Window Shopping

“Hey! The hell’s going on there?” Stella shouts from the couch, and Viv immediately laughs and turns around towards her.

“Your dad was just defending his ladies’ honor from this evil lesbian.” Viv jokingly replies, eliciting a chuckle from both Tanya and Cassie.

“Would the evil lesbian like some wine?” Tanya playfully asks Viv.

“Oh, and I think we still have some leftover roast if you haven’t had dinner yet.” Cassie suggests.

“Oh! Yes! You should try Jay’s roast, Viv. It’s our Nana’s recipe, and it’s really good.” Celeste adds.

“I’m not doing dishes again!” Stella reacts, seeing where Viv having dinner at your apartment is going to lead to.

“I’ll do the dishes, baby. Don’t worry about it. Don’t be rude to our guest.” You tell her.

“Guest? I thought she was an evil lesbia— OW!” Stella was about to joke, but Cassie playfully elbows her in the ribs again. “I was kidding! Jeez. Tanya made the exact same joke! What are you elbowing me for? Plus, it’s not like Viv can’t take a joke… right?” Stella says in her defense, but unsure if her defense is actually true.

“This evil lesbian is offended.” Viv jokingly answers, making Stella stick her tongue out to Cassie. “I wouldn’t say no to hanging out for dinner. If Princess Ariel over here doesn’t mind.” Viv says, seemingly referring to Stella with the nickname.

“Me? Okay, random jab, but I’ll bite. Why am I Princess Ariel?” Stella asks Viv.

“Cuz you’re daddy’s little princess, and your down there probably smells like fi—”

“Okay! You wanted to try Nana’s roast?” Viv didn’t really need to finish for all of you to get the joke, but Celeste cut her off so as to not start a teasing match between Stella and Viv. Cassie’s still chuckling from Viv’s joke and says to Stella, “She got you.”, making Stella say defensively, “Oh, please. That was a ‘two out of ten’ burn, at best.”. “Sounded like a ‘five out of seven’ to me.” Cassie jokingly replies back.

With everything settling down, you decide to excuse yourself and go to the bathroom first before hanging out with five ladies for the second time today. Plus, the roast went down quicker than you anticipated.

You sit down on the toilet in your bedroom’s connected bathroom and check the Affection Multiplier’s trait catalogue to see if there are any traits that can help you with Mrs. O’Brien’s noise complaints. You check Most Recommended once more and it suggests a trait that you can buy with Friendship Points, which you have a lot of currently.

No More Enemies (150): People can’t seem to hate you. Friendly interactions are even more effective on people with negative scores and red progress bars deplete slowly over time to a maximum score of zero (0).

Sounds a bit **** for your problem with Mrs. O’Brien. You haven’t actually checked if she has a negative score towards you, but even if she did, if you continue making noise she’ll just keep getting angrier anyway, and will be in the right to file a formal noise complaint. This may not be the right trait to buy to address your noise problem.

You continue scrolling and find something much more specific that can address your problem with Mrs. O’Brien.

Good Neighbor (60 pts): Your neighbors would think of you as a good neighbor, becoming more accommodating if you’re in need, or lenient with your breaking of neighborhood rules and etiquette.

Example: Neighbors become more accommodating to your borrowing of certain tools or items and less stingy about when you return them; or if there are neighborhood rules about lawn care, they’ll be more lenient of your disobedience of those rules.

The trait thankfully had an example to make it clear, since the description itself wasn’t very precise as to the extent of how it will affect people’s perception of you. You decide to buy it since it seems like it is exactly what you need to get Mrs. O’Brien off your back.

Available points: 370 Friendship points (+50) (-60) / 150 Love points / 50 Lust points

You check the girls’ profiles to see where the new 50 points came from, and find that it came from Celeste.

- Pritchett-Wilkerson, Celeste - Affection Score: 53 (+12)

You find it interesting that the name on the app still has her ex-husband’s last name on there as a hyphenate. Then again, she became a more well known food writer as Celeste Wilkerson when she was already married to Walt, so she may have legally kept it even after their divorce.

You go back to browsing for traits and find a Personal Trait that you decide to buy, as it seems like the app is beginning to notice the amount of people that are hanging out in your apartment these days, and maybe it would be great that they enjoy themselves while they’re here.

Great Host (20 pts): People you invite to your home feel comfortable and are very likely to have a good time.

Available points: 350 Friendship points (-20) / 150 Love points / 50 Lust points

You also find another Personal trait that you can keep in your back pocket, just in case you still can’t afford Normalized Polyamory but someone’s jealousy for the others has become an issue. You just promise yourself to still try and address that jealousy non-magically first, if it ever comes to that.

Feel No Jealousy (100 pts): The person with this Trait feels no jealousy towards their partner’s actions, be they romantic advances towards another person or even sexual acts.

Since you’re not really spending Friendship Points much, and they're the easiest to come by, it’s not bad to save some points for this specific trait just in case, while you’re also saving up for Normalized Polyamory.

You also find a Sexual Trait that you definitely want to save up for, now that you have three girlfriends you’re going to need to satisfy.

Steadfast Lover (270 pts): Your sexual endurance improves dramatically. You’re able to keep going until your partner(s) is/are satisfied. You become capable of handling more than one partner at a time and you also recover your vitality much quicker.

You hope that Magic Touch would be enough, for now, in terms of satisfying them individually; but you’re definitely going to need ‘Steadfast Lover’ if you don’t want to emaciate yourself if it ever happens that they all want to have sex one after the other… or together.

You shake your entire upper body to shake off the goosebumps that imagining having sex with all of them together gave you. You check other traits the app recommends to try and take your mind off fantasizing and possibly getting an erection at this inconvenient time, and the next trait it recommends takes care of that immediately.

Cheater (50 pts): You become more inclined to indulge in extramarital affairs or engage in sexual activities behind the back of those you are in a romantic relationship with.

You immediately understand that it’s not meant for you. It’s meant for a target. It’s meant to be bought for someone else so they could be more inclined to sleep with you even if they were already in a relationship. Worse, you would probably only need it if they were loyal to that relationship to begin with.

The app wants you to buy this for Celeste.

Author's Note: The description for the traits: Great Host, Feel No Jealousy, and Steadfast Lover are all from Fantasy's David Walker Branch.

EDIT: The description of the Cheater Trait has been edited for clarity, from: 'You become more inclined to indulge in extramarital affairs or engage in sexual activities behind your monogamous partner’s back.' to what you see above.