Third Wheel

Hanna marveled at the architecture as they walked down the palace's main hallway. The soaring pillars took her breath away. The subject material of the murals may have been questionable, and a little awkward with her conservative mother at her side, but their beauty was undeniable.

Of course, her mother's modesty might have rang a little hollow at the moment since she was wearing a dress that was anything but. It was a deep purple with flowing sleeves and featured a plunging v that descended all the way to her navel, leaving plenty of cleavage on display. The dress ended only an inch or two beneath her butt and so she was almost constantly trying to tug it down.

While her mom had chosen to wear the least-slutty outfit she could find, Hanna had not. To be sure there were outfits in their new wardrobes that she didn't think she could ever bring herself to wear, but what she had gone with was somewhere in the middle. It was a long-sleeved black dress with cutouts that showed off the sides of her waist. The front was almost entirely made from thin strips that ran horizontally across her body, barely concealing her nipples but leaving almost everything else free to see. The bottom of the dress was tight and hugged her hips and butt, ending almost precisely at the bottom of her cheeks.

Hanna felt ludicrously exposed. She'd needed to hype herself up in the mirror before heading out.

Her mom hadn't even wanted to go at all. Hanna had been at a complete loss. Ever since the contest they'd been on thin ice with each other. They'd walked back to their suite in total silence and had hardly spoken a word to each other since. She really thought she would need to try and somehow put her foot down to get her mom out the door. Violet had shown up though. While Hanna had been excused from the room she had some idea of how the conversation must have gone, because when Violet left her mom was dressed and ready to go.

As Hanna walked up the stairs to Trevor's master suite there were butterflies in her stomach. She smoothed her dress out and knocked on the door. A moment later Trevor opened it up and invited them inside.

The suite was as impressive as the entryway had promised it would be. It seemed like the show was keeping Trevor well looked after.

"So," Trevor said, "I had dinner brought up if you guys haven't eaten yet."

"I'm starving," Hanna told him. The smell in the room was intoxicating.

"No reason to wait then," he said, walking over to his table. Hanna took a seat on the other side and her mom, who had been standing silently with crossed arms, took a seat at her side.

The table was littered with domed, silver platters. "I hope you guys like Chinese," he said.

"It's greasy," her mom mumbled.

"It's fine," Hanna said. "We do."

Trevor took the domes off the platters revealing heaps of delicious smelling dishes of all variety. He grabbed some plates and silverware that were set at the end of the table and handed them out. Quiet clinking echoed throughout the otherwise noiseless suite as they all spooned out portions onto their plates.

Hanna took her first bite. Truthfully she wasn't too big a fan of Chinese food, but she couldn't deny that this was good.

Trevor set his fork down. "So, Hanna, you're in school?"

She nodded. "I'm a sophomore."

"What are you studying?"

"I'm majoring in Biology. Or that's the plan at least. Right now I'm mostly doing general coursework."

"Don't knock general coursework," he laughed. "It's the only way the philosophy department can find any recruits."

"And how are the job prospects in philosophy?" her mom asked. Hanna winced, but Trevor took it in stride.

"Worse than I'd like," he admitted, "but not quite as bad as the general public believes. So, biology. Are you trying to work with animals then?"

"I guess," she said. "I just think it's interesting."

"Well, the sciences all went over my head. I like my challenges esoteric and enigmatic."

"What's it like? Working on philosophy?" she asked him.

He sighed. "I thought it would be fun, like solving problems all the time. When you start doing it full time though it stops being fun. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but it's still work."

"Have any fun ethical dilemmas for us?"

Trevor laughed. "Fun ones? No. All the good ones tend to get a little dark."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"What do you do for fun?" he asked her.

She swallowed a bit of food before responding. "Mostly I just play the piano and hang out with friends."

"Oh cool," Trevor said. "I never learned to play an instrument. I thought about learning the guitar, but I think every teenage boy does."

Hanna had had no idea what to expect when she came up here, but Trevor was nowhere near as bad as she had feared. He was actually kind of charming. Maybe if they'd met under different circumstances they could have been friends.

"She's a concert pianist," her mom cut in. "It is not at all like kids playing guitars." Hanna tried not to groan, and gave Trevor an apologetic look. There was a reason she hadn't introduced her mom to her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend. She tried not to think about it.

Trevor eyed her mother. "Sorry, I didn't mean to downplay it." He turned back to her. "I'd love to hear you play some time."

"Sure," she told him. "Let me know you're stopping by and I'll see what I can throw together."

"Wait, you have a piano here?" he asked.

She nodded. "My mom got them to bring one over."

"You got the servants to carry a piano, over sand, to your suite," he said flatly.

"My daughter needs to practice," her mom said bluntly.

Trevor laughed again. "Damn, they really can make anything happen."

Hanna saw her mom scowl out of the corner of her eye. She didn't approve of swearing. Thankfully she at least had the good sense not to try and chastise a fully-grown man she barely knew over it. With her mom that was not a given, so Hanna breathed out a sigh of relief that at least her mom wasn't embarrassing her as much as she possibly could.

As dinner wore on Hanna grew more and more nervous. She hoped Trevor couldn't tell. She gave him another glance, hopefully discreetly. He was good looking. And he was in good shape too. Things could be worse. She tried to keep her hands from shaking as the pit in her stomach continued to bloom.

Eventually the inevitable happened and they finished their dinner. Her nerves were going crazy. Trevor stood up and offered to take their plates. Hanna handed hers over with a smile and a thanks. As Trevor walked over to place them into the sink in the adjoining kitchenette, Hanna took the opportunity to turn to her mother. It was time.

"Hey," she whispered. "You should, um, go for a walk. See the palace grounds. There's gardens and stuff."

"What? Why would I do that?" Her mom did not pick up on the fact that Hanna was trying to keep her voice down.

"It could be fun. It looked pretty."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" her mother asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Look," she pleaded, "just give me an hour. Please, mom."

"Why?" her mom demanded.

"It's nothing mom. Just, please," she begged.

"You are lying to me. What aren't you telling me."

Hanna put her face in her hand. "You know what I'm not telling you."

Her mother sputtered. "No. Absolutely not. You will not do this under my watch."

"What choice do we have?" Hanna hissed.

"Um, hey," Trevor said, standing in the doorway to the kitchenette. "What's going on?"

"It is none of your business," her mom snapped. "This is between my daughter and me."

"Mom, please."

"No daughter of mine is going to whore herself out!" she shouted in response.

Hanna's mouth dropped and Trevor's eyebrows shot up. "I'm just going to..." he trailed off and disappeared back into the kitchenette.

"It's bad enough," her mom continued, "that you've apparently been sneaking around behind my back with some boy. But this is too far!"

"Maybe you'd have met him if you were capable of not being a total bitch for even one conversation!"

Oh no. She had never, never, spoken to her mother that way. Her mom stared at her aghast. Then her eyes were consumed by fire.

"How dare you. I am your mother! You will treat me with respect, you...you...ungrateful brat!"

Hanna laughed derisively. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Ungrateful? For what? This is your fault. You abandoned me out there. Maybe if you'd help we'd have done better in the contest. But you didn't and we lost. And now we're at risk of being eliminated."

"I did the right thing. I thought I raised you with some values, but apparently you're just fine with prostituting yourself. How would that boyfriend of yours feel about that?"

Hanna slapped her mother.

Her mom was shaking with anger, but Hanna threw back her chair and towered over her.

"How _dare _you!" she screamed, tears freely flowing down her cheeks. "I am doing this for both of us! Do you even know what elimination means? No, of course you don't, because you wouldn't read the fucking rules. And you...you dare to..."

Hanna's tirade devolved into a choked a sob. She let a wordless scream and then stormed out of the suite. She couldn't do this.

***

Trevor stood in the kitchenette completely shook. This was really not something he was supposed to be listening to, but there were no other exits from the kitchen and you couldn't have payed him to go back into the living room right now.

He heard Hanna yell followed by a slamming door. A short moment later Aaliyah appeared in the kitchen doorway, enraged. "You," she spat. "You will not touch my daughter."

"I really don't intend to," he promised.

"Never, do you hear me? I will not let her become a victim."

"Really," he said as earnestly as he knew how to manage, "I don't plan to. I never did."

Aaliyah evaluated him with a hard look but she seemed to believe him. She stepped out of the doorway and back into the living room. Trevor followed nervously and saw her wilt like a flower in the sun.

"I think I may have went too far," she said softly.

He didn't know what to say, but apparently he wasn't expected to say anything. Aaliyah pulled a chair out from the table and collapsed into it, her head falling into her hands.

Still deeply uncomfortable, Trevor looked around the room trying to figure out what to do. Aaliyah clearly neither needed nor wanted him there, but somewhere out in the halls was a crying girl.

"I'll be right back," he told Aaliyah, who didn't respond, before he left his suite. Descending the staircase in front of his doors Trevor looked around but couldn't see Hanna anywhere. He walked further down the main hallway, looking left and right, before eventually spotting her sitting on the ground a short ways down one of the side passages, sobbing into her hands.

Wordlessly Trevor approached and sat down carefully next to her. She looked up with a tear-streaked gaze.

"Hey," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

He jumped a little in surprise when Hanna buried her face into his shoulder, but recovered quickly and put a hesitant arm around her. Hanna just cried, bunching his shirt up in her first, while he held her.

Eventually she began to get herself under control. Slowly, she extracted herself from him and leaned back against the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered. "This isn't how the night was supposed to go."

"It's fine," he told her, offering a conciliatory smile.

"It's really not," she laughed, wiping away the remnants of her tears. "We were screaming at each other in other."

"Were you? I hadn't noticed."

She let out another small laugh between her sniffles.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked more gently.

She shook her head. "It's nothing. It's just been a long time coming, that's all."

It certainly didn't seem like nothing to Trevor. "Do you and your mom usually get along?" He was worried that this sort of thing happened a lot. That wasn't a good home life, and if Hanna was stuck in a small suite with her mom then he wasn't going to sit by while she suffered in silence.

"Yeah, we do. Normally. It's just that..."

Trevor stayed silent, letting her find her words.

"She abandoned me," Hanna finally said. "In the contest. My mom can be overbearing, I know that better than anyone, but she's always been there for me. No matter what. Until now."

Trevor scooted closer and put his arm back around her. She rested her head on his shoulder. During the contest he had noticed that Hanna had been doing all the talking.

"She wouldn't play," Hanna continued. "Refused to even read the rules. It was just me up there. Alone.

"It's more than that though. I could have really used a mom these past few days, but she refuses to talk about the show. She seems determined to just ignore it. But that won't make it go away."

"Your points," Trevor said, closing his eyes. Now he got it.

Hanna swallowed. "Yeah. We're in the red."

"And tonight," he said, "you were going to earn some."

She nodded silently.

Trevor rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Hanna," he began, but she cut him off.

"I'm an adult," she said, pulling away from him. "I know what I'm doing. I can make my own choices."

"I wasn't going to say that you can't. But for what it's worth, I would have said no. This can't happen. Not like this."

"I don't have that luxury," she insisted. "We need the points."

She had a point. Trevor felt his moral high ground collapse beneath him. It wasn't that simple.

He thought about it. "You're only down one point, right?"

She nodded.

"Alright, well, so, I'm thinking..."

"Go on."

He sighed. "I don't know anything about the rules that you don't, so I may be wrong. It says you get points for 'advancing our relationship'. But there's nothing that says we have to, er, you know. So it seems like maybe you get points for each step."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Well, if you only need one point, maybe, you know, just a kiss would do the trick."

"You think that would work?"

"Maybe."

Hanna stared into his eyes. "If it doesn't it's not like anything bad would happen."

"It's pretty low risk," Trevor agreed.

"So..."

Trevor leaned in slowly, and Hanna leaned in to meet him. His lips brushed against hers. Hanna reached a hand up to his cheek, and Trevor reveled in her warmth.

And then it was over. His face was still only inches away from hers. He could feel her breath.

+1 VP - Kiss

Hanna's face bloomed into a smile. "It worked!" she squealed.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I just...do."

She threw her arms around him and laughed. "Thank you, thank you!"

Trevor couldn't help himself, he smiled and laughed with her.

"God," she said, "and to think I was going to..." Her face flushed. "Well, thank you. You have no idea how big a weight off my shoulders that is."

"Glad I could help. Besides, it wasn't exactly a sacrifice."

Hanna managed to blush even further. "No, it wasn't."

Trevor stood up and offered Hanna a hand. She took it, joining him. "We should probably get back. Your moms still in the suite."

Hanna's mood immediately soured. "Right."

"Are you two going to be ok?" he asked.

She grew thoughtful. "I don't know."

Trevor had an idea. "I don't want to overstep, but, if you need to get away for a bit, I'm sure my sister would make room for you in her suite."

"I have to sleep in our suite's bed. Violet said so."

Trevor shook his head. "You have to sleep in a bed, but not any one in particular."

"Really?"

"I'm pretty sure." He didn't bother explaining why he suspected that might be. "My sisters really nice. She'd be glad to have you."

"Thanks. I'll think about it."

The two walked back to his suite and opened the door to find Aaliyah still sitting at the table. Trevor shut the door behind him and stepped aside. He could practically see Hanna swallow her pride.

"I'm sorry mom," she said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

Aaliyah studied her daughter for a moment before nodding. "I shouldn't have yelled either. And I'm sorry for my language."

The two stared at each other in pregnant silence, but eventually broke the gaze and moved on. Trevor thought that neither had really apologized for anything that actually mattered, but it was definitely not his place to point that out.

"So whats the sleeping situation?" Hanna asked.

"The bedrooms over there," he said, pointing. "Only one bed I'm afraid."

"Violet told us the deal," Hanna said.

"I'll shut the bedroom door and change in the bathroom. You can guys can get dressed in here if you brought something to sleep in. I won't come out until you open the door."

Trevor went into the bedroom and did just that, shutting the door behind him and going into the bathroom with his pajamas. He took his pants off and inspected his business. Trevor hadn't jacked off since the night of the contest. His balls had grown to the size of two baseballs. It looked ridiculous. He'd have to take care of that tomorrow morning.

Shaking his head, Trevor changed and then went back into the other room, crawled into bed, and switched on the TV. A few minutes later the door cracked open. Seeing him already in bed, Hanna opened it the rest of the way and stepped into the room. She looked directly at her feet as she made her way to the other side of the bed.

Her sleepwear hung off her shoulders on two thin straps. It cradled her breasts in lacy half-cups, leaving most them fully exposed. The whole thing was semi-translucent, giving Trevor a hint of her nipples and the panties she wore underneath. It was maybe a centimeter short of fully covering her ass and even though she was holding the hem down Trevor got a good look as she walked past. She had more than pulled off the dress she had worn to dinner, but Trevor had to tear his eyes away from her now.

Aaliyah stepped into the room wearing a similar nightie before Hanna could get under the covers. "I will take the middle," she said, in a voice broaching no argument.

Hanna sighed and stood back while Aaliyah got into bed, then followed. Trevor scooted as far over as he could go.

When Riley had stayed over the night before they had both fit somewhat comfortably into the bed, but with three people there wasn't much in the way of personal space. It was hard for him or Aaliyah to shift around without inadvertently rubbing up against one another, at least a little. This was probably going to be a long night, he thought, as he flipped through the channels.