“... your time.”

There were many scenarios, many theoretically tests of what Caleb believed he had just discovered. Most were dangerous, a few risked prison, but one leapt out at him both in its safety and because it would truly test whether or not she was fucking with him. Given her every reaction, this request seemed the last thing she would willingly give him. She doesn’t even want to give me the time of day… So Caleb asked for that, and did not pause to consider the ramifications. “I'm here to accept your donation of... your time.”

Her eyes almost bulged out of her head. He had hit the jackpot of donations that would make her pale in horror. “Oh God, how much of it do I need to give?!”

“As much of it as I ever want, whenever I want,” he boastfully declared, more confident than ever in his idea. “It's what you wanted me to accept from you, after all.”

“As much as... you want? I… I can’t believe I asked for this. I don’t even know how much time I’ve made you want, it’s indefinite, it’s… I mean I don’t want to give you… but I do…?”

Caleb blinked in disbelief as he watched the young woman argue with herself in real time. So he couldn’t even want without her direction? More to the point, something in what he had tried to setup was being rejected by condition. “What’s wrong?” he probed, testing for a breaking point.

“What’s wrong is… I… I just don’t know why I’d offer infinite time, it’s… I mean I obviously wanted it, but…?”

Infinite time? Confused, he tried to fit it into her bizarre world view. “You wanted to give me... any amount of time, so long as you were making me ask for it from you, and of course any time I'm asking for it is... when you wanted me to have it.” Caleb talked circles around himself now, confusing as this concept was, but he think he nailed it. As he thought about it longer, though, he understood what she meant: this was infinite, theoretically. He didn’t want to spend every waking moment with this walking 4 out of 10, that’s for sure, but the donation setup doesn’t include that limitation. Caleb considered clarifying if she ultimately rejected this new notion.

It turned out she just needed the minute or so to chew on it. “That... I mean that works, but I just wish I planned it better, I’m usually better about this. I just can't believe I'm...” She shook her head, suddenly hopeful. “W-Well? How much more time did I want to give you today? I have way too much to do and I have to plan around-”

“Let's say... ehm, I mean for starts, give me the next hour...” He looked around, grateful no one seemed to be eavesdropping but still paranoid. “Maybe somewhere private. Do you have anywhere private we can use?”

Her eyes were wide in horror, but she nodded with a grimace. “I have a private study room reserved until 9 o'clock today. I'm actually close to losing the reservation because I'm so late thanks to this survey...”

“Alright, let's go.” When she looked at him, confused, he added, “After all, you still wanted me to have your time right now... and in there.”

She groaned in irritation with herself, but that was the extent of her objection. She hurried at the invitation to get the reservation, notwithstanding the nervousness that came with Caleb, a complete stranger and a man, attending with her. For the first time since he got this job, he walked into the campus library, past its various security checks and to the reception where he watched her get the key for the private room. As they stood there, he watched a few cursory glances come his way from students who knew well the plague of the SurveYou uniform.

Despite these initially derisive glances, each was almost immediately washed over with... satisfaction? It was strange to see every haughty glare turn into some kind of smirk or amusement. Caleb felt oddly ****, now, and he distracted himself as best he could by looking at the banks of computers on the ground floor, each one sporting one to three students at the terminal.

By the time Ms. Gina Yukes got his attention, Caleb realized there appeared to be no actual books on this floor of the library. “Alright, let’s go. I’m… we’re on the third floor. C'mon.” With her the key shakily gripped in the same hand holding one of her laptops, she led Caleb to the elevator.

The study room was barren save for the round table, six chairs, and three dry-erase boards covering every wall where one might hope to find art, windows, or any alternative means of escape. Only the steel door that shut closed with rubber lining provided any exit here, and the door sealing itself muffled and hushed what little noise echoed in from the rest of the third floor of the library. The quasi-soundproof chamber, interrupted only by the gentle hum of air conditioning, was now privately attended by him and the stranger he had somehow gotten control over. It was unsettling, but Caleb was determined to explore his control over Gina.

Well, “control,” except she believed he was the one so ensnared. Doubts crept into his mind, notwithstanding that this was working so far, but he would answer those doubts here. Gina did not even address him once they were alone, choosing instead to setup both laptops and their power cables as he silently watched. Once she was fully plugged in and starting to power them up, Caleb at last spoke. “What do you think of me?”

“Tsk, I must be in a bad mood to make you ask that.” Caleb did not answer, waiting for her to continue. “Obviously, not very much since we just met... and you just do whatever I want, which is kind of pathetic, but in kind of a… useful way. I just wish I didn’t have so many stupid ideas on how to waste you.”

Waste me, not my time, Caleb bitterly thought. “So since I'm just doing what you ask, you're not worried at all about being alone with me, right?”

She paused at that. “I... I'm not.” She was a bad enough liar to let Caleb know she still had concerns being alone with him. Was she faking this whole thing, or was she just worried he would practice some agency and do something untoward? She suddenly nodded with confidence. “Wait, of course I’m not. I’m not self-destructive, after all, and so far you’ve been… kind of a drone, really.”

“A… drone?”

“So far you haven’t said or done a single thing I didn’t want you to do.”

Something else bothered him about what she said earlier, though. It echoed in his mind.

“…you just do whatever I want…”

Wait... everything I do? Not just what I say or ask? “Well, what about me doing the survey?”

“Just like I wanted, again, short-sighted as that was of me… just like these questions. Why am I doing this?”

“So what, if I did something to you or your laptops, that'd mean you told me to?”

“Absolutely not, I never told you to do anything of the sort!”

Caleb was stunned at a rejection finally appearing. It was an absolute contradiction of everything they had discussed so far- Wait a minute... no, it's not. I asked her about a possibility in the future, something I haven't actually done yet. So... Experimenting, Caleb took one of the chairs from the table and swung it around to face the corner of the room. Looking back, he asked, “Why did I just do that?”

“Because I wanted you to,” she stated so matter-of-factly that it bothered Caleb.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you make me move the chair that way?”

She shrugged as she began clicking and typing away on the laptop on the left, then on the right, before connecting the two with an unfamiliar cable. “It makes some sense, I mean I certainly don’t need these chairs in my way, and I just need the one.” She click-clacked in some login information. “If I’m asking myself that question to find a deeper meaning… hrm, I’m stumped. I'm a computer science major, not a psychologist; for whatever reason, it was my desire for the chair to be there instead. Honestly, I can't believe this is how I wanted you to waste my time, though, asking pointless questions like this. Do you even go to this school, like, for anything besides taking surveys?”

Alright Caleb, you either got to get back to work or explore this new, incredible person you found. Just ask it, already!

She grumbled to herself. “Useless to me, I really don't get-”

“What would you do if I touched you?”

She paused in place. Her face did not show horror or disgust, but it was clear she had... shut down, temporarily, before booting back up with a bit of tension in her eyes. “I would scream and get you arrested.”

So that’s the ticket: hypothetical actions are just questions she asked, not things she convinces herself she wanted to happen. So if I just adjust the question… “What if... what if I only touched you because you wanted me to?”

She shuddered visibly. “I would wonder what was wrong with me.”

Caleb's eyes lit up at that. “What if I touched your breasts when you wanted me to?”

That crossed a line, and Caleb realized it too late: a speculative hypothetical was not yet a thing he did, after all, and tacking on her alleged will didn’t cure that. This was just the question that went too far. “I do not want that. I’m not even remotely attracted to you, so just delete that fantasy right now, creep.”

Wounded, Caleb nonetheless walked around the table, watching as her eyes followed him. Her freckled cheeks were raised with the tension in her eyes that never left as he approached. The short mounds in her turtleneck barely spoke of a chest, perhaps speaking more of a bra than flesh, but the forbidden zone was there and open to be groped by him… just as any part of her was. Would that break the facade and cause her to scream as promised? Would she do a 180 and think she wanted this after all? The back-and-forth in Caleb’s racing mind did nothing to move his hand to that final step, but he was close enough now to smell her cheap shampoo and count the freckles captured in the lens of her glasses as she looked up to observe him.

The terror and screaming that should follow his line of questioning and this approach never came. She was worried, but him doing this approach had put her at ease…

… because it must mean she wanted me to approach. Nothing was truly her wish until he did it. So he could do… anything, if her condition was absolute, but he had no way to know what the limit was without taking a risk.

Caleb’s hands clenched and unclenched as he swallowed hard. This final test could get him in jail or could prove, without question, the depths of this girl’s bizarre condition.