We ended up talking in our kitchen, the flat rock space near the stream that trickled away from the pool. The ashes of our cooking fire from the day before blackened the stone. I could smell the huntress’s scent on me, and suddenly I found myself thinking about soap.

The professor clearly thought that I needed to wash my brain out. “Sid, what you did was dangerous.”

I put my hands on my hips. I had nothing to be ashamed of. “I judged the situation. I made the decision. We are wasting daylight talking about this. You wanted to see the obelisk, and I want to find more power crystals. Also, we need to find better shelter than the tree. The bus seats made it a thousand times more comfortable, but I didn’t like being out in the rain. Besides, I don’t want to get trapped up there.”

Holly folded her arms across her chest. “We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the huntress.”

Billie’s eyes went from the professor, to me, back to the professor.

I stood my ground. “There’s nothing to talk about. You know how this place is. I’m pretty sure she was feeling the lust energy as much as I was, so what’s the problem?”

“What about an STI?” The professor asked sharply. “What about you getting that poor girl pregnant? What if she put some kind of spell on you? You said there’s magic in this place.”

Billie laughed a little. “Like a love spell. Pussy whipped! Oh, Sid, are you going to ask her to marry you?”

Holly shot Billie a warning glance. “Billie, this is no time to joke.”

The cheerleader shrugged. “Uh, there are giant snakes and dinosaurs and we’re all dying of horniness. I’m sorry, Professor, but I think it’s the perfect time to joke. If I didn’t have a boyfriend, I would’ve jumped on Sid. Come on. You can’t tell me haven’t thought about him that way.”

Holly’s mouth fell open, and she blushed. Then she got control of herself. “We must be rational about our situation. Believe me, I understand that we have these desires. I’m not immune to this place…however, if we lose control, it would change things. When we return home, things would be…awkward.”

Billie snorted. “Hate to say it, but things are already awkward. I mean, what we do at Privacy Rock is just…well…awkward.”

I wasn’t going to get into the middle of them, but it was obvious that Billie wasn’t upset that I’d had my unexpected encounter. I liked the idea of her fantasizing about me. She was gorgeous. I found the professor’s reaction baffling.

The professor turned on the cheerleader. “Billie, we’re trying to make the best of a bad situation. Sex complicates things. Believe me, I’ve seen what it can do to people…if...well, let me put it this way. Every culture has taboos around sex for a reason. It can be destructive to a community.”

Billie didn’t back down. “I know that. Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you get to decide what we can and can’t do. Sid made his decision. If his dick falls off from huntress herpes, oh well, I guess he learned his lesson. Yeah, but I bet his ring isn’t going to let that happen. As for the huntress getting knocked up, you didn’t come in her, Sid, right?”

I had to laugh. “No, but the professor is going to tell us that doesn’t mean I could’ve have gotten her pregnant. Listen, I can see Holly’s point. It might not have been the best idea, but when she stripped, it was clear what she wanted.”

The professor didn’t even seem to notice that I’d acknowledged her concerns. “Did you ask her about stealing our food? Did you even try to talk with her?”

“Different languages,” I admitted. “She used a lot of ‘ch’ sounds. Believe me, after this, next time I have a gorgeous woman strip in front of me, I’ll come and get you, Professor, so you can check her for STIs.”

Professor Kroft’s mouth fell open. She went to say something.

I cut her off. “Which one of you is going first? I’m assuming you want to take a bath and, you know, get some relief.”

Billie grabbed me and pulled me away. “Let’s have the professor go first. I think you both need to cool down. Sure, Holly is right. Random sex in a strange new world is probably not the best decision. On the other hand, from the little I saw of her, she was beautiful. Tiny. But beautiful. And Sid is only human.”

I moved away from Billie, across the rock, and toward some trees. I didn’t look back.

Was I mad? A little. I was more frustrated with the whole place. Of course, without giving us a single answer, the huntress drops in on me and then runs off into the forest. I wished she’d left some arrows behind. Or maybe her knife.

Billie caught up to me. She grabbed some of the reeds, the ones we stripped to make our rope, and started ripping off fibers. She wrinkled her nose at me. “You’re mad. I think you’re mad. I guess you have the right to be. I don’t know what the professor’s problem is. Last night she goes all silent, and then this morning, she’s pissed that you finally got some real relief. Privacy Rock is only going to do so much. I bet once she calms down, she’ll be better.”

I searched the ground for power crystals “Like I said. I see her point. I do. But I’m not going to let myself feel too bad. This has been hard, being around you two, feeling like I feel.”

Billie had a little smile on her face. “So you’ve been thinking about me and the professor together. Like together or one at a time?”

I turned to her. “Yes.”

That made her laugh. “I’ve been fantasizing about that as well. If we are stuck here, it’s going to happen. Part of me thinks we should just give in. But then I’d feel terrible about Scott.”

“And Mike,” I teased.

“No, just Scott.” She sighed. She sounded sad.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I turned my multitool into a javelin and used it to push aside the ferns and underbrush, looking for more crystals.

Billie continued to rip fibers off the reed. “I’m not like that. Well, let me rephrase what I just said. I don’t want to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“The kind of girl who cheats. Even though I’m on another world, in freaksville, and I might die at any minute, I don’t want to lose my self-respect. It’s one of the reasons…”

For a second, I didn’t really get she’d stopped talking. I thought I found a crystal, but it turned out to be a normal rock in the shadows.

Then I realized she hadn’t finished her thought.

I turned to her. “One of the reasons for what?”

She laughed. “Oh, so you were listening. It’s kind of weird how focused you can get.”

“Maybe. I always saw it as a good thing. I definitely don’t have ADHD. I want to you to finish your thought.”

She didn’t respond right away.

While I waited, I couldn’t help but stare at her. She had some sweat on her face, and some of her braid had come undone. The morning mist was still around, but the sun was slowly burning it off. I’d been right. We were losing our day to fucking arguing about stupid stuff.

“Fine!” Billie almost yelled. “It’s one of the reasons why I was such a loser in high school, okay? I didn’t want to get a bad reputation for being a slut. There was this girl, Belinda Perkins, and everyone talked such shit about her. I didn’t want that to be, and it could’ve, uh…” Her voice died.

Then she got loud again. “Nope. Never mind. It’s ancient history. It’s not going to happen between us, Sid. I’m sorry. And Professor Kroft isn’t going to sleep with a student, but you have the huntress, so it, uh, works. I guess. You’re lucky. I say enjoy it.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “So that was your big secret? In high school, you weren’t one of the popular kids. Well, welcome to the club. Most people aren’t popular, so you’re not alone.”

She shook her head. “Yeah. But. No. But. Whatever. It was different for me. Or I wanted it to be different. It’s like…I didn’t want to believe that I was this normal, dumb girl who would never get anywhere. I felt different.”

“Well, Billie, it looks like you were different. We’re on another world. Congratulations.” I went back to looking for power crystal.

“That’s a shitty thing to do, Sid,” Billie snapped.

Suddenly, I was staring into the very angry face of the blonde.

“What now?” I asked. “What did I say?”

Billie pouted. “The way you said that last word. You were all like, ‘Congratulations, Billie. You’re different because you’re going to die here.’”

“I didn’t say that,” I said. “You’re putting things in my mouth.”

“Was that a sex joke?” Billie asked, grimacing. “That’s gross, Sid.”

“It’s not a fucking sex joke,” I said, getting angry. “You do have a destiny, or whatever. I mean, my Aunt Kathy says nothing is an accident. Maybe we were brought here for a reason.”

Billie rolled her eyes like the brat she was. “Oh, please, Sid. You’re not talking about your ring’s primary mission, are you?”

“No, I—”

Billie wasn’t about to stop. “I knew I was pretty, and I knew I could get a really hot guy, who had a ton of money. That’s what I meant. And I could have a house, and kids, and the white fucking picket fence. I knew I could have it all!”

I should’ve stopped to think about my next words, but no, we were fighting. The morning was turning to shit right before my eyes. “Maybe getting a hot guy wasn’t the point. Maybe we’re here to do something more important with our lives than to pay a mortgage.”

Billie’s eyes turned to slits. “Are you saying I’m shallow?”

I held up a finger. “No. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”

“Don’t be gross!” Billie then went to storm off. She got a half a dozen steps down the asphalt before spinning around. “Oh, right, I can’t just get in my car and drive home. I’m stuck with you. Perfect! I open up to you and you get all shitty with me. Be nicer, Sid. Be better.”

I was trying to figure out where our conversation went off the rails, but I couldn’t. She’d been so understanding and relatively sane—really sane compared to professor crazy pants, who came walking up, drying off her hair with one of the Paraxen wonder clothes. “What’s wrong?”

Billie marched past us. “You talk with Sid, Professor. He’s being mean. And I was on his side with the whole huntress thing.”

“You can call me Holly,” the professor said.

But Billie was already marching through the ferns to get to Privacy Rock. I wondered if she was too mad to do anything but bathe. I was still trying to figure out what went wrong with the CrossFit queen, when the professor came up to me and took my hand. “Listen, Sid, I was wrong.”

These women had me so confused. What in the hell?

“What now?” I asked, not wanting to say something that would set her off.

“I. Was. Wrong.” Holly had a smile on her face. She was so much more relaxed.

“No,” I said. “I should’ve thought about the danger I could’ve put us in. If this had been a horror movie, she would’ve had three cannibal hillbilly brothers who would’ve jumped down and bashed my head in the second I touched her.”

Holly laughed. “That was oddly specific. In the end, I forgot a few things about what it means to be young. I jumped into beds I shouldn’t have because I was horny. Making mistakes is a part of growing up.”

I squeezed my eyes close for a second. “I’m not ten, Holly.”

“You’re not. You’re in your early twenties. Fucking up is age-appropriate behavior, if you’ll forgive my language.”

“Forgiven,” I said.

“Also,” Holly went on. “You have your optimized cells. You probably could’ve handled the redneck assassin ninjas.”

“Hillbilly cannibal brothers. Like in the Wrong Turn movies.” I chuckled. “There were also these books I read, about the Goreback family, but those were cannibals in space, and they worshipped a clown. But anyway…”

“I hate horror movies,” the professor said. “However, I understand the power of the profane and the thrill of fear when one is safe and on one’s couch. But back to the subject at hand. I am assuming that if you did get an STI, that your ring would be able to tell you. She might even be able to fix it, and so, I am apologizing for the dressing down I gave you.”

“Dressing down? That sounds dirty.”

She gave me a patient smile. “Can you forgive me?”

“Forgiven. We’re good.”

The professor let out a long breath. “This is a very difficult situation we are in…this place, the lust, the pressure to survive. If your huntress came for me, I would’ve done the same thing you did. I thought of that while I was…bathing this morning. I thought a great deal about her, about you, and about…other things.”

Unlike Billie, she wasn’t going to admit that she’d been fantasizing about a threesome together.

Holly then changed the subject. “What happened with Billie?”

I tried to explain it, though I wasn’t sure I was doing either side any justice. It had all happened so fast.

The professor nodded. “Billie is struggling. Unlike you and I, she does not find K’Shaul fascinating. And unlike you and I, at Mesa University, she was living her dream of being the pretty cheerleader, loved and adored. That wasn’t the case when she was in high school. Then? Her dreams are shattered, and she was brought here, where there is less adoration.”

“I really don’t see her as shallow,” I said. “When we first met, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Now, everything has changed. I told her that it felt like we were destined to come to K’Shaul.”

The professor suddenly was staring at me. “Do you feel like this is your grand destiny?”

Then I was the one rolling my eyes. “If I said I did, I would sound like a douchebag. But maybe we were brought here for a reason. I’ve been looking for power crystals, but I haven’t found any. I’m wondering about soap, and I’d love to have a stone knife.

Holly let me change the subject, but I was wondering how Billie would be when she got done with her morning bath.

Turned out, it was like she hadn’t yelled at me. She pretended everything was fine and didn’t mention the huntress once. Her bratty attitude was there, though, and I was thinking that was just who she was.

Before I knew it, we were on our way to the obelisk.

Holly’s and Billie’s first experience with the strange monument wasn’t all that special. What happened after we toured the Fodoron Obelisk, however, changed everything.