"Redheads."

I looked up from my book, raising myself on my elbows, turning my head to look over to the other side of the small dorm room. "What?"

"Redheads."

Aware of my roommate's proclivity for saying completely random shit without prompting, I sighed, put my book down, rolled over, and sat up on the side of my bed. "What about them?" I asked.

She shrugged, an impressive feat while lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. "I dunno. Just redheads, right?"

I waited. Portia obviously had something in mind beyond hair colour. I tried to hold onto what I'd just read so I wouldn't have to start the chapter over again when the inanity ended.

"There's, like, what, one person in fifty that has the gene for red hair?"

That was it? "Sure. Okay. What about it?"

"So... like, two percent."

"You were the one that studied math, not me."

"Two people in a hundred. Same as one in fifty."

I flopped backwards onto the bed. "Why should I care?"

"Well, just wondering."

I waited again.

So did she.

I gave in first. "About what?"

I heard her sit up. "Well, He told m—"

"Oh god," I groaned unintentionally, pulling myself back up to sit face to face. "You're always trying to figure out—"

"I just want to know!"

"Yeah, well, the rest of us don't." I sighed. "How the fuck did I get the short straw in the roommate draw?"

She blew me a kiss. "It's fate."

I grabbed a hunk of my hair, messy and tangled from lying in bed, curling from the humidity. I held it in front of my face. "Look. Not red. Brown. And you're blonde."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is the point, Portia?"

She shrugged. It made her bare breasts bounce distractingly. "Like I said, it's what—"

"No."

She blinked. "What?"

I shook my head. "I am not having another discussion about your theories about Him and His mind control techniques. Those just go nowhere."

"But it's fun to—"

"It's fun for you," I said. "It's just..."

It was her turn to wait. She leaned forward, light reflecting off her small glasses.

I shrugged, knowing my chest wasn't doing anything nearly as interesting as hers. "Y'know."

"I don't."

I stood up, frustrated. "It's tedious, Portia. You go on and on and on about Him and His ability and the two of us have these circular discussions that go nowhere and—"

She stood, too, and grabbed my hand, causing me to stop my tirade. She put her mouth next to my ear, and whispered. "And it makes you so fucking wet you can't stand it."

I tensed up. "Fuck you," I whispered.

"You would. You do."

"Only for Him."

Her hand guided mine to her naked thigh. "Only for—"

"Yes!" I snapped, turning away. "I'm not like you, Portia!"

"Speaking of tedious repeated discussions—"

I rounded on her. "Not all of us are super thrilled to be here, you know."

"Then leave," she said with a shrug.

I looked at the door.

"You know you're free to go," she continued.

I kept looking. I took a step.

"Zara did."

"I know Zara did!"

"You going out like that?"

I wasn't going out at all, naked or otherwise. She knew it. I knew it. I hung my head. "Fuck."

She moved up behind me. Her hand slipped in mine again, not so demanding this time. "That's..."

"Hm?"

"That's why I'm curious," she said.

"What is?"

She squeezed. I squeezed back. "We're all so... different. Out there, we're artists, accountants, architects, athletes... Even some jobs that don't start with 'a'."

I couldn't help it. I grinned. "Yeah, but in here..."

She leaned up close again, whispered again. "In here, we're all His."

My knees shook. I swallowed. I nodded.

She kissed my cheek.

"What... were you saying?"

"Hm?"

"About redheads."

She giggled. "Now you want to talk science?"

I smiled and turned to her. "It's not like I'm gonna be able to avoid the discussion forever. Once you get an idea in your nerdy little head..."

She scoffed. "You love it, Rae."

And honestly, despite the fact that she'd taken me out of my book and irritated me, I did. I walked back to my bed, not about to admit it. "So you say, like, one in twenty—"

"One in fifty."

"Okay, one in fifty people are redheads."

"Two percent."

I sat. "What of it?"

"Well, do you remember the night He nabbed you?"

"Do I remember that night? How could I forget?"

"Mhmm, well," Portia stepped a little closer to me. "You weren't the only girl I recommended to Him."

"I'm hurt," I replied dryly.

"It was like everyone I knew," she continued. "Liana, Carey, Simone... A few others, too."

"But they didn't—"

"No, but you did. So did I. So I'm thinking..."

She was standing right in front of me. I patted the bed. She sat next to me, and curled her fingers around mine again.

"What if we're like redheads?"

"We've been over this," I said. I pointed to my head. "Brown." And to hers. "Blonde."

"Not what if we are redheads, dummy." She sighed. "What if we're like redheads? That small part of the population, that little two percent... I mean, I saw the way He looked at Simone."

"Did He look at Simone the way you looked at Simone?" Even straight (well, mostly) me could see that our dark-skinned study-buddy was one of the hottest girls in town.

"He looked at Simone the way everyone looks at Simone," she said. "And He said that I was right, that He would love to have her here—"

"So why isn't she..." The realization of what Portia had been getting at dawned on me. "Oh."

"Right?"

"I see, okay." I paused. "So why did Zara leave, then?"

Portia shrugged and I couldn't help it, I looked. "She wasn't happy, didn't like it here, family stuff, I dunno. She's not the only one who's left. Just because you have a genetic predisposition to Him doesn't mean you have to follow it."

"It is fun, though." The words slipped out before I'd thought about them.

She swung her body over and straddled me, putting her shapely breasts right in my line of sight. "Zara doesn't know what she's missing."

My eyes were locked onto my roommate's tits. "I'm pretty sure that she does." Somewhere deep in the back of my memory, I heard a voice. You are fascinated by Her breasts.

Portia put a hand on my cheek. I didn't look up. "It's something He has, that I love, that you tolerate, and that she just... couldn't, I guess."

More than tolerate, I admitted to myself. "So, you... betrayed everyone you—"

"It's not a betrayal, Rae," she said, Her voice soft and smooth. "I didn't know it at the time, I guess, and I see how you might look at it that way. I just wanted all my friends to feel the way I do, all the time."

I nodded.

"And it's not like we're cut off. We still work, live, play, have friends, see our family... All outside the dorm."

"Uh huh." I was still staring at Her chest.

"But out of all my friends... it was just you."

"Just me," I repeated. I felt odd. Heavy.

"Like a redhead. One in fifty."

"Two percent," I replied, not sure what I was saying.

"Maybe it's more, maybe it's even less, who knows. Point is, you're here now. And you're staying."

I nodded. "Staying."

She pulled my head forward, slightly. I followed, my tongue automatically coming out and licking a nipple. She moaned softly. She leaned down. Our lips met. She pushed me back onto the bed.

I heard the door close as we were making out, two naked girls kissing intensely on a small mattress, hands wandering, mouths exploring.

"I got her all hot and ready for You," Portia said as we took a quick breath, readjusting her glasses that had been nudged askew.

"Excellent, Portia," His voice said.

Ready for Him.

Portia climbed off and I spread my legs. I was too turned on to think much about it.

"That's why we're all so different," Portia continued, breathless, as He started to thrust inside me. "There's something in the blood, something in our DNA, that causes us to be unable to resist Him."

As He pressed inside me, I managed to mutter out an, "Uh huh."

"So He does what makes the most sense, right? Gathers us all together in one place so He can do with us whatever He likes."

I wanted her to stop talking. I didn't care. All that mattered was Him.

"Some new ones come, some leave, but we're all united in one thing: that genetic variation that makes Him so completely mind-meltingly compelling."

She was still talking. He was fucking me, and it felt amazing.

"But there's some like you, Rae. Just on the edge."

I was on the edge of something at that point, definitely.

"You might stay. Or you might go. So He and I, we worked out a little experiment."

What Portia was saying sounded important, but I just couldn't concentrate on it.

"We're conditioning you, Rae. Slowly changing your mind. Tying you more and more closely to me, and to Him."

God, I was so close. And I knew from experience that He was, too.

"Where before it was only Him you couldn't resist, His voice, His power—"

I imagined her breasts. Fantasized about her doing to me what He was doing to me.

"—Soon you'll be just as powerfully under My spell."

The thought of that combined with the first spurt of his climax made me cum, and cum hard. Stars danced in my vision. I'm sure I screamed in joy. I lay there helpless, just breathing.

"And just through the power of my words, power I'm borrowing from Him..."

I could hear her smirk. When you've been friends, roommates, slaves, and fuckbuddies with someone for a while, you start to understand their expressions just in their tone of voice.

"...You're going to drop into beautiful, relaxing sleep, and forget all about this."

I nodded as best as I could, as He climbed off of me. I felt the familiar heaviness of sleep settling in, even as I heard my roommate slurping at His cock on the bed next to mine.

I would wake up and forget everything, and then maybe I'd be ... whatever one-in-fifty of one-in-fifty was. I wasn't the one who'd studied math. Genetically tied to Him, and to Her.

Her. Portia.

I thought about dyeing my hair red, just for the joke of it.

Even with all the noise, I couldn't keep my eyes open, but I could definitely dream.