Chapter 35: Chapter 35 – Hugh: Carrot and Stick

I pulled into the complex parking lot at almost exactly five minutes till six. I figured that would give me plenty of time to find a spot and climb the stairs to her apartment. And, yes, I did buy flowers again. Did you know that supermarkets sell them? I mean, it didn't come in a vase, but it still looked fine to me. Best of all, it was only $20 instead of $75.

And, okay, I would have loved to spend money on her like it was going out of style but give me a break. I was a poor college student.

Anyway, before I could even pull into a space, I saw Nat standing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing the outfit she'd texted me earlier. She also wasn't wearing her glasses, and she looked nervous. One of her hands, the one not holding her phone, clutched the hem of her skirt, pulling it tight. Maybe her anxiety was caused by fear that the wind would flip her skirt?

That made sense assuming she really was going commando, and, given her follow through on promises so far, I had no reason to doubt it. I pulled the car next to the curb nearest her, and she made her way from under the eave out to me. I watched her walk, and, from the bounce, she was definitely braless.

"Hey," I said once she'd gotten in.

"Hey."

We were quite the sparkling conversationalists. I handed her the flowers, and she smiled briefly before the clear nervousness returned.

"Thanks. They're beautiful." She laid them on the seat next to her, barely even looking at them.

Something was definitely up as she was acting strange. I took it as a sign of my personal growth that I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it was something I'd done. My best guess was that her attire, or what she wasn't wearing underneath it, was concerning her.

"You know," I said, "all these times that you've added enticements like not wearing underwear tonight, I hope you haven't been feeling too much pressure to do that. If you're too uncomfortable, I have absolutely no issue with you putting on whatever you need."

She sighed. "I know."

"And you're sure you don't want to..."

"No. I'm fine." She pressed a button on her phone, and the screen lit up. "This is where we're going. It's a little ways, about forty-five minutes. We can take my car, or I can pay for gas?"

"Don't worry about it." I put the car in drive and began following the route she'd pulled up.

I was honestly very conflicted. On one hand, her going without underwear was a fantasy come true, but I wasn't into sadism. It was only fun for me if it was ultimately fun for her. She did not look like she was having any fun at all, but I wasn't sure that her attire was the real issue.

I tried making small talk just to see if it led to any revelations. "I'm assuming you added the second point to CON. How are your eyes?"

"Fine."

Okay.

"And the skill?" I asked. "Did you end up going with regeneration?"

"Yeah."

"By the way, congrats on Level 7. Is five hundred XP the requirement to get to 8?"

"Uh huh."

It was like pulling teeth.

Both Nat and I were introverts, so it wasn't unusual for the two of us to go relatively long stretches without talking. Usually, though, the silence was comfortable. At the moment, it was oppressive.

There wasn't much I could do about it, though, so I pulled onto the interstate as directed by the GPS and kept driving. Maybe ten minutes later, she shifted her foot, and it hit the plastic bag from the convenience store. It had slid off the passenger seat where I'd thrown it earlier and ended up on the floorboard.

She absently reached down and picked it up.

"Sorry," I said. "I meant to put that in the back."

"What is it?"

"Just a couple of items I thought I might need."

"Can I look?" she asked.

"Sure." I had nothing to hide, and anything that caused her to engage was good in my book.

"Oh," she said as she looked inside.

"I hope you don't think I'm presumptuous."

"No. Good call. I hope after tonight that..." She paused. "Anyway, why the toothbrush?"

"I was hoping that I could leave it at your place. I kind of needed it this morning and..."

I happened to glance over at her. Her eyes were glistening. Luckily, we were coming up on an exit. I took it and pulled off the road.

"Nat, what’s wrong? You can tell me."

"I lied."

"Okay. About what?"

You are reading story The ENF System at novel35.com

"The no underwear thing and the picture. I didn't do it to get you to go with me. I did it in the hopes it will keep you from getting mad at me."

"I see," I said. "And why might I get mad at you?"

"Because what we're doing tonight involves you and I'm not telling you about it in advance and I'm worried you'll feel like I betrayed you."

That was concerning.

"Are you betraying me?" I asked.

"Of course not! I mean, not really. I'm probably not handling it in the best way."

Well, her betraying me was one thing. Her feeling like I might interpret something she had good intentions about as a betrayal was something else entirely. The first was obviously very, very bad. The second, though, probably wasn’t that big of a deal.

"What might be better way for you to handle it?" I asked.

"To just come clean with you."

Despite how nervous and serious she was, I couldn't help but grin a little. "It seems like there might be an obvious solution, here... If only I could think what it might be."

"I know, Hugh. I know. I should just tell you. But it's difficult. This is important and I want you to keep an open mind and I fear if I try to explain it first, you'll go into it in a bad frame of mind and I don't think that's a good idea and so I'm left with trying to hide it from you and I don't want to hide it from you but I do have to hide it from you and this sucks!"

Compared to most people, I tended to have muted emotions, and I feared that she would take my calmness as not caring.

"I understand your frustration."

She didn't reply.

"It sounds like you want to ask me to trust you and keep an open mind without telling me exactly what the subject is," I said.

"Yes!"

"I can live with that."

"But I'm deceiving you! I'm being a terrible girlfriend."

"I think, perhaps, your guilt is stronger than my actual reaction to whatever is going to happen would be?"

She didn't answer, and I gave her a little peace and quiet to think things over. Meanwhile, my mind was swimming trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Then it hit me. She was setting me up to go to dinner with her parents and felt guilty about springing it on me. She was afraid I'd say no or get too nervous or whatever.

Okay. Well, it seemed a little early for the meet the parents thing, but only if one was to solely take the timeline into account. Considering that we were referring to each other as boyfriend/girlfriend and what we intended to do tonight, it made sense to bring the parents in at this junction. Heck, our planned activities for later tonight might be exactly why she felt the need to do it.

I pondered whether I should tell her my guess. It would relieve her mind, right? But would it be better to have her work through this issue on her own?

I honestly didn't know the best course of action.

It also didn’t occur to me at all that it was very weird for her to bring me to meet her parents while not wearing any underwear. That mistake was on me.

"I think you're right," she finally said. "You'll probably be wonderful as always and not even get mad at me at all, but I still can't help but feel that, even though I do truly only want what's best for everyone, I'm in the wrong."

"What needs to happen, then, for you to get over it?" I asked.

Honestly, I was thinking in terms of a confession. I figured the best way for this to end would be for her to just tell me what was going on, apologize for keeping it from me, and the two of us would figure out the way to proceed together. I was not prepared for what came out of her mouth next.

"Obviously, I need to be punished."

I hate to admit it, but that really got my attention. "Like a spanking?"

"No! That was pretend. Make believe. And that was fine. Good, even." She blushed. "But I would never want you to do that to me as real punishment, you know?"

I did, and that was fine with me.

"No, I need real consequences to make me feel like I'm paying for my actions. Yeah. Something I absolutely would not consider doing otherwise." She paused. "Oh. And it should be a reward for you. I'd only do it if you go with the flow tonight, you don't get mad, and you keep an open mind. Yeah. If you do that, you get a reward and I pay a penalty. A forfeit. But what?"

I had some ideas, but I kept quiet.

"Oh. I've got it," she said. "You were talking about me being naked outside, right? And, despite those few seconds at my apartment, I still really don't want to do that. How about this - if you meet all the conditions I just said, on the way home, only once it's full dark though, you find a completely deserted place to park, right? And I will give you my clothes. All of them. You can put them in the backseat. No, better, in the trunk, where there's no way I can get them. And you can keep them. You don't have to give them back at all. That would be a punishment worthy of what I did. If nothing else, I'm going to have to get up to my apartment, not to mention stopping at lights and stuff next to other vehicles. It's a literal nightmare. What do you think?"

Flabbergasted was not an accurate description to describe me. Gob smacked. Baffled. Befuddled. Shocked. Stunned. Stupefied. Thunderstruck. None of them possessed enough power to indicate exactly how surprised I was. All of them together didn’t do nearly enough to adequately convey my reaction.

I seriously doubted that she'd actually go through with making it all the way home completely naked, but riding in the car that way on the interstate at night seemed harmless enough. She'd feel like she was really putting herself at tremendous risk when, really, it just wasn't that big of a deal.

I looked her straight in the eyes. "I think that I'm going to be on my very, very best behavior tonight."

You can find story with these keywords: The ENF System, Read The ENF System, The ENF System novel, The ENF System book, The ENF System story, The ENF System full, The ENF System Latest Chapter