DAY 13

Based on the noises that had pulled Ethan out of his slumber, his AC should have been working at its full power, yet it was noticeably warmer than it had been on any previous morning. The researchers hadn’t been lying about the warning.

Halfway through undressing for his shower, Chloe messaged him.

‘Cleaned up after myself this time. Better?’ she had sent.

‘I would never have known if you hadn’t mentioned it,’ he replied.

This was of course the entire point of her message.

Downstairs, Emma’s one-day experiment was already in full swing. She and Aya were both strutting around topless, as if it had been the house culture since day one.

The blonde was bouncing around in loose red runner’s shorts while her friend/rival had opted for grey sweats, sitting lower on her hips than Ethan would have thought was possible. Both sets of tits were amazing in their own way. Emma’s natural skin tone was revealed as her tan didn’t cover her most intimate skin, whereas Aya’s breasts had an olive tone as well.

Aya was perky, with her breasts firm and high on her chest as opposed to Emma, whose heavy D-cups moved around with the slightest movement of their arms.

Both women had tummies Ethan just wanted to lick. Staring at Emma’s abs and Aya’s extremely low waistband, he wondered why he hadn’t done this already.

‘Oh great’ Emma mocked, ‘someone else who’s still wearing a shirt.’

He hadn’t considered that the rule applied to him too, not that he wouldn’t have been allowed to go shirtless earlier.

The comment made Isabelle snort. Ethan was surprised she hadn’t joined in, although she probably wanted to stand behind Val, who was visibly not amused by the remark.

‘Hey,’ Ethan defused, ‘no pressure, right?’

Chloe and Danielle hadn’t joined in either, although neither was particularly covered up. Chloe was wearing a loose yellow top with clearly nothing underneath while the mother hen was dressed in her silk robe. The very same she had worn to his room to bandage him. Ethan figured there were just panties under it this time as well.

Ethan saw some clothing bags on the delivery table, reminding him that he didn’t have a costume for tomorrow yet. He had never been very creative with that sort of thing. He usually dressed up like Jim from The Office or something like that.

‘I’ve been practicing on the pole a bit,’ Emma dropped casually. ‘Anyone up for a workshop?’

‘I heard that’s a fantastic workout,’ Isabelle commented.

‘It really is,’ Emma confirmed.

‘I’ll pass,’ Danielle shook her head, ‘already sweaty enough as it is.’

She made a good point, but it didn’t stop Chloe, Aya and even Val from showing interest.

‘What about you?’ Val asked Ethan directly.

‘Pole dancing? Me?’ he stammered.

‘What’s the problem?’ Emma said. ‘Not manly enough?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just … I don’t know.’

‘Alright, Ethan’s in,’ Aya laughed.

‘After yoga?’ Emma asked Isabelle.

‘Uh, sure,’ she replied, ‘we’ll do it in the basement. I went to check earlier and it’s already scorching outside.’

Plans were finalized and yoga was held in the basement again. Emma and Chloe joined alongside Ethan.

Mats were rolled out.

‘Come on, Ethan,’ Emma egged him on, ‘Now’s the time to take your shirt off.’

She wasn’t wrong, so he did exactly that. Isabelle had done the same as well, leaving Chloe as the only one with a top on.

Emma must have noticed her hesitation.

‘No pressure, Chlochlo.’

She smiled and set her own, smaller, pair free as well.

Nobody commented on it, although Ethan felt both Isabelle and Emma desperately wanted to.

‘Ok, class,’ Isabelle began, ‘We’ll warm up first and then I thought we could do some acro poses.’

‘Acro?’ Chloe wondered.

Emma explained.

‘Like lifts and stuff.’

The solo warmup went by quickly. Ethan was looking forward to the acro part immensely. He knew it would result in some interesting poses.

‘Okay, so acro poses always have a base and a flyer. The base should be the stronger of the two. I suggest Emma and Ethan take this role.’

They both nodded. This meant that Ethan wouldn’t get to touch Emma, just yet.

Isabelle pointed at the blonde.

‘Get on your back, we’ll show the pose.’

Emma lay down obediently, her tits moving along as she did.

‘Arms by your sides and legs up.’

Isabelle went to stand behind her.

‘Now put your feet against my hips and lift your arms up to me.’

They grabbed each other’s hands.

‘I will lean forward. You push me up.’

This happened in one smooth motion, until Isabelle was flying horizontally above Emma.

Chloe and Ethan made brief eye contact.

‘Now put me back down,’ Isabelle instructed.

‘Great,’ she followed up, ‘now the others.’

Ethan got down on his back and assumed the position. Chloe did as well.

They grabbed each other’s hands and Ethan pushed her up.

Emma had made it look easy, stretching his legs fully and keeping them up while supporting Chloe proved difficult, especially while he tried not to ogle her bare freckled chest. His still aching finger didn’t help. At the same time, the redhead was struggling with the plank position causing her to slip from his limbs and fall down on top of him.

They were lying there, skin to skin. Ethan could make out Chloe’s hard nipples against him.

Emma burst out laughing.

‘No way in hell that was an accident.’

Chloe rolled off him, embarrassed.

‘Well, that’s my fault,’ Isabelle said, ‘might have been a bit too advanced.’

They went back to some solo poses.

After the session, Chloe put her top back on. Isabelle didn’t.

Emma instructed Ethan to wait near the pole as she gathered the others.

She returned not much later with everyone but Danielle.

‘I tried, she didn’t want to,’ Emma waved it away.

‘Uh,’ she then stumbled, ‘I haven’t really taught a class before.’

‘Just do what you would normally do,’ Isabelle helped her out.

‘Sure. Let’s start with a warm up.’

Emma demonstrated some exercises to loosen up different muscle groups, which were then repeated by the housemates.

Ethan did not mind the amount of jiggling and bouncing around this caused one bit.

‘I guess I’ll just show some fundamental moves?’ she said. ‘I can help you guys master them.’

‘Ooh, sounds fun,’ Aya cooed.

‘The Pole Walk is what I was told to do first. There’s not much to it, just take hold of the pole and walk around it.’

She demonstrated this. It wasn’t just a walk around the pole, as every step and every sway of her hips looked very deliberate. She took her time to make her round, with her hand high on the pole.

‘Seems easy enough,’ Val said before she took a try.

The women each performed their Pole Walk with varying levels of confidence.

‘Your turn, Ethan. Curious to see what you make of it,’ Emma instructed.

Ethan did as instructed, but overexaggerated what he was supposed to do, with a grin on his face.

Chloe, Aya and Isabelle all laughed.

‘Let’s see how funny this is when it gets a tiny bit harder,’ Emma chastised him. ‘Let’s try a simple pirouette.’

She stood next to the pole; her left arm crossed in front of her body with her hand against the pole. Her right arm high up on the pole with the back of her hand against it. In one fluid movement, she spun around, keeping her top hand against the metal.

Ethan was lucky he didn’t have to go first, because he didn’t understand how she had done it.

He tried very hard to focus on the technique, rather than the bodies in front of him.

By the time it was his turn, he understood, but the execution was far from perfect. Emma had been correct in her prediction. He wasn’t grinning anymore.

‘Next up, hip dips.’

She took the pole with two hands. The move was very simple. She let herself hang low and swayed her hips side to side. Ethan was instantly mesmerized.

Seeing the other four sexy women, two of whom were topless, follow her lead forced Ethan to remind himself that this was in fact real life.

Once again, his version of the move was the least impressive.

The minimal pressure this put on the finger he had hurt in the construction of the pole worried him.

‘Alright, time to get to the real stuff,’ Emma announced.

She assumed a similar position to the pirouette, but this time swung herself around the pole.

The women all managed to recreate it, but Ethan’s attempt went terribly wrong. His finger simply couldn’t withstand the torsion. He fell to the floor.

‘Look who can’t keep up,’ Emma gloated.

‘It’s my finger,’ he explained.

Aya addressed the group.

‘Let him save face,’ she fake whispered.

‘Poor Ethan,’ she continued in a normal voice. ‘Maybe you should just watch for the rest of class?’

‘It’s what he was mainly doing anyway,’ Val remarked.

Ethan sat down and simply observed the rest of the class. His animal namesake joined him, visibly puzzled by what the humans were doing. Ethan dropped all pretence. Everyone knew he was checking them out. He was pretty sure that he caught everyone except Val perform specifically for him.

Body rolls, swaying hips, bouncing tits and looks shot straight at him made the figurative temperature exceed the literal. The sweat on some of the bodies exposed to him only made it worse.

Emma finished the class with a vague promise to do another one soon. As they made their way upstairs for lunch, Ethan overheard Chloe remark that she was already getting used to the casual nudity.

To everyone’s pleasant surprise, Danielle had prepared gazpacho for the group.

‘Figured it would be nice in this weather.’

What was also nice was that she had gone topless as well.

Aya stared at Danielle’s chest with open mouth.

‘And I thought mine got in the way when running, Jesus fuck.’

Danielle frowned and cupped her breasts.

‘Yeah, they’re not practical. I wish they were smaller.’

‘Are you crazy? I’d feel like a fucking queen with milkers like those!’

‘Milkers?’ Val interjected.

Danielle blushed.

‘Grass is always greener, I guess,’ Emma closed the conversation.

‘I tried to head to the pool,’ Danielle explained as they were gathered around the table, ‘but it’s just too hot out. I didn’t last thirty seconds.’

As if she had jinxed it, the AC unit suddenly started buzzing louder before going completely silent.

‘AH FUCK!’ Aya yelled out.

Val had already put a chair underneath the unit to get a closer look.

‘Anyone know anything about this stuff?’

There was no response.

‘Well, that’s unfortunate timing,’ Emma remarked.

‘It’s probably the heat that did it,’ Danielle jumped in, ‘too much strain on the system.’

Val sighed.

‘We’re going to have to call the researchers. This is an emergency, right?’

She was right.

‘I’ll do it,’ Ethan volunteered.

He took out his phone and opened the emergency contact app.

A friendly voice answered immediately.

‘Hello, Ethan. How can we help?’

‘Uhm, yes, hello. There’s an issue with the air-conditioning in the common room. It just failed completely.’

‘Oh, that sure is an emergency. It’s good you called, Ethan. Have you checked the other units?’

This was a good point.

Ethan addressed his housemates.

‘Can someone go check the other rooms?’

Chloe, Aya and Isabelle immediately headed out in different directions.

‘Can you describe the failure?’ the voice on the phone asked. Ethan heard the sounds of a keyboard in the background.

‘It got very loud, just before it happened.’

He looked at Val, next to the unit, who shrugged.

‘The light is out, too.’

Chloe returned.

‘The units upstairs also stopped working,’ she announced.

Danielle was already turning on fans.

‘Upstairs is fried too,’ Ethan relayed the info.

‘Hmm,’ the voice said, ‘give me a minute.’

A bossa nova tune started playing.

‘They actually put on waiting music!’

There was a clicking sound.

‘Ethan?’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s a unit outside, could you send someone to check it?’

He put Aya onto the task.

The researcher must have heard him.

‘Good. You probably won’t be able to fix it. We can’t send someone now, as we don’t want to disturb the experiment. We’ll send someone early tomorrow morning. Just make sure nobody gets up before seven.’

‘Alright,’ he sighed. It was already getting noticeably hotter.

Aya returned.

‘It’s fucking unbearable outside,’ she complained.

‘No sound, no lights, nothing.’

‘The outside unit isn’t giving any signs of life,’ Ethan relayed again.

‘Sorry to hear that. We’ll send someone early morning. Let’s hope the problem will be fixed then. Make sure to stay hydrated! Do you have any other issues?’

Ethan ended the conversation and informed the others that they’d have to get through the rest of the day before it would be fixed. Nobody seemed very pleased about it.

They gathered in the library, where it was slightly cooler.

‘What if it’s intentional?’ Val suggested.

‘In what way?’ Aya asked.

‘What if the researchers broke the AC?’

‘Why would they do that?’ Ethan replied.

‘To create an extreme scenario. See how it changes dynamics?’

Isabelle shook her head.

‘No, they’d offer us a problem we would need to solve ourselves.’

‘Not if they’re trying to raise the heat figuratively. I’ve suspected this whole thing has been sexual from the start.’

Emma laughed.

‘They don’t need to help that along.’

They lounged in the library for a bit longer. Nobody seemed to have the energy to do anything.

‘Any of you guys have costumes for tomorrow?’ Aya enquired.

Emma perked up.

‘I’ve got something perfect.’

She looked at Ethan.

‘You’re going to love it, I’m sure.’

‘What is it?’ Chloe asked.

‘Oh, you’ll see. You may love it too.’

This made the redhead blush.

‘I doubt you’ve chosen something with a lot of fabric,’ Val judged.

Isabelle stood up.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

She disappeared into the common room and reemerged a couple minutes later. The others were still huffing when she presented them with a couple of ice-filled cups.

‘This might be nice,’ she said as she put the cups on the floor in between the beanbags.

Aya had understood the idea and had already taken out a cube from the cup closest to her. She pressed it against her stomach.

Immediately, goosebumps appeared on the skin around the cold. Ethan wasn’t even pretending not to look.

‘Oh, this feels niceeeee,’ she gasped.

This prompted Emma and Chloe to follow her example. Isabelle had started on her own, too.

Aya was still a few steps ahead as she had moved the cube up to her breasts and was circling her nipple with it.

‘Don’t get carried away,’ Val warned. She was right. The girl was basically masturbating.

Aya pouted and went back to cooling down more acceptable areas.

Ethan joined in too; it did help but not as much as was needed.

‘I heard that guys get really hard if you put ice in their ass while you jerk them off,’ Emma blurted out.

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Aya responded while everyone looked at Ethan.

‘Yeah, you’ve never heard about it?’ Emma defended herself.

Isabelle spoke with a soothing voice.

‘It’s true. The contrast in temperature can lead to an intense yet enjoyable sensation.’

Aya turned to Ethan as well.

‘Well, what do you say?’

‘No, thank you.’

She pouted again.

‘Ah, you’re not fun. Nothing we can do to convince you?’ she teased.

‘We could double team you again, if that makes it more palatable to you.’

Val raised an eyebrow. Chloe didn’t seem as surprised as Ethan thought she would have been.

‘No thanks,’ he said again, knowing he didn’t need to make any concessions to get a treatment like that again.

‘Has anyone considered sleeping arrangements?’ Val saved him. ‘Bedrooms aren’t going to be bearable, and I’d like to sleep tonight.’

The group thought for a moment.

‘The basement is probably the best idea,’ Danielle suggested.

Nobody addressed the elephant in the room, so Ethan took it upon himself.

‘You guys don’t mind? Us all sleeping together?’

The women shrugged.

‘Why would we?’ Isabelle said.

Ethan sought eye contact with Val.

‘Fine by me. It’s not an orgy, Ethan,’ the Swede said.

Tasks were handed out to prepare the basement for the night. Danielle put Chloe and Ethan on mattress-transport duty. Ethan took advantage of the situation.

‘Shame you put your top back on,’ he commented when they were alone.

‘Oh yeah,’ the redhead said back. ‘Why?’

She was getting bolder.

‘You looked so hot with your tits out,’ he said bluntly.

‘Don’t you have enough to look at already?’

He looked her straight in the eyes.

‘If you think you wouldn’t get any attention you are gravely mistaken.’

‘Hmm,’ she pondered.

It didn’t take too long for her to think about it. Her top was left behind in her room, her titties set free once again and Val left as the sole fully dressed person in the house.

The others had done their tasks as well. Fans had been brought down as well as the living room TV. The plan was just to have a cosy movie night here later.

Dinner was simply a quickly thrown together light salad as nobody was in the mood to put in much effort. Cat-Ethan was clearly suffering due to the heat as well as he was splayed out on the kitchen tiles. Emma reminded everyone to be sure to order a costume for Sunday’s party.

Ethan had been thinking about it and had landed on just a generic Roman toga costume. It wasn’t very creative but at least there would be easy access, in case it was needed.

Before the evening activity, Val finally broke and appeared topless as the last person to do so.

‘Isabelle convinced me. Don’t make it weird or my top is back on.’

‘It’s fun, no?’ Chloe of all people remarked.

‘I guess it’s true that you get used to it quickly,’ Val had to admit.

‘Now Ethan can finally tell us which pair he likes best,’ Aya once again pushed the envelope.

He had half a mind to answer truthfully but decided to push back instead.

‘No can do,’ he said. ‘I need to take feel into account for a judgement like that, not just visuals.’

This earned some laughs.

A very lopsided vote resulted in ‘The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants’ to be the night’s entertainment.

The group had arranged to watch it from their respective mattresses, with Ethan’s being sandwiched between Chloe’s and Emma’s.

‘Is this what girls’ sleepovers were like?’ Ethan asked as the credits rolled.

Everyone got ready for bed, only Val and Danielle weren’t still topless. Ethan once again had to pinch himself.

They filled in the survey together, with Ethan trying to catch a glimpse of what Emma and Chloe were filling in, before the lights were turned off.

It was still very warm in the room, but their precautions had made it bearable. Ethan managed to doze off with ease.

Not everyone seemed to agree that this was the end of the day.

Ethan found himself woken up, disoriented and surrounded by darkness.

There was a warm, wet mouth wrapped around his dick. He wasn’t even covered by a sheet.

Emma’s style was very distinctive. Ethan didn’t need to wait for his eyes to get used to the darkness to know who was doing this to him.

She clearly was trying not to be too loud, or wake anyone up. Leaning over him, she wasn’t going nearly as fast or deep as Ethan knew she could. It still felt fantastic, though. Especially given all the pent-up tension caused by the topless day.

He put a hand on the back of her head, gently, just to let her know.

Her left hand was gripping his base incredibly tight. The ring of her fingers moved up as her mouth moved down and vice versa.

A sound came from the other side. It was soft and quiet, but undeniably a moan.

Ethan looked over, now able to make out a tiny bit of its surroundings.

Chloe was still topless. That much he could tell. She was wide awake with one hand covering her mouth. Too late.

Her other hand was in her trousers, moving ever so slightly and her eyes were fixed on the blowjob.

Ethan saw the enjoyment make waves through her body. Meanwhile, Emma was still going slow but she had increased the depth at which she sucked.

He came. Right inside of her.

Emma made a panicked sound, as if this was an unexpected outcome. She should have known better. Ethan felt her suck harder as he watched Chloe play with herself further. The blonde made sure not to make any stains before heading up to lay by his side.

‘Just a little preview for tomorrow,’ she whispered. ‘At least I know you can handle an audience.’

She went back to her own mattress, satisfied.

When he turned back over, Chloe was looking him straight in the face with an expression of pure bliss.