Putting in the work

“I keep telling you to stop drinking those protein shakes.” Vera didn’t move from her position of resting her cheek on the dragon tattoo on her hand at the counter as Hank exited the bathroom for the third time this shift. His stomach felt empty and yet he couldn’t stop doing soft, unspeakable things to the toilet. “At least exclusively.” She added, blowing a strand of faded purple hair out of her eye.

It still creeped Hank out whenever Vera referenced things in the past that never actually happened. When she first came in at 06:00 A.M., Hank had been worried that things would be weird between them after he asked her to come over. But she just carried on like usual, doing the bare minimum to keep the place running and still somehow doing better than their coworkers who all thought this place was anything more than a dead end.

She joked around with him like usual and he had soon been able to forget about all the unpleasantness. “Blow me up with a nuclear bomb.” Were the first words she’d said to him on her way in as she always did. She was always saying stuff like that, unprompted.

They had naturally slipped into their usual cadence of joking and moaning about their lives while slowly stocking shelves or mopping floors. They never bothered asking each other how they were doing. The answer was always “tired.”

“Did you see that guy doin’ the fent fold outside?” She asked, pointing to the rainy outdoors while Hank tended to the hot dog rollers.

“Yeah, I did.”

“God, I wish that were me.” Vera had a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. She’d had the degree for six years and still worked at the same shitty gas station job she took to help her pay for the degree she never used. She had told Hank that she had wanted to be a pharmacist. Hank had gotten his degree in Literature with plans to become an english teacher. Both of their goals were easily achievable, but there was always some reason or another they just never got around to it.

Opioid crisis, class sizes, insurance scams, literacy rates— they always had something to moan about to explain their delay in starting their careers. The reality was that neither of them wanted another dream to come true that would disappoint them. They’d lost their will to fight the dragons along the way.

Talia had been the one to suggest teaching to him. She thought he would have been good at it.

“Dude,” Vera snapped her fingers in front of his face, flashing her crooked teeth. Hank shook himself back to the present. He’d been zoned out thinking about how he was going to tell Talia that they could never ride in a car together again. “I said I think someone’s coming in.”

The two of them had an arrangement during their shifts: Hank handled the people and Vera handled the inventory. Especially if a man came in, Vera would disappear to go restock the fridges until they left. Men were always trying to flirt with Vera thinking she’d be their manic pixie dream girl or freaky goth girl. The ‘dorks’—guys like Hank, Vera explained once—were easy enough to shut down with rudeness. But the ‘chuds’ were usually super into it and took it as a challenge. They thought she was playing hard to get. The truth was that she really was a passively suicidal burn out, not a tourist pick-me who wore black and got too many piercings and tats to get attention.

Hank, like with most women he met, initially crushed on her. But like usual just kept it as a fantasy rather than trying to make it reality. They got along great. There was no reason to mess that up. He couldn’t really give her anything worthwhile, anyway.

“You alright, dude?” She emerged from the fridges when the man Vera dubbed F-Chud-Fifty left the store to fill up his truck. “You’ve seemed off, like, all day.”

Hank blinked his eyes. “Yeah, sorry. Just…” He sighed. “Had a bad night.” It was the understatement of the century. Magic board game dead set on torturing his and his old friend’s lives. It was all quite sexual, too, he noted, theorizing on what dangers were to come.

Vera nodded, putting her pale purple hair up. “You and your outlet have a fight?”

Hank shot her a look. “Don’t call her that.”

“What, are you two dating, now?” Vera asked with her usual half-interest.

“What? No, she’s just my friend—“ it was so weird trying to navigate this. “Just don’t call her stuff like that, please.” He sighed.

Vera nodded. “Is she gonna be there, tonight?”

Hank thought for a second. Where else could she go? Her mom was with her stepdad in Germany, all their friends both disliked her and were disgusted by her and they only had the one car. “Yeah,” he answered, “is that gonna be a problem?”

Vera frowned and shook her head. “No, not at all. Sounds super fun, actually. I haven’t done anything since Brayden and I’ve needed to blow off steam, like forever. Hopping back in with two pros is gonna be an experience.”

Hank laughed. He hadn’t played Smash in years! He didn’t even really like fighting games, but knew Vera used to play all the time. And the closest Talia had ever gotten was Wii sports boxing. “I wouldn’t call us pros.”

“Whatever.” Vera shrugged, shaking her head with amusement. “You want me to bring anything or do you have everything we need?”

“I think I have—“ he was interrupted by the chime of the door opening. A tall, overweight bald man in the uniform polo stepping in with a grocery bag filled with six tuna sandwiches he intended to stink up the employee fridge with.

Michael stopped himself in the entrance, staring at both of them through his square glasses with a look of disappointment. “Why are you leaning?” He asked, eyes locking on to Vera.

It was no secret that Vera and Hank were Michael’s least favorite coworkers. He couldn’t boss them around or lord his superior intellect over them like with the other junkies and kids who worked there.

“Because despite all the times you’ve reported me,” Vera barely lifted her eyebrow to address him. “They still haven’t even written me up for it.”

Hank figured Michael had an axe to grind with them because they had been promoted before him despite their laziness. The man just couldn’t accept that this job was the easiest thing in the world and he was bad at it.

“Which one of you am I stuck with?” He demanded in his whiney voice.

Hank stepped in. Michael was a self-important asshole. But he hadn’t lived an easy life and he just needed to feel in control of something. Hank didn’t mind placating him somewhat, while vera would just straight up insult him to his face. Plus, even though nobody said anything, Michael was definitely autistic, which made Hank a bit more charitable.

“You’re replacing me, Macy’s replacing Vera in two hours.”

“Ugh.” Michael rolled his blue eyes. “The least preferable option.” He turned and set off for the break room to clock in and put his food away.

“Fucking kill me.” Vera rolled around the counter like a dead fish.

“It’s just two hours.”

“Yeah, awful two hours.” She yanked a two pack of ribbed condoms off the display. “Do you and Talia use these?”

Hank’s cheeks flashed red. “I-I don’t know.”

Vera scanned them and applied Hank’s discount, looking at him expectantly. Was this something they did? Did Vera often choose out condoms for him and Talia? It felt similar to a game they’d play where the two would mix fountain sodas that the other person had to take home and drink.

Hank didn’t want to disturb reality. He missed his quota and was punished. Maybe if he went against people’s expectations, something similar would happen. Clearly Vera knew about the sex between him and Talia and was comfortable enough to talk about it. So they must be pretty casual about this stuff and joke about it like anything else, right?

“For her pleasure?” Hank reached into his pocket, shooting Vera a stupid grin. “Why would they make something like that?” He joked, receiving a deadpan stare in response, her go-to comeback.

***

Talia had grown very bored very quickly. Grinding her vagina into a silicone recreation was neither very stimulating nor very comfortable. It didn’t even feel like a woman’s skin. It was rubbery and irritating, tugging on her pubic hair and gripping her skin, only somewhat better than humping a counter. Its cumbersome weight made it significantly worse than humping a pillow.

It was an exhausting position she was in, too. Scissoring was hard enough when one’s partner was doing half the work and had legs to grab onto. The first hour she spent trying as many positions as she could manage while keeping genitals touching the toy.

Finally she managed to slump into a reclined sitting position, the toy resting on her pelvis while her hands slid it up and down to grind against herself. The heavy weight tired her arms out quickly and her neck was sore from the awkward craned position, but when her arms needed a break, she just started pumping her hips.

She didn’t cry, but she felt like an animal. Just trying to build friction. She didn’t think she was going to hit any of the orgasm milestones, anymore, much less ten. After an hour she began to wonder if the first place prize and prize for four hours of stimulation was worth the humiliation of humping a fake woman on a semen-stained couch.

Instead of coming up with an answer, she decided to turn on the TV. Hank’s poor financial management at least meant he had all the streaming services. To distract herself and stave off the boredom, she decided to watch one of her comfort shows, Community.

It was halfway through the first episode when it happened. It had taken her by surprise. But she’d forgotten just how cool and charming one of the lead characters, Britta, was. For most of the show’s seasons, Britta was a completely different kind of character, but for the first few episodes… smart, funny, motivated.

“Oh,” it slipped from Talia’s lips, suddenly making her aware of some other, wetter noises that she was making. She could feel the pressure building in her core. “Oh.” She said, this time as a realization that she was actually beginning to feel kind of… aroused. She decided to embrace it. There was no way TV constituted as porn.

“Oh, Britta…” She squeezed the rubber butt cheek bouncing against her thigh, staring at the TV screen, but imagining her own fantasy. Her and Britta were roommates in the dorms at Greendale Community College, she’d decided. They’d been ignoring this tension between them for months, but now, the stress of finals, the antics of the study group—they just needed to let off some steam.

Who knew just one mistake and they would fall in love?

“Oh! Oh!” She pumped her hips, feeling the orgasm hit her. It was a little weak, but it was an orgasm. And after a few moments, despite recovering, she did still feel in a certain mood. Two hours left. Twenty-two minute episodes. Minus the minutes from the episode she was already watching, she had four or five more episodes to have on in the background while she explored this fantasy.

Ten orgasms was not happening, but four felt doable. If she could just disassociate long enough. Her second orgasm came shortly before the end of the first episode, which renewed her efforts. If she were a man, this would have been easy. After all, it was a male masturbation aid she was using. But she could eek out at least four.

By the time she had half an hour left, she’d barely had her third orgasm. Her arms burned, her neck was sore, she was all sweaty. But she just needed one more. One more was a minor reward. If it wasn’t worth it, then she’d find out, but seeing as she already needed to do four hours of masturbating, she may as well have tried for it.

She slid herself down on the couch so she was laying flat, keeping the sex toy rubbing against her pelvis. “Come on, just one more.” She wrapped her hands around its waist, bouncing the heavy rubber up and down and up again, all while focusing hard on her fantasy.

She closed her eyes and moaned. It started to feel real. The rubber, the weight against her hips, the warmth, it was all mixed with her vision of the strong, the intelligent Britta Perry of Greendale Community College. Britta on top, straddling Talia. The dean needs them to have sex otherwise the school will shut down. An insanely shallow and undeveloped premise, but it seemed to work well enough as the heat built within her again.

Hump. Hump. Hump. Her breath was growing shallow from exertion and the approaching orgasm. Hump. Hump. Hump. Her body felt so soft.

Hump. Hump. Hump. Hump. Hump. “Br—Britta!” She panted, toes curling as she seized up. After the orgasm subsided, she had almost let herself relax and drop the toy. But she pushed on, albeit much slower, until finally her four hour phone alarm went off.

“Haha!” She spanked the masturbator gleefully before rolling aside and letting it fall onto the couch. Then she rolled the opposite way, finding the mini-game rule card glowing.

Mini-Game Finished!

Results:

1st: Talia Lee (4:00:00) (4 Orgasms)

2nd: Hank Tock (DNF)

Prizes:

Talia Lee (Minor Reward x2) (Major Reward)

Hank Tock (Major Punishment)

“What?” Her heart sank, chills running against her skin. “No. Nononono.” She hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. Major Punishment? The rules didn’t say anything about the loser being punished! As if to taunt her, the rulebook glowed on the lazy boy, having made an addition to the rules of mini-games.

If a player does not participate in a mini-game the table agreed to play, they DNF. A player who DNFs receives a major punishment.

After a mini-game finishes, each player draws a card from the Category Deck for each prize and punishment they earned.

She hadn’t known there would be punishments for Hank missing the game! Sure, he wouldn’t have won anything, but she hadn’t meant for him to actually lose anything. She just couldn’t have waited for him to show back up to start the game.

Her self-chastisement was interrupted by the click of the Category Deck cage opening. Talia pressed against her forehead with the back of her hand. What has this game done to me? If she had known that he was going to be punished, she knew she probably would have done it anyway. With a whine of confection, Talia drew her three Category Cards.

Minor Reward: +1 movement next turn Minor Reward: +1 Challenge Veto (Player may discard one challenge chard in exchange for a new one at no penalty.) Major Reward: whenever they draw a category card for a letter, number, word, or wild change, the player will now be presented with three statistics or facts in their biography: they choose which one is changed.

She felt immediate relief. Extra movement got her closer to the end. A veto could be useful if she got a challenge she really didn’t want to do. But the best of them was the ability to choose her changes.

Any amount of control was a godsend. But Hank wouldn’t be home to draw his punishment for another two hours, which was probably going to be considered a delay of play. She tried looking at the rules to see if she could draw for him, but it just didn’t say. It would probably print the rule after she did it.

She kept trying to text him, but the messages all went undelivered. With a sigh, she fell back on the couch, suddenly aware of the sex toy again and the little messes around the house. She hated cleaning up after people. But she’d toss Hank this bone before his “date.”