Kelsie McCollum’s physical well-being was now sacrificed, daily, at the altar of carnal desire.

She was lucky if she could get a few hours of sleep per night. During the day, Kelsie nodded off in most of her classes–when she made it to class at all. When Kelsie was actually conscious during her lectures, she simply sat and counted the minutes until she could get back to Howard Hall. Once she was back in her room, she counted the minutes until Chris would return to Howard. When Chris did return, Kelsie counted the minutes until the coast was clear for her to sprint down to his room.

And then, Kelsie would count the seconds.

Every second that Chris’s tongue lashed against her clit. Every second he gently took her nipples between his teeth. Every second he moaned and squirmed as she dared to run her lips along his dick. Every second he stared into her eyes with barely checked desire as, together, they hungrily labored to open Kelsie’s pussy to Chris’s massive, throbbing shaft. Every second his touch drove her into another writhing orgasm. Every second she felt Chris groan and buck above her as he pumped his seed within her tightness. Kelsie counted them all.

When the two could pleasure each other no further, they would lie in Chris’s bed and talk. As they traded kisses and discussed their lives, their families, their pasts, and their future goals, the weeks they had spent apart at Perion faded away. In these moments, they were each other’s entire world; whatever drama had come before this point was a faded memory. Finally, their arms and bodies intertwined, Kelsie and Chris would drift off for perhaps an hour…until that merciless 4am alarm on Kelsie’s phone reminded her that she had to return through the empty hallways to her own room…where she would pass out for a few more hours, then wake up and do it all again.

It was ecstasy. It was madness. It needed to last forever. It was utterly unsustainable.

Away from Chris’s room, Kelsie’s throttled mind may have wished to shut out the real world completely…but there was now, nonetheless, a mountain of inescapable clarity.

The first thing that had become clear: Exactly how Kelsie was able, repeatedly, to secret herself down to Chris’s room.

This was all the work of Jason Lim.

Kelsie now knew exactly what Alexia had “achieved” on the night that she had held the tip of Jason’s dick prisoner inside of her sumptuous ass: Jason’s unmatched computer-hacking skills were now at Alexia’s disposal…and Jason and Alexia had leveraged those skills in the name of surveillance.

Jason had written code that patched him into every security camera on the Perion campus. If something was happening outdoors at Perion, day or night, Alexia could watch it in real time right from her laptop. This would have been an incredible feat by itself…but Jason had also installed hidden high-resolution cameras throughout the hallways of Howard Hall that tapped into the existing power supply. 

Thanks to Jason’s brilliant work, if, for example, someone needed to know the exact moment that certain hallways were clear of foot traffic so that someone could sprint down to a certain quarterback’s dorm room without being seen…well, every piece of information that certain someone would need to accomplish her goal was right there on Alexia’s laptop screen. It was truly phenomenal. Kelsie was beyond grateful to Jason, and she had told him so many, many times.

This–the incredible, loving, selfless work of Kelsie’s friends–was the positive clarity.

Then, there was the rest of it.

In short, everything in Kelsie’s life now seemed to be at the mercy of a ticking clock.

As Jason had mentioned numerous times: All of his Mission: Impossible-esque hacking tricks and all of the cameras he had installed would go undetected only as long as no one was looking for them–indeed, this was why he had fought Alexia on the idea for so long in the first place. A maintenance project in Howard Hall, a deep system scan by the Perion cybersecurity team, etc, and the jig would be up…and, as Jason was prone to nervously pointing out: A computer-whiz who had been accused of sexually filming the Preditorettes wouldn’t exactly be the last person on the suspect list.

Then there were the deteriorating conditions of Kelsie’s and Chris’s physical states. All of this sleep deprivation was taking its toll. The massive problem with this was that one of the two secret lovers happened to have the most high-profile job on the Perion campus. Chris had not been his normal self on the field in the Perion Predators’ football game over the past weekend. The team had eked out a victory nonetheless, but Chris had not thrown the ball well, and people had absolutely noticed. This, of course, had only negatively reinforced poor Chris, who, Kelsie knew, counted on the joy he felt out on the field to counteract everything else that was so difficult for him to endure in his public life.

Chris would never have offered a public excuse for his poor play; the explanation that he had circulated within the locker room, which his teammates quickly accepted, was that Chris had been feeling under-the-weather for most of the past week–which, technically, was true.

And, of course, this same explanation–being sick–was the one that Chris was currently using to deal with the most glaring piece of clarity of them all.

She was out there, waiting. 

She was across campus in her ivory tower, biding her time until her prized possession–Chris–got over his cold. 

But she wouldn’t stay away forever.

Soon enough, Cooper Deering would come calling for her man.

Kelsie, Alexia, Jacqueline and Kaykay had spent plenty of time talking about how to deal with this looming crisis. They had agreed to monitor the cameras in shifts: If any of them spied Deering leaving Pi Shop and heading in the direction of Howard Hall, they would get word to Chris. They would get him out of his room and into a public space within the dorm…where Deering could not unleash her sexual wiles on Chris.

But this was a temporary measure, at best, and they all knew it.

In the meantime: Kelsie’s lusty sprints down into Chris’s powerful arms had become appointment-viewing for the small cadre of friends who, together, shared this torrid secret. To Kelsie’s surprise, her own dorm room had become a crowded gathering place over the past several evenings…

…including tonight, when Jacqueline, Kaykay, Jason, and Erika had all joined Kelsie and Alexia.

As the friends talked, they each kept an eye on Alexia’s laptop, waiting for that perfect moment when the hallways would clear and their petite blond heroine could make her mad dash toward romantic pleasure.

Unfortunately, on this night, that perfect window had yet to present itself.

“These two, by the second floor stairwell?” Jason queried from over Alexia’s shoulder. “Do they always sit outside their room on the floor like this?”

Alexia, who was sitting in a chair at her desk, toggling between various camera feeds on her laptop, shook her head with a frown.

“No,” she replied. “That’s Madison and Veronica. I don’t know WHAT the fuck they’re doing. They need to get the hell back in their room.”

“Sorry it’s a tight angle there,” Jason returned. “That camera is mounted in the corner almost right above them. Even with the fisheye lens, it’s tight…I didn’t think anyone would ever pick that particular spot to sit down.”

“It’s fine,” Alexia responded. “It’s worth it to be able to get the whole hallway on one lens like that. I can multi-screen three floors and not have to keep rotating feeds…”

Jason and Alexia had been calmly studying the screen, together, for a while now…

…while the rest of the people in the room studied Jason and Alexia. 

The fact that the two persisted with this ridiculous, nonchalant charade–acting like two security guards at a video monitor as opposed to a boy and girl who had recently drowned in each other’s lust–was starting to majorly grate on everyone else. 

Unsurprisingly, Kaykay was the first to break.

The dark beauty jumped off of Kelsie’s bed, marched over in her purple satin pajama top and shorts, leaned over the side of the desk, stuck her finger into her mouth, and made an exaggerated “throwing up” noise.

“THAT. That’s you two.” Kaykay spat. “Fucking DO IT already! Every fucking night, it’s this.”

Kaykay made the throwing up sound again.

“--when it should be THIS.”

Kaykay made an exaggerated choking noise.

“To be clear,” Kaykay finished, staring down at Alexia, “That’s you, CHOKING ON HIS DICK.”

Alexia reacted to Kaykay’s entire display by staring straight ahead as if none of it was happening. Jason’s tan face turned a deep shade of red, and he redirected his gaze from the laptop to the ground, clearly wishing that he could somehow disappear into the floor.

Kelsie, for her part, cast a side-eye over to Alexia’s bed, where Erika was sitting next to Jacqueline. Kelsie expected to see a look of confusion on the shy face of the only person in the room who wasn’t looped into the sordid details of her brother’s most memorable night ever.

Instead, Kelsie was surprised to see that, beneath her normal veneer of reserve, Erika looked…just as frustrated as Kaykay and Jacqueline?

Kelsie couldn’t resist smiling. She had underestimated a twin’s intuition.

Erika might not have known how and where Jason had exploded inside of Alexia…but Erika clearly knew exactly where Jason and Alexia’s relationship currently stood…and how far that spot was from where Jason and Alexia’s relationship should have been standing by now. Erika clearly wanted this thing to finally happen just as much as everyone else did.

Kaykay threw up her hands.

“I’m done with this!” she announced. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know if anything happens.”

As she walked toward the door, though, Kaykay snatched Jason by the collar of his blue Perion Athletics polo shirt and dragged him with her. When they reached the doorway, Kaykay leaned forward and whispered words into Jason’s ear that Kelsie could barely discern.

“Do you know what a ‘grand gesture’ is, Jason?” Kaykay hissed. 

“Your ass needs to learn. Man the fuck up and shock some sense into our girl, because this shit can NOT continue. Quit being a fucking pussy. Go Big or Go Home.”

Kaykay shoved Jason back into the center of the room, whipped her blue and gold braids out of her face with an exasperated swing of her neck, and departed.

Jason would have been helplessly adrift in the center of the room, but Alexia saved him by continuing to pretend that none of this entire Kaykay exchange had ever happened.

“This doesn’t look promising,” she reported, drawing Jason back to the laptop with her words. “Tevin just showed up and sat down with Madison and Veronica. So they’re probably not going anywhere. And Ava is usually back from studying at her sorority house by now…You know when she finally gets back, she’s going to be bouncing all over the place…”

Alexia sighed and turned away from the desk to look at Kelsie.

“Honestly…I don’t know about tonight, Kels,” Alexia reported, delivering the news with a pained expression. “It’s not looking good until, like, really late, maybe.”

Kelsie cast her drowsy blue eyes down at her bed with resignation. She had been staring at the laptop from a distance and thinking the exact same thing herself. There was a chance that the nightly ravishing she had become so addicted to was not going to happen on this night.

Alexia hopped up from her chair, and Jacqueline slid over from Alexia’s bed to take a spot next to Kelsie. Together, Alexie and Jacqueline moved to comfort their dejected friend.

“I’m sorry, Kelsie!” Alexia offered. “I know it sucks. But, what if, tonight…you both just get some rest? Girl, you REALLY need to get some sleep. So does Chris. Maybe, in the long run, it’ll be a good thing?”

As Jacqueline wrapped her in a tender hug, Kelsie looked up at Alexia and produced a defeated nod. Her voluptuous Latina friend was right: Kelsie simply couldn’t go on like this forever. She needed some shuteye.

“Okay,” Alexia confirmed. “I’ll text Kaykay.”

When Kelsie wasn’t actually in a room with Chris, she was forced to communicate with him in a ridiculously analog way. Cooper Deering was absolutely the kind of girl who would regularly demand to see her man’s phone and scroll through every call, text, or chat log. Kelsie sending any kind of message to Chris’s phone was out-of-the-question. 

Fortunately, Kaykay’s room happened to be right next to Chris’s room. Kelsie, Alexia, or Jacqueline could text Kaykay, and Kaykay could relay the message by knocking on the wall between the rooms and yelling through the wall, or by sliding a message written on a piece of paper under Chris’s door…

…which was exactly what, as Kelsie stared at the laptop and the camera angle monitoring Chris’s second floor hallway, Kelsie now watched Kaykay surreptitiously do.

For the next few minutes, Kelsie monitored the screen with forlorn exhaustion, in the vain hope that the waves of humanity two floors below her would miraculously part long enough for her to get to Chris again. It was not to be.

Jacqueline stood up.

“Well,” she said, staring directly at Jason, “I think it’s time to clear out and let our girl pass out.”

Jason nodded. He was about to stand up when he noticed something on the laptop.

“Isn’t that Chris?”

Kelsie jumped up off the bed, shot over to the laptop, and stared down at the screen. 

Sure enough, there was the man of her dreams, emerging from his room…with a laundry basket tucked under his enormous arm.

Jacqueline grinned.

“Damn, Kelsie! You’ve got this boy doing LAUNDRY?”

Kelsie flashed an embarrassed grin. She wished that she could take credit for Chris’s cleanliness. In truth, she had quickly come to realize that Chris was hilariously Type-A when it came to his clothing.

Chris dressed exclusively in Perion Football apparel…but all of his sweats, shorts, and shirts were neatly folded in his dresser or hung with care in his closet. Practically every college boy in Howard Hall lived in a room with an overflowing hamper and a floor strewn with loose clothing items…but Kelsie had fallen for the one muscular giant who liked his wardrobe clean and neat.

As she watched Chris descend the stairs at the far end of his second floor hallway and head for the laundry room in the basement of Howard, Kelsie had to once again fight the urge to run to him. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. It was time to sleep. 

Tomorrow, in his freshly washed shirt and shorts, Chris would be hers again.

“OK,” Jason nodded to himself as he rose to his feet. “Erika, it’s probably time that we–”

Jason stopped himself.

“Wait a second…”

Kelsie caught Jason’s expression and turned back to the desk. 

As Alexia, Jacqueline, and Erika, hearing the tone of Jason’s voice, stepped briskly over to the laptop, Jason reached down to expand a particular window in the top right of the computer screen.

The friends kept this window visible, up in the right corner, at all times, day and night.

It was the feed from a security camera that faced the door of Pi Pi Pi.

Jason frowned. He said what everyone was thinking.

“That’s her.”

The body. The walk. 

Even from the night-vision setting of a camera mounted 50 feet away, there was no doubt.

Cooper Deering had just strode out the front door of Pi Shop. She was on the move.

Everyone in the room was quite familiar with the steps to this particular, unfortunate dance. They’d all watched it play out plenty of times already:

Someone would detect Deering leaving her sorority house; whoever was sitting at the desk would nervously shuttle from feed to feed as they tracked Deering’s movement across campus; they would eventually determine that Deering was not heading toward Howard Hall; blood pressures would fall, and life would resume.

Tonight, no one’s blood pressure was falling. 

As Jason cycled feeds, it quickly became clear.

Cooper Deering was headed straight for Howard Hall.

“Shit!” Alexia muttered. “Someone has to get down to Chris! Get him into the first floor lounge!”

“I’ll go,” Jacqueline volunteered. “When that cunt goes up to his room, Kaykay can tell him where he is. Or, to fuck off. I don’t give a shit.”

The fire-haired quarterback was about to sprint for the door when Jason’s voice stopped her.

“What the…where did she go?”

The four girls whipped their eyes back to the screen.

Jason had cued up the camera opposite the front door of Howard Hall. 

Deering hadn’t appeared.

“She should be right there!” Jason exclaimed. “I’ve been tracking her the whole way!”

“WHAT THE FUCK, Jason?” Alexia cried. “You’d better fucking FIND HER, quick!”

“Where else would she be?” Jason protested. “She was headed right here! Why would she veer off? There’s no other place over here that she’d be going to other than Howard!”

“Well she’s not a fucking GHOST, Jason!” Alexia returned with panic. “She has to have–”

“Oh, no.”

Jason and Alexia paused their exchange. Jason, Alexia, Kelsie, and Jacqueline all turned, with surprise, toward the unexpected source of the soft, dire phrase: Erika.

The quiet Hawaiian girl shifted her timid eyes to Kelsie.

“Does…does Chris usually do his laundry at this time, on this night?”

The silent terror with which Kelsie met Erika’s question quickly spread to everyone in the room.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…” Jason muttered. 

His fingers flitted across the keyboard, and suddenly a screen appeared that Kelsie had never seen before. She’d had no idea that it even existed.

Jason had, apparently, mounted a camera in a cobwebbed upper corner of the musty, windowless laundry room in the basement of Howard Hall.

And now, in crystal-clear color, Kelsie could see her passionate quarterback deliberately feeding his clothes into a washing machine. There was no one else in the room. At this hour, on this night, no one other than Chris was even thinking about washing clothing; this, Kelsie knew immediately, was exactly why her quiet lover had arrived at this schedule in the first place.

Kelsie also immediately knew what everyone else in the room knew.

Howard Hall had been built on an incline. The back of the building was thus set a floor lower than the front of the building.

Howard had a seldom-used back entrance. 

It entered into a stairwell at the basement level...directly next to the door to the laundry room.

Every mortified person in Kelsie’s room now knew exactly what had happened. 

It was too late.

As they watched in dismay, Cooper Deering slid into the laundry room behind Chris Weathers.