Baby, don't make me spell it out for you, all of the feelings that I've got for you

“Ah, what a day…” Rose stretched her arms over her head, making her boobs bounce in her loosely-tied shirt. She was checking out her look in the bathroom mirror, admiring how sexy she looked in these farmgirl clothes she’d borrowed from Mary. “…Damn, I look pretty hot, huh?”

She turned towards the door and called over to the twins, “Carly, what do you think? I could use some professional advice over here!” She struck another pose, one meant to emphasize her tight midriff for the cosplayer.

Carly just gave her an awkward smile and a thumbs-up, not the kind of impassioned response Rose was hoping for.

“…Well, okay then,” Rose said, turning back to the mirror. Even if the cosplayer wasn’t going to be as invested in Rose’s looks as she was herself, Rose could definitely say without any hint of bias that she looked HOT.

“…It’s too bad I have to borrow these clothes with my transformation,” Rose sighed. “It would be nice to wear them all the time.”

She could just imagine the look on Nick’s face as she showed off her curvaceous figure to him while dressed like the sluttiest little farmer’s daughter around. The notion of a hot southern babe had never entered Rose’s thoughts before coming onto this show; it wasn’t really a concept that the French fetishized the Americans apparently did.

Rose shrugged. Their loss.

“I think you look very nice, Rose,” Marley complimented the blonde with a smile. “And you’re right! It would be nice if you wore clothes like that more often.”

She didn’t really care one way or the other. But one thing about Rose that she hadn’t gotten to truly appreciate until she started living together with her was that the blonde always managed to maintain a positive attitude, even under the worst of situations.

And given the state of Marley’s sister right now, a little positivity would go a long way.

Marley sat down next to Carly, who seemed lost in thought. She wanted to be there for her sister, but she didn’t know how to do that. When Carly had pulled her aside after the Ferris Wheel and informed her that she’d told Dani she might be in love with her, countless emotions had rolled over Marley like waves in a storm, but the strongest ones of all were joy and relief. While she didn’t think Carley was gay before today, she had noticed that there was something different in the way her sister interacted with Dani compared to the string of faceless boys she’d had leaving her room day after day since their high school years.

Still, a crush? Like, romantic interest? That was something new. And it raised a lot of questions in Marley’s mind- questions that, sadly, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get the answers to, because right now her sister seemed too out of it to go into more detail.

That was what concerned Marley the most.

Not only is Carly dealing with these feelings that I can’t describe, but she’s stuck in a twisted situation like this one, not sure what to do, Marley thought, biting her lip. Her main concern lied with Dani; shouldn’t the tomboy be overjoyed that Carly reciprocated her feelings? A confession from her sister should have been the moment that the two of them put all this bullshit behind them and come together as a real, official couple finally!

The fact that that hadn’t happened meant something was wrong; and Marley wasn’t sure what. She wanted to ask, but she wasn’t that kind of girl.

So all she could do now was support her sister, and hope that whatever happened, she’d be able to work things out.

“So what’s up, you two?” Rose swaggered into the main room with a perplexed expression on her face. “You two have been all pensive and broody since we got back from the Amusement Park!”

She frowned and stood opposite them with a concerned expression on her face.

“Is it… about Dani?”

Carly twitched, and Marley’s eyes widened. As usual, Rose could be surprisingly perceptive when it didn’t involve understanding when everyone in the room wanted her to stop talking and go away.

“Hey, I totally get it,” Rose said, placing a hand on Carly’s shoulder. “When she fell into the lagoon, I was freaking out, too. It completely slipped my mind that this was a season of Harem Hotel and that the producers and Dakota wouldn’t let anybody die. I was so certain that she was going to drown, it made me want to throw up.”

She tightened her grip on Carly’s shoulder as the cosplayer looked up at her incredulously.

“But it’s okay,” Rose said gently. “Dani’s fine now, you don’t have to worry about her.”

Marley had nothing to say. She was stunned that Rose thought this was about Dani’s almost drowning, but then… that was definitely a reasonable fear as well, she had to admit.

“It’s not that,” Carly muttered, shaking her head. “I just, I… I don’t know, I’d rather not talk about it, that’s all.”

Rose frowned. Usually, if there was something she wanted to know, she’d just press until she got what she wanted to hear. But judging by the complete shift in Carly’s atmosphere after a few rides, and the fact that she looked away with such a distant expression on her face, Rose certainly felt there was more to it than just a bad day.

“Well, alright then,” she nodded, deciding not to pry.

Marley was not nearly as understanding of her sister’s wishes.

“Come on, don’t give me that!” She snapped. “Come on, Carly, if you’re not going to fix this mess yourself, then at least talk about it with someone!”

Carly shot her sister a withering look, but Marley could tell by the pained resignation in her sister’s eyes that something like this wasn’t going to shake her. With a mutter under her breath, she turned and told Rose what had happened.

“I… I told Dani that I thought I was in love with her,” Carly admitted, hanging her head. Her cheeks were as red as Rose’s shirt.

Rose’s mouth flapped open and closed for a few seconds as she tried to process what she’d just heard from the girl in front of her.

“You… you have feelings for Dani?” Rose asked, just to make sure she had really heard what she just heard.

“I don’t know, okay?!” Carly whined, looking rather pathetic in spite of her mature charms as she stared up at Rose. “I just… these feelings in my heart, I keep thinking about Dani! About wanting to spend time with her, wanting hear her laugh, see her smile… and when I think about her with another girl… or even with a boy… it feels like I’m getting my heart cut out! But… that’s just how I feel, you know? Like I want to always be by his side…”

“…And you want to fuck her?” Rose asked after a brief pause.

Carly recoiled like Rose had slapped her across the face. Marley looked up at the other woman in shock.

“What-! Who-?!” Carly sputtered. She was normally much more eloquent than her slutty history would suggest, but at the moment, any layers of subtlety had been stripped away by the weird day she’d had, and the current cloud of her emotions it had inflicted onto her.

“Well, do you want to have sex with her, or not?” Rose asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because honestly, I’m really confused. I could have sworn you were into Nick, judging by the way you keep throwing yourself at him.”

Carly glared up at her. “Like you’re one to talk…”

“You know, it’s possible to be both,” Marley pointed out. “In my first semester of college, my roommate was bisexual. She didn’t care if you were a boy, or a girl, or whatever gender you were, she could please herself regardless of the-”

She turned red as she realized how intimate the memories she was about to share were, and quickly shut herself up. Even if they had been implanted memories, they were still embarrassing ones.

Carly bit her lip. Seeing that the conversation was going to continue with or without her, she might as well try and direct it in a way that’s positive for her.

“You guys don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. She picked up a pillow and buried her face in it, and sighed.

Then, slowly, she peeked out from behind the pillow, wearing a solemn expression on her face.

“I… it’s… the thing is…”

She sighed again.

“…I don’t like Dani. Not like that.”

Rose stared blankly at her. “…Huh?!”

“Sis?” Marley frowned. She might not have been as rude about it as Rose (but who was as rude about things as her?) but she was just as confused as the blonde. “What are you talking about? I thought you just said you confessed to her?”

“I did!” Carly groaned. “And I did mean it, too! These emotions that I’m feeling… come on. What else could it be? No, if I didn’t know for a fact that it was love, I never would have said it was in a million years, you know that, sis.”

Marley nodded. Carly raised a very valid point. As far as her sister was concerned, “love” had always been a four-letter word. Besides Marley and their parents, the only person that the cosplayer had ever loved was her daughter.

“So maybe you’re not thinking about it clearly, then?” Rose wondered, stroking her chin thoughtfully. She was trying not to be insensitive about this, she really was. But she was concerned about Carly’s mental state, and wanted to help her however she could. “It could be, you’re just feeling lonely since you and Dani aren’t buddies anymore, and you miss her. It doesn’t have to be love.”

Carly considered that new information. Yeah, if you thought about it this way, you could definitely say that line of thinking made sense.

But somehow, in her heart Carly knew that wasn’t the case.

She shook her head.

“No, it’s not just loneliness,” she assured Rose. “I’ve felt lonely before. And it’s not like this. Not this… strong.”

Rose sighed and began pacing around the room. Carly had given her a lot to think about.

“Well, what did Dani say? You know, when you told her you loved her?” Marley asked, trying to focus on the other side of the discussion. She was worried that this might hurt her sister even more, but she really wanted to do whatever she could to resolve this issue.

Carly blinked. “…Huh.”

Marley tried again, since her sister apparently hadn’t heard the question. “I asked, what did Dani say when you-”

“That’s what she said,” Carly cut her off. “She said ‘huh’. Nothing else.”

Marley winced. That… that wasn’t good.

“So wait, you two didn’t have a conversation about it, then?” Marley asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “You just… she just said ‘huh’?!”

Carly nodded. “I told her I thought I was in love with her, and she gave me this wide-eyed stare and said ‘huh’ and that was it. We spent the rest of the ride in silence.

“But… but you guys seemed so happy after the ride ended!” Marley pointed out.

“Yeah, I remember that, too,” Rose agreed.

Carly shrugged. “At the time, I was riding the high of conveying my feelings. But it didn’t take long for me to start getting worried and nervous. I mean, love? Me? That’s crazy talk!”

Marley would have thought that her sister would be in complete denial about the possibility of developing feelings, the way she was with every boy she hooked up with, and Nick was no exception to that.

And yet, her sister had been giddy when she confessed to a girl, even though the floating cloud of cheerfulness had quickly dispersed not long after that.

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Marley said gently. “I think you’re just realizing your feelings for the first time, that’s all.”

Carly looked weakly at her sister. She didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this right,” Rose said, rubbing her forehead. Her brain was starting to hurt. “Carly, you think you have romantic feelings for Dani, is that right?”

Carly swallowed and nodded. She still wasn’t comfortable with talking about this kind of stuff in front of Rose, but they were buddies now, and she had to get used to that. “Yeah, I… I can’t really say for sure, but it feels like I’m falling for her.”

“Okay, great, thanks,” Rose nodded. “But at the same time, when you’re falling for her, you don’t actually want to have sex with her or anything like that?”

“I’d be okay with having sex with her!” Carly replied. “But… you’re right. When I think about Dani that way… I don’t… I don’t really feel it, the way I would with a guy.”

“A guy like Nick?” Rose pressed.

Carly’s cheeks pinkened and she nodded.

“Yeah…” She admitted. “It’s just… Nick, he’s like… I like him just fine, but…”

“But you’re not in love with him,” Marley clarified. She felt a pinprick on her heart as the words left her lips. Why was she so relieved that her sister wasn’t in love with Nick, like she’d suspected?

“…No, I don’t think so, no,” Carly said, shaking her head. “He’s just a friend. A friend who I like having really kinky and erotic sex with. Just a date mate, you know?”

“Amen to that,” Rose nodded with a whistle.

Marley rolled her eyes.

“But that’s just it. I don’t have any romantic feelings for him,” Carly said. “And don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried.”

“Really?” Marley leaned in close, curious to know more. This was the first time she was hearing about that.

“Yeah,” Carly admitted. “Back when we first started sleeping together. Before, um… before all the stuff that happened with Emmy… before you became my sister. I had this thought, that if I was really going to end up in Nick’s harem, if we were going to be sleeping together on the regular, well… this was a bit more of a long-term arrangement than I usually have with a date mate. So… I tried to fall for him, but, well…”

She shrugged.

“It didn’t exactly work. I care about him, sure, and I love him, but I’m not in love with him, you know what I mean?”

Rose and Marley both knew what she meant.

“But you think you’re in love with Dani?” Rose pressed.

Carly’s face turned red, and she nodded. It was a shockingly shy and tender gesture, the kind Marley never would have thought to see from her sister.

“Does… does that make me bi?” Carly asked weakly. She really didn’t know. Her feelings were so clouded. “I mean, I’ve slept with girls before! You know I have, sis!”

“You always said you were just experimenting, though,” Marley pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“I mean… I was,” Carly admitted. “I just… well, I figured out pretty quickly that even though the sex with a girl can feel good… it wasn’t what I wanted, you know? Since those days, I was pretty exclusively for cock, unless I got really worked up, then, well…”

She gave a lopsided shrug instead of putting her thoughts into words. She didn’t need to, though- Marley knew her sister’s “well, fuck it” expression well.

Rose was still pacing.

“So to lay it out there, you’re sleeping with Nick, but you’re not in love with him, right?” Rose asked for clarification.

“Yup,” Carly nodded.

“And you think you’re falling in love with Dani,” the blonde continued, “but you don’t feel any desire to sleep with her?”

“…Also yes,” Carly admitted with another nod. It took a little longer to acknowledge that part.

Oh yeah. Rose could definitely feel a migraine coming on…

“This is really complicated stuff,” Marley said, looking down at the floor. “I don’t… Carly, I’m not sure what advice I should give you,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” Rose said, shaking her head. “I’ve only ever been in love with Nick.”

Carly and Marley both stared at her, surprised.

“…What?” Rose’s face turned red. “I told you two, I was a virgin before I came here!”

“Yes, we know that, but really?” Marley asked, shaking her head. “Not even a crush?”

Rose’s cheeks flushed even deeper. “I-I never had time for something like that,” she stammered. “I was too focused on taking care of my brother… it wasn’t until I got here that I actually had the chance to- hey! This isn’t about me! Focus!”

She clapped her hands together, and then pointed at Carly. “This is about her! And HER feelings, so stop psychoanalyzing me!”

“I don’t know what to do with my feelings, though!” Carly groaned, grabbing the pillow again. She held it up to her face and screamed into the muffling cushion. “It’s so frustrating! I mean, it can’t be love, right!? If I was in love with Dani, then shouldn’t I want to have sex with her?”

Just a few minutes ago, she’d insisted to Rose that she wasn’t just feeling lonely, and that her feelings for Dani were real. Already she was starting to doubt herself, and that made Marley uneasy.

“Hey, come on now,” Marley aid, placing her hands on her sister’s back and giving her a nice shoulder rub. “It’s not like that. Romantic feelings don’t have anything to do with sex.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rose replied. “Sex is a very intimate moment of romantic bonding, at least in my experience.”

Marley shot the blonde a look at the couldn’t ignore.

“What!? It is!”

“I know that,” Marley sighed, rubbing her forehead. “But saying stuff like that isn’t exactly helpful for the situation, you know?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Well, sor-ry, I’m just trying to give advice!”

“No, it’s fine!” Carly lowered her pillow and looked desperately at the two of them. Tempers were starting to rise, and she didn’t want her issues to lead to a meltdown.

Thankfully, all it took was a few words from her to get them to stop. They settled down, and turned their attention back to the embarrassed cosplayer.

“…Sorry,” Marley apologized, spinning a lock of hair through her fingers. “I kind of got a little too snippy with you.”

“I’m sorry I said something I shouldn’t have,” Rose said, and the twins reacted in shock at words they never thought would leave the blonde’s lips.

Rose wasn’t amused by their expressions, but she didn’t push the issue.

Instead, she directed the conversation back to the topic at hand.

“The way I see it, you’ve got some choices to make,” Rose said simply. “What do you want you and Dani to be?”

“And what do you want you and Nick to be?” Marley added.

“I… I don’t know,” Carly admitted, looking down.

But the longer she went without finding out, the more her heart stung. She hardened her resolve and nodded to the other girls.

“I’m… I’m going to try to get closer to her, though,” Carly said. “And maybe… maybe we can talk this out as friends.”

And after that… well, who knows?