Bound & Free Ch. 10

She licked her lips automatically, then froze. She pressed her thumb into her groin, a reprimanding finger. A rapidly rubbing finger.

Maybe Stacy and Tristan would examine Alice's photo together. Maybe they'd involve it in their sex play, bringing Alice into a threesome by proxy - but keeping her heart safe. Maybe they were acting on it right now. Stacy's would be arms cuffed behind her, her potent beauty helplessly bound, utterly unable to act on her desires. Tristan's bashful charming veneer would give way, revealing the stern, domineering confidence he kept hidden deep within. His strong forearm would hold the screen so they could both see Alice. Tristan's tight butt would flexing, driving between Stacy's quivering thighs as he penetrated her pretty pussy at last. Yet he'd remain totally in control, so rather than give her the single explosive movement she'd need to climax, he'd enter with deliberate slowness, keeping her balanced right on the unbearable edge of a tightrope - torn right between the ecstasy of the sensation and the need for more...

Alice's hips started to quiver, her legs squeezed, her excitement flowed and she opened her mouth to moan, right there at her table. At the last possible moment sanity returned, and shut her mouth. Cutting off any sound before it happened. She coughed in embarrassment as hot shame replaced burning lust.

She looked around frantically, checking the tables and fancy bar-style seating around her for anyone who might have seen. Thankfully there wasn't anyone looking at her - in fact almost everyone in the store had left already. There was one person recording a video of herself, a couple giggling together while holding hands. Alice's rapid head movements were drawing more attention than her more... intimate explorations. Alice relaxed.

A queer calm rushed in to fill lust's absence. She needed to change her panties for the second, or was it third time today? Okay, she was an morally bankrupt, naughty girl. Fine, apparently she liked being someone's fantasy - yet another new uncomfortable fact for the day - why not, pile it on. But at least this was a solution she could live with. This selfie was a way she could allow herself to join them, and not risk herself... at least for now. For now, they'd both have her photo, and she was strangely pleased about it. This way she could be with them, but not with them. It was the best solution. Maybe if she repeated that enough she'd eventually believe it.

She jumped, the grinder's sudden shrill complaint disrupting her. Despite hearing it scream so many times she'd lost count, she still wasn't over it. Before her heartrate could recover, another loud voice startled her.

"She's alive!" a voice behind her squealed. "Alice! I was gonna form a search party! I haven't seen you for days!"

Before she could see who it was, a familiar pressure thumped down on her shoulder. The woman kissed both of Alice's cheeks before resting her chin on top of Alice's head in a familiar gesture.

"Emily! I told you not to..." Alice tried to complain.

"Yeah yeah." Emily said dismissively, remaining behind Alice, her chin resting on Alice's head

"Miss me?" Emily asked, her jaw digging uncomfortably into Alice's scalp.

"Well, yeah, I..." Alice started, managing to dislodge her.

Emily was already distracted, reaching for something on the floor.

"You dropped your..." she trailed off.

Alice tensed. Oh no. She had locked her phone, right? This couldn't be happening twice in one...

"Alice."

"Y-yes?" she squeaked, painfully conscious Emily was looking at her in a perverted bikini right now.

Alice was mortified. Her face burned. Seriously. Could this day get any worse? That cosplay was worse than being naked, it should've been her secret shame, buried deep. Yet now she might as well add it to the noticeboard beside Stacy's triumphantly grinning face - it was an ironclad rule; any secret more than two people know wasn't a secret anymore. Was this happening because she'd admired herself? Was it the universe taking revenge for her hubris?

On the plus side, with every second she waited for a reaction from Emily, her embarrassment mounted, and her body grew hotter. With any luck Alice would spontaneously combust, and she wouldn't have to bear the shame of Emily's judgement. Something to look forward to. This was more embarrassing than being caught in Tristan's dorm. Where she broke in... Put on this very costume... Watched him masturbate. Yep - this was still worse. Somehow she felt Tristan wouldn't - couldn't? - judge.

"This. Is. Awesome!" Emily gushed, hugging her. "What app did you use?"

Alice mumbled something, shivering with relief as her adrenaline faded. She tugged her phone out of her friend's hand and put it away. It'd done enough damage for one day.

"Well whatever it was you look the part! See? I keep saying you should be an actress!" Emily exclaimed.

She opened her mouth to protest, but Emily was speaking again. Emily would interrupt herself if she could.

"OH! Oh, you know I got my assignment back." Emily interrupted.

Emily collapsed into the seat opposite - Stacy's seat. Alice felt a bizarre moment of irritation. No - Stacy wasn't coming back, no matter how much she wanted it. There was no need to save the seat.

"...was B plus! B plus! I couldn't believe it!" Emily exclaimed, her eyes wide. "Can you believe it?"

"All you needed was confidence." Alice managed.

Emily snorted.

"Confidence and you to write it for me, Alice." Emily rolled her eyes. "Thanks, though. I swear I'll never understand why you want to be a writer."

"Reporter." Alice sighed, resigned.

Emily was circling back to Alice's career plans. This was an argument they'd rehashed endlessly. Now Emily had ammunition, and it was her own stupid fault. She'd never try to be pretty again. If someone could make this stop she'd be eternally grateful.

"Whatever." Emily said, as if that made her point for her. "You're basically asking to be a barista, like that bitch over there."

Emily waved a hand at the figure behind the counter. The barista had dyed pink hair, a disheveled look and one too many open buttons, despite her smallish chest... was that her bra?

"I think I've made my point." Emily said, dragging Alice's mind back to her and out of the gutter.

Alice blushed as she realised where her mind had gone - right down that poor woman's cleavage. Was it just this morning she'd thought of herself as a good girl, rather than some needy...

"You should be an actress. An actress!" Emily explained. "Then you could be a role model, change things, you know?"

"Change what?" Alice asked absently, struggling with her identity.

Immediately a spark entered Emily's eyes, and she took a deep breath. Alice winced as she realized what she'd done. This was Emily's favorite topic, and she wouldn't be dissuaded. Apparently acting was 'THE' thing for Alice to do. Alice pasted on her most agreeable look and nodded and made noises at the right times.

"...and ever since you've been dating Tristan, you've had the looks, too." Emily wound down.

Alice caught the last part of her sentence and fought to avoid rolling her eyes. Even if she was ten times as appealing, she was no Stacy.

"Honey? What's wrong?" Emily asked her.

"I, er... I'm not sure I'm in a relationship." Alice said in a quiet monotone. "Trying to decide what to do. I could use your advice, Emily."

Despite the noise of the cafe, Emily clearly heard her. Her face fell, contorting into a look of concern.

"Ah, I get it - that's the problem with nerdy guys like Tristan - no idea how to deal with a 3D woma..."

"No! No." Alice paused, thinking. "Nah... it's the opposite, really. He's actually... Well, we've not had sex yet but he did... then I... No - point is he's got another girl."

Emily just blinked at her for a moment.

"What?!" Emily's mouth fell open. She collected herself, and hissed, "A real one?!"

Alice nodded. Emily shook her head.

"How? I believe you, but, I mean, who would touch that? No offense." Emily shook her head, mumbling. "I've known Tristan for months. Plus Hank tells me what a loser he is..."

"No - he's not like that at all!" Alice exclaimed. "You - you obviously don't know him very well."

Emily frowned, looking at Alice like she belonged in an asylum.

"You are talking about Tristan, right?" Emily paused. "Hank's roomate? Mocha skin, messy hair, kinda short? Computing or some other major-loser major? The guy that came with Hank to our double date a while back?"

"Yes. Tristan." Alice said quietly, struck by an urge to defend him. "Intense eyes, funny but turns commanding just when you need him to, super thick..." she paused, looking with horror at the imaginary girth her hand was measuring - forcing it to flatten reluctantly. What the hell was she about to mime in public?! " er... yeah. Tristan."

Emily clearly hadn't missed it, though her face showed she'd chosen to humor Alice and didn't believe a word.

"Well, er... who is this bitch? Let's burn him and his new girlfriend. I'll help." Emily demanded, eyes blazing by the end.

"Is she his girlfriend?" Alice mumbled to herself. "Can slaves be girlfriends?"

Oops. Obviously she'd heard; Emily was giving Alice another look, as if she'd had just announced she was from Venus and needed all the marshmallows. Emily opened her mouth, and Alice didn't want to hear it. It'd be a judgement on her too. Flustered, Alice tried to continue.

"That's not... look... this is hard for me to say, but just listen, okay? Listen and don't judge." Alice said, leaning over the table toward Emily, her intense stare trying to communicate the importance of her next words. Trying to persuade her. "I'm trying to decide if I should join the... let her join. Er... You got it, right?"

Alice nodded, looking at Emily hopefully. Eager. If Emily said yes, bless this, then hope would bloom because she could allow herself...

"What the fuck, girl? Have you been brainwashed?!"

Their discussion went downhill from there, making Alice feel truly wretched.

~~~~

Tristan - campus building - basement

In a dusty basement somewhere beneath an unassuming campus building, a battle was underway. In a tiny dark room bereft of hope, between joyless metal shelving and stacks of scratched nested chairs, there was a oversized table untouched by time. On that table was a fantasy made real. A group of seven brave plastic figurines stood in a carefully-sculpted landscape, bathed in the glow of the only working light, reveling in their moment of impending glory, about to banish an unnatural perversion of nature which threatened their way of life. Around the edges of the playing surface was utter chaos - stacks of counters and sheets of paper vied for position with cans of soda and discarded bags of chips. But that was child's play compared to the the tumult beyond. Tristan was sitting with seven others around the table, barely visible in the remaining light, perched on mismatched objects, each of their spirits possessing one plastic model. No two were alike. This one was a skinny man-child, that one an androgynous lump, there was even a woman wearing a home-made elf cosplay. Yet they were all the same - outside, they were ghosts. Here in this basement, they truly lived.

Reigning over them all like the almighty, the narrator (or antagonist, he was getting a little overenthusiastic) lurked behind a leather partition. It was blank on one side, the other festooned with a chaotic mess of secrets on printed pages, rules in laminate and dozens of sticky notes (he had a system, apparently). The Dungeon Master. Tristan had never wanted to be DM, content to stay in the background. No, the only time he ever wanted to be called 'master' was when a gorgeous, handcuffed...

Tristan had to stop thinking about that, or he'd get another erection here at the table, and then he'd be stuck here until it went down. Some days, nothing goes as expected. For Tristan, this was one of those days. It was taking an eon to lose the game on purpose. He wondered how he could've struggled to stay alive in the past - had he been overthinking it? He took a deep breath to sigh, and the stench of this confined space entered his lungs, like a physical force. Little breaths, he reminded himself, glancing at the others clustered round the low table in the dim light. Seven people who had a strong relationship with fantasy roleplay, a casual relationship with hygiene, and no other relationships whatsoever. Collectively the group generated a miasma with such unholy force and personality, they could have given it its own chair at the table. It'd fit right in here.

They even kept each other at arm's length. There was no support or comfort to be had here - there was just the game. He needed new friends. Surely there were more well-adjusted groups out there, some of them actual functional members of society (or so the rumors said), but it felt disloyal - this had been his circle since he came to college.

He couldn't hold his breath any more - Tristan coughed and sputtered, missing a punchline as everyone else laughed.

The group laughed and jeered good-naturedly, finding camaraderie and reprieve from reality here. Why was he feeling out of place? They'd been the closest thing Tristan had had to friends. They were the dregs of campus society, too socially awkward to fit in anywhere, too aggressively mediocre for anyone to make the effort, and too emotionally damaged to accept a friendly hand even if they did. Imagine the Creation of Adam, if Adam were simultaneously skinny in the places he should bulge, and bulging where he should be skinny. His greasy hair would lay limp on a face festooned with whiskers and pimples, their indecent hentai t-shirt screaming one thing while they ranted at God about another. In this re-imagining, then, God would be played by one of the beautiful people. Someone like Stacy...

There it was again - what was this rising feeling? Tristan's sense of discomfort increased. The welcoming atmosphere soured, and he felt an urge to leave. He needed new friends. But was that fair? He felt guilty. Maybe he was spoiled. Now he was done with them, he was just going to abandon them? When they'd welcomed - okay no, say tolerated - him? Shameful stuff, Tristan. In any case, he wanted to move along, but he was here for business. He had to stay until his transaction was complete. Fortunately fate, sympathetic for once, obliged.

Tristan jumped, startled, almost knocking over his stool. He braced himself on the table's raised lip, knocking over the counters with a clatter. His hand was in something sticky. Forcing down his disgust, he tried to get his character killed.

"I attack with both of my familiars." he said, feigning confidence, longing for it to be over.

"Look who's grown some balls!" exclaimed one of his teammates, their face vampiric in the half-light outside the brightly-lit table.

Tristan's special die clattered in an empty spot on the table. He didn't really care what it said. As one, they looked toward the DM for his verdict.

"-17 health. Epor dies, flattened by a hammer." the dungeon master intoned, his voice deep and resonant. "At long last his two familiars are freed from their cruel bondage."

Tristan choked, the comment hitting a little too close to reality. Fortunately from the laughter around the table they misunderstood his reaction.

"You shouldn't have tried to bite off more than you could chew, Trissy!" a reedy voice teased, barely visible on the far side of the landscape, a ghoul lurking in the gloom.

The story of his life, really. Fortunately this was only a fantasy. Well, for the last few weeks his life had been one too, but in this case it was more literal. The dice had been unrelentingly cruel in deciding his future in this geeky tabletop game. With his character's sudden merciful death he could finally talk business.

"So ends the sordid tale of the ogre master." the narrator boomed.

Say what you will about them, but they were serious about roleplay. Tristan was serious about roleplay too, though his version was very different. His involved real people and was a little more pornogra... therapeutic.

Tristan endured the catcalls and laughter, waiting for the DM to broach the topic. At long last it was the moment of truth. Tristan hoped he'd ask, otherwise his time was wasted.

"Now Trissy will give me the 10% collectibles discount he promised." the DM's voice boomed.

Tristan had never heard sweeter music. Maybe these people weren't all bad?

"Fine." Tristan said, handing over a plastic bag full of crumpled packages, relief oozing out of him. "And thanks, Terry. I'm sorry the boxes are a bit damaged."

Terry snatched covetously at the bag, peering inside. Grinning broadly, with the glee of a true collector. With his nose still in the bag, he carelessly handed Tristan a handful of crumpled notes, torn and sticky, as if they were trash. To Tristan, that trash was nothing less than salvation - precious sustenance for the rest of this lean month.

"Terry? Who is this feeble-sounding Terry?" Terry boomed. "I am Maltor, dungeon god and..."

"Virgin!" a couple of others interrupted, cackling gleefully.

"Like you're any better!" Terry railed at them, deflating. "The only one of us in the dice pit with a girlfriend is..."

"Finish that sentence and there's no discount!" Tristan hissed at him quietly.

Far from quietly enough.

"Ooo!" the room cooed.

It sounded friendly enough, but Tristan knew better. As their eyes swiveled to him, he could see them start reassessing him - friend or foe? Amusement glimmered in their gaze, cycling to jealousy, malice, and back as they looked, their amiable countenances melting away to reveal the teeth lurking right beneath. Fuck. He really did need new friends.

If his story was pathetic then everything would be fine, but if he had too much "success"? Well, a while back there'd been another person in this group. Despite being a mangy moldering mouth-breather like the rest of them - Tristan included himself in this category - that guy had somehow gotten a date; a miracle! They even both started coming to the games. As the relationship became more serious, these 'friends' found reasons to feel betrayed - ridiculous or not, the result was one by one they pulled away. A few even stalked the couple, ravenously tearing at the little flaws they had once shared in this very room. It took a whopper of a white lie from Tristan before the vultures had stopped circling.

Tristan knew their thought process; pulling others down and trampling on them helped their own stature. Not all of them, sure - but enough that it didn't matter. THAT was why he tried to associate with them as little as possible, and the feeling was mutual - other than one or two, the group had never really accepted him. Still, he had to earn living expenses somehow, and sourcing and selling collectible memorabilia was what he knew. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"It's more a master-slave thing." Tristan grimaced, trying to smile disarmingly.

They blinked at him in disbelief, and abruptly fell over themselves laughing. Among the laughter was relief - if Tristan was still a loser, maybe they weren't so bad. The raised knives were lowered, and they were all still good friends.

Tristan took his chance, and quickly escaped. As he left the suffocating threat of the clubroom, he gasped for clean air. The sky blushed as the day ended, from a pale yellow mist right down to an amber that was almost black, and would be soon. The bright cloudless sunset stung his eyes, shining with an irritating, straightforward sort of beauty. Orange. It was that simple. It was the kind of dramatic spectacle mother nature staged, to make made people realize that no matter how bad they had it, there was beauty in the world, and the meaning of life was really blah blah blah...