There ain't no finer place to be, than running Lake Shore Drive

“Now then!” Dakota wiped her hands together, her cane tucked beneath her shoulder. She wore an amused smile on her face, now that Kim had been banished to her work at the boutique. Then she turned to Nick.

Nick bristled, realizing what was coming next. Now that the tour had come to a close and Dakota had decided it was okay to send Kim away, that could only mean one thing.

“Is it time for my date with Marley?” He inquired.

“Ah!” Marley gasped, her eyes widening slightly.

“Exactly!” Dakota chortled. “Now that we’re finished going over all the necessary details, it’s time for you two to get off to your romantic night! …But don’t worry, I’ll give you a chance to say your goodbyes, at least.”

“Um… are you sure this is going to work?” Marley asked, biting her lip. “I mean, I’m kinda… well…” She glanced at her sister. “…Without Carly around, aren’t I going to just… collapse into a puddle of slime, like always?”

Dakota laughed. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty head about that! As funny and amusing as that would be, it wouldn’t be suitable. No, in Dream Alley, your body will be perfectly normal, like a human’s. It’s a dream, after all. Your dream. So design it as you wish.”

“Oh, good…” Marley sighed in relief. That was the one thing she’d been nervous about.

“Gosh! Sorry, my girl!” Sylvia apologized. “I had no idea you were thinking in that direction! I should have told you earlier that you would have kept your body when you were with Daddy!”

“No, it’s totally fine!” Marley said, holding up her hands and shaking her head quickly. “Don’t worry about it! These things just happen!”

“Well, they don’t ‘just’ happen,” Dakota said. “But we’re getting off track. Are we done here? The more time in the dream the better, remember. Do you have anyone else you’d like to speak to before you go, Nick?”

Nick blinked, then he nodded. “Uh, yeah. Um… Mary?”

“Y-yes?” Mary straightened up.

“Sorry about… well, not getting to spend tonight with you, even though it’s supposed to be your night,” Nick apologized. “You’re okay with it, though… right?”

“Yes! Of course!” Mary nodded her head rapidly. “Don’t worry! It’s totally fine! You two have fun together!”

Nick sighed in relief and nodded. “Okay, thanks. As for everybody else… sorry this is a little out of place. Especially, um… the new girls, too… I wanted to spend more time with you guys today, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

“Aww, how touching,” Dakota said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Romantic parting moments. Now then, shall we be moving on?”

With a tap of her cane, Nick and Marley disappeared, banished to Dream Alley. With them gone, Dakota turned to address the other girls.

“With that, you ladies have the rest of the night to yourselves. Nick will be back sometime around six in the morning, so until then, feel free to do as you like with the amenities of the hotel. I know I’ll be doing the same.”

“Uh… wh-what about…”

Dakota turned and raised her eyebrow, not expecting Ella of all people to speak up. The flustered girl stepped forward, trying to keep her eyes even with the host.

“Yes?” Dakota softened her voice, a rarity from her. Was she treating Ella with kid gloves? That would be a surprise.

“A-about, about my transformation… the one that forces me to be a maid…”

“Ah, yes! That one, one of my favorites this round,” Dakota chuckled, flashing an amused smile. “What about it?”

“Um…” Ella bit her lip, her eyes shifting from one direction to the other. “It… do I still have to do that? Because… Nick’s not here, so…”

“No, of course not,” Dakota bluntly replied. “Your job is to work in the Master’s Suite for the sake of Nick’s pleasure. If he is otherwise occupied, then you, of course, have no obligation to be present.”

She reached out and patted the stunned girl on the head.

“It’s not about you actually cleaning, silly girl! It’s all about you looking sexy and delicious for your master!” She laughed.

“Really!?” Ella’s face lit up as relief washed over her. “Oh, that’s just wonderful!”

She relaxed and let out a sigh of relief. That was the best news she’d gotten in quite some time. So it wasn’t about the cleaning. She just had to look sexy for Nick?

As that thought crossed her mind, her face flushed, and she suddenly felt a surge of pressure in her gut. Cinder was struggling to get free. While Ella wasn’t good at understanding the nature of her alter (it wasn’t like she could have a conversation with her or anything) she knew that Cinder was violently protective of her- and apparently, that extended to romance as well.

Biting her lip, Ella flicked her rubber band again to shut up the welling uncertainty inside of her. It helped calm her down.

“I have a question,” Dawn said, approaching Dakota.

“Shocker,” Dakota scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“If Ella doesn’t have to work as a maid while Nick is occupied, does that mean that if Nick just stays out of the Master’s Suite for an hour every night before curfew, she won’t have to trigger her transformation at all?” Dawn asked. She didn’t know why Ella had such a revulsion to the idea of being a maid (although honestly, was it any surprise a girl wouldn’t want to prance around in fetishwear for a stranger?) but maybe this way, there was a loophole that Nick could use to get her out of it.

Dakota smirked. “I see what you’re trying to do, you clever little cat you!” She giggled, and shook her head. “Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. While, yes, Ella doesn’t have to fulfill her obligations when Nick is occupied, that only applies to when he’s doing something that he’s obligated to do himself, like his date with Marley, or any other date in Dream Alley. If he’s just out of the Master’s Suite because he wants to be, well… it’s not the same thing.”

“Why not?” Dawn pressed.

Dakota shrugged. “Ella’s transformation is all about offering herself up to Nick on a silver platter,” she replied. “He doesn’t have to accept the offering if he doesn’t want to. But that doesn’t release Ella from her obligation.”

“I see,” Dawn nodded, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “So Ella doesn’t have to go through with it when Nick isn’t there to be seduced. But if Nick makes the conscious choice to not be present for her seduction, that doesn’t get her out of it.”

“Precisely,” Dakota said with a sharp nod. She turned to the latina. “You’ve got a reprieve for tonight, Ella. But that’s all you’ll get.”

“Okay…” Ella glumly nodded.

“Hey, um…”

Ella perked up and turned to see Morgana approaching her with an uneasy but hopeful look on her face.

“Oh, uh… hi?” Ella mumbled, taking a step backwards. She didn’t want to be caught in the limelight like this, now that she knew everybody was looking.

“You don’t have to worry,” Morgana assured her. “Nick is really nice. I know what your transformation says, but he’s not going to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“Yeah, Nick’s not the sort of guy to do something like that,” Dani nodded in agreement.

“R-really?” Ella could breathe a little easier hearing that. She could also feel that Cinder wasn’t as unsettled as she had been.

“Of course,” Amelia sniffed. “I raised that boy to treat women with respect and decency. He would never do anything so boorish.”

“Aww… where’s the fun in that?” Vivian joked, earning her a seething glare from her teacher.

“It’s gonna be so much fun!” Holly burst out of the crowd and rushed over to Ella, staring up at her with glittering eyes. The latina was caught off-guard and her eyes widened like saucers behind her bangs as Holly seized her hands.

“You, um… what?!” Ella didn’t even know how to respond to the hyperactive maid in front of her. Holly leaked anticipation like a bucket full of bullet holes. “I-I don’t… fun?”

“Yes! So much fun!” Holly nodded rapidly. “Spending time with master in the Master’s Suite, serving his every whim, while doing all the chores…”

She was starting to drool. “I always envisioned myself as a sexy maid who would serve at his pleasure… but I always knew that there was no way someone like me was suited for that role! It deserved to go to a much better woman, one who could really tease and please him… someone like you! You’re perfect for it!”

“I-I don’t… I’ve never ‘teased’ anybody before…” Ella’s emotions were all in a tizzy and she could barely think straight. As off-kilter as she might have been, though, there was the benefit of the fact that she wasn’t actually upset by anything that was happening.

That would have been a problem. Thankfully, Cinder was content at the moment; she couldn’t feel her alter trying to rise to the surface.

Still… she wasn’t really equipped to handle this.

So she booked it.

“I have to go!” She wailed, pulling herself free from the fawning sycophant. She dashed back to her room and slammed the door.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin rolled her eyes and strutted after her. There was no way she was going to let the other woman eat all that candy herself!

“…And with that, I think it’s time we all went our separate ways, don’t you?” Dakota noted with amusement. “You girls have fun. Get to know each other! Mingle! I designed this common room for a reason, you know. Now that you don’t have to maintain strategic relationships to remain in the game, you can really start to bond like people do. Have fun!”

She waved her hand halfheartedly and disappeared with a tap of her cane, leaving the other girls to their own devices.

It took everyone a bit to adjust to the new atmosphere.

Vivian was one of the first.

“Well, with that settled, I suppose I should get going,” she said, stretching her arms above her head, which had the added bonus of showing off her taut, model-thin waist. Dani had to **** herself not to look. “Octavia? Get my room prepared, if you would. As best you can with that jungle, anyway.”

“As you wish,” Octavia nodded, placing her hand over her chest. She retired to the Garden Suite to get it up to Vivian’s standards as best as possible.

“Now then, what is it you ladies do for fun around here?” Vivian asked, turning to the other girls. “Is there a shooting gallery? Or perhaps a squash court?”

Everyone was a little surprised by how well Vivian was adapting to this situation.

“You’re taking this remarkably well,” Carly noted. “Even I had a bit of an adjustment period when we first got here, and I was pretty cool with everything.”

“It’s so amazing,” Rose swooned. “Such a cool, unflappable attitude! This is the kind of high-class fortitude that you just can’t fake!”

Vivian laughed. “Aww, you’re so sweet! But it’s nothing like that, hun. I’m just an easy girl to please, that’s all.”

She slid her tongue over her teeth. It was a pity Nick wasn’t here, she could have had some real fun with that one.

“Just be careful,” Dani warned. “This place isn’t all fun and games. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could get caught in a bad situation. It happened to me before.” Her cheeks flushed as she remembered the aphrodisiac sauna she and Nick had inadvertently gotten caught up in.

“Thanks for looking out, blue!” Vivian made a gun with her finger and fired it at Dani with a grin. “But hey, I asked to be here. I’ll make do”

“You what?” Amelia narrowed her eyes into a glare. “Did I hear that right, Carrington? You asked to be taken to this place?”

“Don’t get so worked up, Teach!” Vivian laughed. “It’s not a big deal. I happened to be in the market for a man, and, well, that lady came up to me and made me an offer. It sounded like a bit of a blast, so I said sure, why not?”

Dawn could just scream. She glanced at Dani, and saw that the other woman felt the same way. They both couldn’t believe someone could do something like that.

Admittedly, though, it hasn’t backfired on her yet, Dawn was **** to acknowledge. Compared to how most people had come out on this show so far, Vivian was three transformations in and the only one that seemed like a real inconvenience to her was the one compelling her to have Nick’s children.

Which might not even be so bad for her.

“…Just be careful,” Dani said, having given up trying to talk sense into the woman. “You might not feel like you want Nick to knock you up yet, but these mental transformations are insidious. You’re going to get that itch sooner or later.”

Vivian shrugged. “We’ll see,” she replied. Again, she wasn’t taking this as seriously as she really should have been, but nobody thought she’d actually listen if they tried to talk to her.

“I’m a little confused, though,” Rose said, approaching the heiress. Her eyes were bright with stars as she stared at the woman she admired, but she was still able to maintain her composure enough to have a conversation with her. “If you were looking for a guy, shouldn’t someone like you have your pick of the lot? I’d imagine any guy would want to marry you.”

“Sure, I’ve had suitors and such, but a lot of them were picked by my parents,” Vivian said, rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “And, like… NO way is that happening!” She shook her head and chuckled to herself. “No… it’s actually a lot harder than you think to find a guy worth dating. So when Dakota made her offer, well, like I said. Sounded fun.”

No one could say anything to that. Not even Rose.

Amelia just sighed and nursed her temples in frustration. That was Vivian Carrington, through and through.

“…Wow,” Rose said finally, a little stunned. She wished that she had the money and influence to not have to worry about stuff like that, the way Vivian clearly did.

“Well, with that all settled, time to go see what we can do for fun around here,” Vivian said, scratching her chin thoughtfully. “I think I heard mention of a boutique somewhere? Might go check that out!” She turned on her heel and waved her hand behind her. “Give me a ring if you need something!”

And she was off.

“…We probably should have told her, huh?” Sylvia said, trying not to smile.

“Nah, it’s funnier this way,” Gina laughed, cracking a grin. “Although it would definitely be amusing to see Kim’s reaction!”

She bent over laughing.

“So what now?” Dani asked. “I mean, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d like to check out that arcade, myself.” She turned to Carly. “Is that cool with you?”

“Yeah, that could be fun!” Carly nodded. “What do you think, Marley, you want- oh, right.” She turned and looked to where her sister should have been, but Marley was gone.

For the first time in a while, Carly was on her own. Her eyes met with Dani, and she grinned.

“…Yeah,” she said, her voice a trace more excited than before. “That sounds like a lot of fun. Let’s go!”

She took Dani’s hand and the two headed towards her bedroom. And Morgana tagged along, too.

“I-I won’t get in your guys’ way or anything!” She promised hopefully. “Just, um… I wanted to play some games… if that’s okay?”

Dani and Carly looked at each other.

“Sure, it’s fine,” Dani nodded, smiling at her.

“Really?” Morgana’s face lit up. “You mean it?”

“Sure thing,” Carly shrugged. “I mean it’s not like we’re going to be making out or anything like that! Just playing a few games. The more the merrier!”

“Ooh! Can I come, then?” Sylvia asked hopefully. “I want to play games?”

Carly shrugged and nodded. And to everyone’s surprise, even Dani was cool with it.

“Why not?” She relented.

Morgana was stunned. “You, um… you mean it? For real? Even after I… what I did?”

There was still a pit in her stomach from what she did to her family. Now that the dust had cleared, she realized that she’d stepped over a massive line.

“I’m not really in any place to judge,” Dani admitted, her face taking on a sullen hue. “I’ve been talking out against transformations this whole time, but when I had that gun… I didn’t even hesitate to mutate Joan’s whole family. And even if they were horrible people… I don’t know. It still feels like I crossed a massive line there.”

“…Well, I could say something, about how I’ve learned that sometimes transforming people isn’t the right thing to do,” Sylvia piped up. “But I don’t think that’s really my place.”

She looked sheepishly over to Mary, who nodded in encouragement.

“Look, there’s no sense in getting worried about it now,” Carly said. “We’ll handle that stuff when we get back to the real world… if we ever do. After all, we might not even settle this in 100 days now, huh?”

Sylvia’s face fell and she shook her head. “I thought the 100 days was a good cap… but now that Dakota’s changed so many rules, who even knows what she’ll be doing with it?” She sighed. “What a mess…”

No one really wanted to think through any of the implications, Dani least of all. So she decided their time would be better spent on something else.

“Let’s just move onto the video games,” she said, quickly ushering the other three girls into the Arcade Suite.

It was a nice distraction, at least.

In the meantime, the girls left in the common area had to find their own ways of entertaining themselves, and Gina was all set for her own choice.

“This is nice and all, but I need a freaking drink after that challenge,” she said, heading straight for the bar. “Nice to know I won’t have to take an elevator now if I want to get something!”

She reached for the refrigerator.

“SMACK!”

“Ow!” Gina pulled her hand back and rubbed the red welt, surprised. “Hey! What’s the big idea?!”

She turned and her eyes widened at what she saw. Amelia was standing over her with a riding crop in her hand and a stern expression on her face.

“You have a lot of nerve doing something like that right in front of me,” Amelia scoffed, using her other hand to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Fuck you!” Gina spat. “I’m an adult now, you know! I can drink if I want!” She still had fond memories of Nick’s stepmother. But right now, they were overshadowed by her frustration at the strict teacher butting into her relaxation time.

“You certainly can,” Amelia acknowledged. “But from what I can tell, **** isn’t good for you. You were such a sweet girl once upon a time, Regina.”

Gina glowered at her. “Yeah, well…” She didn’t really have anything to follow that up with, so she just kept glowering. “…At least I don’t resort to ****!” She finally found her voice. “Hey, Dakota! ****! There’s some **** going on here! Step in and do something!”

“Hey, good point,” Rose noted. “Why does Amelia get to just hit her?”

“She shouldn’t be allowed to,” Dawn said, shaking her head. “I would definitely qualify that as ****. Gina’s right, it’s against the rules.”

“And where did that riding crop come from?” Mary wondered. “She just kind of pulled it out of thin air!”

“I assure you, ladies, I have no intention of breaking the rules,” Amelia said, straightening her back and slapping the long stem of her riding crop against her palm, sending another “SMACK!” through the room. “This is an approved method of discipline.”

“Huh?” Mary tilted her head to the side in confusion.

“At least, that’s what it said here.” Amelia reached into her breast pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper. “The others may not have looked at theirs, but I thought it best to see what tools were at my disposal.”

The others took a look at what was written down on the sheet- the backside, in particular.

• 1000 BP: Anti-Aging Cream – Contestant Amelia will receive a special topical solution that, when applied, will cause the receiver’s physical age to regress 5 years. This lasts for a period of 24 hours. (Contains enough for 3 doses. SAFETY WARNING: Effects stack cumulatively. Additional applications will result in an additional 5-year regression. All effects will wear off after the first 24 hour period has elapsed, regardless of when last applied.)
• 3000 BP: Disciplinary Tools – Contestant Amelia will be given a special riding crop for enforcing discipline. When someone is struck, they will feel compelled to refrain from whatever behavior they are attempting that the user sees as delinquent. Cumulative strikes will increase the aversion to that behavior. (Can only be used on behavior being directly observed. Effects do not last when not in the presence of the user.) [ALREADY PURCHASED]
• 8000 BP: The Dean’s List – Contestant Amelia will be given a special book in which she can write down commendations and citations for her fellow contestants. At the end of each round, she will reward contestants who received commendations and punish contestants that received citations.

Amelia: 5100 BP – 3000 BP = 2100 BP

“So wait, you mean I can’t get a freaking drink?!” Gina exclaimed, staring in aghast at the scowling stepmother.

“I may not be your actual mother,” Amelia sternly chastised her. “But I will gladly discipline you in her place.”

Dawn’s tail whipped behind her as she stared in awe. “…I love this woman.”