If you can save my soul, lend me your hand

Dakota finished explaining to Nick everything she’d explained to Marley earlier in the dungeon. They were both on the same page now about the expectations, and the consequences of asking for any hints from her.

Nick and Marley both agreed with a silent nod that they wouldn’t be asking for any hints. They didn’t want to risk getting gassed with aphrodisiacs in this situation.

Dakota clearly didn’t think they’d manage it, because she laughed the possibility off and then said goodbye, leaving Marley to try her best at freeing Nick from captivity. “Let me know if you need a little tip or two!” Dakota gleefully declared as she closed the communication channel.

Like that would ever happen.

“It’s no use,” Marley sighed, shaking her head. “I can’t get these stupid cuffs off, the key won’t fit in any of the locks on the shackles.”

“This is an escape room,” Nick pointed out. “So even though it isn’t exactly working the way an escape room is supposed to, what, with me being tied up like this, there’s gotta be SOME way to get out of these chains. Just look around and see if you can find the key.”

That was probably the first “puzzle” for them to solve.

“Well, it could be,” Marley said, going to loot around the room. “But then again, when I was tied up, the correct answer was tearing through my straightjacket. Which is the reason I’m dressed so scandalously now.”

“Oh, really? And here I thought you picked out that outfit yourself for our date,” Nick joked, trying to play it off with a laugh.

Marley’s face turned red.

“Don’t joke about stuff like that!” She hissed, turning back and glaring at him. Nick decided that the best course of action at this point was to shut his mouth and stop talking, lest Marley just leave him like this for a couple hours.

“Anyway,” Marley changed the subject, opening up an empty cabinet and shutting it, “is this the kind of stuff you get up to? With the other girls, I mean.”

She tried to make the question sound innocuous, like the kind of thing anybody would ask in this sort of situation, but she was actually dying of curiosity.

“What? You mean me being tied up? No, I can’t say I’ve ever done this specifically before with anybody,” Nick replied. “Although your sister probably would be into it.”

Marley’s cheeks flushed. “Well… what about Gina? Seems like she’d go wild about being tied to a bed like that. Doesn’t she have that transformation and everything…?”

“Oh, well, if we’re talking about the shoe being on the other foot, well, then…” Nick couldn’t help but blush himself. “Yeah, we’ve experimented with stuff like this once or twice.” He tried to downplay it so as not to bother Marley.

“Well, once or twice, then- Oh. I think I found it.”

“The key!?” Nick asked hopefully, straining against his bonds to get a better look. Marley was standing across the room, so he couldn’t see clearly.

“No, not… not exactly,” Marley said, turning back and shaking her head. She had a grim expression on her face.

“What exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?” Nick sighed. Knowing Dakota, the answer wouldn’t be very good.

Marley stepped aside to show Nick what she was talking about. But he could really see clearly. All he could see was a hole in the ground, and a box resting over part of the hole. An odd, slanted piece of metal, like a slide, traveled into the hole.

“Marley, what am I looking at here?” He questioned.

“I’m not really sure,” Marley said, peering down over the lip of the pit. “There’s a hole in the floor.”

“Yeah, I see that part. Is the key in the hole or something?”

Marley looked a little deeper. “Yeah,” she confirmed, her tone grave. “It’s resting at the bottom of this little scale thing.”

“A scale?”

“Yeah. On the other side of the scale is an empty bowl. That’s what the slide leads down to. It’s your standard lever system. I think I’ve figured out the puzzle. We need to pour something into the bowl in order to fill it up and make it heavier. If we do, then the key will rise up, and I can grab it.”

She reached down into the hole, lying flat on the ground to extend her reach as far as possible. “…Yeah, I can’t get to it as it is now.”

“Well, what about pressing down on the bowl then?” Nick questioned. “Can you do that?”

“I think that’s what the glass box is for,” Marley replied, standing up and shaking her head. “I can’t make contact with the other side of the scale at all. No, if we want to fill up that bowl, we need to pour something down this chute.”

She gestured to the long track of metal leading down into the hole.

“Well, is there anything we can use in here?” Nick asked. “Maybe there’s a bucket of water hidden somewhere. These escape rooms always give you the tools necessary to solve the puzzles.”

“That’s what I’m looking for,” Marley said, scanning the room with her eyes. Her voice didn’t convey much confidence though. “Unfortunately, I’ve already checked most of this place. No convenient water buckets.”

She proceeded to dig around through more of the room, but it wasn’t like this was some hoarder’s storage box. It was a dungeon. There were only so many nooks and crannies to check before it became clear that they’d found everything there was to find in the room… and still nothing that they could pour down the chute.

“No luck,” Marley sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Well… what about the other room, then?” Nick squirmed, trying to ignore the pain in his spine. Keeping his arms raised like this wasn’t exactly comfortable. “I did a few escape rooms with Mary and Holly back in college. Sometimes, they would have stuff from the previous room that you would bring into the next one in order to solve the puzzle.”

Marley shook her head. “That room didn’t have anything in it but a cage,” she said. “The only other thing was this cup, and it’s empty…”

She picked up the cup off the table she’d set it down on, and turned it over in her hands. As she did, a little lightbulb seemed to flash above her head, because she suddenly realized how Dakota wanted her to complete this little puzzle.

A grim scowl passed her lips.

“Marley?” Nick asked, concerned. “Are you okay? What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Marley said through gritted teeth. “I just figured out the little game our host is playing, that’s all.”

She had half a mind to chuck the cup and shatter it against the wall in protest. But that wouldn’t get them out faster.

“Oh, good!” Nick said, sighing in relief, not aware of the dilemma going through Marley’s head right now. “Here I thought we might have to rely on one of Dakota’s hints right on the very first puzzle, and that wouldn’t be good. The last thing we need is to get horny.”

“…Yeah,” Marley muttered, shaking her head. “The last thing we need…”

“What’s up?” Nick blinked, staring at her in confusion. She seemed kind of off somehow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Marley sighed and rubbed her temples.

“Nick… I’m going to need you to get horny.”

“…”

“…”

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“…WHAT?!” Nick exclaimed, rattling his chains. “What were we JUST talking about, Marley?” He pointed out, turning red.

“It’s not like I like this either!” Marley blushed herself. “But we need to get out of here! And I already searched through the whole room, there’s nothing we can pour down that chute to tip the scales! So if we can’t find anything, well… we have to use what’s at hand… right?”

Her eyes never left the crotch of Nick’s pants. He squirmed and clenched his legs together as best he could with his ankles chained to opposite corners of a table.

Nick turned an even darker shade of crimson. “No, no, there’s gotta be another way,” he insisted, shaking his head. “You’re saying…”

“I-I’m saying,” Marley’s voice cracked, “that the only liquid we can reliably pour down that chute, has to come from your…”

“Don’t say it!” Nick groaned.

“I don’t want to say it!” Marley wailed. “This is so gross! I mean, it’s not like it’s something we haven’t done before, but in a situation like this…”

Dakota wanted Marley to milk Nick’s cock like a cow, and use the cup to transfer his semen over to the chute. He would need to produce enough of it to tilt the scale up and grab the key.

It was gross, it was so, so gross!

But Nick couldn’t really see another option.

“Dang it. Where’s Mary when you need her?” He tried to play it off with a joke as Marley begrudgingly approached, reaching down to unzip his pants. “If we need a white liquid to pour down that chute, I imagine she’d be happy to help.”

Marley’s fingers froze halfway down the zipper. Her eyes widened.

“Uh… Marley?” Nick saw the face she was making, and mistook it for doubt and hesitation. “Are you okay? Is this because I talked about Mary? If so, I’m sorry, but-”

“No, it’s fine,” Marley said, shaking her head quickly. A shaky, hesitant smile crossed her lips. “I just… I may have had another idea.”

“Another idea?” Nick blinked, wondering what she meant by that. Escape rooms tended to be pretty linear; what other idea could there even be?

The red hue of Marley’s face informed him that this “other idea” must have still been suitably embarrassing.

“Marley? What were you thinking?” He pressed, uncertain about whether or not he wanted this would really be better.

“Well, like you said…” Marley chewed on her bottom lip. “Any white liquid would do, right?”

She set down the cup and took a deep breath, then crossed the room and approached the chute once again.

“Marley? Wait, you don’t have a lactation transformation, right?” Nick squirmed, trying to remember the transformations Marley had acquired before being eliminated. And, more worryingly, he tried to remember if he’d ever cum inside of her without protection.

That could be a more pressing issue if she was about to do what he thought she was going to do.

“It’s not breast milk!” Marley snapped, putting a quick end to that hypothetical. She shook her head quickly. “No, it’s… it’s… aargh, don’t make me say it!”

She groaned, and shielded her face with her hands. This was possibly even more embarrassing than what Dakota wanted her to do.

But at least she could avoid giving the obnoxious host the satisfaction of a moral victory, and to Marley, that counted for something.

“Marley? What’s up?” Nick asked worriedly.

Marley let out a sigh, and decided to push her uncertainty down and focus on what she needed to do. That helped settle the doubts and turmoil in her heart. She glanced over her shoulder and cracked a grin.

“Just sit back and look pretty,” she said with a wink. Then she turned back to the chute and lifted her hand. She made a fist, and then, to Nick’s amazement, something white and sticky began to ooze out between the cracks in her fingers.

“Marley!?” Nick gasped in disbelief.

“Shhh! I need to concentrate!” Marley hissed. She tensed and flexed her fingers like she was squeezing a tube of toothpaste. But instead of a minty tooth-cleaning solution, the gunk oozing out was a familiar, sticky white slime that oozed down the chute with a loud “SLUUUURP!” and began filling the bowl. As Marley milked out more of the opaque substance, the bowl started to lower, until finally the scales stopped moving.

She lowered her hand and crouched on the floor, reaching through the hole and pulling out the key. When she finally turned back to Nick to bring it to him, she looked like she was about to die out of shame and embarrassment.

“Marley…” Nick couldn’t believe what he just saw. “That… that was…”

“That was my transformation,” Marley said, unable to look him in the eye. She slid the key, sticky from the residue on her hand, into the lock and turned it, opening the first of his shackles. “And we DON’T have to talk about it.”

“I-I think we do,” Nick replied, shaking his head. He sat up and rubbed his wrists now that his arms were free. “Marley… have you always been able to do that?”

“Yes!” She snapped, moving down to unlatch his ankles, while avoiding looking at the tent in his pants brought on by the promise of a handjob. “Think about it, dummy! Holly didn’t lose any of her transformations when SHE got eliminated. What makes you think I would?”

“Well… fair enough, I guess,” Nick said, shrinking back a little. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of anger from Marley, or from either of the Granger sisters. “But then again, Holly didn’t turn from a slime girl into a human, so…”

“I still have all my transformations,” Marley informed him. “Well… mostly. I think only the first one, Hands on a Warm Body, got overshadowed. Since that one turned me from a slime into a mostly human girl, when I became fully human… well, simply put, the only time I’m turning into a slime again is when I’m far enough away from my sister.”

“But you can still produce it?” Nick swung his newly-freed legs over the side of the table and hopped off, enjoying his freedom even though his limbs were somewhat sore.

Marley blushed. She held up her hand, which was still covered in the sticky white substance. “…Yeah,” she admitted. “I can still produce it. Because my All Lubed Up transformation is still active. I can produce slime, like… well… okay, so you know how some people really sweat a lot?”

Her voice cracked out of desperation. It was clear that this was embarrassing for her.

And Nick’s big mouth wasn’t helping.

“So you secrete it out of your-”

“My sweat glands. Yes. Can we drop this now?” Marley pleaded with him.

Nick was fine with that, but he had one more concern. “That slime of yours, it’s an aphrodisiac, right? Isn’t that the other part of our All Lubed Up transformation?” That was a problem; they’d managed to solve the puzzle without any of Dakota’s hint gas, but if Marley had aroused him regardless with her slime, then… Well, the erection pushing against his pants was already starting to bother him, he didn’t need more problems.

The redness in Marley’s face deepened.

“Well… yeah,” she mumbled, averting her eyes. “But I can control how much of it is aphrodisiac. Right now, I’ve restricted it to the lowest levels possible. It shouldn’t be arousing either one of us at all,” she informed him.

When she averted her eyes, though, she averted them right to his crotch. And she was having a hard time looking away now.

And that was how Marley learned that her slime could also arouse herself.

“…O-okay, that’s enough of that!” Marley said quickly, shaking her head. “We need some time to cool down! The effects should wear off soon, since I didn’t use very much! Now, let’s find a way out of this stupid dungeon!”

Nick could go along with that. He didn’t care that Marley had inadvertently aroused the two of them. He expected that her stroking his cock or getting gassed by Dakota’s aphrodisiacs would likely result in the same situation; at least this way, the two of them had a bit of control over things, and that’s what really mattered here.

“Whelp, no use there,” Marley sighed, rattling the door handle. “She’s not letting us get out just yet. Apparently, there’s more to solve here.”

“What? But you’ve already tore the whole room apart!” Nick pointed out. “What’s left for you to find here?”

“I don’t know!” Marley shrugged. She glanced at his crotch again. “Maybe, um… maybe she won’t let us out, until we… you know.”

Nick swallowed. That HAD been Dakota’s original plan, after all. Have Marley jerk him off into the cup. It would be just like her to be petty like this and refuse to let them out until she gave him a handjob anyway, just out of spite for Marley figuring out another way to get to the key.

“So, uh… I guess we should…” Marley reached for the half-unzipped zipper, when a crackle came from the walkie-talkie.

“Just letting you know, Marley, it’s not cool to use me as an excuse to act out your own desires,” Dakota sneered over the radio waves. “If you want to give Nick a handjob, be my guest. But don’t say it’s because you need to clear the room. You found a way to get that key fair and square, I’m not locking you in out of spite. You’re just not done yet.”

The radio went silent. Nick and Marley stared at each other, their faces red with shame as they both realized they’d had the exact same idea, and were about to go through with it before Dakota stepped in like that.

“Oh, also.”

Dakota spoke up again.

“This doesn’t count as a hint, so don’t worry about the aphrodisiacs. But I am telling you there’s more to figure out in here. Have fun!”

And back to radio silence.

“…S-so, uh… let’s get to it, then?” Marley stammered, jerking her slime-covered hand back and clenching it into a fist. As long as she balled up her hands, she could avoid doing anything naughty with them, that was the hope.

“Yeah, good idea!” Nick agreed, fixing the zipper on his pants. “Dakota said there’s gotta be something else in here, so let’s see if we can find what the next puzzle is to get through that door!”

They needed to get their heads in the game. As long as they could focus on the puzzles, they could take their minds off all the other stuff their bodies wanted to be doing right now.

They both really hoped Marley’s aphrodisiac slime had a short shelf life.