AnimeCon Harem Bonus: Anime Rave (Pink)

/// Continuation of the Eighteen and Up sidestory arc for Saturday night, which takes place immediately after Part 8: Then they Banged.

   “Gllphkk-lk-kk—” Stephanie panted, dazed eyes pleading up at Brian as she struggled not to finger herself.

   She needed to, and she wasn’t able to express her desire to him with words or make excuses or attempt to justify anything. She couldn’t warn him just how swept up she really was in these new contexts of submission and desire, and there wasn’t any way to explain how much surrendering control to him turned her on. Stephanie had only just awakened to all of these sexual concepts in the first place! After years of feeling nothing much about sex at all, now a flame of lust had been lit within her and she felt completely at its mercy.

   “Steph, you are… unbelievably sexy right now,” Brian’s voice was a low rumble that made her knees go weak.

   “Glh-huulph-hppk…”

   One hand was pressed against Brian’s firm chest for balance, while Stephanie’s other clutched at the warm juncture between her legs—as though she could clamp down on that yearning ache. Instead she simply felt the wet warmth of lubrication smearing against her fingers, and that made it worse! Desire burned hot pink within her, and every time she learned more about this passionate side of hers she felt more and more helpless against its effect.

   “Hmm,” Brian took her by that wrist and pulled her hand away from her honeypot and held it up between them. “This is. Well, I wasn’t sure I’d be into it, but I guess, turns out—I really am. I love this.”

   It was as if he were teasing her simply with his ability to still be in control of himself and maintain composure. The very dynamic of it had her shifting from one foot to the other and back again with anxious energy. She needed it, needed him, she needed to—

   Brian leaned in and kissed the slickness on her fingers, first with delicacy and then with a deft smack of his lips that jolted a breathy whimper up out of Stephanie.

   Brian—Brian, I-I, I, please Brian, please, please—

   Her head was spinning in a stupefying haze, and it felt as though the sheer mounting heat of it all was slowly baking into her brain. She bit back down with her teeth on the silicone ball-gag again and squeezed but it refused to yield, just flexing like springy rubber within her mouth. The moment she relaxed the ball returned to its original shape, spreading her jaw wide back open and causing another strand of saliva to slip down her chin. Even swaying on her feet like she was in near delirious arousal, it was a struggle not to reflexively just reach up and grab it.

   But, she didn’t. Brian was here. Brian was in control. If he wanted her wearing this fetish thing like this—if he liked it—if he wanted her to helplessly drool, she would. Gladly. Eagerly. Stephanie just hoped he realized how hot and bothered every aspect of this experience was making her. Brian held her hands, and he held her heart, and he held parts of her she wouldn’t have ever even imagined she possessed in the first place.

   “Glph-phuahlk, glph—glphuhphph?” Emily asked, tugging at Brian’s arm. “Glphhhph?”

   “Yeahhh,” Brian sighed, flashing Stephanie a lopsided smile and slowly releasing his hold on her. “Emily’s right. Don’t wanna miss it—there’s the rave goin’ on right now, and I really, really want to dance with both of you. Maybe show you off a bit. Hell, maybe more than a bit. Is that bad? I know if I’d ever even hinted anything... objectifying like that around Chloe, she woulda completely lost it.”

   “Glaph gloph glupuphuph,” Emily rolled her eyes and smacked his bicep. “Gluph glk. Glphpha.”

   “Whoa, there—I mean, I’m not thrilled with Chloe either, but there’s no need for that kind of language. Geez, Emily.”

   “Glphglphhh, glaphphphp glaph glk gphphph!”

   “Guess it’s hard to argue with that... that is real a good point. I mean, like—who does that? Right?”

   Emily’s continued unintelligible noises, and Brian’s playfully pretending to understand what she was saying brought a huge unbidden smile to Stephanie’s face, so big it felt like the bondage-wear straps were straining across each of her cheeks.

   I... I love you, both of you.

   Still smiling, Stephanie couldn’t help but give Emily a long, thoughtful look. Her bright blue pixie-cut, so tousled and tufted now that it seemed like anime hair. Those soft brown eyes. The indignant, unrelenting blabbermouth attempts to communicate something that subtly puckered the pink ball-gag as if she was sucking on a pacifier. The sight was just so Emily that Stephanie wanted to press kisses all over her. In fact, the more Stephanie paid attention to the finer details of the girl’s face, the more she realized Emily had a rather sensuous mouth. Beautiful, kissable. The curve of her lip as it pouted around the obstructing ball was succulent, the glimmer of saliva on her cute chin was strangely enticing.

   “Hualphh-hlk glphh!” Emily gargled around the device in a whine, making pantomiming gestures with her hands that made no sense to Stephanie.

   “Yeah—alright, alright,” Brian chuckled, taking a step back and towards the still and silent escalators. “We’re going, we’re going. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

   “Glphuah— !” Emily followed after, not hesitating to flip up the fabric of her yukata and flash him before he turned around the whole way. Because, obviously, she had no panties on to be in a twist.

   Suddenly seeing Emily’s lovely bare bottom right there in front of her all of the sudden, Stephanie reacted without thinking—she gave it a quick swat.

   Stephanie’s own action startled and delighted her, but Emily was so surprised she jumped a little and gave out a muffled yelp. Choked laughter and heavy breathing was all the girls could manage as they chased each other, and then Brian who’d had his leading head start, down the deactivated escalator in a rush of giddy excitement. It was almost easy to forget that all this time her and Emily had both been commando, or going commando or whatever—she wasn’t entirely sure she understood the idiom! Did soldiers not wear undergarments? She had no idea. Perhaps it was an association of bravado, because commandos had pluck, because they were fearless and bold? Stephanie didn’t know!

   I just—I don’t even know! Hehehehe! Stephanie was filled up with brilliant but unstable energy. Raw elation warred with the exhaustion from her ridiculously long Saturday, but she was also so horny! Not being able to speak made her fixate on things but sometimes also go weirdly introspective but also Emily was imparting a certain blue trace of manic glee into her tonight, so maybe Stephanie was just ready to explode.

   This is just—this is the perfect night. I’ve never had so much fun, ever! My feet hurt SO MUCH, and it’s like I’ll fall dead asleep if I stop moving for even an instant—but, I also want to just run around all night with Brian and Emily having fun just like this. Forever!

   Each time Brian turned that taunting half smile back to check on them, his attention lit her up, it was a bellows-breath of air stoking the coals within her to sudden pink brilliance. He was watching—and he wasn’t going to let anything bad happen. His presence and care, Emily being here to celebrate it all with them—it filled her with a sense of absolute security. That had been true throughout her whole weekend with him, but there was a dramatic, heightened significance to it right now.

   Stephanie bounced down the stairs after Emily and Brian, the skirting of her cosplay sundress swaying in a dangerous way with each step. The exposed, airy feeling as the fabric pulled back across the edge of each thigh was a constant reminder that she was completely bare beneath it. In a public place. Where other attendees were around, even if they were sparse. Maybe any moment she would come to her senses. She should have felt at her most vulnerable, she should have felt absolutely petrified with fear—but instead, it was freeing. Because Emily was right here doing it along with her, and because Brian was here. Stephanie’s sense of safety, her modesty, even her ability to speak, all of these worries that would have weighed upon her were instead simply placed in their hands.

   It was still baffling to her how satisfying that felt, and it was as though she kept on rediscovering that joy from moment to moment. Being able to trust them with all of this was liberating, it was intoxicating, the suffocating boundaries her social anxiety and terminal shyness were lifted up off of her and it made her want to explore everything. Everything, all at once!

   She felt another line of drool begin to dangle from the mouthpiece of the ball gag with the motion of her taking each escalator stair down to the lobby.

   “One of these could help her out a lot. I know you’ve noticed her stutter,” Stephanie still remembered the teasing explanation earlier today as Kelly had picked through fetishwear gags on display and turned them this way and that with a smirk. “Her social anxiety. Do you think she’s happy having her mouth refuse to cooperate with her? Do you think she’s comfortable tripping over her own words all the time, especially around you? Slip one of these on her, and all of those... particular worries, they disappear.”

   When they traversed the last few steps and came down to the ground floor, the three felt the anime rave before they could even properly hear the music, because the steady pulse of a bassy thump transmitted through the convention center tile and traveled up their legs. The strong vibrations were exciting and maybe even a little intimidating, but Stephanie followed along with her not-so-meek-anymore footsteps as Brian and Emily made a right turn at the bottom of the escalators and then headed on into the hall full of pillars adjacent to AnimeCon’s main lobby.

   My worries DID disappear! Mostly. It’s, I can’t even describe it. Not without sounding crazy. The higher this, this FIRE burns up inside of me, the harder it is for all of those dark thoughts to ever reach. It’s magic. They’re magic—I love them. I love them all so much.

   All the mapped understandings of herself had been shifted around this AnimeCon weekend, new things had been discovered, each opening up incredible new opportunities. Embarrassment was coupled with excitement, now. Shame, terror, and the normal oppressive anxiety that muted out her ability to feel anything positive were simply missing. A lot of those familiar negative associations just didn’t seem like they were plugged in—it was as if events this weekend rearranging her mental furniture had accidentally disconnected them.

   Earlier this same year, Stephanie felt absolutely mortified simply attending her university dressed in her normal clothing. Being in a public setting, being present among large groups of students, where they could see her, judge her, had been so suffocating that in her first few days she’d thrown up that night, pushed by her social anxiety into a near panic of unmanageable stress.

   Is my shape weird, did I put on weight in strange places? Does trying to wear baggy clothing draw more attention to my body, or less? The idea that some part of her was standing out and attracting notice had made her feel like she was perpetually on the edge of an anxiety attack. Every aspect of interaction at her university was ruled by fear, and the subconscious drive towards becoming as invisible and unnoticed as possible turned into the lucky happenstance that had her meeting Megan—the social leper of their several shared classes—and becoming that girl’s friend.

   But, now the anxiety just, it’s THERE still, but it just doesn’t matter! Stephanie felt so full of relentless energy that she could maybe just jump up and fly. It doesn’t matter. DOESN’T MATTER! Everything got turned upside down, all the, the priorities and everything shifted around, I have this FIRE inside me now, and—it’s wonderful. I love it. I love this. I feel… I feel like now, with Brian—with everyone, really—with Brian and Kelly and Emily? Now, I can do ANYTHING.

   Back then, it had taken two entire weeks of Megan badgering her to slowly erode all of Stephanie’s objections to wearing a gijinka cosplay dress to the convention. A nonstop barrage of pictures of different cosplayers in gijinka dresses had been sent her way— Megan knew Stephanie had a weakness for cute outfits. Any girl looking at them would smile and feel that rush of endorphins at seeing how sweet and adorable they looked! Persuading her that it was commonplace to wear one at this anime convention that was coming up had the idea constantly growing in the back of her mind. Before she knew it, she was browsing fabrics and planning her own design.

   And then, well—here I am, Stephanie still felt baffled by how far each turn of events had moved her. Somehow. Wearing just the cute dress part, and almost nothing else. Prancing around, almost naked, in a public venue. There’s a, a SEX TOY keeping me from closing my mouth, even—everyone can see it. I should be, I don’t know. Humiliated? So humiliated that I would just die right on the spot. But… I’m not. If this was me even just last week, this would force me into some kind of nervous breakdown.

   “It just hit,” Stephanie had told Megan on Friday. “It just hit all at once.”

   All it took was a spark of attraction, and before she knew it all of these repressed things inside her were kindling that fed this magical weekend up higher and higher. Interest. Excitement. Anticipation—she was drawn so deeply into the lives of people, people she’d only just met this weekend, that she was in love. In love! Maybe love wasn’t even an apt enough descriptor. She cared about them so much that the pink blaze within her rose up and ROARED. Each time she saw that they were affected the same way, it fed into her fire, fueled it into a towering, intoxicating, unstoppable inferno.

   I just… I think… I think I’m in love, and I’m so in love I don’t even know what to think! Stephanie marvelled at it all, cheeks quirking into a chipper smile around the gag in her mouth.

   As they drew near the main event room itself, a relentless DMMM DMMM DMMM DMMM base beat began to roll across them from the open doors in the distance like thunder, along with an accompanying warble of electric guitar playing in simple rising chords. The final layer of the composition seemed to be a girl singing in rapid, high-pitched Japanese, making Stephanie suspect the vocals had been grafted from elsewhere and simply sped up to match the new tempo.

   More and more people became apparent the closer they approached, late-night convention attendees sitting on the floor in small clusters, a few couples walking hand-in-hand, and a small line of people queued up at a table set up with several large cylindrical water coolers. An enormous dry erase board set up next to it indicated that this was the ~HYDRATION STATION~ and the bottom three quarters of the sign was occupied with chibi doodles, meme graffiti, hearts, and signed names dozens of passerby had scribbled in.

   To Stephanie’s surprise, she and her two companions weren’t underdressed for the occasion. Everyone she saw here was likewise in brief and somewhat crazy attire—microskirts and exposed midriff seemed common on the girls dressed for the rave, almost all of them were wearing fishnet in different colors, and she even spotted a pair of ladies wearing skimpy bikinis and ram-like demon horns. Flashy wigs in neon colors, fox-eared anime hats, and glowing bracelets were everywhere, there was one huge mohawk guy wearing enormous baggy black rave pants, and there was even a girl in a black latex skinsuit. Brian wasn’t even the only guy with his shirt off, though in Stephanie’s possibly unbiased opinion, Brian with his rugged shoulders and defined abdominal musculature was still the best looking, and by a significant margin.

   “Damn,” Brian swore, casting a grin towards the girls. “I’m excited. You guys excited?”

   Emily skipped along several steps, did a small hop with both feet that Stephanie found adorable, and then turned to flash Brian two big thumbs-up to show that she was still absolutely raring to go. Torn between her own ingrained timidity and wanting to join in on the enthusiasm, Stephanie presented her own thumbs up, mimicking the signature Emily style with arm up and elbow jutting out. She involuntarily tried to let out a nervous giggle, but the fixture preventing her mouth from closing turned into a wet, breathy sound.

   “Alright, awesome,” Brian laughed, gesturing forward towards the rave. “Shall we, ladies?”

   “Glphpphph!!” Emily bounced on the balls of her feet while Stephanie gave him a shy nod.

   Several people did glance their way when they walked up, with Brian intercepted by a group of three guys who offered him a fist bump and an awww man, dude—NICE, when they saw Brian had a docile pair of companions in tow with bright-colored hair and ball gags.

   Oh my… oh my goodness… ! Stephanie blushed furiously, her happiness grappling with her embarrassment and shame for a moment but ultimately still winning out.

   A breathless, sweaty blonde girl halfway out of a loose-fitting penguin kigurumi onesie was sitting in the lap of the staffer situated to check badges at the doors. By all appearances, the girl was trying to tell the volunteer some sort of story over the noise of the rave, but the man’s attention seemed to keep sinking down into the soft depths of exposed cleavage. Stephanie felt her cheeks flush anew at realizing how far the girl’s kigu was hanging open, and a lacy black brassiere seemed to barely constrain her bulging chest.

   This is… it’s sexy! Stephanie thought with a rush of gleeful anticipation as they were waved on into the rave room. It’s not just US—it’s, it’s everyone, we fit right in. It’s like we’re having our own amazing sexy night, and then so many others here are, too. It’s—it’s special. AnimeCon at night is special.

   Everything about late night AnimeCon so far seemed mysterious and exciting and more than a little raunchy to Stephanie. Sex appeal had perhaps always been a component of the multifaceted cosplay convention experience, but here after hours it was brought to the forefront. Panels strictly for adults were going on, hentai was being watched in small theater rooms filled with people, and more than one of the attendees staggering on past them seemed to be heavily intoxicated.

   Is… is alcohol even allowed on the premises here?!

   The cavernous main event room was even darker now than it had been during the cosplay contest earlier, with only a few of the stage lights on. Where before hundreds of chairs had been lined up into neat rows, now all of those folding seats had been removed, providing an enormous open floor across the broad carpeted area. In the dim light and discordant noise a sea of people were bobbing, twisting, jumping, and dancing to the music, while the occasional flashes of brilliant pinks and greens of several attendees with glowsticks spun and weaved in frantic patterns.

   DMMM DMMM DMMM DMMM DMM DMM DM DM DM DM-DM-DM-DDDDDDD—!

   More than anything else, it was loud. The music seemed to consist of a baseline beat so strong it seemed to shake the air, with an afterthought of electronica melody that was honestly difficult to make out at all. The overwhelming volume felt a little suffocating to Stephanie, but everyone else seemed to accept it as normal for this sort of event. Unlike depictions of club raves in movies with smoke and lasers and multicolored lightshow theatrics, there was a primal simplicity to the AnimeCon rave—there were only dim bodies dancing in silhouette, backlit by the handful of stage lights at the far end of the room.

   Having paused just inside the doorway to take in the sheer spectacle of it all, Stephanie did a small startled jump as she felt Brian’s hand at the small of her back. He leaned in close and his voice rose to ask her a question—but, she still couldn’t hear him over the volume of the music. She blinked at him in a confused fluster as he repeated himself, and then he brought up a hand and switched between thumbs-up and thumbs-down gestures.

   Ah! Of course! Stephanie presented him a clear thumbs-up in affirmative. He’s asking if I’m okay. I’m okay! It’s loud, it is WAY too loud in here, but I’m okay.

   Brian then turned as if about to ask the same of Emily, but the petite girl was already jerking back and forth to the rhythm and throwing her arms up.

   Oh! Ummm… Stephanie felt her cheeks burn against the ballgag strap as a horrible realization dawned her. I—I don’t know how to dance.

   Moving her body to the music seemed so simple... until she tried doing it herself. She immediately felt stupid, and found herself jerking to an awkward stop. It was silly to the extreme to be more self-conscious of how she danced than she was about not wearing undergarments, or kissing Emily in public, or wearing a ball-gag, but surprise anxiety from out of nowhere seemed to stifle her every uneasy attempted movement until her body came to a faltering halt again.

   I’ll, I’ll just—I can just do whatever Emily’s doing!

   Watching the spry Latina bouncing from one foot to the other and pumping her fist up in time with the beat wasn’t as instructional as she hoped. Stephanie tried dancing again, attempting to copy her friend, and that made her movements somehow even worse! When Emily decided to buck or jump and when she chose to twist and rock didn’t follow any pattern she could fathom, and lagging behind everything she observed had Stephanie’s nervous mimicry no longer matching the music.

   Oh my God… Stephanie wanted to cover her face and hide.

   It felt as though everyone was now staring at her, wondering why she was flailing around in such an idiotic manner. Emily was just into it, somehow, her blue pixie-cut was swaying and every part of her was in motion, with none of the hesitation that felt like it had Stephanie going rigid with indecision and embarrassment. Brian was dancing too, mirroring Emily’s moves with some of his own. Like Emily, he looked good doing it, comfortable in his actions, and the pair projected confidence from some hidden place within which Stephanie felt desperate to discover. They were both somehow natural at this.

   What do I DO?! Stephanie actually brought her hands up against herself and cringed in mortification as Brian noticed that she wasn’t dancing with them. I-I’m sorry! I don’t really know how to dance! I’m sorry!

   Brian paused, stepping in close and shouting what sounded like an ARE YOU OKAY that Stephanie could almost make out over the discordant blasting music. Feeling guilty and embarrassed and having no idea how to explain that she couldn’t dance, Stephanie gave him a small thumbs-up along with a hesitant shrug of her shoulders. Humiliation washed through her as he hurried to tap Emily on the shoulder to get her attention and then ushered both of them back out of the anime rave room and into the light of the pavilion hall.

   We barely even got in there—I’m, I’m ruining everything, Stephanie blushed furiously as Brian rushed to unbuckle her ball gag.

   She helped, lifting her thick tufts of bright pink hair out of the way to give him better access, and after a moment of finagling the buckle was undone and the snug strap grew slack. With an embarrassed gluh, she was able to push the silicone ball out of her mouth with her tongue, and then spent a few seconds pursing and working her lips. The entire lower half of her face seemed to be a smeared mess of saliva, and she awkwardly wiped her mouth, her chin, and then her neck with the backs of both hands, brushing them against her outfit in absolute mortification.

   “Are you okay?” Brian asked immediately. “Sorry—I don’t think any of us can hear a thing in there.”

   “I’m, I’m okay!” Stephanie squeaked out, hanging her head. “I-I just, I um. I don’t really know how to, um. How to dance.”

   “Oh—oh, thank God,” Brian let out a breath. “Okay, cool. That’s—we can work with that. It’s completely fine. You’re okay?”

   “I’m okay!” Stephanie assured him, unable to meet his eyes.

   Emily lunged in to give her a comforting hug—or at least, it was comforting until Emily hopped up onto her tiptoes and pressed the saliva-smeared ball gag of her own against Stephanie’s cheek.

   “Aw, ew! Emily, ewww—!” Stephanie giggled, feeling a rush of relief. “Stop it, stop it!”

   “Here, geez—just gimme a sec,” Brian started fiddling with the buckle for her gag as well.

   Stephanie saw the straps pull tight against Emily’s face for a moment, and then Brian got it unhooked. Emily settled back down on her feet and spat the pink ball-gag into her hands along with a whole bunch of spit.

   “Blll—aaargh,” Emily worked her jaw and then smacked her lips in an exaggerated expression. “Muah, mmM-bluah, muah. Mine’s fine, I can still wear it. Mmbleeeoughhhh. Just maybe little hard to breathe in when you’re goin’ hard. We’re all cool?”

   “Yeah, we’re okay,” Brian said, passing her the ball-gag back. “Here. You guys wanna go back in? We can show Steph how to dance?”

   “Steph? Are you just not feelin’ it?” Emily turned a curious look back towards her.

   “I—I don’t know how to dance,” Stephanie admitted.

   “Whaddya mean?” Emily cocked her head as she accepted the gag from Brian and examined it. “You’re not supposed to know anything. You just kinda do it!”

   “Ummm…” Stephanie looked down at her feet again.

   “It’s like, it’s like ultimate instinct ultra, you just go with it!” Emily laughed. “Don’t think about it; just do it. Thinking won’t get us anywhere!”

   “We’ll show you, Steph,” Brian promised. “I mean, if you still want to.”

   “I, I do want to, it’s just…” Stephanie fidgeted, unable to stop feeling bashful.

   I don’t even know how to explain! You both make me feel confident and adventurous and amazing when it comes to, to INTIMACY. Up close and personal, all of the anxiety and fears fall away. When it’s just us. But, BUT. Situations like this, where there’s all these people in there, I just—I don’t know what to do. I was too shy to even get up and slow dance at Uncle Tim’s wedding, and it was all family there! I’m, I’m not used to big loud crazy things filled with lots of people. I-I work in a LIBRARY!

   “Dance with me?” Brian offered, extending his hand.

   “O-oh, yeah,” Stephanie found herself agreeing immediately. “Okay.”

   This time, the slight quiver in her voice had less to do with feeling nervous, and more to do with that sudden surging impulse to join in whatever he wanted to do. Scary things were so much easier, then. The idea that this broad-shouldered shirtless absolute hunk with the mouth-watering lines of muscle that she was falling for wanted to dance with her compelled her to accept right away, without pausing to fret over the details.

   I think… that when I think about it, I can’t just go and DANCE. But I CAN dance with Brian, maybe. Everything changes.

   After all, Stephanie wasn’t sure at all if she wanted to try to dance. But, she was completely certain she wanted to dance with Brian. Because then—then, all other contexts started to fall away, and the world seemed to shrink in around them and the flame they made and everything became manageable. A striking flash of eager pink sparks flashed out from somewhere deep in her tummy, as if to confirm her choice. The idea that he’d be maybe be paying extra close attention to her this time was mesmerizing, and the thought of him intimately instructing her had parts of her heating up in smoldering pink all over again.

   “I, um, okay,” Stephanie giggled, fiddling with the ball gag in her hands for a moment. “Should I…? Put this back on? Do you think?”

   “Hmmm,” Brian’s slight smile was breathtaking, and Stephanie wavered up onto her tiptoes for a moment as if being drawn up into him. “I think…”

   “Yes?” Stephanie quivered.

   “I think you’d better leave it off,” Brian decided. “I mean, if I’m gonna teach you to dance—well,  what if I need to kiss you? Better to not have it in the way. Right?”

   “Rr—ight!” Stephanie beamed at his sound reasoning. “That’s smart! That’s, uhm—”

   Bopping beside them and grooving her arms through the air to the thump of heavy bass issuing over from the main event room, Emily had absolutely no qualms dancing out in the bright hall where everyone could see her. There was something just magnetic about the sheer spontaneity of it, about the way Emily could just break into dance and suddenly be having fun.

   “We’ll just have it like this, then,” Brian said, stepping in close and carefully affixing the ball-gag back onto her, this time as a somewhat loose necklace rather than a snug fit around her mouth.

   Almost fidgeting and unable to control her grin, Stephanie gazed up at him in adoration, unable to figure out what to do with her hands. Before she could even help herself, she found herself rising up onto her tiptoes again. Her face met his with a tiny kiss, she giggled—and then kissed him again, an initial quick surprise peck that morphed into a slower, softer kiss they both opened their lips for. Pink energy seemed to erupt within her, she felt squirmy with the sheer molten heat of it tickling its way down her abdomen, and those last bits of uneasiness from before in the rave room melted to slag beneath the pink of pure desire.

   I… I want him, Stephanie decided in a daze, flicking her tongue up and against his. The passion of their kiss failed to abate. Instead it grew, instead her hands were grabbing onto his shoulders and she was hungry for more and more. I think maybe I’m ready. For sex. To make love. T-to fuck. To really FUCK, like I just saw them do tonight. But it’ll be ME with Brian. Soon. SOON. I want that. Maybe not tonight, when we’re all so just all over the place from, from all of the everything. But, tomorrow, like tomorrow morning, maybe…? Oh yes. Oh yes yes yes. Please.

   “Whoa, oi oi oi, get a room, you two!” Emily’s playful slaps landed lightly across both Stephanie’s shoulder and Brian’s side. “Oh, c’mon—I’m kidding. Are we goin’ back inside and gettin’ our grind on or what, though? It’s… h-hey, you guys know it’s way darker in there, right?”

   I… maybe wouldn’t mind being with Emily again, either? Stephanie felt less and less flustered by the thought each time it visited. Emily AND Kelly. There’s… some really undeniable attraction, there. Even if they’re girls. And, I love them, so—it just makes sense. It makes all of the sense.

   “You’re—yeah, you’re right,” Brian needed a moment to collect himself, and he grinned at Emily for a moment before turning his potent smile back towards Stephanie and returning her to arm’s distance. “Shall we?”

   “Hey, wait—do me back up!” Emily insisted, thrusting the ball-gag she’d worn back towards him. “Please?”

   “What?” Brian paused. “Emmie—I thought you just said you could barely breathe.”

   “Fuck it, breathing’s for wussies!” Emily snorted, thrusting her chest out in a haughty pose that had one side of her yukata falling free of a teacup-sized breast. “C’mon senpai, do me back up.”

   “I—yeah, okay. Whatever, weeb,” Brian shook his head in dismay. “You’re really sure?”

   “Bruh.” Emily huffed, looking down at her front in surprise as a bemused Stephanie stepped in to gently arrange the cosplay top back into correct place. “Ah yeah, right. Thanks Babe!”

   “You’re... you’re welcome,” Stephanie said, wetting her lips and adjusting her glasses as lingering pink embers tickled their way up her body. “Babe.”

( Previous: Silencing the Girls | AnimeCon Harem | Next: 8A pt 30 )

/// Uggghhhhh don't blame any of you in the slightest if you unpledge after a month of total nothing like this. Sweet and sexy Steph section was what I REALLY needed to read this month, but also happened to be what was most difficult for me to write because I couldn't get into a Steph-state.

Dscono bailed on us without finishing the final illustration I paid her for.

Basem is still on hiatus from orders as he moves his family to another country, but did assure me he'd contact the second he's ready for work again.

I had an order placed with Tennessee, and she then claimed to have an emergency and asked for me to advance her cash for a second order. Well, with no Basem orders atm and no more Dscono orders that wasn't a problem, so I advanced her money for another order. Then, a few days later she announced that she'd spoken with one of her industry peers who told her her songs should be priced at $1k each, but that she was only raising her song prices from $200 to $400 for me, and hoped I was cool with that. Also that she should be receiving a $75 licensing fee from me every year... despite our initial agreement having been negotiated very specifically to include commercial rights—I told her I couldn't afford her work and wished her luck. While honestly feeling real damn betrayed and at a loss with the project just seeming to stall in every direction. 

She panics at the thought of losing my business, tells me I'm basically her only steady source of work, and says haha yeah it's totally cool if we just keep just doing tracks at $200 each. Haven't heard from her in the week since then.

Fuck man, "frustrated" doesn't begin to describe how I've been this month. I've been living on pennies for the last nineteen months so that I could keep putting a grand a month into game assets, and for what? 

Not giving up, though. Fuck.

We do still have Yee, Yee is still an angel that regularly creates miracles, and she's been steadily working through improved and alternate background crowds for the existing background illustrations we have. Won't have new ones for her to populate until when (if?) basem comes back.

Went through the small stack of submissions from people who'd answered my hire ad and picked out the best of the lot; so, we have our new replacement lead character artist Skull Zombie. He's already finished a Kelly test set for us I'll be posting up shortly after this, and is now working on an Emily test sheet. Seems like a good guy. Will trust him until he gives me reason not to.

tldr; game dev is tuff

Writing-wise, I'm just about finished up with the special Ask Me Anything Panel starring all of the AnimeCon characters, and I have a bit of RE:TT written out, but it feels underwhelming still. This Steph section here was in six different segments that fried my brain and got written and rewritten nonstop throughout the month, and is honestly still a mess. AMA Panel next, then a Jordyn + Melanie bit because that's already started, after that I'm back to RE:TT.