He's pretty sure she's not intending to make him more anxious to read more of the story, but now he's more anxious to read more of the story. (And to read her notes. She takes notes! Should he be taking notes? He's not much of a note taking person and also he might need a third hand for that, the other two will probably be occupied. The scrolling hand could be used to take notes, maybe.) 

It'll need to wait. He can get his homework done quickly, right? (Why did he leave the stupid 3 page social studies report until today?) Quickly and without doing too terrible of a job. 

I look forward to hearing about your analysis! And also the kisses. Experiencing them, that is, not hearing about them. 

Is that too silly? It's probably too silly. She likes his dad's jokes, for some reason. He leaves it in. 

I'll try and get my homework done as soon as I can so that I can read more of it so that you don't have to jangle so much! My locker after school should work. 

He just needs to figure out what to do with her then. Maybe she'll have ideas? Possibly they should find a time to discuss, well, the ritual. Which he is starting to come around to the idea of (last night was a compelling argument for it, even if it's less compelling now that he's not, um, well, experiencing things with her). 

Don't worry about me too too much! I am at peace with my jangling. Good luck with your homework, though! I imagine you will find the story much more fun.

And so to homework! Much less interesting than um, girls in boxes. Girls in boxes that have delivered themselves to a boy and conditioned themselves to be their slave, or something like that. Yeah ok he needs to put this out of his mind and do a report on Canada's role in WWII (ugh). 

And then lunch, and then writing up a physics lab, and doing his math homework (easy enough but far too much repetition and it takes him nearly an hour), and then finishing up his French homework (ugh, ugh, ugh) and then all he has left after dinner is his book report for English which he still hasn't started but it isn't due until Wednesday and so there's no reason to start today, right? He can read the rest of the story, right? 

Right? 

Two hours later, and a page and a half into his stupid book report, he can't take it anymore. He can finish on, um, Tuesday. Since he's meeting with Rosy (his girlfriend? Boy that's a confusing terminology and also the terminology will change, soon, potentially, maybe) on Monday. And won't have much time to work on it then. 

Fuck. 

After another hour and another half a page, he's done for real. The report is done, but he should be able to get it done on Tuesday. Hopefully. Also he's still distracted. He's not getting any more work done, no matter how much he tries to concentrate on talking about the themes in The Grapes of Wrath (ugggggh) his mind keeps going back to, other things. So he closes himself in his room, and reads. 

He's several more chapters in, but not at the end yet (and jerked off twice, there are some really hot bits in there) when it is really, truly, utterly, time for bed. Unfortunately. 

He fires off a quick note to Himari Rosy (look there's a very obvious comparison to be made here, even though he's pretty sure Rosy isn't that... masochistic. Probably.) just so that he knows where he's at. 

Rosy,

Just so you know, homework unfortunately took a lot longer than I would have liked. I have gotten some more distance in, but still have quite a ways to go, unfortunately. Hopefully you're ok waiting until tomorrow (or later, probably) to unleash your analysis on me? I could talk about where I am so far but it might be easier to wait until you can talk with me freely. 

But regardless, I'm going to bed. Hope you had a good day, and looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

That looks ok, right? Yeah, that looks ok. He hits send, and starts getting ready for bed. 

I should probably save my analysis until after you're all done reading. Although, just as a thought: if you liked, you could maybe finish reading the story... with me? Perhaps in my bed? It's an option!

Goodnight my beloved <3

John has. No idea? How to deal with that??? The idea is mildly terrifying. And it's late. And he doesn't want to deal with it right now? He can deal with it talking to Rosy tomorrow (she's probably going to convince him, isn't she. He isn't sure how, but she totally will), after class. For now: sleep. 

Sleep does not last him the entire night (he has a lot to think about ok and not all of it is about Rosy (the story has hot bits, ok)) and he's up early enough to read a couple more chapters (and jerk off again, speaking of hot bits, also he hadn't really thought about the concept of denial before but he's definitely thinking a lot about it now) before it is time to go to school.

And as much as he might want to, he doesn't read it at school this time, even during study hall, since he has very recently learned the perils of doing so. (He works on his other homework instead, since he's going to be spending a number of hours with Rosy tonight.) 

And then after his last class, he heads to his locker to meet her. 

She strolls up to his locker with an enormous irrepressible smile on her face, like she can't stop the happiness from overflowing out of her body just at the sight of him.

She's very very cute (and pretty) (and cute) (and delightful) and she likes him and it feels really good to be liked so much. (There's a bit of discontent in him about this again, he's not sure what about, but it's there. He mentally shoos it away.) He smiles back at her as she approaches. 

"Good afternoon," he says to her, when she's close enough. "Did you have any place in mind? Where should we go?" (He also wants to kiss her. He's not sure it's a good idea (and doesn't want to get carried away) but she's cute and smiling and he wants to kiss her.) 

"I believe I had a suggestion for where we might go and what we might do this evening! If you're all right with it."

She's gazing at him like she wants to kiss him and is only just barely restraining herself.

He's really really not sure what to do about the kissing thing! Is she restraining herself (because she totally is, it's all over her) because she doesn't want to do it in public? Or because she thinks he doesn't want to do it in public? Unfortuantely, there isn't really any way to find out, so there will have to be no kiss. For now. (Possibly he can ask her about it later!) 

"I am... not sure about it? Possibly we can go somewhere and talk about it first, if that's ok?" She's probably going to convince him, but he needs the convincing to actually be able to do it. He thinks. And he definitely doesn't want to talk about it here. 

"Park Bench of Secrets it is. This way!"

He's not entirely sure what she's referring to, so he follows her, and it takes a bit of distance before it hits him. The place where she showed him magic for the first time, right. Okay, that works! He follows her the rest of the way. 

She perches cheerily on the park bench.

"So! What are your thoughts on reading weird porn with me in my bed?"

(Aaaaaaaaaahhh.)

(Those are in fact his thoughts. They're not very intelligible thoughts though. He should probably try and make them intelligible.) 

"I... I don't know that it's... it feels wrong to me, basically?" he says. "I've never... looking at, um, porn" that word was hard to say out loud "doesn't seem like the sort of thing you do with other people, if you know what I mean?"

"Why not? I think it would be fun. You could read about things you enjoy and talk about enjoying them and then I could kiss you."

He blushes at the thought of kisses. (He very much likes the idea of kisses. Kissing Rosy, specifically. "I don't know," he says. "I'm not used to... it seems like the sort of thing you do privately? The fact that we're discussing, um, writing with each other at all has been a little strange." True, though he hadn't noticed up until now. "I just... I know it's probably a good idea but it seems... wrong?" Also he's not going to be able to masturbate around her reading porn like that, and he does want to masturbate to it. But he can't tell her that. And it's not the main reason why he's uncomfortable with the prospect. 

"I recognize that objectively I'm going way too fast and should slow down. But I don't want to. I want to belong to you and I want to read weird porn with you and I want to kiss you so, so much, all the time, and snuggle you, and have sex with you, and—I shouldn't say things about the story until you're done reading it because I forget which parts connect to parts you might not have gotten to yet—I guess I can just ask you what you think of spoilers instead of assuming—"

Her description of what she wants to do with him is... well, it's hot. The kisses, and the sex, and everything. The porn part still seems... wrong somehow though. Maybe it will be less wrong if she belongs to him? He's not sure.

He doesn't really want to be spoiled, but also he wants to hear what she has to say, though. "You can probably say whatever bit you were saying if you want to? I'm up to um, the bit where all of her VR training is happening. Being trained to, um, be alert whenever her, um, owner is around. And being able to concentrate while things happen to her. That sort of thing." 

"When I wrote about jangling like an alarm clock it was because I started to type 'surely I can talk about my reaction to the premise as described in the beginning of the story' and then by the end of the sentence I had gone somewhere else, I forget exactly where. I think I am just not very good at only talking about part of something."

He doesn't really want to be spoiled but also he wants to hear what she has to say, and spoilers probably aren't that important, right? Not for this story? The general, well, thrust is obvious. Also he doesn't want to keep her from saying or doing things. 

"It's probably fine? Go ahead." 

"Is that the kind of probably fine where it's actually probably fine or is it the other kind?"

"...it's actually probably fine, I think?" He's not 100% sure but better to err on the side of caution here. He thinks. (Which side is that again? The side where he's doing the right thing, that's what.) 

"Well. All right. Should I get out my notes and try to say everything or should I make a token effort to stick to things you've already seen?"

Oh there was possibly a misunderstanding here? Oh fuck. "Sorry, I thought you meant to say something about stuff going on right now? And not like, in general? I think I might have misunderstood something, sorry." Fuck. "I don't know that I want to hear about everything yet." Whoops. 

"The thing I was stopping myself from doing was getting into the parallels between my situation and Himari's because I think once I start getting into those parallels it will be very hard to stop. But the parallels are legitimately relevant to what I was trying to say! But there are a lot of them and they go all over the place and I have a lot to say about them."

"Oh. I thought it was one specific thing." Fuck. 

"Maybe it would be a better idea to wait? If that's ok?" He wants to hear what she has to say and more importantly he doesn't want to stop her from saying things! But also he doesn't want spoilers for the whole rest of the story. (Even if he can predict some of what's going to happen, the exact details are important and that's probably what Rosy wants to talk about too here.)