Scheme

“I need your help,” you tell Colby.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but I just need a little favor,” you say, smiling at her in a way that is hopefully not creepy at all.

“Oh god. What?”

“Come party with us tonight?”

“What?”

“Come on. They don’t know you. They’ll think I picked up this cute girl here,” you say, gesturing at her. “It’ll earn me so many points.”

Colby stares at you. “You’re crazy.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. You said you needed something to do!”

“I didn’t mean that I needed an orgy to go to!” she hisses.

You laugh. “Come on, those are just stories. We don’t actually do that stuff.”

“How do you know? You’ve been hanging with them for like a week.”

That’s true… and in that week you already got laid once. “Nah,” you say, waving a hand. “It’s just not like that.”

“Ugh. I don’t want to get drunk in a shitty motel room with a bunch of frat girl bros,” Colby says stubbornly, folding her arms.

“Our room is really nice!”

“Room? One room? For four of you?” Colby asks.

“OK, I know how it sounds,” you begin, making a calming gesture. “You have your laptop, right? We can still play tonight.”

“On hotel WiFi?” She cringes. “Won’t that kill the vibe?”

“Anything will entertain them,” you say, glancing toward the others. “They’re… very easy.”

“OK,” Colby says with a scowl. “But you owe me.”

Yes! “Hi. I’m Meri. Uh, I’m with CCL,” you say, offering your hand.

“Hi, I’m Colby. I am but a lost maiden, **** for the touch of a…” She can’t even finish the sentence, rolling her eyes as she shakes your hand. “Won’t they notice how we play the same games and have each other on our friends list?”

“They don’t even know what a friends list is,” you assure her.

“Oh my gosh. And these are the people that you spend all your time worshipping.”

“You’ll understand when you meet Athena.”

“Is she the one who wasn’t acting like an idiot while we played?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“She’s pretty.”

“Right? Right?” You poke her several times in the side, and she knocks your hand away. “Come on. Sleepovers are fun.”

“I didn’t say I was spending the night,” she warns.

Nice. Now CCL will think you’re cool, and Colby will have a chance to see that CCL is fun. You rejoin the others, who appear to be losing interest in the shop, although you see that Athena has bought some smutty yuri manga.

“Ready to get out of here?” Athena asks you. “We’re thinking about hitting a bar.”

“Great,” you say. “You guys go the bar. I’m taking that girl back to the room.”

“What?” Yuki almost drops her soda.

“Yeah, that girl I played against,” you say casually. “I invited her back to party.”

They look surprised and impressed.

“Well, uh,” Yuki says, recovering quickly. “If you’re bringing her back, you have to share.”

“No, you don’t,” Athena says.

“Relax. I just want to hang with her. She’s not a degenerate like us,” you assure them.

“Oh, she will be,” Nancy promises. “You mean the cute little brunette, right?”

You nod.

“How’d you get on her good side?” Athena asks you. “She looked upset when you played her.”

“Um,” you say. You are not prepared for that question.

“Forget it. Forget the bar,” Yuki says, putting her arm around you. “We’ll party at the hotel.” Perfect. You couldn’t have planned it better. You are the puppet master. You should change majors to being an evil mastermind.

Perhaps your truest CCL experience to date is what follows: the raid on the liquor store near the hotel. It’s… really something to watch the three of them blithely throwing things into the baskets: Athena getting sweet wine, Yuki with a giant brick of White Claws, and Nancy grabbing several bottles of Crown Royal and Coke.

You are underage. So is Yuki. She doesn’t seem to care.

Back at the hotel, the girls are making drinks the second you’re through the door. Athena pours wine into a glass, Yuki pops a can, and Nancy starts mixing Crown and cokes. She hands you one as Yuki opens all the curtains, revealing the nighttime skyline. This is an amazing room with huge windows.

As you stand there with your drink, you try not to feel nervous about Colby showing up. Will it be hard to maintain the act that you don’t know each other? But you’re distracted: clothes are coming off.

Of course they are. The girls are in for the night. There’s no reason not to be comfortable, and they’re all way too cool to try to look good just because there’s a guest coming. Soon, Athena’s wearing a nightie, Yuki’s down to panties and a sports bra, and Nancy wears cute little shorts and a crop top with no bra.

You take a gulp from your drink, staring. This is quite exciting.

Then you realize that you’re still fully dressed. Well, you did promise Colby some innocent gaming.

Should you change into night clothes to fit in?

Or stay dressed because Colby’s coming?