It took me longer than it probably should have to realize that Kenzie's parents were more appalled at my shirtlessness than the idea that I'd defiled their daughter. By the time I'd noticed they were concerned with my nipples being out, it'd nearly been a whole minute, and by then I couldn't exactly just cover them up and say "oops." It probably looked to them like I was some cheap whore their daughter had picked up for a night of fun than anything else, and my rather blasé attitude about my exposed chest likely only further cemented that idea.
"Kenzie, who is this?" her father asked sternly, gesturing at me dismissively as he glared at us with judging eyes. By his composure alone, I could tell exactly who wore the pants in the family.
"Dad, I swear, I—I can explain—" Kenzie stuttered, trying to shield me with one arm as she desperately attempted to plead her case to her father. It was funny, being the protected instead of the protector, as I'd always expected to be. Almost cute, in a way. But by the way Kenzie was struggling to explain herself, repeatedly tripping over her own words, she was only going to make it worse for the both of us.
But that wasn't an issue. I could speak for myself.
"Hi, sorry for intruding," I greeted them both, slipping out from under the blanket and picking my shirt off the ground. "I'm Jason. This is Kenzie's and my second date. She's been wonderful; I've had a great time with her. Her cooking's fantastic, too, but I'm sure you already know that."
"O-oh," her father stuttered, caught off-guard by either my response or the fact that I didn't care about being shirtless in front of my apparent girlfriend's parents. I wasn't sure which. "I, uh…"
"It's…nice to meet you, Jason," Kenzie's mom greeted me, not nearly as hostile as her husband, but still giving her daughter some side-eye. "I'm Mrs. Raymond. Mackenzie hasn't mentioned you before."
"Nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Raymond. It's kind of a recent thing," I returned sheepishly, having turned to face her after slipping my shirt back on. "Again, sorry you had to see that."
Mrs. Raymond smiled, accepting my apology as she studiously ignored her husband's glare. "Eh, don't worry about it. We were all teenagers once."
Mr. Raymond smacked his wife on the shoulder lightly, which had me doing a double take. I knew men and women were different here, but the casual physical violence against a woman was still not something I was prepared for. "Listen to yourself, Callie! This boy we've never met is in our home, sleeping with our daughter! What if he has STDs? What if he's a prostitute?"
What?
Culture shock was coming in hot today, apparently.
"Relax, honey, I'm sure it's nothing like that," Mrs. Raymond placated her husband, wrapping her arm around him and rubbing his shoulder gently with her thumb. "Besides, a prostitute wouldn't apologize to a client's parents like this. He probably would've tried to jump out the window or something if that was the case."
"Yeah, but a baby-trapper might," Mr. Raymond grumbled.
"Well, we can always ask," Callie shrugged.
"How will we know he isn't lying?" Her husband asked pointedly.
"I'm good at reading people," Kenzie's mom stated confidently. "Hey, Kenzie, how'd you and Jason meet?"
While Kenzie's parents were arguing about me like I wasn't right in front of them, I tried to make myself useful by picking up my new lover's pants off the floor and bringing them over to her, so that way she didn't have to remain bottomless on her living room couch in front of her parents, with only a blanket to cover her modesty.
"He, uh, he was a customer at my job. He was looking to buy a game, so I recommended him one. Then he asked me out to lunch," Kenzie admitted, before whispering a thank-you to me as I passed her jeans to her.
"Oh, wow, he asked you out?" Kenzie's mom asked, somewhere between impressed and suspicious.
"I did," I confirmed, partially shielding my date from her parents' view as she clumsily attempted to shimmy her pants back on under the blanket.
"What made you decide to ask her out?" her father asked me, far less impressed than her mother.
I shrugged, deciding to be honest. "It just kinda happened, honestly. I was looking for a place to get lunch, asked her if she knew any good places to eat, she recommended a place, and it turned into a date."
"And you decided to start the hanky-panky on the second date," Mr. Raymond drawled sardonically, eyebrow raised.
…Am I being slut-shamed?
I probably should've expected this at some point, but it still kinda threw me for a loop. Should probably get used to it, though—I expect I'll be hearing more of it in the future. Especially if I end up deciding to try and build a pride.
I was still a little iffy on that, in all honesty. A harem sounded nice and all, and it sounded fun on paper, but forcing two or more women that didn't like each other to try and get along for my sake was bound to cause problems. I'd probably have to make sure every girl I dated had at least some common interests beforehand.
"I dunno. I like her. And she cooked for me," I shrugged helplessly, not entirely sure where I was going with this. "I feel like it'd be kinda mean to just come over, eat her food and dip. Feels like I'd just be taking advantage of her at that point."
Mr. Raymond didn't seem too convinced by my argument, but Callie nodded along, shrugging her shoulders in a what-can-you-do kind of fashion when her husband glared at her.
"I mean, the kid's got a point," Kenzie's mom defended herself.
"Thank you," I smiled appreciatively.
Her husband did not appreciate that.
"Well, I should probably get going. My parents are gonna be worried about me if I stay out too late," I told them, not wanting to stick around for the fight that would almost inevitably blow up between the two. "Sorry for intruding."
I turned around and gave Kenzie an affectionate kiss on the forehead, running my hand through her hair fondly before quietly wishing her good luck dealing with her parents, and telling her to check her pockets when they were done lecturing her. She laughed at that a bit, her cheeks still stained a splotchy red.
Walking myself to the door, I turned around just before letting myself out, casually double-checking my pockets to make sure I had everything as I bid everyone in the house goodbye.
"Nice meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond!" I flashed a smile at them as I opened the door before giving Kenzie the universal call-me sign, saying "So long," as I closed the door behind me and headed back to my car to drive myself home.
It was probably for the best, honestly. If I had stayed too long, my parents would've gotten suspicious.
As expected, Kenzie's parents hadn't been too happy with her. They hadn't kicked her out or anything for it, luckily, but they had forced her to clean up the living room and the kitchen. I apologized about leaving her to take care of it all on her own, since it was kind of my fault that she ended up in that situation, but she told me not to worry about it, and that it wasn't a big deal. But I still felt bad, and since she was such a good sport about it all, I decided to reward her with my best attempt at a risqué shirtless pic, using my finger to cover my nipples in the mirror like those thirst trap pictures I'd seen on social media back home. I wore my pants just low enough to show off my hips and lower abdominal taper (which was only really visible because of the lighting, but I'd take what I could get) without explicitly showing my dick on camera, but still managed to capture the outline of my dick bulging under the waistband, leaving very little to the imagination. I was a little nervous about sending it to her, just because I hadn't ever intentionally tried to do a sexy pose like this before. I was also hoping she'd keep it to herself and not spread it around.
That wasn't enough to keep me from hitting the send button, though. I just made sure to crop out my face first.
Unsurprisingly, the picture was a smash hit. I honestly don't even know why I was worried. She tried to play it off, just saying I was beautiful and that she appreciated it, but I knew that she was probably gonna rub one out to it as soon as she was physically able.
I considered sending another, but ultimately decided that one was enough, and turned to my homework that was due Monday: History.
My favorite.
Claire's tutoring had been going well, but there was still so much information I was missing, and all my classes built upon that knowledge base that I was supposed to have, but didn't. So, most of the time, I was lost in class and just had to take notes on whatever the teacher said, and then look up a basic overview of the subject's broader context online to fill in the gaps. It definitely wasn't perfect, and I was still struggling in class, but it helped a lot, and gave me a decent starting point for my study sessions—assuming we studied for long enough for me to actually learn something and didn't just fuck for three hours straight. As much as I liked the sex, though, I did actually need to pass my class.
I was basically using the same methodology for my current assignment: looking up a few summaries on the period we were assigned to write a paper on over the weekend.
Unfortunately for me, that paper was on ancient China. Not my best subject back in my home world, let alone the fucking clown fiesta of a planet I currently lived on. At this point, I half-expected everything in ancient times to be solved through sex, but as it turned out, their history was just as bloody as it was in my world—at least in ancient times. After quickly skimming over my world history textbook and a couple online summaries detailing the military campaigns and social conditions of the various classes, I had gathered enough to cobble together a paper that was probably worthy of a passing grade. Honestly, having no original knowledge of the subject probably helped, since I didn't have any incorrect prior knowledge to accidentally put to paper. I imagine some of the stuff I'd thought to be normal from my world's history classes would get some serious raised eyebrows from my teacher if I accidentally put them in my essays in this one.
Also, something interesting I'd learned during online research: in ancient China, men with small penises were apparently preferred, as large ones were considered "vulgar" and "barbaric."
Now that I think about it, was there a Genghis Khan equivalent in this world? Were they a woman?
Eh, I was probably assuming too much. Our histories weren't one-to-one, so it was entirely possible that the Mongol empire just never came into power. Besides, a woman sleeping with every male conquest would likely just be constantly pregnant in the home and not out waging war. I couldn't imagine raiding a village on horseback was very feasible during the third trimester.
However, the thought that such a strange trait was once desirable in other cultures sent me down a rabbit hole researching what physical traits were most desirable worldwide, in both men and women. Not at all helpful in regards to my assignment, I know, but it was far more interesting than what I was actually supposed to be researching.
In men, the trend over the past half century or so had been very thin, waifish men, practically skin and bone, but the trend in the US had recently shifted to preferring guys with larger thighs and asses, with multiple rap songs on the radio mentioning how they like to grab the guy's cheeks while they suck his dick or use his thighs as cushions while they fucked.
The music videos did a very good job putting a visual to their lyrics.
South America also favored these…thicker body types on men, and seemingly always had, but in Asia, they still preferred men on the slimmer side. Perhaps not quite waifish, but a lot of their models were consistently of more modest builds.
Conversely, however, a lot of female models were tall, lithe and toned, almost reminding me of Olympic swimmers from my world. Obviously athletic, but the kind built for endurance rather than pure explosive strength. And in a completely different turn of events, excessively large asses were considered unattractive on a woman—even in America. Surprising, considering that I'd heard even a nice ass on a guy was attractive to women in my home world—to say nothing of homosexual men.
The reason given was that too much ass or thigh meat could prevent a woman from taking a guy all the way to the base, thus not being able to please him properly, and the extra weight on him while being ridden could be uncomfortable for the guy. Thus, toned asses were most valued here. I thought that was a really stupid reason until I remembered that most people were fucking cowgirl-style here.
No wonder Kenzie was flaunting her ass.
Of course, wide hips were still universally attractive, since that meant it was easier to birth strong kids without issues or long recovery times. Tits, however, were judged by their perkiness rather than their pure size. Having a flat chest wasn't particularly valued, but if a lady's breasts were too large to, then she was considered fat. Perky tits showed athleticism, however, which seemed to be the defining characteristic for women's attractiveness here. Apparently, that value could be traced all the way to ancient Greece, since the Olympics were so culturally important and women with larger breasts couldn't run as fast or jump as high.
Of all the history I would learn, it would be this information that stuck with me the longest.
Go figure.
Getting back to my actual assignment was far more difficult after such an entertaining tangent. I could feel my eyes glaze over as I skimmed the article I was reading, just completely uninterested in any of it. I understood the basics well enough, but converting it into a paper that made it sound like I had actually studied the topic at some point was just really fuckin' annoying. Like, I get it. The Yellow Turban Rebellion caused chaos, Han dynasty lost most of their territory, warlords (warladies?) fought each other over territory, Dong Zhuo rose to control Han dynasty, General Lü Bu Fengxian…turned on Dong Zhuo and dueled her to the death over the hand of her consort?
Maybe there is something interesting here.
Looking back at the assignment, my teacher's notes only said to talk about the impacts of the Han dynasty's fall. Didn't mention to who or what. Maybe I could get some points talking about some of the individual figures rather than just the broader view.
Besides, my history teacher this year was a guy. That probably meant he was a sucker for romance, right?
Hopefully I wasn't being overly assumptive already. I hadn't even been here for a month.
With newfound focus, I absorbed as much as I could about the relationships between Lü Bu and her various allies from the various articles and entries I found on her, and was able to bang out a few pages detailing the various relationships of the big power players of the time, how they evolved, and somehow managed to bring it to a semi-coherent point about how many personal and romantic relationships shaped the events and outcome of the Three Kingdoms Period. Whether or not it was a good point was debatable, since I'd definitely skewed some of the perspectives from the articles to try and aggrandize my thesis, but it was hopefully enough to get me a good grade.
I closed out the essay, having grown sick of staring at it all night, and cracked open Discord to see a new message from Juniper_Crown from a couple hours ago, asking if I was free tonight. Quickly typing back an apology for the late reply, I told her I was free now, if she was still available. I didn't expect her to be up this late at night, even if it was a Saturday, but as soon as I sent the message, her icon lit up and she immediately started typing back.
To be honest, I was kinda glad I hadn't seen her initial message right away. If I had, I don't think I would have gotten any work done on my essay.
[Juniper_Crown: Wanna play some WF? The other girls aren't on tonight tho, so it would be just u and me]
[CorvidKnight: Sure, sounds good.]
Booting up the game, I waited for her to call me for a second, before remembering that she probably wasn't all that comfortable with calling me out of the blue, especially after our little e-session last week. I understood, of course. It was a little awkward to try and hang out like nothing happened after we literally masturbated to each other on video the week before. That kind of thing changes a relationship. It leaves a tension between people, and no matter how hard we might try to ignore it, it would still be there.
So, bracing for the inevitable awkwardness, I hit call.
Juniper picked up immediately, still adjusting her headphones, if the velvety static coming though the call was any indication.
"Hello?"
"Hey," I greeted her genially, still waiting for the game to load. I hadn't touched it at all this week, with how much I had been trying to catch up on studying history in my free time, so I was still on the same questline I had been stuck on for…however long I'd been putting it off. At least a few months, at this point. "How've you been?"
"I've been good," she responded hesitantly. A popup on my screen informed me that she had just logged onto the game as well. "Work's been kinda slow, but it usually is around this time."
"Oh, what do you do for work?" I asked as I sent her an invite, gratefully latching onto the easy conversation topic I'd just been handed.
"I'm a web developer," she said, accepting the invite and joining my party. "I thought I already told you that."
"Oh, I must've forgotten, sorry. Sounds cool, though," I did my best to express interest, despite my relative lack of knowledge regarding what they did. "Is it an easy job?"
"Uh, sometimes, I guess."
"Gotcha," I nodded. "You enjoy it?"
Juniper let out a hum of indifference. "It pays the bills."
Apparently not. Though, I doubted many jobs were truly enjoyable. Decent pay and bearable coworkers were probably the most one could ask for when looking for a career.
I hummed sympathetically, nodding despite the fact that she couldn't see me. "Well that's good, at least."
An awkward silence pressed down on us for a second, and I wasn't sure how to continue the conversation, but Juniper changed the subject before it became too uncomfortable. "…You have any missions you need help with?"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing, actually," I told her, only being partially truthful. "But if you're fine with helping me catch up, I still need to do the Hidden Messages quest. You down?"
"Yeah, I'd be happy to help," she agreed graciously, which admittedly put a little smile on my face. The questlines in this game were kinda tedious, and replaying them was usually even more so, so I appreciated that she was willing to trudge through it again for me.
"Cool, thanks," I told her as I loaded up the quest.
The conversation was a little stilted as we ran through the first couple missions, but we eventually settled into a decent rhythm, becoming more comfortable with each other and cracking a few jokes as time went on. The missions were pretty braindead, as most side quests were, which meant we had a lot more room to shoot the shit and talk about other things, but that also meant she was able to ask a bunch of personal questions that I wasn't quite willing to answer. I wasn't ashamed or anything, but the fact that I was still in high school meant that I didn't have a lot of answers to questions like what I did for a living, or what my favorite alcoholic drinks were. Her boss had apparently given her a bottle of very good scotch as a Christmas present, so she'd been having some of that on the weekends.
My only experience with alcohol, on the other hand, had been pilfering a beer from the fridge once while my parents were out, learning that it tasted terrible, and promptly throwing it out.
I kept my answers vague, consistently changing the subject back to her or to other hobbies that we might have in common, only to learn that we didn't have quite as many as I thought. She wasn't much of a reader, which I assumed she would be, since she was older, but apparently, being a web designer meant that she was staring at pages and emails often enough that her vision would go blurry whenever she tried to read anything for too long. Instead, she enjoyed painting figurines and building mecha models, and had apparently even won a small art competition for one of her figures. She was hesitant to show it to me when I asked, though, so I didn't press it.
She had also played MMOs and RPGs through her teens, of which she cycled through many as she got older, and while she no longer ground them out late into the night like she did in her teenage years, she still kept up with the latest and greatest new releases. I had asked her what the difference was between reading a book and reading all the text in an RPG was, since there was nearly as much to read in an RPG as there was in a novel, to which she replied that there was usually voice acting and animation in the newer ones, so it was easier to keep up with the story, but I still thought she was just making excuses and had never actually tried reading any books before.
We eventually got onto the topic of gacha games, since she liked RPGs. I asked her if she played any, at which point she stuttered a bit, clearly hesitant to answer, which only made me tease her further until she eventually admitted she did, then immediately went on the defensive, saying she and only played the ones that were either based on other franchises she already liked or had crossover events with them, and didn't play any of the "really weird ones."
I had very little experience with gacha games myself, and had only just recently started playing one of the most popular ones back in my world before waking up in this one, where that game didn't exist, so I had quickly forgotten about it. I hadn't thought to check what kind of gacha games were popular here, but I had seen enough ads for them while scrolling through social media to have an idea of what kind of "weird ones" she was talking about.
Though, how they did the fanservice with guys was something I'd have to look into. Maybe I could gain some insight and copy some of their tricks; maybe even do some cosplay with them.
That's certainly an idea.
"Why not?" I asked, causing her character in the game to suddenly stop moving.
"What—what do you mean 'why not?'" Juniper sounded out, almost as if she suspected she was being walked into some kind of trap.
"Why don't you play the 'weird ones?'" I clarified.
"…They're…weird?"
Juniper apparently wasn't following.
"Huh," I intoned. Maybe they were weird in a different way than I was expecting. "Alright."
"That…what? That's it?" she asked, bewildered.
"Yeah," I shrugged.
"…Okay then," she eventually decided. "Why'd you ask?"
"I dunno," I shrugged. "I heard the 'weird ones' usually have really good stories or something." Or at least, that was how guys back home defended them. Some would even say they wished they had all the weird fanservice elements taken out so they could just enjoy the story or whatever. I doubted that, given how the games were advertised, but if they had good plots, then I guess that was why people stuck with it once the softcore porn aspects started to lose their luster. "Also, are they really that weird? It's just like, fanservice and skimpy outfits, right? People just like to whine about it online?"
"Well, kinda. People sometimes complain about how the guys are all really unrealistic looking or too slutty, but I think that's just kinda always a part of games like these, so if you like Eastern RPGs, there isn't really any avoiding that. Some are better than others about it, though," she explained, not realizing how much she was giving away with such a statement.
"Right, right," I agreed lightly, smiling to myself all the while. "So which one's your favorite?"
"Oh, it's—" she cut herself off. A beat of silence stretched into two as she realized exactly what she had just admitted to.
I'd bet money she was blushing furiously right now.
"I knew it!" I sing-songed smugly as she desperately tried to defend herself.
"No, no, no, shut up, it's not like that, it's not like that! You tricked me! That's not what I meant, and you know it!" she stammered out, mortified at being so easily baited into admitting she played the fanservicey games that she initially denied having ever tried.
"Uh-uh, you said it~" I teased her, grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
"No, that's not—urrgh!" she growled, before pulling off her headphones and putting them down on the desk, still grumbling faintly through her mic.
I patiently waited for her to put her headset back on before I asked my next question.
"So, which one's your favorite?" I asked smugly, chin nestled in my palm.
A defeated sigh reverberated through my headphones.
"I—can we please just move on?" she pleaded, her shame palpable. I had to imagine her head was in her hands at this point.
"Alright, alright," I backed off, sparing her from being relentlessly teased for the rest of the night—on one condition. "But you gotta tell me which one you play most. And be honest."
Juniper hesitated for a second, probably debating on whether or not to tell the truth, before eventually coming clean. "It's, uh, Scarlet Grimoire."
"Never heard of it," I admitted shamelessly.
"Wha—oh."
I had never heard someone go from completely apprehensive to absolute deadpan that quickly. I had to physically stop myself from bursting out laughing.
"It's—it's not really anything special or crazy or anything, it's just something to play when I don't have anything to do at the office—" she tried to downplay, but I interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.
"How much money have you spent on it?" I interjected, tabbing over to my browser and looking up the game. It looked like a relatively standard gacha game with a visual novel story about homunculus mage boys defending fantasy cities and strongholds against the demonic forces of the abyss, all of whom dressed pretty damn skimpily, with jiggling thighs and crotches and swaying chests of various sizes, and all assumedly wanted to hop on the player's dick as soon as they met—or rather, in the player's pussy, I supposed.
Nothing especially surprising, just some blatant softcore porn with some auto-farming gameplay. I couldn't say it really appealed to me, but it did help me determine what features most blatantly ignited the lusts of this world's women.
Something curious I noticed was that none of the homunculi were ever super ripped or anything. No abs, no crazy biceps or shoulders, nothing like the coveted Greek God physiques I remembered from back home. Some of the characters had the defined vertical line running down their stomachs, but I couldn't find anyone with super-defined abdominals. Usually, games like these had at least one muscle mommy archetype, as token representation if nothing else, but I didn't see anything like that while scrolling through the character list on the game's wiki. The only muscles of any impressive size on any of the in-game characters were on the chest and thighs—though still not quite the rippling, defined muscles of top athletes or bodybuilders. There was just enough meat on them to bounce and sway enticingly when running or performing other strenuous activity (which obviously included casting their spells), though the artists had done a great job of making them all look pleasingly grabbable, even to me.
But why specifically the chest and legs, and not other muscles like arms or abs or back?
Could guys just not bulk up in certain areas? Did the inversed effects of testosterone and estrogen apply to muscle growth as well?
"Uh…like, recently?" Juniper asked hesitantly, interrupting my train of thought.
By her tone of voice, I could tell she had an idea of exactly how much she had spent, and she was not proud of it.
"Nah, lifetime," I answered. "Also, how long's the game been out?"
She hissed through her teeth in shame. "Shit, lifetime? Uh…I don't think it's hit a thousand yet, but I'm not too far off. Probably around eight hundred? And the game's been out for about three years."
"You been playing it since launch?"
"Just since year two."
Damn. Four hundred bucks a year on a mobile game was kinda nuts. I knew that some people spent way more, but to spend all that on a single game was still shocking. Made me glad I'd never gotten hooked on any of 'em.
"Wow, that much, huh? You think it's a good game, then? Should I try it?" I asked, a shit-eating grin stretching across my face. I just couldn't resist teasing her about it.
"Uhh…."
I could practically hear her sweating bullets through her mic.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," I told her, earning a small sigh of relief from her. "I doubt it's my kind of game anyway. Though I gotta admit, the character designs are…certainly something."
Her sigh of relief quickly turned into a groan of shame.
I snorted. "It's really not that big a deal. I get it, women like those kinds of things. I'm not gonna bust your balls about it or anything."
A moment of silence passed. "Bust my…?" she breathed into the mic.
Right. Gotta be more careful about my phrasing.
"Are the characters cosplayed much?" I asked, quickly shifting topic to avoid any questions.
"Uh, sometimes? I mostly only see them cosplayed online," she answered.
"Do the cosplayers do the, uh, proportions justice?" I followed up, unable to suppress the little laugh that bubbled up from my chest. Honestly, the proportions on these guys were insane. Was this how women felt whenever they saw some fat-titted, slim-waisted anime character?
Granted, I think the difference was more culture shock than anything. I knew many of the comic book physiques back home were obviously unachievable as well; it was just that these physiques being considered attractive was so foreign to me that it threw me for a loop seeing them.
"Not usually. I've seen a few that came close, but they probably had plastic surgery," Juniper admitted.
"Mm, yeah, probably." As I thought, those were the exaggerated hentai bodies of this world, and probably not physically achievable by most men. Though, I assumed those were the muscles that would naturally grow more in men if worked out—or where the fat was more commonly stored—so a less exaggerated version of this build was probably achievable by men here, just not by me. Even if I did nothing but squats and bench press, there were too many other muscle groups I would end up hitting by proxy.
Well, if I can't be a ten in looks, I can at least be a ten in enthusiasm.
And maybe some girls would end up digging the more athletic look—whatever it was called here. What was the girl version of tomboy? Lucygirl?
…Muscle daddy?
Yeah, I'm not gonna think about that.
"You think I could cosplay any of these guys?" I mused, scratching my chin as I scrolled back through the character list. None in particular stuck out to me, though I felt I could reasonably pass as a couple of them with enough effort and hair dye.
"Are you big into cosplaying?" Juniper asked curiously.
"Haven't really tried, honestly. I dressed up as a couple anime characters for Halloween when I was like thirteen, but those were just store-bought costumes," I admitted. "I wouldn't mind trying it out, but making a good costume from scratch seems like a lot of work, and I don't know how to sew or anything."
"Yeah, that's the hard part," she commiserated.
"What about you? You ever try it out?"
"I tried making a real detailed costume once, but it turned out pretty awful, so I scrapped it. I just go to cons in normal clothes, usually," she admitted.
"Really? You still have a pic of it?" I asked, curious to see if it was as bad as she said it was.
"Uhh…" she stalled, clearly unwilling to answer.
"Oh, you do? Come on, you've gotta show me," I half-demanded, half-pleaded.
"No way. Are you kidding?" she laughed. "That outfit licked. I only still have the photo because I forgot to delete it."
"I'm sure it's fine, just send it," I waved off her insecurities. Even if the outfit was bad, I didn't care; it would still be a pretty good picture of her, unless the outfit was one of those that covered everything and gave no clue as to what she actually looked like. From what I'd seen of her last week, I knew she had some massive tits, but that was about it.
"Mm, I think I'm good," she hedged.
"I'll send you a nude if you do," I shamelessly offered, upping the stakes.
She paused for a second, either shocked by my offer or suddenly considering it. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, why not?" She had already seen me naked once before at this point. What was the harm in a photo?
Well, I'd still crop my face out. I wasn't a complete idiot.
She mulled over my proposal silently, having long since abandoned the pretense of playing video games with me. It had been at least twenty minutes since we had run a mission, and given the trajectory of the conversation, I doubted we'd be playing another tonight.
"…Alright, sure," she eventually agreed, her voice dripping with thinly veiled anticipation. "Gimme a second, I gotta find the pic."
"Sure," I agreed easily, removing my shirt and shucking off my pants in preparation to take a photo for her. "I'll be a minute as well."
I adjusted the lights in my room until they were dim enough to see some definition, but not dark enough where they would conceal anything, posed in front of my adjacent bathroom mirror and took a few pics with my dick semi-hard before stroking it a bit to get it the rest of the way there and snapped a couple more. Once I had a good selection to pick from, I deleted the obviously subpar ones and flipped back and forth between the acceptable ones until I decided on which one looked best, cropped out everything above the edge of my chin and sent it right after putting my headset back on.
"Enjoy," I murmured flirtatiously into the mic as I hit the enter key.
"What, you already—" she started, but suddenly cut herself off as she saw the picture I sent her. "…Holy shit."
"I'll take my payment in subpar cosplay photos, thanks," I teased.
"…Yeah, just a sec," she mumbled distractedly, her mind clearly on other things at the moment.
Honestly, that reaction alone made the whole exchange worthwhile. Even if she hadn't sent me the photo, I don't think I would've gone to bed dissatisfied.
Luckily, she wasn't one to go back on a deal. I received the picture a few seconds later, and immediately opened it up to get a better look.
…Yeah, it's not great.
It wasn't awful, but it was clearly an amateur costume, most in line with a cheap cosplay outfit from one of those shitty international shipping sites. It looked to be some sort of fantasy military uniform, like a cross between ceremonial parade formals and a wizarding academy outfit, but it clearly didn't fit right, and a lot of the details were pretty haphazard, lacking a lot of the precision and tidiness required for such a uniform to actually look the part. The linework was off, the coat hung oddly off her shoulder, and the way it was hemmed made her look a bit fatter around the midsection than she actually was, but for a first attempt, it was honestly admirable. I don't think I would have done nearly as well on my first attempt. It was at least recognizable, and a lot of work had clearly gone into all the detail, even if it wasn't as clean as she probably hoped it would be.
I was probably a little biased, though, because the generous curves of her tits and thighs were very obvious, even under the baggy uniform. Juniper struck a beautiful balance of pleasingly thick without tipping into the "overweight" category, even with the uniform looking like it added fifteen pounds. It was like every bit of her excess fat just went to her breasts and legs. She looked almost exactly like the classic "best friend's mom" archetype in porn and hentai—a woman in her late twenties to early thirties who probably had a model body when she was younger, but had begun to let herself go after settling down, paradoxically making her even more attractive.
Unfortunately, she had also cropped her face out of the photo. A shame, but I had no room to complain, since I had done the same thing.
"Honestly, it's not bad," I told her. "I mean, I can see that a lot of effort went into it. 'Cause that looks like a ton of stitching. Was this your first time making your own outfit?"
"Huh—yeah, it was," she answered after a second. Apparently, she had long since checked out of this conversation.
"Hey, you can beat off to my nudes later, I'm still trying to have a conversation," I chided her teasingly.
Judging by the sudden silence on the other end of the call, I was right on the money.
"…Sorry," she apologized, her embarrassment audible.
"It's fine," I waved her off, not really caring either way. "I was just saying it's pretty good for a first attempt. I don't think I would've done half as well if I tried makin' a costume from scratch, so like, I don't know. Don't beat yourself up over it. If you still hate it, then there's always next time."
"I—yeah, I guess so," she admitted, seemingly mollified by my encouragement. At least, I hoped she was—it would be a shame for someone to just give up on a hobby because of a poor first attempt.
Also because I wanted to see this woman in other cosplays. Most female cosplay outfits here probably weren't all that revealing, assuming this outfit was more the norm than the exception, but even so, women in uniform were still hot. And it'd be even hotter seeing her take it off.
"So, you think I could cosplay as any of the characters in your game?" I playfully changed the subject, still curious as to what her answer would be.
"…Uhh," she mused, probably scrolling through the character page on the wiki, just as I was. "…It's hard to say, since you didn't show me your face. Maybe this guy, Alaric?"
She sent me a link to the character's article shortly after.
I could see where she was coming from. Alaric was proportionally similar to me, especially in the upper body, though his thighs and ass were definitely larger than mine. His hair was also neater than mine, and more reddish than black, but some hairspray and temporary dye could probably fix that, along with colored contacts for his gold eyes. The costume was intriguing, but not too complicated: just a low-cut tunic with a jacket cropped at the midriff and a cape that went down to his hips, conveniently showing off his ass and thighs that he somehow managed to squeeze into those form-fitting leather pants. The boots were neat, some kind of snakeskin, but his big, wide-brimmed witches' hat was definitely what drew my eye most, along with the gem-studded wooden staff he held.
"Mm. Might need to do some more squats if I want those pants to look like that on me," I joked.
"I'm sure they'll look good on you either way," Juniper immediately replied, clearly still appreciating my photo. "Even if you cosplayed him now, you'd get a ton of attention."
My cheeks became hot, despite myself. I hadn't expected such a quick compliment from the woman who'd been stuttering all night.
Just for that, I sent her another nude.
"…Oh," she audibly swallowed. "Uh, thanks. Again, you're really pretty."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," I smiled.
"I'll try and remember that," she said softly, probably more to herself than me.
A moment of silence passed between us. I yawned, my eyes feeling suddenly heavier than they were a few moments ago.
"Alright, I need to get to bed. I'm about to pass out in my chair here," I groaned, leaning forward in my chair and shutting the game down. "Thanks for playing, I had fun."
"Yeah, me too. I should probably get some sleep as well," she agreed. "I'll be busy tomorrow, but maybe we can do this again next week?"
"I can probably manage," I nodded. "Probably on Friday or something."
"Alright, I can do that," she agreed. "Have a good night, Cor."
"You too, Juniper. Enjoy the pictures."
I left the call and shut down my computer, hanging my headphones on my monitor before slipping into bed. I was tempted to get her to masturbate on call with me like last time, but after having sex with Kenzie earlier today and being accidentally blueballed by her, the prospect of finishing myself off with my hand seemed kinda disappointing. And I didn't want to use Juniper as a pseudo-rebound for my somewhat botched date, since that felt kinda disrespectful, so I figured it was best to just call it a night.
Plus, I had tutoring with Claire on Monday. I could definitely hold off until after that. She'd probably even appreciate how backed up I was.
I just had to make it through two hours of her tutoring me first.
I did not make it through two hours of tutoring.
The acute smack of flesh on flesh reverberated throughout Claire's room, punctuating every thrust as I pounded her into her bed. The heady scent of sex saturated the air, only serving to inflame my desire even further. I leaned in and kissed her passionately, adjusting my angle to thrust my dick even deeper inside her.
She had already come twice, but I wasn't finished yet.
Claire had tutored me legitimately for just over an hour before my patience finally ran out. I had been unable to pull my eyes from her sweater-bound tits even once. I did my best to otherwise pay attention to her lessons, but she eventually started getting distracted by the low-cut collar of my shirt that I was subconsciously fiddling with, and I immediately knew that neither of us were getting any more work done today.
"Fffuck, slow—ah!" she involuntarily squeaked as I gave her cervix a love tap with the tip of my dick. I slowly drew myself out of her folds before pushing all the way in again, drawing a shudder from her as she tried and failed to suppress her moans.
"No," I groaned lowly in her ear, grinding myself against her g-spot as I fucked her. She grabbed me tighter as I frantically fucked her, her hot pussy clamping down on my dick, making me involuntarily hum in pleasure. She had definitely gotten better at this. With every thrust, she flexed her walls to push back against me, shoving her hips into mine to maximize the friction between us, as if it were her life's mission to completely engulf my dick inside her and keep it there forever.
I couldn't tell if she was doing it to try and make me cum, or her.
I also wasn't sure which was hotter.
She redoubled her efforts, clearly close to cumming a third time, ensuring I felt every bump and fold of her insides on my dick every time I pulled back, sending shivers of pure pleasure down the back of my neck. Heat pooled in the base of my stomach, signifying my own release was close, so I slowed my momentum, dragging myself down and focusing on leveraging my length by pulling out all the way to the tip of her entrance before driving my dick all the way in, making her squeak every time I bumped her cervix, which clearly embarrassed her, by the way she tried to hide it by pressing her mouth into the crook of my neck.
"Mmph—wait, I'm—" she gasped out between hisses and moans of pleasure, almost completely overwhelmed by the sensation. Her wet jewel oozed even more fluid with every passing second. She was close. Her legs clamped around mine, refusing to let me pull out.
That was fine by me. I was perfectly happy to have us finish together.
"It's okay," I huffed in her ear, swinging my hips faster and faster. Her thighs jiggled with every impact. "I'm gonna cum too. Let's—hng—let's cum together."
Claire fucking lost it. She climaxed with a ragged wail, wrapping her arms around me and tensing up as her pussy clamped down and locked me inside her. A tidal wave of juices flooded her hot core and splashed all over my dick before overflowing completely, coating my abdomen and legs with the violent spray. Her orgasm sent me tipping over the edge just the same; I shoved my dick as deep as I could, hilting inside her as a burning, molten orgasm overtook me, and I poured what felt like an entire cup of semen directly into her needy womb.
For a moment, I forgot everything else as pure pleasure washed over us both. My entire world was reduced down to just us.
Our orgasms eventually subsided, and we collapsed into each other's arms, sweaty and out of breath. I rolled to one side, pulling her to my chest, allowing myself to feel her soft breasts against me. The way they swung wildly as I fucked her were certainly a sight to behold, but I liked them even better pressed comfortably against me like this, even if they were all sweaty and sticky. Her hand absentmindedly traced the ridges of my spine as I drank her in with my eyes, Appreciating every little curve of her body.
The fact that Claire was doing the same was a massive boost to my ego. I had to remember that she was just like me in that aspect, and she would find anyone willing to put out to be immediately more attractive. I wasn't some supermodel—not in this world or mine.
"…Do you want some water?" she asked after we both calmed down and had finished taking snapshots of each other's nude bodies.
I was just about to ask her that.
I thought for a second about counteroffering by asking her if she wanted me to bring her some instead, but then realized I didn't know where she kept the glasses, and stumbling around her kitchen naked and covered in fluids was probably a pretty bad idea—especially if her parents came home earlier than intended.
"I'd love some," I accepted graciously, my voice slightly raspy from all the exercise.
"Alright, sounds good. Just wait here, I'll be back in a minute," she smiled dreamily at me before carefully extracting herself from our embrace, then shakily standing up and walking over to the door, nearly losing balance on the way (which did some very nice things to her assets). I could see some of my cum begin to leak out from between her thighs just as she pulled on a pair of sweats and took left out the door.
Clearly, I'd done well.
Hopefully she doesn't trail my cum all the way across the house, though.
Either way, those sweatpants were beyond saving.
She came back a minute later with a tall glass of water, her sweatpants practically falling off her hips. I took the water from her gratefully and drank half the glass in a single swig, enjoying the sensation of the ice-cold water running down my throat and wetting my lips, before passing the rest back to her. She quickly drained the rest of the water and set the glass down on the nightstand before flopping back in bed with me and cozying up with me again. Her sweatpants fell to the floor as she did, exposing a long, sticky trail of our combined fluids that ran halfway down one leg, stopping just above her knee.
Hot.
I had a feeling I'd be ready for round two in no time.
After a few minutes of cuddling, Claire's expression slowly became more and more pensive. I didn't notice it immediately, since I was still a little out of it from fucking her that hard, and when I eventually did, I was about to ask her if something was the matter, but she beat me to the punch.
"Hey, could you be honest with me?" she asked, a furrow in her brow.
Well, that's not ominous.
"Yeah, what's up?" I agreed, trying to keep any rising apprehension off my face.
She hesitated for a second, seemingly unsure whether it was a good idea to ask, but she eventually sighed and steeled herself. "…Have you been sleeping around with other girls?"
Shit.
That was probably the worst question she could have asked. We weren't technically in a relationship yet, sure, but her opinion of me would undoubtedly plummet if she believed I was putting off dating her just to go out and sleep around. That wasn't exactly the kind of thing I wanted to just admit to.
Still, I didn't want to lie to her, so I told her the truth.
"I slept with one, once," I admitted, meeting her eyes.
She held my gaze for a moment, her expression unreadable, before sighing explosively and dropping her head back down onto the pillow.
"Should've known," she bit out derisively. "Is that why you said no to a relationship? So you could go and fuckin' sleep around and say it doesn't matter 'cause isn't technically cheating?"
Her words felt like a stake to the heart. I hadn't realized just how badly I'd fucked up by not mentioning anything to her ahead of time. I knew she liked me, and I had purposely delayed our relationship despite knowing that, but it hadn't been (primarily) because I wanted to sleep around. Only when I heard that prides were a thing did I think that it'd be okay to do so without hurting our relationship prospects, and I hadn't thought to consider her position or feelings on the matter. I guess I just thought that since we weren't in a relationship, she wouldn't care that much since I was still sleeping with her—which really wasn't much better than her original accusation, it just wasn't the main intent at the outset. I probably should have been more transparent with her from the beginning.
"No, not at all," I denied, cupping her cheek with my hand. "I'm only delaying our relationship officially until my history grades get better. When I no longer need the tutoring, I'll be happy to date you. I just…."
"Just what?" She asked, unimpressed.
I paused for a second, trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into words. "…I dunno. I wasn't thinking. I didn't plan on just going and sleeping around with just anybody, and I wasn't trying to go behind your back. I'll try to be clearer about my intentions in the future."
Claire propped herself up on her elbow, causing her tits to jiggle pleasantly, which drew my eye. She must've noticed, the way she puffed her chest out a little after I started staring.
"So, what are your intentions, then?" she asked pointedly.
I tried to answer, but my voice got caught in my throat. Something in her expression made me hesitate. She tried to hide it, but there was a deep vulnerability that shone through her eyes at that moment. I wasn't sure what exactly it was that she was scared of, but I knew if I screwed up and said the wrong thing, I could completely ruin things between us here and now.
Fuck. This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid by not dating her.
It seemed like my actions had the opposite effect of what I'd envisioned. I thought Claire would be happy to have a fuckbuddy that she tutored on the side, but she was clearly a much more sentimental person than I thought. Maybe I should've figured that out earlier, with the way she thought I was bullying her or whatever when I first came over. I guess I wasn't as observant as I first thought I was.
Obviously, I wasn't going to tell her this was just a casual thing. Maybe that had been my intention when I first found her, but she was genuinely helpful, liked some of the things I did, and made an effort to further invest herself in things that I liked. Plus, she was cute, and the sex was great. She was incredibly easy to like, and I had no doubt I wanted to at least date her, if not eventually marry.
That said, I couldn't just say I was trying to make a pride, right? Brandon had made it sound like they weren't super common these days, and there was probably a reason for that. Maybe they were like this world's equivalent of arranged marriages—formerly common, but no longer as popular in the current day.
But once again, I didn't want to lie to her.
Fuck it, I'll just wing it.
"You know, I wanted to put off dating specifically to avoid this happening," I half-joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit. It failed, if her expression was any indication.
I sighed, forced to accept that this wasn't something I could joke my way out of. That wasn't what she needed right now.
"Claire," I began, staring directly into her eyes, "I like you. I have every intention of dating you."
"But…?" she asked hesitantly, her tough façade beginning to crack.
"But I might be a little much to handle," I admitted, pulling her closer and allowing her to feel my already-hard dick against her stomach, which prompted her to immediately look down at it. "I'm a lot hornier than most guys."
"I can see that," she mumbled, still staring at my dick.
"I know that sounds hot and all, but I also know that can put a serious strain on our relationship if one of us can outlast the other," I explain, admittedly exaggerating a little for my own benefit. "So, I was kinda thinking about possibly trying to build a pride."
Her head snapped up to look at my face again, eyes wide. Apparently, that's not where she had expected me to go. Silence stretched between us as she struggled to find a response.
"…Is this about the money?" she accused, eyes narrowed, the anger in her voice steadily building. "Is that why you approached me in the first place? Because of my parents?"
"What?" I asked, bewildered. I almost laughed at how ridiculous the accusation was. "Claire, I don't give a shit about your money. Hell, I didn't even know you had money when I first talked to you. Amnesia, remember?"
That gave her some pause, at least. "Oh, right," she deflated, all the anger having bled out in a second. "Sorry."
"It's fine, I understand," I replied sympathetically. "But yeah, it really is just the sex. I know girls can cum more than guys can, but like, I could probably go two more rounds with you right now, jerk off tonight, and still be hard tomorrow morning."
She gave me a look. "What? No, you fuckin' couldn't."
I raised my eyebrow at her challengingly. "You wanna bet?"
"I'm thinking about it."
"Alright," I agree easily, confident I could outlast her. She wasn't the quickshot that Kenzie was, but she definitely came faster than I did, even without me playing with her clit. If I could overstimulate her through one orgasm into another, I probably had it in the bag, even without having to turn it into an endurance match. "What do you want if you win?"
Claire instinctively opened her mouth, ready to spout something off without thinking, but paused and took a moment to really consider my words. She began to chew on her lip as she mulled it over, spending enough time on it that I had to pull her into my embrace again to bring her back to the present.
"Well?" I whispered seductively in her ear, letting her feel my warm breath on her skin. "I'm waiting."
Claire swallowed, gathering her courage, before giving me her answer.
"If I win, you'll go out with me. Just me. No pride, no cheating, no…any of that," she declared.
Well, I had planned to at least date her, and if she could actually outlast me in bed, then I guess I really didn't need anyone else. Not a bad deal at all.
"Done," I agreed without hesitation. "And if I win?"
"I…I don't know. I guess you can make a pride," she conceded, looking away sheepishly. "But I get to be first woman if you do! And I have to okay everyone you bring in."
"Deal. I'll even pay for half of our dates if I lose," I raised the stakes even further, just to prove my sincerity.
"…Really?" she asked. "You don't have to, y'know."
"I know. Like I said, it's not about the money," I told her.
The insecurity in her eyes slowly faded, her fears assuaged. A challenging grin stretched across her face. Drawing herself up, Claire pushed me onto my back and swung one leg over my torso, exposing her cream-filled pussy to me for just a second, before dropping onto my hips, pressing her lower lips against my still-hard cock. I reflexively grabbed her around the waist as she put her hands on my pecs, giving them both a squeeze.
I had thrown down the gauntlet, and she had definitely risen to the occasion.
"Hope you can back up those words, Jason," she declared. "Because I'm gonna drain you 'til the fuckin' sun rises."