by Van ©2013
		Chapter 4

It was Round Three of what Gwen was calling the "Bondorama Extravaganza Queen of the Damsels Tournament," the "B.E.Q.D.T."—and Gwen was the only one calling it that.  The current score was:  J-Lou—2;  Rapscallions—0.

Rory Macy was up.  Green eyes intense, long, straight, ginger hair fluttering in her wake, Rory was a Celtic Cutie on a mission.  She climbed the stairs to the attic with a shopping bag in either hand.  Her fellow Rapscallions were right behind her, and all four were in their going-to-bed team uniforms, the same as rounds one and two.

It was bedtime.

It was bondage time.

J-Lou was waiting, sitting in the easy chair with her slipper clad feet up on the footlocker, wearing her robe and reading an iPad.  "It's that time already?" she asked with a dimpled smile.

"Yes," Rory answered.  She dropped the shopping bags beside the bed, turned, and focused on the smiling Brit.  "Up!"

"My goodness," J-Lou chuckled, "aren't we in charge?"

"Yes, we are," Rory responded, then stabbed her finger at a point midway between the bed and the chair.  "Lose the robe and slippers, and stand right there with your hands on top of your head."

"Yes, Mistress," J-Lou answered, and followed her Mistress-of-the-evening's orders.

"You know what to do," Rory said to the others.

Clem retrieved J-Lou's discarded robe and slippers and carried them to the wardrobe.  She opened the doors, hung the robe on a hook, and dropped the slippers next to the rows of shoes on the floor.  She then parted the hanging clothes and confirmed that there was no one hiding among and behind the blouses, jeans, slacks, skirts, dresses, etc.

Meanwhile, Siri inspected the bed, making sure nothing suspicious was tucked under the mattress or in the folds and tucks of the bedclothes.

Gwen was busy opening all the storage cubbyholes, one by one, and confirming they held nothing but empty luggage, cardboard boxes folded flat, and no would-be rescuers.  Satisfied, Gwen went to the footlocker and snapped open the latches.  She paused for effect... and opened the lid.

"No dwarf?" Clem asked.

"Better reach inside and make sure he isn't invisible," Siri drawled.

"Hey," Gwen pouted.  "No mocking the due diligence."

Rory pulled a comb from her robe pocket and stepped behind J-Lou.  "Cross your arms in front," she ordered.  Still smiling, J-Lou complied.  Rory gently ran her fingers through J-Lou's long, brown hair, then did the same with the comb.  The other Rapscallions gathered around to watch—as if waiting for hairpins, paperclips, and lock picks to start raining to the floor.

"If this inspection is going to get even more thorough," J-Lou purred, "someone is going to have to buy me dinner."

All four Rapscallions blushed, and quite pointedly did not stare at the little Brit's breasts, nipples, flat tummy, pubic bush, thighs, dimpled buttocks, or bare feet.

"Sit on the bed," Rory huffed.

J-Lou settled her rump on the mattress, placed her hands on her lap, and watched as Rory dumped out one of the bags, revealing a loose mass of cloth swatches in various colors and fabrics, all cut into scarf size squares.  Some were synthetic blend and some were cotton.  None were hemmed.

Rory sat down beside her naked "victim," took hold of J-Lou's right hand, then crumpled one of the synthetic blend squares into a wad and placed it in her palm.  "Close."  J-Lou closed her fingers and thumb around the wad, forming a fist.  Rory picked up a second synthetic square and wrapped the fist as tightly as she could, then tied a pair of square knots with the corner ends, around her wrist.  She repeated the process with J-Lou's left hand, effectively transforming the Brit's fingers and hands into silky knobs.

Next, Rory reached into the second shopping bag and produced a neatly rolled cloth bandage.  She proceeded to carefully, neatly, and tightly wrap J-Lou's right "stump," ending by tying a neatly compacted square knot in the free ends.  A second bandage was applied with similar results for J-Lou's left hand.  The underlying synthetic fabric was now completely hidden.

"On your back on the bed," Rory ordered, and again, J-Lou complied—always the smiling and cooperative prisoner.  Rory pulled J-Lou's ankles together, placed a neatly folded pad of synthetic fabric between her ankle-bones to keep them from grinding, then used a bandage to bind them together,  She secured the bondage with a square knot in the back, just above J-Lou's heels.  She then bound J-Lou's knees together.  The knee bandage was rather loose, but it tightened significantly when, with Siri's help, she raised J-Lou's legs and folded said knees, putting J-Lou in a tight crunch with her knees nudging her breasts and her calves against the backs of her thighs.  Rory then gathered J-Lou's bundled hands together, just above her bound ankles, and lashed them together with a bandage.  She used yet another bandage to bind the captive's wrists to her ankles.  As with her ankle bonds, she tied the final knot behind J-Lou's feet and above her heels.

J-Lou smiled up at her captor.  "Clever girl," she purred.

Rory smiled back.  "It's a start." 

Using more bandages, Rory proceeded to bind J-Lou's upper arms to her thighs and her forearms to her lower legs.  This required a great deal of groping between limbs and tucking and pulling many long, narrow bands of cloth between various parts of J-Lou's anatomy, as well as rolling her body from side to side.  Siri helped, handing fresh bandages to Rory as needed.  Finally, Rory looped and tightened long, narrow strips around J-Lou's entire body.  In each case, Rory cinched the bindings through J-Lou's earlier bonds and pulled out the slack.  J-Lou's skin was dimpled here and there by her bondage, but the taut web of cloth strips wasn't excessively tight.

"I think that will do," Rory said, exchanging dimpled smiles with her captive.  She was sitting on the left side of the bed, J-Lou was on her back in the center, and Siri was on the right.  Clem and Gwen were standing shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the bed.

Gwen gazed down at the area between J-Lou's thighs.  "I can see where the term 'bearded clam' comes from," she stated.

The other three Rapscallions and the owner of the "clam" in question stared at Gwen—or in J-Lou's case, smiled.

"What?" Gwen demanded.

"Stifle," Clem ordered, then reached into her robe pocket and produced the whiffle gag—what the Rapscallions were beginning to think of as J-Lou's personal whiffle gag.

"Wait."  Siri rose from the bed, walked to the far side, then handed Rory yet another bandage as she whispered in her ear.

Rory listened for a few seconds, then smiled.  "Excellent suggestion."  She let the cloth roll fall open, took hold of the end, and tore off a much narrower strip.  She then proceeded to bind J-Lou's big toes together.

Clem was dubious.  "Uh, that violates the no string rule, don't ya think?"

"It is pretty thin," Gwen agreed.  "I doubt if anybody could untie a knot in that thing."

"I think it's legal," Siri stated.

"Not to worry," Rory said, smiling at J-Lou.  She secured the toe bondage with a bow, then cinched the doubled loops and free ends together.  "If you can untie a set of sneaker laces," she said, "you can untie this."

"Such a very clever girl," J-Lou chuckled, "and cruel."

"Aren't you going to lash her down?" Siri asked.  "She can roll off the bed."

"Eventually," Clem agreed, "and land on the floor with a thud."

"If she tries hard enough," Gwen added.

Rory shook her head.  "No.  No lashing down.  Let her squirm."  She leaned close and kissed J-Lou's lips.  "Would you rather I use the ball gag... or a knotted scarf?"

"Use the scarf," Siri urged.  "It carries forward the cloth theme.  But make the knot really big."  She went to the loose cloth on the floor and returned with one of the largest squares, then folded it into a triangle and made more folds to form a broad bandana.

"Either would be fine," J-Lou answered, smiling at Rory.

"I'll use the ball gag," Rory decided, popped the ball in question into J-Lou's mouth, buckled the main strap at the nape of her neck, under her hair, then buckled the secondary strap under her chin.  She then reached out and Siri handed her the folded cloth.  "I have another use for this."  She then proceeded to blindfold her captive, covering her eyes and cinching the cloth behind her head and over her hair, then tying a flat, well compacted square knot.

"It's kinda hard to kiss her goodnight like that," Gwen observed.

"Not on the lips, anyway," Rory chuckled.  She leaned close and kissed the tip of J-Lou's button nose.  "Goodnight, J-Lou," she purred.  "Pleasant struggling."

Even with the ball gag and blindfold, they could tell J-Lou was smiling.  "Mrrpfh!"

The Rapscallions assumed that was "Gaglish" for "Goodnight."

Clem was next.  She kissed one of J-Lou's knees.  "Goodnight."

Siri kissed the prisoner's left shoulder.  "Pleasant dreams."

Gwen stepped forward and sat on the bed.  "G'night, J-Lou," she purred, then kissed the top of J-Lou's head.

J-Lou shivered in her bonds and gasped through her gag.  A hand—Gwen's hand, no doubt—was caressing her pussy.

"Uh, by all means," Clem huffed, "help yourself."

Gwen looked up at her BFF.  "What?"

"Grabby much?" Clem muttered.

Gwen stood, looking at her hand in mock surprise.  "Oh.  How did that get there?"

Siri smiled and nodded towards the door.  "C'mon, let's go."

The others left the attic, clomping down the stairs and leaving Rory alone with her prisoner.  A mischievous smile curling her coral lips, she sat on the bed and twirled a lock of her ginger hair between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.  "Can't wait to see how you squirm your way out of this," she purred, then lightly ran the tips of her fingers across the soles of J-Lou's feet.

"N-r-r-rrrrf!"  It was a gagged giggle, music to Rory's ears.  J-Lou also shuddered and wiggled her toes, or wiggled her toes as best she could with her big toes tied together.

"Oh," Rory chuckled, "you're ticklish... like me."  She delicately scratched her nails across J-Lou's pink, wrinkled flesh.

"N-r-r-r-r-r!"

"I hate it when my cousins do this to me," Rory confided.  "My Aunt Megan has several items of, uh, furniture that are perfect for tickle torture."  She withdrew her hand and J-Lou shivered, then went still.  "We'll have to invite you over some weekend.  It'll be fun."  [See 4 Foxes for Rory's back story.]  She glanced at the open door, confirming that the other Rapscallions were still down below, then lifted J-Lou's feet, leaned close to the mattress, and planted a wet kiss on the "bearded clam" Gwen had mentioned earlier.  "Goodnight, J-Lou," she said, kissed the captive's labia again, then made her exit.

J-Lou squirmed in her bonds as she heard the door close.

"Sally," Rory said in a loud voice, "lock the door, please, and activate the alarm once I'm down the stairs."

"Yes, Miss Macy," Sally answered.

The lights winked out, but that made little difference to the naked, bound, gagged, and blindfolded bundle on the bed.  Once again, Robokitty's blue glow was the only light in the attic.

Clem lay in her bed for something like fifteen minutes before throwing back the covers, rolling to the side, and climbing to her feet.  She didn't bother donning slippers or robe, but she did retrieve her glasses from the nightstand and slip them on.  Wearing panties, a cotton tank-top, and no bra, she left the bedroom and silently crept down the hall.

Rook House was silent.  The only light was from the dim, floor level LED nightlights glowing from scattered strategic locations.

Clem reached her destination, another bedroom.  She turned the knob and eased open the door, slipped inside, then eased the door closed behind her.  The bedroom was nearly identical to her own in size, layout, and furnishings; however, items of decor like curtains, rugs, posters, and knickknacks were different, and the pastel color scheme was very different.  A single nightlight struggled valiantly to illuminate the scene.  It was of the "color-changing" variety, its LEDs slowly cycling through all the colors of the rainbow.

The bed was occupied, and its occupant rolled over and blinked.

"Who's there?" Gwen demanded.  Actually, her eyes were adapted to the dark and she already knew the identity of the "intruder."  Also, the light glinting off Clem's glasses was a dead giveaway.

"It's me."

Gwen smiled.  "Well, 'me,' what can I do for you?"

"I want to try something," Clem answered.  She walked to Gwen's chest of drawers, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a neatly wrapped coil of quarter-inch, braided nylon rope.  Its color was either pink or lavender, but she couldn't be sure in the dim, ever changing light.

"I figured that," Gwen giggled, then sat up in bed and stretched her arms.  The covers fell away, revealing her habit of sleeping in the nude—or rather, confirming her habit of sleeping in the nude.  Gwen's immodest slumber wasn't news to Clem.  "What'cha gonna do?" Gwen demanded, batting her eyes for effect.

Clem's answer was to join her on the bed.  She grabbed Gwen by the arms, lifted her up, and spun her around until she was on her knees and facing the headboard with her back to her BFF.  In truth, Gwen was cooperating completely and didn't need to be "grabbed."  For the next few minutes Clem bound Gwen's upper arms to her sides, tying the harness of a basic "box tie."  Four horizontal strands of rope passed above Gwen's breasts and four more below.  Then, she passed the doubled rope under Gwen's left armpit to the front, behind her head to yoke her shoulders, and back through her right armpit.  Clem passed the remaining rope up and under the pair of strands at the nape of Gwen's neck and pulled it taut, tightening the entire harness.  Finally, she cinched the rope, tied a knot, then neatly wrapped the free ends, consuming the excess.

Clem returned to the chest of drawers for more rope, then tied Gwen's wrists behind her back and against her spine, hitching the ropes through the chest harness.  This completed the box tie.  A frog tie was next.  She lashed Gwen's ankles to her upper thighs, then climbed off the bed and took a step back.

Gwen executed a halfhearted "courtesy struggle," confirming that Clem had rendered her helpless with her usual competence.  None of the ropes shifted and nothing resembling a knot was within the reach of her fluttering fingers.  Kneeling on the bed in her bonds, she shook her head, blew an errant, auburn strand of hair from her face, and favored her captor with a dubious expression.

"This is what you wanted to try?" Gwen demanded.  "We've never done anything like this before, have we?"  She gave her bonds another squirm.  "Box tie and frog tie.  Bondage 101."

Clem removed her glasses, folded them flat and placed them on her helpless BFF's nightstand, then pulled her tank-top over her head.  She then peeled down her panties, stepped free, and climbed back onto the bed, panties in hand.  She piled Gwen's pillows against the headboard, then reclined on her back.  "C'mon," she ordered with a grin.  "Get comfortable."

Gwen sighed a truly tragic and long suffering sigh, then flopped onto her side and squirmed on the rumpled sheets until she was snuggling against her BFF's side.

"I'm really just here to think," Clem admitted.

"And you can't do that in your own bed?" Gwen purred.  She tested her bonds, again.  This caused her roped and helpless body to slip and slide against Clem's naked form, entirely by coincidence, of course.  "You're here 'cause watching Ginger Fox bundle Her Majesty in a tight ball tie made you horny."  She kissed Clem's cheek.  "And we haven't played all week."

"Been busy," Clem muttered.  She turned her head and kissed Gwen's lips, simultaneously cupping her prisoner's left breast and giving it a gentle squeeze.  "She's cheating... but I can't figure out how."

"J-Lou?"

"Of course J-Lou," Clem sighed.

"Does it matter?"

Clem frowned.  "Of course it matters.  We want to win, don't we?"

Gwen smiled.  "Hmmm... Let me think.  On the one hand, if J-Lou wins, the regular games begin again and we tie each other up and have fun.  On the other hand, if J-Lou loses, the regular games begin again and we tie each other up and have fun.  I can see why you're worried."

Clem couldn't help but smile.  "You're just resigned to your fate 'cause you already lost and Her Majesty is gonna truss you up and you don't know how to cheat your way out."

"Yes," Gwen agreed, "and we all know how much I hate being tied up."  She snuggled, again, and nibbled Clem's ear lobe.

"Stop that," Clem huffed.  Gwen giggled and relented, then rested her head against her BFF's shoulder.  "I'm curious," Clem sighed.  "I don't really care if she's cheating, but I do want to know how she's doing it."

"You always were Velma to my Daphne," Gwen teased.

Clem smiled.  "The clever girl with spectacles who figures out the mystery, as opposed to the empty-headed redhead who's always getting herself kidnapped by the villain?"

"Yeah," Gwen agreed, then frowned.  "But Siri and Rory make a lousy Fred and Shaggy."

"Yeah," Clem sighed.  "We should drop the Scooby Doo metaphor and go with Nancy Drew."

"Okay, Nancy."  The girls snuggled together in companionable silence for several seconds.  "Have you considered talking to Sally?" Gwen asked.

"Sally?"

"You have noticed how she's gotten a lot smarter since J-Lou arrived," Gwen said, "haven't you?  She's less like Data in the first season of T.N.G. and more like one of us."

"So now we're using Star Trek metaphors," Clem chuckled.  "You're right, but Sally's still just a computer interface."

"A computer interface you can use," Gwen responded.

"She won't let us watch Her Majesty's escapes."  Clem stretched her arms over her head and yawned, then placed one arm behind her BFF's shoulders and head and hugged her close, again.  "That's in the rules."

Gwen giggled.  "The rules of the Bondorama Extravaganza Queen of the Damsels Tourna—mrrrf!"

Clem had a hand clamped over Gwen's mouth.  "Stifle yourself."  She took her hand away.  "Sally won't help."

"Not if you don't ask her," Gwen responded.  "Seriously.  Treat it like twenty questions.  Pretend she's the Sphinx."

"The Sphinx talked in riddles," Clem noted, "and isn't something horrible supposed to happen to you if you screw up?"

"Like getting tied up and gagged?"

Clem smiled.  "Point taken.  Sally?  Are you there?"

Clem's immediate answer took the form of a disembodied yawn.  "Eyahhh...  What?" Sally mumbled.  "I was asleep.  You should be asleep.  You both have morning classes, remember?"

Gwen and Clem turned their heads and exchanged a smile.  "Sorry, Sally," Clem purred.  "Will you help me figure this out?"

Sally's answer was prim.  "I will not violate the rules of the B.E.Q.D.T. in any way."

Gwen giggled.  "Hah!  Try hand gagging her."

"However," Sally continued, "I can always answer carefully worded questions."

Clem smiled.  "So you will help me."

"Not tonight," Sally huffed.  "I need my beauty sleep.  Besides, we're all getting up early to check on the attic.  I've added my name to your contact list.  Give me a ring between classes."

"Thanks, Sally, I will," Clem responded.  "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, ladies," Sally sighed, and once again the bedroom was silent... for a while.

"She is smarter," Clem noted, then reached to the side, opened the drawer of Gwen's nightstand, and pulled out a wand style vibrator.

"Uh, we're supposed to go to sleep," Gwen muttered.

Clem grinned.  "This will help us sleep."

"I don't need—mmmpfh!"

Clem had crumpled her panties, stuffed them into Gwen's mouth, and the hand gag was back in place.  "Trust me," she purred, clicking on the vibrator.  "I know what I'm doing."

By remarkable coincidence, a similar drama was unfolding in Rory's bedroom.

Uninvited and unannounced, clad in panties and a French cut t-shirt and clutching a cloth shopping bag, Siri entered Rory's private domain.  "I have a new design to test," the smiling blond explained in a whisper.

"Now?" Rory complained from the bed.  She wore panties and a tank-top, and before the interruption had been contemplating indulging in a little "tension relief."  Binding J-Lou into what they all hoped would be a helpless package had made her... tense.  Rory's blush went unseen in the near darkness; however, the way her initial pout had became a dimpled, welcoming smile was quite clear.

Rory's bedroom was decorated in earth tones, predominately shades of green, brown, and rust.  Two posters hung on opposite walls in simple frames: a photo taken in the Olympic National Park of moss covered boulders, giant cedars, and lush ferns; and Evangeline Lily as Tauriel the Woodland Elf from Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies.  What light there was came from a taut net of nearly invisible wire with tiny LEDs strung across the ceiling.  The shining pinpoints were randomly spaced, evoking a starry sky, and a light sensor and voltage regulator kept the "stars" at an appropriately dim, nightlight level when the room was otherwise dark.  The system was a gift from Rory's Aunt Megan.

Rory sat up in bed, folded her legs in a half-lotus, and watched Siri pull what amounted to a leather gauntlet from the bag.  Like the other prototypes of the mix-and-match restraint system Siri was designing, the leather was butternut in color, lightly textured and distressed, and the metal hardware a dull bronze.  Once a concept coalesced and Siri encoded the specifications of a part of her ever evolving and expanding system, the industrial robots at SIAS would fabricate the piece and mail it to Rook House.  Rory had noticed a package addressed to Siri in today's mail, so she wasn't really surprised by the tall bond's clandestine appearance.

"Strip," Siri whispered.

Rory's response wasn't exactly profound.  "Huh?"  She was not usually required to disrobe for one of Siri's product evaluation sessions.  She'd been nude for the all night and highly memorable test of the full body sheath (with vibrator), but that had been "necessary."

"From now on you need to be naked for all tests," Siri explained.

Even in the near darkness, Rory could tell her friend was blushing.  Clearly, Siri was also finding their ongoing group quest to find a method of binding their new RA in an inescapable manner to be "inspirational."  Rory smiled, pulled her tank-top over her head and tossed it aside, then flopped back down and wiggled out of her panties.

Siri watched... and blushed... then sat on the bed.  "Gimme," she said, and reached for her test subject's right hand.

The gauntlet was more-or-less a combination fingerless glove and wrist brace.  Rory slid her hand inside and her fingers and thumb emerged from the appropriate holes.  Siri folded a gusset running the length of the gauntlet, then buckled a strap around her wrist.  A second and much thinner strap was stretched across her palm and buckled tight against the back of her hand.  The gauntlet now tightly gripped Rory's hand and wrist and was very much a rigid wrist brace.  She could wiggle her fingers, for all the good it did her, but her wrist was completely immobilized.

Siri pulled a second gauntlet from the shopping bag and Rory's left hand received similar treatment.  Next, Siri eased Rory down on the bed and onto her stomach and folded her arms behind her back.  She reached back into the bag and pulled out a T-shaped combination of two broad cuffs attached to a wide sheath.  She buckled the butternut leather cuffs around Rory's upper arms, then buckled the sheath around her already encased wrists and hands.  Siri then rolled her captive onto her back, climbed onto the bed, and straddled the smiling ginger's narrow waist, distributing her weight between her knees and Rory's tummy.

"You think you're so smart with your cloth bandages and scarves," Siri purred, "don't you?"

Rory smiled up at her Evil Kidnapper.  "Just because you don't know how to tie a knot doesn't mean I don't." she countered.  "I can't wait to see what J-Lou does to you, whenever she finally decides it's time to take her revenge.  I'm betting it's gonna be very creative."

Siri combed Rory's tousled hair with her fingers, arranging the ginger strands to either side of the prisoner's pale, smiling face.  "You haven't won yet, Ginger Fox.  I bet Her Majesty is squirming out of your bandages at this very moment.  Remember..."  She placed her hands on the mattress, to either side of Rory's shoulders, leaned down until their nipples touched through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, and kissed her test subject's lips.  "She cheats."

Rory continued smiling, her green eyes locked with the blue eyes of her captor.  "The suspense is dreadful, isn't it?"

Siri sat back, pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it away, then leaned close, again.  The kiss resumed, and this time it was deep and wet and long and there was nothing between their erect nipples.

Four wake-up alarms sounded at the agreed upon time—resulting in a great deal of bleary-eyed cursing, fumbling, and scrambling, as well as bedroom doors opening and closing, bare feet thudding on the hall carpet, and doors opening and closing, again.  Any fleeting glimpses of naked blonds or brunettes scrambling to return to their respective bedrooms went carefully and mutually unnoticed.

There was a brief pause... and the Rapscallions stepped into the hallway.  All four were in slippers and robes, but this time all four were otherwise naked, not just Gwen.  This also went unnoticed, or at least unremarked.

Round three of the B.E.Q.D.T. was over and it was time to tally the score.

The Rapscallions trooped up the stairs to the attic and Rory knocked on the door.  There was an mumbled, incoherent reply from within.

Rory's carefully (poorly) concealed concern was replaced by a happy, dimpled smile.  "If that isn't the sound of a bound and gagged damsel—"  She opened the door, her jaw dropped, and she stared in disbelief.

"It's the sound of an unbound and ungagged damsel yawning as she wakes up," Gwen said with a giggle, completing Rory's sentence.

It was true!  The bandages and cloth squares that should have been binding J-Lou's hands in useless fists and enforcing an inescapable ball-tie lay in unruly heaps on the floor around the bed.  J-Lou, herself, was under the covers and on her side with her head resting on her pillow.  She lifted her head and smiled her now familiar dimpled smile.  "Good morning, ladies."

"Morning," the Rapscallions mumbled in return.

Rory sighed, then stepped forward and began gathering and stuffing the cloth "bonds" into the shopping bags she'd used to transport them to the scene of her spectacular fail.

J-Lou watched, still smiling.  "Don't be sad, Aurora."

"Yeah, I should have known," Rory muttered.  "You're the Queen of the Damsels."

Gwen and Siri were watching Clem as she watched Rory tidy up Her Majesty's bedroom.  "I know," she whispered in an aside, "it's all on me."

J-Lou eased herself up on her left elbow and flipped her hair from her face.  Her right arm, shoulder, and breast were now fully exposed.  Her infuriatingly smug and adorable smile was focused on Clem.  "Tonight?"

Silence stretched for several seconds before Clem answered.  "No.  Uh, I have a lot of reading to do and..."

"Will need time to revise your plans?" J-Lou suggested.

"Yeah," Clem sighed, then shook her head.  "I mean, no.  I have a test on Monday, and two novels to read."

"I see," J-Lou purred.

"A couple of days?" Clem asked.  "Maybe three?"

"Whenever you wish," J-Lou replied, then stretched.  "I'm going to sleep in this morning, if you ladies don't mind.  I'll make my own breakfast."

The Rapscallions mumbled acknowledgements and made their exit.  Last out was Clem.  She watched J-Lou settle back down and snuggle her head against her pillow, then silently closed the attic door.  She descended the stairs to find the others waiting.

"I know, I know," Clem sighed.  "I need to up my game and think up something really good."

"None of which will do you any good," Siri muttered, "'cause she cheats."

"Somehow," Rory added.

Gwen giggled, then smiled and gave her BFF a reassuring peck on the cheek.  "No pressure."