Vic took a brief glance around the library and confirmed that Kit was right – for the first time since his first day they found him were none of his friends were around. Not only that, but there was also nobody else really there except one student sitting in the opposite corner – even the making out couple took their exploits elsewhere.

So it was just him and Kit and Laine, just as they’d been angling all week. Laine was dressed in a floral pattern sun dress that ended high on her thigh, with two straps over her shoulders that seemed to barely hold on, her brown hair flowing over her clavicle and along the deep cut in her dress. Kit meanwhile was still in her usual school uniform, except that she was clearly not wearing a bra – an easily recognizable fact when her white button-down was held together by a single button hallway down her shirt, revealing both her belly and her upper chest, which was covered by the same freckles as her face.

“So how are you enjoying your first week at Dampgate?” Kit asked, moving her wavy shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair out of her face.

“It’s good, I guess,” Vic said, mostly just to be friendly.

“Only ‘good’?” Laine asked. “Sounds like maybe you’re doing it wrong.”

“Yeah,” Kit agreed, “School is great and everything, but you really shouldn’t forget to participate in any…” she smacked her lips at this, drawing Vic’s attention to the bright red lipstick that stood out against her pale freckled skin.

“Extracurriculars?” Vic asked, trying to smile but knowing it probably came off a little scared.

Kit laughed her somewhat shrill laugh and Laine smiled. “Extracurriculars, oh that’s a cute way of describing it.”

“So, you have a girlfriend yet? Judging by how desperately Marcia was trying to keep you away from us, I would say she’s gunning for it.”

“She really isn’t,” he choked out, but could have they been right? Why keep him away from the two girls she lovingly referred to as ‘vultures’? But beyond steering him clear of them, Marcia had yet to do anything else to show any kind of interest in him. “She’s not.”

“Okay, okay, no need to be so flustered,” Laine said, “You really do need to learn to relax. Here, let me help.”

The brunette in the sundress stepped behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He made the slightest attempt to rise but then she firmly pushed him down into the chair, and her fingers pressed into his muscles.

“I was right,” Laine said to Kit, “He’s completely tense.”

She was right, he could really feel Laine’s fingers finding all the tightness in his shoulders and upper back, her fingers soft but firm, digging into the knots.

“You really don’t have to –”

“Shh, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“You see what we’re saying though,” Kit said, arching her eyebrows into a pouty sympathetic face, “Too much studying is not good for you Vic.”

“I guess not,” Vic said, wincing a little at the massage but ultimately enjoying Laine’s skilled hands on him.

Vic couldn’t help but close his eyes a little, and when he would open them he would see Kit just standing there, watching them intently and biting her red-hot lip, her own body stretching subtly in ways that were not unlike a cat. He wondered if it had something to do with maybe her knowing Laine’s magic touch and wanting to experience it herself at the moment, and he considered that given how close these two were as far as students at Dampgate were concerned, that maybe their closeness ran deeper than what he’d been able to witness so far.

Laine worked so smoothly, slowly and subtly, that Vic hardly noticed when it happened, but her hands, with every pass over his shoulders, now reached lower, just about to his clavicle, until finally her long fingers made it under the collar of his shirt. There was an electrifying shock that went through Vic when he felt Laine’s fingers on his bare skin. He opened his eyes at the realization that this was quickly getting away from being a simple massage, and just saw Kit smiling at him coyly, knowing what Laine is doing.