"Stand right in here, luggage... good slut. Just stay still," Xara cooed. "Now, let's see... First I need to..."

She picked up a small headband attached to wires on the nanoserver and focused. Luggage's Anankian bodysuit transformed - slower than with Nyna's influence - into a more broadly acceptable set of clothes; white tights under a one-piece white dress, though Xara gave this one some green around the stitch work and a slight petticoat to flare it out at the hips - at least, to help explain the width.

"You really think that'll make people ignore her," Irene asked doubtfully.

"Of course. Now she looks like an eccentric wearing purposefully shaped clothing. She'll blend right in. I'm a genius," Xara grinned.

"I think you should take the headband off, genius," Zoe smirked, drawing Xara's attention back to luggage as the skirt of the dress conformed to its ass, halfway shifted to a pair of shorts.

"God damn it!" Xara returned the outfit to the way she had envisioned and yanked the headband off the moment it was done. "There. Locked in. Come out of there, luggage," she sang, taking luggage’s hands and guiding the entranced toy into the middle of the room.

Xara, Irene and Zoe were modestly attired, ready to go out, and luggage was about as reasonable as could be expected. The nano-corset it had been fitted with back in Ananke was still in place, and with its new dress it looked almost normal. Eye-catching, but normal.

"Hey, Irene, could you wake her up but keep her all thinking she's my luggage?"

"Shouldn't be too hard, I guess." Irene approached luggage and looked into its eyes. "Time to wake up, luggage. Back to your usual subby self, Xara's lover and toy, her luggage. Waking in three... two... one." She snapped her fingers.

Luggage blinked, got its bearings and blushed. "Uh, where did the train go...?"

Xara giggled. "Sorry, luggage, you slept through the trip. This is our hotel room. We were just about to go swimsuit shopping. You wanna come?"

Luggage inspected the room and bit a lip. "Luggage doesn't think luggage should leave the hotel room," it mumbled.

Xara leaned in and held luggage's gaze, smiling. "Let me rephrase. You wanna come."

"Luggage wants to come," luggage repeated with a sigh.

"Great!" Xara stood back triumphantly. "Then let's go. There should be a store just a couple buildings away. You can carry our shopping since you're, well..." Xara gestured.

"Luggage," it nodded. That made perfect sense to it. It was luggage, shopping was baggage... Really the only difference between the two was that luggage could walk of its own accord. Naturally it should carry the shopping.

It smiled.

A ride down the elevator, a quiet exit through the front doors of the hotel and a short walk down the street brought the quartet to an upmarket clothing store, itself several floors tall. They managed the walk without any trouble, just a few lingering gazes from some of the people they passed, but that was fairly standard anyway. Most eyes, predictably, were on luggage, walking slightly in front of Xara and wearing a fashionable neck scarf to hide its collar.

"I forgot how basic things are out here," Zoe murmured. "Things seem a bit... duller than in Ananke."

"Guess they don't have as many maid and drones doing clean up," Xara joked, eyeing up a couple of cute girls walking past them. She reached a hand out only to find her wrist caught by Irene.

"We aren't in Ananke, Heiress," she frowned. "You can't just grope any girl you fancy, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Xara cried, affronted and blushing. "But what if they wanted it?"

"Your girlfriend is right here, Xara," Irene stressed in exasperation.

"She doesn't mind! You don't mind me touching other girls, do you, luggage?"

Luggage paused and turned, confused. "Luggage has no right to mind what its owner chooses to do," it said earnestly.

Xara grinned. "See?"

Irene groaned. Zoe smiled.

They entered the store and, using a holographic map, navigated their way to the swimwear section of the shopping centre. The three sentient girls casually looked at their options as they made a beeline for the changing rooms; luggage walked alongside them, content to let its owner pick for it.

The changing rooms were set up in a semicircular area of the store, and due to the large fraction of its clientele being young, socialable women, several of the rooms were prepared to allow multiple shoppers to change as a group. Xara led her crew into a vacant change room and shut the door behind her.

Inside the box-shaped space were a ring of benches lining the walls and, in the centre, a floor-to-ceiling glass chamber. Xara stripped out of her clothes, then underwear, and stepped into the pod. "Scan measurements," she ordered.

A metallic ring outside the glass slowly descended from the roof, emitting a web of red light within the glass. As it passed over Xara a screen outside slowly populated with a scan of her naked body, complete with measurements. The ring reached her feet, then on the way back up refined the digital representation of her. Once it had returned to the ceiling, the screen printed the results on a light screen - little more than a cardboard-thin pane of glass designed to hold an image for a little over an hour - and the screen went blank.

"Love this stuff. Did you know people a hundred years ago had to try clothes on before they bought them?" Xara scrunched her face up. "Gross."

"Does this store give you the catalogue of everything in your size, too?" Zoe asked, stepping inside the chamber to be scanned.

"Of course it does. It's all on the light screen. A place this upmarket better have as cutting edge tech as it can, outside Ananke."

Zoe stepped back out and inspected her results. "Ooh, I'm a foot taller than before Genecorp hired me. No wonder you look so tiny and adorable," she winked at Xara.

"Haha. I could still kick your ass."

"Security training, remember?"

"...I'm still your superior." Xara huffed.

"Could you all turn around, please?" Irene blushed, covering herself with her hands.

"Aw, come on," Xara pouted. "It's just us girls."

"I'm well aware of how you see girls, Heiress."

"Fair." Xara turned to luggage. "You'd better strip off, too," she grinned wide. Luggage obeyed instantly, pulling its dress off over its head and then stepping out of its tights. It blushed as Xara and Zoe stared at it. "I can barely see the corset, wow."

"I guess the nanotech can blend in pretty well," Zoe agreed. A soft chime behind them heralded the end of Irene's scan, and a few moments later she joined them, back in her underwear and holding her light screen.

"Your turn, luggage!" Xara smiled wickedly and pulled it by the wrists. "Get in the scanner, babe."

"Yes, Mistress." Luggage stepped into the chamber and allowed the door to shut. It closed its eyes as the ring descended, first seeing darkness, then a bright red behind her eyelids, then blackness, and then a brief surge of red again moments later. A harsh buzzing emanated from the screen outside. "Huh?"

"Error. Foreign objected detected in scan chamber. Please remove foreign object," a calm, computerised woman's voice spoke.

"Sorry, luggage. Let me try that again," Xara giggled and hit the reset button. "Stupid thing must be faulty."

"Yes, Mistress..." luggage agreed as the ring repeated its process. Again the error noise buzzed once it returned to the ceiling.

"Error. Only one user may be inside the scan chamber during scan procedure. Please take turns getting scanned."

Zoe and Xara cackled as luggage went bright red, self-consciously putting her hands to her hips. Irene's lips cracked a smile. "You two are so mean to the poor thing."

"I'm not mean!" Xara tittered. "I'm trying to buy my girlfriend a nice swimsuit. Computer," she called. "There is only one person in the scan chamber. What's wrong?"

The screen dimmed a moment before returning to life. "Customer's measurements are outside coded parameters," it informed. "Cannot complete procedure."

"Does that mean she'll have to try stuff on manually," Xara smiled, leering at luggage through the glass.

"Negative. There are no garments available in this store's stock appropriate for customer in chamber."

"What, nothing? Not one scrap of clothing will fit her? Are you calling my girlfriend fat?" Xara's grin split her face even as luggage's cheeks went as red as the Matriarch's eyes.

"Invalid query. Customer's figure is merely incompatible with this store's product. Customer group will be offered a 20% discount on purchases by way of apology."

Xara raised an eyebrow. "Well, you might not be able to get a swimsuit here, luggage, but your ass got us a discount, so that's something, right?"

Luggage stared at its feet. "Yes, Mistress."

A few hours later, in the evening, the girls gathered back in their room and started dressing up for a night out. Hair was styled, lips were sticked and bras were forgotten on their respective beds.

"You're sure you know what you're doing?' Irene asked with a frown, smoothing a purple high-slit dress over her thin form, almost missing Xara's eyes drinking her in.

"Of course. People at places like this expect a bit of eye candy anyway, no one's gonna think too hard about her. They'll be too busy staring." Xara smiled as she brushed luggage's hair. Luggage wasn't sure who they were talking about, but since it didn't concern it, it politely tuned out.

"I rather think we were supposed to keep the staring to a minimum," Irene sighed.

Zoe walked in from the bathroom in a red cocktail minidress, glittery fabric clinging to her thighs, and red coloured contacts to hide her natural blue and green heterochromia. "How do I look, fuckers?"

"I wanna fuck you," Xara complimented honestly. Irene shook her head.

"Very attractive, Zoe. You don't feel on display at all?"

"What, next to Xara and her luggage? Nah," Zoe grinned and took the duo in.

Xara had gone with her favoured aesthetic: a long, loose but clingy black evening dress with green highlights, mirroring her hair, which today was styled into a messy shoulder-length ponytail, her normal green tips extended in narrow bands all the way to her scalp. It created an almost spiral pattern of black and green in her hair.

Luggage had been forced to use the nanoserver again, since there was no hope of finding clothes off the rack that would fit it, despite the several heavy bags it had carried back to the hotel. Where Xara had opted for her 'poison goth' look, Irene had gone for professional beauty and Zoe had themed herself after a sultry seductress, luggage had been made to style itself as a somewhat innocent but sexual girl on her first night out, wanting to make a splash.

Its hair had been dyed blonde, it wore tall silvery heels and its outfit had been modified into a glittery pink minidress more suited to accentuating than hiding her figure. Xara had made the executive decision of no underwear allowed, and for luggage's hair to be divided into hip-length pigtails.

Luggage had to admit it pulled off the girly look quite well. Mistress Xara was indeed a genius.

"Now, luggage, small problem. We're going out, and most people outside Ananke don't know about sentient luggage," Xara explained. "We need you to go undercover. We can't call you by your real name around other people, you know?"

"Um, yes, Mistress," luggage supposed, cocking its head.

"It doesn't really suit you, but I was thinking we could call you something like, I dunno, Amanda? I know it's weird, but..."

"Amanda," luggage mumbled, sounding the word out. "It feels sort of familiar, Mistress. I think it could work."

Xara grinned and kissed its cheek. "Good girl, 'Amanda'. Oh, we'll probably need to treat you like a girl for a bit, too. That okay?"

Luggage, a girl? It supposed it could pass as one, it considered as it stared at its reflection. "Yes, Mistress Xara."

"Excellent," Xara giggled and grabbed a black purse, slinging the strap over a shoulder. Irene had a purple one to match her own dress, while Zoe opted for red. Luggage frowned, feeling a sense of minor discomfort at seeing the women holding their own bags.

"Luggage can carry your bags, Mistresses," it ventured. Xara just laughed again.

"You need to stay undercover as a person, luggage, no carrying our shit. Now, let's go!"

The girls filed out of the room, Xara holding the door and letting luggage exit ahead of her.

Mistress is so polite.

The transport drove itself down the coastal street then turned into an entertainment plaza, a large, multi-block set of towering buildings, casinos, clubs and theatres.

"Ohh, a casino," Xara grinned, looking at luggage. "Might need to pop in there before we leave, huh?"

"Um, yes, Mistress," luggage agreed. To what, exactly, it wasn't sure, but if Mistress Xara wanted to visit a casino, what was luggage to argue? Still, Mistress seemed to be referencing something specific.

"Amanda would look great as a casino bunnyslut," Zoe mused, looking luggage over until it blushed.

Xara moaned. "Oh, she definitely does."

"I should have known you'd already checked that," Irene sniffed. Zoe snickered and Xara smirked.

"What can I say."

The transport drove into an underground parking lot, almost hidden by carefully placed trees and flowers. Modern city planning kept transportation mostly out of sight when it wasn't in use, and it both saved surface space and allowed for a measure of privacy when parking.

Which was what Xara was counting on. As the transport stopped and the girls grabbed their bags, Xara slipped a hand into hers. "Luggage, get the door, will you?"

"Yes, Mistress," luggage responded, opening the door. It put one heel carefully on the ground outside, making sure it would take its weight before leaning out of the door and letting its momentum carry it forward, almost bumping its right hip against the doorframe. Luggage made to stand up straight, turning to help Mistress out.

Xara grinned and pointed her remote at luggage. "Rewind!" she called playfully, holding a button down and watching as luggage turned to face away, sitting itself back in the transport in a perfect reversed manoeuvrer. "Mmm, fuck. Her ass looks even better in that dress when she's bending."

"Is that why you made her wear it?" Zoe laughed, also staring as Amanda began the process of leaving the transport again.

"Yes. Slower now!" Xara crossed her legs and traced her neckline with a finger as she pushed a few more buttons, making Amanda sit back in the car the get back out at half speed. She reversed Amanda's motions once more and paused just as the girl's ass was crossing the threshold of the door. "I could do this all night."

"I'm genuinely afraid you will," Irene sighed. "Didn't we come out here for drinks? Or are you planning to get drunk off watching your girltoy?"

"Don't tempt me, Manda's doing that enough,' Xara warned. She paused for a moment, spanked Amanda's rear and then unpaused her.

"Ow," luggage mumbled as it stood up, reaching back to rub its backside. It helped Mistress out of the car as she put something back in her purse.

"Something wrong, luggage?"

"No, Mistress, just a pinched nerve or something."

"Ahh," Xara nodded, looking around the dark car park. "Hm. No one around. Could bend you over the transport and fuck you."

Luggage blinked. "M-mistress?"

"Goldfish, three seconds,' Xara giggled. Luggage blinked rapidly for a moment.

"No, Mistress, just pinched a nerve or something."

Xara looped her arm through luggage's. "Well, try to be more discreet. You can't just touch your butt like that, people might think you're some kind of pervert."

Zoe's roar of laughter followed Irene out of the transport as the hypnotist-in-training raised an eyebrow. "Heaven forbid."

Xara stood straight. "How dare you. I am a lady of regal manners and propriety, and I..." She broke off, looking at luggage with a calculating look. "Mmm... Haughty noblewoman... Fuck. Irene?" She asked sweetly.

"No, Heiress, I'm not turning her into a noblewoman to go to a nightclub. She'll draw attention."

"She'll draw attention anyway," Xara pointed out.

Zoe snickered again. "Why don't you do it with your thing?"

"Cuz that's practical but it's fucking hot watching Irene work," Xara blushed. "Can you at least make her a party girl? That'll fit in, won't it?"

Irene pinched her brow. "I mean... Yes, but not a bimbo. That would definitely draw attention."

"You haven't seen a party post 2050, huh," Xara smirked. "This isn't the dark ages, young people are a lot more sexual now."

"I know,' Irene complained. "My brother was constantly bringing new girls home. Very hard to study. Luggage, come here."

"Mistress?" Luggage had been trying to follow the confusing conversation, but now it approached Mistress Irene. "Did you want luggage to take your bag?"

"No. Look into my eyes." Irene closed them for a few moments then opened them again, and luggage was instantly mesmerised by the glowing, twirling lights. "Luggage... You are not luggage anymore. You are a normal girl. You are Amanda --"

"Mandy," Xara whispered, prompting a sideways glare from Irene."

"You are Mandy, a party girl. You enjoy parties and... partying."

"You've never been to a party, haven't you," Zoe giggled.

"Fuck off," Irene growled.

"Fuck off..." Amanda droned, hands lifting to tug at her dress.

"What are you - no!" Irene grabbed her wrists. "Don't fuck off, Amanda."

"Aww," Xara and Zoe whined together.

"It's like herding cats," Irene muttered. "Well, you two are obviously more into this scene than me. What makes a party girl?"

"Friendly," Xara offered.

"Flirty," Zoe added.

"Really flirty."

"Confident?"

"Yeah. Low inhibitions."

Irene frowned. "Are you sure this isn't a bimbo?"

"Definitely!" Xara promised. "We aren't talking about sex. Are we, Zoe?"

"Definitely not. Also, loves getting bought drinks."

"And attention!"

"Ohh, yes. Knows how to use her body."

Irene sighed deeply. "Fucking... Amanda, you are --"

"Mandy!"

"...Mandy, you are a party girl with high confidence, low inhibitions and you enjoy attention, getting bought drinks, and know how to use your body. You are friendly --"

"Very friendly," Xara interjected.

"Very friendly. But you won't draw too much attention to yourself."

"Aww!"

"Come on!"

"Actually," Xara ventured, "can you make her just a little dumb?"

"Hey," a voice called across the car park. "Everything all right over there?"

Irene belatedly realised the three of them were crowding around Amanda, cornering her at the side of the transport. "We look like muggers, don't we?"

"Oops," Xara winced. “Wake her up. Hey, we're fine," she called and waved over her shoulder. Irene snapped her fingers as footsteps approached.

"Are you sure?" a second voice asked. Two young women in club skirts and crop tops walked out of the darkness.

Mandy opened her eyes and grinned. "Yeah, totally fine! Just had something in my eye. I'm Mandy, nice to meet you!" She bounded forward to shake hands with the new girls.

"Uh, Erin," said the one with dyed pink hair, taken aback. She gestured at the black-haired shorter girl next to her. "This is Lyn."

"Are you two going to a club too?" Zoe asked as she joined them, Xara smiling as she followed and Irene following cautiously.

"We were," Lyn grumbled, "but everywhere around here is too good for us. We couldn't get in the door, so we were on our way back to our hotel."

"You should come with us!" Mandy turned to look at her companions, still shaking both Lyn and Erin's hands. "You don't mind, right, girls?"

"You've always been the party master, Mandy," Xara giggled. "We'll follow your lead."

"That settles it! You can join us," Mandy smiled and finally stopped shaking hands, though she didn't let go.

"I dunno," Erin said, doubtful. "Club Nexus is the closest but it's really exclusive."

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Mandy winked, swaying her hips. "I can get us in."

Club Nexus looked like less of a club and more of a convention centre. Even from the outside the girls could tell it had numerous rooms, and given it was roughly the size of a stadium they were probably decently sized ones, at that. Lyn and Erin still doubted their chances, but they lined up with the Ananke girls, Mandy (as the most obviously experienced party babe) leading the way.

The line moved painfully slowly, and it was more than an hour before the hundred people ahead of them got processed. The two groups spent the time chatting, swapping stories and, in Irene and Zoe's case, elbowing Xara whenever she was about to say anything dangerous. At a few points Mandy managed to gain some ground and cut ahead in the line as it wound around corners, but no one raised much of a fuss as she sidled past them.

"So there's this great underwater aquarium across town," Lyn was explaining. "You can practically walk under the ocean through a reef. It's beautiful. Here, I have pictures," she realised, pulling a strap out of her back, clasping it around her wrist and giving it a shake, whereupon a thin screen unfurled and lit up.

"Ooh, what's that," Xara leaned in, watching Lyn navigate the touch screen. Lyn and her friend shot her a bewildered look.

"A wristcom? Where are you from that you don't have these? They've been around for years." The girls almost had a look of pity on their faces, and Xara blushed.

"Actually, where I'm from, we have much more - ow!"

"Sorry, Xara," Irene smiled. "Didn't see your foot there." She turned to the locals. "Xara here is from a bit of a backwater. She's very behind the times."

"Yeah," Zoe grinned as Xara bristled. "She was all impressed by the self-driving transport, too."

"Really?" Lyn seemed doubtful. "I didn't know there was anywhere left without self-driving transports. Where are you from?"

"An-"

"A commune in the desert," Irene cut in. "Doesn't really have a name, it's more of a family property. Isolated for generations.

Xara forced a smile as the line shuffled forward a little more.

"Aahh!" Mandy cried as her ankle twisted and she fell forward, right into the bouncer's chest. The huge man caught her by instinct and his eyes focused for a few moments too long on the skirt of her dress before he forced them to her own, just as she regained her footing and looked up. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! These stupid shoes, my feet are killing me after waiting so long. So embarrassing. Are you okay?"

The male bouncer nodded while his partner behind him rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "I'm fine, miss. You?"

"Oh, I'm great. You really saved my ass," Mandy giggled, politely ignoring his eyes darting back to her waist as if to confirm her statement. "I know we're not on a list or anything, but my friends and I have waited sooo long. Could we, like, just come in for a bit and rest, at least?" She looked up with hopeful, wide eyes.

The bouncer looked behind him at his colleague, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Yeah, go ahead. Enjoy your night," he smiled.

"Thank you sooo much!" Mandy stood on her toes and leaned up to kiss his cheek, then spun to her girlfriends. "Come on, let's hit the club!"

Mandy proudly let the four other girls through the doors. The female bouncer approached her partner and tutted. "She totally played you, Mike."

"You know club rules... hot people get in."

"Her friends would have qualified on their own," she muttered. "The blonde was trying too hard. She's even had work done, I can tell."

She blushed and shut up as the black-and-green haired girl at the back of the group looked over her shoulder and shot her a grin and a wink.

Mike smirked. "Think that one heard you."

"Whatever. Get back to work."

Xara, Irene, Lyn and Erin found a table in one of the common areas deep inside the building, the first several dance floors being packed. Lyn was about to shift over in the booth seat to allow Mandy to sit, but the blonde shook her head and grinned.

"I'll go get us some booze. You girls have any preferences?"

The five seated girls rattled off their beverages of choice, then Xara spoke up. "You sure you don't want me to get it, Mandy? You don't have any cash on you."

Mandy grinned wider. "You know a girl doesn't need cash if she knows the cheat codes," she giggled, shaking her hips. Xara almost groaned, barely turning it into a cough as she remembered the local girls were on either side of her. She watched Mandy strut off across the lounge area, touching her lips to make sure she wasn't drooling.

"So, what do you three do for a living," Lyn asked casually.

"Psychology," Irene answered without missing a beat.

Zoe smiled as she answered. "Security."

Four pairs of eyes turned to Xara, two curious and two cautious. "I'm an... uh, I guess administration?" She ended in an inflection, looking to Irene as if hoping she got the answer right.

"Xara's an office girl," Irene elaborated with a smile. "Personal assistant to the manager and all that."

Xara narrowed her eyes at her friend but didn't rebuke her.

"Nice. I'm just studying historical art," Lyn added.

"Music," Erin offered. "Played the piano in school and hoping to join an orchestra.

"Excuse me, ladies," a man around their age cut in, putting a number of glasses on the table. "Just dropping these off for you. Your friend says she'll catch up later." He nodded over his shoulder and Xara looked across to the bar just in time to see Mandy leaning against it, blowing her a kiss and waving, before returning her attention to two other men chatting her up. Once the glasses were settled the stranger smiled at the girls and left to rejoin his friends.

"You sure she's okay?" Erin asked with a slight frown.

Xara smiled. "She's fine. Mandy loves flirting. She can take them all without a problem. Fuck," she whispered under her breath as a pointed heel poked her in the ankle.

"Take them all in a fight, obviously," Zoe grinned. "She might not look like it but the babe's got martial arts training."

"Really?" Lyn's eyebrows shot up as she turned to look at Mandy again. "With that... physique?"

"Just means people underestimate her," Irene pointed out and took a sip of her champagne.

"Huh."

The conversation continued, politely mundane topics being floated and spoken about, while Xara's eyes kept drifting across the room to check on Mandy as the blonde moved from the bar to another booth with her companions, then out onto the dance floor, getting into the rhythm of a pumping techno track and grinding her ass - Xara's ass - against whichever of the guys was bold enough to dance up behind her.

She's having fun. Don't be jealous. You get to have her every night, Xara told herself as she gulped down a mouthful of beer. Hey, hands off, mate!

"Excuse us, we'll just be a minute," Lyn smiled and shuffled out of the booth with Erin, and the girls disappeared in the direction of the restrooms. Xara sighed. She needed a distraction. She just had to play it cool.

"Hey, Ireeeene?"

"No," Irene said flatly, taking another sip.

Xara frowned again. "You don't even know what I'm gonna ask."

"I can guess."

"I might surprise you."

Irene sighed. "Ask away."

"Can you trance Erin and Lyn to -"

"No."

"Why not!"

Zoe giggled. "Consent, dumbass. Just because people are less inhibited these days doesn't mean any hot young thing is fine with being hypnotised."

Xara pouted. "Is being horny mind control?"

Irene stared at her. "It can be a result of mind control. Why?"

Xara grinned and reached into her purse, pulling out two pink sticks. "Was gonna offer them a smoke."

Zoe's eyes went wide and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Xara, are those Eros stick?"

"Yup! Bought a couple before we left."

"Um?" Irene frowned. "What are they?"

Zoe frowned at Xara as she explained. "Eros is an Ananke sex drug. It's very, very potent and it's not supposed to be removed from city borders."

"They're young and hot, they're at a club and they're drinking. They wouldn't notice a bit of lust, would they?" Xara huffed. "I just wanna play around a bit."

"These sticks aren't 'a bit of lust', Xar, it'd have them begging and bending over this table in minutes. In public. You can't give those to them."

"What if we invite them back to the hotel first?"

"Oh for goodness... Heiress," Irene said, grabbing Xara's shoulder. Xara turned to plead her case and her gaze fell right into Irene's pulsing yellow eyes."

"Fuck..." God, she's pretty...

"You can't use the Eros sticks outside Ananke."

"I can't use the Eros sticks outside Ananke."

"You don't want to use them outside Ananke."

"I don't want to use them outside Ananke."

"You're going to spend the rest of the night as a wholesome, sheltered girl."

"I'm going to spend the rest of the night as a wholesome, sheltered girl."

Irene snapped her fingers in Xara's face moments before Erin and Lyn walked back into view, smiling. Xara's eyes passed over them as she blinked, catching    a glimpse of Lyn's inner thigh through the slit of her dress as she walked closer. Xara blushed.

Gosh, that's a bit... forward.

"Hello again, ladies. Hey, what are those?" Erin pointed at the Eros sticks. Xara blushed brighter and scooped them back into her purse.

"Just some smokes, I, uh, was counting how many I had."

"Oh, you smoke?" Lyn asked.

Xara shook her head. "No, not at all."

There was an awkward silence where the two local girls obviously expected an elaboration, and Xara clearly expected she had satisfied their curiosity.

Conversation resumed, though Xara shifted to drinking water, realising the beer wasn't quite as appealing as it had seemed earlier. After another ten minutes she noticed Zoe gazing across the room.

"Zoe?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you staring at?"

A grin crossed the blonde's lips. "Mandy. She's really getting steamed up."

Xara followed her gaze and felt her cheeks go red as she saw Mandy gyrating, hands above her head, two of the men pressed against her front and back respectively. She's practically fucking them on the dance floor!

Xara shot to her feet, taking a deep breath.

"Xara?" Irene frowned. "What's up?"

"I think I need some air," the Heiress mumbled. "Erin, Lyn, it was great meeting you both. I assume you still wanna hang out in here, but I think I'm at my limit."

"Oh," Lyn said, a little surprised. "Well, thanks for the fun night, and tell Mandy thanks for getting us in!"

"Will do," Xara forced a smile, grabbed her purse and led her friends out of the club and into an adjoining plaza. She sat on a bench and sighed, fanning her face with a hand.

"You okay there, Xar?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah, just... Mandy was being very... lurid in there, and I couldn't cope with it." Xara's cheeks were still hot as she reminisced on her girlfriend's obscene shape in her tiny dress. How did Mandy have so much confidence looking like that?

Zoe laughed, and Irene sat next to Xara, rubbing her back to help her calm down. They stayed silent for a while before Xara finally felt her cheeks cool down a bit. "Thanks, Irene."

"No problem, Heiress. Should we go get Mandy and head back to the hotel?"

"No need," Zoe mumbled in an amused tone. Irene and Xara looked up to see Mandy jogging across the plaza to them, hair messed up and skin slightly reflecting the streetlights.

"Sorry, girls! I saw you leaving but I couldn't say goodbye to the boys without thanking them for buying your drinks. It's a good thing this skirt's so short, you know, we barely got to the bathrooms in time but I could just lean against a wall and -"

She made a vulgar gesture with her fingers as she described her recent actions, and Xara's eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted.

"Oops," Irene frowned. "She must have a pretty extreme interpretation of 'sheltered'."

Zoe held her stomach as she laughed, doubled over, and Mandy stood by, confused and concerned. "Should I have not mentioned the spitroast?"

"Wake up."

Xara and Amanda groaned, rubbing their eyes and squirming. Xara felt a mattress at her back, pillows behind her head, and Amanda's hip against her own. She realised she was in her bed at the hotel room.

"How did we get back here...?"

Irene and Zoe shared a look, the latter smirking. "You had a bit too much to drink, so we carried you home. Irene thought we should wake Amanda back up, too, before she started sucking off the entire queue at the club."

Xara grinned as she closed her eyes. "Sounds like Amanda."

"Fuck off," came her amused response. "You're the one who made me act like a party slut."

"Oh!" Xara opened her eyes and turned to smile. "You're actual Amanda, not the play model."

"Play model," Amanda giggled and rolled onto her side, knowing Xara's eyes would wander to her legs as she rubbed them together. "All versions of me are play models."

Xara and Amanda grinned and wriggled closer to each other, closing in on kissing distance.

"Oh, brother," Irene grumbled. "Zoe, let's get out of here before the clothes come off."

"Right behind you," Zoe smiled and followed her out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"How dare you!" Xara called from inside.

"We don't need to take our clothes off!" Amanda's voice joined in.

"Ananke is doomed," Irene groaned.