Katy's Match-Three Mayhem: Week Two
This is a work of fiction written by and for adults. All characters depicted are of legal age and the use of 'girl' or 'boy' in the story does not indicate otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The content of this story was written by me, Dorling, and was previously published on another site. The premise for this story comes from a concept by duduvar. I think this is a little more confidently written than part one, but because these chapters were originally published in a serialized format with short updates, there's a moment where some of the counts end up off by one, and I elected to leave it as is rather than rewrite every subsequent chapter.
Sunday: A Quiet Day at Home?
In her room after breakfast, Katy opened Gem Ladies and the tutorial demon girl was there to greet her.
"Great job getting past level 30!" read her speech bubble. "Looks like you're ready to take on Punishment Challenges. I'll show you how they work."
The app led Katy to a new section of the Shop tab. "If you feel like you've got more rounds on your punishment clocks than you can handle, this is a great way to manage it. Basically, you take on extra punishments for one day, and in return all of them tick down faster."
A list of options appeared, with one highlighted. "If you upgrade Underwhere I to Underwhere II, I'll drop all your punishment clocks by two instead of just one for the next round you play." As usual in these tutorial segments, there didn't seem to be any way to proceed without selecting the highlighted option. Katy sighed and pulled off her panties.
"Sorry if this bit's a little confusing, but that punishment now has two timers. Once both the rounds and hours hit zero, the punishment disappears. They last 12 hours, but it only counts down when you're awake!"
The tutorial continued. "The base reward for taking on a punishment challenge is one round off your current punishments, but sometimes it'll be more. For example, there's some spicy synergy between Underwhere and Skirt Specialist, so I'll give you three countdown ticks to take it."
Once again, the app locked her into picking it. Katy's calf-length skirt was in the wash, so she'd have to wear her new one that only went down to her knees with no underwear. At least Katy didn't have anywhere to be today.
Katy cleared her daily levels without taking on any more punishments, and the effects she'd accumulated from the Challenges meant that Bare Down There was gone (although the hair didn't instantly grow back) and Underwhere was down to one round and 12 hours. Katy dressed and was prepared to spend as much of the day as possible in her room reading and playing games on her laptop when her mom called up to her from the kitchen.
"Katy, hon, I'm making banana bread and I didn't realize we were out of eggs. Could you run to the store, please? Oh, maybe some milk, too."
The winding streets of the suburb Katy lived in with her family were quiet, animated only by cool March wind. The wind raised goosebumps on Katy's legs and ruffled her skirt. She nervously smoothed it down.
Katy didn't drive; getting behind the wheel made her anxious. She would have to make it to the nearest convenience store on foot, about a ten-minute walk. A ten-minute walk with no underwear and the wind whipping up her skirt. Katy ended up spending most of her time with one hand on her thigh, pressing the light, floral skirt to her legs.
The first things she saw entering the convenience store were a bored-looking clerk at the counter and a live CCTV monitor meant to remind her that she was on camera. Windswept though she was, Katy's hair had fallen neatly back into place as soon as she'd entered. The eggs were on the bottom shelf of a glass-doored refrigerator, so Katy bent down at the knees, pressing the skirt tight to her legs and trying not to think about how odd her body language might be.
On the way home, Katy was less able to keep her skirt under control while carrying her bag of groceries, and the neighborhood was starting to wake up. People were getting started on tidying their lawns, walking dogs, jogging; all manner of things that put Katy in the view of other people. She felt the hem of her skirt flicking at her thighs and a breeze on her most intimate areas, but couldn't really tell how exposed the wind was making her. Katy reassured herself that it was a knee-length skirt, hardly likely to be pushed high enough by the wind to really expose anything.
A few minutes before Katy turned onto her home street, a strong gust of wind at her back sent Katy reflexively reaching for the rear of her skirt and looking around her. A cyclist whipped by on the street, and Katy saw him craning his neck to look at her before he returned his gaze to the road. As Katy picked up the pace towards home, she wondered what exactly he'd seen, whether he was a neighbour, whether he'd recognized her.
When she dropped off the groceries, Katy's mother thanked her and complimented her new skirt. Katy was able to spend most of the afternoon in her room, and when the family watched a movie together in the evening, Katy carefully draped a blanket over her legs.
Level: 36 || Gems: 7/13 || Energy 0/5
Punishments
Underwhere II: 1 round remaining
Skirt Specialist: Time's up!
Bonuses
Luscious Locks: 24 days remaining
Monday: The Best-Laid Plans
After a week on Gem Ladies, Katy felt like she had a better understanding of the app and how to deal with it. Particularly, she found that almost all the time she was taking punishments, they were coming from every tenth level, which were deliberately harder and seemingly designed to gatekeep larger rewards like Gem Limit increases and new features. If Katy was careful about when and where she played the game, especially the hard levels, she could keep progressing through the game with minimal exposure. Taking on extra punishments to erase an old one faster was far from ideal, but in a pinch she could manage it, especially now that she actually had the ability to choose which Punishment Challenges she took.
The plan for this morning, then, was to get to Level 40 but wait until the end of the day to actually attempt it, as that would minimize the time she spent dealing with whatever punishments getting through the level would put her under.
First, though, Katy spent some of her gems on a bonus called Spectacular Skin, which gave her clear, smooth, and soft skin for as long as it was active. Four gems bought her a full month of the bonus, and a quick check on her phone camera confirmed that the results looked pretty good.
When Katy was working through the morning's levels, she was annoyed to find herself failing Level 38 and presented with a set of punishments, some familiar and some relatively new.
- Clothing Restriction: Sheer Amazement I
- Transformation: Written Affirmations
- Compulsion: Public Player
As far as Katy could remember, she didn't own any sheer clothing, so the first option was out. Katy was also still averse to taking any punishments of the "compulsion" type, especially something that made her do whatever it would make her do in public. Despite the fact that picking a punishment when she was unsure of the effect had caused some unfortunate results in the past, Katy picked Written Affirmations. She immediately flipped over to the description, which read: "Whenever someone pays you a sincere compliment, it will appear on your skin as if written in permanent marker for 24 hours."
That honestly didn't sound terrible at all. Katy supposed that if she were to receive a whole bunch of compliments at once, she would end up covered in writing, which would look pretty odd, but it wasn't as if she sought out or received a ton of compliments on a day-to-day basis.
Chalking the loss up to bad luck, Katy tried the level again without taking the power-up and found that she was able to win. The loss meant that she wouldn't hit Level 40 today, but Katy's plan was still basically intact.
With no serious punishments to worry about, the day's classes breezed by. Katy talked with Lucia again towards the end of the day, and the other girl seemed pretty serious about continuing to exercise together. Katy was working a long shift the upcoming Saturday, so they made plans to meet after class Wednesday and Friday. It was nice to have plans, but that did mean Katy would have to be careful about which punishments she picked up this week, especially clothing restrictions. As awkward as it had been to work out with only a sports bra on top, it would be a lot more awkward to have to work out without one.
At dinner that evening, Katy briefly mentioned that she would be home a bit later a couple of days later in the week because she was going to the gym with a friend, and they seemed surprised but supportive. Later in the evening, Katy overheard them talking, and could tell it was about her. She listened in a little closer and heard her dad saying, "What did I tell you? She's a smart, charming girl. She just needed a bit more time to come back out of her shell."
At that moment, Katy felt a sensation just under her left collarbone, like an invisible hand was writing on her skin with a felt-tipped marker. The sensation itself was actually rather pleasant, but Katy still rushed to the bathroom and pulled at the neckline of her shirt to examine the results. "Smart, charming girl" was written in small, neat capital letters just under her left collarbone. Like the description had said, it looked like it was a message written with a permanent marker, or maybe like a simple black ink tattoo from a distance.
It raised a great deal of questions for Katy, though. Since it seemed the compliment only needed to be about her rather than said directly to her, did it matter whether she heard the compliment or not? This one was in an easily-covered spot, but where would other ones end up? If Katy wore pants and a turtleneck, she could cover up basically anything, so she supposed it didn't matter all that much.
Level: 40 || Gems: 7/13 || Energy: 0/5
Punishments
Written Affirmations: 8 rounds remaining
Bonuses
