Lucky for me, breakfast opened at seven, and I got my pancakes before the car showed up.
Leah was already on her laptop. Rina had been busy, and Leah was deep in work mode.
I decided to stay out of the way as much as possible for the next two weeks.
Leah and I were secure. I wasn’t afraid of losing her anymore, and I hoped she felt the same way about me.
I knew this job was important. It was her first big showing. She had to get it right.
If she needed me, I would be there.
But for the next two weeks, my main contribution could be not becoming another thing on her list.
The car arrived, and I realized it was the same driver who had brought us here.
Then I remembered it was a three-and-a-half-hour drive.
He must have left around four in the morning.
He looked completely awake and cheerful.
“Did you have a pleasant stay, Miss Takahashi? Miss Williams?”
“Very much so,” Leah replied. “I hope changing the pickup time wasn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all, Miss Takahashi. We’re here to serve.”
“How’s the Wi-Fi onboard? Can I hold a video call?”
“The Wi-Fi should hold the whole way,” the driver said. “This one has Starlink.”
Leah gave a small nod of approval.
I looked at her.
“The car has satellite internet?”
“Private Uber.”
I nodded.
“Private Uber…”
As I got into the car, my phone chirped.
It was Rina.
Rina:
Sent a link
I tapped it, and YouTube opened.
The thumbnail showed Rina from behind, wearing fitted yoga pants and a tight tank top. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she was barefoot, with an anti-static wrist strap around one wrist.
She was looking down at a black desk with an open PC case sitting on top. Wires hung out of it, and boxes of hardware were scattered across the desk and floor.
Building a Monster PC for My Friend
She needed a gaming PC. I got carried away.
The video itself was just Rina slowly building my machine.
She barely spoke. There was only a slow, meditative music track in the background, but she did have a mic close enough that you could hear her moving around, breathing, opening boxes, cutting packaging, and every little click and scrape that might count as ASMR.
Unpacking hardware. Close-up shots of the brands. A few obvious money shots of the RAM clicking into place and the slow, careful insertion of the graphics card.
Then the machine started.
Something was wrong.
Rina went back in. Some of the guts came back out, followed by another shot of the computer reassembled.
She turned it on again.
This time, every LED lit up.
Rina threw both arms up in a little “Yatta!” pose, and SUCCESS! appeared across the screen.
Ten-minute video. Posted two hours ago.
Already a thousand comments.
Yeah.
My PC was gonna be internet famous.
I started reading the comments and quickly regretted it.
So many thirsty comments. So many tall-woman memes.
Some legitimate questions too.
How tall is she?
Six-four.
Then immediately:
Oh my God, can she sit on my face?
Jesus.
I had no idea how Rina dealt with thousands of strangers talking about her like this without it getting into her head.
I should probably ask her about that.
I closed YouTube and went back to Rina.
Me:
Looks sweet. It’s good?
Rina:
The best. Leah was pretty loose with the budget, so I got you top-end everything.
Me:
She being loose with money?
Rina:
She tripled my pay when she asked me to step up and help manage the event. I don’t think she’s trying to make much profit on this one. I have no idea what her finances look like, but I trust she knows what she’s doing.
I am a little shocked by the 3D printers she asked me to look into, though. I’m sure you’ll overhear that conversation when you get home.
Me:
Will there be a fight?
Rina:
No, but I want some clearer guidelines on what we’re actually doing. I signed up with Leah because I was expecting this to be a long-term thing. But looking at what she’s spending, I’m starting to wonder if she plans to crash the company in some glorious blaze.
Anyway, not something to hash out over chat. I need to talk to Leah face-to-face.
Would Leah try to crash the company?
Maybe the Leah from before I met her would have.
But not the Leah I had just spent two days at a spa with.
Maybe Rina had not updated her version of Leah yet.
I looked over at her. She was writing comments on a costume design with absolute focus.
No.
My Leah would not intentionally crash VV just to spite her mother. Not when the deal had given us a home and enough money that we did not have to worry about much.
But now was not the time to dig into this issue. I would hear what Leah said to Rina, and maybe talk to Leah about it afterwards if we got a quiet second together.
We arrived back at the apartment at eleven-thirty, and the transformation was clear as day. No more plastic wrap. Proper furniture had appeared, the kitchen was stocked, a gigantic TV covered one wall, and there were even paintings up.
It looked like someone actually lived here now.
Rina was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island with an open laptop and a stack of papers. She looked over when Leah and I came in and gave us a big smile.
“You guys have a good time?”
“Amazing,” I said.
Leah barely missed a beat.
“Did you hear back from Darius?”
Rina smiled at her.
“Yes. He’s up for it, as long as we can give him a bed for the night. He’ll have to come up from Boston, but he’s happy to make the trip if he doesn’t have to book a hotel.”
“Excellent. We can host him here.”
“That’s what I thought. So that gives us all six additional monster servants. Eight total.”
She looked down at her notes.
“I got Beth and Ellen for seamstress work. Ellen already has an event booked and can’t start until Friday, but she says that with Beth helping, eight costumes won’t be a problem on our schedule.”
“And Magnus?”
“Magnus ‘the Manufacturer’ is on board starting tomorrow. He already sent sketches for the wheelchair build, and he has a working prototype for the four articulated arm prostheses.”
I started exploring the newly furnished apartment while listening to them talk.
“Brian promised to deliver the chains and the other custom metalwork in time,” Leah said. “Am I missing anything?”
Rina looked at her.
“The 3D printer. I’ve talked to suppliers, and we can have one installed Friday if we order today.”
She hesitated.
“But I’m a little worried about the price.”
“Pitch me your worries.”
“So, in the price range you gave me, the Fuse 1 complete workflow package is probably our best option. Sixty-five thousand. Seventy if you want it installed and running by Friday afternoon.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
Rina stared at her.
“I’m not sure anything involving seventy thousand dollars counts as reasonable.”
Leah smiled slightly.
“Continue.”
“Looking at what we actually need for this job, though, a Raise3D Pro3 Plus would cover everything and then some. And that’s seven grand.”
“Get both.”
Rina paused.
“Yeah. That was not one of the solutions on my bingo card.”
“Buy the Raise3D today. Install it in the crafting room. Let the Fuse delivery arrive without the rush cost.”
Rina did the math in her head.
“So… about seventy-two thousand dollars.”
“About seventy.”
Rina stared at her.
“You just rounded two thousand dollars down.”
Leah shrugged.
“At this scale, yes.”
“It’s still a lot of money.”
“We need six sets of articulated parts in two weeks. Next month it’ll be something else, then something after that. I don’t want to outsource fabrication every time we need something unusual.”
“You can outsource a lot of fabrication for sixty thousand dollars.”
“Yes, but I can’t buy more time.”
Leah pointed toward Rina’s laptop.
“That is what I’m buying. The Raise gives us something fast and flexible for day-to-day work. The Fuse gives us capacity when that stops being enough. I don’t want one printer becoming a bottleneck every time we have three things that need to be finished at once.”
Rina looked at her for a moment.
“And you’re not going to bankrupt VV doing this?”
“No.”
“Very confident answer.”
“Because the money is already there. VV has nine hundred thousand in investment capital specifically for building the company. This purchase isn’t coming out of the Halloween budget.”
Leah shrugged.
“We can afford this. And quite a lot more before I start worrying.”
My eyebrows went up at the nine-hundred-thousand-dollar investment line.
Where the hell had that money come from?
Leah had never mentioned TEG investing directly in VV. She had said VV could use TEG resources when it needed them, but VV would have to pay for those.
So where did nine hundred thousand dollars suddenly come from?
Was Leah using some dodgy business trick to leech money out of TEG?
Mental note to ask Leah about this once we were alone.
Rina nodded.
“I’ll get the Raise3D ready for pickup and grab it later today.”
I started testing out the new furniture.
The couch was very soft. And very big. I could totally sleep on this if I had to.
The TV was also perfectly placed for it. If I followed sports, this would be excellent for watching The Game.
I decided to check upstairs, but stopped when I noticed a shelf had been placed across the staircase.
It was filled with dry goods. Flour, oats, rice, all neatly stacked in jars.
“Did they move the stairs?” I asked Leah and Rina.
Rina smiled and came over.
She grabbed a small hook on the side of the shelf and twisted it outward.
Something clicked behind it.
The whole shelf shifted forward a few inches, then slid sideways.
“Wow. Batman door.”
“Yeah. And it looks perfectly natural if you leave it open too. Then it just looks like the shelf belongs over there, with the stairs beside it.”
“My apartment is the Batcave. I love this place.”
I left Leah and Rina behind and went upstairs to see what had happened to our part of the apartment.
There was a new couch and a new TV. Big, but not as ridiculous as the one downstairs.
I peeked into the room Leah had designated the crafting room and found it completely transformed.
The residential wood floor was gone, replaced by smooth dark-grey resin that made the whole space feel more like a proper workshop than part of the apartment.
Heavy benches now ran along most of the walls, with a huge cutting table in the middle. One side was clearly for fabric work: sewing machines, dress forms, racks for rolls of fabric, drawers, thread storage, and shelves that were still mostly empty.
The other side looked more industrial. Tools hung above the benches, and a drill press, sander, soldering station, and heat press had already appeared. There was an enclosed spray booth against the exterior wall, with thick ventilation ducting running into a modified window panel, plus another extraction arm over one of the workbenches for fumes and dust.
A cabinet by the door was labeled PPE. Beside it were fire extinguishers, first aid, and a separate metal cabinet for everything Leah apparently did not want turning the room into a fireball.
Two large spaces along the far wall were still completely empty, but somebody had already run power, network cables, and ventilation to them.
I assumed that was where the seventy-two thousand dollars of printers were going to live.
There was still a lot of open space, but it no longer looked unfinished.
I closed the door to the crafting room and went over to the “desk room,” as Leah had called it, apparently to make sure nobody confused it with the actual office downstairs.
That room was much more sparse.
Two desks stood against opposite walls. One had a computer under it and a monitor on top. The other had two monitors connected to what I assumed was a docking station.
There were nice ergonomic chairs at both desks, but otherwise the room was pretty bare-bones.
I went to have a look at my bedroom.
The bed was enormous. Easily twice the size of my old one.
I had no idea if this was an actual standard size or something Leah had ordered specially, but she was clearly planning for more than just the two of us.
Storage had been added too, with built-in wardrobes on either side of the bed, each with drawers and hanging space.
The boxes from my old place were still sitting unopened, and since I had nothing much else to do, I figured I might as well unpack.
I spent about an hour going through everything, filling drawers, hanging clothes, and trying to make the room feel like mine.
I still had some stuff over at Leah’s old place, but most of it was here now.
When I went back downstairs, I found Leah looking through a stack of papers.
“Rina gone?”
“Picking up the 3D printer.”
“Ah… right.”
Leah looked up at me.
“So… how did VV Creative get almost a million dollars?”
She smiled once I finally got the question out.
“It’s the money my mother paid me for the company. I put it straight back into VV. Well, most of it. I kept a small portion for myself.”
She leaned back slightly.
“But yes. It’s all legitimate. I’m not doing anything illegal.”
I let out a breath.
“Thank God. When I heard the number, and then how much you wanted to spend on the printer, I started wondering.”
“You thought I might deliberately hurt the company just to embarrass my mother?”
“No. Never. That does not sound like you at all. Where did you get that idea?”
I sat down across from her.
“You are a horrible liar, you know.”
“Me? Lie? Never.”
Leah smiled.
“Maybe a version of me who didn’t have you would have considered it. Drain as much value as possible from the company, then split off and start a competing one.”
“So you are definitely not doing that.”
“Too risky.”
She looked down at the papers for a moment.
“And I think with you around, maybe I don’t need to fight my mother.”
I smiled at that.
“When is the stuff from your old apartment showing up here?”
Leah froze.
“I completely forgot about that.”
She looked at me.
“Could you handle it?”
I gave her a mock salute.
“No worries. I’ll have it done in a jiffy.”
“Before Friday. And can you book the moving company and the cleaning company?”
“Okay, let me write this down.”
Leah gave me the website, handed me her credit card to pay for everything, and reminded me that if I ran into any problems, I should call her.
I was absolutely not going to do that.
I could handle booking a mover and a cleaner.
So upstairs to my newly built computer I went.
I started it up and immediately got asked for a password.
There was a note beside the mouse.
PSW: ILoveLeah!!
I stared at it.
Rina.
I typed it in.
The desktop loaded with a picture of me eating ice cream, my tongue sticking out toward a bit that had started melting down the cone.
I looked really stupid.
I recognized the day immediately. Leah and I had gone for a walk through Central Park. I had insisted on getting ice cream in a cone, while Leah had gone for a cup.
She must have sent Rina the picture at some point.
It turned out Leah had made the smarter choice.
I had spent most of mine desperately trying to eat it before it melted all over my hand.
Deciding that passwords and screen backgrounds were problems for later, I quickly booked movers for tomorrow and arranged the cleaning.
I could probably handle the packing myself, as long as they dropped off enough boxes.
That was one problem solved.
Okay. Let’s see what Rina had set up for me.
First off, the monitor was enormous. Not tall, just absurdly wide.
I had used two screens at work before, but this was basically both of them welded together.
The case itself had lots of lights.
Rina had installed a bunch of programs for me, but nothing was logged in.
I opened Chrome, signed into my profile, and let everything sync.
Then I started Steam, went through account recovery, and logged into that too.
It had been a while since I used Steam.
There was also OBS and Twitch.
I didn’t have a Twitch account and had no idea what OBS was.
The camera on top of the monitor was 4K, which was a nice step up from the 1080p one on my laptop.
Both the mouse and keyboard lit up, and the headset was wireless, although still big and bulky.
Everything was labeled SteelSeries.
Lastly, an Xbox controller sat in a charging dock under the monitor.
Yeah. Money had been spent on this.
I heard movement outside the door and rolled my chair over to see Rina lugging a huge box up the stairs.
“What you got there?”
“A 3D printer I would have done some really slutty things for a year ago, and which is now apparently our ‘backup.’”
“Need any help?”
“You can help me unpack it if you want.”
I jumped out of my chair, eager to have something to do.
I opened the crafting room for her and watched as Rina wrestled the box inside.
“So, this printer is like… the good stuff?”
“The one Leah normally uses at the workspace is the previous model. This one is faster, more accurate, and has basically every quality-of-life improvement a 3D-printing nerd could want.”
“And the one Leah wants?”
“That one is industrial-grade. Much faster for production work, and the finished parts are stronger. It’s a really good setup.”
She looked at the box.
“But excessive.”
“You think she bought it to show off?”
“No. I think it’s going to spoil some of her clients.”
“Spoil them so they don’t want to leave?”
Rina smiled.
“That would be a pretty good strategy.”
She looked toward the crafting room.
“I definitely want to make some stuff on them before I leave.”
“And as a VV contractor, you’re allowed to do that, right?”
“I guess.”
She shrugged.
“I was assuming I’d have to be sneaky about it.”
She pulled a knife from her pocket and cut the box open. It was packed in Styrofoam and plastic, and we eventually got it upright against the far wall and plugged in.
“This one looks big,” I said.
“It has a really big print area.”
“And that’s good?”
“Means it can print big things. Bigger armor pieces usually have to be broken into a bunch of smaller parts.”
I nodded sagely.
Clearly important.
Rina started loading various spools and pieces into place.
“So, how are you doing? Feeling better after the spa?”
“I think so. Sorted some stuff out, for sure.”
I leaned against the workbench.
“Maybe a bit aimless. Not really sure what I’m supposed to do with myself.”
“Work, play, eat, sleep. That’s basically what all of us do. Everything else is just tweaking the formula.”
“Work, yeah. Maybe I need to find work.”
“Maybe.”
She kept working on the printer.
“People need to do things and see themselves in what they did.”
“So I need to make stuff?”
Rina looked over at me.
“Not literally. It’s more about being able to look at something and think, I did that.”
The whole thing sounded weirdly familiar, but I could not place the idea.
Rina interrupted my train of thought.
“So, Leah is hiring a chef, which means you’re sorted for eating. I saw your bed, so sleeping should be fine. Are you playing properly?”
“Leah is hiring a chef?”
“Only for the next two weeks. Saves a lot of time if we feed people instead of everyone disappearing to find lunch. Starting tomorrow, expect breakfast, lunch and dinner with the whole crew.”
“But I’m not crew.”
“Nah. You’re family.”
She went back to the printer.
“But back to my question. What are you doing for play?”
“Are you asking if I’m getting laid?”
“Partly, but not really.”
“Then what counts as play?”
“Anything you do because you enjoy doing it. No goal, no deadline, nobody paying you, nobody grading you.”
She shrugged.
“You need somewhere in your life where being bad at something doesn’t matter.”
I thought about that.
“So sex.”
“You are not bad at sex, from what I’ve heard.”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“What exactly has Leah been telling you?”
Rina smiled and went back to the printer.
“Enough. I’m asking if you like sports, working out, video games, movies, board games, tabletop stuff, reading, writing… creative stuff that doesn’t pay the rent.”
“I mostly scroll on my phone and watch anime with Leah.”
Rina looked over at me.
“I thought I built you that computer because you wanted to stop scrolling on your phone and get back into gaming?”
“Yeah.”
“And there probably won’t be much anime on the couch for the next two weeks. So what are you gonna do?”
“I guess I should try playing games again. I told Leah I wanted to get back into it. I miss being able to sit down and focus on something for hours without checking my phone every five minutes.”
I shrugged.
“But it’s been about ten years since I really did any of that.”
Rina looked over at me.
“You know, I am somewhat of a gamer myself.”
“You helping me play games?”
“I can point you in the right direction.”
She went back to the printer.
“What did you play when you were fifteen?”
“Mostly Sims. A lot of Sims. Life is Strange. Some Minecraft with friends. I played a few story games too, but those were the big ones.”
“Okay. You like making stories.”
“I like games.”
“No, listen. Sims is basically dollhouse gameplay. You set up people and situations, make choices, then watch the systems turn those choices into stories.”
She pointed at me with whatever printer part she was holding.
“Life is Strange is more authored, but it’s still about making choices and seeing what happens to people because of them.”
“Okay?”
“That’s a very different itch from Call of Duty or Forza. You’re not trying to master the mechanics. You want to know what happens next.”
“Same with the RPGs, right? Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Witcher, Fallout?”
I nodded.
“Same itch. Choices, people, consequences.”
I thought about that.
“Yeah. I guess you’re onto something.”
“Okay, then if you want to test the waters, start there. Life is Strange has a bunch of sequels and spin-offs now. Some better than others, but people still seem to like them.”
She fitted another piece into the printer.
“Sims is still Sims. But Paralives is one of the newer games trying to do that whole dollhouse-life-sim thing again.”
I pulled out my phone and searched for Paralives.
“Okay, this looks… interesting.”
“Go grab it on Steam. Burritos should be here in about fifteen minutes.”
Rina closed one of the printer panels.
“Come downstairs and eat with us. We’ll tell you what the next two weeks are going to look like.”
She gestured toward the desk room.
“Then you can go play while Leah and I start getting this place ready for tomorrow.”
I nodded. Sound plan. Then I headed toward my PC.
I put Paralives into my cart, along with some of the new Life is Strange-adjacent games.
While they downloaded, I did a pass on my usual stuff and noticed Leah had shared something with me.
It sent me to Conxfolio.
My name was already at the top of a two-page résumé on the right side of the screen. On the left was a list of sections Leah had apparently built out for me: Profile. Experience. Projects. Skills. Education. Creator Work.
There were little controls beside each one to move them around or hide them completely. Across the top were different saved versions.
Mia — Master (DO NOT SEND)
Production / Project Management
Social / Community
Events / Creator
Oh. Leah had built me a CV machine.
I clicked through the different versions and watched the whole thing reshape itself around whatever job it was aimed at. Every one of them looked better than anything I had ever made on my own.
Okay. Maybe I really should start applying for some jobs.
I heard Rina walk past my door.
“Food’s here.”
Then she headed downstairs.
Job applications later. Food first.
I came downstairs and discovered that work had started.
Several tables had been set up across the main living room. The TV now showed a countdown clock alongside the costume mockups they were working from.
At the kitchen island, Rina was putting burritos onto plates while Leah ate with one hand and worked on her laptop with the other.
“Impressive.”
“Yeah, we’re getting everything ready for tomorrow,” Rina said. “Beth and Magnus start then, and fittings begin Wednesday. We have measurements and schematics for everything, so the builds are planned.”
She handed me a plate.
“Now we just have to make all of it.”
“Working through the weekend?”
“And ten-to-twelve-hour days,” Rina said. “Everyone knows what they signed up for, and they’re being paid very well.”
“And a chef?” I asked.
“Celeste,” Leah said. “I had Malcolm hire her when we got the expanded Halloween contract. If the food is good, she’s someone I’d like to use again for TEG events.”
“So breakfast, lunch and dinner?”
“And snacks. She’ll handle shopping, ingredients, and cleaning up the food area.”
Leah glanced toward the tables.
“I don’t want anyone having to leave because they need something. Malcolm is on standby too, if Rina can’t get something handled.”
“Well, I booked the moving company for tomorrow. I was thinking I could ask Dan to help?”
Leah nodded.
“Sounds good.”
We chatted a while longer, and I got the rundown on the new people they had found.
Darius was huge, so naturally they were going to make him even bigger. Full monster treatment. Bulk him out, exaggerate the shoulders, basically turn him into something that looked like it should be breaking doors off hinges.
Priya specialized in masks and prosthetics. Her whole thing was going to be some kind of clockwork-body transformation, with bits of fake machinery worked into her face and costume.
Gwen was tall and ridiculously thin already, which apparently was not enough. They were going to turn her into some kind of Slender Man butler, stretching the silhouette as much as possible and making her look like she had been assembled out of coat hangers.
Felix was getting turned into a flea-man. Hunched back, weird limbs, twitchy movement. Very appealing.
Imani was a cosplayer and a bilateral leg amputee who already had a lot of experience building costumes around her wheelchair. Magnus’s main project was hers. The plan was to turn the chair into the lower half of a mermaid tank, complete with a fake water chamber and a mechanical tail moving underneath her.
That one sounded cool.
Lastly there was Rowan, the smallest of the group and apparently some kind of puppetry wizard. They were giving him a second head and extra arms he could control through mechanisms hidden inside the costume.
So basically, by Halloween, our apartment was going to contain a giant, a clockwork woman, a nightmare butler, a flea, a murder-mermaid, and whatever the fuck Rowan was becoming.
After lunch, I texted Dan. He confirmed he could meet me at the old apartment tomorrow after lunch. The movers were coming at five, so that gave us plenty of time to finish packing everything.
I went back upstairs to my PC and decided to spend some time on the work project.
I sent out a few applications.
I still wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do, but there were plenty of jobs where my experience seemed useful. I figured it was better to start applying and interviewing than sit around waiting for the perfect idea to appear.
Rina had moved some of the stuff from the crafting room downstairs. Sewing machines, fabric, and whatever other tools they needed for the costume work. The 3D printing and heavier fabrication stuff stayed upstairs.
I started Steam and decided to replay Life is Strange. There was a remaster now, and I remembered really liking it.
Maybe the dialogue was a little corny, even back then.
I remembered liking Warren too. He was sweet. Safe. The kind of boy I understood I was supposed to like.
Chloe had been more complicated.
I could never really decide between them.
At fifteen, I had apparently considered this a difficult video-game choice and nothing else.
Huh.
Maybe there had been signs.
I was in chapter 2, at the part where Max is hiding in the shower from Victoria.
Rina appeared in the doorway.
“Ah, a replay of Life is Strange. Does it hit as hard as when you were fifteen?”
“I think fifteen-year-old me really needed this game.”
“Still lusting for Warren? I hated that they never gave you a proper path with him. I wanted him so bad.”
She grinned.
“I wrote embarrassing fanfic about Max, Warren, and Chloe when I was that age. It was a whole thing.”
“I could never pick between Warren and Chloe. I think I leaned more toward Chloe, though. She was exciting.”
“Sorta like Leah?”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“You’re not streaming?”
“Do I have to?”
“Not at all. I just like doing it because it keeps me focused on the game. Well, the game and chat.”
She shrugged.
“If I play by myself, I’ll pause, check my phone, wander off, whatever. If I’m streaming, it makes it social. Or at least gives me a reason to keep paying attention.”
That sounded suspiciously like exactly what I wanted.
“Okay. How do I do it?”
“You got a Twitch account?”
“Do I need one?”
Rina went over to Leah’s desk, grabbed the chair, and rolled it across to mine.
“Let me help you set this up.”
We spent about half an hour getting everything working. Twitch, OBS, Steam, camera, microphone. Rina seemed to know what every button did, while I mostly did what she told me.
My Twitch name became PocketKatastrophe, matching the name I already used on Steam.
“You know catastrophe is spelled with a C, right?” Rina said.
“I was thirteen. Rebellious. K was cooler.”
“And you’re okay linking this to your socials? Nothing private bleeding over?”
I thought about it for a second.
“Nah. Should be fine.”
“Okay, then you should be all set. Pizza is in an hour. I’ll come grab you when it arrives.”
I launched the game and everything else Rina had shown me.
She had set the game to run in a smaller part of the ultrawide, with all the Twitch and streaming stuff arranged down one side.
There was a chat window, a little frame showing my camera, and a border around the game showing me what was actually being captured.
Okay. Back to Life is Strange.
I saw the little box under my name change to Playing: Life is Strange Remastered.
Nifty.
There was a whole mess of stuff in the bottom corner for different audio inputs, outputs, sources, delays, and other things I did not understand yet.
Rina had told me to leave all of that alone for now. It worked. If something needed changing later, she would show me then.
I made it to about halfway through chapter three before Rina came by to tell me the pizza had arrived.
Nobody had watched me. Nobody had joined the chat or followed me or anything like that.
But knowing the stream was being saved made me much more focused on actually playing. I hadn’t checked my phone once. I hadn’t tabbed out of the game.
I think this was how I was going to play games.
Downstairs had changed again while I was gone.
Sewing machines lined one side of the living room, with a large table for measuring and cutting fabric. The couch had been pushed aside and two more tables joined together where it used to be, creating one enormous work surface.
A full-length mirror had appeared beside one of the downstairs bedrooms, with enough empty space around it for someone to stand and be worked on.
Fitting station, I assumed.
“All set for tomorrow?” I asked.
Leah nodded.
“I think we’ve done everything we can to prepare. If it were just me, I’d probably start on the costumes tonight, but that would just make things harder for Beth tomorrow.”
She glanced toward the workshop.
“We have some test prints running overnight, and if those come out clean, we can start working through the print queue in the morning.”
Rina swallowed her pizza and cut in.
“What Leah is saying is that we’re done for today. We eat, have a quiet evening, and tomorrow gets busy.”
I nodded and took another slice.
After dinner, we moved upstairs and put on a movie.
We let Rina pick.
She stayed completely on theme and chose Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
When I asked why, she immediately launched into a whole thing about the creature work being peak del Toro. Practical makeup, costumes, weird silhouettes. Things that looked like they had actually been built instead of designed to survive a close-up.
Apparently the alternative had been Blade II.
“Also del Toro,” she said, like that explained everything.
When the movie ended, we all said good night, and Rina went down to her bedroom downstairs.
Leah and I brushed our teeth, and I climbed into our gigantic bed.
She looked exhausted by the time she got under the covers.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Stressed,” she said.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’m mostly just messing around upstairs anyway.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. But if you can deal with the old apartment tomorrow, you’ve already taken a huge problem off my plate.”
I pulled her into me, taking the big-spoon position for once, and nuzzled into her neck.
“Okay. Just let me know.”
“Mmm,” she murmured.
A few minutes later, she was asleep.
I woke up to noise from downstairs.
Talking.
Like… a lot of people talking.
Leah was not in bed, so I figured she was already downstairs.
I got dressed quickly and went to have a peek.
When I came down the stairs, there was a small crowd in our living room.
They were sitting around eating breakfast.
Celeste had apparently decided breakfast meant feeding an army.
There were trays of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, roasted potatoes, mushrooms and tomatoes, along with baskets of toast and bagels. Fruit, yogurt and granola took up one end of the island, and there was enough coffee to keep a small office alive.
A tray of breakfast burritos sat off to the side, individually wrapped.
I grabbed a plate, loaded it up, and found a seat across from Rina, who was chatting with Elias.
“Big group.”
“We’re doing introductions after breakfast. Leah has a presentation with a quick roadmap, then we need some measurements for the more custom pieces.”
Rina took another bite.
“After lunch, most of the talent leaves. Then it’ll just be Magnus, Beth, Celeste, Leah, me, you, and maybe Malcolm.”
“Just.”
“Ellen joins Friday, and we’ll rotate people back in for fittings over the next two weeks. Once everyone leaves after lunch, this is probably the smallest this place is going to be until November first.”
“Did you watch Rina’s PC-building video?” Elias asked.
“Of course. That was my PC she was building.”
“Well, your PC has gone viral. Biggest video on Rina’s YouTube channel now. Articles on gaming sites and everything.”
Rina gave him a light punch in the arm.
“It’s a meme video. That’s all. It’s not going to make me Jessica Nigri or anything.”
“I dunno. Three million views. Hundred thousand comments.”
Elias looked at her.
“Your OF must be doing pretty well?”
“Yeah, it got a bump.”
She shrugged.
“Nothing I can retire on.”
“Plans for the day, Mia?” Rina asked.
“I guess I should stay for the presentation. Then I’m gonna head over to the old apartment and pack everything for the movers.”
Elias looked at me.
“You got any role in this project?”
“No. I’m not a cosplayer. I’ve got some project-management experience, but I’m making the wise choice not to work with my girlfriend.”
Elias nodded.
“Leah is a little tense as a boss. No offense to your girlfriend.”
“No, no. I get where you’re coming from.”
I looked over at Leah.
“But I love my spicy nugget.”
Rina made an “awww” sound and took another bite of the English bacon on her plate.
She started pointing out the different people around the room, and I took special note of Magnus and Beth. I had a feeling I was going to see a lot more of both of them over the next two weeks.
I also discovered what the gigantic worktable was for when Beth started laying out fabric across it in full costume-sized pieces.
I saw Leah drag a chair over to the TV and stand on it.
“Okay, could I have everyone’s attention?”
The TV switched to a new slide.
MONSTER HALLOWEEN 2026
Behind the title was a photo of the Hard Rock Hotel in Times Square.
The room went quiet.
Everyone turned toward Leah.
“You’re all here because in sixteen days we need to deliver eight excellent cosplay performers for Heidi Klum’s Halloween party.”
She looked around the room.
“The schedule is tight, but we have the people and the skills to make it work.”
The slide changed.
Now it showed scenes from different movies: monsters carrying trays, opening doors, standing behind their masters, generally doing servant things.
“The theme is Monster Servants. Monsters who serve monster masters. Frankenstein’s creations, Dracula’s attendants, Addams Family weirdos. That kind of energy.”
The slide changed again.
This time it was celebrities in elaborate Halloween costumes.
“And this is the kind of room we’re walking into. People plan for this party months in advance. Everyone there expects spectacle.”
She smiled.
“So that is what we’re going to give them.”
She quickly went through each approved design and highlighted who would be wearing each costume.
After that came the timeline.
It showed when each costume was expected to be ready, when test fittings would happen, and when the final fittings were scheduled.
The work was staggered across several days, with two or three performers coming in at a time starting next Wednesday. Final fittings were scheduled closer to the thirty-first.
“If you’re scheduled for a fitting, you should already have an email with both your test fitting and final fitting appointments. If you don’t, please flag it for me.”
She pointed at the timeline.
“We’re building everything around these slots, so it’s important that we don’t miss them.”
The final slide covered makeup and repair supplies for the event.
Several people immediately pulled out their phones.
“It’s attached to the calendar invite.”
The phones slowly went back down.
Elias leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“This is a really professional setup. I’ve done commission jobs before, but we’re not even the main event team here. We’re just subcontractors, and this is still more organized than most companies I’ve worked with.”
I smiled at that.
“Okay, that’s all from me,” Leah said. “Any questions?”
Several hands went up.
Questions about posting rules. Progress pictures, costume reveals, NDA stuff, whether they could post during the event or only after. How long the event would run. Rules of behavior. Whether they were expected to stay in character the whole night or could talk normally if guests approached them.
I went back to my breakfast while Leah handled them one by one.
After about fifteen minutes, nobody had anything else.
“Okay. That should be everything for the introduction.”
Leah looked around the room.
“Imani, Rowan, and Gwen, please stay behind. We have a few questions about costume options for you.”
She glanced toward everyone else.
“The rest of you, feel free to finish breakfast. And check your email to make sure you have the invite for your test fitting.”
Leah came over and gave me a hug.
“That was a really good presentation. Did you work on it long?”
“Nah. Threw it together yesterday. Sent the meeting invites out this morning.”
“Even more impressive, then.”
I gave her another squeeze.
“I’m gonna head out now. Anything in particular I should pay attention to at the old apartment?”
“Leave all the plates and cutlery. They’re not mine.”
She thought for a second.
“There’s a storage unit in the basement. I put the key on the keychain. The number is written on it. It has a bunch of stuff from when I moved in that I never unpacked, so just show the movers where it is when they arrive.”
“Okay.”
“And leave the bedding. Duvet, covers, all of that. None of it is mine.”
She paused again.
“That should be everything. Dan confirmed he’s coming to help?”
“Yeah. He’s doing a half day at work and coming over after lunch.”
She nodded.
“Okay. Dinner is at seven. If Dan wants to come, he can.”
“It’s a date.”
I kissed her and started getting ready to head out. As I left, I saw her joining Beth to take Gwen’s measurements.
I decided to walk.
The subway would only take about twenty minutes, but the walk was closer to forty, and it was a nice, brisk October day. With only a small detour, I could spend most of it cutting through Central Park.
I put on my headset, started the Life is Strange soundtrack, and tried to get myself into the fall mood.
By the time I unlocked the apartment door, Amanda Palmer was singing about all the things she was going to be and do in her mind.
I took off my headset and stood there for a moment.
Five days.
It had only been five days since I had woken up here.
The couch was still where I remembered it. My old stuff was still scattered around. The kitchen looked exactly the same.
But it did not feel like my apartment anymore.
It felt like somewhere I used to live.
Like I could almost picture the version of me who belonged here. Unemployed, pissed off, trying not to think too hard about Lin, waiting for Leah to come over, pretending I had any idea what I was doing.
That version of me did not feel gone exactly.
Just… far away.
Which was fucking weird.
I had spent years out of university feeling like nothing much happened, then had one week where I speed-ran half of adulthood.
I started my playlist on the apartment’s Sonos system, and Amanda Palmer continued her tale of all the things she would do.
“Okay. Let’s get to work.”
I started by assembling boxes, then worked systematically through the rooms.
I carefully packed the dresses and costumes from Leah’s closet. All the stuff of mine that had accumulated over here went into a separate box.
A few hours into it, I heard the front door open.
“Dan?” I shouted from the bedroom.
“Yeah,” came from the living room.
I wandered out and found him putting a bag down on the kitchen island.
He had brought lunch.
Dan was always considerate like that.
“I got kebabs,” he said. “Unless you already ate?”
“I have not.”
I sat down and started unpacking the kebab rolls.
“Had a good time at the spa?” he asked.
“Really good. Leah updated you on that?”
“On what?”
“The circles?”
“Oh. Yeah. She told me about that a while ago. Wanted to know how I felt about it.”
He opened his food.
“I think she was worried I’d have a problem with not being her boyfriend. Like, ever.”
“And… you don’t?”
“Not really. I like being alone. I don’t particularly want kids. I’ve got friends.”
He shrugged.
“And I have this thing with you two where we can have sex when we want, hang out when we want, and sometimes weird shit happens. Like Rina.”
“You know Rina isn’t part of the regular plan, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
He laughed.
“But if I get a girlfriend off Tinder, do you think she’s going to say, ‘Hey, can you fuck my friend for a week? She really needs it.’”
I laughed.
“And then tell me she still wants to fuck me too? Or give me blowjobs on the side while I’m fucking her friend?”
He pointed at me.
“So no slacking on performance.”
“Fuck you.”
“Exactly.”
I laughed again.
Dan took another bite of his kebab.
“My life is a Dear Penthouse letter. I’d be a fucking idiot to turn this down.”
“I guess I can see that. But you’re fine with the barrier and fluid rules too?”
“It’s just smart. If you’re sleeping around, you should be safe about it. It’s not just you who gets affected if something goes wrong.”
I nodded.
“Yeah. Same. Makes sense.”
We ate in silence for a while.
“You heard from Lin?” he asked eventually.
“Nope. Not a word.”
I looked down at my food.
“Wonder if she’s doing okay.”
“She’s resilient. Whatever she’s doing, I think she’s in charge of it.”
I nodded again.
“I miss her, though.”
“Me too.”
I chewed my food for a bit.
“Dan, why did you never tell Leah how crazy I was about her? Back when you came back from the offsite. You must have known, right?”
He smiled at that.
“Did you want me to tell her?”
“It would have made those first few steps with Leah a lot simpler, I think.”
“Maybe. But it wasn’t my place.”
“I knew Leah was into you too. If you two had somehow never figured it out, I probably would’ve pushed you together eventually.”
He shrugged.
“But you managed your first ‘date’ like a week after you met. You were doing fine.”
“How did you know Leah was into me?”
He smiled at that.
“I guess I can talk about it now that you two are officially together.”
He thought for a second.
“She used to ask about you after we had sex. What you were like in bed. What you liked. Stuff like that.”
He looked at me.
“She never asked about Lin. Just you.”
I stared at him.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled again.
“And when she was teaching you how to use chopsticks, I saw her blush.”
“She did not.”
“She absolutely did.”
“You know, she asked me about you too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We had a whole text conversation about it on the second day of your offsite. I told her you liked clear instructions and some dirty talk.”
“Well, that’s true. To a point.”
“Oh? I was wrong?”
“I like a lot of stuff. Clear instructions are good, but I’m perfectly happy being either the top or the bottom.”
He shrugged.
“And gender isn’t a complete dealbreaker for me either.”
“You’re bi?”
“No. I’m not romantically interested in men. But sexually? I can play with a guy if he’s feminine enough.”
He gave me a look.
“And let’s not pretend this is surprising. I know Lin told you about the pegging.”
I tried not to react.
“I knew the second you flipped me over and started hunting for my prostate.”
I sat quietly for a moment.
“I never knew you were this complicated, Dan.”
“I never really thought about it much when we were together.”
He shrugged.
“Then with Lin, I started experimenting more. Leah gave me better words for some of it.”
“Sex, attraction, romance, friendship. They’re all different things. Sometimes they overlap. Sometimes they don’t. Depends on the person.”
He looked at me.
“Leah’s my friend, and I also have sex with her.”
He pointed at me with the kebab.
“You’re my friend, and I also have sex with you.”
He took another bite.
“But I don’t want romance with either of you.”
I thought about that.
“I think I feel the same way. I don’t want a romantic relationship with you, but I do with Leah.”
I picked at the wrapper around my kebab.
“I wouldn’t be jealous of you two having sex. And I know she wouldn’t be jealous of you and me.”
I frowned.
“Weird. I don’t know when I became enlightened. I was fucking furious when I found out about you and Lin.”
“You know, I did try to stop her that night.”
I looked at him.
“Not very hard,” he added. “But she really wanted it.”
“You ran into her in the kitchen and she just dropped to her knees?”
“No. I was already in the kitchen. She came up behind me.”
He paused.
“I thought it was you at first. Then I turned around and she was already grabbing me.”
“And?”
“I told her I didn’t know if you’d be okay with it.”
He looked down at his food.
“She said she didn’t care if you knew. Said it could be our secret.”
He shrugged.
“Then she went down on her knees.”
I gasped.
“That slut!”
“Yeah. Lin’s a freak. All sweet and innocent on the surface, but dig a little deeper and she’s a gooner at heart.”
I stared at him.
“You’ve known this for a while, haven’t you?”
“Longer than you.”
“Rude.”
“I think you loved Lin a little too much to see her clearly. It’s not like she was ever straightforward about what she wanted.”
He shrugged.
“But every time we pushed in any direction, Lin wanted it. Then she wanted a little more. I honestly don’t know where that woman’s hard lines are. I’m starting to think she doesn’t have many.”
I started to object, then stopped.
The photos for Leah.
The school bathroom.
The shower.
Anna’s video.
Fuck.
Dan might actually have known her better than I did.
“Oh, that reminds me. We have a chef at the new place for the next two weeks. Leah asked if you wanted to come by for dinner.”
“Is Rina gonna be there?”
“Yeah. She basically lives with us until November.”
“I think I’ll pass, then.”
I looked at him.
“Why? I know it looked pretty casual between you two.”
“It was. But I think Rina wants a boyfriend more than she lets on.”
“That doesn’t sound right. Rina seems fine.”
“She is fine. She’s also conflicted.”
He took another bite.
“She looks at Brian and sees parts of the kind of relationship she wants, but she doesn’t want his marriage. She looks at what we have and doesn’t want to share.”
He shrugged.
“And with the work she does, normal boyfriend material isn’t exactly easy to find.”
“Because of the porn?”
“Porn, travel, conventions, being gone all the time. Coming home to nobody.”
He looked at me.
“She puts on a brave face about it, but she carried a pretty big torch for the guy I played for her. I saw how badly she wanted that fantasy to be real.”
He shook his head.
“I think me showing up there with you and Leah would just hurt her.”
“I… didn’t think about that.”
I finished my kebab, threw the foil into the bag, and took a sip of my drink.
I wondered what I could do to help Rina.
“Don’t mess with this, Mia.”
I looked at him.
“Rina’s a big girl. She needs to figure this one out herself.”
“You read minds now?”
“No. But I know you too.”
He pointed at me.
“You like Rina. You see her hurting, you want to fix it.”
“You think me watching you guys was a problem?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
He shrugged.
“Ask Leah. She’s better at this stuff than I am. And I know she talks to Rina and the other girls about it.”
He thought for a second.
“Honestly, I think Leah sending me to Rina might have been her trying to help with some of that.”
“Did it?”
“No idea.”
“When did you become so insightful, Dan?”
“Hang around Leah long enough, some of it rubs off.”
He looked at me for a moment.
“You’re not the girl I used to date.”
“Rude.”
“You don’t smell the same. You don’t look the same. You walk differently.”
He gestured at me.
“More confident.”
Then he nodded toward my drink.
“And look at what you were just doing with Rina. Trying to figure out how she feels. What she needs.”
He shrugged.
“I don’t think you thought about Lin like that when we were together.”
“Shit… you’re right. I had that conversation with Lin.”
“Mm. But don’t beat yourself up about it. You and Lin got a lot better toward the end.”
He shrugged.
“I think Lin was the one who still had some stuff to figure out.”
He thought for a second.
“Maybe she just didn’t spend enough time with Leah.”
He finished his kebab, tossed the foil into the bag, and stood up.
“So, what are we packing?”
“Let me do the bathroom. You can finish the bedroom.”
He gave me a nod, and I headed into the bathroom with a smaller box.
I packed all of Leah’s Le Labo Hinoki stuff. Soap, shampoo, conditioner, perfume, and several bottles whose purpose remained a mystery to me.
Hinoki was Leah’s thing. Everything she used was built around that same dry, woody smell.
The bathroom already smelled less like her as I packed it away.
I wrapped the glass bottles in towels, packed everything tightly, then went through the drawers looking for anything we had missed. Toothbrush chargers. Hair ties. A razor. Three different kinds of sunscreen. Leah liked keeping her skin untanned.
By the time I was done, the bathroom looked weirdly anonymous.
I carried the box into the bedroom.
Dan was sitting on the edge of the bed with an open box between his feet, working through the last of the stuff from the bedside tables and drawers.
“Bathroom’s done.”
“Good. Almost done in here too.”
I put the box by the door, then looked at him.
“So.”
“So?”
“Earlier. You said you’re happy being top or bottom.”
He looked up at me.
“Yeah.”
“What does that actually mean with Leah?”
His mouth twitched.
“You’ve seen me have sex with Leah.”
“I have. That’s the issue. I want to know what you guys did here. Alone. Without me.”
“Amazon, mostly.”
I stared at him.
“What the fuck is Amazon?”
“A position. Well, a few variations of one.”
“I gathered that.”
He sighed and lay back on the mattress.
Then he pulled his knees up toward his chest.
I stared.
“That?”
“Basically.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“It looks less ridiculous when there’s a naked woman riding me.”
I stepped closer.
“So it’s like complicated cowgirl?”
“Kind of. But she gets a lot more control this way.”
“And Leah does this?”
“A lot.”
“She folds you up like that and gets on top?”
“Pretty much.”
I looked at him again.
That was not a version of either of them I had ever seen.
“And you like this?”
“Very much.”
“Why?”
He unfolded himself and sat back up.
“It gives her a lot of control.”
“That’s it?”
“Position. Pace. What I’m allowed to do. She usually tells me where she wants my hands.”
Oh.
That sounded like Leah.
I sat down beside him.
“Sounds like her during the photo session.”
“Not far from it, actually. I recognized the voice and the way she acted.”
He smiled.
“That’s definitely the Leah I get when it’s just me and her.”
I looked at him.
“You really like being bossed around.”
“By her? Yeah. Her voice carries authority. Makes me want to do what she says.”
“I wanna try.”
“You really don’t have the same voice as her.”
I straightened my back and looked down at him.
“Dan. Take off your clothes, get back on the bed, and assume the position.”
He just looked at me.
“You’re serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Dan sighed, but he started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Fine. But if you fall off me I’m not catching you.”
“I won’t fall off.”
I watched him strip. Shirt. Jeans. Boxers. He sat back on the mattress, then pulled his knees up toward his chest the same way he had demonstrated. I took off my clothes too, ending up naked around the same time as him.
It looked even more ridiculous without clothes.
“Okay,” I said. “Now what?”
“You climb on.”
“How?”
“Straddle. Face me or face away, doesn’t matter for the basic version. Then you sort of… sit back onto me while my legs stay folded.”
I stared at the geometry of it.
“So, your dick is just… there.”
“Yes. Give it a try.”
I climbed onto the bed.
The mattress dipped. I swung one leg over his hips, then the other, and immediately realized the angle was completely different from anything I was used to.
His cock was already half-hard. I wrapped my hand around it and gave him a couple of strokes. He thickened against my palm.
“You’re already into this.”
“You’re helping. And you standing over me like that? Looks good.”
I lined him up and sank down.
The first couple of inches went in easily. Then I hit the angle wrong and had to adjust, rolling my hips forward a little so I wasn’t just sitting straight down onto him like a very determined chair.
“Oh,” I said, putting a hand on my stomach.
“Yeah.”
“That’s… deeper than I expected.”
“That’s one of the things Leah likes about it.”
I braced my hands on his thighs and started moving. Slow at first. Testing. The position forced me to do most of the work with my legs and hips, which felt weirdly athletic.
Dan’s hands stayed on the sheets.
“Leah tells you where to keep your hands?”
“Yeah. Usually at my sides or behind my head. If she’s really in the mood, she ties my wrists above my head.”
“Put them behind your head.”
He smiled and pulled his hands behind his head.
I kept moving, finding a rhythm that didn’t feel like I was about to tip sideways. Once I stopped overthinking the logistics, I started to understand the appeal.
I controlled the depth. I controlled the pace.
With his legs folded up, there wasn’t much he could do except let me set the rhythm.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m getting this.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
I stayed like that for a minute, getting used to it. Somehow it made me feel taller. In charge of the whole geometry.
Then I leaned forward.
His knees were still folded between us, so I had to brace my hands on either side of his head to keep from collapsing onto his chest. The new angle changed everything. Shallower, but I could look at him while I moved. It felt like I was the guy, and we were doing it in missionary.
“What does Leah say when she does this?”
Dan’s mouth twitched.
“Depends on the day.”
“Give me an example.”
He hesitated.
“Usually something like, ‘Stay still. I didn’t say you could move.’ Or, ‘Hands behind your head.’ Sometimes she notices me trying to help and just goes, ‘Daniel. Stop.’”
I slowed down until I was barely moving.
“Stay still.”
He went completely still under me.
I kept moving just enough to feel him inside me and watched his face.
“She gets mean about it?”
“Not mean. Precise.”
“Tell me.”
Dan exhaled through his nose.
“‘Hands behind your head. If I want them somewhere else, I’ll put them there. And stop trying to help.’”
I blinked.
That was pure Leah. The photography voice.
I started moving again. Properly this time. Using my thighs to lift and drop while Dan just lay there and took it.
I shifted my weight, planted one hand on his shin, and carefully pressed his folded legs a little closer to his chest.
The angle changed again. Deeper. Tighter. Dan made a quiet sound that was not a complaint.
“You like that?”
“Yeah.”
I kept the pressure there and picked up the pace. His hands stayed behind his head. That was the part I was starting to like.
“Fuck, Dan.”
“You’re getting it.”
“Shut up.”
I was getting it. It wasn’t really the position. It was his hands staying exactly where I’d told him to put them. I could lean forward and kiss him if I wanted. Or not. I could grind in tiny circles until his jaw tightened. Or lift almost all the way off and make him wait for the next drop.
I did both.
“What else does she do?”
Dan’s voice had gone a little strained.
“Sometimes she holds my legs herself. One hand on each shin. Uses them for leverage.”
I copied her, taking a shin in each hand and leaning into it. The leverage let me move harder without losing my balance. My thighs burned almost immediately.
Worth it.
“If you keep doing that, I’m gonna come.”
“Don’t you fucking dare. If I’m doing all the work, you keep your dick hard till I get mine.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“What did you call me?”
“She likes ‘Miss.’ Sometimes ‘Mistress.’”
He swallowed, clearly concentrating.
“It slipped out when you told me off.”
“Miss, huh?”
“It slipped.”
“Say it again.”
He looked up at me, hands still locked behind his head.
“Yes, Miss.”
I stayed face-to-face for another few strokes, just to watch him take it, then carefully lifted off him.
“Turn over. No—wait. I want the other way.”
Dan blinked.
“You want reverse?”
“I want to look down and see what I’m doing.”
He let his legs drop for a second so I could swing around. I turned, straddled him again facing his feet, and sat back onto his cock in one slow drop.
The angle was different immediately. Deeper in a way that made me hiss through my teeth.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” he said behind me. “That one’s intense.”
I planted my hands on his shins and pushed, folding his legs closer to his chest.
Everything was suddenly right there in front of me.
I could see his cock disappearing into me.
And right below it, his hole.
I rocked my hips. Slow at first. Grinding more than bouncing. Using the leverage of his folded legs to keep him pinned while I took what I wanted.
“Keep your hands where they are.”
“Yes, Miss.”
I smiled without letting him see it.
I kept grinding until my thighs started to shake from the work. I didn’t care.
I pushed his legs a little further.
Dan made a low sound.
“Too much?”
“No. Keep going.”
I did.
Rocking. Grinding. Watching myself take him. The wet sound of it filled the half-empty bedroom like we were the only two people left in the building.
I was getting close. The kind of close that made my stomach tighten and my breath go short.
I looked down again.
His hole was right there. Exposed.
I’d gone looking once before.
I reached into the open bedside box, found the lube, and slicked my fingers.
I reached back and pressed one against him.
Dan’s whole body jolted under me.
“Mia.”
“Stay still.”
I worked one finger into him, then a second when he relaxed around the first.
He groaned. Actual groan. Not the quiet polite sounds from earlier.
I curled my fingers the way I’d learned before. His legs immediately tried to straighten.
They couldn’t. I had them locked.
“You’re going to come when I do,” I said. “Not before. Not after. When I say.”
“Yes, Miss.”
His answer came out rougher than I’d ever heard him.
I stopped thinking about the position and just chased it, keeping my fingers where they made his breathing break.
Then I came.
My thighs locked. My free hand dug into his shin hard enough to leave marks. I ground down and stayed there, pulsing around his cock with my fingers still inside him.
“Now.”
Dan swore, his hips jerking under me. His hands stayed behind his head. I felt him pulse inside me, hot and messy, while my fingers were still buried in his ass.
We stayed locked like that for a few seconds, both of us shaking, me still sitting on him with two fingers up his ass like some kind of deranged victory pose.
Then the ridiculousness of the whole thing caught up with me.
I carefully pulled my fingers out, lifted off his cock, and immediately made a big mess on Dan’s chest.
“Jesus Christ.”
Dan let his legs fall open and just stared at the ceiling, breathing hard.
“You,” he said, “are a menace.”
I flopped onto the mattress beside him, sticky and smug and already starting to feel the thigh burn set in.
“I can see why Leah likes that.”
“She says most guys aren’t up for it. ‘Fragile masculinity,’ she calls it.”
“But not you?”
“I know who I am.”
“You like stuff in your ass. Ever let someone fuck you?”
“You want to peg me now?”
“No, I mean a guy. Would you let a guy do it?”
“I’m more into the idea of fucking a guy than getting fucked by one. But if you were riding me like that? Maybe. I don’t know, Mia. Depends on the moment.”
“You know it when you see it?”
“You get it.”
I took a deep breath.
Right. Movers.
“Movers are coming in an hour. Get dressed and wrap things up in here. I need a quick shower.”
“Yes, Miss.”
The movers were on time.
Dan left once we’d finished packing everything in the apartment, and I showed the guy in charge the boxes in the storage unit downstairs.
I left the keys with him and told him to send me pictures once the cleaning was done.
Dinner was still an hour and a half away, so I figured I might as well walk and kill some time. I put my headphones back on and started wandering through the park.