Author's Notes: Hello everyone! Hello our dear darling readers! How is everyone doing? Did you miss us? Did you think this story was done for and never continuing? HA! Well jokes on you! We're back, baby!
But seriously, yes, this story shall continue! Before that though, a few quick comments. First of all, I would like to apologize for our prolonged absence. 2016 was a hard year for a number of reasons, and real life just forced us to set this story aside for a while. Believe us when we say it was not out of a lack of desire to continue this story, we both love it and want to see it through to the end. But at the same time, real life has to come first, so we would like to thank those of you who have been so understanding and stuck by us through the doldrums. We can't and won't make promises we can't keep, so updates will come when we are able to get them to you. Just remember, we love this story, and we love our readers, so we hope you will bear with us and continue to enjoy this labor of our love.
Now, and forgive us if we are just a little rusty. We're shaking the cobwebs loose, but we hope you will enjoy this latest chapter that brings us one more closer to the end of this week of hell arc. To those of you who have hated the Gwen focused 'Solomon Grundy' arc, rest assured it is coming to an end and will be over with by chapter twenty-three!
(Hey guys, this is Rufus from the year 2020 to let you know that this chapter wasn't the original chapter 20. Most of it is the same but I removed a long and ultimately pointless bit where characters from "Rick and Morty" and "Star vs. the Forces of Evil" randomly show up and then leave with nothing gained by doing so. I have no idea what I was thinking with that! Lol. But anyway, hopefully this chapter is smoother for that unnecessary bit removed.)
So with that out of the way…*drum roll*…
Here is the twentieth chapter of Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: Chance: Took Ill on Thursday
October 30, 2014 (6:50 PM)
Gwen had always loved libraries. As a kid, she spent countless hours reading anything and everything she could get her tiny hands on, ranging from the really messed up legends of Greek mythology to the more unsettling writings of H.P. Lovecraft whose gods were beyond any scope of nightmare, to books recounting the horrors of the seemingly endless wars and conquests of human history. She always had boundless enthusiasm when conjuring up the printed words from their pages into richly detailed living and breathing images within her unbridled imagination. The same gusto other children put into playing games with others and running around playgrounds was applied to her mind, moving at a hundred miles an hour. That love of reading, especially the gory, nasty stuff, had remained intact even after the years of her childhood were long gone. True, the ceaseless zeal had faded with age, but the fundamental drive and love of the written word had withstood time's advance.
Plus, she always liked how talking was pretty much nonexistent and no one would bother her within the book gilded walls of what she had come to think of as her sanctuary.
"Fuck!" The Goth cursed under her hushed breath, wishing the building, or better yet the entire campus, would explode.
Rubbing her ebony eyes as she looked up from the book she had reading for literal hours, it took everything she had not to start screaming in frustration. Everything in the campus library was more or less as it had been before. It was still mostly empty. The many wide rectangular tables complete with nicely cushioned chairs in the study area she was in were devoid of students, studying or otherwise. Through an opening several feet away leading to another area, she could see there were rows upon rows of mahogany bookshelves taller than she filled with book spines of every size, color, thickness, title font, and level of wear and tear. There still was the same labyrinthine design that made getting lost easy. There were still the burgundy rugs that were in dire need of a decent scrubbing. That moldy old book smell still clung to the air like syrup. There were still random 'examples' of artwork ranging from classic surrealism to more modern impressionism, with melting clocks covered in ants sharing space with abstract explosions of random colors on the walls. There was still the fact that both of the building's floors had a claim to fame. For the ground floor, it was a large granite sculpture of an open book with a swinging pendulum hanging above it, with its line connected to the upper floor through an opening. For the upper floor, where Gwen was currently residing, there was a passageway with several rusted railroad tracks well over fifty years old as decoration.
All of these details were irrelevant to the Goth who sat stewing in her comfy chair however. They gave way to a few other choice details that only seemed to be impacting her. Firstly, though it was Thursday, it had rained just like it had the previous day. True the rain had stopped several hours ago, but not until after her sojourn to the library, on foot. As a result she was still very much damp, her clothes and hair sticking to her more uncomfortably than usual. The only reason she had come to the library all those hours ago was for some much needed studying and researching, not by choice. Secondly, the schoolwork itself was starting to give her a migraine. She was tired, and bitter, but she knew she had to push past that. Besides it helped keep the unpleasant thoughts out of her mind, thoughts of the things she was starting to miss ever since Heather's 'deal'.
Getting to spend the entire day with her boyfriend, being able to do anything outside of her classes, homework, and fucking. Late night partying where they could get good and wrecked having a great time. Watching old horror movies until they fell asleep on the couch…
Waking up in each other's arms.
The fact that tomorrow would be Halloween, her favorite day of the year, only made the lack of horror movies especially painful. But even that paled in comparison to the worst pain. There was one detail of the past couple of days that she found stung more deeply than anything else. Every morning for the last two years, Gwen had woken up to find Duncan's powerful arms wrapped tightly around her with an iron death grip. His larger frame like a living mountain of muscle, an indestructible fortress that protected her as well as sheltered her from the world. She found herself missing that feeling, the feeling of his powerful muscles against her soft body, more than anything.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Gwen yawned and looked back at the notes she had made for her class project, for a class which caused sighs of disappointment to escape her lips.
'History of Horror'.
She had taken the class thinking it would be easy, the description being that it was an 'in depth study of the cultural impacts and implications of the horror genre throughout recorded history'. Between the course's name and description she had figured it would basically be little more than watching horror movies or reading novels and writing reports about them. Nothing too difficult, and even if it meant frequent assignments at least it would be something she enjoyed. But the Goth had fallen into a trap that many college students did, she took a course based off a name and description that proved to be more inaccurate than accurate. She later found out that the reason for this was because classes evolve as time passes and despite whatever changes they go through, the names and descriptions did not. But that didn't bring her any comfort, or lessen her frustration in the slightest. Not only was the course not what she thought it would be, no, it was also proving to be her most difficult class.
It was more of a cultural and world history class than anything else. There had been a few films and a couple of novels that were brought up, but those were only used to explore the reactions and states of mind of the people of whatever country or time period they were studying. She had been surprised by a few of the things she had learned, such as the widespread belief of vampires by Europeans being connected to Tuberculosis outbreaks in the medieval era, but she had taken the class expecting something easy that she could just enjoy. Her current project, a report detailing the long lasting negative views on religion due to the Spanish Inquisition pretty much dispelled any hope the class would turn out to be that, however.
Jotting down some notes, figures on how many were believed to have died in the first few months of the Inquisition, she found herself yawning. The last few days she hadn't been sleeping very well, mostly thanks to the recurring dreams she had been having, but this morning there had been something else that added to her sleeping troubles.
Every morning she had woken up cold and alone to a dorm silent as a graveyard, aside from the scratching of the two ferrets at her door (which she kept closed now ever since her first 'encountering' them) begging for food. This time however, was different. Instead of jolting awake from whatever howling nightmarish hell she had been suffering to silence, she had been roused by something unexpected, something that took her a little while to identify as music.
It was loud, but far from ground shaking, mostly due to it being crisp clear classical instead of the booming heavy metal Duncan and by extension she usually listened to. The notes were competent, but not masterful or confident. After getting up and following the sound to Heather and Cody's room, she was surprised to see the door closed for once. Even stranger, when she went to open it she discovered it was locked and the music stopped suddenly mid-note. In her mind (which was still clinging to the dulling effects of forced awakening) she pondered what the deal was. She stayed and waited for a few minutes, hoping to divine some meaning or explanation for the music, but none came. When nothing else was heard, she figured that the ferrets must have gotten locked in and were messing with their alarm clock or something.
The Goth wasn't able to give the unexplained incident any more thought, however. Any further contemplation ended when she heard a light growl from her stomach. Checking her phone, and discovering to her shock that it wasn't that late in the evening yet, only quarter after seven she sighed once again. It had felt like days passed since she entered the library earlier that afternoon. Along with the rain, another similarity to the previous day was her not having much to eat. She wasn't exactly starving; but it would be a lie to say she wasn't hungry. Thinking about dinner reminded her that there was still no food back at Duncan's yet, which in turn made her thoughts turn to her boyfriend, and as she did, her bitterness became pity.
Ever since arriving at Pertsch & McGillis Memorial University, Gwen had learned many lessons not taught in the classroom. Like any college, this one had particular conditions and realities that every student who lived there learned by heart. One of the first such lessons was that Thursday nights were something special for most. A majority of the students didn't have classes on Fridays, so Thursday nights were something of an unofficial party night, while Fridays became known as 'Hangover Recovery Days'. The Goth and the Delinquent had already become intimately acquainted with many of the dorm parties and bars around campus, at which they could get thoroughly wasted.
Those parties, where she blacked out in who knows where, were her fondest memories of this place. And she knew Duncan felt the same way, and that's why she felt so bad. Thanks to Heather's deadline of midnight, she and Duncan wouldn't be able to enjoy tonight like they had every other Thursday since arriving. Sure, they could still go to a party or a bar, but having to be back before midnight meant they would miss most of the really good stuff. Hell, sometimes the parties didn't get started until midnight.
Unable to abandon the subject of partying, which looked particularly appealing after reading several recorded torture sessions of the Inquisitors forcing confessions, her mind became fixated on trying to find some way to both exploit the fun to be had and not break Heather's rule.
'Um, we could go to a party and then turn in early?' she thought to herself in silence. She pondered this option, debating with the tomb-like stillness of the library for a bit, but she reached her conclusions quickly.
'Yeah, like that would work! Duncan already doesn't like leaving before five in the morning. Hell would sooner freeze over and start playing 'Hitler on Ice' before he'd go for leaving before midnight!' she answered herself bitterly before changing mental gears. 'Okay, so we can't leave a party early. And we can't stay at a party after my Queen-Bitch imposed curfew…the last thing I want to do is give that manipulative little whore any more ammo!'
Acting before her distain towards Heather could cloud her thinking, Gwen again switched mental gears, turning to a different idea, one a little more creative and smaller in scale.
'Maybe we could have a party at his place? We could have a smaller group meet at Duncan's for the night?'
She pondered this for about three seconds.
'Nah! That's not gonna work! His place is barely big enough for just him and me! Trying to cram anymore people in there is just—!' Gwen stopped mid-thought, having a moment of clarity amid the world of knowledge around her. As a new idea started to bubble up from her mind, she found her guarded frown become not as harsh. 'We might not have enough for any more people…but could we have a party of two?'
With surprising speed, the pieces started to fall into place as a new plan began to take form. Those abstract mental pieces, as oddly shaped and disorganized as they were, began fitting together into a fully formed idea. Soon the completed plan was hashed out in full.
If she left now, she would have more than enough time to set up a surprise for Duncan. She knew he was playing basketball with his friends, and that he wouldn't be back until nearly eight at the earliest. It wouldn't be much, less than an hour, but it could work. What she had in mind wouldn't be much compared to what they were used to, but it would be a night for just the two of them, enjoying some dinner, knocking back a few beers, listening to some good music and having time to unwind, relax, and fuck.
'Sounds like a plan,' Gwen concluded in her own head as she stood up and stretched. Swiftly packing her books and notes into her backpack, the Goth took off for Cody and Heather's dorm. Her steps filled with unusual pep and drive fueled by both the necessity of using her limited time effectively and her desire to finally enjoy herself for once after nearly a week of hell. The umber like gloom ever since being forced under Heather's rules was utterly oppressive, and she savored any chance to weaken that stranglehold, even if only for a single night.
She was thankful that when she got to the dorm, neither Cody nor Heather was there. It took her a long time to pick out the pieces for the outfit she had in mind, which was Duncan's favorite. She had been here for a few days but still hadn't gotten around to organizing her clothes between the suitcases. Once Gwen had gathered up what she needed to complete it, along with her makeup she headed for the public bathrooms. She didn't have much time to change and get ready for her impromptu date night.
Gwen finished the final touches of her makeup for the evening before putting her eyeliner and lipstick back into her small makeup bag. Once everything was put away and the last details were in place, she took a few steps back from the mirror she had been using to get a better look at the final result of her efforts. While not an outfit she personally cared for, she was pleased with how she looked.
To put simply, she looked like she had just walked out from one of Duncan's masturbatory fantasies. The Goth was wearing a low cut black short sleeve tube top that showed a very generous amount of contrasting milky white cleavage, a short black skirt, and tight fishnet leggings like ebony spider webs that were tucked into lace-up boots that went up to her knees. Likewise, while not as readably notable, there were a few other changes from her usual college attire. For one, she was wearing no bra, which had made squeezing into this particular top that much more difficult. She was no Lindsay, but her breasts were plenty large, and getting the two masses of soft pillowy flesh to settle evenly had taken more effort than she would ever admit. Duncan enjoyed seeing her wearing the cleavage-boosting bras she normally wore, but she also knew how much he enjoyed reaching up under her shirts to find a skin surprise from time to time. Her top assets roaming free ranged, her bottom assets were likewise given a bit more freedom than usual. In place of her usual selection of thongs she opted for a bright red G-string, knowing how much he loved it. She set aside her disdain for the scrap of cloth just this once. Tonight was about him, and she was pulling out all the stops.
While the changes to her outfit were extreme, the differences with her makeup were quite minimal. The only major changeup from the norm was the color of the lipstick that she was wearing. Her lips were painted not in warm blue-green or cold jet-black, but in a bright slutty red.
After puckering her lips and making sure her lipstick was even, Gwen reached for the final piece to complete her outfit, which in some ways was the most important. It was a piece of jewelry, collar; a spiked collar…the very same one Duncan used to wear during Total Drama's three seasons to be exact. He had given it to her as a gift when things got serious between them.
Clasping the collar around her neck, and feeling the added weight around her throat, the Goth remarked to herself how she missed her oversized jacket, which she wore to not be so exposed when wearing outfits like this in public. But she stopped herself from worrying by reminding herself that she would be staying in tonight. There was no need for it.
And that realization alone made her feel much better, because she honestly didn't like this outfit. Being perfectly honest, she hated it. The collar was always a little too tight, she was extremely uncomfortable with how much of her bust was on display, and her leggings were so tight and revealing that she was sure anyone could see her birthmark if she were to bend over.
But while she hated this outfit, it had been a gift from Duncan for her birthday a few months ago. And she knew that seeing her in it made him happier than anything that didn't involve her making him cum. She took some small, almost begrudging, solace in that. More importantly, it felt right to do this. After all, it was her fault in the first place, the very least she could do was to make up for this shitty situation as much to Duncan as she could.
After dropping off her things back at the dorm, she was surprised to see that it was still empty, though she didn't care that much. She had expected Duncan to be back by now, but it actually worked better that he wasn't since it would allow her to completely finish the preparations, and thus make the surprise total. There was one last thing she needed.
With that in mind, Gwen headed down to the cafeteria to get dinner for the two of them. She was so worried about the time that she didn't even grab her jacket. When she arrived however it hit her and filled her gut with the feeling and knowledge that she was fully exposed to anyone that saw her. That was why she was so thankful that the eating area was pretty empty when she entered. Given the time of night it was, just before eight, it was a sweet spot between the two great waves of nocturnal student meal times. Those eating dinner earlier had already finished while those who had late night classes still wouldn't be out for another hour or so.
Gwen steeled herself as she stepped past her few onlookers and made her way towards the thinly staffed counter.
'Tonight is about me and Duncan…the rest of the world can go fuck itself!'
With that mindset fueling her, the Goth reached the counter and looked over her options. For once it seemed, fortune was on her side as Gwen had just enough money for what she had in mind, a large double bacon cheeseburger for him and a chicken salad for herself. Not wishing to be under the prying eyes of those who she didn't give a single fuck about, Gwen marched with a little more vigor as she made her way back to Duncan's dorm. She knocked before entering, on the off chance that Duncan was back already but no one answered the door. Not surprised that he wasn't back yet, the Goth fished out her key and let herself inside.
Knowing that it was nearly eight, Gwen knew she still had some time left for the last details of her and Duncan's little private party. With that in mind, she set their dinner on the small table and found the speakers Duncan had bought for his phone, which she plugged into hers and set it to shuffle.
As some of her favorite music started to fill the air, she looked around the dorm, and couldn't help but notice how cluttered it was. Cloths strewn all over the place and piled up from wall to wall almost like a mangled carpet. Though the notion made her insides writhe, Gwen had to admit that Heather had at least one point. She and Duncan had let this place get too far away from them. She had never been a neat freak before, accustom to her rooms haphazard nature, but she still held a certain appreciation for things being…clean.
'I just gave up on getting him to keep our room clean back at his place…' she recalled. It bothered her at first just how much dirty laundry he had piled up in his room, but as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, she had gotten just as bad and just as lazy as him.
Feeling a slight tug of annoyance at the back of her mind, a tugging that grew stronger the longer she looked out over the clothes and books and trash that littered the floor she finally gave in and sighed. 'If I cleaned things up a bit, it would make things more romantic', the Goth thought to herself as she decided to use her remaining time to make the place at least look halfway habitable. Though due to her boyfriend likely being home at any moment, she was limited in what she could do. For now at least "cleaning up" meant moving the piles of clothes in the bedroom. It took longer than she thought it would, especially since she didn't want to get her own clothes dirty while doing so. That desire, to keep herself as clean as possible however clashed with her desire to get it done quickly. After all few things would spoil the mood before things even got started than Duncan coming in to seeing her carrying piles of unwashed clothes.
Against all odds and all of her preexisting notions of luck, Gwen managed to move all the dirty clothing into their bedroom. She allowed a small smile to grace her painted lips as she looked out over the now relatively clean dorm; she felt a small ember of pride flare up in her chest knowing that their little home was now that much better. More than ever, she was getting impatient waiting for Duncan to get here! With that spurring her on, she checked her phone, but as the illuminated screen painted a neon green shadow over the pale canvas of her face, the Goth's previously jovial expression morphed into one of confusion.
It was quarter after eight.
With her mind still in a daze, she quickly sent Duncan a text asking where he was.
After that text was sent, time itself seemed to be going out of its way to mock and torment the Goth, crawling by with the pace of a salted snail. Every new agonizingly long second ratcheted up the dread and worry within her pale, curvy frame. The lack of new messages from Duncan started to take on the same fear-inspiring traits as encountering a wild bear, something Gwen had experienced several times before thanks to a certain bastard of a host nowhere nearly enough years ago. Unable to help herself, Gwen sent another text message, basically just further eliciting her boyfriend to answer her.
As her favorite songs playing no longer offered her any closure, Gwen just sat there brooding in paranoia. Every new minute was torturous, mocking. She attempted to endure it and lasted until twenty after nine. Eighty minutes after he should have returned, she removed her phone from the speakers, killing the music, and called him.
The phone rang a few times before Duncan finally answered, "Hey Pasty. What's up?"
"Duncan!" Gwen exclaimed, unable to stop her worry from overwhelming her raspy voice, "Are you alright? Is everything okay!?"
"Uh, yeah, everything's fine. Why? Is something up?" he asked causally.
The Goth was stricken silent for a few moments by how nonchalantly her boyfriend was acting, despite him vanishing for nearly an hour and a half. And the same sense of shock came from how there was so much loud noise in the background, making Duncan hard to hear. The cheers, the shouts, the whoops and hollers were nearly deafening. When she found her voice, Gwen added, with difficulty over the thunderous noise, "I…I texted you a few times…but you never answered." There was an upswing in the racket that drowned out her voice. "I've been waiting here since eight! I even put together a little surprise party for you! You know, because we haven't been able to spend much time together this week!" she shouted, mostly to make sure she was heard over the backdrop score. As she did, Gwen found herself hoping that her raw, embarrassing disappointment didn't show too much.
Before Duncan could answer, Gwen tried to decipher what was going on and where he could be that was so loud, even for the parties they usually got into this was…much. It was garbled, the sounds smashing into each other like toy trains in the hands of a toddler. Though it was jumbled up, she could make out a few bits of what was being heard. Music. Whistles. Cheers. The sounds of a good time. Fighting against her growing annoyance, she asked, "What's up with the noise? Where are you?"
"Me and the guys skipped playing ball after class. Lightning told me about a big party gettin' started early. I didn't think ya'd be able to get out of lock up so I took off with em."
Gwen was silent for a few moments, feeling bitter disappointment erupt within her and filling her usually cold veins. After all of the effort she put into this now failed romantic gesture, she felt entitled to being more than a little pissed off! Acting on that sudden rush of adrenalin and raw emotion before she could think, the Goth didn't bother hiding that nastiness from her raspy voice, which cracked like a whip, as she snapped, "What the hell! Why didn't you bother coming back here first, or just texting me!?"
Her newest outburst was given no reaction from Duncan's response, as he calmly defended himself, "I did send you a text sayin' I was cuttin' out early. I sent it hours ago, Pasty."
"I never got it," Gwen grumbled, with some of her previous fuming seeping in her tone.
"It musta gotten dropped. Or maybe I send it to the wrong person again?"
As she had listened to her boyfriend's brief explanation, the Goth felt her anger start to fade. Gwen still wasn't happy, but after hearing that, calmer thoughts began to quell the vivid maelstrom that had roared in her mind moments earlier. In its aftermath, she felt a little cold, and wrong. "You really need to work on that," she finally commented, sounding wistful and melancholic, "You seem to be doing that a lot lately."
"Yeah," he answered with a light chuckle, "Sorry 'bout that, Pasty. I'm still gettin' use to my new phone. Touch screens aren't really my thing."
There was a loud clamor in the background that forced the Goth to move the phone from her ear for a moment before returning it to its place. Gwen felt even glummer as she heard the good time, shattering the silence of a haphazardly thrown together party that would never happen. With that in mind, the Goth added, "Sounds like quite the party, must be having a lot of fun." A saddened exhale of breath escaped her lips. After which, she suddenly formed a new idea! "Hey…Duncan, where is this party at? I could hitch a ride and meet you there."
"Sorry but that's not going to work," he replied rather quickly, "I'm at a sports bar that's more than a hour out. By the time you got here, you wouldn't have much time before you'd have to get back."
With her mood now even lower, the Goth asked, "Will I see you tomorrow, or over the weekend? I'm not too sure anymore."
"Of course ya will, Pasty. One party doesn't mean I'm cuttin' ya off. Remember, I ain't letting go of ya that easily," Duncan said warmly, as if sharing a beloved in-joke.
Despite her lingering foul mood, a sincere chuckle escaped Gwen's ruby red lips. Somehow her boyfriend always knew how to lift her mood. She found that she wasn't that upset over this setback. Despite the bad news, she was mostly over it. The Goth and the Delinquent were saying her goodbyes, with her making sure to emphasis how eager she was to see her boyfriend, when Duncan had one final thing to say before returning to his evening out with friends.
"Oh, and before I forget, would you mind taking care of the laundry, and getting some food for tomorrow? I'd do it myself, but I've got some homework I can't put off. Thanks, Pasty."
Just like that, all of the lofty happiness that had risen within the pretty pale lady had been thrust downward, as if weighed by anvils. Her mood soured more rapidly than aged milk, reaching and then quickly surpassing her previously abyssal state. Instantly realizing how long that would all take, she ended the conversation with a quick, "I'll take care of it."
With that, Gwen hung up the phone. She then walked towards their bedroom door, and opened it. A landside of wrinkled halter-tops and cum-stained boxers greeted her with the zeal of an overeager puppy. Just barely getting out of its way, the Goth looked into the room. Along with that pile now spread out, there were a few similarly sized piles.
Before starting her tasks, Gwen groaned, mumbling, "Its gonna be a long weekend."
October 30, 2014 (11:20 PM)
Gwen marched down the hallway, slamming her heeled boots as loudly as she could. She didn't have a watch on her, and she had been too annoyed to look at her phone. But given how tired she felt, she knew that she must have spent all of her time out of Heather's cage by now, doing all of Duncan's chores. Due to that, she was absolutely livid. While she had started to become accustomed to such emotions over this hellish week, the fact that she felt them during the time of the day when she wasn't suppose to really pissed her off.
The fact that her ire was directed at her boyfriend for the first time since she could remember did not at all registering within her mind. There was a small sense of satisfaction over how tidy and clean her and Duncan's dorm was now, between the laundry having been done and put away, the trash bagged and set aside, and even some time spent cleaning down what she could with the few things they kept for such work. It was a far cry from how it was when they first moved in, but it was the cleanest it had been since that week she wagered.
None of that particularly mattered to her however, not right now.
Her mind was a cacophony of crude curses and sulfuric spite, blinded by festering fury. She wasn't paying much attention to her steps, simply putting one in front of the other. Because of this she was blindsided when she bumped into someone stepping out of the elevator. Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen noticed whomever she walked into hadn't fallen down so she didn't bother slowing. The sounds of several bags falling on the floor snapped her back to reality, but not enough to make her stop; she wasn't exactly in the most charitable of mood right now after all.
"Hey, where yew goin'!?" A voice called out, with an accent poured on thick as syrup.
Gwen ignored them, continuing on her way back to Heather's dorm with the eagerness of a fugitive to a firing squad.
"What's da madder? Ya too good to tawk to me!" The voice shouted, noticeably angrier this time.
Once again, Gwen didn't stop. Now the Goth's motive was simply to escape that trashy voice that threw the English language through the wood chipper more than Chico Marx.
"What da fuk issup witch yew!?" The loud and boisterous voice shouted out over the heavy footfalls behind Gwen, marching towards the slowly fleeing Goth. "If ya don't stop right now, I'm gonna stuff your fuking nose with tampons!"
At that, Gwen bristled and paused. She had officially taken all she could of this bitch. "What the fuck is your damage!?" The Goth harshly spat as she turned herself around.
Turning around, Gwen found herself looking right into a pair of black eyes surrounded by what had to have been several layers of violet eyeliner narrowed into leers. Surprised by that and their presence, the Goth took a few steps back, and looked this person over. Standing there was a woman about as tall as herself, with a similarly curvy physique. But that was where most of the similarities ended. Her skin was so sickeningly brown-orange it looked like an excessively full body spray tan. This was coupled with lots of thick makeup covering her face, scowling lips smeared in dark pink lipstick, and large silver hoop earrings reaching down to her exposed shoulders. She had long curly black hair that reached to her waist topped with a pouffe that reeked of so much hairspray that the Goth wondered if it had been hardened to the point of being bulletproof. Her gaze moving down, Gwen's eyes noticed a revealing lavender halter tank top with pink frills, proudly displaying an impressive set of breasts, roughly the same size of hers. Almost painted around her legs were a pair of tight cyan blue jeans that must have been vacuum-sealed they were so tight.
Normally any one of those details, combining into a person who seemed more like an out of date parody of a shallow pop culture phenomenon whose time had passed than a real person would have dominated the Goth's attention. But there was one other detail that surpassed everything else. That detail being the large bulge protruding from the woman's exposed stomach. She was obviously pregnant, not about to give birth but probably only a few months away at most.
The sheer surprise of that, combined with gut-reaction fear of somehow harming the unborn child, smacked down any and all of the bitchy attitude Gwen had been about to unleash.
What came out of the Goth's mouth instead was a series of stuttered and half-formed apologizes more fitting of a wholesome elementary school student who had split their milk during snack time than a college student who looked like a trashy prostitute.
"Fuh gedda 'boud it," the woman said with an eye roll and a wave of her bronzed hand. "Tell ya what, I'll let it slide if ya pick up my bags and carry 'em to my dorm. And if ya got issue with that, then I'll knock out your teeth!" she spoke with over the top zeal, her accent displaying a nasal consonant while she moved her head side to side a few times and moved her arms in motions of expression that the Goth had never seen before.
Gwen looked at this woman in deep confusion and was obviously slightly on-edge, like she was stuck between trying to decide if she should just run or continue her attempts at apologizing. The tanned woman seemed to pick up on that, as her demeanor softened and she flashed a warm kindhearted smile. "Sorry 'bout that. It was justa 'lil joke, ya know? Didn't mean to scare-a like that. Just messin' with ya…well, I think I was, kinda hard to tell with my hormones outta whack."
The woman's attempts to lighten the mood didn't work, as the Goth remained unchanged and frozen in place. Gwen just stared at the living, breathing person before her as if she were a giant stone slab inscribed with some unknown hieroglyphics her life depended on translating. She had never been the most socially skilled person in the world, but in recent years the Goth found it increasingly difficult to talk to other people. One of the main reasons was because after so many years of it just being her and Duncan, who had subtle postures, inflections, and mannerisms unique only to him, talking to anyone else almost felt…kind of awkward, wrong even. As stupid as she knew it was, some small germ of illogical guilt had buried itself into her gut. Talking to others felt like a second language she knew but hadn't spoken in so long that she felt rusty, uncomfortable.
Wishing to purge herself of that discomfort, she quickly picked up the bags that had fallen, no stranger to carrying bags of groceries without helping hands. There were around ten of them, all filled to the brim with various foods, thankfully nothing in cans or it would have been far too heavy. With practiced ease Gwen quickly slid her arms through their handles, five on each arm, making her look like an overly decorated Christmas tree, all the branches bearing the same bright yellow and semi-transparent décor. The only variation was Gwen's small black purse hanging from her right shoulder. The Goth felt all the weight on her arms, and how cumbersome it was but offered no complaint. Her slightly chucky arms with little in the way of solid muscle started to buckle right away, and it was only a few seconds before she felt like her arms would fall off. But if that meant getting this over with faster she welcomed it. After muttering out a few more pathetic sounding apologies, Gwen asked, "Where is your dorm?"
The bronzed woman gave the Goth an odd look, raising one of her thick, black eyebrows. "Is that all ya gotta say? Is that really your only question?"
Confused, and feeling more uncomfortable with every passing second, Gwen asked, "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is, ya see this," the woman clarified, pointing to her stomach, "and ya really ain't gonna make some kinda comment? Ya ain't even gonna say I'm fat?"
The Goth just kept her head down, shaking it like a toddler protesting being put in time-out. With her gaze still at the floor of the hallway, she repeated her question. "Where is your dorm?" After which, she fired off another apology. If talking to other people was a nearly forgotten language, apologies were something that had faded to the point of concept at most. She couldn't even remember the last time she had apologized to anyone aside from Duncan, and even then it was less verbal and more 'hands and mouth on'.
With a confused look on her face, the woman motioned with her head back the way towards the dorm she shared with Duncan, before answering, "It's just three doors down."
Gwen, of course, started moving towards the indicated door.
The trip was short and silent, exactly what the Goth had hoped for, and when they reached it the young woman unlocked and opened it, gesturing Gwen inside.
Looking around, mainly for a place to put down the bags she had been carrying before her arms just gave out and dropped them, she noticed the dorm was very similar to Heather and Cody's. It had the same entrance though with the kitchen dining room and hall to the back. It was smaller however and she could only see two doors instead of three down the hall. Gwen's focus was primarily on the kitchen's table during this time but she had seen and noticed enough out of the corners of her eyes. One of the biggest similarities being the numerous pictures that adorned the walls, most of them featuring the pregnant woman herself along with a young man.
Slamming the bags down all at once, with arms feeling like they would snap, she breathed a sigh of relief for several reasons. With her task complete, she turned to leave.
She didn't make it more than a few steps before the sickeningly tanned woman called out and stopped her however. "Hold it!" Gwen froze, dreading what else she would need to do, her ever-present sense of pessimism tugging at the pit of her stomach. "Would ya please mind 'elping me put 'em away?"
Truthfully, Gwen didn't want to. She shrunk in a bit and her skin felt like it was infested with burrowing bugs, with every passing second adding more to the swarm. Even so, she couldn't will herself to reject the request and just walk away, not with her gut wrenching at the thought of doing such a thing. As the girl who seemed to have been coughed up from the ghetto sat down at the table, she instructed her where everything belonged in the cupboards.
It took no more than ten to fifteen minutes, but eventually everything had been put away in its proper place. With the job done and nothing else tethering her here now, she started to leave again.
"Hold up there," the woman called once more, causing the pale one to freeze in her tracks. "Ya never got my name. It's Anne Maria," the Jersey Shore Reject said, though her thick, borderline unrealistic accent made it sound like 'Muh-ree-uh.' She then asked, "What's your name?"
"Gwen," the Goth offered up softly, almost like a cough, without turning to look back. The opened doorway looked so alluring and she had endured just about all she could by this point. She continued her walk towards freedom from this feeling like bugs burrowing under her skin without pause, each step lessening the irritation and horrible feeling twisting in her stomach.
"Thank yew for the help," Anne Maria said, sporting a sincere smile, then she chuckled a bit, "If I tried that, I bet ya I wouldn't have able to bend ova, ya know?"
Gwen didn't say anything, having reached her limit already, and promptly left the stranger's dorm.
Gwen continued to walk back towards Heather and Cody's dorm, thought this time her gait was not quite so zombie-like. She walked with a slightly faster, more eager pace, the main driving force being the almost instinctive need to distance herself from Anne Maria's dorm, and the strange feelings of discomfort and guilt that the normal and unassuming dorm conjured forth. Despite that marginal increase in zeal, the Goth was still in a bad state of mind, feeling tired and dour from yet another day of disappointments. She had given up on taking a shower or changing into her nightclothes, she just didn't have the drive to do those two basic parts of what had become her new nightly routine.
She approached and entered the doorway without a second thought, but before she could even close the door behind her, the Goth heard something strange. No, not strange, but out of place. It was something familiar…from someone familiar...but combined just didn't belong.
A rhythmic thumping and banging from the back of the dorm, coming from behind a certain closed door.
It was steady, like a well rehearsed and practiced drumbeat, a healthy heartbeat of cries, sighs, groans and platitudes. That constant sound soon became the background track for another collection of sounds, both louder and less rhythmic.
"AHHH!"
'No…'
"AHHHHHAAAAHhhh, ugghh, fuuuuck—GASP—AHHHHHHHH, fuuUUUCK, harder! HaaaaaAAAAHHHH faster, faster! Faster, faster, FASTER! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK FUCK FUUUUCKKKKKK!"
It was Heather's voice, no mistaking it, cursing out loud through ragged breath, her demands increasing in inflection, pitch, and desperation. A throng of less coherent obscenities joined those more decipherable utterings echoing within the Goth's shattered world, further reinforced by the loud wet smacking sounds matching to the thumping and banging she heard when she first entered.
Gwen stood there in the opened doorway, her pale face brighter than a red dwarf star. The Goth instantly knew what was happening, what she became an unintentional voyeur to. She felt sick. Unable to move her face, she raised her cellphone and looked at the time. She was quite shocked when the device's clock revealed it to be almost eleven-thirty.
With it being the only tangible thought in her mind, she figured that the dorm owning couple hadn't expected her to be back so soon. Then again, she had been the same way not too long ago.
Carefully and quietly, Gwen made her way back to the doorway and then back outside, her state of shock too great to even think of closing the door as she stood in the hallway staring at it, her imagination conjuring a multitude of thoughts and images she wanted nothing to do with enflaming her pale cheeks with a blush that reached down to her shoulders.
It took a few moments but soon enough the hot wave of embarrassment left her, and in its searing wake the more negative emotions previously felt came back to the surface. But unlike before, the primary sensation oscillating within her skull was disappointment.
Sighing, she muttered, "All I wanted was one night for Duncan and me, just one night as a couple, like normal…before everything went to shit. Is that too fucking much to ask for? Everything's been going sideways since I bothered trying. Maybe I should stop and give up?"
Before Gwen could wallow any deeper in this particular brand of self-loathing, a voice called out from behind her, a slightly screechy voice weighed down by a familiar, copious accent. The sudden auditory stimulus making the provocatively dressed Goth jump slightly. Turning around towards its source, she found Anne Maria coming down the hallway with an odd strutting waddle.
The Goth really wasn't in the mood to endure the slings and arrows of awkward small talk with someone who she could only understood half of the time. But then she shifted her gaze back to the opened door, and instantly developed a mental vision of Heather and Cody going at it. Her body shivered in disgust, before deciding that she would rather deal with the Jersey Shore Reject then deal with the couple currently committing coitus.
Turning towards Anne Maria, who was right in front of her, Gwen asked, "What do you want?"
Instead of saying anything, the bronzed and bountifully endowed young woman surprised the Goth by holding up her purse. "Ya left this on the table after yew put away the bags," she explained.
Staring at her own purse like it was ancient alien artifact, Gwen was utterly stunned, unsure of what to say for reasons other than general awkwardness.
Finding some amusement in the pale lady's newest dumbfounded expression, Anne Maria continued, "I was 'bout ready to knock on every damn door on the floor till I found ya. I know how big a pain is it to lose your purse, like being in a desert without any warder."
Gwen finally managed to find herself in her own skin, and thanked the woman, took the purse back, and added with more than a trace of bitterness, "Sorry, it's been a bad night…or rather week."
Her curiosity spurred by that change in tone, the first indication of any emotion from the Goth outside of awkwardness and indifference, Anne Maria gave Gwen a once over. As her eyes smeared in mauve eye shadow traveled up and down her body a few times, Gwen felt nervous, though for what specific reason she was unsure. "It looks like it'll be a good night to me. Ya look like you're ready for a night in the siddy dressed like that."
For the second time in only a few minutes, Gwen blushed and turned away slightly. While doing so, she explained, "W-well…I-I had made plans…but they fell through. And now I can't even go back to my dorm."
"Why not?"
Rather than go through the entirety of the fucked-up situation that was currently her life, complete with blackmail, finding herself the bitch of her hated arch-rival, and her suffering boyfriend; Gwen explained concisely, "My roommates are going at it like a pair of wild rabbits in heat, and I really don't want to listen to that all fucking night, to them actually fucking all night!"
Anne looked at the door behind Gwen, which was still opened and viewed it in silence for a moment as her eyes drifted to the room number. Then, her eyes widened, briefly pushing the lavender surrounding them out of slight as she asked with a sincerely surprised tone, "You're shakin' up with Heather and Cody?"
"Sadly so," Gwen reluctantly confirmed. Then she wondered something, how did she know them exactly? Her mind instantly latched onto one, particularly repulsive, possibility. Unable to keep her eyes from traveling to the woman's swollen stomach, the Goth asked, "H-how do you know them?"
Anne Maria noticed her stare and quickly caught onto the unspoken implication. Rather than getting angry, as Gwen feared, the Jersey Shore Reject laughed, saying, "It's not his." She noticed Gwen became slightly relaxed after hearing that, though still not truly at ease. "And I don't know 'em…but I do know of 'em. And no be'fo you ask, I don't know 'em like that."
Feeling slightly happy that she wasn't talking to one of the partners in the couple's campus famous threesomes, Gwen asked, "Then how do you know of them?"
"Heather has made quite the impression since comin' here. Most people on this floor know 'bout 'em. Hell, maybe even the majority of the campus has heard of 'em."
Gwen nodded in agreement.
"So," Anne Maria continued, "how did you become roommates with 'em? They must be good friends of yours. And they ain't got many friends."
A scoff escaped Gwen's red lips, followed up by her saying with a savagely sarcastic tone, "You couldn't be further from the truth."
That surprised Anne Maria, who asked in kind, "What do ya mean?"
Once again not wanting to explain a chapter of her life that she would have happily bleached from her brain in much detail, Gwen gave a second short reply. "It's a long story, and I really don't want to talk about it…now or ever." The Goth hoped that this would end the conversation, but the look on the Jersey Shore Reject's tanned face said otherwise. She wouldn't drop it, and certainty wouldn't back down. Having had enough of this conversation and eager to get away from this annoying lady, Gwen said with a finality and strength rarely seen from her these days, "Thanks for returning my purse."
With nothing more, she entered the dorm of iniquity and closed the door with a loud slam.
Anne Maria stood there, profoundly confused and stunned by her reaction. She might not have spoken with Heather or Cody many times, but she had seen them often enough, and knew they were both very private people. About the only thing circulated around campus more than the extravagant stories of their sexual escapades and exploits were all the people complaining about how they got stonewalled when trying to talk to the couple. Frowning at the door, one thought rose above the others to dominate her mind.
"Was it something I said?"
The grunts, moans, and cries of the couple in coitus provided an unwanted musical accompaniment to many bombastic and blasphemous broadsides against God as Gwen snuck back to her room, or her jail cell rather. Eager to soften, hopefully decapitate, the incessant bestial bleating stampeding through the otherwise featureless ether of the dorm, she closed her door behind as quickly as her desire to not be detected would allow.
Too wrapped up in her own tasks to truly notice if her efforts had been successful or not, the Goth started removing her arousing abject apparels. Her boots were unlaced and removed, to the relief of her slightly pinched feet. Her skirt, tube top, and leggings were all removed without any delay or grace, all with Gwen too tired to give a damn if Cody had set up any cameras in her room. The pervert getting a little wanking material didn't matter even register against her desire to just get some sleep, to close her eyes and banish this day into oblivion. She quickly changed into her nightclothes, and smeared off her lipstick with a tissue from the pack Heather had left her the other day.
Sighing, she tossed it into the small wastebasket next to her pullout bed. About to just collapse, she groaned when her eyes fell upon the pile of clothes she had left in a heap on the floor. Feeling that same tug of annoyance she had when she entered her and Duncan's dorm, she moved her boots to the wall so they lined up with the rest of her shoes, sandals and boots, then scooped up her clothes with all the drive and enthusiasm of a death row inmate. About to brave the outside world, she stopped when her tired, weary eyes caught sight of a clothes hamper that she knew hadn't been there when she left this morning.
"Huh..." Thinking nothing of it she dropped her clothes into the hamper, then took the few steps needed to cross back over to her bed without giving her room's newest addition a second thought. Rather, she crawled into her sofa bed, hoping the comfort would ease her into a deep sleep. It was only now that she realized if her efforts to cut off the sounds had been successful.
They were not.
Though somewhat dulled by the walls and doors separating them, the sounds continued. Any attempts at sleep were brought to a halt as Gwen found she simply couldn't tune out the many sounds of passion roaring and crackling across the hall. They were too loud.
"Way too fucking loud," the Goth muttered before groaning at her choice of words.
Once Gwen realized that the sounds couldn't be canceled out, she adopted a new method for dealing with them, one she had perfected after her little brother was introduced to the world of DDR. She would ignore them. She imagined her mind as a great wall, constructing within her own mind a mental barrier to the outside world that would put Pink Floyd's to shame. She had been through enough in her life while on Total Drama, and the Goth was determined to simply endure this annoyance. But despite her best efforts, as more and more time passed with the speed of a dying snail, she found her mental wall breaking apart brick by brick to a certain rhythmic assault. It broke faster than Pink Floyd's.
Giving up on that futile, and possibly insane, effort, Gwen just brewed in her frustration. She debated about what she could do since sleep didn't seem to be coming anytime soon. Going out into the main room was out because she didn't want to risk encountering the couple fucking just outside her door. Turning on the TV was also not a possibility because it might bring the pair in to investigate, something to be avoided at all costs. Gwen was too scared to even turn on the light in her room, worried that it'd be noticed and bring the couple to her sanctuary.
Then, amid a flicker of thoughts, a new idea came into Gwen's mind. Why not draw something to pass the time? The Goth remembered all of the hours she fed to her passion for mastering her art and went to her bag with hope and purpose in mind. She took out her sketchbook, the same one she had used during her time on Total Drama. Sure enough only the last few pages were still blank, with the most recent sketches having been drawn around the time World Tour ended, but they would be enough for the time being.
As difficult as it was, she had brief flashes of herself in her younger years, when artistic passion could swell up within her like a tempest and animate her grim mind with hours of inspiration. She recalled countless times where being by herself with paper and a pen felt like an occasion to celebrate. Once she would begin, sometimes the lines and shapes seemed to draw themselves, appearing already formed as if they were Athena emerging full-formed from Zeus' skull.
Once inspiration hit her, it would free Gwen from the constraints of her existence, from the bonds of her flesh and tether to this world.
The Goth stared at the piece of paper, tapping her pen while thoughts shifted and thinned. In the limited light of the darkened room, the pure whiteness of the virgin paper was almost offensive. It wasn't marred by pen strokes, wasn't infused with any creativity.
As time once again seemed all but determined to move as slowly as possible, nothing happened beyond the sounds of damnation and depravity hammering outside her wall and being. Despite her most sincere efforts, Gwen found any and all inspiration lacking. Even in her worst artistic dry spells, it was never close to this barren before. She found herself staring at the blank page, hoping, begging for some shape to appear which she could draw. Nothing came; no shapes materialized in her mind or on the page, leaving both blank.
Before, in her youth, this had been a situation that Gwen always feared and hated above almost anything else, even more than being buried alive with Heather. But now, she felt nothing more than a steadily growing annoyance. She just felt comfortably numb.
The darkened room that she was in felt more like a jail cell than it ever had previously. Knowing that no amount of staring, glaring or pleading would change the situation, she put away her sketchbook and resumed her activity-less brooding.
Eventually, maybe running out of raw annoyance to burn like firewood, her emotions changed. Time passed, Heather's cries and grunts continued, as did Cody's, along with the couples' vocabulary and volume. Annoyance was eventually replaced by curiosity, and then confusion. Spurred by that singular thought, she checked her phone, and saw that it was a little after midnight.
That, in turn, prompted an epiphany…they had been going at it for at least half an hour.
The Goth reacted to this realization by covering her head with her pillow, trying to block the sound and thoughts. Similar to her previous efforts, it didn't work, though it did at least partially muffle it. That was little consolation, however, as Gwen finally felt herself about to snap.
She ripped the pillow from her face, sat up, and took a deep breath fueled by raw ire. Gwen was about to shout as loudly as she could to ruin her enemies' night of passion. However, before she could spoil their night, another very loud shout filled the air.
It was from Heather, who was very vocal about her having 'finished'.
Utterly dumfounded by that...sound, Gwen lied back down and simply stared at the ceiling. She couldn't even begin to figure out what to call the bastard hellspawn of a shriek, gasp and most colorful enunciation of the word 'fuck' she had ever heard in her life. Those thoughts only lasted for a brief moment however as others began to filter in through the remains of her mental wall.
More than anything, she was…confused, mainly about how the two could go at it for so long. Her own horizontal dances with Duncan under the sheets rarely lasted more than five minutes, ten at most if he was really horny. With that lack of understanding able to relax her tense mind, Gwen started to nod off. She was just about asleep when she heard an even more confusing sound.
Heather, giggling?
"G-give me a min-minute," Heather said somewhat loudly with untold mirth in her voice. "Shoo, shoo! Stop damnit! I'm still-still trying to catch my breath."
If it hadn't been for the context she was hearing it, Gwen would have been more impressed by how shockingly convincing Heather's pleasure seemed to be. The Queen Bee was certainly as skilled a manipulator and actress as she had been during her teenage years.
"Put away that fucking feather Cody, I'm warning you" Heather added, sounding like she was trying to sound angry, despite a series of giggles and chortles undermining such efforts. "I hate it!." A loud shriek then filled the air with a pitch that Gwen would have bet could shatter glass.
"You don't seem to mind it too much," Cody teased, "And you could just get up and leave if you really wanted to."
After that there was a series of sounds that Gwen was especially determined to not hear and mental images she would not allow to be formed. Spurred by that, Gwen covered her head with her pillow and once again tried to make the sounds stop. It was just as unsuccessful as it had been before. She couldn't drown out the playful shrieks and laughs from Heather as they echoed throughout the dorm, nor could she block out the moans they morphed into.
And that's a wrap! That was the latest chapter, as always, we both hope you liked it. :)
Anyway, we got to see some new characters; most were guests but not all of them! lol We are interested in hearing your thoughts on this latest chapter given how long we have been away, and just who you think Anne Marie's lover and the father of her child is, best of luck to you guys with your guesses! As always we hope you enjoyed this and that you will take a moment to let us know what you thought!
As a side note about the Jersey Shore Reject, writing her over-the-tope accent was hard but fun! I, Rufus, live in New Jersey, so trust me when I say most of us here don't sound like that! Lol.
Until next time, please read, review, favor, follow, and spread the word!