Who’s waiting for you inside?

It’s Molly. She lives here.

As you close the door behind you, Molly looks up from the textbook she was reading.

Normally, if you came home and there was a pretty girl waiting for you in your bed, wearing only panties and a t-shirt, you’d…

… well, okay, that’s never happened, so you can’t really say what you’d do normally.

And technically ‘your bed’ is the living room sofa, although Molly didn’t strip off your sheet or blankets or the pillow, which seems like it’d be the appropriate thing to do if she just wanted to lie down on the sofa and read a textbook.

And you only inferred that she’s braless because you can see a bra on the back of the armchair.

And Tammy’s apartment doesn’t feel like home yet. (“And also,” part of your brain says, “aren’t you going to try to find yourself a new place instead of staying here for the rest of your life?”)

And, to be absolutely honest, you don’t 100% know that she’s waiting for you… although given that earlier today she was five seconds away from sucking your cock, it’s definitely a very, very plausible assumption.

Molly’s face lights up. “Jacob!” she says excitedly, and her nipples poke out through her shirt. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

Hah.

Then she blinks. “Damn, I know you lost everything yesterday, but –”

She cuts herself off with a wince. Honestly, you feel like wincing too.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she tells you urgently. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant… uh…”, and she trails off, clearly uncertain about what she’s trying to say.

You sigh. “It’s fine,” you tell her. “I did pretty much lose everything, you weren’t trying to be a jerk about it. I’m actually a bit surprised that I’m not more emotionally broken.”

“You’re stronger than you think you are?” she offers.

“Plus, I’ve got some wonderful, caring women who’re helping me.”

You feel your phone buzz as a big goofy smile spreads over Molly’s face. It’s heartwarming.

“So, uh, what were you about to say before you, uh…”

“Oh!” She blinks. “Uh, just that it’s kind of weird to see you in the exact same clothes as yesterday, even though I know why.”

“Felt weird to wear them,” you say, then you hold up your shopping bags. “Went by a Leopard’s Spot, got myself a bunch of new stuff – where can I put my stuff, actually? I don’t think it’d be a good idea to have my clothes mixed in with yours or Tammy’s.”

She blinks again. “Uh… linen closet for now, I guess?”

Molly gets up from the sofa and leads you through the apartment to a hall closet, which she opens, then consolidates two shelves worth of towels into one. “There you go, use the empty one.”

“Thanks,” you say as you unload your purchases. “So, do you always study on the sofa? “

“… what?”

“I don’t want to make things inconvenient for you.”

“Oh. Uh, no,” she says, and you follow her back into the living room, “but… I liked being in your bed!”

You look at her, expecting her to blush. She doesn’t.

“Oh?”

She shrugs. “It smells like you. And that makes me happy!”

“It does, hm?”

She smiles. “Yep! And also another five-letter word that starts with H and ends with Y!”

Her nipples are visibly stiff again, and you’re not totally certain, but you think you can smell her pussy.

Making these observations would feel a lot weirder if you hadn’t already decided you were going to fuck her and Tammy both, and possibly together.

That said, you choose not to take the bait just now.

“Oh, don’t be so tough on yourself, Molly. You’re not a harpy.”

She smirks. “You’re not my dad, so don’t tell dad jokes.”

“If I was your dad, would we be talking like this?”

“Flirting, you mean?”

You nod, conceding her point.

Her eyes gleam, and she bites her lip. “Maybe?”

She steps closer to you, and now you are totally certain you can smell her pussy. You’re also totally certain she can see your erection through your pants.

You look away from her, take a deep breath, then look back at her.

“Molly...” you say.

“Yes?!” she says, excited.

You’re about 95% confident that this will work.

“Whatever happens,” you tell her, “… and I’m pretty sure we both want the same thing to happen… I think we’ll both be a lot happier if Tammy is here for it.”

Molly’s jaw drops, and her eyes widen. “Oh my god,” she whispers, and for a fraction of a second you’re terrified that you fucked it up somehow, and then the smile spreads across her face again and she’s nodding eagerly. “Okay!” she says. “Yes! We’ll wait for Mom! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this is amazing!”

“Also, I need to pee, excuse me.”

She smirks. You head for the bathroom, and pause as you reach the threshold.

“You, uh… you don’t want to watch, do you?”

Molly laughs. “No, no. Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing your dick this morning, but… no. Thanks for offering, though!”

That statement was a lot more direct than you were anticipating, but you haven’t been to the bathroom since just after you got to the food court, and you really do need to pee, and also brush your teeth.

When you emerge from the bathroom, Molly has migrated to the armchair with her textbook, and is reading more seriously… although she hasn’t put on any more clothes. “What do you wanna do until Mom gets home?” she says without looking up.

“Well, I’ve got some stuff I need to do online – mostly people I need to message, and –” and you roll your eyes – “I asked Tammy if there were any chores I could help with and she told me to clean the bathroom.”

Molly snorts.

You extract your laptop from where you had shoved it behind the sofa for safekeeping, and sit in the space where Molly was lying down when you came in. You’re about to check your email when something occurs to you.

“Incidentally, I was wondering – about that line earlier?”

She looks up at you. “Hm?”

“The thing about five-letter words that begin with H and end with Y – did you only just realize that as we were talking?”

She shakes her head. “No, I noticed it when I was playing Scrabble with Sonia last year, and figured maybe I could use it someday when I was flirting with someone.”

“Who won?”

“She did. 281 to 206.”

You grin. “I like that you remember that.”

She looks a little embarrassed. “I’ve got a weird memory.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” you reassure her. “So do I. So does your mom, honestly.”

“Mm. Did it… did it actually sound cool?”

“… did what?”

Molly sighs. “The line about happy versus horny. In my head, it was really really clever, but as soon as I said it, I was like ‘oh my god, that sounds so fucking stupid.’”

You rock side to side in a kind of equivocating gesture, and then admit: “It was kind of stilted.”

She sighs again. “Thank you for being honest.” You feel your phone buzz.

You shrug. “I try. And, uh… the harpy bit?”

She rolls her eyes. “Definite dad joke.”

“Hi, definite dad joke, I’m Jacob?”

She laughs, then stretches. You openly stare at the way her tits move; from the smug satisfied look on her face, she noticed.

“You’re just… you’re so great to be around, y’know?” she says. “You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re interesting, you’re so sweet and caring, you smell nice…” She pauses, and you can tell from the look on her face that she’s gearing up to a punchline, so you wait.

“… plus you’ve got a big dick.”

You put on a look of mock outrage. “I’ll have you know I’m more than just my dick, young lady!”

“You’ve got balls, too,” she says at the same time as you say “I also have balls.”

Now you both laugh.

“This is so much fun,” Molly says, and she’s beaming. She closes her textbook and puts it aside; you close the laptop too.

“You’re one of my favorite people,” you tell her.

She giggles. “Only ‘one of’?”

You shrug. “Well, yeah.”

“So me and mom are your favorite people in the whole world?”

You know you have the no-jealousy attribute, but you still feel like you should word this carefully.

“I like a lot of people,” you tell her.

“Oh yeah? Like who?”

“Well… like Eleanor? She’s my neighbor across the hall. Back on Anglesey Street, I mean.”

“What’s she like?”

“Uh…”

Your mind races as you try to compress everything you know about Eleanor into a few short sentences. There’s a lot. Which… given that she as much admitted she’s had a crush on you for god knows how long, would make sense.

At some point you’re going to have to sit down and figure out how you could have missed someone sort of having a crush on you, especially when you sort of had a crush on her.

“She’s very quiet and gentle,” you say after a moment. “I’ve seen her pick worms off the sidewalk after it rains, to make sure they’re safe. Reads a lot of historical fiction and poetry… does crosswords in pen… she’s a really good cook… she’s got a blue streak in her hair, just above her left ear…”

“Cute? Big tits?” Molly asks bluntly.

You probably should have been expecting that, but you weren’t.

“Very cute,” you say after a moment. “Adorable. She’s Latina, a few years younger than Tammy. And… well, her tits aren’t enormous –” and you mime bigger-than-the-whole-rest-of-the-body Z-cup monstrosities; Molly giggles – “but they’re bigger than yours.”

“Have you jacked off thinking about her?”

This time you recover more quickly. “Yes,” you say confidently. “A couple… couple dozen times.”

Molly licks her lips. Her nipples are visibly stiff again. “Anyone else?”

“Who I like?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh, I like my manager Penelope, and –”

Molly springs to her feet, her face twisted with rage. “The fucking cunt bitch who stole your promotion?!?”

WHOA.

“Molly –” you try.

“How can you –” she sputters.

“Molly, calm –”

“But she –”

“Molly, calm down. Please. For me?”

Molly takes a deep breath and sits back in the armchair. She looks upset.

“Jacob,” she says, her voice wobbly, “how can you – I mean, she doesn’t –”

“Molly,” you say firmly. She stops talking, but she still looks upset.

“Penelope called me this morning, while you were out with Sonia,” you say. “She called because she was worried about me. She said I could take as much time off as I need. She offered to help me personally. We talked for like a half-hour, and I got to know her a lot better.”

“But last night you said –”

“Last night, I was in a shitty mood because of the fire, and I said stuff that… I guess wasn’t fair. It is her mom’s company, but… objectively, I can’t really say she didn’t deserve it. She’s a really, really good analyst, but also she’s a lot more extroverted than I am, which…” and you sigh, “is important in being a manager.”

Molly deflates. “You’re… you’re sure?”

“I had lunch with her today. She hugged me.”

Molly smiles a little. “I’m almost jealous. Your hugs are amazing.”

You and Molly both stand up, and she wraps her arms around you. You return the gesture, and also you get another erection.

Molly looks down at it, and her smile broadens. “I know, I know,” she says, and takes a few steps back from you. “Wait until Mom gets home.”

She picks up her textbook. “I actually have some work I need to do on my desktop,” she says. “But… just wondering… did Penelope get to see that?” She indicates your erection.

“We were in a food court, so…”

“Mm. Not a good idea, I guess.” Molly shrugs. “She pretty? Big tits?”

“Yes and yes. Long red hair, almost as tall as me.”

Molly smiles at that. “Well, maybe she’ll see it eventually!” she says, and then heads into her bedroom, where she wedges a shoe under the door so it stays wide open.

You pick up your laptop and – well, no, before you open the Multiplier, you should at least message Eleanor to let her know how you’re doing.

And Sigrid. And…

You open the multi-chat app and send a quick text to Eleanor –

From: Jacob C

Hey! Just wanted you to know I made it back to my sister’s place okay. It was so good seeing you today. I don’t think I ever told you how lucky I felt to have you across the hall from me. I’ll put your apartment pics on the cloud and send you a link. Tell Miranda and Raul I said hi, and tell Vincent <dinosaur noises>.

– and one to Sigrid.

From: Jacob C

Hey! Just wanted you to know I made it back to my sister’s place okay. It was so good meeting you today. I don’t know if I’ll be available for lunch this week because everything is all fucked up and I need to go look at new apartments and shit, but I really do want to get to know you better. You have amazing ankles.

And, actually, you should probably also message –

Then a message pops up from a different protocol. It’s from… ah!

<Barking Biter> hey jake
<Barking Biter> lookit my new friend!

It’s followed by a photo of a ferret asleep in a pile of socks. You can’t help but grin.

<Jacob> hey becca
<Jacob> Adorable. Does your friend have a name?
<Barking Biter> the rescue said she was hyacinth, which sucks. haven’t picked a replacement yet.
<Barking Biter> been a while. How’ve you been?
<Barking Biter> been been been been
<Jacob> terrible.
<Barking Biter> My dog’s got no nose! How does he smell!
<Jacob> no, I’m serious.
<Jacob> building fire. lost my apartment.
<Barking Biter> holy shit. really?
<Jacob> really.
<Barking Biter> jesus christ
<Barking Biter> when?
<Jacob> last night
<Barking Biter> JESUS CHRIST
<Barking Biter> dammit, now i feel guilty for showing you ferret pics when i should be sympathizing
<Jacob> it’s okay, you didn’t know, and hyacinth is adorable
<Barking Biter> her name’s not hyacinth, fuck you
<Barking Biter> fuck, I’m sorry
<Barking Biter> god damn. What are you gonna do? Are you homeless now?
<Barking Biter> were you able to save anything?
<Barking Biter> do they know what happened?
<Jacob> For now I’m staying with my sister and her niece
<Jacob> shit, *my* niece. her daughter.
<Barking Biter> Jamie, right?
<Jacob> Tammy
<Barking Biter> no, Tammy
<Barking Biter> close!
<Jacob> i have good insurance, and they’re being really nice at work
<Jacob> my manager told me I could take as much time off as I need
<Barking Biter> that’s pretty nice of him
<Jacob> Lucas is gone. New manager is Penelope.
<Barking Biter> isn’t she the one you said didn’t like you? or was afraid of you or something?

It takes you over two minutes to reply, because you keep changing your mind about what you want to say about Penelope – “I wore the wrong color shirts for a week and that reminded her of her abusive ex”? “I think she’s in love with me now”? Eventually, you settle for:

<Jacob> yeah, but we talked about it and we’re getting along a lot better.
<Barking Biter> that’s good
<Barking Biter> is there anything i can do to help?
<Jacob> Not from 1300 miles away there isn’t. But thank you.
<Barking Biter> i gotta get ready for my shift. if you need to talk about this shit, let me know.
<Jacob> thanks. That means a lot.

Once Becca has signed out of the chat, you open the Multiplier and check for her profile.

She’s not in Friends, even when you drag the Probability of Success slider all the way to the right. But that’s still a data point: “Hi, bus driver / bye, bus driver / hi again, bus driver” is enough to trigger relationship tracking, but a five-minute online chat with an old friend who’s 1300 miles away… isn’t.

Which is for the best, really: Becca’s been a friend ever since you met in university, but – unlike with some of your other female friends – you’ve never hoped it could be more. You’re very much not each other’s type (and you would never say this to her face, but you don’t find her physically attractive at all).

You’re about to check the updates log – it’s blinking – when a new message pops up.

From: Tammy C

Hey Jacob! I’ll be home in about an hour. Remember, you said you’d clean the bathroom! Molly, remind Jacob that he said he’d clean the bathroom!

From inside her bedroom, you hear Molly laugh. “Jacob!” she calls out, “don’t forget to –”

“I know, I know. Just finishing up here.”

The notifications icon is blinking. You figure you’ll just check Molly’s status, and maybe Tammy’s – although you still don’t understand why sometimes you’re able to look at just one person’s updates and sometimes it’s all the updates for everyone in a given interval. Probably you’re doing something wrong with the settings. Totally reasonable that you haven’t fully figured it out yet, since it’s been barely twenty-four hours since this thing showed up on your phone (although in a weird way it feels like it’s been a lot longer).

This time it’s “everything all at once” again. Since you’ve returned the Probability of Success slider to its default value of 92.whatever percent, Tessa and Shondra and the others are gone, and up at the top there’s Penelope being happy that you were looking at her ass, and below that there’s you catching Olga when she slipped and fell, but between them there’s an entry for Molly:

Molly Carter: Oh, I needed that 0/+2/-2 (92/60/81)

Even with how openly sexual your conversation with Molly was, you still feel like it would be weird to ask her “hey, did you masturbate while you were on campus today? At some point between 1pm and 2:30?”

Figuring out when updates happened based on context is less than optimal, though. Maybe somewhere in that maze of settings there’s an option to turn on timestamps.

Sigrid Petersen: Wonders what it’d be like to have you fuck her on the hood of her car: 0/0/+3 (86/61/45)
Sigrid Petersen: Wonders what it’d be like to watch you fuck Eleanor: 0/+1/+4 (86/62/49)
Eleanor Rodriguez: Has been thinking a lot about how she felt your erection pressing against her in the hallway, and now thinks she should have kissed you instead of pretending she didn’t notice: 0/0/+1 (74/63/61)
Eleanor Rodriguez: Thinks she should have offered to suck your cock right there in the hallway, and then taken you into her apartment and fucked you in her bed: 0/0/+8 (74/63/69)
Eleanor Rodriguez: Remembers that her bed is destroyed, and realizes that if she had actually done anything sexual with you in the building, it’s not likely that either of you would have thought of rescuing Banana: 0/0/-9 (74/63/61)
Eleanor Rodriguez: Wonders what it’d be like to watch you fuck Sigrid: 0/0/+2 (74/63/63)
Belinda Nkansah: Can’t stop thinking about how good your breath felt on her skin and how right it felt to have her arms around you: 0/0/+5 (31/0/17)
Belinda Nkansah: Wonders if you looked down her top: 0/0/+2 (31/0/19)
Maggie Santiago: Keeps thinking about how nice you are: +5 (42)
Penelope Jones: Is thinking about you bending her over the table in Meeting Room C and sliding your hot hard cock into her from behind, kissing her neck and pinching her nipples and pumping hot gooey semen into her and telling her you love her while she moans your name. 0/0/+19 (94/92/74)

Then there’s an achievement.

Then there’s more stuff – you notice it has Molly’s name, so it’s probably about your interactions with her since you got back to the apartment today, but you don’t really look at those, because of the achievement.

Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore: Opened and closed the Affection Multiplier application three times within sixty seconds, while looking for documentation. (0 points awarded; Affection-Multiplier-instruction-manual.PDF (893 Tb) downloaded to largest owned device. )

You stare at this for a long moment.

Then you get up and go clean the bathroom.