It was the first day of the new school year. I was a college sophomore, and this semester (plus the next one), I was taking a chemistry class.
"We have an exchange student this year," the professor said. A pretty, slender, dark-haired (straight, shoulder-length hair), dark-eyed Hispanic girl stood up. "This is Rosa Sarrosas-Arroz. She is from Mexico."
Rosa smiled at everyone, waved, and sat back down. I was assigned to be her lab partner. We had no trouble communicating, as her English was excellent.
We became friends, and by the second semester, I timidly asked her out on a date, in an apologetic manner that made it clear I was expecting a "no". Rosa smiled. "Tom, I accept. Just know that I mean `date' and not `sex' when we go out."
We went to a cheap local restaurant that specialized in affordable, though not high-quality, food for hungry and broke college students -- which was us, along with most of the students on campus. Then we went back to her dorm room and talked. She was from a town in Mexico that was essentially run by one of the drug cartels -- they had an agreement with the local authorities not to harm any of the locals and to contribute some of their ill-gotten gains to local charities that helped the poorer residents, in return for the authorities turning a blind eye to their drug-dealing. The cartel funded the local scientific laboratory, in return for advanced knowledge on any scientific breakthroughs they made. That laboratory was who was paying for her year abroad, in return for her agreeing to work as a lab tech for them once she finished college.
I, a normal-looking white student with brown hair, brown eyes, and an average height and build, was attending this school because it's where my dad had attended. I was taking the chemistry class to meet a breadth requirement: my major was in literature. My mom had used her contacts to already line me up a job as a proofreader at the publishing company where she was a textbook author. I just had to graduate in good standing.
We slept, fully clothed, on her bed together, with her head resting against my shoulder.
"You passed the test," she said the next morning. "You didn't try to molest me, and you respected my limits. I think we'll get along well."
We had a few more dates before she went back to Mexico, and we shared each other's contact information. We continued to correspond, both by physical letters and e-mails, and we friended each other and followed each other on social media.
[Six years later]
Rosa and I were for all intents and purposes in a long-distance relationship at this point. We communicated multiple times daily and knew just about everything about each other's lives. So I wasn't surprised when Rosa sent me a letter saying she might be on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, and that I'd know about it if it happened by following the news.
There was plenty of news the next three months, all right. All the truly powerful people on the planet [high government officials, high-level judges, major financiers, big-time religious leaders, powerful drug and crime lords, high-ranking corporate executives, and major propagandists in both traditional and social media] underwent massive changes. The ones who were irredeemable sociopaths -- who made President Vinzer Deling from Final Fantasy VIII look caring, compassionate and humanitarian by comparison -- all made globally broadcast speeches confessing their misdeeds, apologizing to the world for being scum-of-the-earth, and ending by killing themselves with a cyanide pill. The other ones agreed to work together to fix humanity's ills. The Council of Leaders, chaired by Pope Leo and Volodomyr Zelenskyy, made remarkable progress. By the time Rosa texted me, 94 days after her letter arrived, I felt like humanity had just about reached utopia.
Her text was short and to the point. "I want you to move in with me permanently. We can be a couple in the bedroom that way. We're already a couple in every other way."
Since my job could be done remotely -- proofreading online manuscripts merely requires a computer and an Internet connection -- I saw no reason not to accept. Five days later, I was installed in Rosa's large, climate-controlled house. My office was adjacent to her -- now our -- bedroom, and the master bathroom had all the amenities and a few luxuries. Rosa relieved me of my clothes -- I wouldn't need them -- and put a comfortable, padded collar around my neck, attached to a very long carbon-fiber leash tied to a ring in the ceiling. I could get everywhere I needed. Once I was settled, she removed her own clothes, allowing me to see her naked body for the first time. Her breasts seemed a little bigger and her butt a little rounder than I remembered, but she was still slim, with lovely, long, toned legs.
"Come here, hon," Rosa grinned, pulling me into her surprisingly strong arms. She gave me a long lover's kiss, twining tongues with me as she hoisted us onto the bed. We lay next to each other, caressing and groping each other as we kissed several more times. Rosa then slid her body upwards, and I kissed her neck, making her squeak slightly as I delicately nipped on her sensitive spots. I then moved my tongue down to her chest and kissed through her cleavage.
