Inadorable

  Chapter 24Piece of Cake28 February 2022Ace can’t believe she’s actually going along with this.

  The revetions of the past twenty-four hours have been so much. She can’t help but think about the torture going on in the basement of Dorley Hall. About the forced feminisation of cisgender men. Problematic men, if the sponsors are to be believed — at this point, Ace isn’t sure whether they can be — but men nonetheless.

  Yet Kelynen, Eira, Rose and Vivienne are unquestionably women today, even if they hadn’t been transgender prior to the programme. Not that that makes any sense, because she knows each of them identifies as transgender and they very much cim to be part of the broader community.

  Which opens up another whole batch of questions.

  If the programme is really as successful as it cims to be, what does it mean for trans people as a whole? The concept of cisgender people washing out implies that some are unable to take the leap and that gender is real and unchanging for some people. But not every transgender person will have a gender that is as fixed, obvious and impossible to ignore as that of someone who is cisgender they couldn’t live as a woman if it was their only option to continue living. Gender is a spectrum after all, with non-binary people, genderfluid people, bigender people and trans women who experience gender euphoria but not necessarily dysphoria. Could these groups be genuinely at risk of the kind of conversion therapy that her mother had suggested for her? If Dorley found a way to make it work, could hate groups?

  Would Ace’s feminine identity have survived under the barrage of torture inflicted upon her? Would she have given up under threat of washing out? She barely managed to buy a skirt in the twenty-two years she has been alive and even that had been under immense pressure from Amy. Surely her resolve is weaker than that of people who live their gender each and every day?

  She knows how painful it is to have gone through the wrong puberty. She understands how impossible it is to find joy in a life when you can’t look in the mirror without crying. Ace can’t look at a beautiful woman without feeling a powerful longing to be like her, and the knowledge that almost everyone at the manor is a beautiful, fully-fledged trans woman just makes it worse.

  The only way she could ever be like them is to accept the horrors inflicted upon others on the other side of the country. She knows it is. She’ll never get FFS and GRS outside of the manor: she’ll likely never get any HRT either. Agreeing to come to the manor meant giving up her job, her apartment, her car, her license and her passport. She doesn’t have access to her bank account anymore — empty as it is — nor does she have anyone to go to. Amy was her only friend in the whole world. She can’t go to family.

  She has no choice but to stay at the manor. At the pce she was brought to under false pretenses. Now she’s assigned to the most-senior sponsor in the entire manor and will have to do whatever pleases the woman — someone who Ace barely knows — or face unknown, likely terrible consequences.

  Eira scares her somewhat, at least she did so earlier in the day in her barely-controlled anger. Someone who also seemed deeply involved in…

  Ace really needs to stop thinking about Dorley Hall. It’s just depressing to think about.

  But she can’t avoid doing so either. She’s aware of its existence, she’s aware of the crimes going on — how can she not think about it? People seem to be fine with it and she doesn’t understand it at all. Why was Gwen so willing to stick her head in the sand? Just because she likes some of the sponsors? Because her moral compass is so broken that she’ll fall for the first people to manipute her into thinking they love her? Or, well, not like Faith and Vivienne would manipute her into thinking that: they seem awfully nice— but they wouldn’t have been at some point, right? What did Faith even do to deserve the same treatment Amy’s gotten? Why had Ace fallen so absolutely for Amy? Is she just as foolish as Gwen? Is she the one who had been expertly maniputed?

  Amy is so genuine, though. Everything about her screams that she is, in fact, just a nice girl who likes to be a fun-loving, somewhat protective big sister. She’s her best friend. Ever since they met a little over a year ago. She was the only one who would still talk to her after their mutual consensus server died over irreconcible horse-reted disagreements that led to the banning of two entire polycules. Two more servers they’d shared had died since, but Amy was always the only one to stick around as her friend. Was all of that just a trick too? Or does Amy genuinely love her?

  She needs to stop thinking about it.

  Ace tries to think about nothing at all as she opens the door to the main kitchen on the ground floor. Eira was waiting for her, lingering near the main door to the hallway. She’s leaning against the kitchen aisle with her arms crossed and an annoyed look on her face.

  “Alice Howells.” The head sponsor quickly says. “You’re twenty-three minutes te.”

  Ace shrugs. Did Eira really really expect her to be perfectly on time? She didn’t have access to a timekeeping device in the cell.

  “No, don’t shrug. I want an expnation. You’ve always badgered Gwen and Aoife with rather unfair compints about their supposed ck of a work ethic so I assume you have a very good reason for being te.”

  “I didn’t have a clock.” She says, annoyed. Is this going to be the way Eira is going to treat her for the rest of her time here?

  “You spent the whole time in the cell?” Eira raises an eyebrow.

  “Um. Yes?” Ace doesn’t know where else she could have been. It’s exactly where Eira had left her.

  “I gave you an hour to get ready for work, young dy.” Eira says. “What you should have done is used the time to tend to your personal hygiene. Did you really think you could sleep on a dirty floor in that uniform and then wear it the next day? Do you not know maids are supposed to be prim and proper?”

  “I—” She’s truly confused. Prim and proper? She’s seen almost every other inhabitant of the manor look a mess one time or another, most especially Jenny. Why is she getting criticised so much when they get away with it untouched?

  “No, no. I don’t need your excuses.” Eira interrupts her. “You’re going to fix this right now. You’ve got exactly thirty-five minutes to shower and put on a clean dress. You will be cleaning up the kitchen afterwards. No ifs, no buts. I expect that you won’t be te again.”

  Ace stares at Eira and blinks. She doesn’t want to follow the woman’s orders per se, but getting thirty-five minutes away from her is too good an opportunity to pass up. Especially when her sponsor is as angry as she is right now. “Yes, um, ma’am?”

  “Get going then. Chop chop. I’m not letting you waste even more of my time.” Eira sighs, leaving the room before Ace can do so herself.

  Ace wonders whether she is always this pissed off.

  ***

  Amy, as always, is so incredibly lucky to have Faith in her life. Her girlfriend has always been one of the only people that she could feel safe around. She was her first true friend, the first one with whom she shared the fact that she thought she was transgender, the first one whom she kissed, made love to and got ‘official’ with.

  Most importantly, Faith knows how to comfort her better than anyone else does. With her soft touches and whispered yet firm denials she always manages to calm Amy down. No, Alice hadn’t been right when she said that she hadn’t changed. No, she hadn’t made a mistake in keeping secrets from her. Bringing Alice here hadn’t been the wrong move — she would have kept denying herself what she needed until it became too much for her. Amy had done her best and acted as selflessly as Faith knows her to be. That’s why she loves her, after all.

  She’d almost believe it, especially when the message is delivered with a bribe of hot chocote with whipped cream and sprinkles, not to mention a slice of birthday cake that Loonie had made earlier in the day. It’s more sugar than she should be having in one day, but Faith knows that Amy has a tendency to fall into disordered eating when she’s stressed. She knows she’d eat too little throughout the day and wander the manor at night, just to figure out that some of the other habitual pantry raiders — Jenny, Gwen, Loonie — had gotten there first.

  It’s awfully sweet of her to look after Amy like that.

  They sit on the couch for what feels like hours, intertwined, Faith caressing Amy’s hair and resting her head on her taller sister’s shoulder. One of GoodTimesWithScar's final Hermitcraft Season 8 videos is pying in the background — it’s a week until the next season and neither of them can wait to see what Joe and Cleo will be getting up to this time around.

  It’s a level of comfort Amy still isn’t sure she deserves, even after Eira spent an hour trying to reassure her that she does. She was apologetic when she had to leave to sponsor Alice and make her clean the kitchen and said she wished she had more time to look after her today.

  It’s why they’re both surprised to see Eira return to Faith’s bedroom after just about thirty minutes.

  The woman’s gaze lingers on Amy’s second hot chocote of the day, judging her for a fraction of a second before smiling indulgently and addressing Faith with a mock-accusatory tone. “There’s such a thing as too much sugar, young dy.”

  “I can’t help it, Eira. This one likes to be spoiled.” Faith giggles.

  “Do I?” Amy asks innocently.

  “You so obviously do." Her girlfriend kisses her at the base of her neck.

  "No I don't." She pouts. “You have zero evidence that I’m enjoying this treatment.”

  "You make Elle buy you enormous ￡300 plushies.” Faith says. “Not to mention the—”

  “You can’t mention that in front of Eira!” Amy pouts. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Is there something I need to know?” Eira asks, somewhat suspicious.

  “Nothing.” She says. “Nothing important, at least.”

  Amy will be in so much trouble when the sponsors find out what Elle has arranged for Jenny and her next month.

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, then.” Eira sits down next to Amy. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Yes ma’am.” She tries to rex her body before asking the one question she didn’t really want to have to ask. Eira was back too quickly. That, combined with the fact that Eira hadn’t talked about her conversation with Alice during her earlier visit, was a rather gring sign that something was going very wrong. “Is Alice… okay?”

  Eira shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “She started the conversation in a bad state and ended it without feeling any better. She’s very stubborn and keeps ciming that she wants to go home. I almost would allow her to, or at least send her to a different facility without the… moral implications of the manor, were it not for the risks involved. She’s too dangerous to let go of at this point. I’m not ruling out that she could go to the police.”

  Amy doesn’t particurly want to think about the police scenario. The Manor, Dorley Hall, and Peckinville form a complicated house of cards— one that is especially vulnerable to leaks. Alice could put a lot of people in serious legal trouble, a list that includes basically everyone Amy loves.

  “What’s your pn, then?” Faith asks. “I understand that she needs to stay, but that’s just going to keep her very unhappy.”

  “Keep her isoted from everyone else until she comes to her bloody senses. Or at least from the people she’s most set on hurting right now. She thinks Kelynen is a murderer, that Gwen is an enabler and that Amy is a liar who tricked her into coming to this ‘horrible pce’. She’d benefit from a bit of more hands-on treatment so I decided to take over as her sponsor for now. She needs rules, clear expectations and to learn how to socialise and empathise with others more. She needs discipline too, rather than constantly running away from her issues.”

  “That’s a horrible idea.” Faith says, pulling Amy closer to her.

  Eira nods. “I expected you to disagree. It’s not the approach I would have preferred — I wanted to stay as distant from this intake as I could. But what else are you supposed to do with someone so intent on being as spiky as possible? Someone who reacts so differently compared to the others? Gwen and Aoife need help and struggle with their lives here too, but they implode rather than explode. Alice hurts the people around her a lot more, and that’s why she requires different treatment. I really don’t want to see someone hurt Amy like that again, Faith. I don’t want to see her hurt Gwen again. Kelynen deserved so much better. Alice’s been so mean to Aoife in the past. Over her work ethic. Like it bloody matters! There are so many vulnerable girls here and I have a duty to protect them.”

  “And Alice is the most vulnerable of them all. She’s drowning out there, Eira.”

  “I know, Faith. I know. That’s when you need to be most on top of things. I’ve seen it dozens of times, the boys will get—”

  “She’s not a basement boy, Eira. Not at all. She’s not like us either.” Faith says, calm as always. “There’s no toxic masculinity to deal with, there’s no problematic views, not even any particurly strong brainworms. There’s nothing to make her deserve that kind of treatment. Alice is here voluntarily, remember?”

  “And that’s why I’ve stayed out of it until now. But someone needs to be doing something to get that girl to calm down.”

  “It’s a five-year programme.” Faith says. “She’s been here for a month, for god’s sake. In that time she’s gone through so much. Give the girl some breathing room.”

  “Not everyone was as willing to go along with everything as you or Gwen.”

  “Nor are they as open to your methods as Amy.” Faith points out.

  Amy has to hold back a ugh in the short pause that follows, thinking about the ‘secret third option’ that Jenny insisted Amy had found as the ‘ultimate solution’ to the fight or flight response: ‘get really horny and submit’.

  “So what’s your pn then?” Eira asks, a little accusatory. Cornered, perhaps. “Just leave her be and let her blow up at my girls every week? I don’t want to see Amy cry a third time this year, I want her to be as cheerful and excited as she’s always been. Gwen needs as much safety and comfort as we can offer her if she ever wants to recover from what that awful, awful man and this disgusting society have done to her. Having her paedophile father sent to the bottom of a cliff isn’t enough to solve that trauma.”

  Amy isn’t sure that casually admitting to murder is the right argument to be making in this situation, no matter how much the bastard had it coming.

  Faith doesn’t seem to be phased by the comment, though, which means she must have already known. Amy can guess what her girlfriend’s opinion was on this particur matter: reluctant approval in the belief that no one else was going to try to do something about it.

  Faith has very little trust in the Anglo-Welsh legal system. It is one of very few topics that she has ever revealed herself to have a strong opinion on. It’s the only one that has ever pushed her into a righteous fury, motivated by her own history as a working-css kid in Middlesbrough being unfairly targeted by the police for having to defend herself, the stories about the many things basementees had gotten away with over the years, and hearing about Gwen being prosecuted for the ‘crime’ of responding to an attack in the way lifelong abuse had taught her to respond. It made her the second-most dorleypilled person in a manor full of very dorleypilled people. At least they’re trying to go after the real bastards rather than the victims.

  The fact that Faith rarely speaks up only makes it more impactful when she does speak up. Amy can tell Eira is actually listening, taking her girlfriend’s points seriously, and wants to find a solution that both of them would be comfortable with.

  “Gwen’s much stronger than you think.” Faith says, her words calcuted and firm. “Just having love and support is doing a lot for her as is. And whilst she may be fragile, she’s also someone who wants to help out. She wants the best for everyone here. She would not appreciate the idea that Alice is being punished with her being used as the excuse. Neither would Amy, knowing that it was your decision.”

  Amy nods. She doesn’t like disagreeing with Eira, especially not because their retionship wouldn’t be based on her disagreeing much. She pces an immense amount of trust in her, and she knows that Eira appreciates her opinion. But when a lot of a dynamic is based in knowing what the other likes there will be moments when those preferences will have to be made clear again.

  “The worst part of that is your idea of isoting Alice from the rest of the intake.” Faith continues. “That’s something that could really break Amy. You know how she got when I was sent to the cells for that little stunt of mine— she was inconsoble. She broke into my cell on multiple occasions just to make sure I wasn’t having as bad a time as she had been, down there. You know how much she can fret about others, how much it can impact her mental health. Do you want to risk doing that to her again just because you don’t know how to deal with someone like Alice? Do you want to risk the trust she has in you just to expedite the process by a month or two?”

  “I don’t want to be risking anything, Faith.” Eira responds, her voice wavering slightly. “I just want what’s best for everyone.”

  “Then stop winding Alice up. Don’t push her too hard, don’t be too judgmental, make yourself safe and trustworthy rather than the personification of everything she hates about this pce. Give her somewhere safe to retreat to that you don’t necessarily have access to. Let her take things at her own pace, let her choose who she interacts with. We’re doing most of the same with Aoife and it’s working. She’s slowly coming out of her shell now.”

  “Faith’s right.” Amy decides that she should speak rather than just nod. “We shouldn’t be all tough on her just because she’s a little difficult at times. Jenny and I are no better, we break a lot more rules, and we don’t get that kind of treatment anymore.”

  “I wish I could do that. But it’s too te to change my approach now.”

  “What?” Amy asks, a little scared of the implication. How bad had it been?

  “I’ve already made my first impressions. She’ll think I’m like— well, like I was to Amy. Strict and scary. I can’t just come back from that— she’ll never believe it.”

  “Just apologise and say you were angry. That seeing Amy hurt made you emotional. It has the benefit of being true. She will not believe you immediately but she might open up a bit once she does.” Faith says.

  Eira waits a second before answering. “But what if she thinks she could use Amy to get back at me. I don’t want to risk Amy like that.”

  “God, you two are so alike sometimes.” Faith holds back a giggle. “But yes, you’d have to make yourself a bit more vulnerable. But that’s only fair. You ask all of us to be vulnerable all the time, Eira. It’s part of the process for both sponsors and intake. You don’t have to be in perfect, unquestioned control all the time. You’re allowed to just be yourself, even around people who are a little more difficult.”

  “I’m not in control right now, am I?” Eira asks, voice filled with both pride and slight amusement. “I sometimes forget how much you girls have changed in the past three years. Meek, timid little Faith tries to tell me what to do now. I remember when you used to quiver in my presence instead.”

  “You’re not that scary.” Faith rexes a little against Amy. “At least, you haven’t been since that time Amy got food poisoning and spent a few days in bed.”

  “She fainted from dehydration. I had every right to be concerned about her wellbeing.” Eira shakes her head, then looks at Faith and smiles. “I’ll try your approach for now. Because I respect your opinion, Faith. You’re a clever, well-meaning girl. And if I want to encourage all of you girls to speak out more when you feel you have to, I do actually have to adjust my methods in the face of criticism. But if Alice abuses this situation to hurt anyone as badly as she hurt Amy today—”

  “You’ll do it your way, yes.” Faith nods. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Amy really, really hopes it won’t. She loves Alice too much to see her suffer like that.

  ***

  Once Ace returns from her shower — five minutes te on purpose — she’s surprised to see the head sponsor isn’t lingering near the door waiting to scold her. Instead, she’s sitting on one of the chairs in the corner of the kitchen, two pieces of cake and cups of tea id out on a table in front of her.

  “I’d like to ask you to join me, Ms. Howells.” She says. “There are a few things we need to discuss regarding… the way some people here have behaved around you.”

  “Um?” Ace stares at Eira from the other side of the room, distrusting every single aspect of the set-up. Tea? Cake? Sitting down in a cozy little corner? The way the woman’s voice seemed to have softened? It feels like a trap.

  “I assure you, it’s fine.” Eira says.

  Given the ck of other options avaible to her, Ace has no option but to sit down near Eira, which she does as cautiously as she can.

  “Thank you. This might take a while, so I think it’s for the best if I start off being extraordinarily blunt: I’m sorry. We’ve made some serious mistakes in how we have been taking care of you for the past month or so. And my treatment of you earlier today was unfair, unjust and unbefitting of my role as the head of this organisation and as your interim sponsor.”

  “What?” Ace feels even more confused than she had before. Is this some kind of manipution technique? Why go through all that just to apologise? “Why?”

  “I discussed what happened with Faith and Amy.” There’s something shaky in Eira’s voice. “They made me realise that I was acting more on emotion than I should have been and in doing so took a much more punitive approach than you deserve. Whilst the way you attacked Amy, Gwen, and Kelynen was beyond the pale, I believe it came from very valid concerns for you to have that we may have dismissed too hastily and struggled to appreciate fully.”

  “You’ve had an epiphany, considered my argument that all of this is fucked up and realised your life’s work is bad, actually?” Ace rolls her eyes. Did she need Faith and Amy to make her realise that?

  “I have certainly made many mistakes throughout my life, Alice. But what I have helped create here is not one of them.” Eira looks at her sternly. “You might not have known what your older sisters were like before they arrived here, but you can see what they are today. They are so much more vibrant, caring, empathetic and open about themselves than they used to be. They’re happier. The path they took to get there may have been longer and more fraught than the ones most trans people have walked, but they got there in the end. You’ll get there too. And I’ll be as proud of you as I am of them.”

  “But what about Dorley Hall? You worked there. You were involved in the mutition and the death and… everything. Do you not regret that?”

  “Whether I regret my actions there isn’t relevant to this discussion.” Eira takes a sip from her cup of tea.

  “It very much is.” Ace insists. “You were involved in those crimes. Half this house comes from there in the first pce. Elle funds both the manor and the basement.”

  “I was indeed involved and I do not regret anything that I have done in the course of my duties as a sponsor. I believe the forced-feminisation programme that goes on there is an incredibly vital contribution to society that has saved over a hundred boys from throwing away their lives and ruining countless others. Is that what you want to hear, even if it’s entirely irrelevant to your life as it stands?”

  “How is that irrelevant? There’s this weird forced fem cult I’m being pulled into and I’m either supposed to buy into it or just ignore it?” Do they really have to push her on this again?

  Eira sighs. “You don’t have to buy into it, you don’t have to ignore it, but you do need to let it go a little. At least when it comes to judging the people who live here for their views on this topic. Do you really want to throw away what you have with Amy and Gwen over this? You’re missing out on so many great things as is. For example, today is Aoife’s birthday. Everyone went out of their way to make sure the girl gets some much-needed presents and is shown the love that she deserves in her life. Kelynen went out of her way to spend hours in the kitchen to make her a birthday cake. Aoife and Gwen are currently enjoying a much-needed nap. Amy, Jenny, and Faith are all cuddled up and watching YouTube videos. Vivienne and Rose are spending the afternoon making lesson pns. Is all of that suddenly so sinister because of some building halfway across the country? Do you really want to miss out on this little community and hide away forever?”

  “I don’t know?” Ace says, tears in her eyes. “I— I just don’t want to deal with all this, okay?”

  “You don’t have to, Alice. Or, at least, we won’t force you to.” Eira puts a hand on Ace’s knee, which she jerks away. “You were promised a transition in exchange for working as a maid and maybe, if you’d like, spending time with Ms. Lambert. I will make sure you don’t have to do any more than that. You don’t have to be a part of everything else if you don’t want to, you don’t have to feel responsible for it. We’ll be giving you all the room you need. Faith said that it would be good if you had some space of your own to retreat to when you feel cornered and want to avoid people for a bit, something more fit for that than the cells. Of course, we’d have some conditions attached to that, like that you do eat and drink whilst you’re there, and I think you should always write down what made you feel like spending some time there…”

  “I—” Ace looks up at Eira, her words fading into background noise. How could the woman try to be nice after all that? Why is she trying to do all these things? What’s going on? Was this all Amy’s doing? Did Amy try to help her after everything she’d done to her? The world is getting more confusing by the day.

  “What? Why?” Ace pleads.

  “Because we all want what’s best for you, Alice. We want you to be happy. I know that’s a lot to think about, especially when you may not be used to hearing such things in the first pce.” Eira looks at her, somehow looking like she actually cares. “Do you think you need a little time-out now? We don’t have a room set up yet, but no one should disturb you in the library…”

  Ace nods. She doesn’t know why she nods, why she accepts the bribe offered to her, but she doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice.

  Her head is spinning as Eira brings her to the library and guides her to the comfiest armchair in the room.

  It took Ace too many minutes after that to notice that Eira had left her a piece of Aoife’s birthday cake.

  Did she actually care?

  Surely she couldn’t.

  But she didn’t have to do that...

  That’s when the tears really started to flow.

  ***

  Great way to cap off an already terrible day, Amy. Kissing Jenny in public is one thing, but pinning her against the wall and making a whole fucking scene out of it just to end up calling the little shit slurs is something else. That’s not just one, but two rule breaks she’s done in less than two minutes. And the tter isn’t a small one either: it’s one of the rules applied to her to control her problematic tendencies early in the programme.

  Breaking that rule is bad. Doing so in front of the first-years is worse. Most of the other girls are used to seeing the two of them fight a little — or a lot — but Gwen and Aoife wouldn’t know just how loud, intense, aggressive and, for ck of a better word, degenerate scenes between the two could get. At least there hadn’t been any weapons involved this time around, as much as Amy enjoys it when she pins Jenny against a wall, impales her on a strap-on and holds a knife to her throat.

  But that’s not something the newbies need to see, even if some of them would be rather excited by the prospect. The worst part is that Amy knows it’s not something she should be doing around them, even if it hadn’t been that extreme by their standards. And yet she did it, because she was stupid enough to drink that pink can of monster energy and lose her cool to the sudden spike in caffeine.

  She ought to be better than this!

  So she’s yet again in Eira’s office, waiting for the head sponsor to acknowledge her as she picks a bottle of Irish whiskey out of her liquor cabinet. She hadn’t gotten up to drink until Amy had entered the room looking all guilty, and all it’s done is make her feel even worse about what she’s done. It’s been a long day for her and she really didn’t have to deal with one of her girls backsliding even more.

  “Right.” Eira says, sitting back down behind her desk. “Out with it. It has to be important — I can see you struggling to stay still.”

  “I—” Amy tries to talk, eyes fixed to the floor.

  “At least look me in the eyes if you’re going to be all catholic and confess your sins.” She orders.

  Amy’s eyes snap to Eira’s. “Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am. I, um, I may have broken one of the rules.”

  “That much is obvious.” The head sponsor says, then shakes her head. “Sorry. I’m a bit irritable. It’s been a long day.”

  “I applied some of the terms from the prohibited list to another person today.” Amy admits, feeling more ashamed than she really should.

  “And to whom did you do such a thing?” Eira raises an eyebrow.

  “Jenny.” Amy knows the exact reaction she’s going to get.

  “That’s your big admission? You called Jenny a mean word?” As expected, Eira ughs. “I was under the impression you two did that to each other daily.”

  “This is different, ma’am.” Amy shifts uncomfortably under the woman’s gaze. She hopes it will help Eira realise this is a little more serious than Jenny calling Amy her ‘favourite faggot’, or vice versa. “For one, this was in front of the first years. Jenny was being really annoying and all touchy and I’d just had a can of monster and I just, I pinned her down to the wall and called her the k-word. The really bad one. The one 4chan likes a lot.”

  “Amy…” Eira stands up and gently takes one of her hands. “You really shouldn’t be using that word in particur. The others are bad enough as is.”

  “I know.” Amy bites her lip.

  “You didn’t even use it before you ended up here.” She continues, sitting down on the couch and indicating for Amy to sit down next to her.

  “I know, ma’am.” She says. “Jenny likes it when I use that word with her in bed. But we weren’t there, we were in public, and… I got carried away.”

  “I understand.” Eira caresses Amy’s hair. “I’m not mad, dear.”

  “You should be.” Amy mumbles, looking away again, quickly correcting once she realises her mistakes. “I’m sorry. It’s not my pce to decide whether you should be or not.”

  “Good girl. As I said, I’m not mad at you. You’ve had a long, very hard day. Some slip ups are to be expected. It’s a shame that it was in front of the first years but it was bound to happen at some point. Especially with Jenny being the way she is.”

  “I should have told Jenny off rather than letting it get that far, though.”

  “Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. She shouldn’t have been trying to egg you on like that.”

  “She was always going to do so, though. She wanted to make sure I’m okay and then tried to distract me by being… really annoying.” It’s what Amy loves so much about Jenny: she’s always trying to lower the stakes of any conversation. It makes her an incredibly easy person to be around.

  “And you were always going to react, especially when you’re emotional and dealing with that much caffeine in your body.” Eira says. “I’m most disappointed you tried to have an energy drink, Amy, we both know that never goes well.”

  “I know.” Amy blushes very intensely. “I know all that and yet I did it.”

  “And that’s why I'm forgiving you, Amy. I’m happy you self-reported because otherwise it’d have kept rattling around in that big dumb brain of yours all week.”

  “No punishment?” Amy asks. She knows it sounds almost like she’s pleading.

  “I assume you would like some.” Eira cocks her head a little.

  “Not in that way.” She expins. “It’d just be good for my peace-of-mind.”

  “So an actual corrective measure?”

  Amy nods. She needs to know that certain rule breaks do actually have consequences.

  She takes a moment to come up with something before responding. “No sexual intercourse with Jenny for a week.”

  “None?”

  “None. No matter how annoying she is.”

  “Oh god.” Amy whispers. That’s not something she’d expected, nor is it the kind of punishment that Eira would usually apply to her when she’d done something wrong. Usually it’d be along the lines of more or worse chores. But she can see why it makes sense— the offending behaviour did result from Amy pinning Jenny to a wall with the intent of dragging her away and doing just that.

  Her frenemy-with-benefits is going to be so annoying this week, though.

  “Thank you ma’am.” Amy says, almost having forgotten her proper manners.

  “Now, I need you to promise me something. You won’t do anything foolish tonight, right?” Eira asks.

  “I’ll try not to.” Amy answers with what she hopes is not all too btant a lie.

  Eira takes a long, accusatory sip from her whiskey. “Don’t get yourself too hurt.”

  Fuck. She really can’t sneak anything past this woman. “Yes ma’am. Thank you for indulging me tonight.”

  “It’s really no bother. I enjoy your company, even when it’s for something as silly as this.” Eira runs her hand along Amy’s reddened cheek. “Have a good night, Amy.”

  ***

  Amy finds Alice fast asleep on the rgest, most comfortable armchair in the library. It’s not entirely surprising that she fell asleep: the padding on that seat is considerable, and it’s of a size that could comfortably house one very rge man.

  That also means it’s also big enough for one rather small maid with C-cups and her somewhat taller, much less well-endowed little sister to spend the night together.

  Amy sneaks her way onto the chair, causing a very exhausted-looking Alice to stir a little. It’s obvious that she had cried enough for most of the evening before. It’s not a look that she particurly likes on her— not in the same way she would enjoy seeing it on Jenny, at least. But she’s happy to see that Alice has been able to let as many of her emotions out as possible.

  She shushes Alice as she pulls the girl into her embrace. “It’s alright, Ay. It’s me. I’m here for you.”

  Alice mumbles something incomprehensible. Didn’t sound like anything bad, though.

  “I love you so much, silly.” Amy whispers into her ear. “And that’s why you’re never getting rid of me.”