[] You finally have some money, so you're going to do something you haven't had the opportunity to do until now; you're going to buy one of your girls a present. Only Madison will recognize it for what it is, but that's okay; the other girls don't need to recognize that it's a mark of ownership for it to be one. [This vote can be chosen multiple times. Write-in what present you are going to buy, and who you are going to give it to out of Madison, Sophia, Amy and Victoria. Keep in mind the present should only cost up to $25.]
— Success chance: Cannot be failed.
— General result: Will cost 1 small expense. Taylor will get off a little on marking whichever character the present is given to as her own. The present may not be given immediately. Results may vary depending on what the present is and how the character appreciates it.
[] You now have enough money to afford something you've wanted for a long time; a cellphone. You can afford, just, to buy a cellphone capable of recording videos and sending multimedia messages. You'll also purchase enough credit to be able to send messages for a month.
— Success chance: Cannot be failed.
— General result: Will cost 1 large expense. Taylor will finally own a cellphone, which she can use to text girls she has recruited, so long as they also own a cellphone. If chosen alongside a Victoria option this weekend, will result in Victoria breaking the second rule of her relationship with Dean early as she reveals her breasts (and possibly more) to Taylor to allow Taylor to take nude pictures of her. Removes the success chance of finding Amy at the clinic after the next time the two meet up, as Taylor will be able to text Amy and ask when she's working.
[] You made some progress in your relationship with Victoria last week. You should keep that up. You're pretty sure that the library was a good starting place. Maybe you should head back there with her and keep up the discussions.
— Success chance: 80%.
— General results: Taylor will continue to sweetly, sweetly romance Victoria. Victoria will continue to willingly indulge in this cheating.
— On a success: Victoria's Affection will increase by 1. Taylor will agree to read Victoria's copy of Harry Potter, making Victoria happy as Taylor reads her favourite series.
— On a failure: Nothing extra happens.
1.20
You can't contain your enthusiastic grin as you consider Sophia's offer. For a moment you wonder if you could push her further, but— that'd be, maybe not an awful move on your part, but certainly not a nice one. There's a line between sexually harassing Sophia like you did in the school bathroom, you think, and blackmailing her with her chances at improving her grade in Chemistry. A strange line to draw, sure, but you're growing accustomed to that.
"Yeah, sure." Sophia's smirk changes into a more gentle grin as you agree. "On Fridays, then."
She nods. "Could change sometimes, but I'll try and let you know before if I can't make it on any particular day," she says. "Thanks, Hebert. Appreciate it."
You grin lewdly at her, raking your eyes up and down her body. "So do I."
Sophia doesn't end up staying for long after that. Today, when she leaves, she pulls away on a bike— a regular cycling bike, not a motorbike. You wonder about that, but then, as tough as Sophia is, you kind of doubt that even she could take on a whole gang of people loyal to the Empire on her own. She probably rides it just so she doesn't have to run through their territory.
You collapse into your bed a couple of minutes later. It's already nearly eleven. Absently, you look towards the brochures on your desk— just junk mail Dad had picked up from the mailbox. You look through them occasionally so that you can look through the specials, lately with less of an eye towards groceries and more towards, well, some places you could take your girls out.
Those thoughts swirl through your head as you you fall asleep, plans running through your head all night.
When you wake up, it's nearly eight. Excitement bubbles up in you, and without even stopping to get your clothes out of your dresser, you run straight out to the living room and switch on the computer and modem. The modem screeches loudly as it connects, but you're too excited to care much— it's late enough that Dad should already be awake anyway. You wait impatiently for everything to boot and load up, then begin typing madly.
Internet banking has come a long way in the last few years, since some of the big companies in your world have begun sharing information with their Earth Aleph counterparts. Not all of them, just the ones with counterparts, but a couple of banks were among the first wave to initiate contact with people on the other side of the portal. Some Earth Aleph fads didn't catch on— honestly, a lot of them seem really weird to you— but they did have some neat ideas, like smartphones, and internet banking. The ability to do your banking from home was a big hit, especially in Brockton Bay. Other banks were forced to scramble to catch up, and so online banking became as easy as it is today.
The bar inches up, the little wheel around the mouse spinning for long minutes, and— and— yes! You let out a little cheer as your account finally opens, the bolded letters '$52.44' sitting happily in there. There's a fifty sitting in your pocket that Mr Harding slipped you yesterday for working through the midnight screening. Over a hundred dollars. And it's yours! You can do so much more stuff now!
Your plans spin roughly in your head for a moment, before you sit firmly down. No, you know what you need. There are two things you need to get most urgently, and as much as you might like to buy a choker for Madison to let everyone know she's yours or a butterfly vibrator for Victoria for her to wear during her dates with her boyfriend, you have a promise to keep, and a more urgent desire to fulfil.
Dad's just stumbling out of his room when you run back into your room to gather your clothes, then careen into the shower. You're done in record time, and you might even still have some shampoo foam in your hair but you don't even care because now you have money.
... Okay, you do actually care. You run your fingers through your hair carefully before you head over to the phone, making sure that you don't really have any shampoo in your hair. You don't, which you confirm by carefully looking your fingers over as you pick the phone up.
The dial tone rings through only twice before there's a soft click, and childlike giggles echo through the line. "Hullo!" Terry hollers through it. "Who is this coz this is Terry's house!"
"Hey, Terry," you say, chuckling a little. "It's Taylor. Could you put Madison on the phone for me?"
"Yep! Yep! Yep!" You can hear him scampering through the house chanting 'yep' as he runs. He stops fairly soon, then knocks loudly on a door. "Maddieson!" he shouts. "Guess who's on the phone 'coz it's TaaaayTaaaaay." A naughty giggle escapes him. You're a little confused. Why did he say your name like that?
You hear a loud whoosh over the line, then the sound of someone grabbing the phone. "Thank you, Terry," you can hear Madison say. "Go play in your room, okay?"
"Okay!" he shouts distantly.
Madison sighs into the phone, and you can hear the sound of a door closing. "Good morning, Taylor," she says tiredly. The sound of springs squeaking is loud enough that you can hear it over the phone. "Sorry about Terry, he's been a little hyper lately. He kept waking everyone up last night."
"Aww." You want to give her a sympathetic hug, but you can't. Damn. "Well, I might have something that can help you with that." You're actually glad she can't see you, because your naughty grin probably wouldn't make her feel better in the way you want her to. "Are you busy today, or can you come stay over tonight?"
"S-stay over?" she asks. "Um, I don't— no, I'm not." Her voice turns determined towards the end. "Um, I can be at your house by six-"
You interrupt her. "No, you don't need to do that," you say. "We'll head back to my house later, but I want to take you out somewhere first."
"Oh." There's an embarassed pause. You wish you were there so you could see her red cheeks. You love making women blush. "Um, okay. Do you want me to wear anything in particular, or...?"
You shake your head, even though you can't see her. "No," you reply. "Just wear whatever makes you feel comfortable. Although," you can't resist adding after quickly checking if Dad is close enough nearby to hear you, "you probably don't need to bring any pajamas with you. Dad won't be home tonight. You can wear my clothes tomorrow if you want."
Suddenly, there's a loud thunk, and the sounds of someone swearing high above the phone. There's a few more susurrations, and then Madison picks the phone back up. "Sorry," she squeaks. "I dropped the phone. D— do you mean that we're going to-" She just makes an incoherent noise after that.
You check again for Dad's presence before you say anything. "Yeah," you confirm. "Unless you have any problems with that. Do you?"
You can almost hear her shaking her head over the phone. "No!" she says instantly. "No, I've been, um. I've been watching some— some videos to try and learn how to, um, yeah. Oh no, this is so embarrassing..." She actually sounds a little upset. You intervene immediately.
"No, don't be embarrassed," you tell her. "It's my first time too, Madison. I don't think either of us really has any experience. We'll just do our best together, okay?"
"O-okay." Her tone has gone to determination now. "Where do you want me to meet you?"
"There's an outdoor movie downtown," you begin, then give her instructions on how to get there. Eventually, you end with, "You should get there around five, because that's when the movie starts."
"I'll be there," she vows.
You're soon sitting giddily on the bus, clutching your purse beside you. You've carefully tucked the change from your fifty dollars into it, and your card rests in its usual compartment, so you think you're all set.
The bus arrives Downtown fairly quickly, although you're not sure why you're surprised about that— it is the safe route, after all. It's not even ten by the time you get off. You set off into the mall, clutching your purse— your money, your money— eagerly to your side.
... And then you immediately regret not doing any research on the topic.
As it turns out, there are a lot of cellphone providers. A few big ones, and then it seems there are a handful of smaller ones, too. Different people offer different plans, and there are different phones that do different things, too. Earth Bet's cellphone production is a long ways behind Earth Aleph's— from what you understand, Earth Aleph has some horribly exploitative business practices involving people from third-world countries; Earth Bet couldn't do that if it wanted to, which you sincerely hope nobody here ever does, given the problems in most of those regions— but the trade between the two Earths is picking up, and apparently one of the big commodities Earth Aleph has been selling has been cellphones.
Most of the smartphones in the store have more processing power in them than your computer at home does.
You end up spending most of the time you'd allotted for searching for a plan just moving around all the different stores, trying to compare the phones in them. A lot of them just aren't very good, having low-quality cameras (and really, what's the point of buying a cellphone with a bad camera? You wouldn't be able to use it for anything fun then) or having really bad storage. Most of the better ones are right out of your price range, although there are a handful you note down for later— ones that can connect to the internet on the move somehow as long as they're within certain regions, mostly. Very useful.
In the end, you settle on a simple one. It's got an alright camera— you make the clerk demonstrate it for you— and it's got nearly an entire gigabyte of storage, a concept that would have boggled you a little before you'd started looking at some of these smartphones earlier. It sets you back fifty dollars even, and a purchase of twenty dollars pay-as-you-go credit devastates what's left of your finances. But now you own a cellphone!
You play with it as you walk over to the thrift store, casually setting up a system in it. You make a folder innocuously called 'My Treasures', then go in there and start making sub-folders for each of your girls. Or, at least, Madison, Sophia and Victoria. It doesn't feel right to do that to Amy yet. Kind of like you're pushing her, sexually, even though there's no way she could know about it. In fact, the fact that she couldn't know about it makes it feel worse, somehow. You'll just wait for her.
The system is all set up by the time you get to the thrift store, and you pocket your phone once again as you head in. This particular thrift store is one you've been to a lot, although nobody in there recognizes you. A lot of thrift stores like these are partially run by volunteers, and volunteers drop in and out all the time.
For a moment, you're tempted to head over to the book section here— maybe you could pick something up for Amy, find something for her to read and give the two of you something to discuss over at your house?— but you shake your head. No, you'll hold off. Maybe next week. This week, you have something more important.
You bypass the women's section, heading straight to the men's section. You don't like your chances of finding a jacket large enough over in the women's section.
It still takes a fair bit of searching around to find a jacket that's suitable. Some of them are too small, not big enough for both you and Madison to crawl into, while some of them are actually too large. Yes— you don't want one that's too large. You want it to be just large enough that both you and Madison can fit into it, but also just small enough that the two of you will be pressed tightly against each other within it— just small enough that you'll barely manage to fit your arms inside, small enough that Madison is going to feel herself be unable to resist you playing with her.
Not that you intend on doing anything with that, but nobody said you couldn't wear it with more than one of your girls. And while the concept of tying Madison down and fucking her doesn't appeal to you very much— Madison is more than willing to let you do whatever you want to her— you really love how crazy it drives Sophia when you stop her from being able to move, from being able to do the first damned thing to resist you from doing every perverted thing you can imagine to her.
Eventually, you do manage to find one that's suitable. It'll be just a little loose around you and Madison, you think, which means it'll be the perfect size for you and Sophia. Eventually. It doesn't even cost too much, which is good. It costs fifteen dollars, leaving you with just enough for you to take the bus to the, and then for you and Madison to later take a bus home, with just a little change left over.
