##Episode 2 Chapter 1
9:00 AM is role call. We line up, freshly showered and shaved and perfumed, five pleated skirts in a line, hands tucked in our laps, ten trays of breakfast on the table. Marion watches closely, plucking and correcting and enjoying her role as headmistress far too much.
When the men arrive, ten minutes late, they're sweat soaked in their gym clothes, following behind their head coach, Darian. They sit down first, taking up the table beside us. I want to be one of them, so fucking bad.
Marion claps her hands, and the six of us pick up a tray each and walk. The first time it was met with mocking ooo's and aaa's of assent at the sight of bared legs and colorful stockings on their fellow competitors. Gradually it became normal. Today they barely even look at us as we walk up behind them and reach around to give them their breakfast.
I end up behind Cooper- I often did, as he seems the least likely to say anything about it. "Who has my key?" I ask.
"I'm not allowed to say," he whispers, and I swear I can hear a smile on his lips.
I look back at them as we walk away. They aren't even staring at our retreating skirts this time. I sit down at my plate and growl my frustration.
"Is it kind of hot that they're totally ignoring us?" Tracy asks.
Noah straightens his glasses. "Tracy, I need you to name three things, right now, that you don't think are 'kind of hot'"
Tracy stops, thinks, raises a finger and starts to speak, then stops again.
"Clowns?" Jasper offers.
"I've seen some hot clowns."
"Mean old ladies" I ask.
"Scold me harder mommy."
"Embezzlement," Felix says.
"Extremely naughty."
"Okay, your opinion on what is and isn't hot is no longer required," Felix says.
"This ignoring us shit is aggravating, is what it is," I insist. "Are we ever going to do another challenge? I'm going to wipe the smug looks off their faces."
"I'm sure if I knew I would have told you by now," Marion said.
"No, you would not."
"Maybe, MC, this is all a challenge?"
"Handing everyone five points for passing lubes 101 is not a challenge."
She looks at me, smirks at my pent up frustrations, and says "soon."
"Better be," I say, and when she steps away to chat with her counterpart I ask the table: "What is the point of all this waiting around?"
"They'll do whatever it takes to make you mad, M.C." Jasper says, brushing his fingers through his long blonde side shaved hair. "Do you want me to do your nails?" He asks. He's enjoying this way too much.
"No, I want to wipe the smug looks off the tops faces."
"I'm pretty sure whenever you look frustrated the hosts take it as a guarantee of quality."
"And that means putzing about in skirts for a full week?"
"You did not research this show well enough before coming here." Said Noah, straightening his glasses again. According to felix Noah spends his nights watching anime and reading game theory, and it shows. "I've watched every season- including season 3."
"Then how did you end up in skirts with us?" I ask
"I'm right where I want to be," he smirks. "See, they release a couple clips for free, charge a reasonable amount for the main episodes, and then these in between days are used to make whale bait."
"Whale bait," I repeat, hoping for an explanation.
"Plenty of people are going to love the main season so much they'll pay for some of the barely produced and poorly lit off screen encounters. Maybe a few of those will want one of those dildo's or masturbators made from our molds. Then a rarer few will still want more and they'll fork over real cash for crudely cut boring ass moments like this, and even then some genuine sicko will pay three months salary for the entire unedited recordings so he can see every camera angle of Marion, pre-transition, eating really messy spaghetti." Noah delivers this monologue without a break, then, when nobody replies he adds: "Y'know. Whale bait. Justifies the set costs."
I had other theories.
Breakfast goes by quickly, all of us wolfing the food down. It may be served in cafeteria trays but it's all restaurant quality. At suppers there are fries that are thin cut and fried in peanut oil that make up for all the pleasures in the world I don't get to enjoy- like victory, and-
That day we have safe anal sex class, which doesn't have enough content to last us till lunch. School is out early, and we head to our dorms.
I share mine with Tracy, which is torture, but at least I'm not in the room shared by the other three. It's small, no kitchen, just two beds, two little desks and a bathroom. My side is clean, Tracy's side is a complete mess.
I watch Tracy as he predictably opens that bottom drawer and pulls out lube and a toy with so many dizzying bends I hesitate to call it a dildo. He lays on his side, skirt hiked in the directon of his bed's camera, and he starts the delicate process of lubing and loosening himself with his fingers.