An afternoon in the sun

“Hey! There you are!” Jenny waves me over with a bright smile.

Julian turns around to see me and clicks her hand into a finger gun, the universal symbol for “I feel slightly awkward in social contexts but I’m trying to be cool about it”. Like most things about her, it’s deeply endearing in its own unique way.

I wave back at them and cross the main square, petting the dragon statue’s head on the way. The locals say it’s for good luck, but I just like the feeling of the cool stone under my fingers, polished to a rugged smoothness by oceans of droplets condensating from the mist.

As I reach their table, I notice that there are only two chairs around it. I look around for a free one I can grab from another table, but Jenny stands up before I can find one and motions for me to sit in hers.

I’m a bit confused at first, but I oblige.

And she sits down on my lap, her face towards mine, and her thighs straddling my waist.

As much as I’d gotten used to it by the time I left her office on Friday, having it happen in public, and outside of the school grounds, and in front of a woman I have my sights on, no less, makes it all feel much more intense. My back jolts upright from the surprise.

And not just my back.

She seems to notice both the reaction in my face and the one in my loins, and her devilish smile tells me she’s going to take mischievous delight in teasing me all afternoon.

I think she’s going to keep on teasing me until I find her behaviour as normal as she does.

“Hey, Julian, do you mind if I grind one out on Adam’s thigh?” She asks innocently as she turns to her side slightly, just enough to face her friend.

“Hm? Yeah, sure, whatever,” Julian replies between two sips of her beer, with the polite but questioning tone of someone who doesn’t understand why the question even needed to be asked.

Jenny turns back to me and raises her eyebrows while opening her hands wide in a gesture that means “See? It’s fine, just get used to it.”

She then begins slowly rocking her hips, rubbing herself against my suddenly tight-feeling trousers.

I picked fairly thin ones too, to enjoy the warm weather, which makes me feel as though my hardness is painfully obvious to everyone around me, but Julian seems to just be looking at the fountain in appreciation of the beautiful waterworks.

Speaking of waterworks, Jenny slowly picks up speed, visibly getting off on the situation.

“Good afternoon, what can I get ya?” A warm, matronly voice asks from behind me.

I turn around to face it and am greeted by a woman, seemingly in her early forties, whose mere aura exudes size. Her body may be quite small, but her confident posture, her puffy sleeves and anachronistically petticoated skirt, her unusually voluminous blonde hair styled in thick braids; everything about her simply demands to be treated as larger than life. She’s the kind of person that makes you feel like you’re looking up at them, even when you’ve got a whole foot of height on them.

“Er, hold on, I’m not sure yet,” I manage to say.

“No worries! I see you’re enjoying your time in the sun, eh?” She remarks while looking at Jenny’s eager hips.

“Gotta enjoy... the warmth... while it lasts!” Jenny explains breathily between half-stifled moans.

“Couldn’t agree more!” The woman says with a hearty laugh. “I’ve never seen ya before,” She adds, turning towards me. “Are you all from the school up the mountain?”

Yes, referring to the hill as a mountain is also a necessary shibboleth if you want to fit in with the locals.

“We moved in at the beginning of the semester,” Julian chips in, realising that Jenny’s not in a position to keep a conversation going fluidly.

“Ah, this year’s fresh meat. Good luck up there, I’ve heard the stories,” she says with commiseration. “Name’s Kate by the by.”

We each introduce ourselves, and I see in her expression that she’s actually making an effort to try and remember each of our names, a nice gesture for someone who seems to expect us to be gone within less than a year.

Jenny struggles to say her name, she’s clearly getting close, and I’m still just as erect as when she started.

Eventually, I manage to order a beer and Kate leaves to fetch it.

“Isn’t it a bit scary?” Julian asks as soon as our waitress has disappeared inside.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, you know...” She lowers her sunglasses to look me in the eyes. “That thing about us being this year’s fresh meat. I always knew this school wasn’t going to be a great workplace, and that we wouldn’t stay here forever, but she made it sound as though people leave it feet first, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I get you. It’s frightening to think about. All those people, plucked up from their lives, taken in by the school, and burnt out until they have **** but to leave, usually all in the space of a year... This place needs to change.”

“At least the girls have been a bit more manageable lately. These new discipline methods that we’ve been using are really effective.”

“And... Ellen... is a bit nicEEEER!” Jenny moans as she grinds to a halt with a few last spasms.

I grab her to prevent her from falling off my thigh, but she just about manages to keep her balance on her own. As I do, I look around the main square to see if anyone reacted, but the only other table that has any clients seems to have simply looked our way for a second, before losing interest after locating that the source of the sound was just a woman cumming in public. Nothing worth their attention.

+8 BS. 40 remaining.

I can still feel small muscular tremors against my leg. I didn’t expect her to actually bring herself all the way there in public, but in hindsight, well, why wouldn’t she?

“You alright there Jenny?” Julian asks with an amused smile, the likes of which you’d expect to see after someone sneezed a little too loud. “Anyways, yeah, Ellen’s been surprisingly nice. What with that teacher of the week thingy. I wonder who’s gonna get it next time. It’s not like one of our teachers publishes a scientific paper every week. Maybe something to do with standardised tests?”

“Yeah I guess she could do it that way,” I reply as matter-of-factly as I can while Jenny recovers.

You know, it’s kind of frustrating that she focuses on herself so much when she does that kind of stuff. I suppose it makes sense, considering she treats it as a natural part of our friendship that she barely even thinks about. She just does it because she feels like it, not because she wants to please me.

I’ll make sure to fix that when I take care of her little smoking habit. I do enjoy the fact that she cares about her own pleasure, but I want things to go both ways.

I’ll just have to think of a clever way to roll it all into one belief.

And I think I have a bit of an idea already.

Eventually, Jenny comes back to her senses and grabs a nearby chair so she can finally enjoy her now lukewarm tea.

And from there, the conversation is unusually normal. We just chat about this and that, and at times we simply enjoy the nice weather, and I enjoy looking at the beautiful women in front of me. We each go through glass after glass. Jenny mostly drinks tea and one glass of wine, whereas Julian and I just have beers.

Until the moment Julian excuses herself to the bathroom. She’s on her third beer by now, so it’s not surprising she’d have to. I’m still a bit behind her on my drinking, but the sun’s been heating me up all afternoon, so I’m feeling a bit lightheaded, just enough to make me a bit more confident and a bit less rational than usual.

And that’s when Jenny goes on the offensive.

“Mate, you need to do something.”

“About what?”

“Don’t play dumb. About Julian. The only time you took your eyes off of her was when you were too distracted by me masturbating on your thigh, which, by the way, you should really get used to that cause I ain’t stopping,” she asserts as she wags an accusatory glass at me, dangerously close to spilling wine all over my shirt.

I consider keeping up my halfhearted lies about having no interest in Julian for a second, but in the end, I simply open up.

“I... I don’t know if this is the best time.”

“Oh come on! You just spent a whole afternoon getting her comfortable around you, and she looks a bit tipsy too. Not enough to cloud her judgement, but enough to make her a bit more open minded than she would otherwise. And besides, what do you have to lose? You can always just do some of your magic in that big brain of hers until she’s throwing herself at you!”

“That’s exactly what I’m scared of. Change. Change in her, change in me, change in our relationship. Everything is going to be different once I tell her.”

“Oh my god, you spend so much time feeling up your students’ tits that you’re starting to think like them. How old are you? You’re both mature adults, you’ll figure it out. Our relationship endured years of living far away from each other, two instances of mind control, and that time you dragged me to ‘ironically’ go watch Cats.”

“Still sorry about that last one,” I sigh. “But I suppose you’re right. I’m too old and too full of supernatural powers to let myself be held back by a fear of rejection. What do you think I should tell her?”

“You’ll have to figure it out, because here she comes, and here I go!” She says as she stands up and steps towards the inside of the pub, making a show of pretending to have a pained stomach as she crosses paths with Julian.

As my colleague comes back and sits down in front of me, all I can do is wonder.

How do I proceed?

Well, the same way I always have, I suppose.

I’ve never been a smooth talker, but my problem during so many years of my life was that I desperately tried to be one. And I failed miserably. I came off as overbearing and annoying and I struggled to get anyone interested in me. And the moment I actually started having a modicum of success was when I stopped trying. When I embraced my awkwardness and turned it into an asset.

Yes, I’m essentially saying that I just needed to “be myself”, as cliché as that may sound.

But like many other terrible, useless pieces of advice, it does kind of make sense, but only after you’ve figured it out on your own and no longer need advice.

Alright, here goes nothing.

“This really is a one horse town, isn’t it?”

“You mean a one dragon town?” She smiles as she points to the fountain.

“Heh, now that you mention it... It’s got some charm though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, in a way! I do wish there was more to do though.”

“Well... Maybe you and I could take the bus and see if there’s anything worth doing one town over?”

She flinched when I said “you and I”.

It was barely perceptible, I only noticed it because I was afraid I’d see it.

“That sounds like a lot of fun!” She says through a **** smile, before letting out a deep sigh. “Look... I haven’t really told anyone at the school yet, but... well, I might be wrong, but I think you’ve got a certain... interest in me. And... I’m not really into guys.”

Great.

Would you believe me if I told you this is the third time this happens?

I can’t even blame anyone for this, which makes it even more frustrating.

“Oh... Er... That’s okay of course! I’m happy you trust me enough to tell me this, it means a lot to me.” I say as I fight a losing inner battle against my tear ducts.

“Hey, are you alright sweetheart?” She asks, tilting her head and raising her finger to her temple in concerned sympathy.

Even when she’s trying to comfort me she’s just so cute...

“I’m okay,” I lie. “Have you... known for long?”

“I guess I’ve kind of always known. The only thing that’s changed over time is the words I use to talk about it, not the way I feel.”

“So you’ve never even tried with a guy?” I ask, realising how pathetic it sounds the second it leaves my lips.

I would never have asked that if I weren’t drunk and heartbroken, but I think I can get a pass for one stupid question, given the circumstances.

“Tried... with a guy? No, I haven’t...”

Her voice sounds a bit confused, as if she’d never even considered the idea.

I should probably leave it at that.

“So... are you really, you know, sure?” My vocal cords decide to ask without my permission.

“I... I’ve never felt anything like that for a guy, y’know.”

Why is she sounding so hesitant? I shouldn’t pry. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t, but it just sounds like she’s actually wondering.

“But... there’s something on your mind, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know... I guess I’m just... how can anyone be sure of anything? All the people I’ve been attracted to have been women, but it’s like that thing about crows.”

“To disprove the idea that all crows are black, you only need to find one that’s white?”

“Yeah. In a way, I could only be sure I’m a lesbian if I looked at literally every man on Earth until I’ve made sure that all of them are... regular old black crows.”

“How would you feel if you found your white crow, that one man that you’re actually attracted to?”

“Scared, I guess. Frustrated, maybe. Then insecure, shaken in my sense of identity... but ultimately, I suppose I’d be happy to find out more about myself. Just because one word I use to describe myself eventually stops applying to me doesn’t mean that I was wrong to use it in the first place. Words are like clothes. Sometimes they just fit you, they’re comfortable, they make you feel good about yourself, and then you outgrow them. But that doesn’t mean you were wrong to wear them when they were the right fit. People like to criticise labels, saying that they **** people into little squares that never reflect the complexity of identity, but you could say that of any word. It’s not a matter of identity, it’s a matter of linguistics. And besides, labels are useful. Because words are like clothes. Without labels, how would we be able to tell how much detergent to use and what temperature to set the washer?”

There’s a confused beat, before I let out a small chuckle.

“How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“Spur of the moment, I swear,” she laughs.

“But I do get what you mean. You can never truly know who you are, because you’re in constant evolution. The very act of thinking about your own identity changes it slightly, because introspection leads to evolution. You can’t observe something without changing it.”

“Please don’t bring up Schrödinger’s cat.”

“No, don’t worry, I’m still tapped out on animal metaphors from the white crow thing. But what I mean is, since identity is constantly changing and since it’s okay to let go of labels when you’ve outgrown them, all we can do is keep experimenting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, keep experimenting...” She trails off.

“Hey, you know, I promise I won’t be annoying with this, and I probably won’t even bring it up again, but no matter what words you decide to use for yourself, no matter what parts of your identity you want to explore and experiment with, I’ll always be there to respect it. You can feel safe experimenting around me!”

At this point, I’m just rambling on, **** always makes me talk too much.

“Safe... experimenting around you,” She echoes.

“You could tell me you’re straight tomorrow, bi one day later, and then asexual on alternating Mondays and I’d respect it! You could tell me you’re into wearing BDSM gear in the morning and exhibitionism in the afternoon and I’d respect it! Change as much as you need to, explore yourself as much as you need to, and always count on me to be by your side!” I ramble on, just a bit too loudly for someone talking about sexuality in the middle of a public space.

“Change... Explore... Count on you... Yes... Yes, that’s what I should do!” Her voice suddenly clears up and her eyes light up with understanding, in a similar way to how it looks when I use the app.

Oh no.

-5 BS. 35 remaining.

---

I pace around nervously in the bathroom. When Jenny came back, I pulled the same trick she did and immediately excused myself away.

I didn’t mean to use the app on Julian. I usually feel it when I’m about to spend BS on someone, but today it just came out of left field. I should’ve been able to notice that she was influenced by it at several points in the conversation, now that I think about it, but I guess the **** must’ve dulled my mind a bit more than I thought.

The ****! That must be why I didn’t feel the BS. Maybe it numbs the... whatever links the brain to the sophistry generator?

I need to check the app asap, but my phone decided that now was a great time for the battery to die. Luckily, I’m so used to it that I always carry a charger with me when I leave, but it still takes forever to boot up.

It only cost 5 BS, so it had to be a pretty small change, but I still want to know, of course.

Ah, there we go. Pin number, home screen, and app.

XP +2! Next level in 17 XP.

Cash + 2! Total: 13.

New profile added: Julian Calpurnia.

New Path unlocked for Julian Calpurnia.

Oh god, a whole Path for 5 BS?

I open the new profile immediately.

---

Julian Calpurnia

Age: 29

Occupation: English teacher

Available Path, Excelsior.

Please select one of the following options:

1. Sexual fluidity
   “I need to experiment as much as I can.”
   Target’s sexuality will be in a constant state of evolution. Shifting from homosexuality, to heterosexuality, to bisexuality, and back. She will gain and lose fetishes over time. While some of the changes may be random, they can also be influenced by being exposed to certain sexual acts or specialised pornography. It will be somewhat unpredictable, however. While the intensity of her sexuality may go up or down on a micro level, it will always trend upwards on a macro level, until it eventually reaches a nymphomaniac peak. Target will feel compelled to either tell the user about her experiences, or involve him directly when he is compatible and willing.
2. Emotional progression
   “Adam will always be there for me.”
   Target will come to grow increasingly emotionally attached to the user. She will come to love his attention and want to give him all of hers. This attachment will eventually — albeit slowly — blossom into boundless, unconditional love. While target will still be a lesbian, her emotional attraction to the user will be so strong that it will lead to sexual attraction as well. Target will still also engage in lesbian courtship, and both she and her conquest will find it perfectly natural to invite the user.

---

What? These are powerful Paths too. There is no way 5 BS would’ve gotten me so much under normal circumstances.

Did the beer lower her defences against the app? Or was it because our conversation went so well?

Or was it because she actually did have those doubts about her identity already, and my arguments simply brought them to the surface?

It’s hard to say for sure. Maybe I’ll eventually get one of those tooltips to explain what happened.

But for now... what do I do?