Pandemic Games

Angie called a meeting of the Hot Nerds Club late one evening during the Third Lockdown. All five of us attended in our night pajamas. She had a complaint.

"I'm not getting any."

That requires several explanations. First, we weren't really a club, just five STEM grads occupying a dorm floor. Someone gave us that name once because we could almost pass, and we were so flattered we kept it. Second, the oxymoron: the "Hot" part was aspirational. We all suffered from overly specialized brains. None of us could dance unselfconsciously, and some of us didn't even know better than to try. Third, a meeting in a lockdown: we had decided we could group isolate -- a new concept we invented because we were so smart and we were finally tired of video games. Fourth, Angie was the least angelic of us. She still did sleepovers, even during a pandemic. She was actually very good looking in her filtered Tinder pictures, but since her 'boyfriends' were only dating her pussy, they fled as soon as their lives were at risk. The Third Mutation Lockdown had brought her social life to a screeching halt.

"Any what?" asked Martin. Martin is an engineer, obviously.

"S-E-X," guessed Carli. She wasn't into dirty talk, for sure. We think she had a boyfriend once last year, for about two weeks. She was a cute but exceedingly timid fitness buff with a super-hot body. She constantly buried herself in her math research, which I could never understand. The math, I mean. Everyone likes burying themselves in research.

"Probably toilet paper," I offered.

"What do you want us to do about it?" whispered Suzy. Suzy was super smart too, but no one knew much about her because you could barely hear her talk. She was in genetics.

"We could use newspaper," I contributed. "Like Russians."

"Sheltering in place means we can't go out shopping around, so I think we should self-supply," said Angie predictably. "The problem with you guys is that no one has the confidence to initiate. So I'm going to do that for you."

There was a long silence, some of it puzzled. Then, "Ooooohh...." said Suzy in her barely audible voice. It was kind of a moan.

"Gross!" said Carli.

"I know, it's so scratchy," I said.

"I have extra lube," said Angie.

Martin said, "Wait, we still have TP."

Angie already had her hands on her hips in frustration. I mean right on her actual hips, because Angie never believed in creating excess laundry. Tonight she was in her skin tight, low slung, barely-there bikini pajamas. Fetchingly, she was showing a lot of nipple bump and camel toe. "You all need to loosen up. We could be here another year before the next vaccine proves out. You guys won't have any new TV sports. You girls won't have any new Hallmark movies. Gaming all day gives me a headache. And you can't watch porn all day, . . . Martin!" Martin looked skeptical. "Even you guys will go out of your collective skulls. And you all need more exercise."

"How about Twister?" Carli, proudly naïve, jumped up to ask. She was wearing a pink see-through bandeau, and when she jumped up you could see her nice tits bobbing around if you weren't distracted by the word "Juicy" stamped on her toned ass.

"Depends. What did you want to play for?" asked Angie.

Suzy breathed, "Would I get to have sex?"

Everyone's jaw dropped, even Angie's.

"It would improve my odds if it were arranged for me, though," said quiet little Suzy. "Otherwise I'm too shy." As usual, her bulging tits were on the verge of swinging out of the armholes of her cute little wife-beater sleep shirt.

"I'm sure we could work something out for you," said Angie. "See me later." Angie occasionally went bi when desperate.

"Why later?" asked Martin. "I'm confused." Everyone eye-rolled.

"Angie wants to entertain Suzy in private," I explained. "Suzy doesn't appreciate why yet."

"I'm not stupid," said Suzy, which was an understatement. "Angie would probably lash me to the headboard."

Angie just raised an eyebrow. Suzy looked vaguely hopeful.

Martin asked, "How about spin the bottle?"

"I'm not playing spin the bottle," said Carli. "Next someone might want strip poker!!"

"I'm not playing spin the bottle," said Suzy. "I got bored with that in fourth grade."

"I'm not playing spin the bottle," said Angie. "It takes too long."

"If you play spin the bottle," Martin said, "you have to be sure the floor is flat or the same person keeps getting picked."

I reluctantly wrenched my focus off the precarious drama of Suzy's full-to-bursting little sleep shirt long enough to ask Angie, "What did you have in mind, then?"

"I have a way to get all of you over the initiation hurdle."

"What if we don't want to be initiated?" asked Carli.

"Who doesn't like S-E-X?" asked Angie sarcastically. "Raise your hand." No one did. "See, the only problem is that you're all just repressed. You're probably all hot for each other. Suzy has those big, luscious boobs." Everyone looked at Suzy's boobs, including Suzy, who pulled out her neckline to check. "Martin, at least you look like a jock, even if you have trouble walking through a door." Martin looked ecstatic. "Carli has the bod of a teenager with really bouncy boobs. That's hot right now." Carli somehow managed to look even more shy than usual. "I'm hot as a porn star, obviously." I had a hard time disagreeing, considering she was dressed like one. Uncontradicted, Angie continued. "Dave....Dave, Dave. You have such a good personality." I didn't like her, either. She gave me too much feedback.

"Everything's relative," I said. Yes, I'm in theoretical physics.

"So here's what we're gonna do," Angie continued. "Each of you will rate the rest of us 1 to 10 and rate the things you like in bed 1 to 10, too. I'll pair us up and make suggestions for your date! It'll be like Tinder, only better 'cause we know what we really look like and we have to show up. Carli, the sexual fantasies must include S-E-X. No long walks on the beach. It would have to be sex on a beach which we can't do anyway because we're in lockdown. Make it do-able so you'll be do-able."

Carli said, "That's OK. It takes a week to get the sand out anyway."

Everyone looked interested.

"Who put you in charge?" I asked Angie. "You'll just pick your favorite partners and do your own fantasies."

"OK, OK, I'll write an algorithm for it," said Angie. She was our CS student. "That way it'll be totally objective. Everyone just send in your lists. The app will pair you up. You'll have a couple of days to get it on, no exceptions. Then we'll refresh."

"What if I want to score someone zero because she's annoying?" I asked Angie.

"Well, as usual, you'd be an idiot. Sex doesn't mean you have to get along. You can have angry sex, rough sex, anonymous sex, bondage sex, sadistic sex, revenge sex...."

"OK, OK! But at least I'm going to score Martin negative 10," I said. "No offense, Martin. Maybe I can score someone else 20 if I do that."

Angie sighed in resignation. "Just leave it all to me. Send me your scores and keep checking your email."

****

This was going to be a disaster. Even big online services with racks of AI servers can't match people up well. But it might be an amusing disaster, and since we had another 50-odd weeks of lockdown ahead of us, I decided to give it a shot. I scored Angie zero just because she would be insufferable if I scored based on how hot she was. I gave Suzy a 20 even though I hardly knew her, because . . . boobs. I gave Carli a 10 because she was so nice. I supplied ratings for various positions and a few other things. I allocated 5 points to bondage, just in case Suzy had a big interest, but added "(consensual)" to avoid misunderstandings. I didn't want to wake up in zip-ties.

Then we waited for Angie's results. They were taking a long time, so maybe she really was coding an app.

****

After a week I decided that Angie was never going to get her idea off the ground. She'd get distracted or decide she didn't want to hook up with any of us. But I thought I should get to know the others better anyway, just in case. I'd heard somewhere that talking to people can be nice.

I wanted to start with Carli, because I could barely hear Suzy. I found her alone in our common room one afternoon and sat down close enough to talk, which must have startled her.

"Dave, are you OK?"

"Just a little lonely," I lied. I never understood lonely.

"Awww, is there someone out there you miss?" She really was a very nice person, but if Angie thought anyone was going to get a kiss from her without ten long walks on the beach, a full moon, whispering waves and a soft, warm breeze, she was crazy.

"Not really. I do miss the chance that I could meet a girl, however unlikely. It's a zillion to one shot, but it could be life-changing. What about you? Are you waiting for The One?"

"I am, but I'm fishing in a small pond. I want a guy who's really smart and kind of quiet like me. At this rate, it'll be a million years before that happens. Plus, I would want someone I've known for a while and who feels comfortable, someone I can share confidences with, like now. What about you?" she asked considerately.

"Same, pretty much. But I want someone who can talk Bekenstein radiation."

"You mean the Bekenstein-Hawking theory resolving the black hole quantum information paradox. I always thought that needed some tweaking."

"Right. Plus, she would have to be pretty fit, and she would practically have to run right up and kiss me before I felt safe making a move on her."

"Gosh. That could be a long time coming, in the Physics Department. Maybe you should widen your search."

"So you think Angie could actually be onto something?" I asked.

"She's certainly identified a problem."

****

Suzy was more of a puzzle. She had a fantastic body too -- the stuff of my dreams, literally - but she was so quiet and unknowable that actually hooking up had never seemed possible. Now the chance that we might be required to get it on created a whole new dynamic, especially when she whispered sexually charged things to me like 'good night!' or 'see you in the morning.'

We got a chance to talk when she walked in completely randomly one night while I was alone in the common room. Perhaps anticipating that I would have a hard time hearing her over our aquarium filter, she plunked herself down right next to me on the couch and leaned hard against me, thoughtfully cushioning the blow with a boob. She whispered in my ear, "How are you?" She was probably asking how I was in bed, but I chose to play dumb.

Trying to talk to Suzy about her work was always a mistake, so I went right to the Angie Plan. "Do you think it's going to work?"

"Not for me. I'd fuck anyone at this point, but it would have to be somewhere else and we can't go out during lockdown."

"Why somewhere else?"

"I'm a screamer," she whispered.

"You're kidding, of course. You're so quiet!"

"I have a perfectly good set of lungs, though. Do you think we're going to be assigned to have sex? Did you give me a good rating?" I told her I gave her a twenty. "I don't think that's within the set," she ruminated. She frowned and then asked, "Why?"

"I think your tits are really . . . outstanding," I said politely.

"We'll probably have to get it on then, won't we?"

"I have no idea how you scored me," I evaded.

"What else did you put down with a score?"

"Oh, the usual stuff, I guess. Fucking huge tits like those, of course. How about you?"

"I overthink everything. For sex I have to take my brain completely out of play. I need a bottle of wine and someone with a lot of rope who just wants to use me."

"Anyone would be lucky to bondage bang you," I said reflexively. I wasn't sure of the appropriate niceties, but she brightened.

"I don't see why Angie doesn't like you," she said. "You're so nice."

"I give her too much feedback. She gives me too much feedback."

"Well, here's some feedback from me. I'll do it with you any time, and since we're going to have to do it anyway, I'd rather do it before Angie can take credit for it."

"Well, where, though? What about the screaming?"

"You'll just have to gag me, I guess. I have everything we need."

****

I thought I should talk to Angie and tell her that her idea had some merit, but the practicalities were not going to work out for Suzy or Carli. Carli needed romancing, and Suzy needed a soundproof torture chamber.

"Oh, I don't know," Angie said airily. "Maybe they just haven't been on lockdown long enough. Give them some time to get horny."

"I think you need to know your target market better. They've both been locking themselves down for months, just out of inertia."

"They'll be more tempted when they see the app results. It will require someone to perform their favorite sex acts on them! Trouble is, the app is coming slowly. I decided to send out the AI processing to a server farm in Idaho. It's complicated."

"Speaking for everyone, I think I can say you should take all the time to you need. And double it."

****

Late that afternoon, as I was reflecting on whether it might be possible to rescue the flawed but appealingly elegant theory of entropic gravity, my door burst open and Carli rushed in. She slammed the door behind her and leaned back against it limply, one wrist to her forehead. "Suzy says you two are just going to go ahead and do it. You can't do it before the app comes out!"

"She did suggest it, but there are some practicalities to work out."

"Isn't that cheating? What if the app says you should do it with someone else instead?"

"I see what you mean. It might be awkward if you start out with the wrong person. Like, changing horses in midstream." I probably should have picked a different simile.

"Yeah. Plus, if she's going to flout the rules, then everyone will. We'd be able to date whoever we want, whenever we want. No rules, no planning, no limits, like the wild, wild West! Anyone who felt horny could just find someone else who felt horny and get it on. It would be a continuous Hot Nerds Club orgy! It would be anarchy!"

****

I went to give Angie more feedback. She was sitting at her laptop wearing only her most barely-there underpants. She looked up and put her palms on her boobs as I walked in.

"I think your idea is working, despite you," I said.

"No it's not! It keeps giving me the wrong answers. The code is good so the parameters must be wrong."

"How do you know that the answers aren't right?"

"It's obvious, believe me. Now beat it. And keep waiting. It should be just a few days."

"That's the thing," I said. "If you take too long, your app may be overtaken by events." But she was back to coding, pounding the keyboard so hard her tits jiggled.

****

There seemed to be some confusion over what we were meant to do until the app came out, so I invited the whole Club to a dinner of pizza and Sauvignon Blanc in the common room. We all sat at the card table, except for Martin, who was figuring out how our one-lever cork extractor worked. Suzy sat directly across from me. She appeared to be wearing the world's most effective push-up bra and a very low-necked tee shirt that unnecessarily said "Suck These" in Sanskrit. Angie was still in her day pajamas, a super-tight tee shirt that bounced in front and had graphics of space-alien hands supporting her boobs from behind. Carli had not yet changed out of her workout clothes, a low-slung Brazilian bottom and a thin, sweat-soaked top that had adhered to her boobs by capillary action.

I asked Angie how the app was coming. She glowered at me.

Suzy asked whether we had to wait to see what the app would say or could just go for it.

Carli was upset. "I don't know how Suzy can talk about just going for it," she objected, "when the app isn't even out yet. That makes her odds of winning much higher than Angie's or mine. It's 'heads I win, tails I already won'."

"What do you mean by 'win'?" asked Angie. Carli suddenly looked bashful.

"We could have a threesome," Suzy whispered. "Does the app allow that?"

Carli said, "Ewww." Angie scribbled a note to herself on her napkin.

"How are you guys going to feel if the app suggests I hook up with someone?" asked Angie. "Like, for example, hypothetically and only as a thought experiment, what if it says I should get it on with, say . . . Dave, to pick someone completely at random . . .?" she trailed off under her breath.

"I'd say it needed peer review," said Carli. "You and Dave don't get along."

"Oh, I don't know," said Angie. "Dave's not so bad to look at. If he would just mature up for about ninety seconds . . . ."

"Somebody has to keep you humble," I protested. "Otherwise you might think you're popular and sexy." I was focused on the tits hanging over her pizza or I would have come up with a less ambiguous zinger.

"Great," said Carli. "You're going to hijack this whole thing with your bogus code and there will be no way to verify the results."

"Sure there is," chimed in Suzy. "We could do randomized double-blind trials."

"How are we ever going to do blind testing when you have those things?" asked Carli. "No blindfold ever made would disguise them."

Martin said, "I can't figure out how this thing goes back together. Do we really need it?"

"Well, we could just do an observational study then," said Angie. "We won't get proof of causation, but that may not be important. In sex, you mostly just want to know what works, not why."

"So what comes first," asked Suzy, "the app or the trials?"

"I don't see why they can't proceed simultaneously," said Angie, looking at me speculatively.

"How are the trials going to work?" asked Carli nervously.

"Angie's working on the app," said Suzy, "so I'll design the trials. It's my field."

"But what are we going to have to do?"

"Well, first I need to know who's in," said Suzy. "I am, obviously."

Martin said, "Great. I have pieces left over."

"Martin will be busy fixing our corkscrew," said Angie, "and he needs to focus because we haven't got this SB open yet, so he's out. That means Dave has to be in. And I'm in. I have to work on the app, but having sex with Dave during my breaks should clear my head. I'll be able to catch up on my sleep."

Everyone looked at Carli, who looked down. After a moment she said, "I'm in, I guess. But I'm straight!" She fixed her eyes defiantly on Angie, who looked slightly scornful.

"That simplifies the design, then," said Suzy. "No round-robin. We could have a single-elimination playoff or a double elimination playoff with a consolation bracket. But I think we should just have a random series of hook-ups, like in real life. That would give us the most realistic test conditions."

"So, we'll all be left to our own devices?" I asked. "Just like it's been for the last couple of years? How are the results so far?"

"Hmm, good point," said Suzy. "I'll think it over. Meanwhile, what are you doing tonight?"

****

It was late. I was reading yet another trite paper on anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence when there was a quiet knock on my door. It was Suzy, in her overburdened tee shirt. "I knew you would want to get started compiling data," she said, "before Angie and her app start running your sex life. Getting enough data may take a while, and she could finish her project any time now." She invited me across the hall to her room, where she had all her equipment.

"What about the screaming?" I asked.

"Well, maybe it will improve your . . . start a reputation for you." She closed the door, took my hands and placed them on her boobs. I spread my fingers. She smiled, got up on her tiptoes, pressed herself against me, and whispered extra-softly in my ear, "I have an epigenetics lecture tomorrow morning. I'm excited. Want to come?"