We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow?

It was very, very uncommon for Rose to be stunned speechless. But that’s where she found herself right now, staring blankly at the screen listing her boon as the light from Dakota’s cane washed over her. Instinctively, her hand shot down to her belly, just above her womb. She could swear she felt it heating up in response to the boon, but that couldn’t be the case. It was just her mind playing tricks on her, and she realized that as she fumbled her fingers awkwardly over it.

But just because there was no physical signal of her change, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a change deep inside her belly. She knew instinctively that she had control over her reproductive organs- and that, in theory, could open up a lot of possibilities.

Normally Rose would be coming up with ways to use this boon to her advantage. But at this point, she just couldn’t think of anything because her brain was refusing to work.

Dakota held her hand over her mouth and resisted the urge to burst out laughing. Seeing Rose so shocked and stunned like this… it was just perfect, honestly. But making fun of her wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“Now, Rose, I’m sure you must be disappointed,” the host crooned, sauntering towards her. She reached up and brushed aside a lock of Rose’s hair with her cold-as-ice fingers. “That boon you got, it isn’t as… immediately, materially useful as some of the boons given to your fellow contestants. But I think you’ll find that the advantage is in how you use it, don’t you think?”

Rose felt a shiver run down her spine. She swallowed and raised her head, looking into Dakota’s eyes.

“How I use it… you mean, getting pr-pregnant?” Rose couldn’t help but break her gaze with Dakota, her eyes flickering over to Mary momentarily. Mary’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Rose…” she whispered.

Dakota took a step back and smirked. “Pregnant, not pregnant, the choice really is up to you. But keep in mind, the audience wanted you to receive this gift. So I would hope… you’d make use of it to the best of your ability. One way or another.”

Rose bristled and felt her hair stand on end. “I… I’ll… give it some thought.” A shaky smile found its way to her lips as she realized just how **** she was presenting herself in front of everyone. And that simply wouldn’t do!

So she pushed those feelings down, and **** herself to stand firm with her head raised high. She wasn’t about to let herself be shaken this easily!

Of course, her display of confidence went ignored, because Dakota was already done with her. She turned back to the others and clapped her hands together.

“Now ladies, you all have received some wonderful boons to work with. Some will be very useful to you, and others… are primarily for comfort purposes,” she said, glancing over at Marley. Marley glared back at her and hugged her body pillow tightly to her equally-pillowy breasts with a scowl on her lips.

Dakota just smiled.

“…Anyway. It’s time to start today off for real!” With a tap of her cane, Dakota’s pajamas morphed into one of her usual dresses, and her golden eyes flashed with amusement. “You all can go about your business now that time has restarted… oh, but Vivian?”

The heiress flinched, looking shaken for once. Like Rose, it was incredibly unusual to see her in that state.

She handled herself a lot better with it, though, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear while giving a much more comfortable smile. “…Yes?” She chirped.

“Have you made your decision? This is the deadline,” Dakota reminded the heiress, tapping her wrist, even though Carly was the only one in the room wearing a watch.

“Ah… ye-yes, of course,” Vivian said, puffing her chest up and holding her chin up high. “I’ve decided, I’ll be using this today.”

She hadn’t planned anything out, but then, that meant she wouldn’t be bound to any plans either. Vivian had a calculating side to her, but she was also very good at acting on her instincts and adjusting to the needs of the situation.

You couldn’t make it in the business world with rigid inflexibility, and Vivian was quite successful indeed. And she simply could not waste what she was given, of course. How could she turn down something free like this?

Dakota pursed her lips into a grin and nodded. “Well, excellent then,” she said, waving her cane. “I’m sure Nick will be looking forward to what you have planned for him!”

Vivian vanished in a flash, and Dakota disappeared along with her, leaving the remaining guests of the pajama party alone to think long and hard about how to make use of the boons that they’d received from the audience.

---

While Dakota was capable of stopping time across the island, she couldn’t rewind it. But she could replay the tape of the night before, to witness just what had transpired in the Master’s Suite while she had been off spending her night with the other girls.

If she so chose to look at what Nick had been up to, sharing a room with his stepmother and an assassin **** for physical intimacy, she would have gotten quite a show, even if it didn’t live up to her expectations of sexy times.

Sadly, Amelia’s presence in the Master’s Suite meant that Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin couldn’t do half of what she wanted with Nick. And she wasn’t subtle about showing her disappointment, either. After she practically dragged Nick into the bathroom to have sex with him again, he was **** to drag her out a half-hour later so they could eat a late dinner.

But when Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin saw the ice cream sundae waiting for her on the table, all her frustrations went right out the window. Nick was left forgotten as she pounced on her prize, leaving him to converse with Amelia with relative ease.

“Are you relieved?” Amelia bluntly asked.

Nick turned red and looked at her in shock. “H-huh!?” The more blatant meaning behind the word “relieved” was flashing through his head like a siren, and he tried very hard not to think about what had just happened in the bathroom.

No, it’s Amelia, she definitely couldn’t mean “relieved” like… that, right?

“S-sorry, did you mean, um…?” Nick’s mouth wasn’t working properly, which made it a great fit for his brain, which also wasn’t working properly. It didn’t help either that Amelia just sat there with an unreadable expression, staring at her stepson as though she was not completely aware that he’d spent the last half-hour having sex with a very intense and flexible assassin.

“Relieved. As in… sexual relief.”

Now Amelia turned a little red. She had been hoping this matter could be resolved with some subtlety, but she was not the most adept at expressing herself with words in a general sense, let alone when discussing things like sexuality with her stepson. So lacking any other methods of communication, she had no other option but the use of blunt ****.

Nick’s face burned like she had set him on fire. His eyes shot down and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, not sure what to say to her.

“I… I’m sorry, it’s just…” he stammered awkwardly, not sure how to answer. “Yes, I… I’m… everything’s fine,” he managed to spit out.

God, he wished this dinner would end so he could go to sleep. Why did he think that spending the night with both of them would go well? He could appreciate Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin just fine, and he did enjoy spending time with his stepmother. But the two of them together just made things untenable, even if they did seem to get along now.

Amelia nodded. “Good. Then I will not need to step out of the room again tonight.”

He nearly choked on his shepherd’s pie, which was a shame- he really liked it. Amelia had never been a good cook when he was growing up, and even now she still wasn’t on the level of Mary or Holly. But he could feel her effort in every bite, even though some parts weren’t heated properly and others were a little too hot for his tongue.

The important thing was that she tried.

As Nick swallowed and washed down the food with a glass of water, he noticed Amelia’s bright green eyes boring holes into him. An awkward feeling rose up in his chest and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, not sure what to do at the moment.

“Um… Amelia…”

“Yes?”

“You… you did a really good job,” he managed to say, gesturing to his plate with his fork. “It’s delicious.”

Amelia blinked. She looked surprised, which was rare- normally his stepmother was like a brick wall, completely unshakable. But in that brief flicker of emotion he saw her appreciation for his words, and that made him happy.

Then, to his surprise, she pushed back her chair and rose from her seat. After all the times she had drilled into him how impolite it was to leave the table without being excused, seeing it from her caught him off-guard. But then she walked around the table and approached him, and he realized she wasn’t leaving at all.

Instead, she extended her hand, and placed it gently on the top of his head. Her touch felt incredibly warm and comforting.

“…Thank you.” It looked like those words were hard for her to say. But the way she ruffled his hair said a lot more. Nick wasn’t sure how to respond at first so he swallowed and nodded, looking up at her.

“Yeah…”

They gazed into each other’s eyes for a second, and then Amelia did something else Nick didn’t expect. She clumsily leaned down and tried to hug him, wrapping her arms gently around his shoulders. The perplexed expression on her face spoke volumes about how odd she found this behavior, but he knew it was a result of her transformation, just like patting him on the head. She naturally expressed herself with physical gestures, it was just the way she was.

Unfortunately for the both of them, she did so in front of the absolute worst person.

The clatter of a chair falling onto the floor reminded the two of them that they weren’t alone right now. Nick and Amelia turned just in time to see Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin dart around the table, blue eyes focused intensely on the two of them. She threw her arms around Nick and hugged him as well, glaring at Amelia as she did so.

Amelia, unsure of the proper response for this situation, found it best to let the other woman stake her ground, so she let Nick go and took a step back, leaving him to Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin.

“Um… h-hey,” Nick said, forcing a smile for the assassin’s sake as she nuzzled her cheek possessively into his shoulder. She raised her head and gazed into his eyes, and he saw those bright blue pools of hers twinkling for him.

A big, beaming smile spread across her lips in return.

Amelia cleared her throat after about a minute of that.

“Are you quite done with your meal…?” She asked the both of them.

Nick jumped slightly in his seat. “O-oh! Yeah, uhm… uh-huh. I’m done.” He’d emptied his plate. Today had been pretty intense, and he’d worked up quite an appetite. And as expected, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had practically licked her bowl clean.

Amelia nodded. “Then perhaps it is best we retire for the night,” she suggested.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s head bobbed up and down eagerly. She didn’t need to be convinced on that one! But Nick was a little more hesitant.

Retire for the night… then that means… we’re all going to be in the same bed!? But that’s… all three of us!?

Nick had already spent one night with Amelia since her arrival on the island, and it had definitely been awkward. Add Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin to the mix- and she would definitely try to do something- and this had all the makings of a nightmarish scenario.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for quite some time, before Amelia clarified her intentions.

“…To be clear, I was not suggesting that we all share the same bed,” she stated.

Nick’s eyes widened when he heard that.

“What? Oh, uh… I mean…” He glanced over at the sleeping area, and realized that there were two beds they could use, his and Mary’s.

“My apologies for not making my intentions clear,” Amelia apologized. “I was suggesting that I sleep in Mary’s bed for the night, while the two of you share the other.”

She adjusted her glasses and glanced at the eager brunette still clinging to her stepson. Ideally, Amelia would have liked it if Nick could have his own bed, while she slept with Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. But she had a feeling that a proposal of that sort would be a nonstarter for the affectionate assassin, so she didn’t even try.

Nick was too relieved to even see the potential consequences of this proposal.

“Yeah, um… I-I guess that… that could work,” he said, nodding. His throat suddenly felt incredibly dry, and he reached for another glass of water.

I can’t believe I thought-! Of course that wouldn’t be necessary! The rules about the girls having to share the bed with me is only in place on their night with me. This isn’t Amelia’s night, or Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s, it’s supposed to be Gina’s! And since Gina is at the slumber party, the obligation isn’t present!

The fact that Ella had not come up to the Master’s Suite to clean at all today even though she was obligated to do so signaled that attending Gina’s party took priority, which was a relief. Part of Nick hoped that, in the future, Ella would be able to spend more time at Gina’s parties in an effort to get out of her cleaning responsibilities, and thus make more friends.

But back to the matter at hand, Nick was relieved to find that Amelia wasn’t proposing they all share the bed. They didn’t need to!

And hopefully, Dakota would be too distracted by the slumber party herself to step in and do a rules change. That would be an issue to say the least.

So with that settled, everyone prepared to go to bed. Amelia took Mary’s bed for herself, while Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin cuddled up to Nick in the other.

It was only when Nick was pulling the blankets over the both of them that he realized the danger inherent in this idea.

“Hey,” he whispered softly to the slender girl beside him. The way her ears twitched worried him, and for a moment he feared her transformation was kicking in.

Thankfully, the light in her eyes was bright and innocent. For once, she wasn’t looking at him like a ravenous wolf eager to devour him whole.

“Look, um…” Nick kept his voice as low as possible, in an effort to both keep Amelia from overhearing and also mitigate how aroused Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin became, if that was even possible. “We… we can’t do anything. You know that, right?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s lips curled into a pout.

“I-I’m serious!” He hissed. “Not with Amelia in the room, we can’t!”

He looked past the assassin at the still bed behind her. He could make out the silhouette of his stepmother’s body under the covers, just barely apparent as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The assassin’s pout intensified. She shifted slightly and looked over her shoulder, eyeing up Amelia for herself. Then she turned back to Nick and rolled her eyes.

Nick felt a shuffling under the covers, and realized that he could feel the assassin’s fingers creeping up the leg of his trousers. She clearly wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer.

Instinctively, his hand shot down to stop her just before she reached his crotch, and could feel how hard his cock was. To Nick’s surprise, she actually let him touch her, and as he felt his fingers wrap around her wrist he looked at her in amazement as she stared back at him with wide eyes of her own.

Maybe she wasn’t totally impossible to reason with.

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered. “But not tonight. Please. Not… not with her here.”

Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. Maybe the assassin could get him off without causing too much of a fuss. Maybe Amelia was already asleep, and she wouldn’t even notice a thing.

But that was a lot of maybes. And Nick had no intention of risking it.

Having sex in the bathroom with the knowledge that his stepmother was right outside getting dinner ready had been awkward enough. But to receive a handjob under the covers when she was sleeping in the bed right next to his?

There was pushing the envelope, and then there was shoving the envelope and its recipient off of a cliff. Not that Nick had any way of knowing that the phrase “pushing the envelope” had nothing to do with letters at all. And even if he did, that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin didn’t even try to hide her disappointment. The look on her face was one Nick had become all too familiar with, and he had a sinking feeling in his heart that she would ignore his pleas and just do whatever she wanted anyway, like she always did.

So it came as a complete shock when she slowly pulled back her hand and clutched it to her chest, assuring him that she would leave him alone tonight.

Nick stared at her in silent amazement. For the first time, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin seemed to genuinely respect his plea for boundaries. He could see her growth and progress for himself, and it made him smile.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and she beamed at him, her bright teeth shining in the dark.

Nick was right not to let her push things. Because Amelia was very much not asleep right now, and would have had a front row seat to whatever debauchery the two of them got up to in the night.

But the lack of sexual interaction in the neighboring bed didn’t keep her mind from running away from her.

Nicholas and that woman… I’m certain that they are doing something at this very moment. Amelia could make out the faint sounds of shuffling, and Nick’s voice muffled just enough to keep the words from coming in clear.

Amelia shifted awkwardly under the blankets, and tried to get comfortable. But that didn’t come by easily with thoughts of her stepson’s penis and what he could possibly be doing with it popping into her mind every second.

Grunting, she bit down on her lip and turned over, glancing at the other bed through a crack in her eyelid. Without her glasses she couldn’t make anything out, but it looked still. Almost too still. Like a couple trying not to get caught.

This would not be the most restful night Amelia ever had. Quite the opposite, in fact, as she tried very hard not to think about what Nick and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin could be doing underneath the covers.