Critical Tits
Chapter Three
 
“No way, Cynthia.”
“Come on, Dominic. I’m desperate. Do you think I’d be asking someone like you if I wasn’t desperate?”
The Friendly’s bus boy shook his head and wiped his table faster, eager to escape the awkward confrontation. “I don’t care if you’re desperate. I’m not going to get my hands dirty for a – pardon my French – bitch I barely knew in high school.”
Knew me well enough I’m a bitch, she thought. Though not well enough to know I wear it as a badge of honor. Before she could gut punch him, though, she remembered. Smile. Apologize. It had worked on those neanderthals last Saturday (OK, it had mostly worked), and it could work here. It had to. “Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t nicer to you in high school, OK? I really am. I’m trying to change here. Can’t you see that I’m trying to change?” Was this what that was supposed to sound like? She felt like she’d seen pleading in a horror movie or two, though there they were usually screaming.
Dominic finally paused his wipe down, glancing to the register to see if his manager was watching. She was, though from the curious smile on her face, her concern wasn’t her employee socializing during work hours but rather why this beautiful stranger was clasping her dumpy dishwasher’s forearm needily. 
“Look, maybe you are. Still, I’m not gonna spy on Bobby for you. It’s… weird. Whatever drama you all have going on is between you two. He and I barely hang out any more. Why don’t you ask Frank or Evelyn? They were in cheerleading with him. I’m pretty sure that crowd is still in touch.”
The truth was that Cynthia knew full well that they were. She’d been in Bobby’s apartment when that meathead asshole and the anorexic insult to womanhood texted him, and it wasn’t infrequent. Still, she had no leverage over the beautiful people. Frank had fucked his share of girls as hot as Cynthia, and Evelyn was utterly contemptuous of her goth classmate for her refusal to join her in dressing like a baby hooker who catered exclusively to stepdads. Same for the rest of that crowd, in one respect or another. 
Now, somebody like Dominic, somebody who looked at her and saw, in addition to whatever else, a hottie the likes of which he’d spend his whole pathetic life jerking off wishing he could press his earthworm lips to… That was something she could use.
“But you could, right? Just call him up, bring up some old memory from one of your dork clubs you were in together or something, ask him if he wants to hang out.” Cynthia winced inwardly, but thought of a quick cover. “As a fellow dork, I’m begging you, Dominic. Do this for me?” She rubbed one hand up and down the length of his forearm. Was he starting to sweat just from being touched on the arm? Gross.
He wrinkled his nose. “But like… you guys have been friends since forever. Why can’t you just go talk to him yourself?” Something in his eyes, however, told her that Dominic knew Bobby had long wanted her to be more than a friend, a fact which was no doubt compounding his confusion.
“We had a fight. I can make it up to him–” I have to make it up to him! “–but I need to know when and where to find him. That’s all I’m asking. Talk to him, find out when they’re gaming again, and let me know so I can make it up to him. Them. Him.”
“What’d you do?” Dominic asked, moving to another table and trying to ignore the probing look from the woman at the register.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it must have been something big if he won’t even talk to you. And if you…” He looked her over, as if her appearance could only be explained as an apology to male kind. He wasn’t entirely wrong, though the apology was only a means to an end.
“It’s not important.”
Dominic frowned. “If you’re not going to be straight with me, then never mind.”
“No!” She’d already been rebuffed by two of Bobby’s old non-cool-kid friends, one of whom hadn’t even spoken to him since graduation. She’d already had one of Bobby’s neighbors call the cops on her for staking out his apartment to ambush him. The fucking pigs had found her weed in the car, so now there was a court date on the horizon to see if she got jail time or just a bullshit fine. Plus her parents had had to come bail her out.  Grounded! Twenty-one years old, and grounded! 
Luckily, her parents were too afraid to knock on her door and underestimated her willingness to jump off the roof of the garage, conveniently accessible from her window. 
“It’s kind of a story, though, so I’ll give you the Sparknotes version. So–”
But Dominic shook his head. “Tell you what. My shift is over in about an hour and a half. Why don’t you meet me here then, and we can talk about it… over a date?” 
Oh boy. This would be the most delicious rejection of her life. The smile on his broad face was too pitiful. Even Dominic didn’t expect her to agree to it, but the glimmer of hope was there just waiting for her to knock it into a bottomless pit with a full force blast of bitchcraft. “Sorry, I don’t date guys that far out on the spectrum,” she said. 
Almost. She wanted to say it, that was for damn sure. 
“Oh, I wish I could but I have a strict two-titty maximum on dates, and you’d put us four over” came a close second.
“Well… sure. Why not? One date,” she actually said out loud. Somehow, she even smiled. It was like there was a permanent after-image of her new d% burned into the insides of her eyelids. It made smiling come easier than it normally did. Which, according to Andy, made him come easier than he normally did. Perverted fucking prick.
In case there had been any doubt he’d been expecting a rejection, his eyes widened as big around as the coffee saucers in his gray plastic dish bin. “Um, cool. Then, uh, yeah. See you then.”
Cynthia said nothing as she departed. She had nothing kind to say, and any rejoinder she might have issued would not have only been self-defeating, but furthermore the not-so-sly thumb’s up Dominic’s manager was giving him half-behind the register embarrassed her beyond the capacity for speech.
Ninety minutes later, Cynthia returned, wearing a pale pink top with a deep V-neck, strappy sandals, and a pair of tan shorts that were much shorter than anything she’d worn in public in years. She blushed as Dominic pointed out that the tag was still on her top, and again after he walked her to her car when he repeated himself for her shorts, peeling the sticker off her ass and pinching her in the process. On accident, he swore, and he might have even meant it. Still, she smiled. And still, she hated him.
Over dinner, she gave him the story of why it was she needed his intercession. Cynthia wasn’t sure if he’d been paying attention to her story or simply staring at her boobs. So long as he did his part, she didn’t care which. She’d told it, like she promised. No apology needed. Only bright smiles on her freshly whitened teeth.
________________
“My name is Bregan,” her rescuer said after helping Sintheigha to her feet. “You might consider wearing proper armor if you’re going to be traveling in the Webwood.”
“I would have had things perfectly well in hand if I weren’t wielding a stupid dagger,” she grumbled in reply. Cynthia hoped the requirement to smile didn’t include times like these when she was role-playing frustration.
“Another excellent consideration,” Bobby answered, using a rather deep Irish brogue for Bregan. His (her) tone was as condescending as it had been in the criticism about the armor, though. 
Bobby actually did voices pretty well. She filed the thought away in case she needed a compliment later as part of an apology. She’d made so many that afternoon that a simple “I’m sorry” no longer cut it. Yelling at Andy for making a cunnilingus face; griping that Brent was using a spell from an unapproved compendium; being reprimanded by Bobby for using her gorgeous new d% to make a decision at random one too many times. For “unladylike language,” which Andy had laughingly accused her of, but Bobby had backed him, and so followed the apology and a whole lot of choking down so-called obscenities since.
“Wait, zoom in on Reagan,” Andy demanded over the voice chat.
“It’s Bregan, I think,” Brent corrected.
“Who the fuck ever. I can barely see the token and you have the zoom locked, Bobby.”
Bobby complied, unpausing the combat field and narrowing the focus in the VTT. The hobgoblins’ portraits, which she had thought looked like mash potatoes during the fight, became recognizable, and the gore spatters the DM had employed as each fell did as well. The production values were admittedly impressive. She’d say so next time she needed an apology for Bobby.
As Bregan’s round icon enlarged, however, Cynthia was the only player who didn’t seem surprised. She’d recognized it immediately, since Bobby’s TV was a lot larger of a screen than Brent’s or Andy’s computer monitors. When she did, she had choked down an apoplectic rant. “Holy shit! Is that the ugly dwarf bitch Cyn tried to use first go around?”
Brent nodded, no less caught off-guard. “You know, I think you’re right. Was that a coincidence, her choosing the pic you’d set for your party NPC?”
As Bobby shook his head, Andy spoke over him. “Wait, this is the party NPC?”
“Obviously, man. She totally saved Sintheigha’s shapely little ass. You were what, three rounds from bleeding out?”
“Two,” Cynthia answered glumly. Not that either of you assholes even tried to come over and stabilize me, she thought to herself. Outbursts like that had to be kept to herself. Ugh, it was getting to the point that every ounce of swallowed vitriol was reminding her she needed to smile more, a confusing and infuriating feedback loop.
“See? Easy in, saving Princess Perkytits there. You know how she loses her shit when her character dies.”
“Let’s get back in character,” Bobby interjected, then shifted to Bregan’s voice. It sounded a bit masculine, leaning into that whole fat chicks have deep voices stereotype. Not that she was fat. “What brings the three of you so far afield? Was the city getting so peaceful that you had to seek out trouble here in the wild?”
“We were looking for a group of hobgoblins who ambushed and kidnapped the mistress of Lord Koltron,” she explained in Sintheigha’s voice. Unlike the DM, players didn’t need to bother with accents and vocal acrobatics to distinguish themselves, but she had found herself talking in a higher pitch when speaking as Sintheigha. With that bouncing, jiggling avatar hovering before her on the screen, it was hard not to. “Have you seen them?”
“Unfortunately, the closest thing to a noble in this encampment was the brother of the Warbringer Mokvinorg over there.” Bobby spun the avatar so the woman’s homely blonde face tilted towards one of the nearby blood stains, his way of pointing.
They’d heard one of their fellow prisoners in the dungeon ranting about the might of this Mokvinorg. Evidently a nemesis was emerging. So the party exchanged information with Bregan and made introductions. Bregan professed to be a cleric of Ureus, god of peace, guided here by a vision from her god that foretold great strife without the Merciful One’s intercession. Satisfied that a healer would come in useful, though not exactly thrilled to be “saddled with this fugly peacenik,” as Andy put it (a point with which she actually agreed), the boys welcomed Bregan to the group.
Nobody consulted Sintheigha. Who smiled at the pronouncement.
At Bobby’s encouragement, Brent as Skuf and Andy as Jerom explained their skill sets to the newcomer, mostly the DM’s way of making sure they understood their abilities. It was a clever way of quizzing them, even Cynthia granted. When it came her turn, however…
“So, you must be their concubine or the like then, I take it?” Bregan asked casually, as if there were no way her words could be taken as an insult. Or as if to virtue signal at how she could find no fault with a non-traditional party arrangement such as that.
“I’m a goddamn fighter, asshole,” she retorted with a snarl.
“Whoa, language!” 
“And that is definitely not a smile.”
Cynthia was actually disgusted with herself for the ease with which the contrite took control of her face this time. Pavlov’s fucking dog with that by now. “I’m sorry, guys. It just felt like the new guy was hazing me or something. And by the way, Bobby, I love the production val–”
“She’s still doing it,” Brent complained over her. “I told you her promise wouldn’t mean anything. At this point we’re wasting more time listening to her apologize than playing!”
“I’ll do better!” she swore. Worse, she meant it. Her cheeks already burned like a Walmart greeter doing overtime, but she could do better. Sintheigha would just have to pretend to be happy, quietly, same as her player.
“Bullshit. I say, next time she crosses the line, she has to show us her tits. Or I’m done.”
Brent’s image showed him frowning skeptically at some point on his own monitor back in his dorm room. “Come on, dude, don’t make it weird. She’s never gonna flash you no matter what you threaten her with.”
The two quibbled back and forth. Andy seemed to feel that as fixated on her dice as she’d been all session, she owed them something pretty to look at all their own; Brent insisted it was an uphill battle they’d never win and therefore not worth fighting. 
Neither of them bothered to consult her.
It was Bobby, though, who made the final call. “Cynthia, how about next time you have a problem, you roll a percentage. 01 to 50, you give Andy what he wants–”
“Oh, well then I think I want a nice sloppy–”
“Meaning show him your boobs, 51 to 00 you don’t. Sound fair?”
She gestured to her tight leather outfit. “Do you have any idea how hard this is to take on and off?”
“Oh come on, fifty fifty? At least go sixty forty,” whined Andy.
“Shit, go eighty twenty. I’m so bored of all these distractions, and embarrassing her might be the only thing that’ll teach her anything.”
Cynthia shook her head, but took care to keep the smile in place. “No! Fifty fifty is fine,” she insisted. Only after she said it did she realize what she’d agreed to.
Bobby merely nodded, however, and continued the scene. “It’s sweet of you fellas to let your friend here practice her knife play. Still, I worry what might become of a summer rose like her, tended only by the rough hands of two ruffians like yourselves. Perhaps it’s for the best I come along, help you preserve such a delicate beauty. Eh?”
And so Bregan joined the party. Cynthia smiled. She had no choice.
That hadn’t been why she needed Dominic, though. But it had all followed from there. Her violent hatred of the party NPC, walking around in the non-humiliating portrait Cynthia had picked out for herself, treating her like she was some half-witted princess forged out of glass. Worse, Sintheigha’s own stupidly sub-optimal build necessitating Bregan’s healing time and again. It was the only thing keeping her character going through the hobgoblin’s camp and ensuing dungeon crawl into the caverns pursuing Mokvinorg. With her Armor Class well within reach of even the weakest minion and her damage from that pathetic dagger totally inadequate.
In one hobgoblin tent, they found a magical bastard sword, +1 and with the frost enhancement! It was an incredible find for their level, far beyond anything a first level party ought to have. As a fighter, Sintheigha was the only one proficient in it, too; had she not respecced to focus on knife fighting, it would have been the perfect weapon, one to last her the next seven or eight levels easily. 
And yet… it dealt 1d10 damage. Not 1d4. (Plus Bobby insisted that she was not allowed to use the d%, with its 0’s after the numbers 1-10, even though it was the exact same number range.) So, in a small voice, she told the party she would rather use her daggers, so she could keep on using her perfect d4. There was no alternative.
Brent and Andy had been beside themselves. Not only were they being forced to pick up her slack, but now they’d been given a gift from the gods, and Cynthia turned it down to play with her sparkly new die. She apologized; she flashed her teeth until her cheeks hurt; she even flexed her cleavage together and nudged the camera to zoom in on her tits a little closer. 
She was not forgiven. There was actually a moment of regret when the d% roll came up 85, letting her out of flashing her tits to the camera. That might have gotten her out of it.
In case there was any doubt about the boys’ bitterness, this was made evident when they walked into Mokvinorg’s trap, his remaining forces surrounding their party with over a dozen of his warriors. Instead of killing them, however, he recognized his depleted forces and offered a bargain. He knew where Lord Koltron’s missing mistress was being held; turns out, the goblin king had a taste for human women. (Brent speculated on the physics of such a coupling, and Andy snotted root beer out his nose laughing. She managed to smile through his question about whether Cynthia thought a goblin would be tall enough to fuck her and suck on her nipples a the same time.) In any case, given his liege’s proclivities, Mokvinorg was willing to betray his fellow henchman, the one holding the woman they sought, in exchange for an offering to the goblin king of his own.
Sintheigha.
“Time to roll initiative then, you wart-faced fuck,” Cynthia snarled. Sort of. It was hard to snarl in character while beaming out of character. 
“Now hold on,” Andy said quickly.
“Yeah, hold up.”
Cynthia blinked. “Uh, what?”
But Andy replied to Mokvinorg. “This is some pretty prime specimen of human female. If we hand her over, we want more than just your assurances.”
“I am NOT–”
“A guide, for one,” Brent interjected. “Without her, we don’t have anybody trained in Survival and we’d probably wind up lost.”
“Done,” agreed Mokvinorg.
“But–”
“Five thousand gold,” Andy demanded.
Cynthia listened in horror as the boys were slowly bartered down to two thousand. Twenty-five hundred, actually, but then she protested yet again, Andy rolled his eyes and gave the hobgoblin a discount with a giggle.
Brent remembered they were probably due another d% roll for Cynthia’s tits, but with a 54, no such luck for them. Andy wondered aloud if they should just give her away for free.
“You can’t let them do this.” Cynthia was addressing Bobby, but instead he took it as Sintheigha addressing Bregan.
“I am a woman of peace, sweet girl. I cannot force them to change their course. If it is any consolation, your sacrifice will mean the salvation of many others. You will be–”
“You guys can’t sell my character to this creepy fucking hobgoblin!” she shrieked.
“Uh, watch us,” said Andy, popping a Dorito in his mouth.
“This is bullshit. Did you set this all up just to hurt my feelings or something? Make me play this Barbie doll bimbo, make me give up my build, make me smile and dress like a slut?”
“Um, nobody ‘made you’ do anything,” Brent said snidely. “Don’t be pissed because someone finally stood up to you and you couldn’t handle it.”
“I am handling it! My cheeks are on goddamn fire! I’ve tripled my total lifetime apologies! I’m dressed like a fetish slut, just to get you two off my back!”
“Yeah, because we ‘made you’ have that waiting in your closet for just such an occasion to flaunt your bod,” Andy retorted.
“What? Waiting to… What are you trying to say?”
“You want some honesty? Fine, real talk.” Brent leaned down toward his camera imperiously. “I’m tired of watching you jerk Bobby around. You know he likes you, and so you use that affection so you can control him and control the group and get your goth kicks denying him, and I’m sick to death of it.”
Cynthia’s eyes widened in shock. He thought… what?! Bobby was studying his own lap, though, clearly embarrassed. “Is this an incel chat room or a D&D group? Jesus fuck, you limp dick losers, I’m sorry I’m hot and I’m sorry I’m goth and I’m sorry none of you are my type. Is that my fucking fault somehow?! Why can’t we just play the game and quit acting like I owe any of you something!”
Andy shook his head. “Seems like whatever he spent on those fancy new dice, you owe him at least a little something for those. Never seen a bitch lube up like you do over those stupid things.”
“Whatever. I’m done. I told you she can’t change. Until she’s gone, I’m gone. Sorry, Bobby. I didn’t mean to put you in this spot, but… I feel for you, man. Let me know when you make up your mind.” His webcam went dark.
Andy stoked his chin a moment. “How about you flash me them titties and we’ll see.”
By some twisted reflex, she reached for her dice and dumped them onto the table. 09. Shit. She took a deep breath and started slowly undoing the clasps fastening the mesh between the two halves of her vest. Andy, however, wasn’t in a mood to wait. “Oh, whatever, you teasing fucking bitch. Eat a dick.”
“Fuck you, Andy!”
He disappeared as well. A few clasps later she remembered she didn’t need to take her top off. The die had said to, but… no, it didn’t make sense. She stopped herself, with some effort.
She hadn’t noticed Bobby standing up, but suddenly he was behind her, his hand gently rubbing her back. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Cindy.”
“Don’t call me Cindy.” She shucked his hand off her roughly.
“I think you should go. I’d hoped that a little positive reinforcement, something to aspire to, you might come around but… look, I’m gonna go with the majority. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”
In spite of her rage, Cynthia’s jaw quivered. When was the last time she had been rejected? Had she ever been rejected? “Fine. Fuck you, Bobby. And when you talk to those little trolls, tell them I said double fuck them, too.”
“I… yeah.” He shook his head as she threw her books into a stack and stormed off toward the door. She was one foot out before his soft words reached her, her haste in vain. “And Cynthia? I need you to leave the dice. You didn’t earn them.”
So here she was, no gaming buddies, no dice. Shit, no dignity. The only thing she had left was the hope that Dominic could do her spying for her. Her dreams were worse than ever. Her dice locked away behind an adamantine gate, and Bobby wouldn’t part with the key no matter how she pleasured him, and she was inventive in her dreams. Not even when she let him spit roast her with that cretin Frank, high-fiving over her helpless body, or when she joined Evelyn in a tandem titty-fuck.
Yet in spite of it, she woke up smiling, every time. As the days passed, it started feeling uncomfortable not smiling.
If she couldn’t find out when they were gaming, couldn’t make them take her back, maybe she’d break into Bobby’s apartment and steal the dice. If she could stop touching herself long enough to make a plan for how to do it.
And convince herself that she deserved them, which sounded harder still.
It was one of the longest weeks of her life. Dominic told her he was having coffee with Bobby on Friday, parlaying the delay into two further dates. When her parents got a look at their daughter and saw how hard she was struggling – what to their eyes no doubt looked like a return to their darling little girl they remembered from grade school – they ended the grounding unasked. Dominic showed up early to their second date, chatting up her folks while she finished in the shower, and she could see her dad beside himself with relief that she was dating this normal, ungothed boy. Dominic took their obvious approval as a good sign, helping himself to a meek handful of tit around her shoulder during the movie. She brushed him aside. Gently. After a moment. The first time.
Cynthia really needed that intel.
Her coworkers noticed, too. It was fortunate, really, that she had Charlie on hand to test her resolve. “You feeling OK?” he asked, taken aback.
“I feel great!” she said, grinning like the bimbo from the customer service training video. “How do you feel?”
“Uh, like I’m tripping balls or something, honestly,” he said, eyeing her askance. “What the fuck is up with…?” he gestured.
“What? I wanted to look nice. For a boy. I’m just sorry I didn’t try it sooner, honestly. Say, you’re a boy. Do you think I look nice?”
“I mean, nobody looks nice in an Arby’s uniform.”
For a moment – a long moment – Cynthia pondered taking her top off. It was the break room, so not like anybody else was likely to come down. Now that she was apparently on the market, it would be good practice, right? Getting used to inviting a boy to stare at her chest. But she waited exactly a moment too long; by the time she’d jerked the top off over her head (damn hem wouldn’t come out from where she’d tucked it into these new, tighter pants), Charlie was gone. Had he even seen anything? It should embarrass her more than it did if he had. And it embarrassed her quite a bit. Moreover, a blow to her boobs’ ego – that made twice in one week a boy had been too impatient to wait to see them! What the fuck, malekind?!
It was good practice though. As the week went on, she sought out opportunities to learn how to choke down her pride. Helping her parents prepare dinner, setting the table and insisting on doing the dishes after. Volunteering to mow the lawn, disregarding the lingering glances from neighbors and passing cars in her too-brief gym shorts and skimpy tank top. Helping elderly Mr. Gehrman across the street haul in his groceries, pretending not to notice when she caught the old pervert staring at her ass. The first time. The second, she flashed an indulgent smile and said she was sorry. He asked what for, but she didn’t know.
It was working though. By the time she met up with Dominic for their third date Friday night, enduring male piggishness was becoming almost habitual. Almost. Knowing her use for the boy was at an end, she didn’t bother dressing up, nothing more than loose black jeans and an unflattering t-shirt. Whatever. He’d gotten his thrills at her expense already. If she led this guy on any further, she’d wind up with his dick out, and that was decidedly more than she ever hoped to see of Dominic.
“So how’d it go?” she asked him as he sat down across the table from her, back at the restaurant where she’d first agreed to this extortion. Yeah, yeah, she should probably say hi, exchange pleasantries first. But she had to know.
“It was… interesting,” he replied slowly, and instantly, she could tell something was wrong. The cautiously proprietary smile of his was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a clear gleam of suspicion.
She frowned. Interesting? Cynthia might be pretty hard core about her gaming hobby, but she knew as well as anyone that listening to people blather on about their D&D group was almost never interesting. The only reason Dominic had listened to her tale of woe was because he thought good listening skills might translate into getting his dick wet. 
“Interesting how?”
“So… straight up, let me ask: what’s up between you and Bobby?”
“Between…? What? I told you, we had a fight over stupid gaming stuff. Why, did he say something?”
“Ayep. He seemed to think – and seemed to think everyone in your little club thinks – that you have a thing for him. Something about some… dice?”
Oh god. Cynthia was pretty sure she felt a little something trickle into her panties at the unprompted reminder. They were out there. This boy had talked to the boy who held them, about them. It was hands down the sexiest thing about him.
He went on, “Something like you’ve been leading him on to try to get these designer dice from him? Is that true, Cynthia?”
“It’s… it’s complicated,” she mumbled.
Dominic’s manager chose that moment to stop by the table. She greeted her employee enthusiastically; Cynthia immediately picked up a mother-hen-minding-her-chicks vibe from the woman. She’d had managers like that before, and had quickly disabused them of the notion that she needed minding. “So, how’s your date going so far?”
“Great,” said Cynthia, right as Dominic said, “Not great.”
Given those two responses, the woman opted to scowl, and Cynthia was immediately nervous about eating whatever arrived on her plate. “Oh. Sorry to hear that. Maybe I can get you something from the kitchen, help things along?”
Dominic ordered a burger and fries, Cynthia a salad. She’d already dropped five pounds this week, starving herself like she meant to out-skinny that cheerleader cunt Evelyn. Once the woman was gone, the boy pressed his attack.
“So it’s complicated, huh? Well uncomplicate it. Because right now it looks like you were using me, toying with me to try to get a shot with Bobby. I mean, I know I kinda pressured you into this a little, but I thought we were having a good time.”
“We were!” she lied. A week of practicing unblinking deference paid off; his frown softened. “I like you, Dominic. Really. I am not into Bobby. We’ve just gamed together for a long time, and we’re friends. That’s it. Just friends.”
“Yeah? Because he showed me the outfit you put on for him last week, to try to… be friendly, I guess. It was like how you used to dress in high school, but like, even sluttier.”
Cynthia’s jaw clenched invisibly. She had not dressed slutty in high school! Or ever! “They tried to kick me out once already. I thought, maybe if I looked cute, maybe they’d… I don’t know. I was weak, Dominic.” She looked up at him fretfully. “You think I like dressing like that for those guys?”
“You sure don’t dress that way for me,” he fired back at her, pointing to her shapeless, unflattering garments. 
“Well maybe I should sometime.” Right after that cold day in hell.
“I’m sorry, Cynthia, but I feel like you’re not being straight with me. I’m sort of wishing I never agreed to all this. Thanks for taking pity on me or whatever, but no thanks.”
As he stood up, she dove for his wrist, holding him in place. Ugh, was he just always sweaty or what? “Wait. You don’t believe me? Let me show you.”
He froze. Showing caught his ear. “Show me what?”
She smiled, put a little smoke into it this time.
“You work here. Is there somewhere… private? And close?”
And so, ten minutes into their third date, Cynthia found herself kneeling behind the dumpster at Friendly’s with her top in one hand and Dominic’s over-eager cock in the other. Showing him her boobs hadn’t quelled his paranoia, or maybe he simply saw he had the upper hand and pressed his advantage. It stank back here, the same basic stink as the one at Arby’s. She knew it well. Still, at least when, without so much as a grunt of warning, Dominic came all over her face, his jizz made for a handy air freshener. The thought was some small help in maintaining her grateful smile.
“See?” Cynthia said, blinking through a long line of cum dangling from the fake lashes she’d gotten earlier that day at her third salon visit of the week. “I told you, I like you. Would I do that if I was into Bobby?”
Dominic was grinning so broadly she could have shoved the dumpster in there. She wanted to. “I suppose not. I’m sorry I doubted. I just… wow. Anyway, so they’re playing Sunday at 2, he said. He invited me to join, but… is it OK if I don’t? I’d love to spend more time with you, but it’s really not my thing.”
“Yeah, that’d be fine. We can always find other things to do.” She winked.
He looked down to her crotch. “So, do you want me to…?”
“No, I’m OK. Thanks, though.”
“Hey, any time for my girl, yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you a napkin for the…?” He made a face, like he was the one with a right to be grossed out. “Or maybe you like to, you know, swallow…?” Then his grin was right back in place, almost as big as the one she was forcing in place.
It struck her that the cum blurring her vision sparkled in a too familiar way. “Sure, I’ll swallow.” 
________________
Cynthia arrived at Bobby’s apartment at 1:45 Sunday afternoon. She was supposed to be at work at the carwash. It had taken a lot of favors to secure the regular Saturday evenings off at her jobs so she could game; her boss Mr. Herzog had flatly refused to give her the whole weekend, especially on no notice. After burning through hundreds of dollars at the mall and the salon this week, she couldn’t afford to lose her job.
So she went to work in a thin white t-shirt. 
It had only taken an hour and a half before some Karen called to complain about the “lewd display” barely visible through her soapy windows. (An hour and a half in which the tips rained like a monsoon from the male customers, she might add.) Whatever. Mr. Herzog was a stickler for the uniform, and she was pretty sure he was that weird subspecies of gay who didn’t merely reject the feminine form, but bore it hostility. She was sent home by the day manager on Mr. Herzog’s orders, just in time to get to her hair appointment and then off to Bobby’s.
It was nerve-wracking, to say the least. She knew how she looked. She even took a moment to examine herself using her camera as a mirror before heading upstairs. Platform sandals, check. The least sexy aspect of her ensemble, but they went with the rest of it, and added several inches to her height. Plus, she was extremely unused to walking in these things, so every step had to be this tiny, prancing thing. Her body didn’t jiggle this much naked.
Then there were the leggings. In her whole life, Cynthia had never worn leggings. They might be cheap; they might be comfy; they might be supremely easy to find in black. Still, there was no denying that they were sexy, and she didn’t do sexy. Not casually, anyway, not so she’d find herself walking through the parking lot with the Andy’s and Dominic’s of the world trailing behind her like lost baby ducks.
These were pink. Hot pink. They were a megaphone for a cry for attention. She looked killer in them, true. They fit not even like a second skin, but a first, so tight it compressed her flesh and settled in its place. In back it rode all the way up her crack, distractingly so, the shadows of that narrow valley making it the only dark spot in the pink landscape. It made her ass crack visible from a mile away. In the front the outline of her labia was totally visible despite the frilly pink g-string she wore beneath it. It was the only way she could keep a thin pad over her pussy to conceal her constant leaking (which intensified an order of magnitude whenever she got to thinking about her dice); even that, however, kept her camel toe in the public domain.
For a top, she’d kept it simple, but she was learning that even simple wasn’t cheap in hot girl fashion. It was sort of a retro 80’s look, a t-shirt so loose it completely missed one shoulder. It left an expanse of her stomach exposed, but more than that, an enormous portion of whichever boob was on the lowered side was out in view. Her strapless bra offered impressive support, enough lift that where her tits departed from her upper chest was plain as day. Moreover it ensured that her nipples would be kept out of sight. Of course, that meant anyone looking would get a good chance to see her bra instead, but so it went. If she tried to fix the drooping shoulder by centering her top, it only fell off on both sides, supported only by the widest part of the swell of her boobs. At that point, it would fall down to her ankles if she exhaled too deeply. The t-shirt was plain white excepting a big red heart with a crack down the middle. It looked suitably pathetic.
Of course, the first thing the boys would see was her face, and so Cynthia had made good and sure it would begin the tale of her transformation. What they would first notice, she had no idea, but the best odds were on her platinum blonde hair and the copper skin that now covered every inch of her body. Every inch. Even her nipples were less red now, more brown. It was all still sensitive to the touch, but whatever. The pain was the part of it all that she could most easily accept. As for her hair, it was done up in a mop of tight, near-white curls, the product so thick that it would look wet for the rest of the day. Then two huge gold hoops in her ears plus sparkly little stones in the other holes (don’t think of your sparkly dice, don’t come in your panties, don’t think of your sparkly dice), a thick layer of glossy, fire engine red lipstick to match her finger- and toenails, and… well, she supposed it was about the usual amount of makeup, but now it was pink and red rather than black.
All that, plus a teensy Hello Kitty backpack to keep her D&D books in. It was too small even for her, and forced her to thrust her chest forward whenever it was on. Lastly, the tray in her hands, which she thrust forward after knocking on Bobby’s door.
The peephole darkened a moment before the door opened. “I made these for you!” she sang before he could get a word in. Her voice had never in her life been so… merry.
Bobby awkwardly accepted the tray, lifting the foil covering to get a glimpse of the brownies inside. “Um, thanks. I’m sorry, my name’s Bobby. Are you new in the building, or…?”
Cynthia laughed. “I know your name, silly. Don’t you recognize me?” She spun in place. Not even when her back was to him did she dare let her gleaming smile fade. (It was freshly whitened too, which, without dental insurance, had cost her a week’s income.) 
His eyes sprang agog. “Cynthia…?!”
“Of course! Who else?” She leaned back on her heels, then sprang upward, hands splayed to give it the tada! that much bouncing and jiggling deserved. Her tit nearly burst free of where she’d stuffed it into her bra.
“What did you…” The boy slapped his forehead, laughing. “Oh my god, this is nuts. I never would have imagined… But no.” He forced himself to look serious again, though the grin was still in his eyes. “They said no. We said no. You had your shot and you blew it. You can’t buy your way back in with brownies.” He tactfully avoided mentioning her other bribe, though it was far more obvious and far far more of an investment on her part.
“That was Cynthia, though. You can call me Cindy.” she said, waving off his concern like it was a normal case of mistaken identity. Had her voice risen? Fuck, she was even talking like Sintheigha now. Maybe even higher. Oh well. Hopefully this boy liked it enough to let her in. She’d talk any way he liked to get at those dice.
For a moment, it dawned on her that this was the kind of behavior that ended in multiple personality disorders. She sure felt like she was going insane. 
(Were the dice in there? They had to be. She could feel them.)
Um, what had she been thinking? Whatever. Not important.
“I always thought you seemed more like a Cindy. Still, whatever you want to go by, you’re still you. I think Brent really will bail on me permanently if I vouch for you again.” No sense suggesting Andy would do the same. With her tits bursting out like this, he’d take her back no problem, so long as he could still bully her.
“He threw me out because I was being a little bitch, which I for sure won’t do any more.” She nodded seriously. “And because he thought I was teasing you. Leading you on but never… you know.” It wasn’t hard letting that hunger shine in her eyes. She’d dreamt of submitting to this boy every night for the past eight nights, pleasured herself ten times a day reliving it in her imagination. It was disgusting, and degrading, but she wasn’t some Evelyn who thought sex and relationships were always supposed to be fairy tales, everything sweet and kissy and consensual.
His hands went to his hips. “I thought you were with Dominic now.”
Fuck. She’d figured her “boyfriend” would blab, but still, it would’ve been nice if he’d kept his stupid mouth shut. Worse, Bobby was the sort of do-gooder who’d be mad if he thought she was using his friend to get to him, even if the friend was barely an acquaintance and, ya know, he got to fuck her for the small price of a betrayal. 
Not that she was ready to fuck him yet. Obviously.
“I’m not so sure it’s going to work out between him and me, actually,” she said, trying her hardest to sound like it pained her. “He’s a sweet guy and all, and I thought maybe if I could find a nice boy, someone like you, it would help me forget how I blew my shot at the real thing.”
Bobby’s cheeks flushed at the heaped-on layers of obsequious flattery. That seemed to work. One could never go wrong by appealing to a boy’s ego, no matter how little right to it he might have. She wasn’t all the way there, though. He was still blocking the door, still holding that key from her dreams. 
Bobby’s hands slowly went to his hips, though he did a pathetic job of looking stern even when he wasn’t drowning in a beautiful woman’s sycophancy. “Look, no offense, but how do I know this isn’t some attempt to get your hands on my dice?”
MY DICE!!! 
Cindy actually startled herself with how violently that thought came, stumbling back a step as she reined herself in. Not hers, not yet. Soon! But not yet. “Oops, I’m sorry. Clumsy old me – still learning to walk in these things.” She shrugged, and that time her tit definitely escaped her bra, if not her lopsided neckline, thankfully. “Come on, Bobby. Do you really think I’d do all this just for some silly dice?” I’m SO sorry, dice. Please ignore what I just said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love them. They’re beautiful. More than that, I love them because you got them for me. I was only thinking of myself and how much I liked them and not how thoughtful it was of you to find the perfect present for me. But I get it now. And I want to show you how grateful I am.”
The tiniest of gleeful giggles escaped from Bobby’s throat. Almost like he knew she was performing for him, that this whole setup was nothing more than her prostituting herself for dice. “Cindy, sweetie, I don’t know. We’re starting at 2. The guys are gonna log in soon, and there will be hell to pay if you’re here, plain and simple.”
Cindy took a step closer. Still trying to block her from his apartment, he had no choice but to abandon his post or let her close the gap. “So… that gives us ten whole minutes to have some fun before they show up, yeah?”
“I, um, need to set up…”
Another step. Her prominent breasts were pressed firmly against his less-prominent ones. “Pleeeease, Bobby? Just for a few minutes before you start?”
“Cindy…” 
All this, and still he dragged his feet, played hard to get. If there was one thing Cynthia despised in a person, it was playing hard to get. Either reject someone, or don’t. Twist the knife if you need to, but keep things honest, be real with people. It was these kinds of coy, petty games that had kept her single through most of high school.
Cindy shuddered as she imagined what her ex-boyfriend Iain would say if he could see her pathetic, Barbie bitch self right now. They used to practice putting out their cigarettes on their tongues. Now she’d thrown out every ciggy she owned and was shrouded in a mist of cloying perfume. This was beneath her. This was beneath anyone.
So yeah. She could accept Bobby’s judgment, leave the group, and go back to her life. A life she had worked hard to cultivate the way she liked it. Dye her hair back, let this hideous golden tan fade, slip back into her bleak, standoffish wardrobe, and find somebody else to game with. They were only… dice. Only dice. Nothing more than sublime, transcendent, life-affirming, primally satisfying to hold, as dark as the void and as candescent as the night sky, and… What had she been thinking?
Oh right. Dice. Ony… dice. (There. The thought was hard to form.) 
So yeah, she could salvage what was left of her dignity, hunt down that son of a bitch Dominic and systematically ruin his life, and when Brent and Andy got home for the summer in a few weeks, double ruin theirs. The more she thought on it, the better it sounded. She deserved revenge for what they’d said to her, made her do. Or if they hadn’t “made” her do it, for pressuring her into making stupid cunt decisions. See how Andy’s swagger fared when she smashed in his window in the middle of the night and threw a bag full of snakes into his bedroom. She knew where to find some. See what happened to Brent’s social standing at his preppy little Christian college after she drugged him and carved a cross into his forehead, turn him into a little Harry Potter Jesus bitch boy.
Bobby plainly expected she was about to kiss him. He was even twisting his head to the side in readiness. Hard to get mother fucker. Only… as he turned his head, it gave her a window over his shoulder, and there on the bookshelf behind him was a small metal container.
The dice tin.
Cindy gasped, and threw her mouth against his. The boy squealed in alarm at her ferocity, but she clamped her hand down on the back of his head and held him there until he relaxed enough to slide her tongue into his mouth. Then she held him even tighter.
It was objectively repulsive. She wasn’t attracted to Bobby. Cynthia – Cindy – was in fact actively unattracted to him. Not physically, not socially, and certainly the recent shift in their shared history had soured anything that ever might have been. The only thing she had ever really liked about him was his creativity and enthusiasm and engagement as a DM, but look how he’d destroyed that in a few short weeks. All he had left to recommend him were those dice.
As she drove him backwards until he landed awkwardly in the armchair he sat at during their sessions, Cindy told herself it was only for dice. As soon as she’d made out with him enough to earn the rest, she’d be done here, and never come back.
Surely making out with him would earn her an extra die today. It had to. Right? So long as she kept her stupid mouth shut and didn’t let him realize what she was really after, didn’t expose her weakness again. Lately it had felt like she was nothing but exposed weakness. Exposed lots of things, really.
Cindy settled onto her DM’s lap sideways, her lips not leaving his for an instant during the transition. She was even closer to the dice now, and she prayed to all the goddesses of the abyss that he couldn’t feel how insanely wet she was getting. The pad had to be doing its job. She’d have to find an excuse to nip off to the bathroom and remove it before long so, in case she let him at her pussy, he wouldn’t find–
Wait, no. Let him at her pussy? No way was she going anywhere near that far!
Not a bad idea to remove the pad, though, still.
Like far too much of a gentleman, Bobby settled one hand on her hip and the other gently atop her thigh. They didn’t squeeze, didn’t pinch, didn’t so much as rub her. It was more like he needed a place to set his hands and her legs happened to provide the most comfortable options. That was fine. Cindy had no particular desire to be groped by this pudgy dork. If he was content to have a hot blonde until-recently-goth babe on his lap kissing him, she wasn’t about to ask for more. She could see his oven clock over his shoulder in the kitchen, grease smears blurring but not concealing it, and saw she only had another five minutes to go before the session started and she was officially here for it so why not let her play and sorry about last week by the way and I made brownies for everybody so if yours haven’t arrived at your dorms yet they will soon and by the way do you think I look cute boys? Ugh. Just bide her time, put up with the taste of whatever potato chips Bobby had wolfed down for lunch for five little– 
“Hey, before I forget, do you want your dice?” he asked when she was pausing for air.
As her pussy spasmed like it was hosting a dozen vibrators, Cindy moaned. Loudly. More a howl, really. If she had ever had a shot at denying her desire to hold those dice, she’d blown it in the first microsecond. Oh fuck, she’d squeezed her tits, too; Bobby had definitely seen how she’d escaped that half of her bra. No sense fixing it now. No sense trying to salvage any of the shattered fragments of her self-respect.
“Yes, please,” she said meekly.
“All right, go fetch them then, Cindy.” He patted her butt, prompting.
She didn’t even care about the condescension in his tone. Not much, anyway. Asshole. She was out of the chair and lunging for the shelf where the dice tin was kept. Bobby didn’t even look surprised that she knew right where to find it; he just watched her greedily tear the lid off, and then fall into slow motion as she oh-so-delicately withdrew the two dice she had thus far earned. The d4 dug sharply into her palm as she clenched her fist around them.
Bobby clicked his tongue at her, and she hastily obeyed his summons back to his lap. Only this time, she climbed aboard straddling his crotch, grinding herself against it fervently. The leggings practically negated friction. Cindy hated to admit that it actually felt pretty great. Or it would have, if the cock gliding between her labia weren’t Bobby’s. Bobby, who gave her the dice.
“You like those, huh?” Still his hands went to hips, not her ass. Why wouldn’t he squeeze her ass? It was begging for a man to squeeze it in these slutty hot pink leggings. Begging. Please. Touch me. Let me earn more!
She grinded her sopping cunt on him faster, the points of her dice pressing so hard into her palms it was painful. Oh god, she was already coming. (Again? Had she come already?) Her whole body quivered against him as she rode the high. Every single bit of it had been worth it. The hair, the tan, the clothes, the makeup, the cum plastered all over her face behind that Friendly’s dumpster–
Cindy came again. 
“Oh FUCK,” she groaned, her hands trying to intercede between their respective genitals to get his zipper down. There could be another die on the line. So worth it. Better than her dreams. Better even the one where Bobby walked her on a leash down the halls of their old high school, walked her to work, to her other work, to meet her parents and his, to where he tied her off to a parking meter while he popped into the grocery store and let strangers come and pet her and give her treats.
Cindy came again. Louder still. She must have been making more noise than she’d thought, because the downstairs neighbor was already banging on the ceiling.
“Holy fuck! Did… Bobby, did you get a fucking hooker?! Damn, son!” Mere seconds later she heard a startled exclamation from Brent as he signed in, no less punctual. Andy reiterated his delight at the discovery immediately. “Dude, look, Bobby got hisself a working girl, dude! A fucking hot one, too! What’s your rate, baby?”
Slowly, Cindy’s head came back down onto her shoulder and she pivoted awkwardly to look to the TV screen, where Brent and Andy’s webcams showed them staring with utter shock and open lust, respectively. “Damn, you got some nice titties, hooker chick!” Andy guffawed as Cindy remembered that at some point she’d lifted her shirt and rammed her tits in Bobby’s face. Still one tit in the bra, one tit out, but both as golden as the rest of her skin. His hands were still demurely on her hips; he’d never made a single move on her.
“Um, guys, this is… Cindy,” Bobby announced, leaning around the side of her protruding boob to show his face to the camera. 
She hoped her stupid tan made her blushing less obvious. Even so, somehow, from some deep reservoir of discipline that could only be the place in her soul where those dice had nested, she managed to look to the webcam… and smile.
“Hi, boys! Sorry, you weren’t supposed to see all that.” She waved, beaming, and only then put her tits away. And rolled her Fort save not to die of shame.