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.
