The angel and devil on your shoulders are really just voices in your head, so best get tested for schizophrenia

“Please come in, Rudy.” Jessie’s hot mum welcomed him in and closed the door after him. With her hands placed on her stomach, set one over the other, she bowed at a 45-degree angle. “I would like to properly apologise for how my daughter treated you after you’d so kindly offered to tutor her. And my husband was no better, allowing it to happen in front of him.”

The two hostages astride her also bowed their heads, one sniffling blonde. “Sorry, Rudy.”

And one sniffling baldie. “I’m very sorry, son. We shouldn’t have laughed at you like that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jessie added, “there was nothing funny about your goofy ahh dance. Or how you pis—” The hammer of justice came crashing down on her head before she could say anything further, clipping her round the ear. “Ow.”

Seeing the tinge of heat on Rudy’s face, Jessie’s hot mum acted in haste before any further damage could be done. “Please take your tutor up to your room now, Jessica. And if there’s any more funny business from you, I’ll end you.”

End you? Is that some kind of punishment? Maybe like bend you over and spank you? At the image, Rudy’s face flushed hotter for an entirely different reason, and he had to cough into his fist and blink repeatedly to return himself to reality.

“Come on then, Rudy. Leave the old hag here and follow me.” Jessie’s hot mum tried to snatch up her daughter, but her busty progeny was prepared, ducking and scuttling away up the stairs, simpering ehehe as she escaped.

For reasons unknown, Jessie’s hot mum then turned sharply on her husband and raised a ramrod index finger at him. “You!”

“What do you mean, me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Er,” Rudy interrupted, not knowing what he should do.

“Go ahead upstairs, Rudy. And just give me a shout if she’s acting up again.” Having said this, Jessie’s hot mum returned her attention to the baldie who’d made a start at sneaking off while she’d been distracted. “Who else could have taught her to call me that?” she said, scowling and chasing after him into the living room.

“I don’t knooow,” replied the baldie who was now openly fleeing, frightened by the fury on his flank. “She must have learnt it at school.” His chances of escape looked about as likely as a chicken leaving the abattoir with its head still attached.

Their voices fading, Rudy scratched his brow, looked about in confusion around the hallway, then gathered his wits and, taking off his shoes, went up the stairs after Jessie. The door to her room was wide open, yet he stopped at its threshold in awe, burning the sight of his crush’s tutee’s room into his mind.

Clothes were strewn haphazardly within the fluffy-pink walled domain, books and bags lying here there and everywhere. A dozen teddy bears secured the bed, holding the fort, almost as if saying they’d not let him do anything untoward to their lady until he’d gone through them.

Meeting their challenge, Rudy imagined himself as a brave, horny knight in plate armour, gallantly raising his lance (no, not that one) at these giant teddies that came after him in jealousy. He had to shake his head violently to clear his fantasies, a cold sweat running down his back as it sunk into him that this was the real deal, not some imagined up training run he could botch up and redo.

Summoning his confidence, he trod towards the desk at one end of the room; Jessie was seated on one of the two chairs beside it, nibbling on a pencil and eyeing a piece of paper on the desk.

When she heard him approach, she twisted her torso to face him. “Close the door behind you. I don’t want my mum eavesdropping.” She’d taken the pencil out of her mouth, her indifferent expression contrasting with its end that was wet and glossy with her saliva. By the Saviour, she is too casually lewd!

Rudy stiffly nodded and looked away to close the door, trying to recompose himself in the brief moment it gave. His eyes crossed over the platoon of bears that all seemed to looking at him, their thousand-yard stares boring into him; it took all that he had to stop himself from admitting his guilt on the spot.

When he took his seat next to her, he maintained a polite and proper distance between them, fiddling his thumbs under the table. Should I do it? Should I confess to her now?

What! Why would you confess to this idiot girl, who you don’t even like? She’s all cow and no man – you said it yourself.

That was then, and this is now. A hero progresses through the story arc, it is known.

“Hello, Rudy.” Her sweet, feminine voice shocked him out of his reverie; with a start he saw Jessie’s cute hand waving in front of him.

“S-sorry, what were you saying?”

“This homework says to write an essay weighing up reasons for and against the statement that ‘A Dance Revolution within Orc Society is imminent.’ It’s so stupid!”

“Ah, so they’re using the same question as last year.” Rudy dug into his memory to recall how he’d answered it. “Actually, it’s not as silly of a question as it first appears. It’s well known that orcs are battle maniacs, which you can explain away by saying they love violent bloodshedding, true. But perhaps what they love about combat so much is the competitive nature of it and how physical it is, which are aspects you can easily link to dance.”

Rudy was nodding now, fully into the flow of things; beyond the stimulating question itself, what made the memory so fond was that it’d been one of the few assignments where he’d absolutely crushed Cal, who’d been too close-minded to take the question seriously.

“And don’t forget, Jessie, how often the textbooks mention the orcs’ ritual dances and how much they enjoy doing them. Is it so much of a stretch, then, to say that one day an orc realises they don’t always have to do it the traditional way and can, in fact, spice up the old routine with a few fresh moves.” Rudy ended his explanation with the same sentence he’d concluded his essay on: “And that’s all it would take to kick off the orcish dance revolution.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Oh wow, I would have never thought all that,” said Jessie in the tone of someone who’d just come across a fact of minor curiosity. “Please could you bring your assignment over and let me copy it?” At once she closed the distance between them and looked up at him with glimmering puppy eyes that, together with her puppies just below, executed a vicious one-two combo on him.

Dazed, Rudy glanced away and shifted his glasses along the bridge of his nose. “I can’t do that… I can give you suggestions on possible points you can make and help you structure your essay, though.”

“That’s so lame!” she exclaimed with a pout. She harrumphed and leaned back into her chair to re-establish distance between them, continuing in a petulant voice, “Cal would have let him copy his work.”

Drats, that guy is still haunting me even after he’s gone, even after he flunked that assignment.

Cal’s grinning face appeared in front of Rudy’s eyes, looking cherubic and giving double peace signs; but Rudy shook the phantom off. “Well, I’m disappointed to hear that of Cal – I would have thought better of him.”

She was quiet for a while, and Rudy wondered if he’d made a major misstep; yet every time he countenanced the idea of giving her his answer, he found that his principles just wouldn’t let him proceed.

Jessie’s hot mum had placed her faith in him to aid her daughter’s education, even personally visiting Rudy after he’d refused to leave his room ever again, pleading that he come back and give it a shot at least.

If he were to give Jessie his answer now, that wouldn’t teach her anything except to rely on a sucker to do her work for her; and although Rudy acknowledged he may indeed be that sucker, he refused to betray the faith her hot mum had placed in him (to him, she was a stern headmistress type lady, considerably flatter than her daughter but that too adding to her sharp-featured appeal, and who if angered was wont to punish him differently to how he’d imagined it in his dreams).

What Jessie said to break the silence still stung, though. “You know, from when we were young, Cal and I knew we were destined to be together, which is why we promised we’d keep ourselves pure for each other and go on to marry when we came of age.”

Her words made his heart ache and his eyes water slightly. Why would she mention this all of a sudden? Could it be she knows about… Drats! My security detail must have been breached for the enemy to have discovered such critical information – I must uncover the mole when I get home.

Once again Cal’s phantom cherub appeared in front of Rudy, but this time it vigorously shook its head of angelic blond curls and pointed accusingly at Jessie. “Don’t believe this vixen, Young Rudeus. She lies in order to wrench your essay from you like a devil incarnate.”

The cherub floated around Rudy and rested its hands on his elbows, guiding the motion of his arms. “I say we knock this bitch out before she beguiles you any further, Young Rudalini. Show her how we treat demonkin around these parts. Slug her so bad she won’t know what hit her.”

To his relief Rudy managed to catch himself – arm outstretched in front – before he did anything stupid, in utter disbelief that cherub Cal would be so fierce as to suggest knocking out this cute girl!

Even now the cherub had steam billowing out of its nostrils, exhaling like an enraged bull, while a rumbling emerged from deep in its chest. But its words did at least provide valuable information that acted as a balm to Rudy’s hectic thoughts.

Indeed, if he were to consider Jessie’s claims calmly, it became obvious that either she was lying, or that Cal must have been lying when he’d told Rudy he saw Jessie as a sister only. And more than just lying too.

“How could he have been keeping himself pure for you if he dated Ella, then?” Rudy didn’t have the courage to say this to Jessie’s face, so he said it as though making an observation to the fluffy-pink wall.

Hence it came as a total surprise when he felt a dainty hand grab him by the collar and yank him up. He twisted his head in shock only to discover Jessie the Asura before him, ready to slaughter.

She spoke in an inhumanely low tone. “What did you just say? Hmm?”

“U-uh.” Rudy’s arms flailed in fright and found the back of his chair as support; he was beyond confused as to what he’d done to earn this reaction from her.

In contrast, someone who was fully clear on what he’d done was cherub Cal who was sat upon the giant Asura’s shoulder, shivering and biting through its nails like an industrial nail cutter. “Why the fuck did you mention that?! Now I can never return, or she’ll kill me on sight, you fool.”

Rudy recalled then that Cal’s relationship with Ella had indeed been a clandestine operation. Even he had only found out about it because of his obsession with beating Cal, whereas most people would have been totally oblivious to the sneaky link taking place; at the time, Rudy had thought they were being so secretive for some reason on Ella’s side; only now did he realise his mistake.

“Err, did I say something?” Rudy gave a nervous laugh. “I-it’s probably a dream I saw.”

“No.” Her one word shattered his excuse and had him cringing away from his certain death; every word she said came out sounding like a curse, “I should have known that filthy cheater was having fun on the side without telling me; no wonder that skank was big-headed for so long, walking around like a duck and quacking aloud like some queen.”

Jessie was roaring at this point, and Rudy suspected any more anger would have her breathing fire onto him like a dragon, toasting him for his mindless comment.

Thankfully, his knight in shining armour was close by; the door swung open and revealed a steely-eyed MILF followed on by her squire, the baldie, who squealed on seeing Jessie forcing herself on the poor boy.

“You go girl, you get you some.” He stepped ahead of his wife, gave a wink, and shut the door again. “I want at least three grandkids, preferably two cute girls and one bad boy just like your dad.”

The closed door flung wide open once more, and this time stepped in Jessie’s hot mum who’d transformed in the same manner as her daughter, appearing as a gorgon with forked serpentine hair and cruel red eyes that could no doubt shoot lasers.

“Unhand the poor boy, Jessica,” came her command in a voice so ruthlessly cold it sounded like the voice of death itself, freezing the air in Rudy’s lungs. Although he wasn’t clear on what was going on, he could tell Jessie was being overpowered as she caught her breath, the hand gripping his collar trembling before finally releasing him, dumping him onto his chair.

Cherub Cal cheered on Jessie’s mum, waving its arms wildly. “Get her, mama. Show her the meaning of a German suplex. Break her spine!”

Blinking away tears, Jessie screamed, “Cal betrayed me! Did you know he was dating that little whore, Ella?”

Uncle Baldie looked appalled by the news; whereas the Medusa-like monster ahead of him simply shrugged, answering, “Yes, I knew. It’s a pity it turned out to be puppy love in the end and that they split up once it ran its course. I thought they were a cute couple, at least.”

Jessie squealed and bared her fangs at her mum. “You knew, but didn’t even tell me?! Whose side are you even on, you old bat? Don’t you know it’s not incest if we’re not connected by blood.”

Jessie’s hot mum acted so fast that Rudy almost failed to register what had happened, as she dashed into the room and delivered a haymaker into her awry daughter’s gut so vicious that it sent Jessie flying and crashing into the wall. “Get your mind out of the gutter and stop wasting time already! Do your fucking homework, Jessica!”

Only when Rudy blinked and rubbed his eyes did he see that Jessie hadn’t ever transformed into a monster – which had all been a product of his imagination – nor had she gone flying and crashed into the wall; although she was indeed keeled over gasping for breath, hands wrapped around her stomach.

When he turned to Jessie’s hot mum, he saw she was the same as always too, gracing him with a gentle smile that warmed his heart. “This girl’s been acting up ever since I found her hidden stash of Cal’s answers from last year, and burnt the lot of them. Make sure not to let her copy you either. I know it’s a lot to ask, but please help my dumb little daughter use her brain for once except for thinking up the stupidest things.”

There was no threat there, yet Rudy felt an impulse to gulp, his hand automatically saluting her. “Yes, ma’am. At once, ma’am.”