Tammy sat down at her laptop. Emily inspected her room and made a few noises of surprise or approval or intrigue as she did. 

"This is a spacious room you've got!"

"Yes, yes it is." Tammy answered dismissively. "It's not a single room, they must have all been full or something. I just don't have a roommate." 

"Oh, huh. You have a-well, you don't have a single room, but you're supposed to?"

"Yes." Tammy grunted with irritation. 

"Why is that? You seem sociable enough-"

"Emily." Her voice dripped with venom. Emily froze up. She could clearly tell she'd made a mistake. "If you see me as some curiosity to explore, go find your tourism attraction somewhere else." Emily slowly nodded. 

"S...sorry. I didn't mean to be insensitive."

"Good girl." Tammy answered, then both girls froze. "S-sorry, force of habit."

"I wonder what it would feel like if she called me that in the special voice she does,"purred Emily's brain to itself almost instantly, as if by reflex. Through emotional force of will she dismissed the thought as best she could. "Th-that's okay," she stammered out, "You said you needed help with homework?"

"With motivation," Tammy spat back with an air of indignation. "The assignment is easy. Almost...insultingly easy. That's the problem." 

"What...do you mean?" Emily sounded confused, and that was because she was confused. If it was so easy, then what was the problem?

"I have to summarize a story that's like two pages long," Tammy sighed. "But the assignment has to be two hundred fifty words. How am I...supposed to stretch it out that far?" 

"Well, hmmmm…" Emily frowned. She wanted to help. Motivation was the issue, right…? What would motivate Tammy?

She retreated into her mind. What did she know about Tammy? Tammy was autistic. Scratch that out, it wasn't useful information. Not to Emily, not with her limited understanding of how autistic people differed from the types she was used to. She made a note to do some research, she wanted to understand. Back on track! Tammy was fiercely ready to prove herself, it looked like, but she also responded extremely badly when it looked like she'd failed. Leveraging her pride could backfire, and it might only piss her off. Emily didn't want that, she'd hurt Tammy's feelings enough already. Tammy had a lot of...submissives, one of whom was Fara. She was a lesbian, at least as far as Emily could tell. She talked a lot about sex stuff…

"Heyyyy," Emily trilled in the voice she used to butter up boys she liked, which felt weird to be using for a girl but doing it for Tammy felt...exhilarating. She draped herself over Tammy's bed like one of the hot girls you'd see lounging over the subject of an ad selling a car or motorcycle. 

Tammy was immediately receptive. She turned half around with a flush of hot red in her cheeks. "Wh-"

"Shhhhhh," Emily draped a finger over Tammy's lips. They were cracked, she could feel, and a little rough. Probably wouldn't be noticeable to someone kissing her, but to touch with your finger made it readily apparent. Noted. "Just focus on your work, doll." She'd never flirted with a girl before. With guys, you mostly just made them feel big and strong and capable. Girls seemed so much...harder, ironically. There was less insecure blustering for you to validate. "Turn around and start typing. I'll be riiiight here. When you finish I'll give you a kiss." 

Tammy melted instantly. All that strong aura of independence vanished and for a second all Emily could see was a lovestruck schoolgirl. They nodded and turned to the blank document. Their fingers darted back and forth across the keyboard. Letters quickly filled the screen. In under five minutes, Tammy finished the word count, opened the school website, and submitted it. 

"What a gooooood girl," Emily sang in her best impression of Tammy's funtimes voice as she sat up. She pulled Tammy gently into her lap, arms around the girl's waist. Tammy moaned softly. The sound made Emily's folds feel...really nice. "After the kiss," Emily whispered seductively into Tammy's ear, "Do you want anything?" 

"Pr-praise," Tammy mewled. Her voice sounded small and weak...almost like...oh no…

"U-um," Emily muttered in distress, "Is something wrong?" Her sexy mask cracked and quickly fell apart. What if she hurt Tammy again! She didn't want that!

"Huh?" Tammy wiggled down into Emily's body and looked up at her with big beady eyes. They were...pretty…"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine. Did something I did-"

"N-no," Laughed Emily dismissively. She smiled a forced seductive smile. Put the damaged mask back on. "Everything's fine, Tam-"

"No." 

Huh?

"No, it's not. You're bothered, I can tell." Tammy shifted out of Emily's lap and sat up herself. She looked at Emily not with anger or judgment but compassion and worry. Why? "What's wrong?"

"N-no, nothing's wrong, I just-" Emily stopped. She swallowed. Evidently this was the wrong response. She'd only make Tammy more and more worried by denying it, rather than convince her. "I-you sounded hurt. I wanted to make sure…"

"Ah, okay." Tammy gave her a warm, gentle grin. "I sounded vulnerable. You thought that meant I was hurting."

Wh-what? What did that mean?

"Y-you, what do you mean by that…?"

Tammy reached backward. She shut her laptop, unplugged it, and moved it on top of something beneath her bed, all without turning her gaze away from Emily. "It's okay, Emily. I appreciate the concern." Why was she being so nice? 

"Thank...you?" Tammy moved back into Emily's lap, authoritative this time. 

"Vulnerability can be a lovely feeling, Emily. I for one adore it. But that's not universal. Clearly it doesn't come as naturally to you, does it?"

Instinct told Emily to shut that out. To deny it on principle. She didn't. It felt dishonest  to even try. "Y...yeah…"

"And that's okay. Now, in BDSM some people LIKE things that don't feel...good. I don't, and I generally don't like doing them to someone either, but for cases like that it's good to have what's called a safeword. Have you heard of that before?" Emily shook her head no. "Well, that's alright. I looove to teach." Tammy dropped backwards onto her side and pulled Emily with her. There was no resistance. The two lay on their sides, arms around each other. It was cozy...warm...intimate. 

"A safeword is an agreed on word that you say, or it can be some other kind of signal you can send, that lets the other person know you are Not Comfortable. The session ends, aftercare is given-shit, have I explained-wait, no, remind me when I finish."

"I will."

"Good. Anyway, some people prefer a more robust system. I'm a fan of the traffic light setup. If something bugs you or it's a little too intense you say 'yellow light!' Then the session slows down, partner checks up on you, may or may not continue. 'Red light!' Works like a more traditional safeword. Session ends, aftercare is given. Helps ensure that both parties are communicating and provides an avenue to safely do things like pretend beg the dom to stop, with both parties making sure the other is safe and consenting. Make sense?"

"Y-yeah, I guess." Half of this made no sense to her at all, but she got the feeling it was the less important half to their conversation specifically. She could have said yellow light earlier, and spared the awkward attempt to save face. Got it. Made sense. "O-oh, I was supposed to remind you to explain aftercare!"

"Oh, you weeeere!" Tammy exclaimed. She looked...delighted. "Good girl! Oh, uh, anyway, aftercare is exactly what it sounds like. After...care. Caring for someone after a session. I didn't do any during our first two sessions, really should've. For the first one anyway, since you fell asleep at the end of the second. Sorry about-wait, fuck! I'm getting off topic!" Tammy's face scrunched up in irritation with herself. The sight hurt Emily's heart for some reason. 

"A-anyway-my sincerest apologies- sometimes after a session just ending things can cause...problems. It's a brain chemistry thing, thinking about the specifics makes me really uncomfortable so search up 'subdrop' if you wanna learn more-though dommes can get it too!-but anyway, you do aftercare to prevent people from being left high and dry. It can be lots of things: cuddles, praise, blankets and hot cocoa, the bottom line is to make sure they know they're loved and appreciated. This is extra important after anything rough, cause if someone goes to town on you with a whip or spends a while viciously insulting you your brain can be bad at...parsing that it was in a controlled, consensual, artificial space and that's not actually how they feel about you. Love and gentle affection can help reassure it that everything's okay."

"O-okay," said Emily. This was...a lot of information for her. A lot of new information. "So...yellow light, red light, you want me to use that...going forward?"

"Yeah," Tammy giggled a bit. "Yeah, I would like that. Gives an easy way to enforce boundaries without feeling like you're an asshole for doing it."

"Mhm." Was all Emily could say. There was a knock at the door. 

"Ugh." Tammy rolled her eyes, then rolled her entire body out of the bed. She hit the floor with a disconcerting thunk but was immediately on her feet. "Coming!" She walked to the door on heavy steps and then opened it. One of her classmates, a boy she barely knew, stood on the other side. 

"Hey, Tammy, you dropped this." He handed Tammy a small black cube. 

"Oh, uh, thanks." Tammy pocketed it. 

"Hey, is that Emily? Holy shit, how did you-"

"Kay thanks bye!" Tammy thrust the door back into its frame and swiftly locked it. There were no sounds to indicate any effort got put into pulling it back open. Tammy sighed. "Nosey weirdos." She walked back to her bed and took a seat. Wait, what time was it? She pulled out her phone and checked. It was only, like, ten PM. It was also a school night, though. "Got any classes tomorrow?"

"None in the morning," Emily answered with playful excitement breaching her voice. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I have some video games we could play," Tammy answered sheepishly. It hit her that her companion was a cheerleader who, presumably, had a life. Fuck, she thought to herself-

"Oh, I'm no good at those," Emily riposted, sheepishly, with her voice. 

"Was that an 'I'm bad at them' I'm bad at them, or was it an 'I need an excuse to say no' I'm bad at them? Cause, I wanna make clear, you are allowed to say no to me. All the fancy social footwork is appreciated for not hurting my feelings but when I ask a yes or no question, you are allowed to say no."

"O-oh. Well then, uh, sure?" Emily grinned. Her eyes were teary. Why did that affect her so much? "I, I mean, it was genuine, not an excuse. I'm bad at them. That's all." 

"Okay! That's cool, we can play Moriarty Cart. I'm bad at that too." Tammy set about the desk across from her bed, which had a big...well, a kind of big, flatscreen standing on top of it. Soon it had visuals on it of a bunch of (what Emily could only assume were) Sherlock Holmes characters driving things that far more strongly resembled shrunk down supervillain vehicles designed to sell toys than they did golf carts. "Here you go!" Tammy put a controller in Emily's hands and stood up, off to the side so Emily could see.

"You, uh...sure you wanna stand?" Emily asked awkwardly. "There's plenty of room on the bed."

"I prefer to stand." Tammy laughed, equally awkwardly. The camera of the game followed a character, who Emily did not know was named Prick Bastardly, as their impractical machine flew across a dirt road and off the top of a waterfall. "I hope that doesn't bother you?"

"No, no, it's fine," Emily promised. Tammy smiled, nodded, and turned to the game. The two started up a track. As promised, neither of them were very good at it. About ten seconds in, Tammy paused to make sure Emily knew how the controls worked, which she didn’t, but the blonde cheerleader opted to pretend she did and find out on her own. This didn’t go well. She hit one turn after another, got pelted with a projectile so random she could only assume it was either an in-joke or some bizarre parody which only made sense if you were familiar with the thing it spoofed, fell off a ramp without doing a jump, and hit another wall. The race finished with her in last, although Tammy only came in seventh out of twelve so she couldn’t have done too much worse. 

“You get better turns if you let off the gas,” Tammy offered up as a hint. It wasn’t the fundamentals Emily needed, but it was enough to help. She blushed.

Could...Tammy tell she was faking it earlier?

“Thank you.”

Another race. The track was more complicated, and this one had a farm theme to it. There was one part where you flew off a ramp over a big cow enclosure. It was an absolutely gorgeous setpiece, with your cart hurling itself miles into the air amidst stunningly rendered clouds before hovering a moment and then coming burning down, almost enough to distract from how utterly ridiculous it was.

But what was more ridiculous was Tammy. She “mooed” and Emily didn’t get why. A full lap later, Tammy mooed again and Emily noticed she’d gone over the ramp. On the final lap, they were neck and neck. Tammy was about to go off the ramp-

“Moo.” Tammy visibly reacted, whipping her face around to look at Emily with an expression of shock. Then she realized what was-

She missed the ramp. Emily didn’t. The race ended with Emily in eleventh and Tammy in dead last.

“HAH!” Emily said in a fit of giggles, “I win!”

“Kinda!” Tammy conceded with half a smile. She turned a playful glare on Emily. “Cause you were rude!”

“Oh, I’m rude am I~?” Emily loved playful insults as a means of flirting, but she’d never felt so...safe doing it before. Usually there was this undercurrent of dread, but...there wasn’t.

“Yeah!” Tammy pretended to pout. “You didn’t even give me the kiss you promised!” Emily’s eyes locked on target. She put the controller aside. Something changed in Tammy’s eyes. She looked like a kitten having earned a playfight from its mother.

“Oh?” In an instant Emily stood before Tammy. Their breasts pressed together. Emily’s arm went around Tammy’s hips, which almost seemed purpose-built for this. Tammy turned bright red. The controller cluttered to the floor. “I owe you, you say?”

“Y-yes, M-, I mean, Emily.”

“M? Were you going to call me something else?” Emily was riding high. Chemicals were flooding her brain, filling her with feelings she couldn’t even give names. It was...almost intoxicating. “Mistress, perhaps?”

“M-master, actually.” Tammy awkwardly nodded. “I-I’m sorry-”

“Whyever would you be sorry?”

“C-cause, I uhhhhhhhh,” Emily softened her gaze. Loosened her arm. Hoped it was not lost on Tammy that she could say no, that she could opt out. Instead Tammy whined pitifully and pressed back in.

“Good girl,” Emily practically hissed. She felt...powerful, in ways she never had before. Placed the fingertips of her other hand on Emily’s rib-

“Yellow!”

Pulled away. “Ribs bad?”

Tammy nodded. “Ribs bad.”

“Good girl.” Experimentally, Emily placed her hand on other parts of Tammy’s body. Her arms, her face, her neck. Tammy piped up three more times, with “yellow” when Emily touched her shoulders and jaw, and with a high-pitched, clearly happy moan when Emily touched her breasts. Emily made a note of that. “Gooood girl. Is there anywhere else I shouldn’t?”

“B-between my legs.” Oh dear. It was fortunate she had no intention of doing that.

“Good girl.” Emily gripped the back of Tammy’s head, pushed her own lips out, and dove in for the kill. 

------

“Ahhhhhhhh, ahhh!” Tammy collapsed backwards onto her bed. Her vision was swimming. That awful rod of hers was going wild, but that’s not what mattered to her. She was stuck a few seconds in the past. Emily’s sudden increase in aggression, the way Emily had made sure to check her boundaries, the kiss-goddamn that KISS-

“Are you…” she didn’t hear Emily ask.

“Gggggggguuud…” Tammy moaned to herself, fidgeting as that thrice-damnable curse between her legs moved on its own. “Besssssst kiss of my liiiiiiiiife…” It had been. Emily was soft, but her body was strong and firm and fit. Her lips were plush beyond belief and they tasted….delicious, and their soft damp texture had felt amazing clamped over her mouth. Her brain was...simply not working at the moment.

“T-tammy?” She did hear that one but couldn’t quiiiiite remember how you let your friends know you were okay.

“I’m fiiiine,” She groaned, still drowning in the memories so hard she might as well have been unable to see. “Tammy overwhelmed, Emily kiss real good, I’ll be fiine I love youuuuu…” Emily went red as a beet but Tammy was unaffected. Of course she was, she had no idea what she was even saying. Her brain was essentially skimming a file called Reassurance.txt at mach speed and grabbing lines at random.

“Would you, um. Like some aftercare?” That one got through to her. Tammy raised her arms weakly.

“Low impact snugglesssssss."” Emily fought not to squeal at this visual and instead sat next to Tammy. She lifted the girl into her arms for a nice, gentle hug. She remembered that the other girl liked having her boobs touched and, curious, placed Tammy’s head in her bosom. Tammy immediately nestled into it with a long shaky sigh of happiness, which prompted a spike of serotonin in Emily’s brain. Slowly Tammy came out of her stupor and snuggled into the blonde herself. For a long time the two simply sat in each other’s arms, content. Then, slowly, Tammy fell asleep clutching at her.

It was Tammy’s turn to wake up in this room, with a blanket draped over her and the ambiance machine sent to rain.