You'll be better and you'll be smarter and more grown up

Kim’s face was burning as she leaned over her bed frame and hiked up her short skirt, which was already riding obscenely high on her expanded buttocks. She took a deep breath and exhaled; somehow, the sweet aroma of the candy-coated bedspread was making this whole affair seem so much dirtier.

It was strange to be embarrassed; the rational part of Kim’s brain knew that. She’d already done plenty of things with Nick, and as she’d pointed out to him earlier, he’d seen her naked or almost naked more times than she could count at this point.

So why was she feeling so anxious right now? Why did her nervous heart keep thumping in her ears, pumping shame through her body?

“Nice ass!” Gina gave a whistle of approval from her eat on an oversized sour gumdrop.

…Right. That was why. Because unlike those other times, Kim wasn’t on the clock, or in the privacy of a bedroom or the Master’s Suite or Dream Alley or any of the other places she’d been left so exposed. No, she was presenting her butt in front of an audience of one, and judging by Gina’s comments, even the bawdy punk girl found this to be a little out there.

To be fair, Gina might have just been goading her on in order to embarrass her, Kim couldn’t really say for sure. That sounded like her obnoxious roommate, anyway.

Not that Kim had the time of state of mind to be focusing on that…

“It’s okay, just ignore her.”

Nick’s presence behind her made Kim stiffen up, and her face reddened. She swallowed and nodded hesitantly, peeking back at him. Feeling his gaze on her butt, that was making her feel…

…

Kim was way too worked up right now to rationally process the emotions running through her, so she decided not to. Instead, she reached behind herself, and carefully peeled down her panties to give Nick a full view of her enhanced assets.

She heard him gulp, and her heart skipped a beat. It was weird, but she felt a perverse sense of pride from him being this entranced with her butt. Having spent most of her life feeling ambivalent about her body and being in pretty poor shape all around, it felt nice to know that a guy was checking her out- even if the body he was checking out wasn’t completely hers.

…It didn’t feel nice enough for her to reconsider, though. Kim preferred having clothes that actually fit.

“C-come on,” she said, shaking her butt a little to tempt him, trying to mask her embarrassment by going on the offensive. “What are you waiting for? Having s-second thoughts?”

All things considered, she thought she did a pretty good job. She wasn’t exactly a stellar actress, unless one counted the few roles she’d had as extras on the film sets. But it wasn’t like she had any lines in those.

“I’m just glad that your butt looks okay,” Nick said, relieved to see the soft, supple roundness of Kim’s unblemished flesh. Borrowing Morgana’s transformation had worked out exactly as he hoped it would, and she was perfectly fine. Better than fine, even.

“Just okay?” Kim laughed. She gave her butt another shake, hoping his eyes were glued to it. She didn’t want to look back, knowing he would see her less as the seductress she wanted to be seen as if she did. “I’d say I’m looking better than okay.”

Nick had to laugh at how she twisted his words around. “Not what I meant,” he said, reaching down and giving her ass a playful smack, for old times’ sake. “Just glad you made a full recovery.”

“Aww, you two are so sweet, I’m going to throw up,” Gina said, loudly cracking the cap on a bottle of beer to get their attention. “Can we get on with it already? I’m getting’ bored here!”

She tilted back the bottle with a swig as Kim and Nick turned to look at her. Neither was very pleased by what they saw.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” Kim asked.

“It’s a little early to be drinking beer,” Nick said gently, not wanting to come off as a nag.

“Aah… …Huh, what?” Gina wiped her mouth and then looked at the two of them and blinked. “…Oh, what, this?”

She shook the half-empty bottle. “Nah, non-alcoholic. Don’t worry. Amelia’d be riding my ass otherwise for drinking so early in the day.”

Gina flashed a sly grin across her lips. “We’ve only got time for one ass-riding today, so can’t have that, eh?”

Kim blushed, glaring at her roommate. Then she let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “…She’s right,” the tomboy conceded. “You do have a date to get to, after all. We can’t play around right now.”

Nick winced. He’d almost done it again. This was supposed to be Morgana’s day, but he was too busy with another girl; right now, she was probably getting ready for her date, or waiting for him to show up, or looking for him… regardless, she’d been waiting all round for their time together, and he was keeping her waiting even longer, because he was too occupied with another girl.

That wasn’t okay; he had to stop with that.

“Alright,” he said, giving her butt another smack. “I do have places to be. So sorry if this isn’t as intimate as you’d like,” he teased her, leaning down.

“N-no problem,” Kim said, trying to play it off. She arched her back, pushing her butt out. “If we want to do it again, I can always get Morgana to use her- …o-oh!”

Her eyes widened and she bit her lip as a moan welled up in her throat. Suddenly what she was trying to say didn’t seem all that important, not compared to the spike of pleasure shooting through her body. As she felt Nick’s teeth sink into her tender cheek, it was like a bolt of lightning hit her head-on, and her legs started to shake.

It only lasted a moment, but it left her in a daze. She could barely stand up and face him, which was humiliating in its own way. Here she was, trying to play it cool and look unfazed by all this, and Nick just had to-!

She cleared her throat and turned to face him, doing her best to maintain her composure.

“Th-thanks,” she said, adjusting her skirt coolly and smoothing it over her legs. It sat much more comfortably now that her ass had shrunk back to its original size. “…Yeah. Thanks.”

She wasn’t sure what else she should say. This was awkward enough as it was, even without accounting for the time limit they were on. She and Nick shared a tense look, and then Nick slowly nodded and scratched his cheek.

“Well… I-I have to go see Morgana, so…” His eyes flickered towards the door, not wanting to appear like some rude guy who would just bite a girl’s ass and run, but not sure how to excuse himself from the situation either.

Kim snapped her head up and down in a sharp nod, not sure how to end things between them herself. “Right, uh… yeah. Don’t keep her waiting.”

Nick turned to leave, and part of Kim wanted to stop him. But she knew better. It was important that everyone get their time with Nick, wasn’t that what they’d agreed to the other night?

Right now, her heart wanted otherwise. But she held herself back and watched him go.

“…Thanks again!” She called after him suddenly. “Um… and if you and Morgana want to do some clothes shopping, I, uh, I’ll be working my shift after lunch today, so… yeah, drop on by.”

Lame. Lame and weird! Why was she so lame and weird?! Just because the last time they were together she’d confided in him about her dreams, and told him how she felt about him? Kim wasn’t the kind of gushy-hearted romantic to get all knee-knocky because of something like that, right?

But when Nick turned back at the doorway her heart did flip-flops.

“Yeah, uh, we’ll think about it,” he said, an awkward response that was hardly even close to a commitment. And yet it still slammed into Kim with the **** of a tidal wave, a tidal wave of relief that let her finally relax.

She didn’t even realize he was gone until she heard the loud, exaggerated clapping coming from the gumdrop.

“Well done,” Gina said, swinging her arms out wide and bringing them together again in another meaty clap. “Well, well, WELL done. Talk about steamy!”

Kim grunted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up…”

“No, I mean it!” Gina said, holding her sides and fighting back her laughter. “That was probably the most tender ass-biting I’ve ever seen. …Oh, and when I said ‘tender’ I wasn’t talking about your butt, to be clear, I meant-”

“Yeah, I got it,” Kim snippily cut her off. She didn’t have the energy to deal with Gina’s teasing right now. “Whatever…”

Sighing, she rubbed her temples and yawned. She was pretty relaxed from her pampering yesterday, but she couldn’t avoid reality forever. She had to work out later today, and then she had to go to work after that.

Compared to what she had in store, a date with a curvy goth girl seemed pretty nice by comparison. Kim was jealous.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Gina added, finishing her beer. She set it down on the floor, feeling very proud of her progress- normally she would have chucked it into a pile of bottles littering the room, but she’d changed since those days.

“What?” Kim looked tiredly at her roommate, waiting for the punk girl to say something that would ruin her already-awkward morning.

“You might want to go see Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin,” Gina said, cracking open another bottle. “She was pretty worked up about not knowing where you were yesterday, or so I heard.” Gina had heard plenty from Amelia and Sylvia the day before, and was eager to share with her roommate.

Kim sighed in exasperation and slapped her hand against her face. “Yeah… fuck… I totally wasn’t even thinking about that… …What did she do?”

Knowing how attached Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was to her, all manner of horror stories were playing out in her head right now as she pictured the assassin’s reaction to learning she wasn’t anywhere to be found on the island.

Chalk that one up to another chore that needed to be done today. Kim was wishing now that maybe she’d taken another Sick Day off at Little Miss’s store after all…

While Kim was begrudgingly planning for a day filled with obligations, Nick went to finally fulfill one that he’d been putting off for far too long. Even though he knew he still probably smelled a little of sweat from his workout earlier that morning, he didn’t take a shower. It might have been the gentlemanly thing to do… but that ship had pretty much sailed at this point.

He’d kept Morgana waiting long enough as it was; he didn’t want to keep her waiting for another second if he could help it.

Sighing, he knocked on the door to the Luxury Suite, wondering who would be there to greet him. Would it be Amelia, diligent as always? Or Morgana, eager to begin their date? …Or it could be Holly. She’d stayed the night with Morgana, planning out their date. So that was a possibility as well…

Wait, staying in the Luxury Suite? How does that even work? Nick’s mind began to race as he considered the effects of the rooms for the first time in a long while. The Luxury Suite amplified the desires of whoever was staying in it, he remembered that much. It made them want to be “more” of the thing they wanted most. Last round, that had been Morgana’s confidence and Dawn’s desire to relax, which had led to a lot of boldness from the goth girl and a lot of oversleeping from his veterinarian friend.

But if someone else stayed the night in the Luxury Suite… would that mean they’d be affected by the room as well? He assumed Dakota had answered that question already when one of the girls asked it, but he couldn’t remember if she actually had…

A chill went down his spine as he considered the implications. If Holly had been staying the night here, and the room amplified one of her personality traits…

…That could be very bad. Yeah. Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to know how that would go…

He knocked on the door again, more insistently this time. Were they still asleep? Or had they already gone down to eat breakfast?

…Considering how late he probably was, he assumed it was the latter. Nick was just about to step away when the door cracked open, and Amelia presented herself, looking impeccably professional as she always did.

“…Nicholas,” Amelia greeted him, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Good morning. …Why are you here?”

She seemed grumpier than usual; while her words cut, Nick attributed that to her clumsiness in expressing her feelings. But the tone…

Amelia probably hasn’t had her morning coffee yet, he assumed, letting out a sigh. He scratched his head. “Sorry, um… I’m looking for Morgana,” he said. “Is she here?”

Dumb question. Looking past his stepmother, he could see that the room behind her was empty. Then again, the bathroom door was closed; maybe she was in there, getting ready for her date?

…But then where was Holly…

“Not here.” Amelia interrupted his thoughts sharply and shook her head. Her green eyes seemed to pierce into his soul.

Nick blinked. “She’s not? Then… did she go get breakfast?”

Amelia shook her head slowly. “I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “She did not come back to the room last night.”

That… what?

“Wait, she… she didn’t?” Nick asked in alarm. “Why not?” His first assumption was a bad one, but he quickly pushed that aside. More likely, Morgana had simply stayed the night in another girl’s room. He shouldn’t be getting ahead of himself.

Amelia gave him a frosty look. She tilted her head to the side in a quizzical gesture, and Nick didn’t miss how she exposed her neck to him. The collar of her shirt look lower than usual, almost like she’d undone a button or two before she-

*Pop*

…Yep. She just undid another one. He could see a peek of her modest chest now, pushed up in her bra to make a faint line of cleavage. Nick’s eyes immediately shot up to meet hers, and he could see it in her knowing gaze- she’d caught him.

“A-Amelia…”

“How would I know?” Amelia asked bluntly. A very reasonable question, even if she didn’t fully explain her reasoning. Nick still had enough brainpower to fill in the blanks. If Morgana hadn’t come home last night, Amelia wouldn’t have a clue why that would be.

“Well… I… I should probably go find her, then,” Nick said, keeping his focus on his stepmother’s face. He refused to let his eyes drift lower, even if he caught her undoing another button in his peripheral. “We have a date set up…”

“Yes, you should,” Amelia agreed. She still didn’t take her eyes off of him, though. They burned into him, like she was trying to devour him with her gaze. On anyone else, the intensity of her stare might have alluded to sexual intent, but knowing his stepmother as well as he did, Nick felt more like a lab rat being studied.

“Amelia…”

“I… I think you should find Morgana soon,” Amelia said, stepping closer to him. He didn’t expect her to get this close, definitely not. “She is… looking forward to this, I imagine.”

Yeah, he knew that. Which was why he needed to go find her. Maybe she had spent the night in Dawn’s room? Rose had said she’d been involved in the planning.

“…Can you let go of me, then? So I can go find her?” Nick awkwardly asked, drawing attention to the elephant in the room.

Amelia had her hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, her grip as cold as ice.

“…Ah. Apologies. I did not realize…” Amelia glanced down at where they were joined, but Nick was pretty sure he saw her eyes drifting somewhere else for a fraction of a second.

With her free hand she adjusted her glasses, and this time he was certain he saw her eyes focus on his crotch before sliding back to his wrist.

She raised her head, and he saw that same look in her eyes. That quizzical, almost clinical gaze of a woman who was trying to dissect him, to see through him.

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Amelia…”

“You… aren’t responding.” While Amelia’s body seemed to be trying to seduce him, her tone almost seemed agitated. Like she was irritated with him. But that didn’t make sense…

I don’t think she’s frustrated with me, is she? No… I think she’s upset with herself? He could see it in her eyes, the way she was struggling, it was like she was fighting an internal battle with herself, and she was losing.

Badly.

“A-Amelia…” Nick croaked out, but she silenced him with a finger on his lips.

“Do not talk,” she snapped. Her face began to redden. “This is… hard enough as it is… without you talking…”

She was getting really agitated now; more than he’d ever seen her. His normally-taciturn stepmother was practically grinding her teeth together.

“I… apologize… in advance…” she managed to spit out. “I thought… I would be able to resist, but… it is too late now.”

Before Nick could even begin to understand what she was saying her hand suddenly jerked his upwards, and suddenly he found himself touching something incredibly soft and tender.

Master Touched Her Boobs! +2 VP

Nick’s eyes widened in shock as he realized what he was feeling.

“A-Amelia!?” He sputtered, his brain ceasing function as she held his hand there and let him feel her. He wished he could say he refrained from giving her a squeeze, but his hand wasn’t listening to his brain any more than Amelia’s body was listening to hers.

And she felt so soft…

“A-ahn…” Amelia finally closed her eyes, freeing him from her paralyzing gaze. But not in the way he’d wanted. Because she let out a deep, throaty moan in doing so that made him all manner of uncomfortable.

And then, when she opened her eyes, they immediately dropped down to his crotch again. And he saw the flash of irritation flare through them.

“…Still not yet…” she muttered under her breath, and she raised her head to look at him once more.

Nick was supposed to be with Morgana right now. So how had he gotten himself into a mess like this one!?