The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Hey, Spencer. Need any condoms?”

I whirled in the rigid waiting room chair to see Lakeview’s Director of Housing & Residence Life striding toward me. His outfit was not at all what I’d expected, a pair of tight blue athletic shorts and a white shirt spotted with fresh sweat to go along with the sweatbands on his forehead and wrists.

I rose to my feet. “Um… I don’t…” Holy shit, how much had he heard?!

The wiry gray-haired fellow stopped at his receptionist’s desk and reached over the divide. When his hand came back, it was a fat fistful of condoms, which he tossed at me in a spray. “They sent us a dozen boxes of the things. Giving them away wherever I can.”

I picked up what I could, but I’d be here for minutes scraping them all up. From the looks of it, I wasn’t the first person to be greeted outside Bob’s office in this fashion, as there were even more down there than what he’d pelted me with. “Um, thanks?”

“Take some more on your way out. Come on in.” He gestured for me to follow him into his office, so in I went.

It was a spacious office, though not tidy. I immediately saw half a dozen boxes piled up behind his cluttered desk, and surmised their contents. He gestured for me to have a seat in one of the chairs set in a haphazard circle from some past meeting, so I did.

“Sorry I was running late there. Had a match with John at the rec center.”

“What kind of match?”

“Squash. You play?”

“Uh, no.”

Bob grunted a laugh as he fetched a bottle of water from a mini fridge beneath his desk. “You and John have that in common, too, then.”

I smiled. “More of a basketball guy.”

“Well, you’ll get there.” He took a long drink. In fact, he drained the whole bottle, then went back for another. “So, Ramona tells me you’re off to a hell of a start over in Higgins.”

“It’s… been an interesting start to the year.” I wasn’t actually sure if this meeting was intended to be disciplinary in nature or what. Ramona had simply told me he wanted to see me, and I’d set up the meeting. Whether this was about the incident with Quinn, or the other incident with Quinn, or with Leigh, or the other thing with Leigh, or…

“I’ll say. We got ourselves a guy on a girls floor. Can’t say as I ever thought I’d see that day come.” He shook his head, settling into the chair next to me. Not across from. Next to. He really had been working up a sweat.

“It was a surprise to me, too, sir.”

“Sir? Bah. It’s Bob, Spencer. Come on, we’ve met before.”

“Sure, just… I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little nervous.”

“Nervous?” He snorted. “What do you have to be nervous about? I’m the one who’s got thirty girls, most of them cute as buttons and six months north of jail bait, being looked after by the oldest RA on campus, who from what I hear has had some difficulties keeping his pecker under wraps.”

Well fuck. “Look, I can explain…”

But Bob waved a hand, then took another long drink while I sat there in awkward silence. “Explain nothing. You screwed up. Explaining won’t change that. Will it?”

“I suppose it won’t.”

“Good. Always find it saves me a lot of time meeting people where they are instead of letting them try to lead me where they wish they’d been. Now. You’re going to do right by these girls, aren’t you Spencer?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I actually really like my community. They’re—”

“Good, because the last thing I need is a bunch of parents barking at me about leaving their baby girls in your hands. I like you, Spencer. Had my eye on you for a while now. John tells me you’re going to be one of us soon enough, and I never miss a chance to recruit the good ones for the home team.”

“Oh. Um, thanks. I think.”

“Welcome. Now, I’ve made you nervous, and you should be nervous. If fifty percent of what that girl Quinn says is true, and fifty percent of what Ramona’s told me since, that’s 100% a goddamn problem.”

“I—”

“That said, you’ve also done a lot right. They tell me your girls have taken a liking to you. We’re attempting a sensitive experiment, so that’s good. Within limits. Limits I trust you’ll be following a hell of a lot closer from now on, right?”

“Absolutely. I’m—”

“Broke up that fight, too, even if it was a humiliating shitshow on your end. That takes guts. Takes commitment to looking after your girls. I like that, too. These girls need some looking after.”

I hesitated. He looked at me expectantly, almost annoyed that I didn’t immediately respond. “I will. Really. It’s had some challenges, but they’re good folks. Engaged, passionate, great community. They’re—”

“That’s great, Spencer, really. You know, you really ought to learn squash. It’s not hard to be tolerable. Even if you can’t play on my level, I’m of an age where dominating men who ought to trample me carries some appeal. Can’t be young again, so I settle for beating down the young. You decide you want a match sometime, call my secretary, she’ll pencil you in.”

“Um, yeah. Great. Maybe I will.”

“Fantastic. Now, you got anything else for me? I assume you’ve got a brain, so don’t make it some confession of things you’ve managed to get away with.”

“Oh. I mean, I guess not…?”

“All right. Now when you march out of here, I don’t want to look out that window and see you without your pockets filled, understand?”

“Um, what?”

“With condoms, Spencer. Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?”

“Oh, right. I will. I mean I did. I mean—”

Bob took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Good boy.” Before I knew it, I was being all but shoved out his office door.

Right before I was pushed out, though, I dug in my feet and turned to face him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Go.”

“I wondered if you could tell me anything about how this happened. You know, about how we wound up with a coed floor that was all girls, and me.”

Bob scrutinized me for a moment. “What’d Ramona tell you?”

“Not much. Just that somebody made some kind of procedural mistake.”

“Well there you have it.”

I stopped him again before he could oust me. “Well yeah, but… I guess I just don’t quite get it. Accidentally making two half female floors and putting them together, I guess. But whoever did it… They changed people’s names. Shauna was down as Shawn, Terri and Toni, both with a I, were spelled with a Y, like guys’ names. Kendall and Georgia were down as Ken and George. It was like…”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, like somebody wanted everybody to think that we had the coed floor we thought we did. I mean honestly, how do you get a housing application for Jacqueline Patterson and put her down as ‘Jack?’ She’s on the women’s volleyball team, for crying out loud.”

Bob studied me for a moment. Only a moment, though. “Some people are bad at their jobs, Spencer. Bad enough, in this case, that they don’t have one here any more.”

“Oh.”

“Fill those pockets, Spencer. Fill ’em full.”

When I made it back to Higgins, pockets overflowing with more condoms than I could use in a year of irresponsible hookups, I reported immediately to Ramona and told her I’d spoken with Bob, and that he’d chewed me out and considered it over with. Which, maybe, he had.

“What’s with the bulge…?” she said, pointing.

“With what?!” I sputtered, covering my crotch until I realized I’d misunderstood the bulge. “Oh. Geez, sorry. He’s got all these condoms he’s trying to give away, I guess.”

Ramona nodded knowingly, laughing at my moment of discomfort. “Ah, right. Mind if I…?”

“If you…?” Why did talking about condoms with my pretty—married—lady boss make me so tongue-tied? Not like she—

As I stood there uncomprehendingly, Ramona reached into my pocket and fished out a few condoms. “Just in case,” she said.

“In case…?”

“Never know when I’ll run into a student who needs one.”

Every community on every campus has its quirks and nuances. My first year, we had a vocal performance major who warmed up his pipes before performances in the showers. Every time, it was like that scene in Shawshank Redemption, us grunts perking up like groundhogs as his throaty bass reverberated around our grungy halls. Or speaking of, there was Grungy Jr., the guy everybody learned to keep clear of because he used this nasty “organic” soap that made him smell like old socks. (The “junior” was on account of how often he boasted he was a legacy, like getting into a state school like Lakeview took connections.) My second year, we had a lot of sports guys on the floor, so weekends and playoffs made for throngs of dudes hanging out in the lounge to watch together. I came in second in our fantasy football league, and I don’t even watch football. (My then-girlfriend Johanna had a weird gambling thing she was into, and she gave me tips.)

As classes started up and college life began to become what college life would be, the self-proclaimed Higgins Hotties and I established a dynamic of our own. I didn’t have a baseline for life in a woman’s community, so I didn’t have expectations. Day by day, though, it became more normal to have my throngs of beautiful, bubbly ladies wave hi to me on the sidewalks of Lakeview, for my door darken with yet another shapely silhouette with a question or a need, to shower in a stall between two soapy, naked bombshells idly humming to themselves.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t masturbating more than I had at any time in my life since I accidentally witnessed Debbie Hudson changing out of her swimsuit at Chad Beasley’s pool party in eighth grade. Still, gradually, this stranger in a strange land was adjusting to his new normal. There was hotness all around me, and like anybody, I found ways to cope.

To be sure, everyone was adjusting. Maybe not the upperclassmen, who stoically behaved as if their RA wasn’t a man, changing with their doors cracked open, strutting around the floor in towels and PJs as if the male gaze could never penetrate their lair. The habits they seemed to have built up over years in their prior residence hall communities did not dull in my presence.

Moreover, they set examples. Once Amy, my sophomore in 300, started doing her morning routine in her underwear, it seemed like half the girls on the north side of the floor followed suit. Showing off? Displaying resilience to a perceived threat? Idle sluttiness? Probably some of each, depending on the owner of each bubbly bottom bent over the sink, jiggling furiously with each swish of the toothbrush.

(The south bathroom became my exclusive choice after that trend started up. What else did a guy RA do? Hey, girls, I’m tired of seeing your boobs swaying around while you’re leaning down to wash your faces. Don’t test me on this one!)

At times, sure, I wondered if maybe I was some kind of chauvinist for noticing it as much as I did. Five years at Lakeview in which I’d seen no shortage of beautiful women, and I’d never found myself ogling like some creepwad alumni coming back to relive his glory days as a thin veneer to scope out women he’d long since aged out of.

Suddenly, though, those women weren’t random or rare. Up until now, I’d thought myself lucky if a cute girl was walking the same direction as me in leggings. Those were good days. Maybe I’d wind up in a study group with a pretty one, or had a chance to chat with one at a party. That was how it was supposed to be. Except on Higgins 3, almost every girl was top notch gorgeous. I interacted with them every day. For crying out loud, it was my job to get to know them better, to build relationships with them, to be a presence in their lives and, on occasion, in their rooms. There was no helping noticing them.

In time, I told myself, I’d adjust. These first days together, though… I was embarrassed to admit it, but I actually bought myself a spray bottle and filled it with cold water. Whenever I found myself thinking of one of my Higgins ladies as a body and not a person, I started giving myself a spritz.

I’m not sure if it helped, or if I just started developing a Pavlovian erection in response to a cool mist. But hey, at least I could tell myself I was trying not to let them turn me into a pig.

My battle with my conscience to tame my eyes, ears, and well, other parts, wasn’t the only one I was losing, though. Some of my struggles were unsexy indeed.

“They said I needed to talk to you, some kind of form I have to fill out before I can officially move out,” Marta announced as she ambushed me on my way back from class the second Monday of the semester.

“I… what? Moving out? What’s going on? Is everything OK?”

“It’s fine. I’m just moving out. Do you know what form they’re talking about or do I need to go back to the center desk and tell them again.”

I frowned. “No, I know. The RCR—remember, that thing with the room conditions on it? But I’m sorry, I just didn’t know you were moving. Did something happen between you and Kim?”

“Can you just get the form? Sorry, I have all my stuff ready and I’ve been waiting for like two hours for you to get back so I can get out of here.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. I’ll go snag it and be right back.”

The form was waiting at the center desk; whenever possible, though, they tried to get the relevant RA to handle the process. Andi popped into the hall and waved at me, clearly wanting me for something, but I was on a mission. I could feel Marta’s eyes boring into my shoulders as I hustled downstairs to retrieve it. I even dared to glance up to where I thought her room was once I was down in the courtyard. There she was (one window over from where I’d guessed, but not bad), glaring.

Marcus was our full-time center desk attendant. We RAs had to work six hours a week during the day shifts sorting mail, answering phones, helping residents if they needed something. Marcus did everything we didn’t—which I’d learned over the years was a lot. I liked him pretty well, even if he was a self-proclaimed “grammar nazi.” (Not a term Ramona liked hearing him use, but it seemed she hadn’t put her foot down about it.)

“Marcus, do you know anything about one of my residents moving out?”

He pivoted his chair away from the monitor. His feet swung into two heavy bags filled with the day’s as yet unsorted mail. “Shouldn’t end sentences with a preposition, my man,” he chided with his usual grin.

“You caught me,” I acknowledged, trying to force one in return. “But seriously, though, do you?”

“Shouldn’t start with a conjunction, either,” he added, though he was approaching the window. I could see he had the RCR ready. “Yeah, she was down here. Marta Bukowski, is it?” he said, reading her name off the form.

I accepted it from him “That’s her. Any idea why she’s moving? She seemed pissed, and the way she was looking at me, it felt… I dunno, personal. Maybe I’m projecting.”

“Maybe not, though. She came down here in a mood. I inquired as to the why of it—I got to, that’s just the system so I can notify those who need notifying—and she said, and I believe this is a quote, that she ‘wasn’t Higgins 3 material.’ I didn’t press further. You can make of that what you will, my man.”

I sighed. “Oh.”

That was all he said. It was all I needed him to, all anyone would need him to. Marta was one of the Three. That was what Savannah and I decided to call them when it came up on rounds the other night, though we’d each chided the other over how shallow and horrible it was to say. (Yes, with a little giggling. Sue us.) Three women on Higgins 3 who somehow had the audacity to be normal-looking people.

Marta was, if I were being frank, on the ugly side. Crooked teeth, bad skin, her weight situated in her hips and shoulders and nowhere else. Not her fault, of course, and to be frank in a less dickish manner, I liked her. She’d come to Lakeview to study art, like Jordyn, and I’d already caught her several times sitting in the lounge doing sketches of myriad objects, or in one case, Charlie, who’d volunteered as a model as her way to patronize the arts. It was quietly inspiring, watching talent develop. Still, the phrase ‘Higgins 3 material’ from one of the Three could only mean one thing.

Marcus might be well into his 40’s, way past petty college drama, but I’d already learned he was good at keeping his finger on the pulse of Higgins. Our floor had a reputation.

In spite of Martha.

I hurried back upstairs, form in hand. What could I say to her? Should I even try? In a very obvious way, she was different, and it was a rare person who didn’t mind standing out as lesser. That year I’d had all the jocks on my floor at Rowland had been humbling for me, living with so many guys in tip top physical condition, and I kept in pretty good shape. Not that being normal made her any less, but this was the real world, and comparisons were automatic. I’d already seen posts on social media of pics from around the floor, with comments asking what [insert member of the Three] was doing photobombing the shot by merely existing in it.

“You’re sure you want to do this? We’re going to miss you around here.” That was what I went with. It was simply too big an elephant in too small a room.

Marta’s roommate Kim, incidentally also a member of the Three, was also present. She wasn’t glaring like Marta, but neither did she look pleased. She kept quiet as her momentarily-to-be ex-roommate insisted flatly that she was sure, and could I please get on with it. I gave the room a quick once over. She’d been here less than two weeks, and nothing was out of place. The RCR was formatted to be signed by each occupant of the room upon arrival, along with the RA, and another blank for each of the three to sign again on checkout. I signed the form. Marta signed the form. Only Kim’s checkout signature was missing. Then Marta was grabbing her backpack and storming out of Higgins 3.

I watched her go. She stopped at the stairwell door and looked back at me, sniffled once, and stormed out.

“Do you think she’s going to be OK?” I asked Kim.

“She’ll be better once she’s away from here,” Kim muttered. Then her door shut with her on one side and me on the other.

“Hey, um, Spencer? Could I come talk to you…?” I glanced up from my feet. Andi again.

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Just… give me a bit? Kind of needing a moment here.”

“Oh! Of course, yeah, I’ll just… yeah. Some other time.”

I have to say, it was a blow. Residents came and went, and yeah, I barely knew her. Still, to know I was a part of fostering an environment that someone found so toxic they felt they had to move to get away from it… It kept me up a while that night, no lie.

Could I have done something differently? The fact of the matter was, most of my girls were hotties. The term applied, objectively. I tried to run the math on it, guessing what percent of the campus were 8’s and above (a crude notion, I know, but I told myself it was math and we needed a number). Then how many spots were in the residence halls, extrapolating the odds a given room would have such a person, then the odds it would have two, from there the odds there would be nineteen such rooms on one floor. Just how long were the odds on this many perfect asses all living in the same building at the same altitude? And poor Marta, thrust into it with her forgettable physique and unforgettable lip hair.

I talked with Ramona about it at our one-on-one. It felt awkward to be blunt with my attractive female boss about the problem caused by such a concentration of attractive females. Awkward for me, anyway; if Ramona felt uncomfortable being adjacent to the subject at hand, she never let it show. It was hard to imagine her making anyone feel uncomfortable. She had that way about her. In any event, she encouraged me to take those feelings of guilt and regret and channel them into some floor programming. “Anti-bullying” was the explicit theme she suggested. I wanted to point out that having incredible boobs wasn’t really bullying, per se, but I conceded that Marta seemed to have regarded them that way.

“And then there were Two Threes,” Savannah said when I told her the next night as we closed down the center desk. She managed to suppress a giggle, barely, but when she saw I wasn’t with her it died fast. I know it wasn’t mean-spirited, a joke on numbers and mediocre wordplay more than a 10 dunking on some uggo. She channeled her misstep into sitting down with me and brainstorming a programming solution. Andi popped by again, and I winced at not having followed up with her after she didn’t turn up the night before. When she saw Savannah curled up cozily in my bed, however, she practically fled, as if she were intruding on something sacred.

On a long enough timeline, I’m sure I could have come up with something better. There were quality anti-bullying materials out there, people who’d done it and done it better. In the end, though, we settled on that laziest yet most satisfying of programs, and by the next afternoon, I was walking up and down the halls putting up fliers for a Thursday night viewing of Mean Girls in the floor lounge. Our floor government wasn’t going to be elected until that weekend, when Tori would indubitably claim the governorship, so I couldn’t even spend floor funds to get pizza or snacks. Programming without food was like painting without paint; mostly you were throwing mud at a wall and hoping it sticked and made something people could recognize.

And yes, in my defense, I did stop by 304 again, but Jean told me her roommate was at class for the evening. I left a message for Andi and invited Jean to Mean Girls. Mission accomplished, I guess. Yay me.

I was in the midst of sticking up the last flier in one of the north bathroom stalls when there was a sudden tap on my shoulder. I about jumped out of my skin—it was still pretty nerve-wracking for me, walking around in what was basically a women’s bathroom.

“They said I need to do some kind of form filling outing thing with you before I can move out,” said Laura. Gaunt Laura, with her beak of a nose and neither legs, nor ass nor breasts to redeem it. Laura, a girl who’d come to my room the Saturday of Welcome Week to ask a hundred and one questions about the best local pizza, best campus food court, best music venue, etc., beside herself with excitement to start her college life. Laura, a Three.

I retrieved the RCR. We signed it, and she left without another word.

Plans adjusted. They needed to. I only had one Three left. God, it felt ridiculous to think of it that way, too. Kim was anyone’s 5 and a boyfriend’s 7; she had a solid body but with eyes a little too close, nose a little too prominent, forehead a little too five. I made it a point to single her out for an invitation to the night’s program.

“Oh, that’s that one movie, right? I think my mom really liked that,” Kim said noncommittally. Her door wasn’t fully opened. From what I could see of her room, she’d not done much redecorating since Marta’s departure.

“It’s a classic for a reason.”

“Oh. I mean, I have some reading to do tonight, so…”

I nodded empathetically. I’d worked hard on that nod. It would probably be my finishing move if they ever Mortal Kombated me. “Oh, totally. Academics come first, for sure. What’s the reading?”

“Eh, an article for H114. History.”

Nod. “Oh yeah? What and where in history?”

Kim shifted her weight. “It’s a survey course. Europe during the height of imperialism and conquest.”

“Oooh, dark stuff.” Nod, nod. “What’s the article about?”

“Huh? Oh, I think it’s, like, the American Revolution as part of a turning point, or something?”

“That sounds interesting. I guess on the plus side, you probably already know a bunch about that from high school, so it should be an easy read, yeah?” Noddity nod nod.

Kim slowly cracked a smile. “OK, OK, I’ll come to the movie. Shouldn’t be a hard read or anything.”

“Hey, there’s our Kim. I’ll save a seat for ya. We’re starting up in five, so head on down whenever you’re ready.” I gave her an affable, if somewhat bro-y, clap on the shoulder, and swaggered back to my room.

Or I tried to, anyway, but from across the hall I heard someone crying. Jean and Andi’s room.

Any other day, I would have minded my business and let it hang. Andi was one of the girls I barely knew as yet, quiet and reserved. Her attempts to get my attention this week had been our first interactions since signing off on her roommate agreement two weeks ago. Still, Andi had reached out, twice. I’d failed enough residents for one week.

I gave 304 a gentle knock. There was a beep of surprise, a sniffle, some more sniffles, and finally the door opened to reveal Andi. She had her hair up in a thick red braid like usual, though there were frazzled ends hanging out here and there. Even if I hadn’t heard her, it would have been obvious she’d been crying. The poor girl was still wiping her eyes with her arm as the door opened; when she saw it was me, she startled and recoiled her arm so fast it knocked her broad-framed glasses off. We both knelt down to pick them up at the same time and bumped our foreheads, hard.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you OK?” she squeaked, rubbing her own forehead.

It hadn’t felt great, but some male gene in me insisted I downplay it. Andi wasn’t a bombshell like… well, like lots of them, but she was very pretty, curvy but with a slender neck and waist that almost felt like they were apologizing for the excesses, a face that was perpetually a little sad like it was mortified to be attached to such a body. It evoked a male response.

“I’m fine, Andi. Here,” I said, extending my hand to help her up. I’d managed to hold onto her glasses through the donk, which I placed back on her face once she realized I held them.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Thanks? You’re easy to please. I’ll be sure to bonk your noggin again sometime.”

Andi laughed. Laughed way too hard. For like a second, anyway, and then her eyes filled with self-consciousness so wide I worried she might cry again. I stepped in quickly. “Hey, I know we keep missing one another this week.”

“Oh, it’s OK. It’s nothing important. I just, um… You said, I think, at that one meeting…?”

I gave her a moment to finish the thought, but in that moment, Kim’s door swung open right across from us. “Are we doing this, or what?” She was smiling.

“Yeah, I’ll be right down. Tell them not to start without me, OK?” I returned my attention to Andi. “Hey, we’re getting together to watch Mean Girls in a minute. Do you want to come?”

She looked after Kim. Tori and Georgia seemed to have heard us talking about the program, because both of their doors opened and they started after Kim. “Um, I’m not sure I, um…”

“Sure, yeah, I sort of heard you… yeah. Maybe not feeling up to lots of company, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

I nodded. “Tell you what. Can you hold tight for me for a couple hours, and then come find me, OK? After the program, I’ll be in my room all night. Door is always open and all that.”

Andi’s face brightened at the offer of a timeline. “Oh. OK, yeah. That’ll be nice. Thank you.”

I patted her forehead. “Hey, if I give one of my residents a concussion, I’m at least obligated to listen to her problems, right?”

Another too-hard laugh. It was awfully endearing. Would it be as endearing if it were one of the Three and not this teary geek-chique redhead with her ample cleavage? Ah, well. I still had one.

There were eighteen of them waiting for me in the lounge when I arrived. Outstanding turnout. Tori had already tasked herself with taking up a collection and getting some pizza ordered, for which I thanked her and reminded everyone that floor government elections were coming up this Sunday, so do help me pressure Tori into being our governor. She pretended, half-heartedly, that she wasn’t sure if she was interested. Casey saluted and called her “bitch boss,” which earned both narrowed eyes and a flattered smile.

As for Kim, she was settled in a chair off to the side, more isolated than I’d have liked, but as half a dozen trim bodies filled in the open space, soon she had no choice but to be connected to the group as it sprawled its way toward her. It would have to do.

While Tori placed the order, I led a brief talk. “So who’s seen this before?”

Most of the hands shot in the air. A few moments of excited chatter followed. “It’s October third!” cried at least a dozen voices in near unison, followed by elated giggles.

“We’re going to have to do something special when Mean Girls Day actually gets here. But yeah, I’ve always liked this one myself. It’s—”

“I bet you like it!” That was Casey, again trying to get my goat, as if it were a controversial opinion.

“Not just for the cast,” I stressed with a conciliatory grin. “But there’s a lot going on in here. Castes forming, groups colliding, stresses between in groups and out groups. There’s a lot of ways Mean Girls is a reflection of the real world, when you think about it. It’s actually based on a book called Queen Bees and Wannabes. I have a copy, if anybody wants to borrow it.” Something a girl I’d dated in high school had given me a week before we broke up that had gathered lots of dust since. “Now when you hear that title, what comes to mind?”

I led a discussion for a little bit, keeping an eye on the energy in the room. Where possible, I tried to steer it in the direction of bullying and othering, without putting too fine a point on it. As they started to get restless, I shut up and started the movie, hoping our talk would steer their mind to the themes at hand. Pizza showed up around the time of the Halloween party. I was pleased to hear some of their discussions while they loaded their paper plates veer toward the ways the various girls in the show stereotyped one another, how they let their differences drive wedges in between them.

Not in those words, of course. “I’ve always shipped Janis and Regina. They’d be such an awesome couple if they didn’t hate each other’s groups so bad, right?” said Charlie around a mouthful of green peppers and cheese.

I tried not to watch Kim too closely, but from my vantage in the back of the lounge, I did watch her some. Now that I was looking for it, there was a discernible otherness to her. She didn’t engage as readily as the others, didn’t blurt comments for the congregation. Even when the pizza arrived, she ate one and only one piece, as if afraid to look indelicate in front of so many delicately shaped bodies. (To be honest, I restricted myself to the same, and I’d ponied up twice as much cash as the rest of them.)

Still, as the movie went on, lively discussion drowned a good deal of it out, though nobody seemed to mind. Kim wound up seated right by Sammi and Casey, easily two of her most intimidating floormates. By the time of the big meeting in the gym, the three of them were talking and laughing together, peas in a Higgins 3 pod. Even as I tried to keep folks from fleeing the minute the movie ended so we could discuss it, the girls were already making points of their own. It was simply a matter of bringing everybody into the same big group talk.

It was tricky, circling around the subject of the way physical attractiveness could cause rifts. It was almost like talking about race relations in a room full of white kids with one black girl in the corner. You wanted to educate the privileged, but you also didn’t want to further alienate the standout.

It was Casey who accosted Kim directly, though. “Is it true your roommate left because she felt like she wasn’t one of us?”

Side chatter stopped in an instant. Cold pizza dropped back to plates forgotten. My heart seized in my chest. That was a big question, and to the only girl in the room who’d never made a fellow trip for doing a double-take.

To my incredible relief, whatever had transpired during the past two hours had readied Kim to answer frankly and honestly. “I mean, yeah. It’s just… kinda weird? ‘Higgins Hotties’ and all that. Maybe some of you know what I’m talking about.”

Kim looked around the room.

Everyone looked back, awaiting an explanation of what was weird about proclaiming one’s hotness.

“Or maybe not. But I mean, there’s so many girls on this floor that are so pretty, and… I dunno. Sometimes, I feel like…” I projected all the courage to her that I could. “I feel like the odd one out, you know? Like, I like everybody here, but sometimes it feels like there’s sort of two tiers of people. The ‘Higgins Hotties,’ and the ‘Higgins Notties.’”

A chorus of voices quickly insisted to Kim that she was absolutely a Hottie, which only led to her doubling down and insisting that it was indeed a thing.

“People don’t actually say that, do they? That’s like the meanest thing I’ve ever heard,” opined Dana. I tried not to think of Savannah and I chuckling at the Three.

Everyone listened as Kim explained an encounter from the previous weekend. It transpired at the Penderdast food court, in which a group of boys sitting behind her and Marta chatted at length about which girls from Higgins 3 they wanted to “get with,” only in what were apparently some really crude terms Kim opted not to repeat. When Marta’s curdling rage finally boiled over and she confronted them—defending the honor of the Hotties themselves—they had the audacity to laugh in her face, at which point they lobbed the Notties bomb in her face.

“That’s horrible!”

“What kind of boy would say such a thing out loud where decent people could hear him?”

“I hope she fucking punched them. And then ran them the fudge over.”

“I am so, so sorry you two had to go through that. That’s awful.”

“Did you get their names? Because I will make it my mission to see to it they never get laid for the rest of their lives.”

I fucking loved these girls.

And then there were hugs. Kim had gotten animated during her tale, and the outpouring of support and affection broke her down into grateful sobs. I was beside myself. My first floor program, hardly any thought put into it, and… this. Maybe Ramona wasn’t going to regret hiring me after all. Another program like this, and she might—

“You guys! You guys!”

Jordyn threw open the door to the lounge. She had two huge boxes, stacked on top of one another so we couldn’t even see who was carrying them until she dropped them. Happiness is an unexpected package, I was fond of saying after years of working mail rooms and seeing people’s faces when someone sent a care package or birthday present or what have you. Every eye was turned to her as she shredded through layers of tape until finally she got to the contents.

It was red, whatever it was. Bright, flashy red.

“Ta da!” Jordyn snatched a red scrap from the contents. Cloth, apparently. It unfurled, and she held it out in front of her. “The t-shirts are in, you guys!”

There it was. The design she’d doodled on the dry erase board, reproduced with more care, then diminished (if slightly) in reproducing it for the shirt. The adjoined H’s, wrapped in thorny vines, a big pink flower at the top left. It was colorful. It was cool. It was community-building. But it was also

“Kinda short, don’cha think…?” said Kendall.

It was fucking short. Not “this will get chilly in the winter” short. No, it was “where’s the rest of the t-shirt?” short. My jaw worked wordlessly as I tried to imagine what these would look like on a human body. Maybe they’d stretch a little? While I hoped, Jordyn was already tossing them out. They were packed by sizes, starting with the Smalls, then the Mediums, and then three Larges—one apiece for Kim, Casey and Kyu-Ri respectively, the latter two needing them only because of their massive busts. (There were two more left in the box for Marta (an XL, in fact) and Laura that went unclaimed, plus more in the smaller sizes for the girls not in attendance.)

“Let’s try ’em on!” Jordyn exclaimed.

“There’s a boy in the room!” exclaimed someone. Dana, I thought. I would have liked it if there had been another dozen voices concurring with her, but there was only the one.

I was on the far side of the room from the exit, blocked by the mob of t-shirt giddy goddesses. As I tried to pick out a path through, any means of egress before this got any more out of hand, Casey yelled, “Turn around or don’t, baby!” and jerked her shirt off over her head. She had a bra on, mercifully, which I could say from weeks of living next door to her was by no means a given. I spun around to face the windows looking out at the parking lot as her cackling floormates followed suit. I could hear shirts flying across the room, sliding down walls to the floor. More than one hit me. The girls who might have been less keen on stripping their tops off in front of me were bowled down by the peer pressure of the more shameless.

I know this because I’m a goddamn human being, and so help me god, I couldn’t stop myself from peeking—just once!—at the reflection of this debacle in the window. I tried to point out that there were windows, but it only made them take a few steps back. We were on what was effectively the fifth floor, after all; people on the ground would see me, staring wide-eyed into the dark, and a bunch of girls’ heads bobbling around celebrating their new shirts. They didn’t care who saw, so long as they could hurry in joining the group uniform, to be part of the Higgins Hotties assembly.

As for that peek, it was the most boobs I’d ever seen out in the same place at the same time. It was more boobs than I’d ever seen in a porno, much less real life. (Marisa would have said it was only because I didn’t watch enough porn, but seriously, what studio hired two dozen actresses for one scene?) Most of them had bras—but not all. Not all, not by any means. Tori and her prominent ebony orbs, another viewing of Leigh’s round tan tits. Amy’s were so small it would have seemed weird for her to be wearing one, though her nipples seemed to be fighting to make up for it. And Jordyn, and Charlie, and Dawn, and Sammi, and Destiny, and Lex, and…

Though again, the rest were wearing bras. I set a lifetime record for most shirtless girls beheld in a single second, which was all the longer my conscience would indulge me before I made myself stare through the glass into the parking lot below.

“Put yours on, Spencer!” someone said, reaching around to slam one in my hands. I held it up, mostly to stall putting it on—an eventuality I could already feel myself being pressured into accepting. It was the same as theirs, except mine covered my stomach.

No, I realized after a moment. Where theirs read “no ^more boys,” mine read “our tboy.” The B was raised up as if squeezed in after some humbugger made the designer strike through the T in what would otherwise have been “Toy.”

“Well that’s inappropriate.”

“Put it on!” someone yelled, and then a dozen more someones clamored for it. It was nerve-wracking, taking my shirt off in front of the girls (with Casey and at least a couple others cat-calling me), but they’d all already done it, and besides, the sooner I capitulated, the sooner I could start working on how to get all those t-shirts back so I could burn them before Ramona ever found out.

Admittedly, it felt great. Soft cotton, and if it was tight, it was flatteringly tight.

I turned around to a chorus of cheers, as if I were the spectacle here and not the dozens of girls stuffed—barely—into their skimpy counterparts. And I mean stuffed. It felt like half of Kyu-Ri’s bra was hanging out the bottom, Large size be damned, and she wasn’t alone. Casey’s weighty tits stretched hers to its limits; their sheer size forced it to cling to her underboob rather than expose them by hanging down from the nipples as some of her less busty companions’ did.

“Hawt. Eez! Hawt. Eez! Hawt. Eez!” It was Jordyn who began the chant in celebration of her design, but soon it spread to every tongue. Good god, I was dead. Ramona had been pissed about the design, pissed they’d skirted university censorship, pissed I hadn’t nipped this in the bud. On some of my girls, these shirts were only an inch or two of underboob before nipples emerged and they became truly pornographic.

I had to do something. If any of them were bold, confident, slutty—pick one—enough to wear these out and about on campus, I was dead. This job would be a fond addition to the spank bank, and I’d be homeless and penniless.

It took everything I had, barricading them in there and reasoning with them. Only when I convinced them that the moment these shirts appeared in public I would assuredly be fired and replaced (and where would that leave their “no more toys/boys” joke?) did they relent. There was no putting them back in the box—though Casey flirtatiously offered to let me follow her back to her room and “recover” hers—but I at least assured what I hoped and prayed were heartfelt commitments never to wear them except around Higgins 3.

Shit, I’d have thought none of them would even want to, but some of them managed to make succumbing to my plea sound like a great sacrifice. Like they didn’t have other tops that showed off what incredible tits they had or something. God.

The girls left the lounge once more echoing Jordyn’s “hotties” chant, quiet hours be damned, as the handful who hadn’t come down for the program emerged from their rooms to have a slutty Higgins Hotties half-shirt thrown at them. Meanwhile, I took a moment to stand in the lounge, hard as the brick walkway outside Higgins Hall, and slowly convinced myself to start moving, to clean up the food, the plates, the dozens of abandoned t-shirts. I’d have to email my girls to come down to my room to pick them up.

I stopped in the middle of throwing out a box of pineapple-tainted pizza, half-uneaten, to rethink that thought. I’d have to email my girls, to come down to my room, to pick up dozens of abandoned women’s tops, because they’d stripped them off, with me in the room.

Fuck.

Oh, and there was someone’s bra, too. 34 E, black lace. That, I left on the floor.

Carmen was on duty that night; I heard her barking for my girls to pipe down, respect quiet hours, get back in their rooms. She didn’t check the lounge like she was supposed to, but I was glad. I hadn’t come up with an explanation yet. I wasn’t sure there was one. Once the lounge was restored to tidiness, I finally shuffled out with a pile of discarded women’s shirts in my arms—then doubled back to retrieve my Mean Girls DVD.

I walked around campus for hours after that. It didn’t even occur to me I’d forgotten to change out of my own red shirt until I stumbled back up the stairs.

I forgot all about Andi.

The next day, Kim woke me up at 8 so I could complete her RCR. Emptied of hers and Marta’s belongings, the barely lived in room 303 was still in immaculate condition, as our signatures and Marta’s each attested.