Mike Sock: The college years

AUTHORS NOTE: For backstory on the origins of Mike Sock, see this story:
https://chyoa.com/chapter/The-Next-day.1560858

Her name was Lucy, and she had three things on her mind: surviving college, keeping her GPA high, and somehow not getting expelled because of the thing on her hand. The thing in question? A sock puppet. But not just any sock puppet. This was Mike Sock, a self-aware sock that was not shy about what he wanted. The sock puppet turned his yarn-stitched head as a girl with lavender hair and cut-off shorts passed by. His felt tongue flopped out dramatically.

“Daaaamn, girl! If I had legs I’d walk all over you,” he drawled in a sleazy accent.

Lucy hissed under her breath. “Mike. Please. I’m begging you. Not on day one.”

But Mike was unrepentant, grinning wide with his stupid red marker lips. “Day one’s when you set the tone, babe. You wanna make an impression or not?”

Another girl walked by, this one in a tight sorority tee. Mike twisted toward her like a hunting dog.

“Oh baby, you rock that cotton. Ever thought about sharing a dryer cycle with a lonely puppet?”

To Lucy’s horror, the girl giggled and waved. giggled, like she didn’t just get harassed by a half-demonized laundry accessory.

“See?” Mike crowed, turning toward Lucy. “They love me. Magic of confidence. And soft cotton-blend charm.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and hefted her bags, making her way towards the dorm. She stuffed her right hand, the one with the puppet, into the pocket of the hoodie she was wearing.

A muffled voice came from her midsection. “Oh c’mon babe, don’t be like this. I was just about to get that sorority sluts number!”

She groaned. Lucy had hoped that, upon leaving high school and the vicinity of Michael, the “school behavior modification specialist” who had given her the sock puppet, that she might be free of it. Its part of the reason she had chosen this college. Out of state, far away from the influence of him. Sadly, that hadn’t been the case, and now she had an enchanted puppet on her hand for the foreseeable future.

Ostensibly, Mike Sock was her boyfriend, although that certainly didn’t stop the disgusting piece of dirty laundry from hitting on, and sleeping with, anything with legs and tits. He claimed that she had the same rights, that their relationship was an “open one”, but whatever magical aura the puppet had that made all women receptive to his “charms” and all men cow before his “alpha attitude” didn’t apply to her. Hell, it made things harder, considering every guy was basically begging the crusty piece of cotton to cuck them.

Room 317 was already open when Lucy arrived, the door half-blocked by a floral-patterned suitcase and a bulging bag that smelled faintly of hay and vanilla body spray.

She paused just outside, taking a breath. Her hoodie twitched.

“You gonna stand there like a creepy Craigslist couch someone listed for free,” Mike muttered from inside the hoodie pocket, “or are we gonna go in and meet the harem?”

“Don’t. Say. Harem,” she snapped through clenched teeth.

But it was too late. Mike wriggled free, stretching like a cat with a yawn of crimson, crudely drawn on lips. “Whew! Feels like a good day to offend some future bridesmaids!”

Lucy stepped in, trying to block her hand with her bag. No use.

Inside, two girls had already staked their territory. One, curled cross-legged on a bed, wore an airy sundress and had thick blonde hair braided in a crown around her head. She looked up from a Bible and gasped.

“Oh my gosh! Are you our new roommate!? Its so nice to meet you.” She looked like she’d fallen straight out of a butter commercial and landed in a dorm room. All soft curves and summer skin, with a kind of pastel innocence that practically glowed. Her blonde hair was thick and wavy, pulled into a practical braid that crowned her head like a halo. She wore a buttoned-up yellow sundress that clung modestly to a figure that was anything but.

Lucy’s eyes instinctively clocked the shape beneath it, full C-cup breasts that bounced a little too freely under the light cotton, a high, round ass barely hidden by the hemline, and hips that swayed when she moved without even trying. Equally clear was that the innocent girl had no clue how attractive she actually was. Lucy was sure she’d left a whole string of unsatisfied boys back in whatever Podunk farming town she’d come from without even meaning to.

Around her neck hung a delicate silver cross necklace, the charm catching the light each time she turned her head. It rested right between the upper curves of her chest, swinging gently every time she bent forward, like it had been designed to draw the eye to her cleavage

Her cheeks were already flushed from hauling bags, and she smiled with the kind of hopeful sincerity that only came from someone who still thought people were basically good.

Across the room, the second girl sat on her own bed, unpacking a box labeled TAROT / BONES / ESSENTIAL OILS in all caps. She wore black lipstick, a spiked choker, and a tank-top that said Emotionally Unavailable (and armed). She glanced up, completely unfazed.

In contrast to the farm girl, she looked like she’d killed a butter commercial and use its blood to draw runes on the floor.

she was tall, easily five-nine, and carried herself with the lazy confidence of someone who didn’t need to try. Her long black hair was half-shaved on one side, the other side falling over her cheek like a curtain. A lip ring glinted when she spoke. She wore a loose, sleeveless black tank top torn wide at the sides, and underneath, a sheer black lace bralette barely contained a chest that belonged on a pinup poster: solid, heavy DD-cups that strained against the fabric every time she shifted her weight.

The contradiction was magnetic, her attitude said don’t look at me, but her body didn’t give people much of a choice.

Her midriff was bare, flat stomach leading down to low-slung black shorts that hugged her hips with casual defiance. Long legs, pale and inked in spiraling occult symbols, stretched out as she moved, and her collarbones framed a silver pentagram pendant that bounced slightly every time she spoke.

Mike sprang to life, twisting toward the blonde with full theatrical flair.

“Well hello, angel on Earth. What’s your name and can I give it to my first illegitimate child?”

The blonde flushed red, hands flying to her mouth, but her eyes widened like she’d just been handed a wedding ring by a cartoon prince.

“I…uh…Faith. I’m Faith. Are you… is he talking to me?”

“Only you, sweetheart,” He purred. “And maybe the goth in the corner if she’s lucky.”

The goth raised an eyebrow, and looked back and forth between Mike Sock and Lucy. “You’re enchanted,” she said flatly. “Definitely infernal. Did you cross a witch?”

Lucy winced. “Sorry. He’s... he’s kind of stuck. Long story.”

“Don’t apologize for me,” Mike said proudly. “Apologize to me, for hiding me in your hoodie like a dirty little secret. I have needs, Lucy.”

Faith giggled again, hands clasped under her chin. “Oh my goodness. He’s so bad.”

“Worse than you think, sugar lump,” Mike said. “And believe me, I’m just getting started.”

Lucy dropped her suitcase with a thud, Turning herself so her body was between Mike and the startled girls.

“Sorry. He’s… not great with people. Or women. Or silence.”

“Excuse you,” Mike huffed, flipping his felt mouth into a pout. “I’m great with girls. I’ve never left one unsatisfied.”

Faith giggled again, nervous, eyes flicking between Lucy and the puppet like she couldn’t quite figure out which one was the ventriloquist. “I didn’t think he was rude. Just, y’know... um, confident. Like my old youth pastor!”

“Oh sweetheart,” he purred, “if your youth pastor talked like me, he wasn’t saving your soul, he was softening it up.”

Faith’s eyes went wide. A shocked little gasp escaped her lips… but then she laughed. Not just a polite giggle, an embarrassed, delighted laugh, hand fluttering near her cross necklace like she was trying to cool herself down.

“I…I didn’t mean it like that!” she said, blushing hard.

“Too late,” Mike said. “Now every time you hear a sermon, you’re gonna think about cotton and filthy thoughts.”

Lucy nearly choked. “Jesus Christ,Mike. We’ve been here less than five minutes”

“I think that’s exactly who she’s thinking about,” he murmured, eyes locked on the bouncing cross charm nestled between Faith’s C-cups.

Faith squeaked and spun toward her bed, nearly knocking over her suitcase. “I should unpack! I have socks too! In case…y’know. In case you get lonely!”

Lucy groaned audibly.

Mike laughed crudely again. “Sugar cube, it ain’t socks I’m interested in keeping me company.”

Across the room, the goth girl hadn’t moved from her place, though her eyes were locked on Mike and Lucy, but studying. Her fingers absentmindedly traced runes into her comforter.

“You’re not possessed,” she said slowly. “At least not in the demonic sense. The language is too contemporary. But it’s not a simple familiar either. It’s feeding on something. Lust?”

“Oh ho,” Mike purred. “Smart and sultry. What’s your name, pentagram?”

“Roxanne Vale, but I go by Rox.” she said, lifting a brow. “And I don’t date magical parasites.”

“Shame,” he said, voice dropping a register. “I’d love to crawl inside that sharp little mind of yours and nest. Maybe rattle around in your dark corners. Pull your secrets out like lace panties from a glovebox.”

There was a pause. Rox’s throat bobbed once in a barely perceptible swallow.

Then, flatly: “Gross.”

But she didn’t look away. If anything, her pupils had dilated slightly. One black-nailed hand reached for the tarot deck on her desk. Her other trailed across the table toward her notebook, almost absentmindedly.

“Fae,” she muttered to herself. “Or construct. Bound to the host, but not entirely under her will. Sex-linked glamour, localized effect radius, high reaction yield in target group…”

“Are you taking notes on me?” Mike asked, almost flattered.

“Just trying to decide if I want to banish you,” Rox said, flipping open a page of symbols, “or keep you in a sealed circle and study your reaction to salt and cold iron.”

“Baby, you can bind me in a chalk circle and call me names all night,” Mike said. “I live for that kind of attention.”

“Can I have five minutes of normal?” Lucy snapped, yanking her hoodie sleeve back over Mike. “Can you…actually banish him?”

Rox didn’t look up from her notes. She uncapped a gel pen with her teeth and began sketching a quick binding glyph in the margin.

“I mean, technically? Yeah. I could probably suppress the enchantment, short-term, at least. Maybe displace it onto something else. A poppet. A sigil mirror. Your pillow.”

She paused, tapping the pen against her lips.

“But I need to do research first…probably also need to draw blood. Yours, not his. And there’s a thirty percent chance it would just piss him off and make him louder.”

Mike chuckled darkly. “See? She gets me.”

Lucy stared. “That wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.”

“It’s not,” Rox said. But she was smiling—just barely.

She scribbled another note. “I’m still leaning toward containment. You’re annoying, but... instructive.” She glanced back at Lucy. “I’ll figure it out.”

Mike gave a low, delighted purr. “Instruct me, baby. Bind me, gag me, classify me.”

Rox raised one eyebrow. “You do have strong imp energy.”

From across the room, Faith raised her hand timidly. “Um… do you guys want to pray together before bed? I, um… I usually do that with my sisters back home.”

Rox rolled her eyes. Mike whistled low.

“I’ll kneel with you, angel. Might not be for Jesus, though.”

Faith squeaked, her entire face going bright red. She stumbled backward into her suitcase, caught herself on the bedframe, and immediately crossed her arms over her chest—though it only pushed her breasts up more beneath her dress.

Mike gave a low, theatrical laugh. “God, I love virgins. That wide-eyed look, the way they blush like they’ve never heard the word ‘moist’ before. You don’t even have to try. You just exist, and I get a hard-on from the purity alone.”

Faith opened her mouth like she might correct him, but no words came out. Just a breathy, helpless giggle that sounded far too close to a moan.

“I’m not…! I mean…I have heard that word. Before,” she managed.

Mike leaned in closer, voice silk-wrapped and sinful. “Bet you dream about baptisms and wake up soaked.”

Lucy groaned into her pillow. “Mike, for the love of God—”

“Exactly,” Mike whispered.

Rox, still reclined at her desk, tapped her pen against her lips and gave a faint, amused hum. “You’re going to corrupt her by accident, you know.”

Mike grinned. “There’s no accident here, pentagram. This is a calling.”