- I was wondering if you had a spare minute for me, professor.
- Yes, Susie.
Alex answered mechanically. Her mind was elsewhere. Give me just a second, she managed to say with a feeble voice as her heart started beating faster again. She took the phone from her back pocket, the screen lit up and showed a bright red banner. Another one.
The countdown had already begun: she only had 2 minutes and 45 seconds if she wanted to keep this thing going. Or she could just ignore the notification. Ignore the last crazy hours. Ignore last night. Ignore the feelings that came up as she uploaded a video or a photo. Let go of all of it and go back to her ordinary life, to her ordinary self.
- Let's talk in my office.
Her office wasn't actually her own. It was a room she shared with another PhD student, and the anteroom to the study of professor Croft, her direct supervisor. It was on the first floor, near the elevator.
It took them two minutes to reach the door. Then, as she was taking her key from the pocket, Alex hesitated. Could she ignore the urge that was devouring her? That she had kept under control until the night before and now had been unleashed keeping her soul awake and vigilant? Was she ready to let go of something she had just begun to experience after she had spent years just imagining it? And if the answer to all those questions was "no, God, I can't let that happen" as her heart suggested, what was she willing to risk in return?
- Would you wait for me here for a minute, Susie? - she said to the girl turning the key inside the keyhole - I need to clear up my desk from some evaluation papers and I'll let you in.
Susie nodded quietly and took a seat next to the door.
Alex entered the office and closed the door behind her. Luckily enough the place was deserted. She quickly left everything she was carrying on her desk and as her life depended on it she took her cardigan and her top off. She was topless in her office. She hadn't even checked if she could somehow be seen from the windows. She had just the damn countdown in mind.
She unblocked her phone as fast as she could, clicked on Turnons notification, waited a second that felt a lot longer before the camera popped up on the screen and clicked away to shoot a photo.
As the picture was uploaded to her profile she noticed the flash dare permanent notification was still there. She opened it to discover the countdown was already over by the time the picture was taken. It just hadn't stopped when she clicked on it. The few seconds she still had by the time she reached her room were not enough.
*Your picture has been successfully uploaded on your Turnons profile!*
Alex wanted to cry.
She clicked on the new notification anyway and saw a glimpse of her scared face and a blurry image of her tits, in a familiar setting. She could easily recognize the room she was in and her face was somewhat on sight, at least that was her very first thought.
Taking a better look it was clear that only a small part of her face was visible and, along with the angle and the fuzziness of the picture, it was improbable that anyone could understand it was her and where the picture was taken. Not mentioning how remote was the chance that someone she knew could actually stumble across that pic. And yet they were all possibilities, remote maybe, but not impossible.
She was about to have a panic attack because of all the thoughts that crossed her mind in the last couple of minutes. She was a mess. And the message she got right in the middle of that crisis was just too much.
SubtleG: I'm sorry you failed, Nina. I was enjoying our game, but as I said I had to test you, and you couldn't keep up. I'm sure it's for the best. Don't worry you will have plenty of new chances to challenge yourself, I'm sure. G.
This time tears started falling from her eyes. She was angry and she felt stupid, and used, and helpless. And in that state of mind she wrote back.
Nina: No, please. Give me another chance. Just this time. I'm really motivated to go on, don't take this from me.
Alex didn't even know where that came from. Her hands were moving on their own accord when she composed the message. Maybe she was just being honest, true to herself, and that was what it felt like: no need to think about what she was writing, because it was true. Perhaps SubtleG somehow understood it.
SubtleG: Ok Nina. I'm willing to try. But this time I need a token of goodwill from you. You need to go to your privacy settings and allow Turnons users on your friends list to share your contents. I'm the only one on your list right now and I promise I won't abuse this power. I won't share a single pic or video. Unless you fail the next dare I'll give you. It's a matter of trust. You'll need to trust me and feel accountable for your actions and your words. You said you wanted a second chance: this is it. There won't be a third. Tell me now if you want to continue or stop.
Alex wasn't in the best emotional state to take that decision. She wasn't in the most appropriate situation to have that conversation. And quite honestly she wasn't in her right mind to understand any of that.
She wrote: I want to continue.
Her hands weren't shaking now as she clicked on her profile settings, found the option: "Allow users to share your media". She could now choose between:
