Quaranteam: Project RED - Ch 15

Thanks to CorruptingPower for permission to make my little contribution to the ever-growing world of Quaranteam, and thanks to the whole collective for their feedback on the writing, and keeping me on the straight and narrow when it comes to canon.

Thank you all for the feedback and support so far. It's great that so many of you are keen to see what happens next for Rob, Kat and company. Life for our friends is starting to get... complicated.

Ratings and comments appreciated as always. Knowing that people appreciate the work is what keeps me writing.

Chapter 15: Getting Crowded

Project Update 30, 2020-08-31

We're now in a situation where participant Teams have quite varied numbers of members who aren't on the experimental serum. I'm stepping up monitoring of observable factors that will help us understand how a Team with mixed serum types will develop.

As such, I'm also going to ask all the women involved, whichever serum they're on, to keep a log of when they 'top-up', and how they're feeling each day in terms of feeling the need to do so. I'm consulting with Dr Jones and the local medical people generally on the best way to approach this, particularly in terms of communication.

We have a lot of staff turning up to run the site, and most of them are going onto new, staff-based Teams, but some are placing very well, according to Oracle, on participant Teams. That also helps get our male participants' Team sizes up, though blood tests following imprinting their second partner on the experimental serum does suggest that each such woman has a comparable effect to multiple partners on the regular serum. We should be able to produce a clearer numerical value for the equivalence with a little more data.

In a few days, all experimental Teams will be up to the originally-intended number of participants. I've attached my proposal for a second round of testing with different selection criteria. As soon as another manufacturing run of the experimental serum is authorised, I'll get working with the British government on participant selection.

We still have plenty of space here, and expect to even with the staff and the additional tenant projects that Whitehall want to move in, so I don't really see any barrier.

Dr Sarah Zedner

Lead Scientist, Project R. E. D.

* * * * *

31st August 2020, about 7:30 p. m.

------

Rob and Gillian were curled up next to one another on the sofa in the cinema room in their treehouse. Kat had been very enthusiastic when Gillian had mentioned Rob's suggestion the previous day, that she have some time with him, just the two of them. The idea of them having a bit of a 'date night' after dinner was, Kat insisted, marvellous, and she all but shoved them into the room with popcorn, closing the door behind them.

"Those two don't look or act like they're even old enough to have jobs," Gillian commented as they were introduced to the main character, after the over-the-top special effects of the opening sequence.

They'd chosen a lighthearted family comedy, as much for a laugh as anything else—which they certainly got from the strange encounter on the train—but it soon seemed to be more affecting than they'd anticipated.

"This is a lot more emotional than I was expecting," Rob noted a bit later, when the main character explored his father's apartment. "The whole estranged dad thing… It's played a bit heavy-handed, but it still hits."

Gillian shifted a little closer to him in sympathy.

"I feel like there should be more swearing," she said after the second main character was introduced, chugging coffee while talking to the other about the situation. "But then again, it might be even weirder to hear that sort of dialogue from a cute animated character."

"Yeah," agreed Rob. "Casting Ryan Reynolds was definitely a bit of a power move. And he brings some of that Deadpool energy."

It was much more absorbing than Gillian anticipated, certainly. Without really thinking about it, she took the opportunity of Rob raising his arms to cheer at the film to move slightly closer, feeling warmed inside by Rob's arm falling not around her, precisely, but along the back of the sofa behind her. It was almost the same thing.

"I really didn't expect this to hit me in the feels so much," Gillian commented a bit later. Rob's arm came down to pat her comfortingly on the shoulder, and stayed resting there gently. The mood was lifted slightly by the film taking a sillier turn again, with hilarious attempts at spycraft. Still, Gillian had a tear in her eye at the final moment between father and son.

"So, how much is he staying for his father, and how much for the cute intern?" she asked. The question seemed to naturally lead to her turning her body more towards Rob. "I mean, you just know those two end up getting it on."

"Good question," Rob observed. "And how much so he doesn't have to go back to his crappy job?"

By the time the credits rolled, Gillian was curled close against Rob with his arm around her, feeling the warmth of his body. She was aware of his subtle, personal aroma that already penetrated the artificial overlay from his shower, and of her growing need that, given Kat's assurances in the past and the enthusiasm that Rob had shown on previous occasions, she would readily have indulged before now. That need was, however, present rather than intense—that had been pushing at her for days, and that she had contained to avoid putting pressure on him—but right now she revelled in the feeling of just being close to him. Not sexually, and not just physically, but having an ordinary human connection.

When he artlessly bent and kissed the top of her head—seeming so spontaneous that Gillian wasn't sure he was even fully aware of doing so, or what it implied—her heart swelled. The connection between her and Rob—and indeed Kat—would be perfectly functional as one of deep respect, ideally friendship, and good sexual chemistry; she'd been prepared for that when she agreed to be involved in the project. But once she saw how they were together, and started to appreciate each of them more deeply as people, she'd hoped for more with each of them. When Rob had suggested that they spend more simple time together, that hope rose, and now it seemed like it might be fulfilled—at least with Rob—her heat began to rise again. She fought to resist it—natural arousal combined, she was sure, with the effects of the vaccine—because she had to confront and clarify the feelings that were developing between them.

"Rob," she said, pulling back slightly to look up at him while staying within the comfort of his embrace, "I want to talk. About you and me."

"I thought you would," he said. "Your body language, the way you look at me, it's changed since we went shopping yesterday."

"I, well, you know I care about you. You made it clear that you recognised it in how I reacted to the way that ENT consultant treated you. But…" she struggled to find the word, "but it feels like things are developing. Like your feelings for me are developing. And I need to know where we stand."

"Well," he replied, looking thoughtful, "we still haven't known each other that long, but it's been pretty intense, hasn't it?" He carried on without waiting for her agreement, though she nodded anyway. "I like you, Gillian, and I'd like that to be more than just friends who have sex. I'm not bad at reading people, but I'm pretty awful at it when it's about how they feel about me—still, I hope I'm not reading you wrong when I say I've thought for a while that you felt likewise." The arm around Gillian tightened briefly. "The world has gotten pretty weird—it's going to get weirder, once the vaccine rolls out—and we have to change how we see things.

"Kat and I actually talked about the idea of loving multiple people, more philosophically than anything else, years ago," he went on. "We knew people who were polyamorous, of course, and we agreed that—on a fundamental level—love wasn't limited. That people could love more than one person. That the basic potential for that is there in everyone, but some people are equipped to cope with it, and some not so much. We wondered which we were, but ultimately decided we didn't need to find out," he went on with a shrug. "Neither of us wanted anyone else, and frankly neither of us would have been able to cope with the physical or emotional demands of another relationship."

"And has that changed, with— with everything?" Gillian asked, her heart creeping towards her mouth.

"We've talked a bit more, recently. My verbal diarrhoea back before any of us were vaccinated kind of made it obvious we needed to." He smiled unevenly, chagrined at that whole episode when he'd been recovering from sedation; Gillian hoped he didn't regret it—she certainly didn't. "Two things have changed—one is our actual physical capacity, obviously. The other is the fact that we'll both have the emotional burden of more relationships, whatever their nature—friends, lovers, or just practical Teammates with no real emotional bond. So if love happens, it happens. For either of us, whether we share that or not, at least within the Team."

"And us?"

"I won't use the word 'love' lightly, Gillian," he said, tender but serious. "I hope you won't, either—that none of us will. But… the early stages are there. Maybe not the same thing as there is between me and Kat, but I don't know that any two loves are ever the same. I already care for you. A lot. If you don't push me away, if you don't try to cut off that growing connection, I think I'll fall for you."

It was exactly what she'd hoped to hear; not the gushing, emotional response of someone who feels a hint of an emotion and grabs hold of it, but a mature, sensible reaction. It mirrored what she felt, so she let herself feel it without restraint—and dropped the restraint on other feelings, too.

She leaned up and kissed him, more tenderly than they ever had before. He responded in kind, shifting position to get a better angle. They melted together, their kisses slowly growing more passionate as their hands began to explore. Soon she was straddling him, the fingers of one hand threading through his hair while the other steadied her; resting it on his shoulder soon led to temptation to move it, caressing him, so she moved it to the back of the sofa, not wanting to become unbalanced. His hands stroked her back, firm caresses becoming feather-light strokes along her sides and spine, sending tingles across her skin. Even though she was up on her knees, not resting against him, she could feel his hardness pressing between her legs, and her pussy was responding.

She had just pulled back and started removing her top when her phone chimed from the table at the end of the sofa.

"Shouldn't you—" Rob began, and was interrupted when Gillian finished getting her top off and kissed him.

"It can wait," she said breathily. "I need you."

"Gillian, stop," he said, dodging her next kiss. "Sophie's still down, regenerating. She might have woken up."

Gillian swore and lunged for her phone.

Then she swore even more liberally.

"You're right," she said after fully venting her spleen. "And it's her." She got up and retrieved her top. "But you better be prepared to finish what you started once she's back, mister." She smiled as she said it, but trusted Rob to realise that she was completely serious.

On her way out, she told Kat why she had to go, and gave her a brief idea of what had been interrupted.

"Just don't let him forget," she told the other woman, "that I'll be wanting to get him alone once Sophie's settled."

She just hoped that the drive over to the medical area would be enough to clear her head. And that no-one would think it unprofessional to do this collection out of uniform.

* * *

Rob planned to wait a few minutes and let himself calm down a little before he went to see what everyone else was up to. He didn't, after all, want to complicate things for Gillian by running into her while she was sorting herself out to go.

He was surprised by Kat letting herself into the room and carefully closing the door behind her.

"Gillian explained," she said as she wobbled over to him, kneeling at his feet. "I thought it might be best if you weren't left blue-ballsed." She calmly and methodically unfastened and pulled down his trousers and underwear.

"And Gillian will kill me if I'm not up to a round with her later," Rob pointed out. "I've already imprinted Charlotte today, and if you—oh shit," he stuttered as Kat grabbed his cock and steered it into her mouth, working the shaft with her hand—and with better grip than she'd had in a long time—while she bobbed her head and swirled her tongue. His mouth worked soundlessly for a while; the only noises he made were gasps and squeaks, almost nothing in comparison to the slurping coming from his wife.

She pulled her mouth from him with a distinct 'pop', and looked him in the eyes as she kept stroking. "Come on, you know you're good for it. Or maybe you don't; that threesome before you finally fell asleep? You were good to go again pretty much straight away. You already had a bit of a rest since Charlotte, and you'll have more before Gillian gets another go."

Rob wasn't sure about that, but found himself entirely unable to argue once his cock was in his wife's mouth again. She sped up, the tight ring of her lips moving up and down as her hand kept stroking, and before he could find words again he was coming, and her muffled screams around his cock as she came as well only heightened his pleasure.

* * * * *

The doctor—Arnold, Gillian thought her name was, though she'd had little to do with her—was just finishing up as she got to Sophie's room. She was a neat, bookish woman who habitually kept her dark hair in the same sort of low bun as Gillian did when she was working.

"Right, Gillian, spot on," Dr Arnold said; while her language was precise, her vowels had that odd shift that spoke of origins somewhere near Tyneside. She was one of the youngest doctors on the project, in her early thirties—not much older than Gillian—and the physio thought she'd seen her tagging along with Dr Santoro during meetings. "Sophie here seems alright. I'll be wanting to catch one of the radiologists and do some real-time MRIs to get a proper look at the outcome from the inside, some time in the next couple of days. Her rehab will take time, but we've got a right good imaging suite here, and not much demand; I can get a direct look at remyelination and axonal regeneration, and I can see whether the brain is actually using those connections." She looked like a kid at Christmas. "I'll let you know when we have that booked. She's fine to go home now. Very promising, aye." She seemed to look into the middle distance, presumably imagining what her adventure in imaging was going to show her.

"I'm right here, you know," Sophie put in from the bed.

"Oh, sorry, pet," the doctor said, turning back to the bed; Gillian assumed excitement was overriding professionalism, and hoped that it wouldn't put Sophie's back up. She was, like Gillian herself, very southern, and from what Rob had said very political, too—she might not appreciate that sort of casual endearment.

Still, maybe coming from a woman it's not so bad.

"It's okay, I'm just… everything feels kind of weird, and I'd like to, um, understand what's going on. And then go somewhere a bit more familiar."

"Time will tell, but the paresis of your legs and face is definitely reduced—that is, they're stronger—and while your arm isn't moving in a way consistent with ataxia anymore, it's not quite right. Harder to tell with the ataxic leg, but I expect it's similar. That'll get better with rehab. When it comes to your language issues, well, it's too soon to say. We'll test you on that tomorrow—and not as hard as we did before treatment, so don't worry." She smiled at them both, a thin professional veneer on her excitement. "I'll leave you two to it."

Sophie looked at Gillian. "Can I go home now? I mean, back to the, ah, treehouse? This place is weird, and I'm hungry."

"Just a minute," Gillian said, looking her over closely, noting that her face did indeed look more even; there wasn't any regeneration crud anywhere on her body, but then what needed fixing wasn't anywhere but her head. And sure enough, caught amongst the roots of her blond hair was a fairly thick, if uneven, layer of the strange whitish powder that was produced by the mysterious process of regeneration. "I think maybe you should wash your hair," she told the younger woman. "Take a shower while you're at it. I'll help, given your arm's still not right. Then we can brush it out, I'm sure you'll feel more comfortable after that. There's even a hairdryer over there that we can use."

"Oh, we won't need that," Sophie said with more enthusiasm. "I never do. And we can go easy on the conditioner, too. Thank you so much." Without getting up, she surprised Gillian with a fierce hug around her middle, prompting an unexpectedly fond smile.

* * *

About ten minutes after Kat had 'finished the job', Rob got a text from Gillian that Sophie would be about twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, and that she was hungry. She helpfully mentioned that it still needed to be 'easy to eat' stuff, but didn't mention any specific cravings, the way Kat had needed protein.

"Kat, love," he called out, not checking where his wife was while he got the kitchen into a state to be cooked in, "could you get online and try to figure out what food Sophie's likely to need? I think we're looking at neurons being made or reconditioned, and the myelin replaced."

"On it," she said from nearby. "Off the top of my head, I know it'll be B12, fats—not sure which ones—and whatever goes into making cholesterol. That's for the myelin. For the neurons, I don't know."

He looked around, and saw her bent over her laptop at the dining table.

B12… red meat's the best, I think. We've no fresh beef, to avoid bothering AJ, and pork's not as good, but didn't we get some lamb?

He checked the fridge, and found they did indeed—lean diced stuff, not the best thing for his preferred uses of the meat, like stews and curries, but pretty good for right now. He dug through the drawers and found some metal skewers.

The oven will take too long… Wasn't there a hob-top griddle somewhere?

He half emptied a cupboard, eventually finding it, and set it up over the gas hob. It left the two rear burners free, which might be important if there was something else he needed.

"Okay, Rob," Kat said. "Sorry it took me a while, I had to look up what had some things. Red meat scores some more points—that lamb you bought would be perfect. There's particular amino and fatty acids she probably needs that it has plenty of. Egg yolks that are still runny would be great for the cholesterol part, but if you cook them solid then they won't work. Or full-fat milk. But if she still needs rehab for that arm, she'll not want a fried egg, and I don't know if she likes drinking milk."

"Custard," Rob said as he mixed spices for the lamb. "I'll get it going once these are on. What else."

"Ooh, that'll give her the sugar as well. Then it's oily fish—she needs omega-3. Do we have any mackerel or sardines or anything?"

"Tinned sardines and frozen salmon fillets. What's best?"

"Sardines will be more concentrated. Maybe dust them and fry them?"

"Good idea." He tipped the lamb into a bowl and rubbed the seasoning into it, then pulled out another one ready to mix—and cook—the custard and a third, into which he tipped some plain flour. "What else?"

"Milk again," she said. "The custard covers that, right?"

"Yeah. So, fried dusted sardines, lamb skewers, and custard for afters?" He opened a tin of sardines and drained off the excess oil, then emptied it onto some kitchen roll and squeezed the excess fluids out as best he could. He tipped them into the bowl of flour and shook the fish through, making sure it was well-coated.

"I think that covers it. And that's all finger-foods or stuff she can eat with a spoon, too," Kat said brightly.

Rob started crushing garlic to make a dip as AJ came into the room, curious about the activity. He let Kat explain the situation and got on with the job.

By the time Sophie and Gillian walked in the door, the skewers were nearly done, a pan of milk was keeping warm, and another of oil was ready for the sardines. But Rob almost forgot about the food when he got a clear look at the youngest member of the Team.

Sophie's hair wasn't in front of her face anymore. Nor was it in lank clumps. It was tied in a neat ponytail, and it was sleek and glossy with just a hint of a wave.

And the face it revealed was beautiful. Not in the enchanting, unearthly Hollywood-esque way that Charlotte demonstrated; however much Kat was enchanted by the tall redhead, Rob found it a bit off-putting. Sophie was rather more normal, with classical good looks and an innocence that was enchanting in an entirely different way to Charlotte's knowingness and self-possession. Her smile was even now, the asymmetry gone, though it was a trifle uncertain, and her delicately shaped chin and well-formed cheekbones were startling in their contribution to her beauty without any sense of being beyond what might be considered normal.

He was only peripherally aware of the unsteadiness and unevenness of her gait, still very present though definitely improved.

As Rob looked at her open-mouthed, she looked back at him with pale blue eyes, both fully open now, and seemed to become taller. Given his own recent experience, Rob quickly realised what was happening; she had been slouching, but while his own posture had had a decade or so to set in place, hers was new, simply a habit—and as she saw his reaction, it was undoing itself. Presently she was, he thought, a touch taller than Kat.

She'd also shed the baggy hoodie, and revealed a fairly trim figure, with a flat stomach and hips that were rounded purely by the underlying bones, not by fat. Her arms and legs were perhaps a little too slender—a result of a lack of activity, perhaps, and of her regeneration—but there was one thing that was definitely not slender. Her bust was surprisingly generous for her frame. While it couldn't compare with what Kat's had been, and promised to be again in the not-too-distant future, it was at that moment the biggest on the Team; to judge from the way her t-shirt draped—or rather didn't—it was an obvious contender for being the most shapely, too.

He heard Gillian clear her throat rather obviously, and became aware that it was at least her third attempt to get his attention. He managed to glance at her, and saw her repeatedly swinging her gaze—and eyebrows—towards Kat.

Turning his attention to his wife, he caught her briefly looking at him with unmistakable concern before she reacted to his shifted gaze by looking away.

Then he caught the aroma of burning lamb.

"Uh, yeah, Sophie, welcome back," he said, keeping his eyes on the cooker and knowing it sounded kind of lame. "You're looking well." More lame. "Gillian let us know that you were hungry, and Kat looked up what you were most likely to need. Sit down, and just give me two minutes and the savoury course will be ready." He turned the kebabs, threw the sardines into the oil, and took a stick blender to a flask of eggs, olive oil, vinegar, mustard powder and crushed garlic.

Two minutes later he set in front of Sophie a serving platter, covered in lamb kebabs, crispy fried sardines and garlic mayonnaise.

"All stuff that you can eat with one hand," he said. "I'll just get your dessert going."

"Wow," Sophie said, grinning. The weakness on the left side of her face became evident with the more pronounced expression, but it was subtle now. "I'm hungry, but I don't know if I'll want dessert as well as all this. I've never eaten so much in one go. Though goodness knows I feel like I could just inhale it." Her speech seemed more fluid, and the odd pronunciation seemed to be entirely gone. Instead there was a clear, middle-class southern accent with very precise diction.

"If you're anything like I was after I regenerated, you'll get through it like nothing," Kat said, her tone friendly and warm. "I recommend chewing, though."

Rob got the custard going, sparing a glance every so often to check on Sophie. She was setting to with a vengeance, and the amount of mayonnaise she was picking up on each dip seemed to be steadily increasing. Kat also seemed to be 'helping' her get through it, though she showed admirable restraint.

"Is that custard?" Sophie asked, looking across at him in the kitchen.

"Yeah," Rob replied. "Kat figured out that you could probably do with egg yolks, but not too well-done, so I figured this would work."

"Oh my God. It just smells like custard, but at the same time it's like the best thing I've ever smelt in my life. You can bring it to me in a mug, please." She took a piece of lamb, smothered in mayo, into her mouth, hurriedly chewed and swallowed. "Make that several mugs."

"One for me, too," Kat added.

Rob smiled as he worked. It was always nice when people appreciated his cooking.

* * *

Gillian watched as Sophie finally slowed down on her fourth mug of custard—though Rob had quietly told her that the idea had been to offer it to everyone—and smiled as Kat and AJ took the opportunity to talk to the young woman.

"Okay, guys," she said to the room in general. "Sophie, all of you, remember that we don't know how much difference the regeneration has made to language. You've just been asleep, more or less, for a long time, Sophie, so you're well-rested, but you might get language fatigue again. Don't push yourself too hard." She then turned to Rob and, much more quietly, said, "We have unfinished business. My room. Now."

She trusted him to infer that she wasn't being entirely literal, and waited just around the curve of the corridor where she couldn't be seen from the living space. She clearly heard Rob make a couple of polite remarks, and as he began to excuse himself dashed to her bedroom and hurriedly took off everything except her underwear. She let her hair down, drawing it into a cascade over each shoulder just in time for a knock on her door.

She opened it slightly, saw that there was, indeed, a slightly awkward-looking Rob standing outside, and pulled the door wide enough to grab him and pull him into the room.

"I've been trying really fucking hard to keep my mind off this while I was collecting Sophie," she said, advancing on him with small definite steps. She was amused that he was backing away from her by the same degree, step by step, seemingly out of instinct. That wouldn't do. "I can't recreate quite the same mood," she said, making a quarter circle around him; he obligingly turned to follow, ending up with his back to her bed. "Frankly, I don't really give a fuck." She shoved him so he toppled back onto the bed, his back against the wall. "But I'm definitely going to get one."

She pounced on top of him, recreating the position they had been in when they were interrupted, and kissed him hungrily. When he broke off in order to speak, she growled slightly.

"Yes, absolutely," he said, looking at her with, she thought, a slight glimmer of fear.

Good. Fuck, I'm going to eat him alive.

"It's just, well, Kat came in just after you left," he said hurriedly. "And she, um… Well, I'm just not sure how much capacity I really have—"

She shut him up by kissing him again. Really, there was no point letting him carry on with that nonsense.

While his attention was, she trusted, fully engaged, she reached behind her back and unfastened her bra, slipping it forward over her shoulders and dropping it on the floor behind her. The next time they broke for breath, she shifted forwards and leaned up, putting his face right into her cleavage.

As he enthusiastically nuzzled and kissed, she spoke. "There's. No. Way." Her voice was firm, but even she could feel the sensuality that seemed to drip from it. "No way that you can't help me." She guided a hand between her legs. "I'm ready to fuck," she went on as she guided him to stroke her through her underwear. Her hand left his to continue—her breath hitching as his caresses became a little more forceful—and instead felt between his legs. "And it certainly feels like you are," she said, feeling herself smile from ear to ear.

She shortly had his trousers and underwear around his knees, her own on the floor, and his cock inside her. She rode him hard, hearing complete filth coming out of her mouth, though she couldn't ever remember precisely what she said. He seemed to appreciate it in any case, and keyed-up though she was, she only got through two orgasms—the first happening very quickly—before he was erupting into her and the sparks and fireworks of the vaccine-induced orgasm flashed through her, her awareness sharpening in focus on the pleasure coursing along every nerve, and the warmth and presence of the man who caused it.

* * * * *

1st September 2020, around 7:30 a. m.

------

As Rob came through to the living area, he regretted the fact that he'd woken later than usual. Everyone was already sitting around the table, including the newly-imprinted Charlotte, having got themselves various cold breakfasts. Some were finished while others were still eating, but all were sitting around chatting.

He liked cooking for them.

Still, he grabbed himself a bowl of cereal and took a seat. Charlotte was being somewhat odious again, although Emma looked entirely comfortable as she refilled her wife's coffee from a cafetiere that someone had made. AJ seemed to be trying to balance her out, though, which was interesting to watch.

"One of my family's businesses is property," she was saying as he took his first mouthful of cereal. "Really, it started as a place to put spare money. It's just not our way to dramatically 'enhance' our lifestyle when we make more money; we invest it, and employ more people, which spreads the benefit around."

"Well, I doubt it overlaps very much with my work," Charlotte verbally parried. "If you're making a business of your property, rather than just letting it sit there and gather value, I don't expect that luxury homes are part of the portfolio."

As a riposte, that could use some work.

"Well, none of those country mansions or anything, no," AJ acknowledged. "We did get a forty-five percent share in a consortium for a luxury canalside apartment development in Manchester a few years ago, though, while it was in pre-development. When it was getting to the marketing stage, some of the others were getting cold feet; estimates on construction costs were going up, and the market was taking a bit of a dip. We snapped up their shares, at which point we had enough muscle to take control of the development, adjust it for the changing conditions when the others were being too indecisive. We also decided to throw in the capital to complete without any off-plan sales, keep some options open. We were expecting to be doing fit-out by now, but well, the pandemic; we'd barely moved past the shell and core when everything shut down. I've just been exchanging emails with our people to work on some changes to the plans; I think that the market might be demanding significantly larger units now, what with the, ah, change in lifestyles that the vaccine will cause."

Charlotte had choked slightly at the mention of 'throwing in' the money to complete development.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

Rob tried to conceal his amusement, and decided it might be a good idea to put an end to the fencing. He didn't want anyone to get hurt.

"So, everyone got a busy day planned?"

"I have to take Sophie off for some testing in a bit," Gillian said, already dressed in her work uniform. "They want to do some fancy brain imaging, and test her speech."

"I think I'm doing a bit better than before," Sophie added. "Words are still… difficult to find. There's a better word I wanted to use there, but I couldn't find it. But I'm not getting tired like I was, at least to judge by last night."

"I should do an Uttar Puja and visarjan for Ganesha," AJ said. "It's the last day of Chaturthi. Does anyone have anything bright red I can borrow? I don't have the right powder, but anything that makes a vivid red mark—but not ink. It has to sit on top of the paper."

"I have some lipstick," Charlotte offered, then at the surprised looks her helpfulness attracted, looked surprised in her turn. "Um… You can have your pick of shades," she finished with slow caution.

Careful, Charlotte. Being nice and being superior is going to look strange. I think I'll need to have a word with her—and Emma—about how she's calibrating.

"And I, um, wanted to have a bit of a chat with you, Rob," AJ went on, "before everyone gets going. In private."

"Me too," said Gillian. "I mean, separately."

Rob caught a significant series of looks pass between Emma and Charlotte before the latter put in, "Well, if there's office hours happening, we're on the list as well."

"You guys know I'm not in charge, right?" Rob asked, looking from woman to woman. Emma and Sophie were both placidly eating, but the others—except Kat—looked at him with variously sceptical and confused looks. "No-one is," he said, patiently. "If you think I should be in charge because the vaccine makes me the fulcrum of our living arrangements, then you need to have a good think about everything. And if you think it's to do with who was 'first', in terms of relationships, or the starting point for matching, it would be me and Kat. If it's based on some broader sense of importance, then I suppose from the project's point of view it could be the two of us plus Sophie and Emma. We're all four of us the reason for the Team to exist, if that means anything." He paused, looking from face to face again. "For me, though, we're all the same. Participant, 'plus one', project staff, whatever. Giving me deference is one of very few things I'll put my foot down over—and all of you have the right to put a foot down on anything you feel strongly about, too."

"Yes," said AJ slowly. "I'm with you on all of that. But there is one thing that any of us might want to talk to you about that doesn't involve any of the others."

"Oh," he said, with the feeling that his principled and heartfelt argument might have been just tilting at windmills. "Yeah. Well, I should do some more rehab," he replied. "Or so I'm told," he went on, inclining his head to Gillian, who nodded. "I want to get to the point where I don't need stabilisers on a bike, certainly. So how about I finish my breakfast, then I'll grab a coffee and hang out in the cinema room, and you can figure out who's speaking to me first."

They shrugged and agreed, and Rob carried on eating his cereal.

* * *

Rob looked up from his phone—checking to see if any real news was being let out—and smiled as Gillian entered the room.

"So, did you draw the short straw, or the long one?"

"We came to a collective, rational decision about the order," she told him. "There was a bit of give-and-take." At his raised brow, she went on, "Well, I think maybe my uniform created a degree of deference, and AJ was willing to go last, so it sorted itself out."

"That sounds more plausible," he replied with a laugh, gesturing to urge her to take a seat. "Well, what can I do for you?"

"It's not about my top-ups," she said with a grin as she sat down. "That was good, last night, by the way. Actually, I wanted to talk about Sophie."

"I've barely had a chance to talk to her since she got back. Did she say something you think I need to know?"

"No. It's more something that occurred to me after our little date thing last night; you should do the same for her." She grimaced momentarily before continuing. "Not precisely the same. I mean you should take her on a date. Multiple, ideally."

"That's not a bad idea," Rob conceded. "Give her some sense of, well, courtship I guess."

"Yeah. So take her out this afternoon, just explore the park. She won't be up to much walking, and there's no time to get you checked out on the buggies, but I've found a solution for that; it'll be delivered around lunchtime."

"Okay." That piqued his curiosity, though self-doubt nagged at him. "I can do that. I should ask her, of course."

What do I know about courtship? I've been in the same relationship for years, and I can't remember any relationship that I initiated.

"Absolutely." Gillian stood up and started to leave, then turned back with her hand on the door. "You can do this, you know—make her feel wooed." She smiled, looking him in the eyes. "You managed it with me, and I'm pretty sure you weren't even trying."

* * *

"Thank you for seeing us, Rob," Charlotte said, rather more warmly than she'd spoken at breakfast. She sat primly, Emma demurely taking the seat next to her. "We'd like to discuss plans for Emma's imprinting tonight."

"Okay," Rob acknowledged. "I'm all for getting things set out in advance, especially in a situation like this. I'd be more comfortable if we did it off the clock, though."

The women looked at one another, and Emma nodded.

"Fine," said Charlotte, relaxed and controlled at the same time. "We'll even do it formally, just to be sure."

"I'm happy to take your word for it," Rob said, but even as he spoke Charlotte was removing her bracelet and using the key concealed within to unlock Emma's necklace. She put them down together on a side table and, just as before, their respective demeanours changed.

It wasn't as marked as it had been the previous day, largely because Charlotte hadn't been in what Rob thought of as her 'control bitch' mode, but her relaxation was still palpable, as was Emma's increased, well, the best word Rob could think of for it was 'presence'.

"Sorry, I know that it can be more comfortable for you to let Charlotte handle things," he said to Emma. "But for something like this I want to be completely sure that what's discussed really reflects your wishes."

"It's okay," she replied. "It's easier to be off the clock around you than I would have expected." Her head cocked briefly to one side. "I don't know why. But anyway, hopefully you'll come to trust Charlotte, maybe not as much as I do, but enough. And when it comes to sex with other people, I would always make sure that she didn't cross a line. At least, not one I wasn't okay with her crossing."

"Okay, so, how do you want to do this?" Rob went on, still looking exclusively at Emma.

"Well, it's a little odd," she said. "That's part of why we wanted to talk about this early. Like I said yesterday, I do want to get out of sub-space with you sometimes, but I'm not ready for that. I want it to be just us, though. Which kind of seems to be asking the impossible, because neither of us want you to dom me. You see?"

"Um, yeah, and I can see the obvious solution, but, well, I'd like some say in this."

"And that's another reason to talk to you now," Charlotte put in. "I would be sending Emma in with clear instructions, but, well, you need to decide how much of a surprise you want it to be. If you don't want any surprises, you and I can sit down and put together a script, without Emma, and if she rejects any of it I'll let you know before you get going. If you want more of a surprise, then you and I need to sit down and work out some red lines, if you see what I mean."

Rob thought about it for a long moment; Emma gave every appearance of waiting patiently, even with a touch of amusement. Charlotte, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically nervous.

Or perhaps this is more the real her. The unflappable queen persona is a mask, after all. And those things that she has to keep 'down' while she wears it come back harder when it slips.

He was surprised by how much sympathy he was starting to feel for Charlotte.

"You two have surprised me plenty already," he said, "but it's been good, mostly. I don't think I've got many red lines, but we can sit down later to work it out. You probably have things in mind to check that I wouldn't even think of. Just as long as I can still say 'no' at the time."

"Of course," Charlotte said. "There will be options and alternatives, but I think you'll be happy with my choices."

"Okay then," Rob said.

After all, it's not something people usually get many opportunities for—a woman who's submitting to someone else by coming to me and following orders. It's novel. And it works as a bit of a test as well, to see if Charlotte actually gets the idea of me having agency when she directs Emma.

Emma bounced slightly in her seat, clearly pleased with the plan. Charlotte mostly seemed to relax before moving on to her next point.

"The other thing is, well, we both think it would be interesting for Emma to be extra enthusiastic," Charlotte said, Emma nodding enthusiastic agreement. "The experimental vaccine works quicker, so we thought maybe she should have it over lunch. Then keep her in denial until after dinner."

"Until you're ready to call it a day, really," Emma put in. "Seeing as we'll both be knocked out; I don't want to steal your evening or anything."

"I think I can handle that," Rob said, hoping it was true. The idea of a rabidly horny Emma was certainly intriguing. "One more question though - where are we doing this? We'll both be shipped to the medical centre afterwards, so it doesn't have to get in the way of anyone sleeping."

"Our room," Emma said quickly. "But when you're ready, you tell Charlotte, and you go and wait there while she gives me my instructions."

"I do have one request myself, related to the imprinting," Rob said, picking his words cautiously. "Emma and I will have to do a full consent, very detailed, because of the experimental vaccine. I'd like to know that Emma will be off the clock." He turned to the small, plain woman. "You can have Charlotte there if you want, and I trust you to be honest about it even if you're wearing your necklace, but I don't want any question in my mind about the consent being from you, Emma, yourself."

The two women looked at one another awkwardly.

"You're still new to this, Rob," Emma said, "so we'll try not to take that as an insult."

"I'm sorry?" he replied, confused.

"Suggesting that there's any element of control by a dominant in a medical consent situation is basically accusing the dominant of domestic abuse," Charlotte explained. "As soon as there's anything medical, or anything legal apart from the most trivial things, it's always off the clock. Anything else is a major red flag."

"Oh," said Rob, somewhat nonplussed. "I… That makes sense. I'm sorry. I should have thought of that. Or looked it up, or something."

"Don't worry about it," Emma assured him. "Just… if there's anything like that again, ask about it rather than giving an ultimatum, yeah?"

"Absolutely. Yes."

"I think we've actually embarrassed the poor boy," Charlotte said, in flagrant disregard for the fact that Rob was older than her.

"Okay, well, that's the outline of a plan at least," he said, keen to move on. "Charlotte, we'll put our heads together later about those red lines. And I believe I still have one person waiting for some of my time."

"Actually, Rob, there's one more thing I wanted to talk about—but just the two of us," Charlotte said. "If that's okay."

"If it's okay with Emma."

"Of course," the smaller woman said with bubbling amusement. "I already know what it's about, but it's best if I'm not here for the actual conversation." She went to the table, picked up their jewellery and handed it to Charlotte, moving her hair out of the way so her wife could stand and re-attach her day collar. Her demeanour shifted subtly the moment it closed, becoming more contained and placid. "Thank you," she said, turning back to Rob. "I really appreciate you accommodating my—our—requests."

Then she left the room without further comment.

* * *

Charlotte's demeanour had stiffened again as she had refastened the symbol of her and her wife's unusual relationship, but as Emma left the room it dropped again, and she sat.

"I'm trying to get used to the idea that I can drop the act when it's just the two of us," she told Rob. "Because you know, you know? I don't have to worry about my behaviour being consistent."

"Yeah, about that," Rob said with caution. "I know you can't change the act too quickly because people will notice, and you need to make sure Emma's comfortable, but that metaphorical dick-measuring I walked in on at breakfast isn't going to win you friends."

"I know," Charlotte said, slightly downcast. "It's hard to describe, but there's a lot of habit there, and… well, and I sort of like it as well." She obviously saw something in Rob's expression that made her uncomfortable, as she went on hurriedly, "Mostly I don't, I mean I don't really, but at the same time it sort of… there's a buzz to it. Normally that buzz is safe because I don't do it much, but it's like I hate what I'm doing and it also feels good. Which is causing me more than a little emotional confusion."

"If there's anything I can do to help with that, just let me know. I'll do what I can."

"I know you will. That's the weird thing—you have this way of inspiring confidence. I'm not saying you're especially likeable, though you're no slouch in that department, but mainly just, well, you're easy to trust. Easy to believe you'll do what you say, or at least you'll try to. It's easy to trust your intent." She smiled at him, a slightly strange smile that he couldn't decode. "It's… well, a pleasant surprise."

Rob didn't know how to react. "Um, thanks?"

"Anyway, I wanted to thank you for last night," Charlotte went on. "It was… an experience. And I would like to repeat it. Not every time we, well, we're calling it 'top-up', yes? Sometimes Emma and I will share the experience, and that dynamic will be different. We'll negotiate that between the three of us before it happens. And sometimes I suppose we might just want to be quick. But I want to explore that side of things with you some more."

"Okay. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?" He was, frankly, puzzled as to why she was making a thing out of this conversation.

"Well, sort of. You see, well, oh hell, this is hard to say." She stared at the floor for a solid minute before continuing. "Coming into this, I was expecting to do the top-up as infrequently as possible. Oh, I knew I would enjoy it, at least on some level, but not really that I would want to do it. And I think I will. Perhaps more frequently than necessary to avoid the, um, noticeable effects of delay."

Rob smiled, but he could tell it wasn't his usual smile, the one he'd been told was gentle and encouraging. This felt unfamiliar, and he wasn't entirely sure how it would come across—though it seemed to shock Charlotte, who suddenly looked like an impossibly elegant rabbit in the headlights.

"Well, Charlotte, I might enjoy that too," he said, realising just what he was expressing—mischief with the tiniest threat of malice. It amused him, and his smile got wider. "But the Team is growing, and with three women on the experimental vaccine it might be hard to find time for extra sessions. And Kat always has priority, of course—I won't let her wishes stop me from giving anyone a timely top-up, but she has first dibs on extras. Plus I do actually need time for myself, and while I'll always do what people need, I can't say I'll always be in the mood for a quick tumble, never mind any more elaborate arrangement. Especially if that elaboration is being kept quiet."

"It's not like I'm going to ask you to dom me every other day or anything," Charlotte said, slightly panicked. "Just… maybe more than once a week?"

"I hate to make it a quid pro quo or anything, but let's say that I might be a little more inclined to be generous if you find your new level of 'topping the room' more quickly. Giving you more attention in the bedroom when you're acting in ways that make people dislike you isn't a way to promote harmony."

Charlotte swallowed visibly. "That— that's fair. I can't pretend it isn't."

"Anyway, just let me know when you want some of that… attention. The worst that can happen is I'll say no." Rob was surprising himself with how manipulative he was being, but it felt not inappropriate when the object of that manipulation was, essentially, Charlotte's bitch persona. "Anyway, I expect AJ's still waiting to see me. Unless there's anything else?"

Charlotte shook her head mutely, and left the room.

* * *

"I'll admit I was a bit misleading when I mentioned why any of us might want to talk to you alone," AJ said as she sat down. "I want to talk about Charlotte."

Rob contained his grimace; he would have preferred more time before this came to a head.

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "I can't say I'm surprised."

"I don't know if that attitude normally works for her," AJ went on, "or whether she's just used to her looks winning people over. But it's rubbing me the wrong way. If it isn't bothering Sophie then I would assume that's due to her youth. And I can't imagine that it'll take long for it to piss Kat off, either."

"And her looks don't sway you?" Rob asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I suppose I could say she's not my type, but you know full well why no-one's going to turn my head at the moment."

"That's quite the candle you're holding."

"Yeah," AJ agreed, puffing out her breath. "And I will resolve it. As soon as I work out how. But that's changing the subject. If she keeps acting like that, I think it might tear the Team apart."

"Look, AJ, I'm keeping your secret," Rob said, steepling his hands. "I'm not going to tell you everything I know about everyone else. But believe me when I say that I've noticed, and I'm trying to deal with it."

"So I should just, what, grin and bear it?"

"Fuck, no. Keep needling her when she's being like that; it'll help, I think, if you do it when she deserves it. Just don't go too far, and once she seems disarmed, don't press the advantage."

AJ looked at him sceptically. "You have a plan?"

"Sort of. I think it will work out nicely, but if it doesn't I think Charlotte will be the one who gets most burned. And I'm almost sure it will work out okay in the end."

"Okay. I'll trust your judgement; you've earned that."

"Thanks," Rob said soberly, though he was puzzled at all the outpourings of trust. "That means a lot to me. Now, did Kat end up joining the queue as well, or am I done?"

"No," AJ laughed. "I gave her some jobs to do for my Uttar Puja. But you're not done. I may have been a little misleading at the start of this conversation, too."

Rob rolled his eyes theatrically. "So you do want to talk about that?"

"Yes, but not for long. I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but, at least for now, I don't want to top-up prophylactically, if you get my meaning."

"You want to wait until you're feeling it?"

"Yeah. Just a bit. It's… the imprinting was good, but—and please don't take offence—I like you, Rob, but I don't like you. I think we'd have to know each other better before that could happen, and I don't want to get hung up on the good experiences. I want to let anything that might happen do so naturally, or at least as naturally as possible under the circumstances."

"Okay, well, just let me know. In fact, I may have to make that an announcement—I seem to be saying it a lot."

* * * * *

Kat stood, leaning against a chair, behind and to one side of AJ as her friend stood before the makeshift altar. She'd borrowed a mustard-yellow silk scarf from someone—Kat suspected that it had, like the lipstick, come from Charlotte—to wear in place of a dupatta, and she'd already used the lipstick for an unconventional bindi. Kat held the various things she would need for the puja on a tray.

AJ turned to her, taking the plate with one of the remaining modak and laying it in front of the printed image—the makeshift murti—of Ganesha. She was saying something as she did it, but it was near enough to a mumble that Kat couldn't make out the unfamiliar words. She then picked up the lipstick and smeared it carefully over the god's forehead.

Returning the lipstick to the tray, she stepped back and put her hands together and bowed her head slightly, offering the god a final namaste. Stepping forward again, she picked up an electric tealight and waved it over the image three times, speaking quietly again. Then she put the light back in its place, and shifted the paper slightly to the right.

She carefully cleared a space in front of it, and took the glass bowl of water that Kat held. Once it was in place, she picked up the murti and carefully, reverentially immersed it. The printer ink immediately began to bleed, coloured swirls spalling away into the water.

"Thank you for this," AJ said quietly, but full of emotion. "Next year—wherever we are—we'll make a proper mandap. I'll show you how. If—" she hesitated a moment. "If you want, I'll teach you the words. I know you wouldn't say them without the proper respect."

"I… I think I'd like that," Kat said, feeling an unfamiliar swell in her own emotions. "Thank you for including me, here."

"You saw my family doing this when we were girls," AJ said, a bald, emotionless statement of fact.

"This is different."

"Yes. It is."

When the image was mostly gone, with no more ink visibly coming off it, AJ dipped a thumb in the water, and wiped it across her eyelids. Then they took the bowl outside, using the lift in the communal building to reach the floor of the dell. There they went to the foot of the tree that thrust through the middle of their own treehouse, and AJ took out a trowel. She dug a small hole in the humus and buried the soggy paper, then emptied the water over the roots, speaking quietly as she did so. They returned to the treehouse, put down their implements, and AJ went alone to her own treehouse, telling Kat she wanted some time 'to reflect'.

Kat sat down in her own living area, and fell into thought herself, thinking about all the new people she'd met recently, all the new members of their Team.

* * * * *

When Gillian returned from dropping Sophie off for her tests, the living area was unusually devoid of any human presence. The printed image of Ganesha had also gone from the little shrine that they had prepared for AJ's benefit; presumably the Uttar Puja was done. She found Rob in the rehab room, originally a study–library before they'd taken over the treehouse, wearing his new workout clothes.

"I'm just doing a warm-up before I take the bike out," he told her. "I really am determined, I'm not going to need those stabilisers for long."

"Remember the dancing as well," Gillian said somewhat absently as she watched him bend and stretch. "It stresses your balance in different ways." She shook her head sharply to take focus away from the enchanting sight. Was it her imagination, or was he already more toned since yesterday?

I didn't think even this vaccine could make that much change that quickly. Though really, what do we know about what it can and can't do?

"Anyway," she said, dragging herself back to her immediate goals. "I was just wanting to check in on people. Have you seen Kat?"

"She was doing the Uttar Puja with AJ. If they're not hanging around here, maybe they went to her place when they were done."

Gillian dutifully went next door to investigate, after a quick look in the cinema room and Kat's bedroom, and found AJ working at her desk. She hadn't seen Kat since they finished the puja.

"I came back here for some time to think," AJ said. "It's… That would normally be a family thing, and my parents…" She shook her head, not continuing the thought. "Kat stayed in the main treehouse."

"She wasn't anywhere I could see," Gillian told her.

"That's strange," AJ said, concern clear on her face. "I'll come help you look."

They did two circuits of the Treehouse's main corridor, rooms on one side and the tree on the other, looking in every room except Sophie's and Emma and Charlotte's.

"Oh, no," said AJ, as a look of concern came over her.

"What? Where do you think she's gone?" Gillian was trying to control her rising worry, and 'oh, no' wasn't what she was hoping to hear.

"I think she's here. She used to do some odd things when she felt sort of hemmed in, or like there were too many people."

Gillian followed her gaze up to the ceiling of the corridor, such as it was. The transparent roof sat above beams that ran from taller uprights that formed part of the inner railing at intervals, and branches of the central tree formed uneven clusters. They advanced around the corridor until they saw something that was, to Gillian at least, unexpected.

One beam and a group of sturdy branches close to it had sprouted a collection of towels and duvets.

"Can you get a ladder?" AJ asked her, very softly.

* * *

Gillian returned with two ladders, one straight and one stepladder, knowing that her small size probably looked somewhat comical with the burden, and that she was probably breaking some sort of manual handling rules. But then, she'd been trained on rehab equipment, and ladders didn't quite match any of that.

She put the straight ladder down in the living area, and quietly set up the stepladder beneath the nest. AJ took the initiative to retrieve the straight ladder and prop it up on the beam. Then they each climbed.

We need to make sure she knows we're here, without putting any pressure on her to respond… but—assuming she's actually in there—it doesn't look like she can see out.

AJ caught her eye and held up a hand, then demonstrated her way to achieve that goal; Gillian guessed that maybe she'd had to deal with Kat's shutdowns when they were young. She seemed to guess where under all the padding the other woman might be, and placed her hand there, pushing into the mass very slightly.

Gillian followed suit, pressing down with her right hand until it met more resistance than the accumulated textiles should provide. She then realised that she was holding a tree limb through the duvets and adjusted her position, finding somewhere that was a little more yielding and trusting that she'd found part of Kat.

They stood like that for some time, a slight ache developing in Gillian's right medial deltoid. She resisted moving to relieve the stress, focusing on providing a consistent, palpable presence. As her neck and back began to ache, and her feet started to shake, she held fast, focused on Kat.

Just as she was starting to think she would have no choice but to move, a face emerged; she glanced briefly at both of them before it was half-covered, eyes shrouded in the shadow of the wrappings. Gillian realised that she must have rested her hand somewhere near the other woman's knee, while it looked like AJ had managed to get a shoulder.

"Hey Kat," AJ said, calmly and gently. "Do you want to talk? Maybe find somewhere a bit safer for your nest?"

There was a shift in the mass of linens that implied a shrug.

"Why don't you come over to mine?" AJ went on. "I can sit with you, or you can sit alone, but a bundle of blankets on a bed is better than up a tree, isn't it?"

"You wanted space to think," Kat said, her voice small but firm.

"Yes," AJ said, looking like she'd been punched in the gut but not letting it come into her voice. "But if I'd known you felt like this, I wouldn't have minded you being there. It's not an intrusion when you need me, Kat."

"Didn't feel like this then."

"Well I'm telling you now—if you need me, or just want to come over for the space, it doesn't matter how I feel or what I'm doing. You come over."

"But it's your space." Another shrug accompanied that observation. "Can't this be mine?"

"Kat?" Gillian put in. "This doesn't look very safe, and if other people notice you here I don't know that they would understand that it's probably best to leave you alone. Come out, we can sit wherever you like, and when you feel up to it we can talk about a better way for you to have some space of your own."

Shrug. Nod. The duvets and towels unfolded to reveal Kat, curled into a ball, lifting her head to look around. Gillian got down from the ladder and left AJ to help steer Kat onto it.

"Shall we go to mine, then?" AJ asked as they reached the ground.

"Okay," Kat replied flatly, and started making her way along the corridor. Gillian and AJ let her open up some distance, then Gillian turned to ask a question.

"How the fuck did she get up there?"

AJ shrugged. "It's Kat. Sometimes it's best not to think too hard about it. She can be like her namesake animal at times."

* * *

They sat in AJ's living room, sharing chai; Kat was bundled up in spare bedding, but at least she was on the sofa rather than the ceiling.

"I know I'm still learning about you," Gillian said, "but it seems to me that this might be a reaction to there being so many people living in the treehouse now. Is that it?"

Kat shrugged and nodded.

"Yes, but that's not everything," AJ translated. "Do you want us to try to work out what else there is, or should we wait?"

A vigorous shake of the head.

"Bad question. Do you feel able to talk about it now?"

Kat shook her head more gently.

"Do you want us to try to?"

Her head shook slowly this time.

"Not now, maybe later?"

A brisk nod.

"Do you need somewhere to go when you feel like that?" Gillian asked. "I mean, whatever causes you to shut down?"

Nod.

"I have another key for this lodge," AJ said. "You can have that, and let yourself in and curl up anywhere you want, any time."

Shrug.

"That's something, but not enough?" Gillian suggested.

Another nod, then Kat switched to verbal response. "It's still AJ's space. People can't find me, maybe, but it's not mine. And with so many people having a— a claim on Rob now, our room doesn't feel as safe. Anyone might come in, looking for him."

"I don't have a solution right now," Gillian said, "but I promise to help you find one."

"Me too," AJ put in. "A nice box for you to feel safe in, yeah?"

Kat nodded, then began to cry quietly. Gillian and AJ, in silent accord, moved to her. They hugged her, and let the tears fall.

* * * * *

Sitting down to lunch, Kat felt she had most of her equilibrium back. She'd taken inventory of her reaction, worried that she was feeling the jealousy that she'd been sure she would avoid; she wasn't one hundred percent on that, but she didn't think that was it. She was fairly sure it was what she'd told AJ and Gillian—she didn't have a safe space any more.

She just hadn't been completely open about exactly what that meant.

So when her husband casually–formally asked Sophie if she would care to take a tour of some picturesque parts of the park with him, she was glad that he was giving the younger woman the attention that they all agreed she likely needed. She was pleased for both of them when Sophie said 'yes' with a slightly dopey smile.

But she also felt that safe space—the one that wasn't a place—getting chipped away at, another few nibbles at the edge.

I'm going to have to talk to Rob about this, but how do I say it? "I know you need to care for all these other women, and I want you to do that, but I feel like I'm losing you"? Too histrionic, and it doesn't really say it right. Fuck's sake, I don't even know what I want him to do to fix it.

They'd agreed not to tell Rob about the incident for now; he didn't need to feel that he had another problem to solve. Kat wanted him to know, but definitely didn't want it to be now.

Sophie was still eating with one hand, mostly, but she was using the other one—somewhat clumsily—to help steady things, at least.

"So, that building behind us," Rob said into a gap in the conversation. "There's a lot of space in there. Any chance we could use some of it? And Grant and Phillipa and the rest of their team, of course." All eyes turned to Gillian.

"I think it's a great idea, but that's really not my department," she replied, turning pointedly to AJ.

"I suppose I am working with the people who do get to make that decision," AJ observed. "What were you thinking?"

"A few things, really. In two categories," said Rob. "First, we could get all the rehab gear out of the library here. A sort of quiet space that we all agree is for reading or whatever would be good. And we could have offices and things for doing work and all that."

"Makes sense," AJ agreed. "Certainly better than spreading out into other lodges if we don't need them for bedrooms. It could solve a few problems." Kat caught the quick, reassuring glance that AJ threw her way, and was glad of it, though she was unsure if a room in the communal building would work for her. "And I am already talking to them about logistics for the pub. What else?"

"This might be more controversial, but… well, there's a pub, and a cinema, and all that space. Someone's going to decide it's a community resource, sooner or later, even though it seems that the intention behind it—when this place is operating normally—is that it's mostly for groups who book out the whole dell.

"I want us to get in early and get someone to agree that we have a little mini-village here, and that building is for people who live here. Not that I'd want to stop anyone else moving into the treehouses—I mean, I kind of would, but that's not realistic—but I don't want everyone and their aunt coming to the pub here. If anyone who lives in the dell wants to bring guests, that's fine. But I think it would wear on a lot of nerves"—he paused, making eye contact with Kat—"if we had people trooping in and out all the time, if they use it for anyone else's offices or for meetings or whatever. I want someone to extract an agreement not to do that."

Even in her disquiet, Kat's heart was warmed by that. She knew that, while others might prefer not to have the dell become a destination for the whole park, she was likely the one who would suffer most. And in any case, it was her comfort that was Rob's primary motivation, she knew.

AJ looked around the table. "Anyone have a problem with me making that request?" Silence. "Well, I'll have to think about how to put it, to persuade them, but I have to say that I agree. Maybe with the odd exception—I think if any of us want a meeting with outsiders, using a room in there for it would be reasonable—but in principle, yes. And I think I'll find a way to persuade Lucía and the others that it's in everyone's interests." She paused, looking into the middle distance. "Yes. No promises, but I think I know what buttons to push."

"Well, I've got a meeting with some specialists—doctors and therapists—this afternoon," Gillian said. "That's looking at your rehab planning, Emma. I tried to persuade them that you should be part of it, but I'm the junior partner in that room. I'll only be managing your rehab in terms of telling you to do things and taking you places. Rebuilding cognitive muscles is kind of outside of the 'physiotherapy' category."

Kat caught a sharp, urgent look from Emma to Charlotte, and the tall redhead spoke up.

"Well, thank you anyway, Gillian. We also wanted to talk about Emma's injection. Would it be possible to do it before your meeting?"

"Consenting for that is beyond my competence," Gillian told her. "I'll get someone to come do it, but why do you want it so early? You know it works a lot quicker than the standard stuff, right?"

"Yes," Emma said, in an odd meek-but-forthright way that Kat was still getting used to. "And we've discussed it with Rob as well."

When Gillian looked at him and he nodded gravely, Kat felt another chip at the edge of her security.

"With all that talk about offices," Charlotte said, "I think I have a request… and an admission." She looked a little abashed, unsure of herself, which took Kat by surprise. "I've realised that I could probably do with something to do, to fill my time. I can't really do my usual work here—not that there's much of it happening anyway; investors snapping up probate sales don't really need much help from an estate agent—and, well, I could do with something to fill my time. Emma's not going to need as much support from me, and she'll be doing her own work soon enough, I hope. And all of you have work and/or rehab to be doing. I'd like to do something productive."

The table fell silent. Kat wished she had a better sense of emotional atmosphere; she suspected it would be fascinating right at that moment. Just as she thought other people would be finding it awkward, AJ spoke up.

"To be honest, I could do with an assistant for some things, especially with all the site staff due to arrive and needing housing. If that's not beneath you?" she asked pointedly.

Kat actually caught Charlotte wincing slightly.

"No," she said, recovering herself and tossing that gorgeous auburn hair. "I think that will make quite excellent use of my skills." She and AJ locked gazes, both wearing polite but stern expressions, and remained that way for several seconds.

"Okay," AJ said, smiling slightly and breaking the silence but not the stare. Kat felt another tug on her sense of stability, but didn't have a chance to examine it before things moved on. "You can't work in my office—that's part of my living space. But if we get the use of the communal building we'll see if we can't set up an office for you in there. I might take one as well, then I can split my working time between 'home' and a separate office. We'll need better network connections, though. I'll talk to someone."

"Thank you," Charlotte said with perfect politeness but a hollow warmth.

What's going on with her? It's like she's a different person sometimes. And she flicks between them in the middle of a conversation, too.

"I might even see if I can scare you up a salary," AJ said, with an audibly wicked grin.

* * * * *

1st September 2020, around 1:30 p. m.

------

Rob was surprised to see Dr Jones coming to do his and Emma's consent to the experimental vaccine. Not because this hadn't happened before, but precisely because it was, in fact, the third time, and she was the head of the project's medical staff.

"Surely you aren't doing all the consenting for the experimental vaccine, doctor," he observed. "I mean, there's quite a few of us, and we're all doing them the same day, right?"

"One might almost think I've taken a particular interest in you and your Team, Mr Brook?" she said, smiling. "Well, today I'm here because this is a more complex case. Shall we?"

Rob led them to the cinema room for privacy. Emma had opted to do this with Rob and without Charlotte; he suspected that this was to reassure him about Charlotte's influence, but he hoped they would be able to build the trust and respect that this whole arrangement was going to require.

"If you're happy to do this together, I'll deal with you first, Mr Brook," Dr Jones said, handing him the familiar form; he began to skim and initial it as she went on. "It shouldn't take long, and Mrs Milsted will be a more involved process. Oh, and to answer the question you asked last time, we're fairly sure you'll go into regeneration again, but we're not sure what will actually happen. Given your response to the last regeneration, it may be that nothing perceptible changes—perhaps even nothing detectable. There's a suspicion that the repeat regeneration has enhanced the rehab-accelerating effect of the vaccine, so a third go may supercharge it, and there may be downsides to that; it's really hard to predict. We're going to make a real effort to figure it out, though, so there will be extra blood tests, imaging, that sort of thing."

"Okay," Rob said, handing back the signed form. "I think that answers everything."

"Good. Now, Mrs Milsted, you've already had the explanation of what might happen in terms of your regeneration, yes?"

"Yes," Emma said. "Likely no immediate benefit, possibly initial worsening, rehab should improve things, possibly—hopefully—completely, but it might come back in thirty years. My memory is still fine, you know. My type of Alzheimer's can spare it for quite some time."

"I know, but we have to do this all with a bit more care because of it," Dr Jones said, apologetically. "It does affect your cognition. Your capacity assessment was good, but it did flag a need for more caution. So I'm going to explain things to you, then ask you to explain them back to me. I know it's a bit of a drag, but it's necessary."

Rob still wasn't sure why Emma wanted him there for this, but he made use of the time by thinking about how he would set up his office in the communal building—assuming he got one; they'd probably have to set up partitions, or share spaces. Grant would, he thought, make a pretty decent officemate. Meanwhile, the doctor went through all the points of consent that Rob was familiar with in more detail, regularly checking understanding, and asked Emma to summarise the whole thing back to her at the end.

"Okay," Dr Jones said, passing Emma the consent form that she'd been reading from. "Just read over this, initial all the places that I've ticked, and sign at the end."

Emma made short work of it before handing it back.

"I understand that Rob does most of the cooking here," Dr Jones said, "so it's good that he's here for this part. There's nutritional requirements for regeneration; it takes energy, and you need the right nutrients. We handled Sophie's nutrient-loading, and it seems that we may have under-egged it. Fortunately, you shouldn't need as much material to rebuild things; as far as we can tell, everything's more or less still there in your brain. The regeneration should clear out the plaques and sort of recondition the parts of your brain that have been choked by them.

"That means you mostly need plenty of calories," she continued, "and you don't look like you have too many to spare. So lots of carbs and sugars before you imprint. Oily fish, egg yolks that are still creamy, and liver would be a very good idea for the specific nutrient requirements, and some red meat wouldn't hurt. Do you think you can factor that into your dinner plans, Rob?"

"Absolutely, yeah," he assured both the doctor and Emma. "Sounds mostly like the post-regen stuff I did for Sophie, but not as much of it. I'll make another batch of custard, and I think we've got some pâté."

"Okay then, we're nearly there." Dr Jones pulled out a familiar case with a loaded syringe. "Final verbal consent from you both, please." Once that was done, she rolled up Emma's sleeve, announced "sharp scratch," and gave the injection.

"I'll just show you out, doctor," Rob said, standing up, but Emma put a hand on his arm. "Or, um…"

"It's okay, Mr Brook," Dr Jones said. "I know my way out. And I may see you tomorrow, Mr Brook; I'm sure we'll run into one another at some point, Mrs Milsted."

* * *

"Sorry, Rob," Emma said as he sat back down. "This was just my best chance to get you alone before, well, later, and I understand that I might have just one thing on my mind at that point." She smiled at him uncertainly.

"That's okay," he assured her. "What's up?"

"You're going to be awake before I am, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Charlotte will want you to top her again before that, too. There's something I need to make sure you understand before that happens." There was some urgency to her words; whatever she needed to say was clearly important to her.

"I'm listening."

"I don't have time to explain it properly—honestly, I might lose track of what I have and haven't said—but I can give you the basics, a bit of a whistle-stop tour. Have you heard of aftercare?"

"I came across it being mentioned in the D/s stuff I was reading about, but I haven't looked into it in much detail," he admitted.

"You need to do that before you indulge Charlotte's subby side again," Emma said, urgent again. "It didn't come up last time, because we knew she was going to go into the imprinting sleep, coma, whatever it is. You've seen the outward-facing part of our lifestyle dynamic, and you've been learning more about how it works on the inside, but the bedroom is very different, at least in some ways."

She paused, taking a deep breath; Rob could almost see her thoughts being sorted into order. He knew better than to interrupt at that point.

"After a session, you need to be there for her, let her come out of that headspace, and talk it over with her, some things straight away and others later, radical openness about feelings, especially hers, and then later about what worked and what didn't. The details are different for everyone—she might want to be held while she comes out of it, she might want you out of her immediate sight, but you have to be there. If you hurt her—don't look at me like that, she might want you to—you have to check for wounds, do any appropriate first aid."

"I'm really not sure I want to get into anything that would need that sort of care," he said, slightly uncomfortable. He was prepared to get physical, though he'd want to learn a lot more before he tried anything beyond spanking. He wasn't ready—wasn't willing—to do anything that risked more than reddened skin, or a bruise if it went wrong. He accepted that a woman might want pain, and thought he could go along with it, but real harm? No.

"If you do anything violent—we don't like using that word, but educating you on all the jargon will have to wait; it usually means stuff that's non-consensual, but you're still vanilla—you need to check for damage and do something about it."

As he tried to answer that point, she went on, hitting points rapidly; Rob felt like he'd be doing a lot of reading, if this was the basics.

"Even if you think it can't cause 'real' damage, you'd be surprised, and it's not just about obvious injuries. Have some antiseptic and plasters tucked away somewhere, a hot pack ready to go in case she over-stresses a muscle, and have an ice pack in the freezer for bruises, joints, friction burns and so on. Just in case. And a sweet drink, and something to keep her warm if she's cold and doesn't want to snuggle, or needs more than body heat; hot packs, blankets, that sort of thing."

She paused again, looking slightly lost before picking up the thread; Rob mentally catalogued what he would need to properly manage friction burns—knowing that ice would only provide temporary numbing—while he waited, trying to conceal his growing concern at what he might be letting himself in for.

"So the first thing is the physical," Emma went on. "That's important even if there was no rough stuff. And then she needs to be able to tell you exactly what she's feeling, and some of it might be pretty surprising, or extreme. Or she might just need to be quiet; let her lead on that. Ask if she's okay, ask if she needs anything, but don't get upset if she doesn't say much. Just look up 'sub drop' when you're doing your reading—there's no way to avoid jargon there; you need to accept whatever feelings she shares, not take them personally.

"And it might not happen straight away: you need to gently check on her the next day, as well—especially if she seems fine straight after. She might stay in sub-space for a while, or even seem a bit high or out of it in a way that feels good, even super happy and energetic; that's when you need to watch out for a delayed drop. Then you need to make sure that she can find you any time in the next day or so, and check in on her—unobtrusively—as well."

Rob tried to cut in again, to point out that surely this would come up in his reading, but she brushed him aside in her urgent rush. Her eyes were wide, though she was blinking more than usual; her pupils were slightly dilated, and her skin had paled. There was a slight sheen of sweat to her brow, and she was gesticulating a lot, more rapidly than usual.

"Once she is level again, you can talk about things that you struggled with, but not like a full debriefing, and in a way that's supporting her, not asking her to validate you," she continued, her tone impassioned. "'I wasn't sure if I went too hard with that' is fine, especially if she's talking about it, though it's better to find ways to check that when it's happening, not afterwards, so get your codes sorted out before you start; 'oh my god, are you okay, was that too much, I'm sorry' is almost never a good thing to say unless she needs immediate medical attention. Ideally you can ask for feedback, and she can give it, without coming out of role—but that doesn't remove the need for a safe word or 'stop right now' code."

She looked at Rob with growing intensity. "However she reacts, you let her react that way, starting from the assumption that things like her being upset, sad, tearful or whatever, it's not about you. No expressions of guilt. If you feel it, sit with it. You might feel like a monster, and she will help you with that, but that'll happen later. When you're being dominant, you have to take responsibility for that. Though she'll tell you—if it occurs to her to give you advice—that the best thing for that is to make it less likely by not letting her take you further than you're comfortable going during the session."

Rob found himself staring; this was a lot to take in, but he was beginning to see why Emma felt it so important to tell him now. He was just a little overwhelmed.

"It's hard, but she'll understand," she went on, less heatedly but no less earnest. "She knows it from the other direction. A bit of praise can be okay—it can be grounding, especially if it's real and personal—but don't go overboard. Actually, praise might be what she needs, that's what some people need, but we have no way of knowing that; she's not had the chance to really get into this side of things. Other stuff can wait for a later debriefing—no sooner than the next day, everything's too intense straight after—and that's when you talk about what was good and what you can do better—especially better for her—in terms of aftercare.

"She needs to feel your strength," she went on, finally slowing down, "maybe more than when you're dominating her, but it's definitely the time for the velvet glove. You have to be her rock, her still point while all sorts of stuff goes on in her head. It's not just that it's psychologically difficult—we're talking changes to brain chemistry here, much more than in 'ordinary' sex."

Rob nodded, taking it in. It wasn't difficult for him to keep up, intellectually, but this was going to take some processing later.

"I love my wife," she said with slower urgency, "and I want her to have a good experience—and I don't want you to get burned by getting it wrong out of ignorance." She paused and smiled at him. "I reckon you're better at reading people than you think. Just pay attention; you'll probably work out what to do when you see how she reacts. And I might be a quiet one, most of the time, but that means I hear things; I know that you can be a rock when it's needed."

Rob swallowed, though his mouth was dry. "I'll read, Emma. And I'll do my best for Charlotte. I'm not sure it's likely that it'll come up before you're awake, but I take your point. Better to be unnecessarily prepared." It was a lot to think about; clearly this was a lot more complicated, a lot more involved than he'd yet realised. Still, he wasn't going to back out of it for that reason. He'd said he was willing to try, and he was.

Being honest with myself, I'm getting more than just curious about it. Am I finding a new side to myself?

"That's right," she said, the nervous smile returning. "And I trust you to want to do it properly. I just needed to make sure that you had the chance to know how." She seemed to relax, a tension that Rob hadn't noticed leaving her shoulders and her eyes returning slowly to normal. Her smile became full. "Anyway, don't you have a date to get to?"

* * * * *

1st September 2020, around 3:00 p. m.

------

Gillian's 'solution' to Rob and Sophie getting around, while his balance still needed some work and Sophie's legs not being quite right, turned out to be a sort-of bicycle rickshaw. It was a very simple affair, integrated rather than being towed: a little two-wheeled trailer effectively took the place of the rear wheel of the bike, supporting a bench that would hold two at a squeeze. It also had a small cargo compartment that someone—presumably Gillian—had loaded with some sort of picnic hamper. Rob could see, though, that it made the contraption effectively a tricycle, which dealt with his balance issues. On the other hand, he knew that steering a trike was a rather different affair; he hoped he would get the hang of it quickly enough.

Rob gallantly waved her onto the back seat with a bow, and set out. He was glad that his improving fitness seemed to be taking care of his difficulty going uphill on a bike; doing it with the trailer and Sophie in it, slight as she was, turned out to be quite the challenge.

Still, he showed her some of his favourite spots in the park, though he was at pains to point out that he didn't actually know that much of it yet. He'd mostly been exploring at random during his rehab sessions on the custom, balance-sensing bike that Gillian had provided. He picked a little clearing on a rougher track, across a bridge from the path proper, to set down and see what Gillian had packed for them.

"Ah, do you drink?" he asked as he found two plastic champagne flutes, a half-bottle of sparkling wine and one of expensive-looking lemonade. He was acutely aware that Sophie had been struck with the ADEM before she turned 18, and was only 19 now.

"Well," she said, smiling and settling on the blanket they had found in the hamper, "I wouldn't like to suggest that anyone ever broke the law, but I'd had the odd drink before I got sick. Someone actually managed to sneak a small bottle of something on my D of E residential; it got passed around in the girls' dorm. No idea what it was—it tasted awful, but it was fun to get a little buzz. Plus I had the odd glass of wine with my parents. Nothing since I was ill, though; the doctors said it was a bad idea. Maybe if I stabilised without much… damn, what's the word? Not many problems left over."

"So… Do you want wine, or lemonade? It's fancy lemonade, if that makes a difference."

"I'll try some wine. Not much, though. I must be a total lightweight at this point."

"Your speech does seem a lot better," Rob observed as he poured. "It flows more, and it's clearer." He passed her the plastic glass. "I'm sorry, that sounded insensitive. I don't mean to—"

"It's okay," Sophie said, cutting him off. "I'm not sensitive about it. My lips and tongue move mostly like they should now, and I don't seem to get tired from it anywhere near as much, but there's still words that just… well, they aren't there. I think some of them are there sometimes, but I'm beginning to think some might just be gone. It'll be weird, having to re-learn them."

"I'm sure that you'll manage in no time, once you've done whatever rehab they have you doing."

"That's supposed to start tomorrow," Sophie said, grimacing; the expression was strong enough to be a little lopsided, but not much. "Half the day on physical stuff, half the day on language."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that it will take so much of your time, but I reckon it will be worth it." He held up his glass. "To recovery."

"Recovery," she repeated, tapping glasses with him. The dull plastic tunk wasn't quite the same as a proper clink for a toast, but it did the job. "Is there any food in there?"

Rob opened the two plastic containers that had been under the bottle.

"Well, one of these is sausage rolls," he told her. "The other one, well… I got a bit carried away when Kat wanted to make AJ feel welcome, and it's possible I made too many modak for Chaturthi."

* * *

With Sophie able to talk and listen more comfortably now, they took some time to get to know each other. Rob talked about his academic history, and getting together with Kat, while Sophie shared what Rob thought must be her favourite experiences from before the ADEM. A remarkable number of them were related to her Duke of Edinburgh activities, which was rather outside of his experience; it wasn't something available in many state schools when he was young. She explained how she'd completed all of the requirements for her Gold award—including the blog that led her to quote one of his obscure papers—but missed her ceremony because she was ill.

"I did the expedition last," she explained. "I'd been back a few days and I went down with flu or something. I got better, then a week later—wham!—I was in hospital. I don't remember much of that. I'm told that's not unusual, and also a good thing."

On impulse, Rob reached out and covered her hand with his own.

"And it's over now," he said, softly. "And someone, somewhere recognised your brilliance, or you wouldn't have been chosen to test this vaccine. And… I'm glad of that."

She looked away, blushing slightly.

"I know you're trying to give me a romance experience, Rob. And I appreciate it, I do. Whichever of you worked out it was a good idea was right. But I don't want you to—damn it, word, word—make up something to give me what you think I deserve. I don't want to hear anything fake."

"I would never have thought that you would. I remember that blog post, where you quoted me. I know that integrity is important to you."

She looked at him again, smiling uncertainly, eyes glittering.

"I'm glad I have this chance to get to know you," he said, tone plain and unadorned. "And I look forward to taking the time to do it properly."

They sipped the last of their wine, glancing at one another and then away.

* * * * *

1st September 2020, around 8:30 p. m.

------

Dinner had been uneventful. Charlotte and Emma had eaten in their room; Rob supposed that was a good idea if the vaccine was having an effect. Before dinner he'd sat down with Charlotte and gone over his red lines; she'd been right, there were definitely some things he hadn't considered that she wanted to check with him; most had been either a hard no, or a 'no for now'. He'd also been assured that they didn't need to go over Emma's codes at all, as this was a 'by proxy' situation. Anything that needed saying could be spoken plainly, especially as Rob wasn't going to be in control the way a dom would. She'd then taken food for her and Emma to their room, maintaining whatever sequestration Emma was under.

After dinner he'd snatched what felt like a desperate hour alone with Kat, and they'd hardly spoken. She'd told him that she'd had a shutdown earlier, while he'd been away, and that Gillian and AJ had helped her out of it. He hadn't asked, but suspected that the pile of towels and duvets the pair had been removing from the rafters earlier might have had something to do with it. He could tell there was more to her unease than that, but hadn't pressed—he simply held her; that seemed to be what she'd needed. He'd been willing to stay with her longer, make sure she felt properly cared for and ready for bed, but Kat had insisted that he not keep Emma waiting.

Now he was in Emma and Charlotte's room, sitting in an armchair and waiting while Emma was somewhere else, being given her instructions—a source of worry in itself—at which point she would join him. Whatever state she was in by now. He had no idea what time it had been when Kat had woken him in a sexual frenzy when he'd imprinted her, so likewise had no idea how long it had taken her to reach that state. He therefore had little basis on which to estimate Emma's condition about seven hours after her injection.

When the door opened, he wondered if the vaccine had actually done anything yet. Emma looked composed, wrapped in a thick towelling bathrobe as she stepped into the room. Her straight, mousy hair was pulled back severely and hazel eyes seemed at first to almost shine. She closed the door and turned to face him, and he thought he caught a slightly glazed look in her hazel eyes.

"Hey, Emma," he said in greeting. "You okay?"

She looked at him briefly, then looked away, nostrils flaring, and dropped the robe, revealing an outfit that had presumably been chosen by Charlotte; whether her aim was an effect on Emma or an effect on him, he wasn't sure. Her modest breasts were enclosed in separate cups, black triangles shining like plastic, joined by a ring at the front, and each with another ring at the side connecting to a side panel of similar material. The straps—actually thin, light chains under obvious tension—that led up from the cups didn't flow over her shoulders, however; instead, they connected to the ring at the front of a collar. And it wasn't her day collar this time, but rather a much more obvious play collar. Not the heaviest construction he'd seen in his research—no thick leather strap, no tongue buckle—but one couldn't mistake it for any sort of everyday garment. It was like a heavy-duty choker made of some sort of heavy, flexible, glossy black plastic with no decorative focus, just a brushed metal plate at the front from which the ring depended, and several smaller rings mounted around its circumference. Another chain ran down from that front ring, attaching to a belt that also served as the waistband of her glossy, reflective black thong, attached to the belt by bars suspended on more pieces of chain.

Her apparent composure was further belied by the sheen of sweat on her skin, and by the almost imperceptible trembling of her limbs. As she moved towards Rob, stretching her back sinuously, the chain running over her torso pulled taut. His eyes caught on the edges of her bra, which curved smoothly as the flesh under them shifted, bunching just slightly in a way that told him the garment was made of some sort of textile fabric—at least, the parts that weren't rings or chains—however much it looked like plastic. He also got a closer look at her collar, seeing that the metal plate was actually some sort of bayonet fitting, though he couldn't see how it was supposed to be released.

She knelt before him, bowing her head, and saw that the back of her bra was also connected to the collar. The wing-pieces were connected by interlinked rings, and threaded through their intersection was another one of the chains. Not one of the connections had any obvious way to release them, except for the thong with fairly obvious release pins at front and back. The entire get-up looked carefully thought out; it also looked expensive.

She took two deep breaths before speaking, and seemed to be focusing on keeping her breathing steady even as she spoke. "I am your present from Mistress, sir," she began. "I have instructions to follow that are intended to maximise your enjoyment, and I must ignore my needy pussy as much as possible."

Rob searched inside himself for how to respond to this without breaking role, but he was at a loss.

"Um, I know there's probably some code you use to communicate things without being overt about it," he said, noting her shudder almost as soon as he spoke, "but I don't know it. And I need—for me, not as a safety person—to make sure you're okay with this."

"We expected that, sir," she said, eyes still down. "My current state may make it hard to accept my word alone—and it would be hard to go off the clock, sir—but I can assure you that I am entirely happy to follow my mistress's instructions in this matter."

"And what are those instructions?"

"I can't tell you, sir. You'll find out as we go along." She shook slightly. "And it would be easiest, sir, if you didn't ask too many more questions. This is very… testing for me, sir."

"How so?"

"The experimental vaccine, sir. We were told that it worked faster than the standard version, and I'm sure that's true. For the last few hours—it feels like longer—I've been horny, and it's been getting more and more intense." She shuddered again, pausing to take careful, shaky breaths. "I told you before, sir, that I am used to acting normally while I'm very aroused. This is… well, this is pushing the limit of that. And being near you, sir—seeing you, hearing your voice, I swear there's even a smell I haven't noticed before—is making it much more difficult. If I am to follow instructions and ignore my needy pussy, it would be best if I got started."

Rob assumed that 'ignore my needy pussy' was a verbatim quotation from Charlotte's instructions.

"Okay, well, what do you need me to do?"

"For now? Tell me to begin—and tell me to stop if there's anything you don't like."

"Oh, um, well… begin, I guess."

She seemed to move straight from her kneeling position to a jump, her legs fitting between him and the chair on either side. She finally looked at him again, rising up until her face was above his and gently pulling his head back, staring into his eyes for a moment before closing the gap and kissing him.

Rob had been kissed by more than a few women in his life, in all sorts of moods and settings, but it had never had this frantic edge, this urgency. Gillian, the previous night, had been urgent, passionate, but it was like a breeze compared to the gale that was Emma. She pulled at the bottom of his t-shirt, yanking it upwards, breaking their kiss briefly to get it over his head. She removed it so roughly and rapidly that chunks of his hair were pulled out of his hairband, and if he'd still worn glasses they would have gone flying.

With his top half bare, she only continued the kiss for a few more seconds, then moved to his neck. She kissed, nibbled, gently licked her way down to his shoulder, then across his collarbone to the middle of his chest. As she moved lower, her knees bent until she was sitting on her heels and her hands rested on his shoulders, then moved to caress across the top of his chest as she kissed her way down his torso. Elegantly she slid to the floor, hands on his body controlling her fall until they reached the waistband of his trousers.

Rob's initial confused feelings about the situation had, by this time, firmly resolved into arousal. Emma deftly unfastened his trousers, pulling them and his underwear down as one, dragging his socks off in the same movement. Then she froze, eyes going glassy and whole body trembling as she fastened her gaze on his cock. No, she didn't fasten her gaze; it seemed clear, somehow, that it was no act of her will. Indeed, she appeared to be wrestling with some inner drive. Looking down at himself, Rob saw the bead of precum that looked to be the focus of her unwilling fascination. She started leaning forwards, and Rob braced himself for her priming orgasm.

"No," she said, stopping several inches short and turning away.

"But— the whole point is to imprint, Emma," Rob observed. "Have you changed your mind? I mean, I won't force you, but it could get awkward with Charlotte already—"

"Not yet," she interrupted. "Mistress said not yet. I belong to Mistress. I belong to Mistress." There was clearly a war going on inside her, but she was still winning it. "My mistress wanted to test uh— test me, see how strong my devotion to her was," she said, looking Rob in the eyes again, though he wasn't entirely sure that she saw him. "I welcome the chance to show her. You'll tell her how well I did, Rob? How I resisted?" Her hand reached for his member and began to stroke. And not a gentle tease as a preamble to anything else, either; she was working his cock like she meant business.

"I'll tell her anything true about this that you want me to, but—"

"Everything," Emma said, still fixing her eyes on his. "I want you to tell her everything. I will as well, of course, but you have to. So she knows how good I was, how I did what I was told despite— despite everything."

"What 'everything'?"

"The vaccine… it— it wants me to finish it, to complete it," she told him, voice aching with the need she fought to control. "It's like this force inside me. Until I came in here, until I saw you, it was just like I was incredibly horny." She shifted her grip, introducing a little rotation and letting her thumb slide over that sensitive spot near the tip. "So horny, but nothing could satisfy me. My mistress gave me permission to touch myself, not to edge, to make myself come, but she knew I couldn't. I knew I couldn't, but I had to try. And while I was doing it, while I was filled with uncontrollable need—while my mind knew what I needed, but my body hadn't made it real—she told me what I would do. I had wanted to touch myself for hours, but I knew it wouldn't do any good, and Mistress told me not to. But then she told me to, and it just made the need more, and she told me what to do to you, what to offer you, what to deny myself." Her hand picked up speed, and Rob couldn't help but imagine the scene.

Had she been laying on her back, he wondered, or kneeling on the ground as she fruitlessly touched herself, stroking her clit over and over in frustrated pleasure as her wife gave her instructions and she affirmed them, he was sure, with a soft, needy moan of 'yes, Mistress'.

"She had so many ideas," Emma continued, still trapping his eyes with that steady, glassy stare. "She told me about all of them. All the ways I could abase myself before you in her name. But she knew that letting you fuck my throat would just give me what I wanted sooner. That begging you to fuck my needy pussy would have you filling me with your cum too quickly. She knew it would be what I would want—she was right, she knows me so well—so I couldn't do any of that." Her hand moved faster and faster, and Rob felt his orgasm rushing towards him. "I have to make you come first. Without any of that cum—that amazing, precious cum, I want it so much—touching me anywhere that would trigger the priming. You have to come over me, not on my face, it might get in my mouth. Then I can have the taste—just a little taste—that will bind me to you. Then I can move on, to the next step."

She had shuffled forwards between his legs, her body right against the chair, and held his cock aimed across her chest. Any concerns he might have had about his ability to do what was necessary for this plan—to perform again immediately—might have been tempered by his experiences of the previous day. That was, however, unnecessary, as Rob wasn't having much in the way of coherent thought; he wasn't even aware of any detail of what her hand was doing now other than that it was moving, and he was close, so close…

"Do you want the next step, Rob?" she asked, a hint of desperation. "Will you give me what I need, before I'm allowed to taste you?"

He wasn't sure if there were words in the sounds he made, but he certainly intended to signal an affirmative. As he erupted, she turned her head away. His cum shot up her neck, reaching the edge of her hair and drawing a line across her collar. The next spurt splashed across her chest, beading on the material of her bra. Her breath was rapid, tension visible in her neck, but she didn't stop stroking until his body relaxed.

Then she turned to face him again, delicately used a finger to take a small drop from her bra, and put it in her mouth. There were no screams, not outbursts of orgasmic joy, just a sudden freeze, a frantic sucking of her finger, and a couple of seconds of violent shudders during which she somehow remained upright on her knees.

* * *

She actually went and showered off, while Rob sat there stunned.

The way the others acted, especially Kat and AJ, the ones who'd really had time for the vaccine to work… the way they seemed to need the imprinting. Emma did as well, that was obvious. But she held back. Because Charlotte told her to. I don't know whether to find that sexy as hell, or fucked up.

Judging by the way his dick acted, some part of him definitely thought it was the former.

Emma came back into the room, mostly dry despite the shower, looking remarkably pleased with herself. At least, Rob thought that was how she looked, once you allowed for the slightly crazed, half-vacant expression. She looked at his cock, inhaled sharply, then went and knelt on the bed, high on her knees, chest—modest though it was, the sight of it was still alluring—thrust out.

"If you could undo these pins, sir," she said, indicating the one holding the front of her thong to the belt–waistband. "I'm not allowed to touch them. It's just a locking pin; push on the end to retract the ball and pull it out."

He looked, and saw the familiar mechanism—a ball at one end, a wider part with a button at the other—threaded through a fold of fabric and two metal fixtures hanging from the belt. He removed it, and the front of the thong fell away. Emma turned around and bent over, knees apart, saucily wiggling her backside with the half-detached garment dangling between her legs. Rob saw the other pin, just like the one on the front, and removed that as well.

She kept up the movement as he moved the fallen thong out of the way—carefully leaving the pins with it—and transitioned to a slow, sinuous, sensual motion. Her pussy was flushed and shining, and her other hole, some trick of her position presenting it very visibly, flared slightly, and it too glistened.

"You can fuck any of my holes," Emma said, with obvious effort to keep her voice calm and even; her breathing betrayed the eagerness she felt. "But you have to do the fucking. That's my mistress's instruction. I can kneel, or lay on my back with my head hanging off the bed, and you can fuck my throat; it's been a while, but I've been practising ever since we knew about this whole scheme; I can keep an open throat, and you can feel it pulse around your cock. I often did that when my mistress and I shared a man; he always enjoyed it, and my mistress seemed to find it… stimulating. Or I can stay in this position and you fuck me from behind. My pussy is hungry for you sir, and my mistress made sure that my arse would be slick, clean and ready."

The last part of the offer gave him pause. It wasn't something he'd ever done, and he couldn't pretend he wasn't curious about it, but it wasn't something he was particularly drawn to. But he'd never given it as a red line, because he knew some women were into it and he didn't want to deny them, not without giving it a chance.

"Is that something you're into?" he asked. "Getting your arse fucked?" He regretted the scepticism that crept into his tone, worried that if the answer were 'yes' she would be offended, but he couldn't conceal it.

She looked back over her shoulder, seeming to really see him, looking at him closely, thoughtfully for just a moment.

"I've done it," she said, with obviously studied nonchalance. "It's okay. I'd prefer to have had more prep, but it should be fine. And the vaccine means I'll end up enjoying whatever, right? My mistress wanted you to have the choice."

"If that's how you feel about it," he said, positioning himself, "I'm not going to do it until you're thinking straight and can assure me that you want me to. That can be because you really want it for yourself, or you want to do what Charlotte's telling you, but not now."

"Then how do you want— oh, fuck," she said, slipping into a low, drawn-out guttural tone as he slid into her pussy.

He fucked her hard, that seeming expected, and she shouted filthy encouragement at him, urging him on. Despite the surprising first round of their encounter, he found that he didn't last that long, pulling her back onto him as he buried himself deep and unloaded.

When she'd screamed and shaken her way through her imprinting orgasm, he had enough presence of mind to attempt to throw himself a decent way onto the bed before the darkness of regeneration overtook him for the third time.