The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Quaranteam: The Upstart’s Knight — Chapter 5

Mud. Aoife hated mud. Assuming she survived the worst the British weather could throw at her, she made a personal promise to never assume things couldn’t make her more miserable than they already were. She’d thought being overworked was bad enough, but it didn’t remotely compare to being hauled up a hill in a storm, for the sake of other people’s bullshit. Almost as soon as they’d got out of the Land Rover SUV the heavens had opened and she found herself wondering why anyone would ever come out to the countryside voluntarily. At least Nat seemed to be enjoying herself, the only telecoms engineer left on staff was in her element and had immediately trudged off into the fog, leaving Aoife to swear as she disappeared.

Aoife was certain she looked like something out of one of the trashy post apocalyptic movies Ethan liked. Her eyes were the only part of her face visible, a small strip between the heavy respirator protocol demanded she wore off site, and the beanie she had pulled down tight, clumps of green hair sticking down with the original mousy brown starting to peek through. The oversized boots were her own fashion choice, but the coat Palisade had deemed to kit her out with was predictably a size too large, and left her waddling around like she was in some sort of dark blue hazmat suit.

Their main satellite dish was only a few dozen metres away, Taymont Hall only a couple hundred down the hill, but in the rain and low cloud they might as well have both been invisible. The majority of the work the North England Broadcast Corporation did was over regular, if encrypted, internet cables but for the really heavy duty stuff, or anything particularly sensitive, they had a government relay set up overlooking the Hall. And the fact it hadn’t been supplied by Palisade themselves meant it was one of the few pieces of hardware that had worked reliably from day one. Or at least it had until the feed was cut without warning overnight.

Almost losing her footing on the slick ground Aoife swore loudly, causing the optimistically named security ‘officer’ next to her to start, his hand going for the gun hanging from one shoulder. She almost felt sorry for him. Palisade had done little more with their government money than hire bouncers on ego trips, but it wasn’t like he wanted to be here any more than she did, or as if he was the one who wrote the idiotic protocol demanding she had an escort to so much as a foot off site.

If she was honest with herself, which she absolutely wasn’t going to be, a small part of her was glad to have something different to do with herself. Last night was meant to be her movie night with Ethan, like every Wednesday. It wasn’t like they had it in writing but that was the unspoken deal they had; no matter what was going on they’d work their asses off to make sure they had a couple of hours together and stream Kurosawa or Hammer Horror or Harryhausen, sharing a love for the sort of cult movies that got both of them into media in the first place. They were meant to keep each other’s sanity in check.

But he’d blown her off. A brief, apologetic message had appeared on her screen instead of his face at their usual time, breaking their streak just when that was the last thing she needed him to do. And the worst part was, no matter how hard she was mostly succeeding at being mad, a larger part of her just hurt. Everything was too much, she was tired and stressed and she didn’t realise how much needed him right now until he wasn’t there. She wanted him to watch stupid fucking movies with her, help her forget the stress and make her feel like a human. And that want kept managing to be so bigger than the anger that he wasn’t.

Having a broken satellite to help fix might not brighten her mood, but at least it was hard for the weather to make it much worse.

As Nat came back into view alongside the hazy outline of the dish Aoife was reminded, again, that it was always possible to get more miserable. The butch woman, coat whipping about in the wind, was already inspecting the main data line where it was hanging limp from the dish, completely severed despite being almost a foot thick and swaddled in insulation. Aoife moved closer and Nat, body language tense, held up one end for her to see and it became worryingly obvious how neatly they’d been clipped. It was the work of industrial tools rather than some freak event, premeditated, intentional. Aoife’s heart sank and her eyes strayed to where the power cables were all similarly cut despite being just as robust. Whoever had done it had also tried to go to work on the dish itself, damaging several of the connections and buckling the frame that was holding it up before either giving up or getting spooked away.

There had been talk for months of conspiracy morons skulking around but they’d never tried anything like this, and the rumours had largely become part of the furniture. To have someone targeting their equipment so decisively was a massive escalation, and exactly the sort of thing the arseholes from Palisade were meant to be safeguarding against.

“Just how fucked are we,” Aoife asked, voice muffled by the mask and weather. Nat responded by wavering a hand in air in a gesture of non-commitment that spoke volumes. The other woman was the most natural optimist Aoife had met and if she wasn’t being emphatic then the answer to how fucked they were appeared to be ‘very.’

Frustration bubbling over, Aoife lifted her head and screamed into the storm.

* * *

Ethan turned the coloured note over, studying it in his hand, as if he expected to suddenly find some extra insight that wasn’t there. It was five days since he’d been thrown into the world of Project Upstart and he still frequently caught himself looking at things as if there was some spell to be broken. Desks and computers had been brought in to Studio 3 to give Project Upstart an office space to function out of and the post-it-note he held was one of a mosaic of the garish paper squares that spilled out across one wall, where he and Lukas had used them to map out every individual task and step to be completed before they went public. It could have all been planned out on a spreadsheet, but Lukas had insisted this would visualise things to keep minds focused more sharply. Ethan thought it just made things seem more overwhelming than they needed to be.

The current core of the project was the block of programming they needed to have ready to introduce the vaccine from the moment the Scotland and London teams broke the stark reality of DuoHalo to the country. That main mass of stickers was then flanked by the additional goals they’d set themselves, repackaging additional footage and segments into the start of a public health campaign, as well as ongoing videos that Averna could upload to offer continued, dedicated content and support to those vaccinated. The majority of the latter would come later, but they wanted their workflow established long before they got there.

It was the smallest block on the far right, squeezed up into the corner of the room in neat pink notes, that the current object of his attention had been plucked from however. Sat underneath the headline ‘Recruitment’ each of the handful of labels simply held a name, a date, and a ‘Team’ name in Nia’s handwriting;

‘Stephanie Holloway, Team Kaminski, 22/10/20’
‘Alyx McNamara, Team Barclay, 24/10/20’
‘Jessica McNamara, Team Knight, 24/10/20’

There were a dozen or so of them, each a member-to-be of Project upstart, each picked by the Delphi Algorithm to be partnered up with either Lukas, Rhys or himself. And while the smallest section of their wall, there was an acceptance that this is what would be taking up most of their time for the first week or two. Ethan read the note in his hand for what seemed like the 20th time, the paper somehow managing to feel heavy between his fingers.

‘Farah Hassan, Team Knight, 21/10/20’

His Team, today’s date. She was apparently already on site, being briefed by Nia, and Ethan was less than an hour away from two partners becoming three. He understood that just Evie and Nia weren’t really enough to keep him fully immune. The data from the US made it perfectly clear that a man needed at least half a dozen partners for his serum levels to be high enough, and there were indications that the UK’s current DuoHalo strain was even more demanding. Even so, whenever they’d been able to let the dust settle between all the work and sex the last five days had seen a burgeoning romance between the three of them and, as apprehensive as he’d been at first, he was now worried about letting anything puncture that feeling. He felt like a teenager again, every interaction with the pair of women he was heady, fresh and occasionally awkwardly disarming, with his emotions straining at the bit as he tried to keep them reigned in. They had all but officially moved into the honeymoon suite together, spent a date night where Nia had opened up one of Taymont’s restaurants for them, talked late into the evenings; fucked incessantly.

He looked up and realised both Evie and Rhys were watching him from their desks.

“How are you managing to put up with him over thinking things like this,” Rhys asked Evie with amusement that strayed towards schoolboy mockery without quite reaching it. Ethan hadn’t quite been able to pin down his feelings on Rhys Barclay fully yet. The (technically former) tabloid hack was clearly excellent at what he did and he had practised way with words and copy that was proving invaluable in helping Project Upstart get straight to the thrust of what they wanted to say. It was hard not to respect his talent. And yet, Ethan couldn’t help being consistently aggravated by the privileged condescension which Rhys so readily lapsed into. He found it hard to shake the sense that if the Londoner was given the choice between another expensive suit or attempting human decency, Saville Row would win every time.

Ethan was grateful when Evie pretended to ignore Rhys, her background meaning she was much more at ease in that sort of company and knew that simply refusing to acknowledge him was far more withering than anything that might be said. She crossed the room instead and kissed Ethan, softly. “Maybe you should get some air before Nia calls you?”

He wanted to point out it had also been hours since she had taken a break. While the reality probably wasn’t quite as overbearing, it almost seemed like every single one of the squares decorating the wall needed to be run by Westminster; debated, amended, passed further up the chain several times and then finally signed off the way they were in the first place. But then Evie Kimura didn’t do breaks, didn’t seem capable of letting up from what she put herself to for a second, and he knew better than to try and make her.

“I’m good I just need to get these video files squared away,” he explained. The monitor beside him had clips Nia had managed to get her hands on from the US of women with nasty looking burns in streaks across their skin. They had all read in Averna’s literature about how once a woman had become imprinted that another man’s semen would be physically harmful to her, but it had been decided they really needed the visual examples to keep people from learning the hard way. Rather than reviewing the files into their archive however, Ethan had spent most of the last hour with his own thoughts, the task resolutely unfinished.

A delicate finger reached over and Evie pressed the monitor’s power button, causing the images to disappear, and kissed him again.

“Ethan, come on. I can pull rank on you if you want,” she insisted gently, playfully, a hand on his cheek bringing his gaze to meet hers as she gifted him an understanding smile. He wasn’t sure it was possible to get tired of the way she kissed him, the way she looked at him.

Five days since they had rekindled things was more than enough for him to realise he was in love with her, and he’d quickly stopped caring whether that was natural or the vaccine. She may not have had the same intensity to her presence as Nia, but Evie was no easier for him to say no to. Diligent, dedicated and considered, if occasionally quietly understated, she was a force of nature in her own right and certainly was’t quick to take no for an answer, insistent as a warm spring breeze.

There was still an occasional sadness to her too, something that slipped through every so often with a reluctance to be drawn on past relationships and the loss that had caused her to step back from Ethan once before. He wanted to help, but was smart enough not to press either, letting her cover over any lingering hurt with the moment to moment they were getting to share now.

It was only once she kissed him a third time that he realised he’d become caught in the brown of her eyes for several heartbeats longer than he meant to. “Fine,” he said, relenting gladly, even after such a short space of time they knew how easy it was to just surrender to each other. “You win. I wasn’t getting far with it anyway.”

“Good,’” she replied, teasing him with, “it’s so much easier if I don’t have to get Nia down here to make you see sense.”

He laughed, “no, please, I said I yield. Have mercy.”

Evie finally eased back away from him, as if realising how long they’d lingered in each other’s personal space and perched herself on the edge of Ethan’s desk. Across the room Rhys had gone back to ‘working’ with feigned politeness but it was obvious he was still keeping a watch out of the corner of his eye.

Taking her phone out of her pocket, her tone shifted to something more suggestive. “So…I was saving this, but you feel like you could do with something else to think about right now?” He was about to ask exactly what she meant as her fingers tapped away at the device, but was stopped by his own phone, placed atop the desk, lighting up with a message notification.

Ethan didn’t need help recognising the swell of Evie’s arse in the picture that filled the screen, or the now familiar folds of her pussy. After a moment he even was able to appreciate that the skirt that was hiked up to allow the close up shot of her crotch was the same one she was wearing now, the delay in realisation only coming from the fact that his attention was more immediately grabbed by the contour of a black plug snug within her asshole.

There was a self-inflicted blush on Evie’s cheeks as he looked back to her in surprise. The pink tinge on her pale cheeks was something Ethan was getting used to, although familiarity didn’t dim his appreciation. Evie was significantly more sexually experienced than he was, but possessed of an outward modesty that wrapped her appetites in a coyness that begged to be teased apart. He did his best not to shift too obviously as his cock stiffened, thoughts tripping over his own arousal.

“Are you still…”

“Yes,” she hissed quietly, glancing in Rhys’ direction while seeming to enjoy the danger of potential interruption. “Keep it down.”

He tried to keep up with the implications of the fact she was doing this for him, his attention, their mutual gratification. She was like something out of a dream and the animal part of his brain strained against the rational.

“God Evie, I…oww” he started speaking, still much too loud for anywhere near the discretion Evie was after, and she cut him off with a light jab of her shoe into his shin. There was exasperation with him on her face, but no little amusement either, and she returned to typing.

Evie K:

Maybe I want you to remember to come back to me after Farah gets here.

Taking a breath, Ethan managed to control himself, grinning as he composed a reply with his own message.

Ethan:

We can see. I might need a little more reminding?

Evie blushed again then smiled. Theatrically she placed a finger against her chin in a show of consideration.

Evie K:

Well…if you need it

A beat passed and then another picture appeared. Taken from a similar angle, a pair of Evie’s fingers were captured spreading apart her lips, inviting, slick and pink in contrast to the black of the plug still in frame, the sheen of her arousal smeared across the digits. He felt his blood rush. Just how many of these did she have taken for him anyway? When did she take them? How much thought had she put into this?

Ethan:

Fuck…

Ethan:

I think I’m in love

He typed the declaration without thinking, intending it to come across as playful and flirtatious but immediately regretted how heavily it cut through their interaction. Emotions tugged at Evie’s expression and he felt a brief moment of panic as he struggled to read exactly what she was thinking. As much as she claimed to be over past hurts this last week had been a rollercoaster for both of them and he worried that this felt too candid, too fast. More than she was ready for. Evie flushed, glancing away as the moment suddenly turned awkward.

His anxieties risked running away from him until she leaned back in, once again lingering her lips against his. “You could have picked a more romantic way to say it…” she said, forehead still pressed against his, her voice quiet with attempted humour masking her self-consciousness.

Ethan went to speak, but she gave a shake of her head and stopped him with a slight smile.

“Laura and I are meant to be briefing the cabinet in half an hour,” she continued, looking towards the clock and rising to stand, already drawing herself back from getting too caught up in feelings she apparently needed effort to unpack. “And you’re needed elsewhere maybe we both should have picked a better time for this?”

“A better time? I’ll check my diary, might be able to pencil you in next month” he joked, keen to try and lighten the mood again.

There was a roll of her eyes. “Just make sure Farah feels at home for me?”

He nodded, letting her go, reminded again, still kicking himself and reminded that things were imminently about to get even more complicated. “I’ll do my best.”

Simply doing his best barely felt like it was enough. Evie deserved better than fumbled proclamations and cluttered attempts to stray through feelings. But as she paused and looked back in his direction from the door, the adoration was unmistakable, and he decided maybe he wasn’t doing such a bad job after all.

A chuckle came from the other side of the office as soon as Evie left. Ethan had half half forgotten that Rhys was there, using his monitor as cover, and he was tempted to make his own excuses and leave rather than be left to engage the journalist on his own. Doing that felt a little too obvious of a snub however, so he relented, reluctantly letting him speak.

“You lucked out there,” Rhys noted in a way that managed to feel seedy rather than authentic. “Not that Lukas and I are doing bad for ourselves, but you? Your luck?” He gave an impressed whistle to make his point.

“It’s not like I asked for this, the algorithm just..” Ethan began to protest in return, only for Rhys to brush him off with a dismissive wave of a hand.

“Oh please, you don’t have to keep playing the humility card when it’s just us. You can crow a bit about how well things are going for you if you want. Most people would kill to be in your shoes even before adding a celebrity to the mix.”

Farah Hassan wasn’t exactly what Ethan would call A-list, but celebrity definitely wasn’t an inaccurate word for her. Although it was one he’d been trying not to linger on. A former cricketer turned aspiring presenter she certainly had a profile several magnitudes above any other woman to play the sport for England and he’d had to triple check with Nia when he’d been told the British-Asian woman was going to be joining them.

He found it hard to argue with Delphi’s choice on a professional level at least. Born to working class Pakistani and Indian immigrants in Bradford, Farah had come to public attention not because she was the best at what she did but because of the easy, energetic charisma she had, going viral every time she showboated by juggling a simple catch or cracked jokes in a post match interview. And when her career had ended just before the pandemic it seemed natural to most people she would move into the media. If they were looking for someone to be the symbol of what they were doing Ethan was struggling to think of better, the perfect poster girl for exactly the sort of modern Britain he thought they needed to be speaking to. The personal implications on the other hand were somewhat easier to have doubts over, but then that feeling was becoming a familiar one.

“Here.” Rhys didn’t let up, calling him over, “there’s something I’ve wanted to run past you.”

The distaste was immediate as Ethan approached and Rhys turned his monitor towards him, porn openly playing on the display. A blonde woman writhed in pleasure against the sheets, the cock of an otherwise unseen man lubricated and pistoning inside her ass, wonderfully generous tits jolted with every thrust. Ethan stopped and considered whether it was too late to make an excuse and leave, unconcerned now with sleighting Rhys. However as the camera panned up and revealed the face of Taymont’s public health expert, Dr Eleanor Armstrong, the surprise caught him in place.

“Jesus, Rhys, does Nell know you’re showing anyone this?”

Armstrong had been the answer to Ethan previously wondering which woman would be the first to be paired with Rhys, and he didn’t attempt to hide his unease, finding the show he was being given to be crass at the very best. Just creeping into her 40s, every interaction Ethan had had with Nell had painted her as the picture of professional refinement, so to see her wildly grinding against what he presumed was Rhys’ cock was more than a little shocking.

“She came around to the idea eventually.”

The answer left enough of an unpleasant sense of ambiguity that Ethan reached forward and hastily turned the screen back away from himself, the smallest hint of anger rising in his voice, “what the fuck do you mean eventually?”

Leaning back in his chair, Rhys held up his hands, as if to prove lack of hostile intent. “Hey now, don’t be like that. I just thought that if I were to share you might appreciate the gesture enough to scratch my back in return, if you catch my drift?” The glare Ethan gave pushed him to continue, the light cockney of his accent playing at an apologetic tone. “Nell took asking a few times but once she warmed up to the idea it was all good.”

“You really don’t make that sound as convincing as you could be.”

Rhys levelled his gaze at Ethan and then let out a laugh as he arrived at some sort of insight, although the sound managed to set Ethan even further on edge. “Fuck, oh come on Ethan you’re not that slow are you? You do get how this works right? We are literally in their heads,” he gestured up towards his own with a finger to illustrate. “Sow enough seeds and what you want starts to become the most gratifying thing in the world. They all knew that when they bonded to us. They enjoy this, all of them. You might not like it but that doesn’t make it less true”

Ethan felt hot, anger and guilt and disquiet churning up his insides. He didn’t think Rhys was right. His own sense of decency wouldn’t let him believe that was what he was doing and he’d convinced himself that everything had to be so much more mutual. He refused to accept that women like Nia and Evie would just give up their minds to him like that, chose to think this almost certainly said more about the underlying misogyny of men like Rhys than the reality of things…but then the claim was still dancing around the edges of possibility and Ethan’s own doubts enough to unsettle him.

“I don’t know if I agree but even if I did, so what?” Ethan’s tone was decidedly far from won over. “You want me to talk Farah Hassan into getting off on the idea of me trading porn of her with you?”

“Well…I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly.”

If Rhys thought that was direct, the next words out of his mouth were as blunt as he could manage. “Go fuck yourself Rhys”

The look on Rhys’ face managed to also find anger as Ethan turned from him and Ethan remembered that men like that rarely took rejection, humiliation or even just being told no very well. And so it wasn’t a particular surprise when the southerner called after him, looking to twist the knife as Ethan left.

“Fine, forget Hassan. I’d accept Evie instead.”

Ethan didn’t do rage, but it was all he could manage not to turn back and punch him.

* * *

If it hadn’t been for the increasingly terse messages from Nia wanting to know where he was, it’s likely that Ethan would have taken a much longer walk than the hour-long one he used to try and clear his head. With the disquiet Rhys had brought back up to the surface the idea of going straight to imprint on another woman he’d never met wasn’t something he found easy and even as he arrived he still found himself on edge.

It was the first time he’d seen Nia smoking, standing in the hallway outside their honeymoon suite next to an open window, in a half-hearted attempt to keep any fire alarms from going off. She had told him that she only did it when she was stressed, which given the calls he’d missed he didn’t exactly blame her for. Neither did she seem to swear outside of the bedroom (where it was near impossible to get her to stop) so the curse she addressed him with only further emphasised her agitation.

“Fuck, Ethan, where were you?” Her expression might have been beyond annoyance, but her tone was laced with as much concern as frustration.

Alongside Nia in the corridor was the project’s camerawoman, Sarah, one of the founding members of Lukas’ Team Kaminski. The petite brunette was clearly already finding this awkward, removing her glasses and pretending to need to clean them as if it would make her presence less overt.

Ethan sighed and struggled to pick his words, “I’m…just struggling to get my head around a few things. Again. I needed to take a walk and think everything over.”

A large part of him had been concerned that seeing Nia might make things worse. He’d let himself dwell for a little too long on the implications of what Rhys had said and how eagerly Nia had picked up on the idea of getting piercings for him. It felt impossible to know where his desires ended and hers began, and he hadn’t been able to tell if being around her would just end up driving the guilt home, especially as he had such a small sense of who she was before he met her.

However, while it was guilt he felt looking at her, it wasn’t the way he feared. Instead he felt a rush of shame that he might be letting her down right now, a powerful, visceral sense of duty to her that he was failing to live up to. Was that the Gemivax? Or was that just him? Was she in his head as much as he might be in hers?

And if she was, did he even mind?

“You could at least have answered one of my calls, sent a message, anything other than just fucking disappearing for an hour” she replied. Her annoyance showed through again, and given how well she kept control over herself he could only imagine how pissed off she actually was. Seeming to catch the conflict on his face, she stepped in closer and straightened his shirt for him, using the gesture to reign in her own feelings and slip back into control of things. When she next spoke her voice was firm yet sympathetic. “It’s understandable to have doubts but whatever caused this, we really do not have time for it right now.”

“I know, I know, I’m an idiot,” he accepted with a deep edge of self criticism. He closed his eyes and took a breath. “This is all just…running away from me a little again. Maybe we could just take a pause. Let me catch up to where I need to be for this.”

It was Nia’s turn to sigh. “Ethan, Farah got a dose of Gemivax ninety minutes ago. It’s not as simple as just waiting.”

He felt an extra bit of weight settle in his stomach, although the statement shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Farah Hassan was joining Project Envoy as their on screen talent, the sportswoman-turned-presenter selected as one of the faces of Gemivax, and everything about this encounter had already been painstakingly, repeatedly, negotiated and discussed over the last few days. That included Farah’s preferences and the infection risks that meant she was being vaccinated before he ever stepped into the room with her.

The emails and Zoom calls they had communicated in had seemed like a bizarre cross between online dating and the world’s most deranged job interview. Her likability shone through in each snatched online encounter they had managed, and her enthusiasm for being part of Project Upstart was palpable. It was even her suggestion that Sarah was here to film things, noting that they should really have good footage of her being vaccinated and imprinting in case they needed to use it. He’d taken a while to be won around to the idea but the result was that everything about this was being carefully choreographed, for both their sakes. From the positions Farah was happy to use, to what she’d be wearing and how she didn’t want to be topless on camera. And Ethan had absently fucked it all by leaving her primed for an hour an a half.

“Shit, Nia…” he struggled for words, impressed that he kept managing to find new ways to feel guilty.

“If you’re about to apologise then it’s not me you owe it to.” Nia saw the look he was still wearing like a heavy weight, body language guarded, and did her best to soothe him, a hand slipped into his to give a squeeze with interlocked fingers. She might not have been the softest of presences, but there was something reassuring about the gentle firmness of her conviction as she spoke. “You’re a good man Ethan, better than I think you realise, but you’re going to have to learn to let go and accept this sooner or later.”

“And if I can’t?”

She gave one of her knowing smiles, like there was a joke only she was in on. “You will. Because you’re my partner, and I’m not going to settle for anything other than your happiness.” They kissed, and Ethan found his concerns thawing, although not melting entirely. If this was how Nia Clarke-Mills still was then perhaps worrying about who was in charge of who missed the point entirely?

“It doesn’t sound like I’m being given much of a choice does it?”

He felt Nia’s hand let go of his, moving instead to rub against the front of his crotch as her eyes gleamed with provocation. He hardened instantly under her touch, as if she knew how to hijack his arousal. “By me? Absolutely not. I need you to go and make sure Ms Hassan is unable to believe how lucky she is to be on my Team Knight.”

She gave his dick a final squeeze, and shoved him towards the suite’s door where Sarah was waiting. The mousey camera woman forced herself to shake off any lingering awkwardness from the conversation, taking a moment to explain the camera set up and what she needed from him. It essentially boiled down to lie back and don’t get in the way of Farah.

Ethan paused at the door, fingers on the handle, and the words Evie had said when they each got their own dose of the vaccine came back to mind.

‘Alea Iacta Est’

In this case the die had been cast long before he’d got there, he just didn’t know what number it showed yet.

The bedroom was how he’d left it that morning, although a static camera and several lights now crowded the room, directed attentively at the king bed and the woman lying upon it. Farah rested up against the pillows already stripped to the simple black underwear that had been planned out in advance, although her sports bra was pulled up slightly, one hand massaging an exposed breast while another was thrust inside her panties. She hadn’t noticed Ethan enter, eyes closed, face rapt with a dreamy expression, the trace of her fingers visible through black fabric slowly curling inside of herself.

The south asian woman had to be at least as tall as Ethan, lean muscle taut with pleasure as she writhed luxuriously on the bed. It was an odd experience to see someone that had previously been distantly familiar now laid out in bare flesh before him, a world of contrasts to the woman who had previously only existed on screens. Every image he’d previously seen of her, her hair had been worn in a neat ponytail, but now it had been pulled free, a cascade in black over the sheets. The tanned, almost over-generous swell of her tits didn’t match the picture of her he had in head and he realised how much effort she must have taken to conceal their size and stop them being too much of a focus of people’s attention. Nor had cricket’s regulations allowed him to realise she had several rings pierced around the edge of both ears. His final surprise was the large tattoo covering the side of one thigh, the stylised head of a lioness staring out at him, framed by the bold lines of an Indian mandala.

Sarah closed the door behind them, and the near nude desi woman on the bed finally realised she wasn’t alone. There was a chuckle as Farah opened her eyes, a mixture of horniness and relief as she saw Ethan, continuing to give her cunt several more strokes.

“You really know how to keep a girl waiting, I was beginning to wonder if I was getting stood up.” She pried her fingers out of her underwear before he could respond, bringing them to her mouth to suck them clear with a pleased little moan, before sitting up to adjust her bra back into place. “Not that I mind a chance to get warmed up. Fuck, do you have any idea how good this feels?”

“Sorry Farah,” Ethan apologised, finding himself another social situation he didn’t have a manual for. “This isn’t really the best way to make a first impression, huh?”

“Honestly? I’ve had worse first dates…Please tell me you aren’t just going to stand there.”

Her hand continued to run absently across the inside of her thigh, finding it hard not to keep touching herself even as she tried to regain a hold on her modesty. Ethan began crossing the room towards her, and she bit her lip in anticipation, squeezing her legs together. Her attention suddenly shifted over Ethan’s shoulder, and he was reminded that they weren’t alone, Sarah having picked up a second, smaller camera to follow them with.

Farah gave a small, almost absent wave in the camera woman’s direction. “Hey again. Sorry again if this gets weird.”

“I’ve filmed worse,” Sarah deflected, deadpan, although Ethan (as ever) found it hard to tell if she was being sarcastic. “Pretend I’m not here.”

“Easy enough, I’ll just imagine I don’t have studio lights in my face right now too then,” Farah joked back. “And try and be kind to me, I don’t really know which is my good side when I’m being fucked silly.”

Ethan couldn’t help but laugh, impressed by how casually the woman in front of him was attempting to deal with things. And he was grateful, finding her relaxed attitude managing to deflate some of the nervous energy he’d managed to bring with him. Now within reach of Farah, needy hands tugged at the bottom of his shirt.

“You’re even cuter in person, but he clothes need to go,” she instructed. “I want to see what I’m being given to work with.”

He obliged, disrobing as he clambered onto the bed. He remained acutely aware of the camera’s presence looming behind him, even knowing that Sarah would be keeping her distance due to the danger Ethan’s sexual fluids posed her now she was bonded to Lukas. A lot of the advanced stipulations were as much about him as they were Farah and his initial response to the thought of being filmed like this was one of discomfort, although now they were here he realised he was getting a perverse amount of gratification from the audience. That was a new kink to add to the list.

Farah caught his glance back in the direction of the camera with amusement, given his original reticence during their planning. “You almost look like you might be enjoying this?”

“Warming to the idea, I guess.”

She pressed herself up against him, a hand eagerly straying to his crotch as she placed a kiss on his chest. There was another laugh as she deftly stroked him and he grunted in appreciation. “This thing’s going to absolutely ruin me.”

Straddling him, Farah firmly eased Ethan backwards until he lay looking up at her on the bed. Even this position had been agreed on, the plan for Farah to ride him to completion so that the cameras could easily keep her in frame from above the shoulders. She breathed heavily, seeming to reel lust-drunk on top of him. Watching her chest heave, it was all Ethan could do not to reach up and free her tits, settling for running his touch up her thigh instead, prompting a throaty moan.

Farah shifted her panties to the side, hair trimmed into a thick yet neat strip of dark curls flecked with excitement. It was the unexpected glint of a barbell vertically piercing the hood of her clit however that caused his own arousal to lurch, his cock left impossibly hard at the sight of her.

“You like that,” she asked, teasing the metal between the tips of two slick fingers. “My clit used to be this shy little thing until I got it done.”

He reached out as she spoke, groping the pleasant heft of her arse without bringing protest and manoeuvred her towards his cock.

Farah continued, delirious enough with the serum in her system that her tongue ran away from her, verbose in her anticipation. “I loved the idea of something no-one else could see, no need to justify to my parents or the public. Loved the acknowledgement of the filthy side of me that was there if someone just bothered to peel back the layers and…oooooh SHIT!”

As Ethan’s cock filled her she fell forward. One hand hammered against his chest in an attempt to brace herself as an orgasm rippled through her. Toned thighs clenched and her hips rocked. Hair fell about her face. She swayed against him, fucking steadily yet eagerly through the climax. Moaning, gasping, laughing.

“Oh that’s not fair,” Farah eventually said, and Ethan wasn’t sure if it was for him or for the cameras. Her hips kept bucking, running straight out of one orgasm in pursuit of another ever as she tried to wrestle her hair out of her eyes. “Nothing should be allowed to be that good.”

Ethan found himself wavering, knowing that he was meant to lie back and let Sarah get the footage they’d agreed on. But with Farah grinding away on top of him it was all he could do to not drag her down to join him, to pin her beneath him and rut like beasts. He clung on, pawing at sheets, almost scared for his own composure if he let go. As with Evie and Nia couldn’t tell how much the serum was clawing at his control and how much was simply a reaction to the goddess sheathed upon him.

It didn’t help when Farah let out a frustrated moan and reached for her bra. “Aaah, to hell with the cameras. I want to enjoy this…” Her tits bounced free as she unclasped it, thoughtlessly casting it across the room. Exposed, they were quickly pushed against Ethan, hard dark nipples dragging across his own chest as she leaned in close and kissed him. “Sorry Ethan. I know we had plans but, ugh, I can barely think right now. I don’t know if I want to think.”

Things felt like they were staggering towards the pornographic. If Sarah had a reaction behind her camera she wasn’t showing it, with what Ethan could see of her face a picture of concentration. He marvelled again at the fact he was enjoying the lingering attention, finding an extra layer of spice added to things.

Farah caught him looking, drawing his own face back towards hers, and kissing wildly again, either fighting for attention or putting on a show, or both. “I want her to see you fuck me. Let them all see what you’re making me.”

Feeling the last of his resolve slip from his fingers he obliged her. With a surge he moved, practically hurling her against the bed as he reversed their positions. He plowed into her from above and her pussy sang. Farah desperately tried to give as good as she got, heavy, needy, a cacophony of kisses and thrusts, grasps and curses. The camera watched and Ethan fucked.

They were both hot and breathless by the time they reached their mutual peak. He’d known from the moment she mounted him that he wouldn’t be able to last long and his orgasm built on him with the subtlety of a thunderstorm. It was more than he could do to keep his eyes open, leaning back and releasing inside her, jerking over and over until his head swam with relaxed tension. He had a dim sense that Farah was crying out, but his ears rang and everything narrowed to the heat of her cunt clenching around him.

He regained himself just in time to look down at her as she laid there, hand drawling across the piercing at her nethers, eyes wide. She started to imprint, and for a brief moment he watched her manage to struggle not to be dragged under, not through reluctance, but as she tried to cling to awareness of the sensations drowning her mind for even a second longer.

“Oh fuck…I can feel…Imprinting. Imprinting. Imprinting.”

It took a moment for him to realise that their camerawoman was looming in closer now, the immediate danger to herself passed, and he drew back to let her work. Even droning the words there managed to be something photogenic about Farah and the way her lips hinted at a smile.

“I don’t know how much of that we’re going to be able to use,” he mumbled finally to Sarah.

The small woman shut off her camera, carrying it with a casualness that felt bordering on indifference to where its case sat. “More than you think, probably. I’m good at my job and I’d like to think I kept it tasteful despite your best efforts.”

A wave of embarrassment flushed through him, as his mood cooled enough for him to realise how far past the agreed lines he and Farah had gone. Neither had had the presence of mind to think how it might have been for the 3rd person in the room. Suddenly aware of his own immodesty, he grabbed a pillow to place over his crotch and for the first time the deadpan brunette’s stoic facade cracked just slightly. She smirked, tossing him a robe that was lying across a chair within her arms reach.

“Sorry Sarah, that was…”

“Oddly hot. You don’t have to apologise.”

She started packing things away, studiously attempting to ignore him further until the silence became too much and he attempted to continue anyway. “Maybe I don’t need to apologise, but even so…”

There was sharp disparagement as Sarah glanced back in his direction. “Ethan, I am mind-blowingly horny right now. The less you say the less awkward this is and the sooner I can go and jump Lukas.”

That was more than fair and he promptly shut up, doing his best to ignore her in kind as he regarded the sportswoman next to him. Even repeating her mantra there was something oddly peaceful about her and he felt a stirring of protectiveness already that he was sure had to be the vaccine’s doing. He barely knew anything about her, but watching her sleep he already knew he would put himself through a wall if it meant keeping her happy. Nia said that in the US there were already some teams with over a dozen members and it made his head hurt. His heart already felt over-full from three.