“I can’t believe you fell for this.”

They were in Timothy’s dorm room. Timothy was sitting at his desk and Ixxy was reclining on his bed behind him, arms behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.

The senior student guarding the door had just given them a knowing smirk when Timothy had dragged her past.

It felt weird to be back here, where her first contract happened. She could still make out the smudged chalk marks on the floor where he’d put the barrier around the summoning plate, the little chicken shit. She’d spotted the plate itself tucked away behind his closet.

“Yeah, well… you smell funny,” she retorted, idly imagining what it would be like to throttle Timothy. The feeling of the skin of his neck under her fingers, the struggling as her claws bit into him, the blood pouring over her hands…

She’d discovered that as long as she didn’t think of murder in terms of something she was planning on doing, but rather as a hypothetical in case the Grand Contract suddenly stopped applying, the runes would stay quiescent.

She wasn’t planning a mortal’s murder, she was just… trying to think of ways she could protect him against a hypothetical threat. Yeah, that was it. The hypothetical threat of herself.

“I’m being serious. This contract feels highly suspect. I mean, if someone gave me this I wouldn’t sign it, even if I couldn’t place my finger exactly on what was wrong with it,” he said. “I always thought devils were terrifying contract-fiends, but I guess your ‘gut instincts’ are a bit lacking.”

“Gee, you really know how to flatter a girl,” Ixxy replied sarcastically, feeling a blush - an actual blush of embarrassment - creep up her cheeks. Curse this pale, blushable skin she was currently wearing.

The truth was, she’d never really had a head for contracts, at least by devil standards. Usually, those who scored as low as she did on her contract competency settled for non-devil bodies. But plain demons had a whole different arrangement with InferTec and only came through to Aer for specific jobs. They were like seasonal workers.

When they arrived, the job had already been negotiated, usually by some devil, and they could just execute it and collect their payment before disappearing back to the Abyss. They never really got to explore or do what they wanted.

When Ixxy had just barely squeaked past the minimum threshold to qualify to be a Pleasure Devil, she’d jumped on it, even though they already had one of the lowest requirements for contract competency among devils. Theoretically, there was a limit to how complex ‘give me some soul and I’ll fuck you’ could get, and InferTec had handy templates that took most of the thinking out of it anyway. It was supposed to be pretty well-trodden ground.

Which just went to show that there was a vast gulf between theory and practice.

“There were extenuating circumstances, okay?,” Ixxy whined. “Another devil vouched for these people. Told me it was all above-board.” Or a least implied it.

“And you believed them?” Timothy asked, surprised.

Ixxy sat up, wedging herself upright with her arms stretched out behind her. She just barely caught Timothy looking away. He’d been peeking at her out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t know if you are aware of this,” she huffed, “but demons don’t usually try to screw each other over. It’s just not worth it. We’re all immortal, and that means dealing with the same schmucks a thousand years from now. A fleeting profit is not worth someone holding a grudge for a century or even longer,” she repeated the refrain that she’d been told her entire life.

It was a sound philosophy, though. Five minutes of profit for even twenty years of trouble was simply bad business.

“If I ever see that bitch again, though, I’m going to feed her her own eyeballs,” she muttered under her breath.

What kind of demon took contracts that were that exploitative against their own kind? This place was supposed to be a paradise, a place where decisions had little or no long term consequences. What happened in Aer was supposed to stay in Aer, that was the point. Sort of like a kind of holiday resort.

Ixxy collapsed back onto the bed. Not that it had been anything like that for her, so far.

Alright, sure, she was the one who’d attacked Ruul, but that was supposed to just be some harmless, violent fun. Little more than a prank. She hadn’t intended to seriously hurt him. She’d been perfectly willing to look him up the next time she returned to the Abyss and offer him some small favour in recompense.

Yet what Vrazhka had done was going to have consequences back in the Abyss. Surely she had to realize that Ixxy would be looking for payback? And that was dangerous. If she didn’t know who Ixxy was, back there, why take the risk? And if she did… by the Abyss, what was she thinking?

Even if the absolute worst case for Ixxy came to pass and she got smothered in debt for the next five centuries, eventually there was going to be an after. And then she was going to pay back whatever indignities she’d suffered back on Vrazhka with copious interest.

That meant one of two things. Either Vrazhka had a plan to mollify her before it became an issue, or she had a sufficiently powerful or connected patron who could shield her from Ixxy’s retaliation. But if there was someone that powerful out there in the local sphere, surely she would have heard of them before now?

No, there had to be some other angle here. Some reason that Vruzhka felt this whole mess was worthwhile to her. But for the life of her Ixxy couldn’t figure it out. It just didn’t make sense!

“You okay?” Timothy asked over his shoulder, interrupting her train of thought. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“Yeah, just thinking,” Ixxy replied.

“About?”

“About what an idiot I am,” Ixxy grimaced, rubbing her eyes with her palms. “I can’t believe I trusted Vrazhk. Fucking Judas’ goat…”

“A what goat?” Timothy asked, confused.

“Oh, a Judas goat,” Ixxy explained as the knowledge bubbled up into her mind. “So, when you’re at a stockyard and you want your herd of sheep or cattle or whatever to walk to where you want to slaughter them, they don’t want to go, right? They can smell the blood of the last bunch that went.

“So what do you do? You get a goat and you teach it to lead them to where you want them to go. The animals follow the goat since it appears to know what its doing, and the goat goes where its supposed to because it’s not afraid since obviously you don’t slaughter your own trained goat.

“All the rest of the animals that followed it, though? Grrrk!” she finished, tracing a finger across her throat. “Sucks to be them.”

“Oh, that’s horrible,” Timothy said, an odd look on his face.

“Why?” Ixxy asked, confused. “You eat meat, don’t you? Where did you think it came from?”

“No, not that. I meant that your friend betrayed you like that! That’s awful of… him? Her? I er… demon names are a bit weird.”

Ixxy couldn’t help but smile. The poor sod was so naive it was painful, but it just made him all the more adorable. And it felt nice to have someone who agreed with her. Even if he was only a mortal.

“Her. And I wouldn’t say that we were friends, exactly. We’d only just met for the first time in a bar…”

“And you trusted her? What is wrong with you?”

And then sometimes he made her feel like the naive idiot. That was slightly less appealing.

“Look, it doesn’t matter. Have you found anything yet?” she asked, irritated.

“Honestly, no,” Timothy replied. “But let me run past you what I have, maybe I’ve missed something.

He cleared his throat.

“There’s only three ways this contract can be terminated, as far as I can tell. The first is for Mulder & Heath to terminate it directly. They’re allowed to do so at any time. In that case, all debts remain, but all other obligations end for both parties.”

Ixxy nodded. She was aware of that one. It was pretty normal for contracts with devils to have such a broad, human-favoured termination clause. Standard safety features. Most of InferTec’s standard long term templates even had it in.

“The second is for you to give them one week notice of termination. However, this option can only be exercised if you have no debt towards the company. And if you re-enter debt at any point during this period, the whole process is interrupted and you have to start from scratch.”

“Yes. So I need to pay off my existing debt, and then I can’t do any contracts for the company for an entire week otherwise I will ‘owe’ the company their percentage fee. All the while all existing restrictions are in effect,” Ixxy summarized. “Meaning that even if they did offer me a contract, accepting it would interrupt the termination process.”

It was another angle that she hadn’t noticed before she’d signed, though it was quite a moot point since they seemed not to have any intention of giving her any contracts at all.

“Right, I didn’t even think of that,” Timothy said. “Still, it doesn’t change the fact that all you’d have to do is pay back the soul they already lent you. What did you do with it, anyway?”

“I told you, it’s gone.”

“But can you get it back, maybe?”

“No,” Ixxy stated firmly.

The weekly payments to InferTec was one of their better kept secrets, and one she wasn’t keen to reveal. It significantly undermined any demon’s negotiating position if the mortals they were dealing with were aware just how badly their souls were needed.

Sazka would kick her ass if she let that one slip.

Obviously, it wasn’t a complete secret. Marget had alluded to it in the upkeep clause of the contract, and the one soul loan amount was a little suspicious, though exactly how much she knew was an open question.

“Okay, so much for that idea, then,” Timothy sighed.

“What’s the third way to terminate the contract?” Ixxy asked, curious. She had only seen the first two when she’d studied it on her own.

“Hmm? Oh, the safe word, obviously,” he replied.

Right, Ixxy hadn’t thought of that. She was used to thinking of it as something bad to be avoided, but in this particular case it would solve all her problems if Marget were to use it.

“Though I am not sure how that would work, considering you signed the contract with the company,” he went on.

“It would work fine. While we can refer the company in the terms of contracts, we don’t acknowledge them as contractible individuals. They don’t have souls, so they can’t pay fees,” Ixxy explained. “Whoever signed the contract on behalf of the company would be held liable. And that’s Marget Mulder.”

“I see. So if you could convince her to use the safe word, the whole contract would be rendered null and void, including any outstanding debt.”

Ixxy nodded. “How would I manage that, though? You know that tricking someone into saying it is not enough, even if I could somehow achieve that. They have to want the contract to be canceled. Intention matters.”

“Look, I’m not sure, but it might be a promising lead to pursue, okay?” he huffed. “Give me some time to think it over.” He bent back over his desk, his attention returning to intense scrutiny of the contract.

It wasn’t long before Ixxy started to get bored. There just wasn’t much for her to do while waiting on Timothy. She could leave, go outside and… look around, she supposed. But she couldn’t take contracts, couldn’t earn souls. Hell, she didn’t even really have any friends except Leez and the demoness was still going to be busy with her shift at the bank for a couple more hours.

The only thing she could do was lie back and think about all the ways she’d messed up, and oh boy were there a lot of those. She’d basically been doing everything wrong from the moment she stepped through the Obsidian Gate the first time.

Part of that had been InferTec’s fault. Their intro packages were decades out of date and the mortal world moved fast. Hell, they hadn’t even mentioned the summoning plates!

Ixxy had to admit it wasn’t all their fault though. The truth was she’d intentionally closed herself off to some of their preparation, intent on figuring it out herself.

That had, after all, been the whole point of coming here, of doing things for herself! On her own, without others leaning over her metaphorical shoulder and taking a task out of her hands and doing it for her the moment she began struggling with it. She’d needed to do this by herself just to prove that she could.

And now she was reaping the consequences.

“So… er… I was your first contract, huh?” Timothy suddenly spoke up, disturbing Ixxy’s ever darkening thoughts. She noticed he’d been peeking at her again.

Oh. Right. She’d forgotten that she’d mentioned that the last time she’d been here. It had technically been a mistake; InferTec seduction guidelines strongly advised against freely sharing any personal information and reserving it only for the purpose of manipulation.

Admitting her inexperience had been a kind of weakness but… fuck it, that ship had already sailed, hadn’t it? Another fuck-up for the pile of ‘Ixxy’s screwups’.

Besides, weakness was a draw, right? Pretending to be meek and vulnerable, that sort of thing suckered marks in like nothing else. Yeah, that’s what she was doing. She was suckering him in.

“Yeah… this is my first week in Aer,” Ixxy finally admitted, just as the silence was beginning to stretch to awkwardness.

“Your first week, huh?” Timothy chuckled awkwardly. “And how do you… uh… like it so far?”

“I got stood up for my first contract and then I got scammed. How do you think I liked it?” she scowled.

“Oh, right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Right. Obviously.

“So, met any interesting people so far?” he continued when she didn’t say anything further.

“I took a contract with a guy who wanted to beat me to death,” Ixxy threw out casually, with only a slight quiver in her voice betraying the sudden tension in her gut at that memory.

Dammit, she was over it! Over it!

“That’s… fuck. That’s horrible,” Timothy muttered. “People really do that kind of sick stuff?”

Ixxy just shrugged. “He clearly wasn’t all right in the head. He hung himself right after.”

Another awkward silence wafted about the room. What did you even say to something like that?

Nevertheless, Timothy tried. “At least the weather’s been nice the last week or so. No rain, though the weather mages say we’ve got a storm coming.”

“Are you just making small-talk now?” Ixxy asked.

“Umm… maybe? Is that okay?”

Yes. “No.”

“Sorry. I’ll stop talking.”

After that, she stayed silent as Timothy worked. She did her best not to distract him, but every now and again she caught him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Eventually she couldn’t resist the temptation anymore.

The next time she caught him glancing back at her, she yawned, stretching out her arms above her head and intentionally letting her shirt ride up her tummy until her navel just about peeked out from under it.

Timothy, for his part, stared as if transfixed by the sight of her skin, completely forgetting to be furtive until she wrapped her arms behind her head and stared him right in the eyes, a questioning look on her face. She made no attempt to fix her shirt.

Realizing he got caught, Timothy immediately jerked his head back to staring at the contract in front of him, cheeks blushing bright red.

“Look, is my being here distracting you? Should I leave?” Ixxy asked, smiling.

“No! No, you’re fine! I mean, I’m fine! It’s fine!” he stammered awkwardly. Poor boy was so embarrassed at being caught staring at a literal Pleasure Devil. So cute.

Still, she needed him to focus.

“No it isn’t. I’m distracting you,” she sighed. “I’ll leave you to it and come back tomorrow, okay?”

Honestly, as much fun as it was to tease him, she really did need him to figure out a way to save her butt, and he kept distracting her from not distracting him.

“Wait!” he said, spinning around in his chair as she began scooting towards the foot of his bed. “Don’t go, please? It’s… it’s nice to have some company.”

Ixxy raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Then her gaze dropped to his lap and the tell-tale bulge there.

Well, that was certainly different from last time she was here.

“Is that so? Or do you just like the idea of a hot girl lying on your bed?” she grinned, nodding coyly towards the tent in his pants.

Timothy immediately clasped his hands over his lap to cover his groin’s sudden excitement. “I can’t help it! You’re really beautiful!” he exclaimed, glowing bright red in embarrassment.

Ixxy laughed at his awkwardness. “Oh don’t hide it, stud! It’s a much better reception than I got last time, despite wearing actual clothes this time.”

“I was stressed, okay!”

She put her finger to her lips thoughtfully, suddenly enjoying herself immensely. “Hmm, no, I don’t think that was it. I think it was the clothes. I should take them off. Then you’ll surely lose interest and be able to focus again, right?”

Timothy seemed unable to respond, frozen to the spot.

He stared in rapt, blushing silence. His eyes locked onto her fingers as she hooked them under the hem of her shirt and sloooowly teased it upwards across her smooth, flat tummy. Then, just as she reached the bottom of her ribs, she bent down, lowering her head until her eyes intersected Timothy’s hypnotized gaze.

“You suuuure that I’m not distracting you?” she purred.

Timothy nearly choked on his own saliva.

Ixxy burst out laughing as he choked and sputtered, rolling back onto the bed and kicking her legs with glee. She just couldn’t help herself. Messing with him was just too much fun. But seriously, she really needed him to focus.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” Ixxy giggled as she fixed her clothes. “And I’ll stay, but then you have to promise me you’re going to focus! I’m depending on you to find something. So no distractions, okay?”

After Timothy agreed, they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Time crawled by as her mind slowly drifted back to darker thoughts.

It was a sore point for her that in a week she’d been unable to get a single mortal to sleep with her. Not a single one. And the one guy she’d signed a contract with to do so she couldn’t afford to have sex with right now.

Was there something wrong with her? Had she screwed up something when she’d designed her look? She’d tried so hard to make herself absolutely perfect. She’d spent hours fussing over every single detail until there wasn’t a single hair out of place.

Nobody had said anything, so far, but at the same time, nobody had said anything!

She was sure she was better looking than Leez. She wasn’t being mean, but to her Leez looked way out of proportion. Way too curvy for her length. She’d been studying the beauty ratios of bust size to hip size to waist size to length and all the others that InferTec had been posting in their catalogues as they studied mortal-kind for years, and she was almost certain that Leez deviated somewhat. She could stand to slim down just a bit.

Then again, Leez was a shapeshifter, just like her. If she wanted to, slimming down would take her literally seconds. So why hadn’t she? Was there something she was missing?

“Technically, you’re allowed to take contracts that benefit the company, right?” Timothy suddenly asked.

“Yes?” she replied, sitting up. Was this it? Was he onto something? Had he made a breathrough?

“Well, interpreting that in a certain way, would taking any contract not be to the company’s benefit?” Timothy asked. “I mean, it would help you pay off your loan, which would benefit the company, right?”

Ixxy sighed and slumped back onto the bed. “No, you’re thinking about this like a mortal. Word games. It doesn’t work like that.”

“But, didn’t they used word-games to trap you in the first place?” he asked, confused, but Ixxy shook her head.

“They used a subject trap. Similar, but not the same. The intention of the clause was perfectly clear, all I missed was who exactly it applied to. There were no word games.

“I can’t just decide how I want to define certain words, I have to follow the spirit of the contract as well as the letter, at least to some extent. The intention of that clause, which is abundantly clear from context, is that they don’t want me making contracts with anyone else.

“While there might be some wiggle in there with regards to the identity of the company, whether it’s Marget or everyone involved with the company, there is no way I can wiggle it to mean the exact opposite of its intended function.”

“’Wiggle’?”

Ixxy laughed. “Oh, that’s what we call gaps in a contract. How much it can be twisted. The contract’s ‘wiggle’. A bit of devil slang, sorry. Forget I said anything.”

There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

“Does our contract have any ‘wiggle’?” Timothy carefully asked.

“Only that it doesn’t force me to tell the truth,” Ixxy grinned. “And that’s it.”

Another pause.

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you? There’s more than that.”

“Yep,” she replied grinning cheekily.

Then, Ixxy realized her mistake as he fixed her with a glare. Her grin faltered.

“I’m not lying about anything else, though! This contract’s real, I swear! And I really do need your help!” she begged.

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Ixxy groaned. Now she understood why InferTec strongly advised always asking summoners to put an honestly clause in their contracts. It wasn’t like being forced to tell the truth made it that much more difficult to lie, and mortals were so much easier to manipulate when they misunderstood the difference between ‘telling the truth’ and ‘being honest’.

She put on her most sincere face. “What can I do to prove to you that I’m being on the level here?” she asked.

For some reason, Timothy hesitated as his eyes flicked to her body again. He swallowed nervously.

“As long as our contract’s not completed, I’m always worried that there’s some part of it that I screwed up, that you’re going to use it to trick me somehow. So let’s f-finish our contract right here,” he said, his voice hitching from nervousness. “G-get it over with.”

Ixxy froze. “You want to have sex? Right now?”

Timothy nodded mutely.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Maybe her earlier stunt had pushed the little dweeb too far.

The runes in her head flared, and she felt a compulsion overriding her own will. Despite having no intention of moving, she felt her body slowly start to slide itself off the bed.

“Timothy, you have to tell me to stop,” she said, a slight note of panic in her voice. “I can’t afford to do this right now!”

It wasn’t that she was being forced into sex, exactly. She’d signed the contract after all, and truth be told, she was actually rather looking forward to it. It was just the timing that was absolute shit!

“What? Why?” he croaked, his throat suddenly dry.

Ixxy languidly climbed to her feet, her body still having a mind of its own, and her fingers hooked themselves under the hem of her shirt.

“Because if I finish the contract I have to go!” she exclaimed as she began lifting it up, the material slowly flowing upwards across her stomach.

“What?” he asked again, obviously distracted by the sight of her slow strip.

She wasn’t even sure he was listening. His eyes were glued to her hands as they slowly moved up her body, revealing more and more skin.

“TIMOTHY!” she shouted, jolting him out of his trance. He finally tore his eyes away from her body and glanced up at her face, only for her body to decide now was a good time to strip her shirt off entirely.

The fabric slipped over the soft swell of her breasts and across her face, and by the time she dropped it on the floor next to her and could see again, Timothy was staring unabashedly at her naked chest.

What the fuck? She’d sat entirely naked next to the little dweeb for twenty minutes while she’d read through his stupid contract and he’d barely paid attention to her. Now he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her long enough for his brain to function? What was wrong with mortals?

Her hands moved again, hooking her fingers over the top of her shorts. She wasn’t wearing any underwear there, either.

“TELL ME TO STOP!” she shouted again and this time he finally seemed to listen.

“Ok, ok, s-stop!” he stammered out just before Ixxy could yank her pants down.

She felt the compulsion immediately subside. Shaking with relief, she collapsed back onto the bed, arms clenched around her body. That had been too close.

“I… I’m sorry, what just happened?” Timothy asked, blinking in confusion.

“The contract. Our contract,” she said grimly. “You said you wanted to have sex, and I was compelled to obey.”

Timothy’s expression turned into a look of utter horror. “Compelled? You were being forced into… into…”

“Having sex. Yes,” Ixxy explained patiently. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. It was your damn contract.”

“But I didn’t mean to force you into doing something like that! I mean… I thought… I thought… if you don’t want…”

Oh dear. Now she’d scared him again.

“Calm down, calm down, you don’t have to be so melodramatic,” Ixxy spoke softly. “You’re not forcing me into anything I don’t want to do. If I didn’t want to sleep with you, I wouldn’t have signed the contract. Trust me, there’s nothing I want more than to sit on your face right now.”

“But…?”

“But now is not a good time.”

Ixxy sighed as she caught Timothy’s eyes dropping down to her chest for a moment.

“Alright, I’m going to put my shirt back on,” she said, picking it up off the floor. “I don’t mind you staring at my boobs, but I need you to focus right now.”

“Sorry,” Timothy stammered, red in the face as she slipped her top back over her head.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize. As I was saying, now is not a good time because if we complete our contract, then I can’t be here anymore.”

Timothy made a face like a puppy that had been kicked.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a contracting entity!” Ixxy exclaimed, exasperated. “I wouldn’t be able to ask you for help!”

“But, am I not a contracting entity right now?” Timothy replied, confused. “I mean, we have a contract and everything...”

Ixxy nodded her head. “Yes, and that’s the point. I can ask you for help because I’m exploiting a little loophole in the Grand Contract that basically says contracts can’t override each other. While the non-compete prevents me from dealing with any new contracting entities, it can’t stop me from dealing with current ones because that would be interfering with my pre-existing contract, see?”

“Ohh, and if we finish the contract, I’m no longer a pre-existing contract and the loophole no longer applies,” he finished with a groan. “So we can’t have sex.”

“Not right now. I just have to get out of this mess first, okay? Then believe me, I am going to be all over you in ways you can’t even imagine,” she said, giving him a wink.

Honestly, she couldn’t wait. As much as she’d freaked out a little when her body had started moving on its own, thinking back on it… it was kinda hot. She was definitely going to have to experiment with that one a bit in the future.

Timothy, however, took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, it just all sounds awfully convenient. How do I know any of what you said is true?” he asked. “That this isn’t some giant devilish scheme?”

Ixxy stared at him incredulously. “Oh come on! Haven’t we just been through this?”

“Yes, and you dodged the question by flashing me with your… uhm… chest,” he replied.

Giving him a flat look, Ixxy grabbed the bottom of her shirt and yanked it up to her neckline, giving him a full view of her firm, perfectly tear-drop shaped breasts.

“Can we move on now?” she asked tiredly, but Timothy closed his eyes and shook his head.

“No, dammit, that’s not going to work this time! I want an answer! How do I know you aren’t busy manipulating me?” he insisted.

“Obviously I’m manipulating you,” Ixxy replied, rolling her eyes and letting her shirt drop back down, “because I need you to help me. But every word I told you was the truth! Fuck, Timothy, what more do you want from me? I’m stuck in a fucking corner here, I have nowhere else to go. Do you want me to add a section to our contract that says I can’t lie to you?” she asked, flicking her wrist and letting a blank contract materialize in her hand. “Would that make you feel better?”

“Wait, you can do that?” Timothy asked, suddenly focused on the paper in her hand.

“Of course, I can, as long as you agree. Come on, you know how amendments work,” she replied, scoffing.

“No, I mean, can you add an amendment to our contract? Even with the non-compete clause from your contract with Mulder & Heath in effect?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be able to? This isn’t a new contract, it’s just tweaking ours. If you want to be technical about it, it falls under the same loophole in the Grand Contract.”

“And… and how flexible is this? I mean, what kind of stuff can you add?” Timothy asked again, now starting to get visibly excited.

“Pretty much anything we could have put in the original contract and that we both agree on, why? What are you getting at?” Ixxy asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Then could you add a completely separate contract as an addendum to this one? With its own client, terms and payment?”

Ixxy’s eyes widened as the realization hit her. She could take contracts. All she had to do was write them not as contracts on their own, but as amendments to Timothy’s contract! Of course, he’d have to agree, to each and every one individually, but…

“You could be my pimp,” she whispered, a mad grin on her face.

Timothy leapt to his feet, shaking his head. “What? No! I just meant you could use one of your existing contracts as a vessel to earn more souls…”

“Timothy, yours is my only outstanding contract!” Ixxy exclaimed. “And I can’t just use it, soliciting would be against the terms of the non-compete! But you could in my stead! You’re not in privity with Mulder & Heath!”

“In what, sorry?”

“In privity. It means that you didn’t sign a contract with them, so they can’t enforce anything on you. So while I can’t go looking for contracts, you can! You can find me enough that I can pay off my loan and add them as amendments to our contract! It’s perfect!”

Timothy raised his hands in front of him and took a step back. “Woah, woah, no way. I can’t go out there pimping you out! That’s… that’s just fucked up!”

No! She was so close! They’d finally figured out a way she could get out of her mess and now he was getting cold feet!

Well, maybe she was being unfair. She was asking him to do something that was quite difficult under the best of circumstances, and she had so far offered him nothing in return. It was only fair if she offered him some sort of payment for his services.

“What are you doing?” he asked as she slid down to her knees in front of him, hands clasped in front of her.

“Please, please, Timothy! I am begging you! This is my only way out! I’ll do anything for you in return! Please! Anything!”

“I… I don’t…”

“A year of sex!” Ixxy offered. “As much sex as you want for an entire year! Whenever, wherever, in any way you want it! For free!”

It wasn’t even that much of an imposition on her, truth be told. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to have sex. The biggest problem would be having to earn her souls in the gaps between his calls.

Timothy swallowed nervously, blushing bright red as he struggled to fit the idea of as much sex as he wanted for an entire year into his brain.

“And not just you! You want to gang-bang me with your friends? Done deal! You want to whore me out for payment? Perfectly fine!” she continued, crawling closer to him on her knees.

His blush deepened. “Ixxy, I…”

“Pet play, bondage, humiliation, golden showers, I don’t care! I’ll be your fucking slave! I’ll do absolutely anything you want for an entire year! I’ll even learn to fucking cook for you if that’s what you want! Please! Just do this for me!” she begged.

A single year of slavery was nothing compared to what she stood to lose if she got stuck in the Mulder & Heath contract. A year was just a year. A single blip in her immensely long lifespan. And the sex was a bonus.

The other contract was open ended. There was no telling how long that would trap her.

“Okay, s-stop!” he stammered, face like a tomato. “I’ll… I’ll figure something out for you, but then I want something in return! And… and I’m not sure you’ll be up for it.”

Ixxy blinked. Something she wouldn’t be up for? After she’d literally offered him her body, to use in any way he pleased for a whole year? What could possibly…?

Shit, was he going to want it for longer?

“Two years?” Ixxy suggested, hoping he’d settle for that and wincing when Timothy shook his head.

“What I want is… wait, you’d be my slave for two years?” Timothy asked.

Ixxy gently rested her hands on his hips. “Plus, if you sign, I’d be free to finish the first part of our contract. That means, I can blow your mind right now. Please. Please, Timothy.”

She stared up at him, wide eyed, lips parted, a look of pure desperation, pure need on her face.

Because she desperately needed him to accept something like this and not realize that she was so screwed that if he demanded her services for the rest of his natural fucking lifespan, she wouldn’t really have any choice but to accept because it would still be better than her current contract.

And that could mean almost a century of being stuck with him. Fun was fun, but she rather doubted he’d remain interesting for that long.

“That isn’t… ahhh… I mean…” he stammered uselessly as her fingers gently caressed his thighs through his robe.

“Please, Master, please tell me what it is that you want,” she mewled at him as seductively as she could.

Timothy took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “What I want,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly, “is…” He hesitated. “Wait, give me a moment to think how to word this.”

Dammit! What was it he wanted? Please be something reasonable…

“What I want… gosh, this is so awkward, maybe this is a bad idea…”

“Just tell me!” Ixxy insisted through gritted teeth, her hands clenched on his robe in anticipation.

“Okay, okay, fine, what I want…”

Yes?

“…is for the period of one year…”

YES?

“… you be… umm… my girlfriend.”

YES! Only a year and she’d be free! One year of…

Wait, did he say girlfriend?