It was a day like any other in the sleepy little college town of Valley Bridge. A gentle breeze rustled through the pine trees and, while it wasn't quite warm yet, the morning sun promised a beautiful afternoon.
Lauren stirred in her bed. A freshman at Valley Bridge State, she was still in her first month away from home, and her dorm room showed it. Clothes were strewn about and empty beer cans adorned the windowsill and bookshelf, some with cigarettes crushed out in them, a reminder of last night's revelry. As Lauren sat up in bed, the sun bathed her white cotton tank top in a hazy glow, revealing the perfect, braless breasts beneath. She did a quick stretch, thrusting her impressive chest forward, and sprang out of bed towards the shower.
Lauren was eighteen years old and a total knockout. She stood just five feet tall, with light brown, shoulder length hair that she wore in pigtails. Everything about her was exquisitely feminine. She had striking hazel eyes, a delicate little upturned nose, immaculate skin, kissable ruby lips, slender thighs and a tight flat stomach. But Lauren's best feature was her superbly shaped ass. Lauren had wide hips for a woman so petite and the way her rear end filled out the back pockets of jeans drew stares wherever she went. Her ass always protruded invitingly, tight but bubbly and begging to be grabbed.
It was a Saturday morning, so Lauren didn't have anything to do except drink and party all over again. Maybe later she would hit the gym to work on her glutes. But first she needed breakfast. Lauren wasn't one of those girls who eats a banana for breakfast and then a salad for lunch. She had an appetite. And why not? She maintained a flawless figure and if she did carry an extra pound or two, it was only in her tits and ass. Besides, she was starving. She had been too busy dancing and drinking with her hallmates the night before to get dinner. After her shower, Lauren pulled her hair back in pigtails and hastily threw on an outfit — a pair of crushed velvet joggers, with a cute cinched waist and a ribbon belt, and a baby blue Valley Bridge State sweatshirt that was a little too short. There was just enough of the soft fabric to cover that healthy young rack, leaving a glimpse of her toned midriff exposed as she made her way towards the small dining hall on the south side of campus.
As she slid into the breakfast line, though, Lauren found herself losing her appetite. There was Paul, her roommate Jill's weird boyfriend, saving a place for her. Lauren found Paul unsettling and aloof. She didn't know Paul very well — or Jill, for that matter — because they spent almost all their time together in his suite. Paul was a junior and lived by himself in an upperclass residence. But on the rare occasions when Lauren had hung around with her roommate and Paul, Jill seemed a little off in his presence. She became fixated on Paul and would attend to his every need. She even took off his shoes for him when he entered the dorm. For his part, Paul never seemed to ask for that treatment. He acted oblivious to it and seldom even acknowledged Jill. Paul was a psychology major, as he was quick to let you know, and he always had his nose in a book. It wasn't a textbook. He had explained that he was studying it for his honors thesis on subliminal suggestion in advertising. The title was a mouthful: The Adept's Guide to Mesmery and Thralldom.
Sure enough, even in the breakfast line Paul had the book tucked under one arm, while he waved to Lauren with the other. Lauren said a casual hello as Paul ushered her ahead of him in the line. She could feel his hungry eyes boring into her plump posterior, but tried to ignore it. Lauren had a boyfriend back home and the last thing she needed was some creepy college dude ogling her. She decided that engaging Paul in some light conversation might get his eyes off her ass, so she asked the first thing that came to mind.
"So how's your thesis going, Paul?" She instantly regretted raising the topic. Why couldn't she have asked about anything other than that?
"Not so well, actually," Paul complained, his now eyes glued to the big tits poking out from Lauren's sweatshirt as they shuffled towards the omelette station. "I'm trying to prove that subliminal suggestion is an effective advertising tool, but so far my test subjects..."
"...aren't falling for it?" Lauren volunteered, finishing Paul's sentence for him. "I'm not surprised. I think nowadays people are more sophisticated and able to see through that old fashioned marketing pablum. We don't have to listen to what 'they' say. I never buy things just because an ad told me to." Lauren felt a twinge of satisfaction in taking Paul down a peg, which made his response all the more surprising.
"Actually, I have the opposite problem," he said calmly. "All of my test subjects have confirmed the power of subliminal suggestion. My technique is too effective. With a failure rate of zero, I can't form a proper control group to normalize the data."
Lauren only understood about half of Paul's jargon, but she suspected he was full of shit. She didn't have long to think about it, though, because Paul immediately followed up with an interesting question. "How would you like to make $100?"
Lauren hadn't even sat down with her breakfast and this weirdo — a cute weirdo, she had decided — was offering her $100? That might not seem like a lot of money to most people, but to a college freshman who had spent all of her meager summer earnings on a fake ID and cover charges at the clubs, $100 was a lot of beer money. Enough to make Lauren suspicious.
But in the next instant she found herself considering the offer. "By doing what?" she asked, as she took a seat at a secluded table in the corner and sank a fork into her eggs.
Paul saddled up across from Lauren and said matter-of-factly, "Be a test subject in my study. You'll be perfect. Ads don't work on you — you said it yourself. And it pays $100, to ensure that all participation is voluntary."
"But what do your test subjects have to do?" There was still a trace of skepticism in her tone, but Lauren was genuinely curious. She could do a lot with $100.
"It's simple. We go to the mall and walk around for half an hour, just window shopping. I will ask you a few questions about your tastes and preferences. After thirty minutes of poking around the mall, you get $100. You can spend it or not. The money is yours. Anything you may choose to buy will also be yours to keep. Whatever you decide to do will become an anonymous data module in my study. And if you're right that ads don't work on you, then I will finally have a proper data set to analyze and complete my thesis."
"So all I have to do is go the mall for half an hour and I can keep the $100? I already know I'm not going to spend it. You can't buy Bud Light at the mall," Lauren responded half-jokingly.
"That's it," Paul confirmed, beginning to sound indifferent.
It sounded too good to be true, but Lauren felt compelled to back up her boastfulness about being impervious to the influence of advertising. And she could really use that $100. She could buy a bus ticket to visit her boyfriend and still have enough left over for a few cases of brew. She resolved to go for it.
"Sounds like easy money. When do you want to get started?" Lauren asked, her enthusiasm building.
"The mall is open," Paul said blandly. "I can drive."
Paul hadn't touched his omelette and didn't wait for Lauren to finish eating. He just tucked his book under his arm and headed off briskly towards his car. Lauren practically had to break into a jog to keep up. It would be worth it, she told herself, when she was $100 richer. Only upperclassmen could park cars on campus, so the free ride itself was a nice little perk. Paul clicked a remote to unlock the doors of his cherry red Tesla. In her eagerness to check out the interior, Lauren opened the driver's side door, an awkward miscue she tried to smooth over by holding it open for Paul. She needn't have bothered. Paul stepped right past her and sat behind the wheel without a word or even glance. He's hot, but he's still weird, Lauren reminded herself as she got in on the other side.
With the windows down, and the wind blowing her pigtails straight back, Lauren was having a good time. She finally started to feel at ease with Paul. Looking over at him, she saw he was intensely focused on the road, although he did wave at the radio and say, "Play anything you like."
As someone brand new to the college scene, hanging out with an upperclassman — a very attractive guy at that — Lauren's first instinct was to find some indie station that wouldn't seem too obvious and lame. But Paul seemed indifferent to that stuff, so she just turned on a pop station and began loudly singing al E's ong as they sped towards the Shoppes on Valley Bridge Mall. Shoppes! Lauren scoffed to herself. It used to be just the mall; now they were putting on airs as high class "shoppes." And that use of "on" — could it be more pretentious? But as Paul pulled into the parking lot, Lauren became distracted by her favorite song on the radio. It was the new single from a pop star who went solo after rising to fame as part of a "girl group." Lauren knew every word.
Paul walked slightly behind Lauren on their way inside, the better to check out that dick-stiffening ass as it swayed back and forth. He didn't say anything until they arrived at the food court, at which point he ceremoniously drew forth a timer, set it to 30 minutes, and asked, "Which direction do you want to go?"
"It doesn't matter to me," Lauren answered. "There's nothing I need here."
"Do you want to go down that way?" Paul asked, ignoring her comment and pointing to the mall's south corridor.
"Sure," Lauren said, her thoughts returning to that sweet hundred bucks as she walked a bit uncertainly in that direction. As she passed store after store, Lauren had to stop occasionally so that Paul could poke his head inside one and explore. Strangely, though, the only shops — er, "shoppes," Lauren corrected herself — that interested Paul were for women. He stopped at a jewelry store, a fashion boutique with leather pants on display, a posh French purse store, a women's shoe store, and with about five minutes to go, Victoria's Secret. All the while, Paul interrogated Lauren about her likes and dislikes, her style preferences, what beauty products make her feel her best, and what turns her on. Lauren answered every question, but she was only half paying attention. There were so many cute little treasures to discover at the mall!
