Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#73—'Stripping')
This one was written for the 2022 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister. Apologies for extreme lateness. My cat died in late 2022 and this piece failed to get written for a long time.
Victim: ProfAllister
Prompt: Several cast members are somewhere isolated (e.g., snowed-in cabin). Perhaps against their better judgment, they decide to play a strip game (e.g., strip poker). Halfway into the game, there's a knock on the door.
=====
Stripping
It was yet another Yamaku winter. The dorms were mostly empty at this time of year, and the roads had been closed because of frost. In some parts of the school, groups of students isolated themselves, for activities that perhaps were best done without the overt knowledge of the authorities—or of other students.
“This is a stupid game.”
“Well, when Kenji explained it to me, it sounded like fun.”
“Hisao, we’re playing a game that Kenji invented?”
“Sort of. Your turn.”
“More oil.”
Miki squinted, her posture awkward. Her tanned skin was beginning to glow, and though she wasn’t going to say it, it was rather exciting. She gave the long tube another half turn.
“Aaarhhh,” sighed Suzu. “How is it that life can’t be this relaxing all the time?”
Click. “Oooooh,” said Hisao, his voice trembling. “Almost there.”
“Y’know, I bet Kenji taught you this because blind people are really good at it once they get started. It’s hard to do it with only one proper hand, though. But since you people aren’t used to that, I have a clean —” Miki wiggled a furry pipe-cleaner suggestively and then gave a little gasp of satisfaction. “ — advantage, me.”
She turned to Hisao, who closed one eye and bent over to look at what her nicely lubed fingers were doing.
There was a knock on the door. Suzu, her concentration total and intense, let out a faint grunt, but her rhythm never faltered. Miki, no stranger to lawbreaking, closed her eyes, her lips showing the slightest shadow of frustration. Hisao, not the most reliable partner in any illegal act, groaned, “Coming!”
The door opened.
“Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear you mention differently-sighted people. Also, there’ve been intermittent and slightly irritating sounds.”
“Hello, Lilly!” Hisao said brightly, with an underlying frisson of indefinable guiltiness.
“What exactly is this game that Kenji has been teaching you? Do you think I’d be good at it?”
“Aaaaaaaaah,” moaned Suzu. “Yesssss!!” She ran her fingers along the instrument of destruction. “Sooooo good!”
Hisao looked up at Lilly, his eyes wandering down from her clear blue eyes to her long slim fingers. “It’s probably illegal, we had to borrow these things from Kenji and you’ve spoilt my timing anyway. I can teach you.”
The blonde girl wrinkled her nose slightly, but she held her hands out anyway. He grasped her wrists tenderly.
“Can you feel this knob? Before you use it, you have to check that this is empty and you have to make sure you’re safe…”
Lilly gasped at the sudden contact and what she felt in her delicate hands.
“Let me introduce you to the M16A1, and welcome to Kenji’s one-handed stripping and cleaning challenge.”
END
=====
alt index
