Chapter 3
RAFE
I stand up from where I ended the blue painter’s tape on the floor.
“How long is that line?” Kapri asks.
Mario is following along with a rolling measuring tape. The kind that tracks length by a counter as the wheel turns, so we don’t have to mess with measuring tape.
“Two hundred and sixteen. So that’s what—eighteen feet?” Mario answers.
“Perfect. Next.”
Mario resets the measuring tape and then moves us eight feet to the right.
I stick the end of my tape on the floor as he walks further down and measures eight feet from the line we just marked again, so I keep my line straight.
Kapri stands on the end, so it doesn’t lift. We continue down eighteen feet again.
“Do you like this layout?” Kapri asks for maybe the tenth time today.
Mario meets my eyes, amused. We share a smile. “Yes,” we say together.
Kapri sighs. “I just want it to be right.”
I grip his shoulder on the way by. “It’s going to be great.”
He looks around the room, eyebrows knitted together as he takes another look at the tape we already have down. He brought us a dozen different layouts to choose from, and we chose one that had the four halls designating orientation, as well as several larger areas for group play.
“Ready for walls?” Presley asks from the other side of the room, standing at the door.
Kapri looks like he’s about to collapse. I grin, gripping his arm. “Yeah. Start loading them over there.” I point to the side of the room that’s already taped off.
“We’re not ready,” Kapri says, looking at me. “We still have half the room to tape off, Rafe!”
“Relax. Presley has a copy of the layout. He’ll supervise the wall setup while we finish the layout.”
“I just want it to be perfect,” he says in a modified statement of what he’s been saying.
“It will be,” Mario assures him. “Come on. Let’s finish taping.”
It’s a little slower taping now that Kapri is fretting over the walls. I think it’s clear to Presley, too. He joins us, bringing half a dozen guys with him, so we can crank out taping off the grid throughout the ballroom.
Kapri sighs when we’re finished. “Thanks.”
Presley tugs on his shirt sleeve, giving him a wink as he leads the guys he brought in back to hauling in walls.
“Which section do you want to begin with?” Mario asks.
I think we both understand that Kapri needs to call the shots, so he has control over making it perfect.
“Let’s set up the glory holes first so we can make sure they’re in place and not confused with other walls,” Kapri says.
“Darling, they have a hole at crotch level. They’re not going to be confused with the other walls,” I tease.
He flashes me a grin, but we follow him to the stacked walls.
There are maybe thirty with holes in them.
Six-foot panels of the kind of walls that make up office cubicles.
Except that they’re seven feet tall and have a really easy snap-together and pull-apart mechanism with broad feet at the ends to keep them upright and sturdy.
The stories go that the first time a glory-hole party took place, a cock fucked forward so hard that it took out an entire wall. It came down like a hurricane came through. There were only minor injuries. Mostly confusion and a bit of laughter.
In the years after that failure, a lot of research and construction went into getting the right kinds of impermanent walls to keep everyone safe and still able to fuck hard. You know, if that’s your preference.
“Okay, so the first glory hole wall is here,” Kapri says, stopping in front of the section of tape that he has designated for the holes. “Snug against the wall.”
Mario and I set the wall down and adjust the feet to keep it standing. They’re stronger when locked together. Especially since each side will have three-foot stall walls for a bit of privacy. Then there’s a bar that connects the walls so the fuckee has something to brace themselves on.
A lot of thought has gone into perfecting the glory-hole party over the years. I’m happy to say that I think we have it down to a science. DIK might have porn perfected, but the Omegas know how to throw the best sex parties.
“Heyo, Omegas. Your Alphas are here!”
The three of us turn to see Poppy and two other Alphas just inside the door. The three girls strike a pose, and I grin.
“The real muscle has arrived,” Mario says, grinning.
“We’re working on the holey walls. Grab one and start lining them up here,” Kapri says as he points.
“Stay here and supervise,” I tell him, and join Mario to grab another wall.
“I’m sending Alora your way,” Poppy says. The girl with a boot on her leg walks to Kapri. “She can help lock them in place and shit. Just so she’s not constantly walking back and forth and carrying anything.”
“Not that these are heavy,” the third girl, Jeannie, says. “They’re deceptively light.”
“They are,” Mario agrees. “If they weren’t so large and awkward, we could probably all take one on our own.”
Setting up the first line of glory holes goes by quickly and smoothly. Kapri instructs Presley to take a break from the big panels and bring a few loads of the three-footers so we can brace the walls.
“How many of these things do you have?” Poppy asks as we begin the next wall filled with holes.
“I have no idea. I think a quarter of the basement is filled floor to ceiling with these things,” I answer. “Why?”
“Are you familiar with the minotaur’s labyrinth?” she asks.
I exchange a look with Jeannie, who’s carrying the other end of the wall. She gives me an amused smile.
“Yeah,” I hedge. “I’m afraid of knowing where this is going.”
“Nah, I think it’ll be fun. What if we construct a massive maze, and at the dead ends, there are fucking stations? Glory holes. Whips. Cages. All kinds of weird fun.”
“Huh,” Kapri says. “I don’t hate that idea.”
Poppy rolls her eyes. “You act like I can’t have good ideas every time we talk, Kapri.”
He grins. “Girls are scary, so I’m expecting you to bite and scratch or something. Good ideas are far from my mind when we’re having a conversation.”
“Do you not have sisters? A mother? Aunts and grandmothers?” Alora asks while clipping the two walls together.
“I do. That’s why I’m terrified of them,” Kapri says. “I’m one of two boys in my family. We’re not exactly a large family, but out of the fourteen of us who get together regularly, there are two boys. Yeah, I can say with confidence that girls are terrifying.”
Poppy and Jeannie laugh.
The bracing walls begin piling up, so we break off into two groups. Alora helps clip together the short walls with Mario and Jeannie. I remain with Poppy and let Kapri boss us around while we construct walls.
We’ve got maybe a third of the room left to finish when Alora sits against the wall to give her leg a break. “This is going to be sweet,” she says.
“Let’s take five,” Kapri says, and we join her. “We can talk about assignments while we rest.”
“You’re such a slave driver,” Poppy says with a sigh. “Can’t we just not talk about it for a minute?”
“No,” Kapri answers. “Okay, so I have the rotated schedule for the door here. We’re taking half an hour apiece. There will be a counter so we never go over capacity. Our shipment of condoms will be here tomorrow. Probably. If they’re delayed, we’ll borrow from DIK.”
“Lube?” I ask.
“We have more than enough pump bottles, and I bought some gallons of lube from DIK since they take so long to get in. They already had another shipment ordered. We have water-based and oil-based. Water-based are in the clear bottles, and oil-based are in the blue bottles. The tables are coming in from the Alphas, right?”
Poppy nods. “I have some girls bringing them over this afternoon. I knew there was going to be a lot of setup, and I didn’t want to create obstacles to getting the walls up.”
“Cool. Thanks. There are some mattresses for the orgy rooms and some couches and chairs coming up from the basement. We have tons of water being delivered tomorrow…” Kapri checks his notes. “What else?”
“Decorations?” Alora asks.
“Designating the halls,” Poppy supplies.
“Ah. Good. I think we can do that with garland. I poked through the decorations in the basement, and I think we have enough—blue, green, red, and white. That’ll work, right?” Kapri asks.
“Yes,” we all agree.
“We have some holiday decorations, but I think we should probably stick to garland and string lights. Just to keep anything from getting in the way or broken. Avoid injuries,” Mario says.
“I read that one year they had a black-and-gold theme and there were gold statues. Half of them were broken, and there were three injuries incurred from the statues. Not saying that the people partying weren’t to blame, but the least number of objects to entice horny people to get into trouble with, the better off we’ll be. ”
I shake my head. People are stupid sometimes. I can only imagine what they were doing with those statues. Eesh. I hope they were thrown away after.
“It’s going to be good,” Kapri says, nodding. “The Alphas are excited?”
The girls nod. “We enjoy Omega parties when you’re willing to invite us along.” She winks.
Kapri smiles. “I think we tend to overthink sometimes, and it sounds overly complicated in our heads. Then someone like Rafe tells us how simple it is, and here we are. Co-partying.”
Poppy flashes me a grin. “Good to hear.”
“I still think Longwood U should create the first fraternity-sorority combination. Erase gender segregation entirely,” Jeannie says.
“I mean, DIK is already onto that. Have you met Kole Whitaker?” Mario asks.
“I have. Have you?” Kapri says, giving us a shudder. “That woman is insane. Completely insane. Wrapped up in an innocent smile and big, pretty eyes. Absolutely terrifying.”
Mario laughs. “That’s why they refer to her as the demon twin. Kylen is the angel twin.”
I shake my head. I don’t have a lot of interaction with DIK.
As fun as porn sounds every now and then, the idea of my family ever finding out I shot porn in school would horrify them.
I’m pushing back on the contract marriage, so maybe I can at least give them the honorable son act in this one area.
Mario, on the other hand, hangs around at DIK just as much as he does OXL. He’s become besties with one of their brothers, Zeke. Zeke ends up hanging here a lot, too. Actually, I’m surprised he’s not here right now.
“Hey, where’s your personal DIK shadow?” I ask.
The girls look at Mario with curiosity.
Mario laughs. “Cheer. He’ll be here in an hour or so.”
“I’m sorry, DIK shadow? Is this a guy thing we’re being left out of?” Poppy asks.
“Nah,” Mario says. “I’m good friends with one of the DIK brothers. We hang out a lot.”
“You’re practically inseparable,” Kapri says.
“Total bromance of the sweetest kind,” I agree.
Mario shrugs.
“Bromance, huh?” Jeannie asks, waggling her eyebrows.
“He’s even staying here again over break to hang with Zeke,” Kapri says.
“Again?” Poppy asks.
“You can totally think what you want,” Mario says, shrugging. “It’s not sexual or romantic. Everyone needs a cuddle sometimes, and we like each other’s company. That’s all.”
“I appreciate that your argument isn’t that you’re straight,” Alora says.
“I feel like people use that as an end-all defense and are always offended when they throw it out there,” Mario says.
“Yes, we both identify as straight, but I’d like to think that if I met a guy or someone who identifies as being something other than a girl and found myself attracted to them, I wouldn’t get hung up on their parts, you know? ”
Poppy grips his arm. “More people need to be like you, Mario.”
He hums, rolling his eyes.
“But Zeke isn’t that person, huh?” Alora asks.
Mario shakes his head. “No. Not yet, anyway. Who knows what’ll happen in the future? Maybe I’ll wake up one day and find that I’m totally in love with him. Maybe I’ll wake up one day and realize I’m totally in love with you. I’m not discounting anyone as long as they’re a good person.”
“Yep,” I agree. “There needs to be more people like you.”
“I think we should have a cuddle club,” Kapri says. We all turn our attention to him, but he’s not looking at anyone. He’s staring off with a wistful expression. “Normalize cuddling.”
“I’d be down for that,” Jeannie says, sighing.
I find I’m nodding. So many people say they don’t care for cuddling, and I worry about them. If you have an aversion to touch, I get it. Really. But there’s this strange connotation in the world that cuddling makes you soft or needy.
That’s not the case. It makes you human. Humans like to have physical comfort. That’s the nature of our species.
Admittedly, I think I wouldn’t mind some cuddling too. Mario and Kapri are onto something. Platonic cuddling. It should be a regular thing.
Hmm. I wonder if I can work that into my fake boyfriend arrangement with Brent. Not that he’s agreed yet. He will. I’m pretty confident he will.
He will come home with me this Christmas, one way or another. Even if I have to suffer through meeting a bunch of girls my mother picks out for me, I’m bringing Brent home. It sucks that he doesn’t have a family and the reasons surrounding it.
It’s not my business to share with anyone, but I’ll think of a way to make sure my mother knows that Brent is now family, without sharing the circumstances regarding his parents.
My mother is going to spoil him rotten. He’s going to gain hovering, doting siblings like he’s never seen in his life.
He’s going to inherit grandparents who will praise him for breathing and smiling.
Aunts and uncles and cousins who will support his every whim.
The thought makes me smile. Everyone deserves a family like mine.
I’m glad I get to share mine with someone deserving of them.
I’ve always kept my family close because they’re precious to me.
Sharing them with the outside world, with someone who is only fleeting in my life, has never been something I’ve been willing to do.
Brent is different, though. He’s one of my closest friends.
And I have this deep desire to replace the poor excuses for the family that he grew up with by people who will show him what family should be.
He’s going to have a great Christmas this year.
He’s going to have his faith in family restored and renewed.
If I can manage to convince him to pretend to be my boyfriend in the process and get my mom off my back about a contract marriage, then all the better. But either way, Brent Mitchell is gaining a whole-ass family this year. No matter what.