party. But this would definitely need to be a collaborative effort if it was going to actually be something worth attending for everybody.

Luckily, her roommate had a lot of experience with making challenges. She was the perfect resource to rely on!

And she was just the first.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sylvia asked as she followed Gina down the hall. “She doesn’t exactly seem like the ‘party’ type, you know. Plus, it’s so early! She probably hasn’t even had her morning coffee yet!”

“This is different from those parties, remember?” Gina pointed out. “It’s going to be a classy thing, and I’m gonna need all- oh. She’s right here.”

Gina and Sylvia stopped halfway through the common area as they ran into Amelia parked in front of the coffeemaker.

Amelia regarded them with a muted look and slowly poured a freshly-brewed cup.

“Good morning, you two,” she greeted them. “Did you need something?”

Sylvia baulked, before remembering that Amelia was just naturally that cold. “Actually, yeah, Gina wanted to ask you a favor!” She chirped.

Amelia’s expression didn’t change. She took a sip from her cup and slowly shifted her piercing green eyes over to the punk girl.

“Really?” She asked. “Is that why the two of you are dressed like that?”

Sylvia looked down and immediately turned red. She was still dressed in her skimpy nightie! She- oh, wait, what was she worried about?

“That’s fine!” She laughed, scratching her head. “I’m used to wearing very little! Too bad Carly’s transformation wore off yesterday, I liked those punk clothes.”

“Maybe I can give you some of mine or something, we can cut ‘em up with scissors,” Gina suggested, and Sylvia liked the sound of that.

As for Gina herself, she didn’t see any problems. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” She asked, crossing her arms defensively. “I like this style!”

“The style is not the problem,” Amelia said, running her eyes over Gina’s clothes. “The problem is that your clothes are wrinkled. Did you sleep in that?”

“Yeah. So what?” Gina fired back.

Sylvia slapped her face and sighed. Wasn’t Gina supposed to be asking for a favor? Even when Sylvia was playing the bratty daughter for Nick she didn’t go THIS far with it.

“It’s unacceptable,” Amelia said, approaching her. “Dressing in that state.”

Gina’s face turned red and she looked crushed. “Un… unacceptable?” She mumbled, quickly losing her fire. “I just… I…”

Amelia’s eyes widened. “I-I apologize,” she said hastily, adjusting her glasses. “I did not mean to imply unacceptable in a general sense. I was referring to your desire to become a more respectable member of society and carry yourself with a greater measure of maturity for your age.”

“Oh, am I not doing that?” Gina looked down at her rumpled clothes. Aside from her jacket, everything looked pretty worn-out.

“As an adult in the working world, it is important that you always look your best,” Amelia pointed out. She crossed her arms and stood up tall, and cocked her hip to the side. “Take my attire for instance. I took care to find a Laundromat in the hotel where I could iron my clothes, to make sure that they always look fresh.”

Indeed, Amelia’s shirt was starched clean with scarcely a wrinkle, even this early in the morning.

Gina didn’t think she owned anything without holes in it, except her precious leather jacket, of course.

“There is nothing wrong with valuing your style,” Amelia continued, trying her best to sound as gentle and understanding as possible even while chastising the other girl. “But if you’re going to wear clothes like that, do be careful that they actually are clean and pressed. Taking the effort to do your laundry regularly is just as important as taking regular showers.”

Gina gave her a blank stare.

Amelia narrowed her eyes and pushed up her glasses. “…You have been remembering to shower, right?” She asked in her stern mom voice.

“…O-oh, uh, yeah, yeah, of course I have!” Gina stammered, turning red. “See? Just look at my hair! Nice and wet, right?”

She held up a dripping strand of hair and shot Sylvia a look telling her to keep her mouth shut.

Amelia had nothing to say to that, giving Gina the briefest of cursory nods. “In that case, we should really see about getting you to do some laundry,” she said. “Have you washed your clothes once since coming to this island?”

Gina’s lack of an answer was an answer in and of itself. Amelia sighed and shook her head.

“Very well then. Come with me.”

“H-hey!” Gina scrambled after Amelia as the stern disciplinarian stalked her way towards their room. “Come on, I made the bed, that’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Yeah, she’s really trying her best here!” Sylvia wailed.

Amelia stopped and turned to give Gina a sharp look. “This is no laughing matter,” she chastised the other girl. “You said you had a favor? This is the cost of that favor.” She didn’t even know what the favor was, and already she was giving Gina a hard time over it.

Gina swallowed and nodded. “Okay… fine, I’ll do my laundry… but you’re really going to help, right?” She pleaded.

“Not just your laundry. I also need to teach you how to use an iron,” Amelia replied.

“An iron!? Oh, come on! Just shoot me already!” Gina groaned. “Nobody uses an iron anymore! That’s like using a VHS player!”

“They do if they wish to present themselves as an adult should,” Amelia bluntly replied.

“I swear, sometimes I think you’re just trying to turn me into some creepy stepford wife,” Gina sulked, eyeing Amelia suspiciously.

Amelia scoffed at the remark.

“These are basic things that any adult should know how to do, Gina,” she replied. “The more resistant you are to them, the harder it will be to integrate them into your life.”

Amelia had a lot of experience taking care of a household. And even if Gina was just a household of one, the fundamental ideas still remained.

The older woman had every intention of making sure the punk girl took care of herself. And Sylvia as well, for good measure.