MrJohnSmith

Justin was bored. Here he was, sat alone in his dorm room, in the middle of Spring Break while the rest of his classmates were partying it up in Cancun. How had it come to this? Only a couple of weeks ago Justin had a girlfriend and a guaranteed place on the trip. Then he managed to mess it all up. Justin couldn’t face the prospect of seeing Maddy so soon after their break-up (or see her potentially hook up with other guys) so he’d sold his ticket to his otherwise reclusive roommate. He’d used the money from the ticket to buy himself a new gaming laptop. The idea was to distract himself while everyone else was away having a great time. Except there was one problem: it still hadn’t arrived. ...

The Roommate Emily was pissed. Coming to college, she’d expected to be sharing a room with someone as laid back and outgoing as herself. Instead, she had Nina the recluse. While Emily was a party girl who took to college life like a fish to water, Nina was just… weird. Never wanting to go out, Nina could be a pretty girl, if only she stood up for herself a bit more. Instead, she spent all her time moping about in their room on her laptop. One day when Nina was out at class, Emily had rifled through her drawers and found her vibrator, alongside a notebook of weird sex fantasies, including bondage and other weird fetish stuff. Honestly Emily was happy to get away from Nina and get away from college for Spring Break, when a message had popped up on her phone. ...

The Ad Laura was nothing if not determined. Having grown up in a big household of six sisters, she’d learnt from a young age to look after herself. After graduation she’d saved up what she could and moved to New York to study law. And while all her sisters were now either pregnant or married (or both), things like relationships, boyfriends, hell, even friendships were a distraction as far as Laura was concerned. An avid gamer, Laura had learnt to programme from a young age and used her programming skills to support herself while studying. She was determined not to have to rely on her parents, who would inevitably just try and have a say in her life. ...

Alex, like many twenty-somethings, didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life after university. Whilst many of her classmates signed their souls away to big corporate firms or jetted off to the Global South to Instagram their rediscovery, she had neither the want for the former nor the money for the latter. So, she watched as her friends moved on while she demurred over what to do. Rather than face the humiliating prospect of moving back in with her parents, she decided to stick it out in London. But that meant finding a job. Loath to find yet another gastronomy gig with shitty wages, she scoured the job sites until she came across an ad for a sales assistant at a boutique sex shop. She was surprised at the candour of the shop – most of the time these places described themselves as “fashion stores” or something more discreet. But that wasn’t all. This place stated proudly that it was a women’s only sex shop: strictly no men allowed. The more Alex read about this place, the more she was interested. The pay was good. She wouldn’t have to deal with sleazy college guys leering at her. And she would be empowering women to embrace their sexuality (which was what a Gender Studies graduate should do, shouldn’t they?). After little deliberation, she sent in an application, and the next week she was invited for an interview. ...

“Are you brave enough to take on The Challenge? Last 30 minutes and receive $500. Vanillas need not apply.” Flyers had started popping up around campus a few weeks ago. Most people had made fun of the flyers or ignored them altogether. Except for Nina. Broke, without a job or rich parents to help her out, she was in desperate need of money. College was supposed to be Nina’s chance to break free and live her own life. But breaking free means paying for rent and groceries. And places weren’t exactly hiring freshmen with no experience. $500 would cover rent for the summer and buy her a couple of months to find a job. ...