Sabrina's dorm room was a pastel cocoon in the heart of a drab Midwestern state university. The walls shimmered with soft pinks, bathed in the glow of full-spectrum LED lights that cast playful shadows over boy band posters --
BTS
and
EXO
pinned up like guardians of her fragile world. Her twin bed sagged under a pile of floral blankets and plush pandas, her desk a mess of glitter pens, empty ramen cups, and a phone that never seemed to stop buzzing or making tones about social media likes and comments and subscriptions. At 18, Sabrina -- a short, shy American-born Chinese freshman with long, messy black hair and a delicate complexion -- was a social media addict, posting every pedestrian and mundane detail of her life. Her followers saw the
boba tea
runs, the late-night study sessions, the forced smiles -- but never the bullying. As the only non-white girl in her dorm, she endured it daily: the sneers, the racist taunts, the isolation. They lived in a state where lots of laws had been passed by men who had puritanical and antagonistic views toward women, and the guys in college seemed to pick up these attitudes pretty quickly. She hid the hurt behind her curated grid. And over time... it festered.
Tonight, she wasn't online. Insomnia had gnawed at her for weeks, her mind a tangle of anxiety and exhaustion, racing thoughts, audio and video clips replaying on loop. Her doctor had prescribed a new sleep aid, a tiny white pill she'd swallowed with a gulp of iced tea which was, admittedly, caffeinated. She rarely drank anything without the precious elixir in it. Sprawled across her bed in a loose tank top and panties, her hair spilling over the pillow, she felt the drug pull her under, warm and heavy, into a tranquil and blank abyss.
Unbeknownst to her, even unbeknownst to her lazy doctor, the medication had a rare side effect:
sexsomnia
.
It was a glitch that turned sleep into a gateway for unleashed desire. It was one of those "It's only happened to like 5 people so we don't have to list it on the paperwork" kinds of side effects.
Down the hall, Jacob -- a shy, burly nerd with a wide belly and a mop of tangled brown hair -- had dozed off in his cluttered room. His laptop glowed faintly, hentai flickering on the screen: exaggerated moans and jiggling cartoon flesh with orchestral scores and
complex narrative character-driven structure
.
His hand rested slack around his throbbing erection, boxer briefs shoved down, a boner pulsing from his anime-fueled haze. At 20, he was a junior, awkward and reclusive, his room a shrine of collectible Transformers and Gundam figures on a blue-and-purple LED screen, his only social life arguing on Discord and Reddit, and an ever-helpful Ring camera perched on his desk to protect his treasures on the wall. He'd seen Sabrina around -- her quiet beauty, her nervous fidgeting -- but he'd never spoken to her. He was lucky enough to see her duck into her room once, wearing a fluffy robe, wearing her clothes protectively underneath, as she returned from the communal showers, no doubt worried about a mishap.
