Or would they hate it too?

Talking with Kim and Gina had set Dani on a good path, and she had an idea of what she needed to do now. It would be awkward as hell, definitely, considering that she was fairly certain Dawn didn’t have a single lesbian bone in her body, but even taking into account that pulling on the cat girl’s tail wasn’t exactly sex, it was still a really substantial ask for the genius.

Dani just had to swallow up her pride and do it. She made peace with the awkwardness, and the fact that she and Dawn probably wouldn’t be able to look at each other for a few days afterwards, whether she agreed or not. But at least if the answer was no, Dani wasn’t stuck. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin might still say yes.

…Well, not say yes, but… whatever.

One problem though, and it was a big one. One that only occurred to Dani after Kim and Gina excused themselves back to their room, leaving the tomboy alone to contemplate exactly what was in front of her.

Namely, the **** heiress on the couch.

“Dani, where’re you goin’?” Vivian drawled, looking up at the blue-haired woman as she headed towards the Arcade Suite.

Could Dani leave her alone like this? It wasn’t like she had to worry about Vivian hurting herself or breaking something, but it still seemed like a bit of a shitty thing to do to a friend. Especially considering how attached Vivian had gotten to her. It made her feel kind of icky, like she was stabbing the heiress in the back or something.

Dani looked over her shoulder and saw Vivian staring up at her with those big eyes.

It wasn’t like she could invite Vivian along. Dawn would definitely say no then.

“…I was going to talk to Dawn, you know, about that thing?” Dani said cheerily. “It won’t be very long. But if-”

“Ah, cool, yeah, go for it!” Vivian cracked a grin and gave her a thumbs-up. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Dani breathed a sigh of relief. She was getting worked up over nothing, apparently. While she’d been worried that Vivian would respond like a clingy child to the idea of Dani going and leaving her by herself, it seemed that even under the influence of **** the flighty heiress could at least be a little patient with her.

I guess I was looking down on her a bit, Dani considered guiltily. Today had really altered her perception of Vivian quite a lot. Just because she got really attached to me, that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of restraining herself or behaving like an adult.

So with Vivian’s permission, Dani left the dazed heiress to her own devices and headed towards the Arcade Suite.

She knocked on the door, and hoped Dawn would answer. Unfortunately, the only thing she got from the other side was silence. Well, mostly silence. Dani could hear the muffled beeps from the machines in the background, but no trace of human life.

Dani bit her lip. Was Dawn in? Or was she giving her the cold shoulder? It also occurred to the tomboy that, since today was Nick’s day with Morgana, there was the possibility that Dawn had angled for another competition and had joined them in the Master’s Suite. There was still time to go check, it wasn’t quite curfew time yet, but that would just be so awkward…

Sighing, Dani tried one last time to get the other woman’s attention. She pounded a little louder on the door. “Dawn, are you in there? I wanted to ask you something important.”

If she didn’t get a response, that would be it for tonight.

But to Dani’s good fortune, the tentative voice of the cat girl echoed from inside, “…Dani? …Are you alone?”

Dani blinked. Odd question. “Uh… yeah, why?”

“…Morgana isn’t with you?” Dawn’s voice oozed with suspicion in a way that made Dani nervous.

“Dude, I haven’t seen Morgana all day. Why, what did she do?” Dani knew how close the two were, if Dawn was being cautious of Morgana now, that had to be a bad sign.

The yawning silence from behind the door didn’t help soothe her worries, either.

“…Nothing, it’s nothing,” Dawn finally said, and Dani could hear the relief in her voice. “Don’t worry about it. Just… paranoid from lack of sleep. Come on in.”

She cracked the door open and Dani spotted her eyeball in the gap. She glanced furtively around, like she didn’t fully trust the tomboy’s words, and only upon seeing that Dani was telling the truth and she was truly alone did Dawn finally open the door fully and let her inside.

“…Sorry. Can never be too careful with new spells,” Dawn muttered under her breath. Dani had no idea what that cryptic response was about, but decided maybe it was better if she didn’t know.

Besides, she had more important things to worry about right now.

“So what is it?” Dawn asked, leading Dani into her bedroom and crossing her arms over her chest. Dani noticed that Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin hadn’t come back yet- which boded well for what Dani was planning to ask.

“I need your help with something,” Dani said. Her face lit up as she **** the words past her lips. “With… with my bounty. You know…”

Dani expected a surprised reaction from the cat girl. Dawn knew what Dani’s bounty entailed, after all, and Dani anticipated her to be stunned by the brazen request.

Instead…

“…I was wondering when you were going to ask,” Dawn said with a disheartened sigh, like Dani had just found the small print in a contract that she’d been hoping would go unnoticed.

“Wait, you… you were expecting me?” Dani stammered in confusion.

Dawn shrugged. “I mean… I figured it was only a matter of time,” she muttered, scratching her head. Her ears twitched. “With my transformation, I’m like the easiest woman on the island to make orgasm on command, besides Gina and that praise kink of hers now. So… yeah, can’t say I didn’t expect it.”

Dani’s face burned. Of course Dawn would have figured it out! She felt like a complete idiot.

“And to be clear, just because I expected you to ask, doesn’t mean my answer is yes!” Dawn said hastily, shooting Dani a sharp look. “I’m not a lesbian, you know! And didn’t you take Vivian to the spa today? You were with her all day, and you didn’t even…?”

“No, we didn’t,” Dani said quickly, shaking her head. “Wait, you heard about that?”

Dawn gestured vaguely towards the tomboy. “You look nice, your feathers are plucked, your skin is practically glowing,” she said, going down the list of physical markers she’d observed since the moment she opened the door. “It’s easy to see you went to the spa- you got a manicure and everything.”

“Oh, wow,” Dani said, impressed. “You could give Mary a run for her money in terms of being a detective, gosh! …How did you find out I went with Vivian, then?”

Dawn blinked. “…Also, Morgana told me she ran into you two today in one of her emotional dumpings, so…”

Dani was substantially less impressed now. “Ah.”

“Yup.”

The two women stared blankly at each other, neither quite sure how to progress from here.

But since Dani still felt responsible for Vivian, who was back on the couch, she decided it was up to her to move this along. “…So, uh, about, um… my request… are you okay with it?”

Dawn blinked, and crinkled her nose. Her tail flicked and her ears drooped on her head as she gave Dani a scrutinizing gaze. “I believe I just said my answer,” she pointed out.

“Well, I mean, you said I shouldn’t expect your answer to be yes,” Dani said, shaking her head, “but that isn’t a ‘no’. Plus, well… like you said, you’ve been expecting me to ask. So the fact that you let me in even knowing what I was after, well…”

She shrugged. Dani was far from Dawn’s level of brilliance but unless she’d missed something, her perspective right now seemed logically sound.

Dawn made a sour face.

“…Damn it, you caught that, huh?” She muttered with a sigh.

Dani raised her eyebrows. “Hey, I mean, if you don’t want to do it-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Dawn said quickly, holding up her hands. “Seriously, it’s fine… …Look, Dani, it’s whatever, okay? I was hoping you’d find some other way of… getting there, but I mean… it’s important to you.”

Her tail jumped up and began to flick behind her back, revealing her emotions to the other woman even as she tried to couch her words behind a calm demeanor. “You need as many ways to get VP as you can, given your… situation, I get it,” Dawn said, waving vaguely at the tomboy. She didn’t want to get too explicit in her words, and Dani appreciated that, she really did.

The less they talked about what Dani could do with Nick the better, especially considering how many Victory Points she’d already inadvertently earned that way.

“I’ll help you out,” Dawn conceded with a nod. “Just, uh… make it fast, okay? This doesn’t have to be some big, sweaty thing. Okay?”

She glanced furtively at the door, and Dani got her point. Dawn probably wouldn’t enjoy Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin walking in on them in the middle of… well… tail-pulling.

“Works for me,” Dani said, gingerly approaching the blushing cat girl. “I didn’t want to mess up my blow-out anyway.”

Dani had worked hard to look nice. She wasn’t going to get all hot and bothered with sex before she showed Carly.

Dawn, blushing, turned her back to the other woman and… presented.

She hated thinking about it in those terms, but fuck, that’s what it was, she couldn’t exactly hide it! Biting her lip, she let her tail stick out, and waited for Dani to grab hold of it.

Dani herself felt a little paralyzed by the awkwardness of the situation. “You’re sure this is okay, right?” She asked again. “I appreciate you doing this for me, Dawn, but if you’re not sure about it-”

“Come on, just do it already!” Dawn groaned, rolling her eyes. “I don’t have all day here.”

That was good enough for Dani. She stepped forward and wrapped her hand around the other woman’s tail.

“Just be gent-ooooh!” Dawn flinched as she felt Dani’s fingers curl around her tail, and her whole body went stiff. Pleasure shot up her spine like a lightning bolt and she arched her back in a way that only a trained gymnast could do properly.

Dawn was quite appreciative of her years of gymnastics because they’d allowed her to hone her sense of balance, which was why she could stay standing even with a bit of extra weight added to her chest. As Dani’s fingers stroked up and down the length of her tail, her knees started knocking together, and she let out a bunch of moans that she would really rather not have.

Nothing to be done about it now, though. She could only resign herself to letting Dani have her way with her.

“Is that okay?” Dani asked. “I’m not hurting you, right?” She knew how strong she could be, and it wasn’t like she had a lot of experience with this particular brand of sexual contact.

“It’s f-fine!” Dawn hissed back, shaking her head. Her glasses nearly fell off. “You’re doing f-f-fine! Just… just keep… oh, mmf!” Dawn wasn’t holding anything back, she was trying her damnedest to cum, just to get this over with faster. But Dani’s clumsy touch wasn’t quite getting the job done as quickly as she would have liked.

“Just… squeeze it! Like… OOOH!” Dawn had a mini-orgasm when Dani clenched her fist. Not quite enough to get her there, or enough for Dani’s bounty, but it had definitely shut her up.

Dani marveled at the sight of Dawn’s slender back writhing in pleasure through her thin shirt, and realized that this was her first real sexual act with a cat girl. Something she’d fetishized a lot when she was younger, but had never applied to Dawn until right now.

It was… quite a thought, she considered.

“Aaahhhnnn! D-Dani!”

Dani was so lost in thought she didn’t even realize that she was squeezing Dawn’s tail harder than before. “Ah! S-sorry-”

“I’m cummiiiiiiiinnnnnnggg!” Dawn’s pleasured howls drowned out Dani’s attempt to apologize, and she let out a screech, realizing only as her panties flooded that she really should have changed her clothes before going along with this.

As for Dani, the tomboy was frozen in surprise, feeling aroused by the sight of the orgasming cat girl in front of her. She probably should have let go of Dawn’s tail, but that wasn’t where her focus was right now.

BOUNTY COMPLETE!

REWARD: +3 VP!

“Whoa!” Vivian shot up from her nap on the couch, wide-eyed but dazed as the lounge spun around her. She felt a wave of nausea bubble up in her chest, starting to war with her sense of excitement. Blinking furiously she looked around, momentarily confused, as everything settled down inside her.

As the room settled down around her as well, things started to return to clarity, and it felt like a veil had been lifted off of her face.

She realized that she was staring into the kitchen, and more specifically, into the eyes of a very stunned and open-mouthed Cinder, who had just finished draining a jug of milk.

“F-FUCK!” Cinder screeched, her face lighting up as she dashed towards the couch, nearly throwing herself on top of Vivian. Her eyes were wild and her mouth twisted into a furious expression. “Y-you-! YOU-!”

“Whoa! Hey! M-me what?!” Vivian had no idea what was going on. She’d only just woken up, and she frankly still felt a little ****! “Lemme go, get off!”

Cinder was flung off of Vivian by the **** of the show’s protective wardings; otherwise she might have gone beyond just straddling the heiress and might have started **** her or scratching out her eyes or something.

The latina staggered to her feet, seething at Vivian furiously. Vivian noted through her confused daze just how red the young lady’s face was, and it confounded her.

“Sorry… I-I’m a little drunk,” she honestly said, rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on? Did I do something?”

There were a bunch of patchy holes in her memory but she was pretty sure she hadn’t said or done anything to offend Cinder… right?

…Then again, it WAS Cinder. She’d snap if someone breathed on her wrong.

Cinder was glaring at her still. The longer she stared at Vivian the more the heiress sobered up, almost as if the other woman’s smoldering gaze was burning the **** right out of her system.

It then occurred to Vivian that this was the first time the two of them had been alone together since the last challenge.

“…So how have you been, Cinder?” She asked with a good-natured smile.

Cinder didn’t return it. She spat a string of expletives at the heiress instead.

“So… not good, or…?”

“WHAT DID YOU HEAR?!” Cinder demanded, storming towards the couch again. She was cautious this time, though. She got close, but not close enough to put her hands on Vivian.

Even completely enraged she had enough sense about her to not provoke Dakota into taking the opportunity to screw her over, which she knew the host was just DYING to do.

“…Okay. Not good. And I’m telling, you I didn’t see or hear a darn thing!” Vivian wasn’t even lying, though she would have lied in a heartbeat if she thought it would calm Cinder down. She didn’t like making people angry at her.

Unfortunately it didn’t seem like anything would calm Cinder down right now.

“Viviaaaan…”

“I mean it!” Vivian held up her hands, her eyes wide with innocence. “I’ve been passed out on this couch for the last… um…”

She squinted at the clock. “…No idea. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you weren’t here before, so… I didn’t see or hear anything!”

Cinder crinkled her nose and gnashed her teeth together, looking like she was trying to weigh whether she should believe the other woman or not.

Ultimately, Cinder decided she couldn’t afford not to. It wasn’t like she could hurt the heiress or threaten her. The only way to resolve this, much to her chagrin, was to take Vivian’s words at face value and hope she was telling the truth.

Unfortunately for Vivian, she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“I mean, if anyone knows about selective memory, it would be you, right?” Vivian blurted out. Even in her **** state she knew that was dumb. Really dumb. Why was she provoking someone who was already mad at her!?

…Now that she thought about it, that could be the title of her fucking autobiography, huh?

“What are you talking about?” Cinder growled. A whole different kind of fury burned in her eyes now as she inched closer to Vivian, tossing aside any thoughts of caution or hesitation.

Vivian gulped. “Hey, whoa, it’s nothing, we’re cool!” She said quickly, her face paling. “I didn’t mean… it’s just… you know, in the last challenge…”

“You didn’t know what you were talking about then, and you don’t know what you’re talking about now,” Cinder growled. “My memory is just fine. And it’s MY memory. Not Ella’s.”

Vivian was way too drunk to come up with anything clever to say, which was a first. She just meekly nodded. “K-kay…”

“So forget it.”

There was a different presence in Cinder’s dark eyes now. One that Vivian remembered from before. When she’d gotten shot. Something other than the unchecked rage and frustration from Ella’s alter, something…

Something else.

Something Vivian wanted nothing to do with.

“Leave me alone,” Cinder said coldly to her. She turned and stormed away, leaving a shaken and all-too-sober Vivian sitting on the couch, pale as a ghost.

“Fucking hell…” the heiress muttered, mentally slapping herself. “What were you thinking you fucking idiot? How’s that gonna get through to her?”

Vivian felt real bad for the unstable girl who’d just threatened her. Especially since neither side of her seemed to fully understand what was going on in her head, no matter how she seemed to act.

Right now, though, Vivian felt way worse for herself. Yeah, I’m never getting that drunk again. No chance. She didn’t want to recklessly blurt out something that stupid again- ever.