Chapter 21: Chapter 21 – Hugh: Expectations

When I reached Nat's place, I was surprised to find her still wearing just a nightgown, and her eyes were a little red.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Come on in."

Honestly, I was immediately on edge. I mean, I wanted to say that I was confident and secure in my relationship, but this was all so new. My first thought was, "Did I do something wrong?" I quickly realized, though, that her texts would have been totally different if I was the source of whatever upset her, so I sat quietly and just waited for her to let me know what she needed.

"Let's, uh, go ahead and eat, I guess," Natalie said.

I'd totally forgotten I was holding a pizza. Wow. She grabbed plates from the kitchen and we divvied up the slices.

Once we'd finished polishing it off - well me polishing off half of it and Nat kind of nibbling - she said, "A, uh, friend, I guess, called this morning. Someone who lived across the street from me up until late middle school. She and I still keep in touch, but it's not like we're BFFs or anything like we used to be."

"Okay."

"She just got some bad news. Personal stuff. There were tears from both of us." She swallowed. "It made me really appreciate what I have with you, made me want to spend the day with you."

"Yeah, sure. Anything I can do, just let me know."

Nat blew out a breath. "I'm still processing, but I'll probably take you up on that."

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"No. Not even a little bit. I kind of want to just forget about it for a little while, which is one reason I texted you that request."

"Great. Just let me know what you want to do."

"I'm glad you feel that way," she said, "because I really need you to hear me out before you react."

That did not sound good.

“Before I make my request,” she said, “I wanted to make sure that I’m not keeping you from anything. Like homework?”

“Nah. My classes are all pretty easy. I pretty much do all the assignments right away, and I haven’t really had to do much studying yet.”

“Normally, I would have said, ‘Must be nice’,” she replied, “but those two points in mental really helped. The memory skill, too. I got all my homework done in record time last night after you left. Like an hour tops. I was expecting to spend the majority of a day working on it.”

It was good to know that increasing attribute points had real world impact. Experiments were nice, of course, but what was the point if it didn’t translate to being useful.

She blew out a breath, and I got the impression that the digression about homework had been a form of stalling for her.

"With that phone call this morning,” she said. “I've been thinking about things a lot, and I came to the conclusion that life is too short to waste time."

Okay. Kind of cliché but okay.

"There are two things in my life right now that are special, that really stand out as extraordinary." One of them is this cool guy I just started going on dates with. The second, though, is this weird system that makes me do crazy things and rewards me with literally supernatural enhancements." She paused for a long time, not looking at me. "I want to do quests today."

That had not been what I was expecting. I mean, it could have been a lot worse, and I understood both the desire to level up just for the sake of it and the crushing weight of responsibility that these gifts might require.

The only problem was my whole slowdown mantra. Well, maybe we could find some mild, safe ones that we hadn't explored yet. I was sure there were lots of things we could come up with that were original that wouldn't escalate things too far.

By the time I'd finished that little bit of rationalization, I wasn't feeling too bad about things. Sure, I'd probably be rushing home again tonight, but the fresh memories we created would make a little suffering worth it.

Then she continued speaking, "I have some criteria? Requests? Maybe expectations? Yeah. Expectations of what I want to happen today. Four of them. No, three expectations. The last is just an ask, a suggestion maybe; I wouldn't feel comfortable making it more than that."

This could be really, really bad or really, really good, but I wasn't sure I'd even be able to tell the difference.

"Will you agree to meet my expectations?" she asked.

"Depends on what they are."

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"You don't understand. I want you to agree regardless."

"You want me to make a promise to you without even knowing the terms?" I asked incredulously. "How is that fair? What if you ask me to do something that I think is really unreasonable?"

"A, you literally told me not five minutes ago to 'just let me know what you need.’ B, I can guarantee that you're going to think I'm asking you to do unreasonable things. Reason has flown out the window. C, you are going to love my expectations. You're going to feel guilty about them, but you're going to love them all the same."

I gulped. Honestly, I was feeling really uncomfortable with this, but another thing that Dad had taught me was that sometimes you had to make sacrifices for the good of a relationship. Considering what she'd done on my say so Friday at the mall, I definitely owed her.

The big problem was that Friday at the mall had scared me. I'd gotten so caught up in enjoying what she was doing, I lost my ever loving mind. I put her in a dangerous situation. That could not happen again. But that was my responsibility. I wouldn't let myself lose it like that again. I couldn't.

"Fine," I said.

She smirked like she'd known what the result was going to be before we ever even started the conversation. "Expectation number one is I want to level up at least once today."

If memory served, she was at 15 out of 200 to reach Level 5. That was a lot of points. We were going to be busy today, but I thought it was doable if we didn't waste time. Totally reasonable. Not at all what I was fearing.

"Easy enough," I said.

"Look," she said. "I know that you self edit when you come up with quests. You're all like I hope she doesn't think badly of me if I ask her to do this and I can't have her do that because she'd be too uncomfortable. I don't want you to edit today. My second expectation is that you assign quests that you want me to do. I want you to have only two criteria - First, keep me safe. Second, give me quests that turn you on so much that you have an accident in your shorts."

I knew it. I just knew it. I'd promised, though.

"As long as you're not being literal about that last part," I said.

“We'll see." She smirked again. "And Hugh?"

"Yes?"

"Just to be crystal clear, I do not expect in any way for you to keep me safe from you by any definition of the word."

There was literally nothing that I could say to that.

"My third expectation really should be implied given the last one," she said, "but I really felt the need to spell it out to you so you don't have any wiggle room."

Yeah. This was going to get even worse.

"I expect that you will see any and every part of me that you want today, completely uncovered."

"Everything?" My voice was hoarse.

"Everything."

Part of me was screaming that we were moving way, way too fast. Another part, and it wouldn't be hard to figure out exactly which part, was ecstatic.

"Finally," she said, "the request because I didn't feel comfortable insisting that you do this one, but I really want you to."

If she was okay with me literally making her live out my every voyeuristic fantasy and seeing every part of her totally naked, what could possibly be so bad that she couldn't demand it of me?

"The thing you told me about your dad and waiting till after the third date was super cute and cool and I get you and I totally have no problem with it, but we're going to be making each other so horny that both of us are going to be near insane with lust. We'll wait for actual sex. Fine. No putting your boy part in my girl part, but sex is kind of a spectrum. There are other things that couples can do that aren't going all the way. Hands can be used. Mouths. Tongues. Boy parts can be inserted in other places. You understand?"

My jaw was on the floor, but she kept staring at me until I nodded.

"Your partner-"

I interrupted. "Girlfriend. If we're doing all this together, I insist ... unless you don't want that?"

Natalie grinned. "Your girlfriend is going to be very, very unhappy if you don't give her orgasms multiple times today."

Great. No pressure.

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