Turnons - A Game of Dares Ch. 03

- The subversive potential of sexual desire will become a major theme for Marcuse. He finds that society tends to repress sexual impulses in order to keep a tighter grip on individuals, defining what and how they should consider appropriate when it comes to pleasure and satisfaction. And in this way keeps them part of a properly working capitalist society. Today we'll focus on how this mechanism of repression works according to Marcuse.

Trying to focus on the topics she had to go through in the following two hours, took Alex's mind off Turnons for a while. She was standing in the middle of the classroom. It was an ordinary day, but the students seemed interested and engaged, for a change. It was probably due to the name her professor had chosen for the seminar: "The erotic impulse as means of liberation in Nietszche, Freud and Marcuse".

And it wasn't just the usual suspects who decided to take her seminar. It was a pretty big class actually. The small room was made to accommodate about twenty persons, but today the attendees were thirtytwo. A few of them grabbed some spare seats from the corridor and were now sitting behind the last row of desks. Alex had to offer her own desk to a couple of students who couldn't find anywhere else to stay, and she promised that she would have asked professor Grant to arrange for a bigger classroom.

Alex was probably too modest or too naive to admit, even to herself, that half the male students attending the seminar were doing it just because she was the lecturer.

Seminars in May were always crowded, full of guys trying to earn a few extra credits. Little she knew of how often her name came up in private conversations in the boys room or in locker rooms. Since she started covering teaching hours for professor Grant, social science classes drew more students by the week. And this seminar, the first she was allowed to do without anyone from the department nannying her, seemed to be bound for success judging by the number of show-ups at the first lesson.

Alex didn't want to build her self-esteem too much, but she had to be good at this. Teaching suited her after all, it brought out the best of her: as soon as a lesson started, all of a sudden she was absolutely brilliant and charismatic, none of her shyness or indecisiveness was there anymore. Never in the world she would have imagined her popularity among students had anything to do with her looks. She missed the malice to perceive how attentive guys got when she walked by their desks, or how they followed the gentle swaying of her breasts, and the harmonious movements of her legs and butt.

That was also the kind of thinking her uprising and years of study tried to eradicate, making her focus on hard work, intellectual gratification and knowledge as the only means - and reasons - to be appreciated. Even more so in the academic circles, where the number of men in leading positions, whether lower than before, was still high.

At 25 Alex was one of the youngest PhD students of the campus, she was the youngest woman in the department, and the youngest teacher considering all bachelor degree courses. She had to be proud of all that, but she also felt the burden of living up to the expectations.

One hour into her speech on Marcuse she stopped to take a few questions. After answering concisely a request for further explanations on Marcuse's take on Freudian psychoanalysis, she noticed Robert Brooks, one of the students sitting at her desk, raising his hand.

- Yes, Bobby? - He was one of Grant's students. She knew all of them by name, since she had to attend classes and tests even when she was not directly involved.

- Your phone's buzzing. There's a red notification with a timer or something. It says Turn..

Fuck.

- Yes Bobby, thank you. - Answered Alex getting to her desk in a hurry. How could she be so stupid to leave her phone there?

She took a quick glance at the screen. There was no way she could do anything but dismiss the notification and so she did. Immediately Turnons app opened up showing a red screen that read: "You failed a flash dare! You have 0 attempts left. If you fail another flash dare you will also fail your current dare from SubtleG."

She hoped that wouldn't get SubtleG too upset.

Why? Why would her mind even shape that thought?

- Sorry guys, let's get going. Anyone else has a question?

The lesson kept going for another fifteen minutes before her phone, now safely in her hands, buzzed again. It was a chat message this time.

Susie, a first year from professor Hopkins' political science class, was reading an abstract from "Eros and Civilization". Alex got to the back of the class, near the door, and took another look at the message.

SubtleG: Sorry to see you stumbled already, Nina. As I said I'll allow you to fail just this once. But let's raise the stakes a little bit, shall we?

Nina: I'm sorry, I really couldn't take a picture within the time limit.

SubtleG: Well, that's what our little game is about: giving up control. If you are not ready we can always stop now. There will be no second chances though, remember.

Nina: No.

That's all she had to say and it came from her heart, that was now pounding. Was it because she was chatting on a NSFW chat while in the midst of a class? Or was it for the fear of losing the chance of fulfilling her fantasies?

SubtleG: Good. Flash Dares will change requirements: from now on when you get a notification you will be asked to upload two pictures. The first one must show your current outfit as before, the second must show your naked breasts. You will have 3 minutes to complete the flash dare, I'm reasonable after all.

SubtleG: And Nina, since I don't want you to try and make it easier for yourself, every time you complete a flash dare you will have to do so in a different place. Make sure I can tell the setting has changed, or I will consider it a failure.

Alex wanted to reply something, but Susie had already finished reading, and the whole class had noticed she wasn't paying too much attention. They were all staring at her.

- I'm sorry. - she started trying to regain her composure - Thank you Susie, what do you... - but her phone vibration interrupted her thoughts again.

"Turnons: Dare from SubtleG in progress" read the first notification, and right below that: "New flash dare: 175 seconds left".

What? Now?

The way her mind and body reacted was confusing. All she was able to do was mumbling for a few seconds and then finally state:

- I apologise but some issue just came up. I need to sort it before we can continue. Let's get five and then we'll resume the comment on the abstract.

She left the class and quickly walked towards the stairs. As she was moving fast across the corridor Alex took a look at her phone: 100 seconds left. There was no time to reach the toilet reserved to professors and staff on the first floor, so she went straight to the women's restrooms down the hall.

Luckily enough she found an open stall, entered and closed the door as girls were coming in and out.

This time without thinking too much about it she took her phone out, clicked on Turnons' notification and took her cardigan off letting it fall to her waist. She snapped the first picture with her top still on, then quickly lifted her top all the way taking it off and snapped another pic. Both were automatically uploaded to her feed on Turnons.

Were her nipples visible in the first picture? She hadn't checked. As soon as the photo appeared on her feed she clicked on it to see if it met SubtleG's requirements. Unsurprisingly the image wasn't too neat, Alex took it in a rush after all. She was still trying to distinguish her nipples through the thin fabric of the top when her attention was drawn by another detail: taking the photo in a hurry she hadn't noticed she was showing more of her face than she meant. She could clearly see everything up to her nose and just a glimpse of her light green eyes. It wasn't enough to recognise her probably, but that vision made her heart lose a beat.

She had to be more careful. And that meant she wasn't supposed to stand in a stall in a public bathroom completely topless. Get dressed silly girl.

Alex straightened the top still balled up in her hand and put it on. Her chest moved up and down as fast as her breath, which was still pretty irregular.

From the pictures it was clear she was in a public toilet, but there was nothing giving away where the toilet could be. If someone she knew somehow came across those pics would they be able to know it was her? Would they figure out the pics were taken inside a faculty building?

Oh no, stop. She knew where her mind was going, and that was not thinking straight. Nobody she knew could possibly see her profile on Turnons. Her privacy settings were strict, and the only recipient of her - she could as well admit it - porn pictures was some random guy God knows where. She was safe, but if she wanted to keep this going she had to pay attention to her own actions and set some boundaries.

Right now though she had to go back to her class and finish the seminar. Where the fuck...

Her cardigan was lying on the floor. Not quite a clean and dry floor. Alex picked it up and looked at it. The right sleeve was a little bit humid, but most of the damage was on the back: the blue fabric showed big darker stains. She was lucky since it seemed to be just dirt and water, but still how could she show up like that in front of the students?

Alex made sure the coast was clear and exited the stall with the cardigan in her hand. Her breasts, pushing against the thin white fabric, were clearly outlined by how tight the top was. She could easily notice it in the mirror as she reached the lavatories. Her nipples were harder than ever, and even her areolae looked more obvious under the cold light.

Nobody was around so she just had to be fast, try to do her best to fix the cardigan, get dressed and back to class. She managed to wash off some of the dirt on the back of the cardigan using as little water as possible, and she was now holding it under the hand dryer when a voice startled her.

- Professor, here you are. We were all wondering if everything was ok.

It was Susie, the blonde girl from the seminar.

- Oh yes Susie, thanks. - answered Alex, barely turning her head, trying to shield herself as she could and getting closer to the hand dryer - I was about to come back but I had a little accident with my sweater. I got some dirt on it and I'm trying to clean it a little.

- Well, let me see if I can help.

Before Alex could say anything the girl moved next to her and took the hem of the cardigan in her hands.

- It's still pretty wet, maybe you should just let it dry and wear it later. It's warm outside after all.

Alex couldn't find the words to phrase her answer in the right way. She could swear Susie's eyes lingered on her chest as she spoke.

- No... - mumbled Alex - I feel cold just with the top. I'll sort it out, don't worry.

- Yeah, I figured maybe that kind of thing is meant to be worn under a sweater or something. Well, I'll let the others know we'll resume the seminar in a few minutes.

- Thanks, Susie.

That comment, along with that stare, left no room for doubts. Susie had surely noticed Alex wasn't wearing a bra. Moreover her breasts and nipples in the well-lit bathroom must have been blatantly on show. Damn Alex, you just showed off your titties to one of your students, in a public bathroom, haven't you? What if she said something? And whatever she could say she would have been probably right. Even if all Alex said was true, why would a professor use the students' restrooms to get changed? Unless said professor was an exhibitionist slut not thinking straight.

Alex genuinely formulated those exact words in her head, but instead of getting angry at herself she felt the urge to get back inside the stall and let her hands roam under her panties. She resisted. The situation, as tame as it could seem at first, was already messing with her head.

She sorted the cardigan issue and went back to her class, where she resumed the seminar. Everything went smoothly until the end of the second hour. She dismissed the class and warned the students they would have been updated on where the next lesson would take place, after she spoke to professor Grant.

Alex then collected her things and got out of the room herself. As she stepped outside she noticed Susie was there, apparently waiting for her.

In that same instant her phone chimed again.