by Simon Archer
We bent forward, laughing at the thought of an all-nude dance party. When our laughter died down, both of us found ourselves sighing at our reflections in the mirror.
“I really want to look pretty, though,” Jade admitted softly.
I offered a half-smile and another sigh. “Well, I definitely know that this isn’t the one. I’m going to try to shimmy out of it without tearing it apart.”
“Oh no,” Jade said suddenly.
“What?” I whirled around, afraid I had ripped one of the sleeves or had stained it already so I would have to pay for the expensive thing without even planning on wearing it to the dance. “What did I do?”
“Not you,” Jade said as she pointed in the mirror to something behind us.
The bell chimed over the door as someone else entered. When my eyes landed on her, I felt the immediate dread that Jade experienced when she noticed who it was. My new roommate, Karen, walked in the door, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. She raised her sunglasses atop her head and looked around the boutique. Already successful in her shopping adventures, three large white bags with logos I didn’t recognize hung at her elbows. Karen adjusted her scarf as she moved to a rack of dresses.
“Quick,” Jade shoved me, but I didn’t move right away. “If we get in the dressing room, she might not see us.”
“She’s not that bad,” I defended.
“You’re saying this about the girl who’s sexiled you out of your dorm room last night?” Jade said, eyeing me.
It was true. When I got back to my dorm at one that morning, there was a sock on the door. At least I didn’t walk in on them this time, but I was severely irritated that there had been anything on the door when they had their own damn room. That brought on visions of them doing it on the couch, the rug, against the sink counter.
Khryseos and Argyreos popped out from the other side of the door, appearing next to me. Both pups whimpered and shook their heads at me. They looked rather traumatized, and that gave me enough reason to find alternative lodging for the evening.
I ventured to Jade’s room and woke her up, asking if I could stay with her. She had been more than happy to accommodate me and we spent all night curled up together. Unfortunately, the sock stayed on the door throughout the morning, so I’d had to wear the same uniform as the day before and borrowed Jade’s toothpaste, brushing with my finger.
Needless to say, I was not happy with my new roommate this morning.
But amidst all of my grumbling, I didn’t move fast enough to avoid Karen. When she spotted Jade and me, a bright smile spread across her lips, and she headed straight for us like a bullet out of a gun.
“Oh, we’re in for it now,” Jade muttered as she ducked behind me, shielding herself.
“Hi, Cameron, Jade,” Karen said sweetly. “Are you enjoying your time off-campus?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to match her happy tone. “It’s a nice break.”
“Right?” Karen said with a giggle. “I’ve been anxiously waiting for these shopping days. Packing my closet with cute things to wear on the weekend. I swear, I’ve found at least four different dresses to wear to the dance, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pick one.”
“Oh, that sucks,” I said, trying to be sympathetic.
“Maybe I’ll do a costume change, halfway through,” Karen said with a shrug.
“That seems like a lot of extra work,” Jade commented offhandedly.
“Well, I might need a back up once Rachel sees me in the first one,” Karen said. Her cheeks flushed with red, and her eyelashes lowered like a coy dame. “She’ll just want to rip it right off me. You know how she is.”
“I do,” I said flatly, unable to pretend anymore.
Karen’s eyes caught my monotone and my hard expression. Suddenly, she gasped and raised a hand to her lips. Her eyes rounded to the size of softballs. My roommate leaned forward and put a hand on my forearm, one of her bags sliding forward and banging me in the leg.
“Oh my gods, Cameron, you didn’t try to come home last night, did you?” Karen whispered.
“I was working late at the forge,” I answered, my voice still all one-note.
“Gods, I’m so sorry,” Karen said with a squeeze of my arm. “When you didn’t come home at your usual time, I thought you might be spending the night elsewhere. Rachel thought Hailey and you were together in his apartment.”
Jade shot me a confused look. I clarified. “Hailey and I aren’t… we’re not doing anything like that until after this infection is over.”
“It would be okay if you were,” Karen reassured me, compassionate and considerate. “Especially if she makes you as happy as Rachel makes me. This infection is silly anyways.”
The tone nearly knocked me off balance. Karen was being… nice to me? Had she forgotten about our feud last year? She had no reason to be nice to me. Even though we were roommates, our interactions were limited to class, and the few times we’d bumped into each other. The more I thought about it, the more I realized there hadn’t been any aggression from her since that first night in the dorm.
Was it possible that being infected with Tainted Love had changed Karen?
“He wasn’t with Hailey,” Jade piped up as she stepped out from behind me. “He stayed at my place with me.”
“Thank you so much for taking him in,” Karen said sincerely to Jade, seemingly not aware that we were in a relationship along with Hailey. Then my new roommate wrapped my old dorm mate in a hug. The big bags banged into Jade’s back, and her short arms stuck out straight like sticks, not knowing what to do as Karen embraced her. I mimed hugging, and Jade sneered at me. Slowly, she bent her elbows and matched Karen’s hug. Soon, the daughter of Hermes released the daughter of Hebe and hugged me.
Stunned into silence like Jade, I just stood there, but I was quicker on the uptake to hug Karen back. Over Karen’s shoulder, I could see Jade standing there with a look of disgust on her face like she just fell in a vat of toxic waste rather than just hugged a fellow demigod.
Karen released me and then put her hands on my shoulders. “I am so sorry, Cameron. It was so rude of me to sexile you last night. Let me make it up to you.”
“You really don’t have to,” I said, unable to think of anything that Karen could give me that I wanted.
“No, I insist.” Karen put a hand over her heart. “Why don’t I help you with finding a suit for the dance? And a dress for Jade.”
Jade and I exchanged an apprehensive glance. My friend looked down at our ensembles, and while I knew that a day with Karen was one of the last things either of us wanted to do, we were completely clueless when it came to fashion. Someone like Karen, with her expertise, would be immensely helpful.
So I swallowed my pride and my irritation with one enormous gulp. “Thanks, Karen. We could really use some help if you couldn’t tell.” I gestured to our mismatching ensembles, and Karen winced.
“Yeah, you said it, not me,” Karen replied.
“But you were thinking it,” I confirmed.
“The minute I walked in the door,” Karen said. She set her bags down on the ground and spun me around towards the dressing room. “Take those off and hang out in there for a bit. Let me pull some stuff. And it might not be what you normally pick, but you’ve got to trust me, okay?”
Considering the situation I was in, I didn’t really have another option. So, to my utter surprise, I put my trust in Karen.
I walked back into my dressing room, but at the last moment, right before Jade was about to head into the one next to mine, I reached out and grabbed her arm and tugged her into the room with me.
Swiftly, I closed the curtain as Jade looked at me confused, “What are you doing Cameron?”
I smirked down at her, “Karen told us to hang out here naked.”
Jade nodded slowly, still confused, “Yes.”
My smirk widened as I walked forward and caged Jade against one of the walls. Her eyes widened as she finally got w
hat I wanted.
With a smile of her own, she trailed a finger down my chest, “So we should probably get naked. Shouldn’t we?”
I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Let’s see how quiet you can be? Don’t want to be caught, do we?”
A shiver raced down Jade’s body at that and my interest was piqued that she seemed even more turned on at the thought of possibly being caught.
I huffed a soft laugh and faster than she could react, I pinned her hands above her head.
“Cameron!” She gasped.
I tutted and kissed her softly, “Stay quiet.” I warned her.
She moaned and gyrated her hips against mine as I ghosted my lips down her neck.
“Cameron,” she whispered again, her voice throaty and out of breath.
I kept one hand clamped around both of her narrow wrists while the other one trailed down her side. There was entirely too much bulky purple fabric in the way, and I quickly reached down and gathered it up, pulling enough of it above her waist so that it draped over my forearm, and with a little maneuvering around the fullness of the skirt, managed to get close enough to run the palm of my hand up her inner thigh, until I felt the warmth of her against my palm.
“Mm,” she moaned, breaking her hands free and clawing her fingers against the suit, which was entirely too thick. She fought to get below the felt jacket, but gave up quickly, opting instead to fumble with my pants, frantically trying to break me free of them. My two fingers slid inside her, causing her movements to still as she gasped, her body pressing forward against mine. She looked into my eyes, and I could see the yearning and hunger inside of them. For a brief moment she remained pressed up against me, still, as I moved within her, but then just as quickly, her hands were back at the zipper on my pants, and then my pants were in a puddle on the floor.
I didn’t hesitate. I slid my fingers back out and stepped forward, fumbling beneath the fabric to bring myself closer to her. Her breath was warm on the nape of my neck as she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer. I slid myself inside of her, causing her to tense up as her breath caught. With one hand wrapped around her waist to hold her in place, and the other cupped around the back of her neck, I thrusted forward hungrily, over and over, while kissing my way down her neck and across her bare shoulder. She was writhing heavily against me now, small moans escaping unbidden from her throat, and I could tell she was fighting to stay quiet, but it was proving difficult. I kissed my way back up the side of her neck, slowing to nibble on her earlobe, and then wrapped her loose hair around my fingers and pulled back, hard, causing her to gasp again. Her intake of breath was quickly followed by a squeak, and I could tell she was close. I thrusted harder and faster as I felt the pressure build until I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I pushed Jade back up against the wall with a small thud, and pressed forward, the pressure reaching its peak before exploding. Jade whimpered in my arms as she went limp against me, her body twitching with the aftershocks.
I heard footsteps outside the dressing room, and Jade froze, looking up at me with uncertainty.
“Time to go,” I whispered with a wink. I stepped back and let the bustled up skirt of her dress fall down around her feet and she smoothed out the fabric before looking up at me with a satisfied smirk.
With a last kiss, Jade raced over to her dressing room right as Karen walked around the corner.
Karen had been absolutely right. Nothing that she threw over the top of the dressing room would be things I picked out for myself. One of the suits had so many crisscrossing buttons that I just got confused and gave up right away. One of them was a midnight black with no buttons, but my chest was too broad for it to fit comfortably. The whole thing kept straining as I moved my arms.
Karen forced us to come out and show her every single tux and dress.
“I’m a visual person,” she claimed. “I have an idea in my mind, but I need to see it on you to see if it works.”
Jade and I put on our very own fashion show for my roommate. Karen propped her long legs up on a footstool and settled herself in an armchair outside of the dressing rooms. When I ventured out for the fourth tux, a navy blue number with an itchy cravat tightened around my throat, the woman behind the counter was handing Karen a cup of tea. Her straight black hair hung in front of her face, but I could see pale hands with knobby knuckles and black painted nails pass the cup onto the daughter of Hermes.
“Thank you so much,” Karen crooned. “Styling these two is hard work. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem,” the shopkeeper said with a one-shoulder shrug. “You’ve certainly got your hands full.”
“Don’t I?” Karen said as though Jade and I were huge burdens on her time.
The shopkeeper patted Karen’s shoulder and walked back to her counter at the front. Now, while this might have been a local boutique, there was no way this was the kind of fancy place that served its customers tea on a regular basis. I put my hands on my hips and widened my stance.
“Did you swindle that out of her?” I accused.
“Swindle?” Karen said, baffled at my choice of words. “What am I? A pirate?” She took a sip of her tea and eyed me over the teacup. I held her gaze and cleared my throat. Karen set the cup on its saucer, and then rested it on the end table beside her.
“If you must know, I only asked,” Karen defended. “No magic involved.”
I crossed my arms across my chest. The tightness of the back pulled at my upper arms, but I fought against the pain in order to show my disapproval at Karen’s actions. My roommate held up her hands in surrender.
“There was no magic, I swear,” Karen insisted. “Plus, I don’t even have those manipulative abilities like some of my siblings do.”
“Uh uh,” I replied doubtfully.
“There’s no hurt in asking for things, Cameron,” Karen informed me as she took another sip of her drink. “The worst that can happen is they say no.”
Suddenly, Karen set her drink down and let the cup clatter against the saucer. She held a hand up to her mouth, and a squeal emanated from it. “Oh, Jade! You look like a dream!”
I whirled around to see my girl standing in front of the mirrors dutifully in an elegant white tea-length dress. It was accented with a red ribbon around the middle, cinching in her already little waist. The collar was also red, as well as the tulle that stuck out at the bottom. The dress was patterned with little red dots that, when I looked closer, noticed they were little apples. She took my breath away, she was gorgeous.
Karen bounced out of her seat and rushed over to my friend with a pair of red laced gloves.
“Put these on,” Karen commanded. “They will match perfectly. Oh, you look so good! And you can wear that necklace you’re so fond of to match.”
Jade fiddled the gold chain on her neck and looked in the mirror, anxiety written all over her face.
“I look good?” she asked in the form of a question while her eyes searched mine for confirmation.
“You look absolutely amazing, Jade,” I said with a soft smile and wide eyes showing my affection. “It’s the best one you’ve tried on so far.”
“I think we can say we’ve found your dress,” Karen said as she bounced on her heels and clapped her hands together. “Now, get out of that so our generous hostess can bag it up for you, and we can focus on Cameron.”
My roommate turned to me, and her eyes gleamed hungrily like I was made out of meat. I quickly dashed back to the dressing room to get out of the itchy cravat I was currently in and move on to Karen’s other selections.
I felt like I tried on every tux in the store in my size. The sun was beginning to set, and my stomach grumbled at the lack of food I’d had over the last couple of hours. Karen hadn’t been as successful as she had with Jade’s dress, and while I was ready to throw in the towel and go with my pajama theory from earlier, Karen refused to accept the loss.
“This is the cutest boutique in this town,” Karen argued as she zipped throu
gh a rack she’s been through twice already. “Everyone already bought their dresses during the first outing, and everybody bought theirs from here because each piece is unique. No one bought a tux so there’s got to be something for you here.”
“Maybe all the good suits in my size are gone,” I argued, wanting to listen to my stomach and not Karen’s whining.
“I don’t believe it,” Karen said, her motions going faster and faster so that the metal hangers clattered together. “I just don’t, not when all the buyers recently have been female.”
“If I may,” the shopkeeper said, stepping in our conversation. Karen, Jade, and I all looked up at her.
She had a heart-shaped face with a pointed chin. Her skin was vampirically pale, only enhanced by the coal-black hair that hung around her face in stick-straight lines. She parted her hair right down the middle, which did nothing for her style either. The woman looked as though she was a cousin of the Addams family. The shopkeeper reached out with a hanger hanging off a single, slender finger with the pointed black nail aimed right at me.
“Might I suggest this?”
On the hanger was a red shirt accented with a pitch black tux shirt and pants. The pants had a trim of the same color red as the shirt. It was simple, yet elegant. And had no tie, bow tie or cravat in sight
“Of course!” Karen exclaimed, an epiphany occurring before our very eyes. “Red is the perfect color for you. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about it before.”
“But, my hair?” I countered, grabbing the top of my hair in my hand. “Wouldn’t it clash?”
“Not this shade,” the shopkeeper answered. “It would highlight and even out your skin tone.”
Karen yanked it from the woman’s hands and thrust it into my chest. “Try it on. Now.”
I ventured into the dressing room, wanting to please Karen so she wouldn’t swallow me whole. I appreciated her enthusiasm, but it was now turning to desperation. I wasn’t nearly close to her level of urgency.
But as I slipped into the suit, the fabric seemed to mold to my body. It hugged me in all the right places and accented my muscles. Nothing itched or poked. In fact, the whole thing felt like a warm blanket wrapped around my body. Despite the starched pants, I could still take normal steps.
