In a surreal way, Cadence’s headlong rush down the stairs was almost nostalgic. For the briefest moment, she let herself imagine she was late for math class after losing track of time while making out with Shining.

Then students scrambled out of her way as she jumped the last four stairs to the ground floor, and her calves reminded her it had been more than a few years since her days on the track team.

"Principal Cadence!” Cadence spared a glance at her side, seeing a ponytailed girl keeping pace with her. “So glad I finally ran into you! Or the other way around."

She kept running for the basement. "Sour, I'm sorry, but this cannot wait."

"But—"

"I'm sure Dean Vehementi can help you with whatever you need."

Sour started flagging. Cadence hadn’t done competitive long jump in a while, but she did keep up with her morning jog. "But... she's...!"

A purple hand snapped out and grabbed Sour by the arm, wrenching her to a halt and making Cadence stop along with her. “We can discuss that privately, Miss Sweet.” Ira gave the principal a hard look. “Go.”

The objection to taking such actions against a student died in Cadence’s throat. She nodded and kept going. "So glad I learned how to run in heels," she muttered as she got to the basement access. “No one follow me or it’s detention through next year!”

She didn’t know if any of the students behind her were watching, or had even heard. Right now, she had more important things to worry about. Her feet pounded their way down, making the whole rickety staircase shake.

The dust filling the air made Cadence stagger and wheeze, forcing her to slow down. Her heart pounded in her ears as she continued onward, skin prickling as the adrenaline coursed through her system.

Now that she was going slow enough to appreciate details, what had just seemed neglected before felt menacing enough for a horror movie. Gloom barely alleviated by low-watt bulbs left plenty of cobweb-filled shadows for crazed slashers or horrid monsters. Being a desperate attractive woman moving as fast as she could didn't help.

Then she turned a corner and stopped in her tracks. Something stabbed through the darkness, more startling than any maniac's knife for being far more unexpected. Hot pink light shone out of the closed doorway into the sub-basement. As Cadence drew closer, she let her hand pass through the radiance. At first, she drew back in surprise at the literal heat, but another try found it to be sweltering, but not painful.

"That still can't be a good sign," she said to herself. She shucked off her jacket and unlocked the door.

Once she opened it, heat and light poured out, forcing Cadence to shade her eyes with a forearm while she adjusted. Once the spots faded, she made her way down into the torrid chamber.

The whole room was awash in pink. The generator itself shone with almost blinding intensity, the sigil glowing white-hot.

"Okay. Okay. I can deal with this," Cadence said to herself. "I don't know how, but I can figure it out." She moved to the laptop, opened it up, and saw the worst thing she could have imagined.

Username: acinch
Password:

"Oh. Oh, shit." Sweat started dripping down her brow, not just because of the heat. "Okay. Don't panic. Just think, what would Abacus pick?"

Password: Reputation

Invalid password

"Okay. So much for the obvious option." Cadence looked under the laptop, under the desk, anywhere she could for a convenient sticky note with so much as a hint about the password.

Nothing. She could say a lot of things about Abacus Cinch, but the woman took information security more seriously than the stereotypical old lady.

"Okay. Fine. Maybe I can guess it."

Password: noitatuper

Invalid password

Password: 12345

Invalid password

Password: CelestiaIsABitch

Invalid password
Too many failed logins. Locking system for 24 hours.

"What? No, no!" Cadence cried. She smacked the side of the computer, to no avail. "You can't do this. You can't... I..." She slumped to her knees, panting for breath in the stifling air. And she realized the heat coursing through her body wasn't entirely physical. "How… How can I be turned on at a time like this?" Her skin prickled, her nipples pressed against her bra, and her crotch felt like it was on extremely pleasurable fire. "This shouldn't—"

The sound of snapping thread interrupted her. Slowly, disbelievingly, Cadence looked down just in time to see another button shoot off of her blouse. She distantly registered it clattering against the floor. Most of her attention was spent watching her bust visibly swell.

"That's impossible." The heat and arousal combined to make Cadence’s head start to spin. Despite herself, she gave an almost drunken giggle. "I'm sitting next to a portal to Hell and I'm telling myself something's impossible." She winced as she registered her bra straps digging into her flesh. Without thinking about it, she reached back to undo the clasps.

The good news was that she didn't need to. The bad news was that the straps tore apart at that point, and the front of her blouse followed soon after, buttons scattering across the room.

"Oh wow..." Cadence shook her head. It was like the pink was getting inside, clouding her thoughts with pleasurable heat. But she had to get out of—

This time tearing cloth disrupted her train of thought. She looked down to see twin rips crawling up the sides of her skirt like one-way zippers, prompted by widening hips.

Cadence bit her lip. "Fuck, that's hot." Her hands went to the collar of her blouse and pulled, tearing apart fabric as flimsy as rice paper and letting her grapefruit-sized breasts spill out. She groped them as she envisioned herself as a living fertility idol, ludicrous proportions lavished with liquid worship as the meaty cocks of her supplicants—

She squeezed hard enough to leave bruises. Nails longer than she remembered dug into the plumping flesh, which only helped break her out of her stupor. "I've got to get out of here now."

Head swimming, Cadence staggered to her feet and almost immediately fell back down. A hand on the folding table holding the laptop steadied her as she looked down at her shoes. The sensible wedges had elongated into six-inch stilettos, what she could only think of as "fuck me" heels. Cadence swore that the things were growing even as she watched.

She sat back down on the concrete, tearing off the shoes with a growl. Then the sheer leggings she didn't remember putting on that morning. Then the remains of her blouse, so she could finally get back to her attention-demanding breasts. Then—

Even as Cadence tore off her skirt, she realized she'd fallen into the trap again. "Damn!" She shifted forward again to stand up... and gasped as her lower lips ground against a body-warm surface that was perfectly textured for just that purpose.

Cadence found herself grinding against the floor a few more times, a length of concrete rising to meet her like she was giving the room itself an erection. She grinned at the idea. So sexy that she could arouse buildings. Imagine what she could do to—

She bit the inside of her mouth, which ended up muffling the moan that came from mixing pain and pleasure. Still, it broke her rhythm enough to get her moving for the stairs. She moved at a literal crawl, but it was still forward progress. Her panties caught on a rough patch of the concrete dick, tearing and turning into a damp cotton loincloth, but she put that out of mind. All that mattered was getting out of here before she never wanted to leave.

Sweat dripped down every inch of Cadence's body, along with other fluids. She panted with every breath, a feverish heat consuming her. The stairs felt like they were a mile away, her own hair forming an impenetrable veil that kept her from seeing how far she'd come.

At some point, between her drooping stance and growing breasts, her nipples started brushing against the floor. Each moment of contact lasted longer and felt better than the last. After a few brief eternities, Cadence started pressing her chest against the textured surface as she moved, savoring every bump until the one between her head and the foot of the stairs.

"Mmm..." Cadence screwed up her face as the pain outweighed the pleasure. She gasped and grabbed at the stairs, desperately pulling herself up out of the pit one step at a time, eyes fixed on the doorway that seemed impossibly far away. The pink glow of the generator flickered through the banister's support beams like a maddening strobe light in her peripheral vision. She panted with both mental and physical exertion, hauling more mass and resisting more temptation with every inch.

Halfway to escape, Cadence felt something plunge into her soaking depths. It took her a few moments to realize it was her own left hand. Still, she kept going, hauling herself up one-handed and wondering if she could really hear herself sizzle in the choking heat.

Eventually she flopped out onto the floor of the main basement, panting for breath and still shlicking away. She rolled away from the beam of pink light, feeling dust and grime adhere to her sweat-soaked form. Awareness fading, she hooked a foot behind the wide-open door and kicked it back, leaving her in the cool darkness.

Only then did Cadence allow herself to reach a frenzied climax, fingers freely pinching and pumping.

And the door, not quite closed, creaked open ever so slightly.

Drama class was not an easy A at Crystal Prep, and anyone who thought otherwise left in tears after Mrs. Limelight tore into them with all the fury of a theater critic scorned. Students weren’t just expected to perform the assigned plays, but direct them and understand them inside and out.

"How can you think of rewriting a romantic classic?"

Not for the first time, Sunny Flare wondered how any of her classmates had made it this far into the year. "It's Roameo and Julienne, Crystal. It's literally two hormone-fueled, infatuated idiots committing suicide because he never learned how to check a pulse. We may be creating a kinder, friendlier Crystal Prep, but that doesn't mean I'm putting up with plot contrivances just because Spear Shaker wrote them."

The girl shook her head. If it hadn’t been for her ponytail and the lack of pink streaks in her hair, it would have almost been like looking in a much less dignified mirror. "But—"

Much less dignified, since Sunny knew her weak spot. "Also, you get to make out with Pokey Pierce in this version."

Crystal’s gaze immediately darted to the boy in question, pacing about one of the lines of seats in the auxiliary theater and rehearsing lines for their project. Sunny wasn’t sure what he was doing, but she had to admit, he’d bulked up nicely over the past few weeks. For people into that sort of thing, anyway. The open collared shirt going halfway down his chest certainly didn’t hurt.

Crystal licked her lips and said, "I mean, 'timelessness' as a concept is really just an excuse to stop innovating. Even the greatest works need a little revision to stay relevant, right?"

"Couldn't agree more," Sunny said with a nod. “So, Roameo will have his soliloquy go on a bit longer, he’ll swear to bear Julienne’s memory forever in his heart, pledge his life to mending the rift between the two houses, you know, stuff he’ll forget about in two weeks when he sees another pretty face.”

“You have no romance in your soul, you know that?” Crystal frowned and tugged at where her uniform collar would have been. She blinked and looked down at the expanse of cyan skin glistening with sweat above her bandeau top. “And there’s no ventilation in this room.”

Sunny fanned herself. Her own off-the-shoulder dress was stylish, daringly cut with a slit running up her left leg, and about ten more minutes away from being ruined by her own sweat. “Yeah, no kidding. So, Nurse comes in, tells him the good news, Julienne revives, and—”

“They’re screwing each other on stage?”

That got a blink. “That’s… a bit more explicit than what I had in mind.”

Crystal shook her head, not looking away from whatever spectacle had captured her attention. “No, right now, on stage.”

Sunny looked. It did take her a few moments to confirm what was happening. Upper Crust and Jet Set had always been close, but grinding on one another the way they were was new. “They are wearing leotards.” Ones that nearly matched their respective skin tones, but still.

“Yeah, but they’re doing their best to go through them.”

After lingering on Jet’s crotch more than a professional ought to, Sunny cleared her throat and said, “More proof that interpretive dance is a lower class of performance than theatre.” She’d have turned up her nose, but the dancers had been holding that kiss for a good twenty seconds now and she didn’t want to miss seeing them finally come up for air.

“Uh huh.” Crystal sat in one of the front row seats.

Sunny followed suit even as she said, “We do need to work on this scene.” But all the same, she kept an eye on both of them. She could’ve sworn she saw some tears in the suits, but the color matched their skin so closely that she had to watch carefully to be sure.

“We were going to rehearse after class anyway.”

The two finally broke away, Upper somersaulting to put them into a standing sixty-nine. Sunny glanced about the room. Everyone was watching the performance, even Mrs. Limelight. “Well,” she decided, “we might as well scope out the competition.”

Sugarcoat prided herself on… well, with the benefit of hindsight, she could say she’d prided herself on more things than she probably should’ve. But she still took pride in her observational skills. It was hard to point out flaws and salient points if you couldn’t pay attention to the world around you.

She didn’t see what caused the change, but the shift itself was easy to spot. The frustrated undertone faded from Mr. Function’s lecture, leaving him discussing the powers of i as serenely as Happy Accident talking his audience through a landscape.

“And once we hit five, well, that’s just one times i. So we loop back around and the cycle repeats, on and on.” Mr. Function offered the class a smile that spoke of either cosmic serenity or chemical abuse. “Isn’t that wonderful, class?”

Sugarcoat looked around the room. As had often been the case lately, the rest of the class seemed more interested in undressing each other with their eyes than imaginary numbers. A few were taking matters into their own hands, pulling clothing up or down and failing to do it surreptitiously.

She looked back to Mr. Function. His expression hadn’t shifted one bit. Indeed, he seemed content to stand there for the rest of the day. Sugarcoat wasn’t sure what mathematical beauty had transfixed him, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the classroom.

“... Yes?” she hazarded.

“Yes.” Mr. Function nodded and turned back to the whiteboard. “Yes it is.” He began writing out equations far more advanced than what they’d been working on, humming some oddly modulated pattern of notes that wasn’t quite music.

Sugarcoat tugged at her blouse. There wasn’t much of it, but she could swear it was getting warmer in the room. And there was some faint scent that she couldn’t place, something that brought to mind nights with Lemon Zest for no reason she could think of.

A pair of booty shorts landing on her head might have distracted lesser minds. Sugarcoat recorded her observations with the rest of her class notes before balling up the shorts and tossing them back at their green-on-green owner.

“Hey!” cried Cold Forecast.

“There are other people in the room. Remember that next time you decide to do a striptea—” A spaghetti-string tank top smacked into the side of Sugarcoat’s head. She felt an eyelid twitch. “Are we seriously doing this?”

Neon Lights whooped and whipped off his shirt. “Strip fight!”

“So that’s a yes.”

And Mr. Function continued to work, oblivious and enraptured by passion for the subject.

All things considered, Shining felt that the M.A.R.E. course was a success thus far. Oh, no one would be able to tell for sure until one of his students was actually faced with a temptation to the Dark Side, but he was cobbling together a curriculum from pop culture and a handful of real-world cases. Even having classes was a positive sign. That students were paying attention to him and not each other was another achievement; he remembered what he and Cadence had been like at that age.

Oh, sure, having to scramble to cover the material on his own wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t the first time he’d had to improvise with little preparation, as his college O&O buddies could attest.

"Based on every real-life example we have,” he said, carefully not mentioning how many that was, “magic appeals to your innermost desires. Whether that's power, knowledge, adoration, it goes after what you want most and offers an easy way to get it. But there's always a cost: Perspective, morality, sanity..." Shining frowned and tugged at his collar.

"Are you okay, Mr. Armor?" asked one of the girls in the front row. To Shining’s embarrassment, he was still learning names.

"Just getting warm in here."

The pale yellow girl smiled, one hand idly toying with her two-tone red ponytail. "You're in a full suit, sir, and it is June. I don't think anyone will mind if you take something off."

After a moment’s consideration, especially of the class’s enviably lighter outfits, Shining nodded and loosened his tie. "Yeah. Guess I wanted to look professional. This is serious, everyone, but I still feel silly standing up here and talking about magic of all things."

The students started removing clothes as well. Shining couldn’t blame them. It had been getting warmer since the start of the period, and the summer sun beaming in through sealed windows didn’t help. "A lot of us were at the Friendship Games, Mr. Armor,” said the girl who’d made the offer. “We know it's serious."

Shining smiled, especially when many of the other kids nodded. "Right. Thanks, everyone." He blinked, shaking his head as he took off his jacket. "Where was I?"

"How magic changes people," one of the boys in the back said through his shirt as he shucked it off.

Another girl added, "Their bodies."

"Right.” Shining closed the blinds, then went to the laptop on the desk, connected to the overhead projector. “I have some slides ready for that. Most of these are artists' interpretations based on shaky cell phone photos, but I think they get the point across." He clicked to a new slide every few seconds as he kept trying to get comfortable. There was a definite theme of wings, boots, and a blatant disregard for the laws of gravity and aerodynamics.

Also, he had to admit, bodies that didn’t look teenaged any more. To gather enough material for the course, Shining had had to dust off bookmarks that had been left untouched since he and Cadence had started getting serious. Muscle memory from lonely college nights had him removing clothing while barely aware of doing so. It joined the other faint whispers of fabric hitting the floor as everyone silently took in the images.

Even the live photos showed why Shining could count on Rule 34 of the Internet to provide visual aids. Seductive stares, the allure of power, painted-on outfits… The artists had barely needed to do anything.

Shining’s eyes bugged out as he realized he’d lingered on one traced and edited shot of Midnight Sparkle and Daydream Shimmer, leaving both completely nude as they raced towards one another. He bolted up, trying to ignore his pants falling to his ankles as his undone belt flapped about. Along with something else. “S-so! Any questions?”

"Is there a reason magic changes outfits?" asked one girl, who seemed to be scratching an itch on her chest with one hand. With the shades drawn—not that it did much against the heat—it was hard to tell.

Shining made up something that sounded reasonable with all the skill of an experienced Oubliette Overseer. "It's like I said. Magic seems to go after base desires. And one of the most basic is reproduction. Looking attractive for possible mates. Every imperfection glossed over. Every asset enhanced.” His gaze panned across the classroom and saw many of the students following suit. A lot of scratching going on. And a few hand gestures that he definitely couldn’t have gotten away with back in his day.

But darn it, Shining wanted to be one of the cool teachers. “Part of the danger with magic is it promising everything and taking more. It looks too good to be true, because it is." He went to the next slide, sighed, and went to the one after that. "Especially when it's my little sister."

Oddly breathy laughter answered him.

Indigo Zap didn’t mind an early morning gym class. If anything, getting a chance to get moving followed by a brisk shower woke her up better than coffee ever could. But this morning it felt like there was some bit of fog her mind couldn’t quite break through.

She turned to the girl next to her. “Uh, Lightning?”

"What is it, loser?" Lightning Dust didn’t look away from rinsing herself off.

Indigo scowled. "You're really not letting that go, are you?"

Lightning, icon of Crystal Prep respectability that she was, flipped the very respectable and reputable bird at Indigo. "I'm not talking about the Friendship Games. I beat you in the relay today."

"Oh, is that how it is?"

"Hey, step up next time and maybe you'll get to call me 'loser.'” Lightning snorted. “And then we can ride flying pigs to magic horse land."

Indigo flipped her off. "Screw you."

"You wanna do it yourself, or did you have someone in mind?" Lightning waved a hand towards the far wall of the showers. Two girls knelt on waterproof cushions, bobbing their heads up and down. A third had pressed her crotch against the wall, whimpering in pleasure as her legs shook. Two cushions were free, sitting before holes wide enough to let a baseball through the thin wall. Chatter and spattering water from the boys’ side filtered through.

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to bring up.” Indigo tilted her head as she took it in, trying to remember if she remembered it. “Does that seem... off to you?”

“What, guys trying to stick their dicks in anything that’ll fit?” Lightning shoulder-checked her as she strode to one of the vacant cushions. “Come on, let’s see if you can win this race.”

The prospect of competition drove any other concerns out of Indigo’s mind. “Oh, you’re so on.”

There was no reason to race to cushions that weren’t even on the other side of the room, but they did anyway, because competing only when there was a point missed the point of competition. The two fit in more shoving, insults, nipple pinches, and ass slaps in a dozen steps than seemed possible. The kiss was fleeting enough that they agreed to ignore it without saying a word.

Indigo made it to the closer one by sliding across the slick tile on her knees. It’d sting, but that was the price of victory. From there, it was a matter of knocking on the wall like she’d done… No, yeah, she’d definitely done this before.

“So, um…” Lightning fidgeted next to her. “You know, I think I kind of understand what—”

“Hold that thought,” Indigo said as a tawny brown dick presented itself, nearly hitting her in the nose in its eagerness. She spared a smirk at Lightning before taking the head in her mouth. Thankfully, there wasn’t any bitter soap clinging to it. Always nice to see a little courtesy. Or taste it.

“Oh, you’re not winning that easy!” Wet squelching sounded from Lightning, soon followed by gagging and pulling away to cough.

Indigo just smirked and continued to bob her lips along her mystery partner. Typical Lightning. All sprinting, no stamina. She had this one in the bag.

A sudden finger in her snatch made her freeze and squeak. “Mmph?”

From the other side of the wall, a voice moaned, “Oh yeah, talk to me, baby.”

Indigo pulled away, recognizing the voice and immediately annoyed by it. “This isn’t a date, Thunderbolt!” She glared at Lightning next. “What the hell?”

The other girl just stuck out her tongue, one hand running along the bright pink length of her partner while the other was teasing Indigo’s clit. “Hey, any edge you can get, right?”

“If that’s the way you want to play it…” Indigo took Thunderbolt’s cock back in her mouth, returned the favor for Lightning, and used her free hand to massage her own breast while she was at it. No one could multitask like a Shadowbolt, and she’d prove it.

It was a good thing the coaches had sent them to the showers half an hour before the end of the period.

“Alright, Miss Sweet. Let’s talk.”

Sour blinked. Last she’d checked, she’d been chasing after the freakishly fast principal when the very woman she’d been worried about had popped out of nowhere and grabbed her by the wrist. And now, without any time in between, she was in Cadence’s old office.

The shape of the room was the same, anyway. All the plushies and therapy puppets and posters on loving yourself had been replaced by suggestive sculptures, deep shadows, and posters of people, well, loving themselves. And each other.

Dean Vehementi offered a thin smile. “I’d like to think that you’re mature enough that we can settle our differences without dragging Principal Amore into it.” She might have even sounded believable if she didn’t still have that strange overlapping effect, an emaciated horror and living fertility idol laid over the prim and proper glorified secretary. The only consistent feature between the three of her was the wild, frizzed-out hair.

It wasn’t the strangest thing Sour had ever seen, though the shade of purple did bring Midnight Sparkle to mind. She kept the shudder internal and presented her best doe eyes. “I don’t want to bother the principal either, Dean Vehementi, but I’m used to working with her. No offense, I’m just getting comfortable with you.”

“I understand. Frankly, I’m still growing into this position myself.”

Yeah, I bet. Sour bit her lip to keep the thought to herself. Sugarcoat had long since taught her the importance of tact by counterexample. But she couldn’t help but glance at the immense, translucent boobs that threatened to spill out onto the desk, restrained by a single button of fetish gear masquerading as a pantsuit.

“But I assure you,” the dean continued, “I am more than willing to lend a sympathetic ear to any difficulties you may be having, with me or otherwise.”

Sour squirmed. The room felt a lot stuffier than during her talks with Cadence. Even without trying to think her way out of this mess, she could barely breathe. “W-well, that’s really nice of you, but I think it can wait until after class.” Or for the rest of our lives.

Dean Vehementi smirked. “Miss Sweet, I am the dean of students. I can sign you out of however many classes it will take.” She reached into the desk, produced a pad of double-wide sticky note leaves of absence, and started filling one out.

All the friendship lessons in the world couldn’t hold Sour’s tongue. “Okay, how can you see that through those beach balls on your chest?” She covered her mouth, flush with embarrassment—probably just embarrassment—but it was too late.

The dean’s pen stopped midletter. “Ah. I see.” She looked up, one eyebrow raised. “As do you.”

“Th-that slipped out.” Sour tried for her best brainless giggle. What came out was more accurately described as hysterical. “You know me, crazy Sour Sweet!”

“I have kept an eye on your schizophreniform symptoms since they emerged last year, at the request of both Ms. Cinch and Principal Amore.” Dean Vehementi rose from her seat and walked behind Sour, the exaggerated proportions seeming more solid now. More real. “I should have realized after the incident at the Friendship Games that they could have hinted at something more.”

“Look. It’s nothing. Really.” Sour’s eyes darted, but despite all her efforts, she couldn’t get herself to get out of the chair. She fought to at least keep her breathing and bladder under control. Rubbing her thighs together was just part of that. Never mind how she could feel more and more of the chair without fabric in the way. “Can I go?”

“Not until we resolve this, for both our sakes.” The dean loomed behind Sour, who couldn’t even turn her head. She felt fingers hook under the spaghetti straps of her top and tug, snapping them effortlessly. Just feeling fabric brush against her nipples—had she ever put on a bra this morning?—was enough to make her gasp. “You poor thing. You don’t even realize what you are.”

Sour licked her dry lips. Her hands reached up to tug down her top, and she wasn’t sure if she’d told them to or not. The air caressed her bare breasts with feather-soft touches. “I-increasingly concerned?” she forced out.

“And a seer.” Purple flesh intruded on Sour’s peripheral vision. The immense boobs were all too real, their weight pressing on her shoulders and the smell of sweat and some unknown perfume making her head swim. “Skew a mind a few degrees from conventional reality, give it some magic, and it will perceive all manner of things.”

“I… I…” Sour shook her head, a difficult task while pressed between Dean Vehementi’s breasts. “No. This isn’t happening. I’m probably drooling in some rubber room somewhere. Have been since the FriendshiiIIII!”

The chair vanished, or maybe had never been there in the first place. Sour fell into the dean’s voluminous lap. On the one hand, that got her head out of the mammary vice. On the other, ticklish brushing against her hips and a glance down told her her shorts had unravelled into a pile of threads. One that did nothing to protect her against long, purple fingers rubbing against her outer lips.

“I assure you, Miss Sweet, this is all really happening. But I can’t have you giving the game away just yet.” The dean sounded almost regretful as she began to roll one of Sour’s nipples between her fingers. “So we’ll have to give you a few small adjustments for the time being.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

That prompted a warm chuckle that made Sour open her legs a little wider. “Yes, dear. That’s the idea.”

Sour found her neck free to turn just as the dean leaned down. There was no sign of the skeletal monster or the unflappable office lady. Just pure sex on legs. And the smell of the breast dangling in front of her, nipple like a grape hanging plump and enticing…

She latched on and began to suckle. The fingers pulled away from her groin, making her whimper around her mouthful, but something thicker replaced them, making her skin tingle where it touched. A brief glance showed a tendril of glowing pink slowly thrusting into her. Sour moaned, pulling off of the breast with a pop as pleasure coursed along her every nerve.

“Now,” said the most beautiful voice in the world, “here’s what you think of me…”

If it had been up to Cadence, she would’ve waited until the end of the day to come back out of the basement. For one thing, she felt exhausted from the struggle to claw her way out of the generator room and could use the recovery time. For another, she didn’t have a stitch on her other than her blazer. The new clothing policy wasn’t quite that casual. Not that her outfit would’ve fit her newly porn-worthy measurements. And she didn’t look forward to explaining those, either…

But she had a duty to her students, and trying to take a sick day still left the question of how she’d get home without getting arrested. So, as per the advice of generations of Crystal Prep gym teachers, Cadence walked it off as best she could.

She tried to close the door to the sub-basement, but she found she’d broken the latch in her scramble back up… somehow. She pressed it as shut as it would go, looked at the literally hot pink still streaming through the cracks, and decided it was as good as it could be.

It was still first period when she emerged, so the hallways were all but barren. Cadence couldn’t deny a certain thrill in racing through the halls wearing nothing but a jacket she couldn’t hope to close over her pendulous chest. After a few moments of fruitless struggle with her arms, she sighed and let them drop. There was no point in trying to cover up, so that left owning it. If Cinch had taught her anything worthwhile, it was that a good chunk of unquestionable authority lay in acting like you knew what you were doing.

Thus, Cadence strode confidently through the halls despite the tingling along every inch of her exposed skin. Let the students see her. This was fine. Nothing unusual here. Perfectly normal.

That self-assurance soon developed into a mental chant. This is normal. This is normal. This is normal.

A few times, motion in the corner of her eye proved to be something harmless: A loose flyer, a food wrapper that had missed a wastebasket, a discarded skirt that was sadly much too small for her.

Then Cadence heard someone on the second floor landing while halfway up the stairs.

This is normal, this is normal, this is normal…

She forced herself to keep a steady pace, thoughts of Shining alone and unprepared spurring her on. Her fists clenched into a white-knuckle grip as she prepared her best dismissive tone for the inevitable questions.

Thisisnormal, thisisnormal, thisisnormal

“Morning, Principal Cadence.”

Cadence risked looking at the boy. He smiled back, maintaining eye contact with no apparent struggle to look any lower.

As he should, much as Cadence didn’t need to make note of his bare, toned chest. After all, everything was perfectly normal.

She smiled back. “Good morning. I’m afraid I’m running a little late, but I hope you have a good day.”

He waved and went downstairs, a flattering tent in his shorts. “Thanks. You too!”

Cadence basked in the warm glow of the little victory. Students would’ve never dared to greet Cinch like that before the Games. Whatever she’d been worrying about on her way upstairs fell out of mind as she strode into the sex ed classroom.

Seeing everyone naked made her smile. She wouldn’t have to imagine it to fight off any lingering nerves. Plus, the mood was clearly set for the subject matter. The video of three young women keeping several men very entertained helped there. Cadence made a mental note to try to contact them. The yellow one with hair like an orange cloud, handily managing four cocks at once and smiling like a virtuoso mid-performance, could provide three weeks of guest lectures on her own.

She waited for the money shot before interrupting. “Sorry, everyone. Had some administrivia to deal with. Where are we?”

“Well, we’ve got less than ten minutes left,” said Shining. He rose from his chair, already risen in other ways. “I’ve covered the introductory M.A.R.E. material and fielded some more questions about intimate relationships.” He nodded at the paused image of the three young women, the blue and purple in the middle of licking each other’s faces clean while the yellow was in the middle of guiding one of the men to following suit with her crotch. “We found some overlap there.”

Cadence beamed. “Perfect.” She wrapped one arm around Shining, brought the other to his crotch, and gave him the best thank you her lips and fingers could.

Coos and whistles from the students brought her attention back to them. Inspiration struck, and Cadence’s smile took on a more puckish slant. “Now, for homework, let’s see how well you can apply some of what you’ve been learning. By Monday, you can either write a three-page essay on how you’d approach a potential significant other… or you can tell me about a date you had over the weekend.” She nodded at the projector screen. “Video footage is optional but encouraged.”

She glanced at the clock. It was close enough to the bell. “You’re all dismissed.” As the students pulled the thin strips of their outfits back on, Cadence looked back at Shining with a full-on smirk. Hand still on his dick, she guided him to the desk and bent over it. “I need to confer with my co-instructor for a bit.”

Lunch was unusually subdued for the five girls, all of them lost in their own worlds, physically present but mentally elsewhere.

It took ten minutes for Sunny to break the silence. “How come you were late to second period, Sour?”

“Well, first period…” Sour wavered in her seat, then brought a hand to her head. “Ugh. First period, am I right, girls?”

Most of the others nodded.

“It was very irritating,” said Sugarcoat. She scowled. “I’ve apparently chosen to block out the specifics, but I definitely left math more aggravated than usual.”

“Lightning and I agreed to start the score over from scratch.” Indigo shrugged. “We, uh, kind of lost count.”

“You two, really?” said Sour.

“We were…” Indigo furrowed her brow. “Um. Well, something came up. Pretty sure.”

“No one seemed to focus in drama.” Sunny sighed and tilted her head back. “Myself included. Not sure what the problem was. Maybe it’s the heating going on the fritz.” She fanned herself for what felt like the millionth time that day. At least her dress only went down to her calves. “It’s June, for goodness sake.”

“Don’t tell me,” Sour said, turning to Lemon. “You slept like a baby and didn’t even notice anything off this morning.”

That got a shrug. “My first period’s band. Even if Mr. Pizzicato let me get away with falling asleep, you try dozing off when you’re on timpani.”

Sugarcoat hummed to herself. “So nothing unusual for you?”

“I was super horny, but I’m always turned on when I hit stuff with sticks.” Lemon shrugged, nipples clearly erect behind her waist-length band T-shirt. Sunny wasn’t sure if she was wearing any underwear and knew better than to ask questions she didn’t want answered.

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide a smirk. “Charming.”

“Hey, you got your turn-ons, I got mine. And the principal’s got hers.” Lemon turned and leered. “How’s sex ed, Sunny?”

She didn’t give Lemon the satisfaction of rising to that bait. “I have to hand it to Principal Cadence. She’s really come into her own, both as a teacher and as an administrator. I almost envy next year’s freshmen. Imagine four years at Crystal Prep spent completely free of Cinch.”

A cell phone buzzed, disrupting the Mareibbean tranquility of the resort. Abacus sighed, looked up from her paperback, and took the call. “Yes, Cadenza?”

"Ms. Cinch? I, well..."

"You've botched something, I'm sure.” Abacus sighed and leaned back in her deck chair, staring up at the perfect cerulean sky through her sunglasses. “You know, I kept paying for this service plan specifically because I knew this day would come."

"I know you have every right to be upset—"

"Indeed I do. But I've had some time to cool down and put things in perspective. And frankly? You've made your bed, Cadenza, and now you get to lie in it.” Abacus found herself savoring the next words, for all she’d never thought she’d say them. “Crystal Prep is no longer my problem, and we're both happier for it."

"But—!"

"No."

Just as she was about to end the call, then remove the phone’s SIM card, Cadenza blurted out, "The reactor!"

Abacus hesitated for a moment. "Ah. I’d wondered if you'd realized how little I'd told you about it. Well, I suppose making sure the thing doesn't melt down is everyone's problem. But don't expect me to come guide you through it in person."

"That, um, shouldn't be necessary.” Whatever that clearing of Cadenza’s throat entailed, Abacus knew she didn’t want to know. “I just need the password for that laptop. And maybe a—"

"Cadenza."

"Yes?"

Abacus rolled her eyes. "That's the password. Cadenza. Capital C."

"... Oh."

"Indeed. Good luck, Principal Amore. Never ask me for anything ever again." And Abacus hung up, found her page, and swore she’d never think about secondary education for the rest of her days.

Author's Note

Is it wrong to bring up Bob Ross in a porn fic? It feels wrong. Not quite Mr. Rogers wrong, but still...

And yes, Lemon really did have a work-safe first period. If she knew what her friends had gotten up to, she'd be as disappointed as you are.