"I can't wait to be done with this job and this city," I said.
"Only a few more days," Akane promised me, her body pressed back up against mine in a warming, soothing presence, reassuring me that I did, in fact, at least have this respite still. That, as far away from home as I was, our hearts had come with us.
Also, she was graciously allowing me to use her titties like stress balls, which was massively helpful in helping me calm down.
"A few more days, and you never have to come back to this city ever again," Akane said.
"I'd promise that you won't have to see my sister ever again, either, but I don't exactly control her, and she seems like she might have something deeper going on than I thought," Nicky added. She was leaning against my shoulder, which was comforting too. We'd learned that I didn't terribly care for being the little spoon, or otherwise hugged from behind. At least, not for extended periods. It wasn't intolerable, I just didn't like it very much. However, I had three girlfriends, and only really one person-width worth of real estate on my front, so...
...Nicky sat facing away from me, and leaned her back against my shoulder. And Lisa was doing something similar, except facing towards me instead, and draping herself over myself and Akane.
"I want to know what's going on, with her," Nicky said. "I know, Roxy, you don't care about her, and would rather she just fuck off and die in a fire, but-"
"But she's your sister, and you're at a point where that still matters," I said, nodding. "Meanwhile, you are my girlfriend, and so I am willing to inconvenience myself to help you with things that are important to you."
"Right. So..."
"So, thankfully, we do have a rendezvous scheduled tomorrow, to which I can bring some wolfsbane and my ability to read minds," I said. "And, y'know, tell her that I require access to her mind in order to assure myself of her honesty. We'll learn something about her true intentions and loyalties either way."
"What, you can't be surreptitious about it?" Lisa asked.
"She'd notice her Gravitas going away," Nicky said.
"Also, I only invade people's minds without permission in circumstances where physically attacking them would be, if not productive, than at least understandable," I said. "Uninvited mental invasion is an act of violence. And I try to be careful with that sort of thing."
"Yaaay, ethics!" Akane cheered.
"Remember when you read my mind without permission when we first met?" I said innocently.
"...In my defense," Akane began. She paused, clearly expecting to be interrupted. "...Um. Uhhhh..." She looked around. "...I didn't, at the time, understand how anyone could feel threatened by a hot co-ed with huge knockers?"
"Co-educational refers to dormitories of mixed gender, as well as the people who live in them," Nicky pointed out. "Given that your roommate has always been me, you did not ever qualify as a co-ed."
"Okay, but the fact I'm a cuddly and fuckable golden retriever of a person isn't in dispute, right?" Akane said.
"Oh, not at all," I said. "An absolute ray of sunshine, albeit one that's partially shining through an unusually pornographic lithophane."
"A what?" Lisa asked.
"They're these thin sheets of stone, or some other hard and mostly-homogeneous material," Nicky said. "They have images etched in them so that, when light shines through them, the thin bits show up as light and the thick as dark, creating a monochromatic image. Usually they're not translucent enough to visibly project the image onto another surface? But visibility depends on a lot of factors."
"...Did you have a brief period of fascination with lithophanes?" I asked.
"I developed my own tool for turning 2D images into 3D printable lithophanes," Nicky admitted. "It was a fun distraction, although I lost interest a week after I finished it, having mostly used it to render pictures of me and Akane from our college days, along with one singular picture of me next to my VTuber-sona, the digital copy of which I deleted all evidence of."
"Fair enough," I said. "We'll likely have to take some more group photos to add to your collection, then. A few with clothes, so you don't have to hide them. And... well."
"A few without, so we can make a real version of my metaphorical porn-stone?" Akane suggested.
"Exactly. Good girl."
----------------------------------------
It was Friday, February the 10th, 2023. The Super Bowl would start this upcoming Sunday at 4:30 PM, and the Halftime Show- which we were pretty sure would be when Skinner would activate her short burst of mass mind control- would be... probably between 5:30 and 6:00 PM. It depended on how the game played out; despite the game officially lasting for one hour, and being divided up into four quarters that were each nominally a quarter hour long, American Football was a game of constant stop-and-start and wasted time, with the average NFL game- of a game that was supposed to last one hour- running for three hours.
How anyone in the country watched this sport without getting bored as hell was beyond me.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"So," I said, after entering a motel room on the edge of town which Vanessa had checked out. "There is a new condition to our continued cooperation."
"No, I will not actually have sex with you," Vanessa said, not looking up from her phone. "I may be bisexual, but I prefer my women a great deal shorter than you."
"Luckily, the condition is not that," I said, silently opening up my text chat with Nicky as I continued onward.
Roxy: did you know that your sister is bisexual or
Nicky: It's the cultural norm for Vega. For women, at least.
Nicky: She's not openly bisexual, because homophobia exists here, but I am well aware that she lusts for the sweet flesh of the fairer sex.
Roxy: so your brothers...
Nicky: Vegan men are culturally expected to be exclusively heterosexual, yes.
Roxy: why is your home planet Like That
Nicky: Devil knows and heaven suspects.
"Really, it's quite simple," I continued. "I require further assurance regarding your motivation. All you have to do is sit there and allow me to temporarily disable your power with wolfsbane so I can take a good, long look at your mind."
She froze.
"...You're joking," Vanessa said, after a brief pause. "You want to take away from me the one place where I can do whatever I want."
"It's pretty invasive, I'm aware," I said. "That being said, I would like to assure you that, aside from the possibility that you're lying to me about how deep in cahoots you are with your mother, I really, truly do not give a shit what goes on within your brain, and will not share a single thought of yours with anyone at all."
She sighed, letting her hand and phone drop into her lap.
"...I'm just going to have to take that on faith, aren't I?" she asked, turning to regard me with a wearily mournful look in her bright red eyes. "I can't read minds myself, after all, so how am I to know that any reciprocal reading you might offer is truthful?"
"It's a shitty and unequal power dynamic," I said, nodding. "The only solace I can offer is that I don't intend to use it more than the once, nor do I intend to use it to hurt you- aside from rejecting your offer of cooperation if I think you lied to me."
"Well." She floated back down to rest on the bed, creasing the sheets lightly. "It's still a better deal than my mother ever offered me. Go for it."
Wolfsbane flared gently, disabling her powers, and hers alone. And with that... I dove into her mind.
People are complicated. It varies from person to person, possibly more or less than you might think, but Vanessa Vega was more complicated than usual. I saw her yearnings, her desires, her fears, her hopes, her weird hyperspecific opinions about the littlest things in life- some of it was the fact that her ideal outfit for her to wear around was an oversized sweater with matching thigh highs, but some of it was far less enticing, like her nitpicks about The Empire Strikes Back, or the criteria of what constituted an appealing houseplant to her.
I couldn't help but soak in these little things for a bit. I wanted to get to know people, often irrespective of whether or not I liked the person in question. Understanding people appealed to me, not just as a way to better understand how to make them do what I wanted, but also as a sort of mirror onto myself, which only got clearer, the more and more I came to understand the human condition.
Underneath the melange of endearing details and unpleasant thought patterns and records of the genuinely shitty things she'd done to other people, though, was what I was really, truly here for:
Vanessa Vega hated her mother. She hated the pressure and expectations Valerie had pressed upon her. Vanessa Vega hated that she couldn't choose her own life, that she couldn't even- and this was a common mental refrain for her, when she was ranting and raving to herself- have so much as a Tinder account, let alone an OnlyFans.
It wasn't entirely sexual frustration, but it was emblematic of how Vanessa Vega was a grown adult woman with her own desires and drives, and had been systematically denied the autonomy to fulfill them if they didn't happen to align with her mother's plans.
There were parts of her that thought her mother's power-grabbing was stupid and pointless, but more because that power-grabbing stood in the way of Vanessa living her best life, rather than any true ethical objection.
And so, at the end...
...Was Vanessa Vega a good person? Not really. She was, in fact, actually kind of an asshole, just like Nicky said she was.
But she was a miserable asshole who truly did resent her mother for inflicting that misery, and I couldn't bring myself to think that Vanessa deserved that misery.
"Alright," I said, once I was finished with my assessment and turned off the wolfsbane. "I trust you."
"How gracious of you," Vanessa said, floating back up into the air. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"I'm fucking your sister," I said.
Vanessa froze.
"...What?" Vanessa asked.
"I, Doctor Roxanne Updyke, have had carnal knowledge of Veronica Vega, who prefers being called Nicky, as a way of distancing herself from her mother and her big ideas," I said. "I understand, quite intimately, just how much it sucks to be living under Valerie's thumb, when you want things- perfectly normal things for a person to want- that she's arbitrarily decided you aren't allowed to have. And... so does your sister. She's even less loyal to House Vega than you are. You can talk to her in confidence. Just... maybe start it off by apologizing for being a bitch to her about the Fourth of July incident."
Vanessa eyed me warily.
"What's your motive, here?"
"Simple," I said with a shrug. "I love Nicky dearly, and am aware she has a stronger attachment to her family than I have to mine. If I can make her distant older sister swallow her own pride and talk to her in private confidence like a sister should... well, that's just the loving thing to do, isn't it?"
"Mm," Vanessa said quietly. "...I suppose it's also blackmail material, to make me feel more comfortable. If I told Mom about you and Nicky..."
"Yeah, that'd ruin my day," I said, nodding. "And we both know you're not going to do that, because you'd much rather live under my uncaring dismissive gaze than Valerie's demanding thumb. You just, y'know, have a way out, in case you ever change your mind."
"...Thanks, Roxy," Vanessa said. "She goes by Nicky, hm? I wonder if I should pick a nickname like that..."
"What, like Nessie?" I asked. "Or does that remind you too much of a Twilight reference to be comfortable?"
"God," Vanessa said, chuckling and shaking her head. "You are the fucking worst."
"I try. Take care, and good luck sorting yourself out." I turned back to the door, opening it up and pausing in the doorway. "Also, my favorite scent is vanilla."
"Wha-"
And then I shut the door behind me, and left. I'd spent enough time babysitting Nicky's sister. It was time I got back on track.