Chapter 10: The Competition Begins
The taste of him lingered in her mouth for days. It was a phantom sensation, a ghost of salt and skin that would resurface when she least expected it—mid-conversation with Micha, during a quiet moment reading, in the shower with water beating against her lips. It was a data point that had become an infection.
She avoided Chris. She avoided Erna. She focused on Micha with a ferocious, brittle energy, cooking elaborate meals she couldn’t afford and initiating sex with a technical enthusiasm that left him sighing with grateful confusion. She was building a dam against the memory of that room, brick by meticulous brick.
It held for four days.
On the fifth evening, she found the note tucked under her keyboard, written on the back of a torn energy drink receipt. Tonight. My room. 11. Bring your notes.
It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be. The paper smelled faintly of his cologne.
A war erupted inside her: the furious, humiliated part that wanted to burn the note, and the cold, curious analyst who saw it as the next logical dataset. The analyst won. It always did.
At 10:58 PM, she stood before his door. This time, there were no preliminary sounds. She turned the knob.
The scene was staged. He was on the bed, propped against the headboard, completely nude. His cock lay thick and heavy against his thigh, already half-hard. And kneeling on the floor by the bed, also naked, was Erna. Her eyes were downcast, her hands folded in her lap. The jealousy that radiated from her was a physical heat.
“Close the door, Nat,” Chris said, his voice casual, as if welcoming her to a study group.
She did. The click of the latch was final.
“Erna here is having trouble with a concept,” Chris began, his gaze fixed on Nat. “She seems to think her tenure is guaranteed. That history is enough.” He reached out and wrapped his hand loosely around his cock, giving it a few lazy strokes. It thickened under his touch. “I told her it’s a meritocracy. Performance is all that matters.”
Erna shifted, a tiny motion of protest.
“Nat understands that,” Chris continued, his eyes never leaving hers. “Don’t you, Nat? You value evidence. Results.”
“What do you want?” Nat’s voice was steadier than she felt.
“A demonstration.” He removed his hand. “You’re both researchers now. Testing a hypothesis. Which of you is more effective?” He gestured to the space on the bed beside him. “Get naked. Both of you.”
Erna moved first, rising from her knees and sliding onto the bed with a fluid, practiced ease. She glared at Nat, a challenge in her eyes.
Nat’s fingers trembled only slightly as she unbuttoned her jeans. She stepped out of them, pulled her sweater over her head. The air in the room was cool on her skin. She kept her glasses on. She needed to see this clearly. She climbed onto the bed, keeping distance between herself and Erna. The mattress dipped under their combined weight.
Chris looked between them, a scientist observing his specimens. “First one to make me cum gets to stay the night,” he growled, the playful tone gone, replaced by a raw, predatory edge. “The other leaves. Those are the rules.”
A frenzied stillness followed. Then Erna lunged.
She descended on his cock, taking him deep into her mouth without preamble, her head bobbing with a frantic, desperate rhythm. She used her hands, cupping and kneading his balls, stroking the base. She was all fervent, hungry action.
Nat watched for a three-count, gathering data. Erna’s technique was enthusiastic but artless, a blunt instrument. Chris’s face showed pleasure, but it was distant, evaluative. He was watching Nat.
Nat moved slower. She shifted down the bed, placed a hand on Chris’s stomach, feeling the hard muscle contract under her palm. She ignored his cock for a moment, leaning in to lick and bite his inner thigh, her teeth scraping lightly. He twitched. She kissed a trail up his hip bone, her hand sliding down to replace Erna’s on his balls, her touch firmer, more deliberate. Erna growled around his shaft, sucking harder.
“There’s no collaboration,” Chris muttered, his breath hitching. “This is winner-takes-all.”
Nat finally turned her attention to his cock. She didn’t take it into her mouth. She used her tongue first, painting long, slow stripes along the underside, from root to tip, focusing on the throbbing vein. She flicked her tongue over the head, savoring the bead of pre-cum that gathered there. It was clinical, precise. Meanwhile, Erna was fucking her own face on him, gagging lightly, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
Nat took him then, but not like before. She took just the head, sealing her lips around it and applying a tight, rhythmic suction while her hand worked the shaft in a twisting, pulling motion. Her other hand drifted lower, cupping his balls, rolling them gently, then applying a firmer pressure.
“Fuck,” Chris breathed. His hand fisted in Erna’s hair, not guiding, just gripping.
Nat could feel him swelling in her mouth, the tautness of his skin. Erna sensed it too and redoubled her efforts, her moans vibrating around him. But she was gasping for air, her movements becoming sloppy and rushed.
Nat pulled off with a soft pop. She looked up at Chris, her glasses slightly fogged. “Is speed the variable?” she asked, her voice husky but clear. “Or efficiency?”
Before he could answer, she shifted her body. She swung one leg over his hips, straddling him but facing his feet. She lowered herself, not onto his cock, but onto his face. She felt his mouth, hot and hungry, find her cunt. His tongue drove into her without ceremony.
A sharp, broken cry escaped her. The sensation was overwhelming, a direct line of electric pleasure that short-circuited her analytical mind. She rocked against his mouth, her own hips finding a grinding rhythm. Below her, she heard Erna’s choked sob of outrage, then the frantic, wet sounds of her redoubled efforts on his cock.
Nat was close, so quickly it terrified her. Her muscles tightened, her vision hazing. She was using him, but he was dismantling her in return. She came with a shuddering gasp, her body convulsing, her fingers clawing at his legs. As the waves receded, she didn’t collapse. She pivoted.
Slick with her own wetness and his saliva, she positioned herself over his cock. She saw Erna’s face, a mask of fury and despair, just inches away. Nat held her gaze as she sank down.
He filled her, a brutal, breathtaking stretch. She was tighter than Erna, less accustomed to his size. The pain was a bright, sharp shock that melded instantly into a deep, core-deep fullness. She began to ride him, her movements not the frantic bounce of Erna, but a slow, torturous roll of her hips, grinding down onto him with each descent.
“You bitch!” Erna screamed, her composure shattered. She scrambled forward, trying to push Nat off.
Chris’s arm shot out, his hand clamping around Erna’s throat, not hard enough to choke, but enough to stop her. “Watch,” he commanded, his voice garbled with pleasure. “You lost. Watch her win.”
Nat rode him. She used the leverage of her thighs, the clench of her internal muscles. She watched his face contort, felt his control slipping. Erna, held in place, could only stare, her body trembling with violent sobs.
Chris’s hips bucked upwards, meeting her thrusts. “Gonna… fucking… cum,” he gritted out.
“Where?” Nat panted, her academic pretense gone, replaced by a primal possessiveness. “Tell me where you want it.”
That was the final trigger. With a roar that was part frustration, part surrender, he pulled her down hard onto him, his body arching. She felt the hot, pulsing rush deep inside her, flooding her, claiming the space he’d carved out.
He held her there, locked together, as the last spasms passed. The room was silent except for their ragged breathing and Erna’s soft, defeated weeping.
Slowly, Chris released his grip on Erna’s throat. He looked from her ruined face to Nat’s triumphant one, still impaled on him.
“Out,” he said to Erna, his voice flat, spent.
Erna didn’t need to be told twice. She gathered her clothes from the floor, not bothering to dress, and fled the room, the door closing softly behind her.
Nat remained where she was, feeling him soften inside her, feeling the physical evidence of her victory begin to leak out. Chris’s hands came up to her hips, not pushing her off, just resting there.
“Efficiency,” he said, his eyes closing. “It was always efficiency.”
She climbed off him, her body sore and humming. She found her clothes, dressed with slow, deliberate movements. She did not look at him as she collected her scattered notepad from the floor where it had fallen.
“The data is conclusive,” she said, her voice quiet in the dark room.
As she walked back to her own room, the smell of sex and sweat clinging to her skin, she passed Micha’s door. It was closed. A sliver of light shone underneath. He was awake.
She stopped, her hand hovering near the knob. The dam she had built was gone, washed away in a flood of salt and need. She couldn’t go in there. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
She turned and continued to her own door. The analysis was complete. She was no longer just the researcher.
She had become the results.