“Kelly! Miss Stephanie!” The plus-sized goth girl seated behind one of the booths ahead stood up in surprise. “Amanda, you found them! Oh my God, thank you so much!”
“Yeah, Bill and I ran into them back… uh…” Amanda pirouetted in a slow spin, clutching her coat closed and Pocki boxes against herself, to find that Bill had disappeared again. “Dammit, Bill. Well, I found them, at least.”
“Chrissy, this is our… close friend, Brian,” Kelly purred, tugging Brian forward, closer towards the Chrissy-Cat Creations booth. Foxy and Mary following behind them apparently didn’t warrant an introduction, and Chrissy simply glanced across them and smiled.
“Brian? Hi! Nice to meet you!” Chrissy greeted energetically, waving at him despite being just a tables-length away from him. “I love your costume!”
Her vendor’s table was a neat arrangement of small and medium-sized white boxes in small piles, without any logo or product information upon them. Instead, on top of each stack a piece of fetish-wear was displayed. The majority seemed to be simple leather collars and cuffs, some with spiked studs, some without, while there was also pieces that would sheath a person’s entire forearms together in restraint, as well as a number of gags.
“Thanks, er…” Brian began, a little overwhelmed by the content of her booth. “Some pretty interesting toys you have here.”
“Thank you!” Chrissy exclaimed, launching immediately into her sales spiel. “I make them all myself! Well—I order the studs and buckles—but I cut and process the leather myself, and assemble them by my own unique designs. All the silicone parts like on the gags are easily removed with these snaps, and everything but the leather is dishwasher safe!”
“Brian, I think you should buy one of these for Steph to wear,” Kelly proposed, looking over to see that her shy friend in the sleeveless gijinka dress wasn’t paying attention to them; Stephanie was listening to Amanda as the eccentric girl excitedly related some story involving a leather collar like the ones displayed for sale.
“A fetish gag?” Brian noticed where Kelly was pointing. “You can’t be serious.”
Some of the gags were simple silicone balls, others were shaped like baby pacifiers, an open pair of lips, or had phallic shapes that would rest within the mouth, but each of them had a fixture of black leather sporting a simple buckle that would loop around the back of the head to hold the gag firmly in place.
“I’m dead serious,” Kelly snapped back with a smile. “One of these could help her out a lot.”
“And how’s that?”
“I know you’ve noticed her stutter,” Kelly explained, picking up one display gag after the other and examining them closely. “Her social anxiety. Do you think she’s happy having her mouth refuse to cooperate with her? Do you think she’s comfortable tripping over her own words all the time, especially around you? Slip one of these on her, and all of those... particular worries, they disappear.”
“I, uhm, well I don’t, it-it’s not that bad—” Stephanie blustered, having overheard some of what Kelly said. The cute girl with the fluffy pink hair quickly trailed off in defeat, however when she realized her stammer seemed to patently prove Kelly’s point.
“Wouldn’t that silence her completely? That seems way worse,” Brian shook his head.
“There’s… other ways for her to communicate with you, at that point,” Kelly argued. “If you think about it, it’s really a shame that she’s so disadvantaged in speaking with you normally. Something like… this would level the playing field, be a little more fair to her, don’t you think?” She held up a black ball-gag, the mouth-piece resembling a flexible wiffle-ball, riddled with evenly-spaced holes for easier breathing. Stephanie looked bewildered, having missed too much of their conversation to follow what they were talking about now.
“Wait-wait-wait! No, not that one!” Chrissy stopped them, waving her hands in a fluster as she bent down behind the table to pick through even more plain white boxes. “If it’s for Miss Stephanie, here, how ‘bout this one, instead?”
The ball-gag she withdrew after pulling open one of those boxes was nearly identical to the one in Kelly’s hands—but the silicone ball on this one was a vivid shade of pink.
“Oh, perfect!” Kelly laughed in approval, taking the gag and holding it up in front of Stephanie. “It matches her... magic color? How about it, Brian?”
“If Steph wants it, I’ll buy it for her,” Brian relented with a roll of his eyes. “You can’t be pushing this kind of stuff on her all of the sudden.”
“Stephanie?” Kelly asked, eyes twinkling with anticipation.
“Um, w-well, thank you, but I don’t have a dog,” Stephanie replied in confusion. “My dorm, it, uh, at my dorm they don’t allow any pets.”
Foxy openly snickered and Mary rolled her eyes, still silently glowering, while Chrissy quickly clamped a hand over her own mouth to contain her laughter, and Amanda broke out into a fit of giggles.
“Stephanie… these, uh, these aren’t for pets,” Brian said.
“Well, that’s not technically true,” Amanda tittered.
“Stephanie, this would be for you to wear,” Kelly elaborated in a soothing, patient voice. “The ball fits into your mouth, and then these straps fit across your lovely little cheeks and buckle behind your head.”
“Uhh,” Stephanie blushed. “That’s, that is, um. Wh-why would I wear that?”
“So that you don’t speak,” Kelly’s eyes flared with excitement. “So that you can’t speak. All that pressure of figuring out what to say, all the difficulty of stumbling over your words, grasping desperately for the right meaning… gone.”
“Couldn’t I, just, um, not speak?” Stephanie asked timidly. “I don’t see the need for—”
“But there’s this big difference between choosing not to speak and being unable to speak,” Chrissy chimed in. “You’re subject to the will and whims of your partner. And then, hah, of course, there’s the drool…”
“Drool?!” Stephanie sputtered.
“Oh, yes,” Chrissy grinned. “The gag holds open your mouth, so of course you’re going to have your saliva just flowing out, uncontrollably. I love seeing girls first try these on—watching them as they realize their own slobber is dribbling down their chin! Watching them fight it, fight to hold onto their dignity as a human being! But slowly, surely, inevitably, they realize they’ve been reduced to nothing but an animal, a plaything, something to be toyed with. Someone’s pet!”
“That’s disgusting,” Mary commented in a quiet voice, looking around at everyone as though she was ready to leave.
“W-would it be like—um, like that?” Stephanie blinked over towards Brian. “Or, uh, do you think it’s… disgusting? I don’t want to gross you out, or-or anything like that.”
“You wouldn’t gross me out, but nobody’s going to make you wear one of those, so you don’t have to worry about it,” Brian assured her.
“They’re normally twenty dollars each,” Chrissy jumped in sensing her window of opportunity closing, “but, since it’s Kelly and Miss Stephanie, I can do… two for fifteen? Yeah, let’s say, two of them for fifteen dollars?”
“Two for fifteen?” Kelly chuckled, “That’s indeed very generous of you, but... after all, we only have the one Stephanie to play with.”
“Oh?” Chrissy arched one of her carefully drawn eyebrows. “I thought you’d want one for yourself?”
Kelly was just opening her mouth to retort when someone else beat her to the punch.
“I’ll wear one,” Stephanie spoke up, grinning mischievously. “If Kelly does.”
“Oh, is that how it is?” Kelly looked at Stephanie with renewed interest. “Why do you want me wearing one?”
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“B-because you’re too good,” Stephanie fussed. “With your words. Making things the way you want them. L-like I heard you say earlier, it’s not, um, this really isn’t, isn’t a level playing field, at all. But if we both had one… then, maybe we could have a fair fight?”
“...You really think you can take me on?” Kelly laughed in surprise, and she leaned in uncomfortably close to the other girl, letting a saucy smile spread across her lips. “...I’ve got more than just my words, Miss Stephanie.”
“Oooh,” Amanda crooned. “Looks like the gloves have come off! Well, um, I’m gonna head back and see if I can find wherever Bill disappeared to, you guys. Hope to run into you again, though! It was nice meeting you, Brian! And, uh… other peoples! See you at the rave tonight, Chrissy!”
“Later!” Chrissy called.
“Well, alright then,” Brian chuckled. “We’ll take the pink one, and then a normal one in black, then. You said fifteen dollars?”
“W-wait,” Stephanie paused, looking thoughtful. “Do you… do you have red ones?”
“Oh, of course! You want to go with red instead of pink?” Chrissy asked, beginning to dig through the boxes behind her table again.
“Uh, no, um, pink for me still, but red for, for Kelly? If that’s okay,” Stephanie explained meekly.
“Red, huh?” Kelly said, idly playing a hand through her hair. No one but Stephanie had noticed yet, and she’d almost forgotten about it. “You think it’s gonna come to that, huh?”
“I, I mean, it might?”
“Pink and red, then?” Chrissy passed a pair of boxes over the merchandise piled on her booth to Brian, accepting a twenty from him and giving him a five back. “Thank you so much!”
“You interested in any of this?” Foxy offered, glancing at Mary.
“No,” she replied with a snort. “Not any of the creepy stuff. I’ll take a pair of the leather cuffs, I guess.”
“Okay, so first of all, wow,” Chrissy gushed. “Those stunts you pulled back at the panel? Amazing. Getting people to help me put even like, a simple presentation together is like pulling teeth, and then you guys waltz in outta the blue and—”
Chrissy trailed off in momentary confusion as she saw Kelly raise a finger to her lips, tilting her head to indicate Brian.
“...Panel?” Brian asked, tucking the pair of white boxes under an arm.
“Oh,” Chrissy realized. “Oh. Uh, yeah, we… there was…”
“Amanda mentioned you were looking for us?” Kelly supplied helpfully.
“Yes! That. There’s this other thing, this other… panel, that I host! A late-night one, where we have a little more leeway with what we can do because it’s in the ‘after-hours’ scheduling block. It’s in the same room, but late tonight, starts an hour before the big anime rave. If you guys feel like it...”
“We have a lot planned for tonight,” Kelly smiled. “But who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to stop by before the dance.”
“Skullfie!” An eagerly grinning young girl wearing a cat-eared hat exclaimed as she approached, pointing at Brian in an exaggerated manner. “OH-EM-GEE!! Can I get a picture with you?!”
“Yeah, sure,” Brian agreed, spinning the skull helm between his fingertips and slipping it back onto his head in one smooth motion.
“Sooo cool! Aaaah! Thank you, Skullfie!” The excited girl squealed, pouncing upon him in the over-enthusiastic hug conventions fans knew as a glomp. A freckled teenage guy following behind the girl snapped their picture together with his phone, and then the two left just as abruptly as they’d appeared, squeezing right back into the crowd.
“...Was that a hit and run?” Kelly remarked with a chuckle, turning to watch as the overeager young girl and the teenager tailing her pressed on down the row towards her next victim, a girl with an enormous wig dressed as Magical Doll Yui.
“Skullfie?” Stephanie wondered.
“Ah, that’s what they decided to call the Darkmask soldiers in the English adaptation of Hero Hero Haruki,” Brian revealed, making a face. “Nowhere near as cool.”
“Anime is so fucking stupid,” Mary grumbled, listlessly leafing through anime DVDs at one of the nearby booths. “Why does it all have to be these dumb cartoons? They could be selling something halfway decent here—like some Korean dramas, or something.”
“Ah, um… they are,” Stephanie spoke up.
“No, they’re not,” Mary retorted, looking annoyed.
“Well, no, uh, not at this booth,” Stephanie elaborated, giving the girl a timid smile. “Megan, m-my friend Megan, that is, she’s really into some K-pop bands, so when I saw a booth that was selling—”
“K-pop?” Mary interrupted. “At an anime convention? Yeah, right. Show me where, then. You’d better not be lying.”
“O-okay,” Stephanie agreed, gesturing. “It was in that direction, towards that side of the hall, I-I think. Brian?”
“Hmm? What’s up?”
“Can we, um,” Stephanie timidly pointed across the other side of the vendor’s room, away from the direction they’d been aimlessly meandering in. “Th-that way? Mary’s looking for, um, trying to find Korean dramas.”
“Sure, lead on,” Brian waved.
“You don’t need to ask for permission,” Mary muttered under her breath. “He’s not our fucking keeper. Retard.”
“Mary, what the hell’s your—” Brian began, but Kelly beat him to the punch, quickly stepping over to cut Mary off.
“Say that again,” Kelly dared her, leaning in close and putting herself right in Mary’s face. “Fuckin’ say that again.”
Mary recoiled in surprise, her petulant expression giving way to an ugly one as she regarded Kelly without saying a word. The attention of all the nearby attendees turned towards them at that bit of altercation, tension filling the air. There’d been an edge to Kelly’s tone, a twinkling flash of crazy in her eyes that promised immediate violence, violence without any consideration for whatever consequences or repercussions might follow.
“Hey, c’mon,” Brian placed his hands on Kelly’s shoulders and eased her back away from Mary. “Mary, what’s your problem all the sudden?”
“I’ve got it—back off,” Foxy interjected, stepping forward to face Mary, putting his back to the others.
“Sorry,” Kelly murmured indignantly to Brian, blowing out a steady breath. “But I’m not gonna let her make fun of Steph anymore... alright?” Standing close by their side, Stephanie watched both her friends with wide eyes, completely speechless.
Kelly was pretty surprised herself by her own sudden flare up. She knew herself, knew she always kept her head about her, had the upper hand and maintained composure whenever she had a spat with someone. Because I’m cool about it, cool and distant like fuckin’ outer space, Kelly huffed to herself. But I was about to go supernova on that bitch and slap her stupid little face into stir fry lo mein. Just ‘cause she called Steph a retard? That’s not like me, right?
“Well, he’s not in fucking charge of us,” Mary spat at Foxy. “We can go wherever we want. Brian’s just one of my brother’s stupid fucking dweeb friends. He’s a nobody.”
Kelly seethed at overhearing that, and she’d just started to turn on her heel back towards Mary when Brian pulled the livid young woman in the gothic lolita dress directly into his arms.
“Hey, s’alright. S’alright,” Brian soothed, speaking softly for her. “She’s just being a brat. Play nice.”
Kelly blinked in surprise at him hugging her against his body. There’d been no real intimate contact since kissing last night, and she hadn’t really expected him to initiate anything. Still, she was tense, she was pissed, and she was determined to at the very least give that uppity Chinese girl a healthy shove or two. So, Kelly kept on her stiff face and shrugged Brian off—or at least, she tried to.
Fuck me. Her brief attempt at struggling free of him had immediately turned into useless floundering, because he’d been ready for it, and—he was quite a bit stronger than her. She was forcibly reminded of how easily he’d pulled her up off the floor last night, back when he’d first invited the girls to stay with him. Yeah, fuck me. Please.
She tried to wriggle away again, though really less intent now on escaping his embrace and more interested in testing his hold on her. Satisfied with her situation stuck where she was, she stopped resisting, putting a cute pout up over the faint smile she’d felt forming. Her body remained rigid, but an undercurrent of excitement was rapidly changing the context of her tension. Pretty fuckin’ hot when Brian gets a little physical.
“So, let’s go,” Foxy suggested to Mary in a low voice, quirking a charming smile towards her. “You’re right; you’re nineteen. They can’t dictate where you go—or who you go with.”
Mary regarded him with surprise for a moment, as if she’d expected him to disagree with her. She looked with trepidation from him to where Brian was holding Kelly, and then to Stephanie.
Decisions, decisions… Mary hated how exasperated and condescending had Brian acted around her—how he, of all people, treated her like she was just this dumb kid, and her malice had risen to a new heights at seeing these two girls treating this loser like he was actually a somebody. He’s just a joke. All of Mark’s nerdy little friends are. Why can’t they see that? However, she also had an uneasy feeling at the idea of going off alone with Foxy. He was as good-looking as Brian... but he was still an unknown element, practically a stranger, no matter how familiar he was trying to be.
Having Foxy with her had seemed to put Brian’s attitude in check, but the presence of these two girls had then restrained Foxy from being more forward with his advances—which was equally useful to Mary. She didn’t want to be looked down on, by some geek of all things, but she also didn’t want to bother dealing with an unbridled Foxy. Flirting just enough to get everything she wanted, while also fending him off enough that he received nothing substantial in return? That would be much more of a hassle all by herself.
“Fine. Show us where the K-pop and dramas are, then,” Mary edged herself closer to Foxy, but looked past him, without any expression, to address Stephanie. “Please.”
“Th-they’re, they, um, this way,” Stephanie managed out. She wasn’t sure what to make of everything that had just transpired. Mary’s sudden outburst and Kelly’s reaction both seemed to have come out of the blue, before Stephanie even had a chance to apologize for whatever it was she’d done wrong. Kelly had been at the girl’s throat. Stephanie still wasn’t even sure why, though.
The flustered girl with the fluffy pink hair looked uneasily over towards Kelly, now wearing a contented look from her position in Brian’s arms, and then led their small group down the aisle, weaving slowly through the crowds and across several junctions.
“There... really is a booth,” Mary remarked in surprise. “You weren’t lying.”