Vell stepped up to the breakfast table, let his bookbag drop on the floor, and all but collapsed into his seat.

“Having a rough day, are we, dear?” Lee said.

“Midterms,” Vell said. Everyone at the table nodded in agreement. They were an above average group of students, even by the lofty standards of the Einstein-Odinson College, but they all struggled with the burdens of the mid-semester exams.

“It gets a little better from here,” Harley assured him. “They go real hard on the first year students, y’know, separating the wheat from the chaff and all that.”

“If you’re struggling with the workload, I’d be happy to organize a study group,” Lee suggested.

“Thanks, but I’m fine on that front.”

The work itself was not what really bothered Vell, as he soon explained to them. He consistently ranked at the top of his classes, and even the heightened intellectual requirements of the upcoming midterm assignments didn’t trouble him too much. What really bothered him were the expectations. All of his Professors, especially Nguyen, had made it clear they expected great things from Vell, and he was terrified to let them down.

“I keep double or triple-checking my work, and it doesn’t change much,” Vell explained. “I’m just stressing too much.”

“I see,” Lee said. “Well, try some tea and maybe have a sit down on a bench in the quad, away from all your books. Perhaps this loop will see us attacked by a horde of zombies, or some such, and you can vent your stress by exploding some undead heads.”

“That’d be nice,” Vell said.

Lee shouldered her purse and stood, giving Vell a gentle pat on the shoulder as she walked by.

“I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully, Vell,” Lee said. “Do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, though.”

Leanne pointed to Lee, and then to herself, indicating she could also be counted on for help, and then excused herself in turn. Vell let out a deep sigh and leaned forward on the table. The sound of a chair being scooted closer and closer to Vell’s didn’t even make him blink, until Harley was sitting right next to him, staring right up at his face with a sparkle in her eyes.

“So you got stress problems?”

“Yep.”

“I happen to know an excellent form of stress relief,” Harley said, her voice double-dosed with its usual playful suggestiveness.

“Really,” Vell said, with feigned -and exhausted- shock. “I can’t imagine what you might suggest.”

“Well it’s an ancient technique, developed long ago,” Harley said. “It involves a man, like, say, hypothetically, you, and a woman, like, say, hypothetically me, and what we do is…”

Harley leaned in even closer to whisper dramatically in Vell’s ear.

“We go to the common area and see if the ping-pong table is free so we can play a few rounds.”

‘The ping pong table is never free,” Vell said.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. In that case how about we go to my dorm and fuck like rabbits?”

Vell took a deep breath and prepared to refute the offer for the fourth time this year. And then, mid-breath, he thought to himself: Why?

“Okay, sure,” Vell said.

“Alright, but the offer’s-” Harley’s brain caught up to her words a few seconds on and she practically lunged onto Vell mid-sentence. “Wait, you said yes?”

“Yeah, uh, sure, why not? Let’s do it.”

Vell had acclimated himself to the weirdness of daily life, he was no longer in a relationship, and he had nothing better to do with his time. He’d run out of reasons to not take up Harley on her offer, and he had plenty of reasons to agree to it -two of which were pressing very firmly against him as Harley grabbed Vell and squeezed him in a tight hug.

“Oh my god this is going to be so great,” she said, almost breathless with excitement. She released Vell and stood from her seat. “Listen, I got to clean my dorm and do a thing and then I’ll be ready to go at like, eleven, is that good?”

Vell nodded.

“Great! We should be able to fit it in -pun absolutely intended- before anything blows up today. See you soon!”

Harley sped off with unusual energy, even by her standards. Vell started to wonder what he was getting himself into.

Vell had very few second thoughts about his plans to horizontal tango with Harley, by Vell standards, and easily found himself at the door to Harley’s dorm right on schedule. He knocked on the door politely.

“You’ve got the code, dude,” Harley shouted. Vell let himself in. Harley put Botley on a shelf and closed the cabinet. The smell of cherries in her dorm was unusually strong.

“I wanted to be sure you weren’t like, already naked, or something,” Vell admitted. Harley shook her head.

“I strongly considered it, but I don’t want to throw everything at you all at once,” she said. “I want to make this comfortable for you, Vell.”

Vell nodded. Harley took him by the wrist and pulled him across her dorm to the bed, sitting him right down next to her on the very edge of her mattress.

“So.”

Harley rested her head on Vell’s shoulder, staring up at him with a sparkle in her brown eyes. Vell was too red in the face to make eye contact.

“Anything to say before we get started? Active communication is the bedrock of making the bed rock.”

“No, I’m, uh, good, I don’t-”

Harley cut off Vell’s stammering tirade by grabbing him in a bear hug and rolling further onto the bed, dragging Vell along with her. She demonstrated surprising strength for having such a tiny body, and ended the roll with Vell pinned underneath her, pressed chest to chest.

“Good,” Harley said. She pulled away for a moment, straddling his waist, and tapped him on the nose. “Then I’ll say a few things while we get started. But first-”

With a grand flourish that she knew her figure deserved, Harley removed her shirt, and then made an equally grand showing of unclasping her bra and tossing it to the side. Vell went as wide-eyed as Harley had expected. He stammered a few times before settling on a coherent sentence.

“I, uh, wow,” he mumbled. “Do you ever have back problems?”

It took Harley a second to catch up with Vell’s thought process. When she did, she gave a single bouncing snort of laughter. Vell would’ve been mildly confused by the laughter if he hadn’t been so focused on the bouncing.

“Vell Harlan, you are the only guy I know who sees giant tits and immediately thinks about back pain,” Harley said. It was amusingly dumb, but in a good way. “To alleviate your concerns, Mr. Harlan, I wear magic bras. Now, does that address your concerns well enough that you can enjoy my great boobs guilt-free?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Vell said.

“Great! Now, as to what I was saying. I’ve got two big rules in bed,” Harley said. “One, no kissing. Second, you ask, and get permission, before any part of you goes inside any part of me. Naturally I’ll extend the same courtesy to you.”

Vell nodded silently. Even as his head bobbed, his eyes remained gyroscopically locked on Harley’s chest. She cocked her head at him.

“Are you listening, or just staring?”

“I can do both.”

“Okay, repeat what I just said back to me.”

‘Two rules, first rule no kissing, second rule I have to ask permission before any part of me goes inside any part of you, and you’ll do vice versa.”

With an approving nod, Harley leaned forward and grabbed Vell by the shoulders.

“Look at you multitasking,” she said. She started tugging at his shirt. “Your turn. Show me what you got, Harlan.”

With some assistance from Harley, Vell pulled his shirt off. Harley shifted a little with the intent of grabbing the waistband of his pants next, but paused a moment. The circular scar just below Vell’s bellybutton caught her eye. It was only the slightest moment of hesitation, but Vell noticed.

“Yeah. Uh, I still have some of those old illusion bracelets, if you’d rather-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Harley said. “I just kind of forgot about it for a bit, you know?”

“I don’t know, not really,” Vell said. “It’s kind of hard for me to forget.”

“You worry too much,” Harley assured him. She stopped a moment to tussle his hair. “It doesn’t mean shit. Whatever weird scars you got, you’re still just my goofy yet very fuckable buddy.”

“Thanks,” Vell said. “And, I, uh, it’s nice to be...with...somebody I don’t have to hide that, uh, stuff from.”

“You never have to hide anything from me, Vell,” Harley said. “And speaking of not hiding things, we’re here to fuck, not feel. Let’s see that dick!”

With only minor assistance from Vell, the rest of the clothes came off. Judging from the eager smile on Harley’s face, Vell assumed she approved of what she saw -and she saw everything. She relaxed a bit, falling into a straddling position just above his waist.

“Ready for-”

She paused mid-sentence after experiencing a momentary jiggle. Harley didn’t mind jiggling on principle, and in fact planned on doing a lot of it, but this was involuntary jiggling.

“Hold on, the earth’s not supposed to be moving yet,” she said.

But move it did. Move right out from underneath them, specifically. As the nude duo experienced the pre-freefall moment of weightlessness, Harley had time to a mutter a brief curse.

“Are you fucking kidding m-”

Then there was falling.

One black hole preventing daily escapade later, Vell and Harley were back in Harley’s bedroom.

“You still remember the rules?” Harley asked.

“One: no kissing, two: no penetration without communication,” Vell recited.

“Ooh, very snappy, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first,” Harley said. “Anyway, yes, all clear, so unless you have anything to say-”

“Nope,” Vell said. This time he took the initiative on disrobing. Harley thought he was being a little too enthusiastic, but enjoyed the show all the same. She overlooked the rune on Vell’s lower back and turned her eyes just a little further down.

“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a surprisingly nice butt?”

“Surprisingly?” Vell said asked, his offense obvious.

“I mean, a guy with your body type, I’d expected something like, proportional? You’re tall and skinny, I expected a tall and skinny ass, but no, you’re out here with cheeks like-”

She was cut off when the door slammed open. A gurgling cry followed, as did some kind of fishlike humanoid wielding the leg of a chair as a club.

“Motherfucking marine biologists,” Harley said. “Of all the ways-”

More fishmen followed the first, and Harley had very little time to waste complaining while fighting for her life versus the fishman horde. Vell had it even worse, as he found it very difficult to fight anything with his pants off.

“Okay, fuck, once more into my breeches,” Harley said. She all but dragged Vell by the wrist towards her dorm room. “And no banter this time! We’re wasting time.”

“I like the banter,” Vell said.

“Yeah, me too, but we can make quips at each other any time,” Harley said. “We can only bang with impunity before the apocalypse. So we prioritize, and my priority is getting laid.”

“Okay, alright. But we’re bantering right now.”

“We’re in the hallway, it’s fine,” Harley said. “I’m not going to fuck you in the hallway. I’m not that much of an exhibitionist.”

“Not ‘that’ much?” Vell questioned.

“I’d be down for a broom closet or an empty classroom,” Harley said. “‘Maybe’ getting seen is sexy. ‘Definitely’ getting seen is just rude to the people watching.”

With rare exceptions for the first day of the year, but she’d been on edge after a long dry spell. She sort of regretted her first day stunt now, and would not be flashing entire lunchrooms again any time soon.

“Makes sense.”

Harley rounded the corner.

“Oh god damn it!”

Vell never actually got to see what she was screaming at, but he assumed it had something to do with the wall of fire that incinerated them both shortly afterwards.

Harley practically threw Vell into the bed from across the room. She was already half undressed by the time she made it to the bed as well.

“Come on Harlan, hustle, I am not getting cockblocked by the universe again,” she commanded. Vell complied, but not without some hesitation.

“Are you sure we aren’t rushing this a bit?”

“What, do you want a candlelight dinner first?” Harley asked.

“No, but just, you know, for practical reasons, there’s a few, uh-”

“Vell, I am begging you to stop talking and fuck me.”

“Okay,” Vell said. While there were certainly some steps that could be taken to improve the overall level of comfort for everyone involved, even Vell wasn’t conscientious enough to talk himself out of a bed he was already in. Harley jumped on top of Vell, made her move, and quickly realized he might have had a point about making sure things went smoothly.

“Ow,” she mumbled. “Ow, okay, ow, fuck, you were right.”

She rolled off the top of him and laid on the bed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Harley sighed. “I have no one but myself to blame. I’m a machinist, I of all people should know the importance of lubrication.”

“Yeah, that should-”

Outside Harley’s window, someone started screaming in fear. A second later, Harley was screaming in rage right along with them.

As the sun started to set, Harley hurled a folding chair in the direction of the Unobtainium Wave generator that had ruined her plans on the first loop. With the machine thoroughly destroyed, moreso by Leanne than Harley’s folding chair, Harley turned her back on it and grabbed Vell by the shirt.

“Come with me,” she demanded, before dragging him away. Leanne watched them go, then turned to Lee with a befuddled look.

“Oh, they’ve been trying to make love all week, but the apocalypse keeps getting in the way.”

Leanne stuck her tongue out in disgust and then pointed to Lee.

“No, they didn’t tell me as much, but I know how Harley gets when she hasn’t had her fun in a while,” Lee said. “And she’s not exactly being subtle about dragging Vell off, as you can see.”

Leanne nodded. She could still see Vell struggling to keep up with Harley’s frantic pace -though she did have to question where she was going. Leanne pointed at Harley and then held up on finger.

“Who knows, maybe she’s frustrated enough that she’s going to sleep with him even though it isn’t the first loop,” Lee said. “It is Vell, after all. If you can’t trust him, who can you trust?”

If Leanne ever spoke, Lee might have noticed that she became unusually quiet after that.

Across the way, Harley successfully dragged Vell into her dorm room and slammed the door behind them.

“Uh, Harley, I know you’re frustrated, and if you’d rather do something tonight, I get that, but, uh-”

“Relax, Vell, I’m not jumping your bones tonight,” Harley said. “I like you, but there is no way I’m having your babies. Not even going to risk it.”

“Okay, cool, don’t really want to impregnate you either, glad we’re on the same page,” Vell said. “But then why am I here?”

Harley grabbed Vell’s chin and pointed his face downwards, to about ankle height. Botley’s diminutive body stood with hands outstretched, holding a change of clothes and Vell’s toothbrush. Vell got no time to process that odd sight before Harley snapped his face up back to hers. She grabbed him by both cheeks and held him so close they were practically nose to nose.

“I had Botley grab some of your stuff. You’re going to spend the night,” Harley said. “And then, first thing tomorrow morning, we get up, maybe do some coffee and a bowl of cereal if we need a wake-up, and then we’re going to fuck until one of us can’t feel our fun bits anymore.”

Vell waited for a second. Harley showed no signs of releasing her death grip on his face.

“Sounds cool,” he said. With that affirmation, Harley let him go. She stepped back and looked at Botley for a second.

“Do you need some pajamas, or like, your laptop, or something?” Harley asked. “I sort of rushed through this ‘plan’. And I now acknowledge it seems a little bit insane.”

“The execution is wobbly, but the foundation’s good,” Vell said. “I think if we talked about a plan this is probably close to what we would’ve come up with. We got to break this unlucky streak somehow.”

“You’re damn right we do,” Harley said. “But seriously, you need PJ’s or anything?”

“I usually just sleep in my boxers, but if that’d be weird-”

“I’ve seen your dick three times now, Vell, boxers aren’t weird.”

“Fair point.”

The two got undressed -though not quite as undressed as before- and hopped into Harley’s bed. Harley had acquired a large bed, for obvious reasons, so there was plenty of room for both of them, but never quite enough. As Vell laid in bed, he was very keenly aware of the entire left side of his body -the side Harley was on. He had shared a much smaller bed before, with Joan, but his physical relationship with her had been much clearer. Harley wanted to sleep with him, that much he knew, but he wasn’t sure where she stood on cuddling.

On the other side of the bed, Harley was very aware of Vell being very aware.

“Is this weird, Vell? You can go back to your dorm if it’s weird.”

“It’s, uh, a little weird,” Vell said. “But like, not by our standards, I guess?”

“It’s a different kind of weird, though,” Harley said. She scooted slightly closer to Vell. “If it helps, it’s weird for me too. I know I sleep with a lot of people, but I don’t actually like, ‘sleep’ with people, you know?”

The large bed the two were currently lying in had it’s uses, but it spend most of its time empty, but for Harley’s very tiny body, and occasionally Botley curled up by her feet. Harley was quite enthusiastic about both physical and emotional intimacy, but rarely both at once. She enjoyed making connections, not attachments -which made Vell’s continued presence here quite the anomaly.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, you know, no pressure, why are you so interested in sleeping with me anyway? It’s not like you’ve got any shortage of men, women, and assorted otherwise after you.”

“Well, a few big reasons. First and foremost: I like you, I trust you, and you’re pretty cute.”

Harley reached over and poked him on each shoulder and then booped him on the nose as she listed each quality. Then she rolled over onto her back and went back to staring up at the ceiling.

“Those are pretty important for me. And secondly, being honest, it’s convenient.”

“Convenient?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m all about the ‘thrill of the hunt’ and all that bullshit, but sometimes I just want somebody I can hop into bed with without any of the games, you know? Having to re-seduce everybody every time just gets exhausting.”

Harley crossed her arms across her chest and let out a huff of frustration over past conquests made unnecessarily difficult.

“And nobody ever learns, either! I got to explain what I like all over again every time,” Harley said. “But you’re actually going to remember stuff, and get better at sex, and it’s going to be great.”

“Yeah, great, I’ve always wanted to be good at sex,” Vell said.

“Okay that phrasing alone is making it weird.”

“Sorry.”

Vell tapped his fingertips against his stomach for a second. He could tell Harley was feeling just as restless.

“So, um, again, if you don’t mind me asking, if all you want is a looper partner, why not Leanne, or Lee?”

“Well I’m pretty sure if I asked Leanne she would punch my tits right off,” Harley said. Vell nodded. “And Lee is...let’s say ‘off limits’. For several reasons.”

“Why?”

“Vell, take five seconds to think about it.”

Vell took five seconds to think about it.

“Okay yeah, I get it.”

“Good. Now come on, we have to at least try to go to sleep.”

“Yeah. Good night, Harley.”

“Good night, Vell.”

Across the room, a diode clicked on and a few gears whirred.

“Good night, Botley,” Harley sighed. The satisfied robot deactivated itself once again, and the room was dark.

Vell awoke with a strange weight on his chest. He felt a brief moment of panic, wondering if the apocalypse had come exceptionally early, and woke with a start. In so doing, he bounced Harley’s head right off his chest. She too, woke with a start, and nearly slapped Vell as she oriented herself.

“Watch it,” Vell said.

“Shit, sorry,” Harley said. “Why’d you push me around?”

“You had your head on my chest, and I thought you might be, I don’t know, a parasite about to suck out my heart or something.”

“Yeah that sounds reasonable,” Harley said. “Sorry. Guess I cuddle in my sleep.”

“Understood.”

Vell nodded, and Harley nodded right back. A short staring contest followed.

“So.”

“So.”

“You need some coffee or anything, Vell? Breakfast?”

“I’ll eat after,” Vell said.

“Great.”

Harley was on top of him in the blink of an eye.

Harley made it to the breakfast table first, with an energetic bounce to her step all the while. Vell arrived shortly after, moving at a slightly more winded pace. Lee barely glanced up from the book she was reading.

“So I assume your bedroom mishaps have reached a happy ending, then?” Lee observed. “Pun intended, of course.”

“You know it, bitch,” Harley said. “Harley always gets her man, or woman, or person, or whatever else she decides to sleep with.”

“Your charms have proven irresistible,” Lee said. “You whore.”

“Don’t you try and flatter me.”

Vell took a seat and watched the two women trade a little more banter back and forth, and learned a few new words for “prostitute” in the meantime. Their dialogue was shockingly friendly considering the volume of never-before-heard insults. Lee did run out of synonyms for slut eventually, however.

“So, were you simply getting something out of your system or is this to be a recurring coupling?” Lee asked.

“I’m up for more if Vell is.”

“I, uh, I’m not so much interested in talking about my, or our, sex life, if you don’t mind.”

“Understandable. For what it’s worth, I think you two make a lovely couple.”

Harley’s sudden, loud laughter seemed rude to Lee, but Vell wasn’t bothered. His last attempt at a committed relationship had gotten him stabbed, after all. Vell Harlan would take “friends with benefits” over “lovers with consequences” any day.