Character Creation
Chapter Six – Glibness 

      For decades, role-playing games handled social interactions role-played between the PCs and NPCs as just that – social interactions, the results of which were left to the discretion of the game’s GM and the temperament of their NPC. Only in more recent incarnations of the game has consideration been given to resolving these encounters according to the skill of the character rather than the skill of the player.
      Of course, this has always been controversial – should a character with a lot of skill ranks and a strong Charisma permitted to winning over his nemesis with a display of noble intentions? Is a character who detects a nervous tick in a rogue’s smile entitled to feeling like he caught him in a red-handed lie? Just how extreme of a lie can a Bluff skill render convincing?
      
      
      
      Knock, knock.
      What the hell? I wasn’t expecting company – and even if I was, they’d have to hit the buzzer outside, not just knock on the door. I grabbed my taser, just in case, and cautiously approached the door.
      Then relaxed, a little, when I saw who it was through the peephole. I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him from around the apartment complex, so it at least explained how he’d gotten past the outside door. I opened it, but didn’t undo the chain. “Yeah, you need something?”
      He smiled. “Hi, Ms. Danzig. My name’s Rob, and I’m an exterminator your landlord sent over. Can I come in?”
      “You are? I thought you lived here. In fact, I’m sure of it – I remember seeing you just the other day, with the ambulance? You performed CPR or something, right?”
      “Oh, you saw that, huh…”
      “Yeah, then I saw you talking with your dad or whatever after. With the goofy outfit. I definitely remember that.”
      “That wasn’t my dad, that was my… look, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m an exterminator, and yes I live in the complex, but we exterminators have to live somewhere, don’t we?”
      Well, I suppose that did make sense. It was a luxury high-rise apartment in the priciest part of the city, but… maybe business was good? Then again… “Don’t exterminators usually have, I don’t know, a uniform or something?” He was wearing slacks and a sweater, for crying out loud.
      “Yeah, but the landlord didn’t want to create a panic, having everyone see an exterminator and all, so since I live right here, he asked me to dress like this.”
      Ah, now I got it. “I see. Well, I don’t have any pests in here, so… no need.”
      “That’s what you think,” Rob said dismissively. “You see, there’s this new pest, practically microscopic they’re so small, but they’re biters, see, do all kinds of nasty things to a person. Rashes, blood-born diseases, even hallucinations. Bugbears, we call ‘em. Tiny, but nasty.”
      “Rashes!” Not that that the other things weren’t scary, but I was a lingerie model, after all – I could work sick out of my mind (and had), but show up to a shoot with bad skin and I could throw away my career. Still… “I haven’t had any problems with them, thank goodness.”
      I went to shut the door, but he thrust his foot in the way first. “Wait wait! You only think you don’t. I have highly specialized equipment and expertise that told me your apartment is at high risk of contamination. I just need to come in and set up some, uh, sensors, make sure. Just to be safe, right?”
      Well, I suppose he had a point. “All right, that seems OK.” I let him in, and he started walking around peering at things every which way. I was extremely uncomfortable, being alone in my apartment with a strange man, but it all seemed to check out.
      When he noticed the taser in my hand, he startled a bit. “Um, would you mind putting that down? In fact, better yet, just give it to me – the electromagniphonic waves can really attract these bugbear critters like you wouldn’t believe. By the thousands.”
      Electro… was that even a word? Still, he said it so confidently – I had enough problems thinking that I was just some busty sexpot without admitting the limits of my vocabulary. I handed it over reluctantly. “I’ll get it back, right?”
      “Sure, sure, as soon as I’m sure we’re safe.”
      I actually felt safer with the taser, but I didn’t want an infestation.
      After inspecting the whole place, he opened up the satchel he was carrying and started setting out some devices. “Well, looks like we only have a couple areas we need to be real concerned with. I just need to put some equipment in place to monitor things.”
      Rob began setting some of the devices around my bedroom. “Are… are those cameras?” No fucking way was I going to let some creep install cameras in my bedroom.
      He just laughed. “No, no, these are prestidigitational sensors – they just pick up the kinds of micro-movements of these bugs. Something as big as you – not that you’re, um, big – wouldn’t even show up on here. Like trying to look at the sun through a microscope.”
      Huh. They sure looked like cameras, but he sure seemed to know his stuff, and I didn’t want to look stupid, so I agreed. He put three of them in my bedroom, even mounting one on the ceiling over the bed, then went into the bathroom and put a few monitoring the shower – “critters love to come in through shower drains” – before packing up his things.
      “Now don’t you worry, Ms. Danzig–”
      “Katrina, please.”
      He smiled. “Don’t you worry, Katrina. One of the perks of being a resident here is that I can monitor the, uh, sensors, remotely from my own apartment. All the data streams right to me.”
      “Oh, great, great.”
      “So I think that takes care of things here – I’ll get out of your hair.”
      “Well thanks for stopping in,” I said politely. He’d turned out to be more professional than I’d thought. “You’ll let me know if you pick up anything, right?”
      “Sure will. Say, speaking of pick-ups… I don’t suppose you’d want to, I dunno, maybe…”
      “No thank you,” I said. Not cruelly, but firmly. I’d long since learned that being coy in a refusal could just make things worse. I mean, I’m Katrina fucking Danzig. I’ve modeled for Victoria and Frederick’s, for pity’s sake, and he thinks I’m going to go on a date with an exterminator?
       He didn’t come by again for a few weeks. I saw him in the elevator, once, and again in the parking garage, but otherwise nothing. It was a little uncomfortable at first, taking off my clothes in front of his sensors – I know, I know, I’m super paranoid – but even though they looked just like little cameras, they clearly weren’t. I had a guy over a few times, and he was obviously too stupid to realize what the devices were, he was still cool having sex in front of them. Honestly, I think he might have even liked it – and who could blame him? The thought of nailing a super model on camera, where anyone and everyone might find out? Hell, it almost made me wet.
      Thank goodness it was just a fantasy.
      Then, almost a month later, there was another knock at my door, and sure enough, there was Rob. I let him right in this time. “Here to pick up your equipment?”
      “Oh, I wish that were the case, Katrina,” he said, “but unfortunately… the devices have detected something.”
      “Oh fuck!” I said. “I haven’t had any problems! No bites, no nothing!”
      “Well, that’s part of the problem – I told you, the bites can cause hallucinations, and one of the really common types is not noticing the bites.”
      “What? Come on, you’re pulling my leg.”
      He shook his head. “If only. It’s a survival mechanism, you see, keeps people from calling people like me to get rid of them.”
      I guess that made sense. Man, who knew? “So what do we do now?”
      The first thing he did was install some more sensors, worried they’d spread beyond the two rooms he’d been monitoring. He got the whole apartment – kitchen, guest room, living room, everything. There didn’t seem to be a single spot in the apartment he couldn’t monitor, thank God.
      The second thing was… well, a bit more controversial. “You want me to be naked… all the time?”
      “Only in the apartment,” he assured me. “You see, the two things that draw them are warmth and, um, fabric.” He sounded uncharacteristically uncertain, but went on before I could question it. “So you can still get dressed before you leave the apartment as long as you’re quick about it, but if you keep walking around here dressed like that you’re going to wind up covered in bites head to toe.”
      Fuck! I had a huge shoot coming up in a few weeks, and I couldn’t afford to have these disgusting little things ruining it for me. My body had to look perfect for this. “Can’t you just spray for them?”
      “Don’t I wish. You see, yours is the only apartment I’ve detected signs of their presence in, so I can’t really justify evacuating the whole building for it, understand?”
      I did, but… “Maybe I should just go stay in a hotel for a while, until this clears up?”
      He frowned, looking annoyed for some reason – but I was only trying to help! “No, it, uh… it’s against the law. Yeah, that’s it, against the law. You see, the EPA has these things on lockdown, big public health risk, so anybody who has them is forbidden to spread them to other, um, places people live.”
      My eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The EPA is going to make me live in a bug-filled apartment.”
      He nodded. “That’s right, Katrina.”
      I sighed. Confidence like that just couldn’t be faked. “All right then, I guess I have no choice. Is there anything else? I’d really like to get out of these clothes, if you don’t mind.”
      “Be my guest.” He smiled brightly, but when he saw I wasn’t smiling back, he gave up on his futile hopes. I locked the door behind him, and with a grimace, took off my clothes and tried not to think about what might have been hidden inside them. In fact, I ran to the shower and scrubbed myself head to toe, smiling appreciatively at the sensors for their protection. Thank goodness for those!
      It took some getting used to, going naked around the apartment all the time. I value my privacy big-time – for obvious reasons with all the pervs out there who’d go to insane lengths to creep on a perfect 10 like myself. I had to make sure to keep the curtains shut at all times, and even stop having people over. (OK, so I brought a guy home a couple times, but only if I knew they weren’t going to be wearing their clothes for long, if you take my meaning.)
      I learned to cook nude, exercise nude, sleep nude, watch TV nude… I was naked so much that, to be honest, I was a little horny almost all of the time. Call me a narcissist, but even I can’t spend all day looking at my body without getting kinda turned on. 
      I tell ya, if that lame-ass exterminator HAD snuck a camera in with all his stupid equipment, he could be making a killing. I know full well what people will pay to shoot me in my underwear; I can’t even imagine what someone could make off of me in the buff. But no, Robby the dope just put in his bug-sensors and left. 
      What an idiot.
      Then one day, he knocked once again. I could only hope it was to tell me he’d sorted it all out. Of course, I was naked like always, so I yelled at him through the door to hold on while I got dressed.
      “It’s OK, I’m gay,” he said back.
      “Yeah, well I don’t want to be naked for my exterminator no matter how he feels about it, if that’s all right,” I rebutted frostily. What kind of a skank did he think I was?
      Once I had a dressing robe on, I stepped hurriedly out into the hallway. It was on the skimpy side, but I wasn’t ashamed of my body. Besides, the only person around was Rob, and there was just something oddly trustworthy about him.
      “So what’s up?” I ignored his gaze roving over my body, waiting for him to remember where my eyes were.
      “Hi, Katrina. I… well, there’s no easy way to say this, but I have bad news.”
      “Oh no, what is it this time? Are they breeding! I haven’t been wearing a stitch, I swear!”
      “I know,” he said, but before he could go on I cut him off.
      “What do you mean, ‘I know’? Are you spying on me or something somehow?” I accused.
      “No, no – nothing like that,” he said, raising his hands defensively. “But the sensors would have told me if you were creating a breeding environment, that’s all.”
      Ah, that made sense. Stupid me, not knowing how his high-tech gear worked. I apologized, and he continued with his news. It seemed that the bugbears infesting my apartment were an especially rare breed, one that was usually only found in the wild, and they were particularly difficult to exterminate. In fact, he explained, there was no way to wipe them out, but his company was doing research night and day to figure something out. 
      “So you’re saying there’s nothing that can be done? I don’t want to move – I love this apartment!”
      “No worries there – the EPA has been informed of the situation already, so I’m afraid moving isn’t an option regardless.”
      “Rob, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but could you at least not direct your explanations to my breasts?”
      He blushed, but hastily offered an explanation. “No, Katrina – I told you, they don’t interest me.” Could’ve fooled me, the way he kept glancing down. “But… I’m afraid you’ve got a rash.”
      I gasped, peering intently down into my robe. At that moment I could give a shit if he got a look at my tits – I just couldn’t have them marred right before my shoot! They had to look perfect! “I… don’t see anything,” I said.
      “Yeah, it must be pretty bad then, for the hallucinogen in their bite to have kept you so oblivious. You… don’t feel that?” he said, pointing at a spot in my exposed cleavage.
      I didn’t, and I said as much. “Is… is it bad?”
      “As a professional, I can do a more thorough inspection, though I’d suggest we go back into your apartment.”
      That made sense. After all, I was going to need someone to inspect me regardless, and better a gay guy who would understand my circumstance than having to let one of my girl friends know that I was living under such conditions (or worse, stop being intimidated by how much sexier I was than them).
      I invited him in, and swallowed my pride as I slipped out of my robe. (His own clothes were made from a synthetic fabric that didn’t let the vermin breed in them; they were still regulated by the EPA, though, so I couldn’t buy some for myself.)
      I maintained my own professionalism, letting him eye me unflinchingly. He was thorough, having he spin for him, raise my arms over my head. I wasn’t thrilled at having to stand with my legs apart, but he was quick enough that I didn’t have to tell him off.
      “Well? How bad is it?” I pressed at last.
      “I’ve seen worse, I’ll say that much, but it’s definitely hard to look at.”
      Having never had a man suggest he was having a hard time looking at me naked, I glowered. “Isn’t there anything that can be done! I’m a model, and I have a big shoot coming up – I can’t go in looking like… this!” Never mind that I looked perfectly normal to my own eyes, but I knew I must be hideous indeed for him to object to my appearance, gay or not.
      “It could clear up on its own – there’s no need to panic just yet. I tell you what – I have a cream I can give you… it won’t treat the rashes, but it will help with the hallucinations, at least let you see for yourself how bad it is.”
      “Yes! Can you go get it for me? Please? I’ll pay whatever it costs, just PLEASE!”
      It took some pleading, but only some. He brought me a cream in a non-descript container, and told me just to apply it lightly anywhere I worried I might have the rash. (I asked why the cream would only “cure” the hallucination where it was treated instead of just everywhere, but he said he wasn’t a doctor and that was just how it worked.)
      Boy, was he right. Paranoid, I slathered that stuff on everywhere, and sure enough, that same evening I could see the rash on me from head to toe! Ugly, red, splotchy, and itchy as hell. It was a nightmare! It only worked for about 24 hours after application, thankfully, and my mind went back to being unable to detect it.
      I couldn’t find any information online about these “bugbears” – well, some weird nerd stuff but nothing relevant to my situation. Stupid nerds, clogging up the internet with their nerd stuff. Thank goodness Rob had left his number – I called him and begged him to find something he could do for me. 
      He told me that’d be fine, that he’d be over soon. I was annoyed that we couldn’t meet at his apartment, clothed, but he didn’t want to risk cross-contamination – and who could blame him? He let himself in when he arrived, and again he had me present myself for inspection. He couldn’t resist prodding at me in places, pointing out some spots where it had worsened – my neck, my stomach, my right inner thigh, and on the corresponding breast.
      “I think I get the point,” I said. I know he was trying to be helpful, but still. “So come on, what can we do? Anything – name it!”
      “Well… there is one thing I read about that I was a little skeptical of, but I’ve heard others corroborate the effectiveness enough times not to doubt. Still, it’s a bit extreme, I’ll warn you.”
      “I don’t care – my whole career is on the line here!”
      “Well… you see, this particular strain of bugbear is from the wild, I think I already told you. So some bright fellows got together to figure out why it hadn’t spread more there, and found that certain particular wild animals feed on them, and they evolved to instinctively flee from them.”
      “Um, what? So I need to bring wild animals in here? We’re not even allowed to have pets in the building, much less something feral.”
      “Well no, that’s the weird part. They’re just bugs, after all, and they can be fooled by posturing, imitation, that kind of thing. You know, like hunters do with a turkey call?”
      “So, I’m supposed to imitate… what, exactly?”
      “Wild dogs.”
      “You want me to… act like a dog?”
      “I don’t want you to do anything, Katrina – you asked for my professional opinion, and I gave it to you.”
      “But… no. I mean… that’s crazy, right? Is that really the only thing there is to do?”
      “Well, it’s the only thing I’ve found so far… I have something else I’m working on, but it’s far from ready. For now, it’s this or nothing. Sorry to have wasted your time.”
      Rob made for the door, but I cut him off. “Hold on. Just so… just so I’m clear. If I want to stop them from spreading, I have to… act like a dog?”
      He nodded. “Not all the time. A few times a day, for maybe twenty, thirty minutes would do it. More would be better, but even that would at least halt their spread.” 
      “So, if I did this… do I just… crawl around?” I frowned. It was ridiculous, but still.
      “Sure. I mean, it’s not really such a big deal – good for the back, and maybe the silliness of it would help alleviate the stress, you know? C’mon, what could it hurt? I could give you a few pointers maybe.”
      I considered. It would be mortifying, but then, what choice did I have? Tentatively, I slunk down to my knees, then to a crawling position. “There you go,” Rob said. “The trick is just to believe in the role. The more you can just let yourself act like a dog, the better it will work on them.”
      “So what the hell does that mean?”
      “For starters, don’t talk – dead give-away to them.” I closed my mouth. That made sense. “Now, try barking.”
      I gritted my teeth indignantly, but well, if there we going to be any point to this, he was right. “Arf!” I yipped. “Arf! Arf!”
      He patted my head; I glared, but then he reminded me dogs warmed to affection. So instead, I wagged my ass for him.
      Little by little, I slipped into the role. For the next twenty minutes, I let him pet my head and back, curled up beside him on my couch, played fetch with a rolled-up magazine… it was the most humiliating thing I’d ever done. Yet at the end, he got out his phone and checked an app that told him it had worked! “The growth rate just went from 1.3% to negative 0.2 percent!”
      I beamed, craning my neck to get a look at the app for myself. Instead, Rob quickly put it back in his pocket. “Wouldn’t ya know it, the battery just died. Of all the luck. Still, there’s your proof.”
      “Well, I guess I can give it a try. Just a few times a day, you said? I guess I could do that.”
      “Sure, and I’d be happy to come by and help occasionally.”
      Ugh, I’m sure you would. “No thanks, I think I can manage on my own.”
      He promised to check in with me if he learned anything new, and once again, I was on my own, just me against a seemingly endless swarm of bugbears. That next week, I did my part – I barked and growled and snarled and yipped and wagged and scampered. I even got a pair of knee pads, so I didn’t have to worry about showing up to the shoot with bruises.
      I tried to make little games I would play to help pass the time at it, or at least put in my headphones and cheat a little with some music. Once, I even got a little wild and humped the arm of my sofa. Still, even with no one but me, the bugbears and my sensors to witness it, that was a bit much.
      Rob became a regular fixture, popping in by evening to check in on me. He always had good news for me, just not nearly enough of it. An entire week passed with only around an eight percent reduction. I got better results when Rob played doggy with me; I guess he just made it more real for the bugbears seeing me petted and patted. I’d roll on my back and he’d rub my belly while my leg twitched.
      (That last one was my idea; I got tired of him suggesting things to me so I just forced it on him.)
      Still, eight percent was nowhere near a hundred, and a hundred was what I needed. He let an occasional reference slip to his personal investigations, and finally, with only a week to go before the shoot, I finally pressed him. I knew he was gay, but still, I thought maybe if I did a little pleading kneeling naked on the floor in front of him, it might help.
      It did.
      “All right, all right,” he said, pulling my grip off of his pants. Pants! I hadn’t been able to wear pants in what felt like years. “It’s not a sure thing – experimental, to say the least, but… well, not to be too scientific, but I think I’ve isolated an organic compound that can temporarily innoculate someone.”
      “Innocu… what does that mean?”
      “Make you immune. It won’t kill them, but I think it would at least stop the rash.”
      “What! You could stop the rash and you didn’t tell me!”
      “It’s not so simple. Like I said, it’s an organic compound, and I’m not certain… You see, it’s… well, I’ll just come out and say it. It’s contained in my semen.”
      “Your… you’re joking.” Rob shook his head, obviously; I should’ve known by now that even the most implausible thing he said was meant in total seriousness. “Well what the hell good does that do me? I’m fresh out of jizz in here, ya know!”
      “Well, it’s not just ‘jizz,’” he explained. “You see, it’s mine, specifically. The whole process is all very technical – you see, I recognized that the thaco present in male ejaculate contains high levels of wyvern extract, and as an experiment I’ve been imbibing a good deal of geas, a chemical which… well, look, it doesn’t matter. Point is, I’ve been using my body as an experimentational base, to help you.”
      “No offense, but how does you having… medicinal jizz, or whatever, help me with my problem? Your apartment’s already clear.”
      He eyed me levelly, and in the silence, I at last realized what he’d meant. “You want me to drink your…!”
      “No, actually – I’ve said before, I’m not attracted to women, so the prospect actually holds no pleasure for me. That being said, I consider myself a good neighbor, and I guess over the past week we’ve sort of become friends, haven’t we?”
      “Yeah, I guess.” Sort of. He wasn’t horrible company, and it was nice being able to sit around with a man who wasn’t thinking about fucking me every single second, even when I was naked and crawling around on all fours. Still, he’d seen me doing things so embarrassing I’d never be able to risk letting him meet any of my other friends, even if he wasn’t just an exterminator.
      “So there. I can’t promise it will work, but… well, if you want to try it, we can try it. It’s entirely up to you. Personally I don’t relish the thought, but I don’t have my whole life and future riding on this one decision.”
      I took a moment, but in the end… there was nothing else to do. “Fine,” I finally mumbled. “Fine. Get me a… sample, or whatever you call it, and I’ll… take it.”
      He paused. “Oh. Um, yeah, I can’t just make it on my own. It… hmm. Let’s see here. Aha, that’s it – it weakens upon exposure to the air. Yep, anything more than a few seconds exposure and it’s all for nothing. Not sure if it’s the temperature or the oxygen or what, but… yep, gotta be good and fresh.”
      For a moment, it sounded like he’d been making excuses, but that didn’t make any sense. For some reason. Did it? Either way. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Well… how soon can we… can I…?”
      “We can start now, if you want – I’ve been taking my treatments, so I’m as ready as I’m going to get. Only… well, remember how I said I’m not into chicks?” Did he chuckle? It sounded like he chuckled at that for a second. “Well, I just want to warn you in advance, it may take some serious effort on your part to get me off.”
      “I’m not doing this to get you off! I’m doing this to take care of all the bugbears!”
      “See? That’s what I mean – I feel like I forced you into this. If I’m going to be able to help you, I have to feel like you really want it. Desperately, even, you know? Otherwise, I don’t know if I can help.”
      “Really?” I whined. I hadn’t given a guy a blowjob since my sophomore year of high school, and that had been to get the hottest guy in school to break up with his girlfriend. Now, to have to perform like a whore for my fucking exterminator…!
      “You’re right, Katrina – never mind. We’ll find some other way – you’re more than just some sexy little cock-sucker. You have your pride, and that’s worth way more than any career.”
      The hell it was!
      “Wait,” I said, grabbing his hips as he stood up. It was time to commit. “No, we’re doing this. I need it. I need your fucking cock, Rob.”
      He let me pull him back down onto the sofa. “Go on.”
      “C’mon. I know I’m not your usual type, but think of it this way – you’re about to get your dick sucked by a super model. You’ll have bragging rights for the rest of your life. You gotta admit I’m at least a little hot, right? I mean, look at these tits.” I cupped my breasts for him, and was pleased to see he seemed at least a bit interested. A lot interested, I would guess, if I didn’t know better.
      I gave my lips a slow, sensual lick. They’d always been one of my best features, I’d been told. “Come on, aren’t you a little curious what these soft, full lips will feel like wrapped around Mr. Happy?” I nuzzled into his crotch, and found a raging hard-on his loose pants had been concealing. “Yeah, looks like you’re good and ready for me, aren’t you.”
      I started undoing his fly, but he moved my hands away. To my frown, he only said, “use your teeth.”
      Man, was that tricky. The things I did for my career! Still, soon enough I’d gotten his pants off, then he let me tug down his underwear with my teeth. All my training as a dog using her teeth instead of her hands was coming in useful, funnily enough. There it was, a decent-sized cock, red and ready for me. Weirdly, even though I was sucking off my working-class neighbor like a garden variety slut, I still felt proud of myself for being able to get him hard. I leaned in to get to work. 
      Then he stopped me with his index finger on my forehead. “Ask me for permission.”
      I eyed him for just a moment, but all it took was the tiniest movement that threatened to take his medicine from me for me to give in. Think of it as just another role to play, I told myself. “Rob? Can I suck your cock now?”
      “Sir. Be respectful, Katrina.”
      Seriously…? “Please, sir? Please, may I suck you off? Your cock just looks so fucking good, I can’t resist it. I know I’m not what you want, but I’d be SO grateful if you’d just let me wrap my lips around–”
      He grabbed my ears and pulled me face-first into his cock. What a son of a bitch! If any other guy did that to me… but it was Rob, and he’d never been anything but helpful, even letting me suck his dick, no matter how uncomfortable it was for him. He was even helpful enough to give me pointers while I blew him – how to use my tongue, when to deep throat him, when to pull back and help him keep his excitement up with a little more pleading. 
      “You know, maybe I was wrong, Katrina – maybe you are a sexy little cock-sucker,” he said. I wanted to protest that no, I was a stong, affluent woman, highly successful in an incredibly stressful and demanding field, and I was only sucking dick to protect my livelihood. Only… then he was cumming in my mouth. 
      My cheeks bulged with a heavy load of his hot, salty medicine, and I swallowed desperately, fearful that it might go bad before I could get it inside me. Unpracticed as I was, I let him out of my mouth before he was quite done and he gave a couple extra spurts on my breasts. I looked up at him questioningly – should I bother?.
      “Go on, eat my cum off your tits, Katrina,” he said. I don’t know why he had to be so crude about it, but if he thought it was still fresh enough, I wasn’t dumb enough to waste an opportunity to innocu-whatever myself.
      When I’d scooped every trace I could into my greedy lips and sucked my fingers clean, I plopped myself down onto the couch beside him. “So, I’m going to be OK now? No more worrying about the bugbears?”
      “Yeah, you just bought yourself at least twenty-four hours, I’d say.”
      “Twenty-four…! You said I would be immune!”
      “Yeah, like you popped one tylenol and never had another headache? Think, Katrina, geez,” he said irritably. “You’ll still need to do your exercises to keep the breeding down, and I’ll of course still need to monitor you by the sensors, but you should start to clear up soon, and if you keep a regular dosage, I think you just might be OK.”
      “You want me to suck your cock. Every day.”
      “Not at all,” he said to my tits. Why is this queer so interested in my boobs? I know for a fact they’re not misshapen. “But if you want to see this through, that’d be my recommendation. As a good neighbor, I’ll try my best to give you a chance to drink my cum every day.”
      “I… thank you, I guess. You’re sure you’re OK with this, though? No offense, but I don’t want to commit to this and have you flake out on me or get cold feet.”
      He smiled – smugly, I thought, only that didn’t make sense. “You know, that’s a good point. I tell you what, as long as you swear you’ll do your best to turn me on, try to be as sexy and eager as possible to keep me interested.”
      I smiled. “I’m a lingerie model, you know. I think I know a few things about being as sexy as possible, Rob.”
      “I’ll be the judge of that.”
      Turns out, he was a hard one to please. My shoot was in eight days. Every evening for the intervening week, he stopped by my apartment, and every evening, I sucked him off. He didn’t make it easy for me, that’s for sure. There was always some begging first, playing the part of a cum-thirsty slut who’d do anything for her dose.
      He had me model for him, too, bringing in EPA-approved outfits that wouldn’t spread the bugbears. Bikinis, bras and panties, even a few costumes over the next few days, like the sexy schoolgirl and a ditzy cheerleader. (I was pretty surprised the government would make such sexualized outfits, but he pointed out that the person who designed them had a fashion degree, obviously, so… yeah, I guess it figured they’d try to make it fun.)
      On the fourth day, Rob just walked in the door – I’d had a spare key made for him, so he could install or modify equipment if I wasn’t around – and didn’t say a word before he pushed me to my knees and told me to blow him like my life depended on it – which I did. It was actually kind of hot, if you want to know the truth, since it was just harmless role play. (If he was just some man coming into my apartment to actually just take a blowjob from me at his whim, that’d be another thing!)
      Day five, he came in while I was doing my breeding-reduction exercises, and he gave me a collar to wear with a jingly little tag on it and all. (I later found out the collar said Kat, which was pretty funny, when I thought about it.) He played at “training” me – which would have been way out of line if he hadn’t pointed out how much more effective the exercises had been when he helped out. With that in mind, I let him “teach” me how to sit, stay, speak, heel, and – of course – beg. 
      I teased that he liked having his little power trip over me – even if it was purely platonic – and he said I was a bad girl for questioning him, then pulled me over his lap and actually fucking spanked me like a bratty child.
      I protested, of course, but he explained how guys like him were big-time into butts, and seeing as how I had such a nice one, it’d be the only way he thought he could even get it up for me that night. What choice did I have? I submitted docilely and laid there across his lap, whimpering as he smacked my bare butt over and over until he just threw me off and mounted my face, fucking it like a man possessed.
      After that, I did my best to show off my ass to him.
      On the sixth day, he came over with great news – the infestation was down by more than half, and there was only one area left on my body that still had any significant outbreak. My breasts. Evidently, something in my biochemistry was just making them resist his treatments, so he offered to try something new – direct application. He’d created a cream, one he thought would help his cum absorb “transcutaneously,” which I guess meant through the skin or something. 
      First, he gave me my regular dose – he spanked me first to get himself excited again, but I begged him to go easy on me so my butt didn’t have welts for the shoot. Rob, always a sweetheart, agreed without much fuss. Then he gave me my blowjob – or I gave him one, or whatever it technically was – just to make sure I didn’t get a resurgence elsewhere.
      With that done, it was time to fuck my tits. I’d never let a guy do that before – had in fact sworn I never would, never let someone use my body that way. Something about it had always seemed so degrading to me, you know? Yet as Rob explained it to me, how lucky I was that my body was made in such a way to receive this kind of medical treatment, how hard it would be for him to be aroused by the thought of sticking his cock between some super model’s boobs and letting her jack him off with them, why I’d have to actually use my tits and not just get him close with my mouth and then have him cum on my body instead… 
      As always, it made sense. I wondered more and more how I would ever have figured any of this out without him.
      So titty-fuck him I did, all the while oohing and aahing, lying about how awesome it felt, fawning over how lucky I was to have someone like Rob around to fuck “my big slut titties” (as he wanted mt to call them)… and finally, lucky me, he came! I rubbed his cum around all over them, careful to let it dry on there.
      The seventh day… well, I’ll admit that I was actually getting pretty insanely horny by now. Even if I was only getting Rob off and he wasn’t doing anything in return for me, daily private modelings and eager blowjobs and tit-fucks and spankings and all that had worn me down a bit. There were guys I could invite over to screw, sure, but I was really self-conscious about my invisible rash, and besides… Rob had hinted the night before that I was actually decent enough that he had started to think he might be just a little bit bi.
      So when Rob came over the next night, I had a condom ready, just in case I could coax him into doing something a little more reciprocal. I could always drink out of it after, for my last innoculation.
      (Still, part of me felt a little guilty for trying to seduce him, taking advantage of him when he’d already done so much for me.) 
      He stripped as soon as he came in the door, and I thought nothing of it. We were so used to seeing each other naked by now that either of us wearing clothes seemed weird. He put my collar on me and we went through our exercises, and if he did a lot of unnecessary groping throughout it, what doggy would correct him? Not like he hadn’t had his hands all over my tits and ass before anyway, and not like he wouldn’t again soon.
      With that out of the way, he plopped down on the couch, snapped his fingers and pointed to his cock. It was thoughtful, really, not making me go through all the embarrassing pleading and gushing on like some bimbo about how hot sucking his dick was. Cut to the chase – he let me know he wanted it, and I obeyed. Simple as could be.
      While I was sucking, he started talking. “So, you know how I said last night that you might be… you know, converting me?”
      “Uh huh,” I mumbled around his cock. He didn’t like me to stop for chit-chat – only to tell him how much I loved it, thank him for letting me, that kind of thing.
      “So I guess I wondered if you were at all… I dunno. Interested? In doing a little more.”
      “Would I ever,” I said, licking up and down his shaft. It was a bit over-done, but mostly sincere. Weird, how things as simple as a little spanking and a blowjob got me horny these days.
      “Awesome – and we can even do your innoculation while we’re at it – turns out it doesn’t matter how my cum gets in you, as long as it gets in you. And I figured, with me still transitioning and all, maybe I could just… do your ass?”
      “What? You want to fuck me in the butt? No fucking way. Never. Your cock is big enough it would tear my ass open, and I have to be in top form tomorrow. Besides, it’s just nasty.” I let my face show my disgust, then took his cock back between my lips.
      Rob sighed. “Am I going to have to come up with some stupid reason why having me fuck your ass is going to benefit you?”
      I frowned. “Wait, is there a reason?”
      He laughed. “Man, this is so easy it’s almost not fun.” What is he talking about? “All right then. Turns out, my cum in your butt is actually a cure for the bugbears. Creates a chemical reaction or something that blah blah blah kills them all. I didn’t want to turn this into something medical, but… if that’s what it takes to get my cock in your ass, fine.”
      “Wow, really? That’s amazing!” Man, Rob is SO smart. I’m so lucky sometimes, I swear. “Only… what did you mean, ‘if that’s what it takes’? You’re not just saying that so you can fuck my ass, are you?”
      “Seriously, Katrina? Would I make up some outrageous lie just to trick you into letting me take sexual advantage of you?”
      I giggled around his cock, my doggy “Kat” collar jingling as I kept bobbing up and down on him. It did sound pretty ridiculous when he spelled it out like that.
      A couple minutes later, he was balls deep in my ass. Evidently just because I was a girl, I didn’t repel him any more, because he stayed good and hard the whole time he was fucking me. He’d ignored my request to use a condom – “something in the latex would fuck up something in the chemicals, or something, just shut up and let me drill you” – but if it made me well, I didn’t care.
      Besides, it turned out to feel fan-fucking-tastic. The orgasms that had been waiting with mild patience through a week of degrading blowjobs all suddenly came out one on top of the next, one barely subsiding before the next one began. My back arched and thrust my ass back at him so he could get even deeper. He told me to beg for it, told me to” speak” like a dog, and I obeyed without even thinking. I’m sure there was some good reason for it – he could tell me later.
      When he finally came in my ass, I was actually pretty disappointed it was over, even relieved as I was to be cured.
      I was pretty out of it for a minute, jilling myself to a few pleasant little after-orgasms as he caught his breath. “Damn, the footage of Katrina Danzig begging me to ass-fuck her is going to fetch the best price yet,” I heard him say. 
      I froze. “What did you say? Footage? Price? Did you record that?!”
      Rob shrugged. “Nah, just a figure of speech, babe.”
      I smiled in relief and went back to playing with myself, my eyes settling right on one of the sensors as I had one last screeching orgasm, finally collapsing naked and panting on my floor, well-fucked and happy.
      “I’ve been thinking, Kat,” he said a while later. I hated it when people called me that, but I didn’t want to provoke him into explaining why it was a good idea, as he always managed to do. “Will there be other models at the shoot tomorrow?”
      “Yeah. It’s for a big catalogue – several of the parts are for groups of us. I’ve worked with a lot of them before.”
      He smiled. “Maybe I should tag along, you know? That way I can inspect you and all, make sure you aren’t showing anything, just in case? And I can bring a sensor along, see if maybe one of the other models has any symptoms, just in case they need treatment, too. Who knows, maybe this city has a whole mess of super models out there in need of a daily dose of dicking.”
      “Wow, maybe there is! If so, I’d be happy to help you explain it to them.”
      He smiled and put his arm around my shoulders. “You know, maybe you should leave the explanations to me.”
      
      
      
      The debate rages on about the value of skill points compared to more combat-oriented class features. After all, boasts the cleric, I can heal mortal injuries! Says the fighter, my skill at arms lets me slay even a mighty dragon! On and on they heap insult and scorn upon these supposedly trivial capabilities.
      Meanwhile, the king on his throne, ruling through negotiation and deceits, strategems and politicking, looks down on the lot of them, and laughs…