Chapter 144

It didn’t make people suddenly social. Factory guys didn’t walk up to strangers and grab tits any more than they used to shake hands. Scalpers didn’t start greeting every woman on the stairs. The new common sense just sat there, available, unused, like a broken ticket machine.

People still weren’t copying him in the crowd. That was the part the rumor-spreaders later wouldn’t get. Alter made the act common sense. It didn’t make people suddenly social. Factory guys didn’t walk up to strangers and grab tits any more than they used to shake hands. Scalpers didn’t start greeting every woman on the stairs. The new common sense just sat there, available, unused, like a broken ticket machine.

Ray was the one using it.

Twelve. Young office temp, small frame, shirt tucked neat. He had to lean in. His hands covered everything. The squeeze lifted her onto her toes for a second. She laughed once, short, embarrassed only in the old way people get embarrassed by a hug that lasts too long, then said thanks and hurried off.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Two women from the same company, walking together. Ray greeted the first, then the second. The second had already seen. She offered her chest like someone offering a cheek for a kiss in another country. Ray took his time. Both hands. Deep pressure. Shirt fabric rustling. He felt the heat trapped between her tits and cheap polyester. Done, both of them said “see you” like Ray worked on their floor.

He was breathing hard behind the mask.

One left.

The last woman stood near the dead end of the corridor, close enough to the old-toilet smell that most people avoided the spot. Cream blouse. Black ribbon at the collar. Full, heavy chest that made the ribbon look like a joke. She was waiting for someone, scrolling. Ray walked up, raised his hands, and took them.

He didn’t rush number fifteen.

He set his palms under the weight first, lifted, then closed. Blouse was thin. He felt all of it. He squeezed until the flesh pushed between his fingers, until the ribbon at her throat moved with her breath. Then he found the gap between two buttons like number six and slid his right hand inside.

Bare skin again. Hotter. Softer. He gathered that tit from inside the shirt and held it, actually held it, while the station announced another departure nobody here was excited to catch. His fingers moved. Slow. In charge. The greeting didn’t have an official time limit. He used that. Thumb rubbing her nipple until it went tight against his skin, then squeezing the whole tit again until it spilled out of his hand. She rested her forehead on Ray’s masked shoulder for a second—not kissing, not collapsing, just waiting for the long hello to finish.

When he finally pulled his hand out, the blouse stayed wrinkled. A faint sheen of skin showed where the fabric had shifted. She looked at him with clear eyes, no panic.

“Watch yourself out there,” she said.

Fifteen.

The system chimed behind his skull, cold and satisfied. Mission progress locked. Alter stayed active around him like weather. Ray dropped his hands. They still felt full. He flexed his fingers and tasted dust plus other people’s perfume inside the mask.

Across the corridor, people still weren’t greeting each other. A guy smoking. A woman checking her watch. Two dudes in tees arguing about last night’s livestream. The new common sense sat inside all of them and barely changed how often strangers touched each other, because strangers here had never been in the habit of saying hello.

Ray was.

He turned back toward the dim hallway where Milady was waiting, pulse still high, the sugar-mommy rumor suddenly a long way off compared to the heat still sitting in his palms.

He had fifteen. He’d enjoyed every one of them. And that broken, suspicious station full of tired adults now believed this was just how people said hi.

Ray found her in the dim hallway like the station had been saving one last private room nobody else wanted.

Milady was leaning against the old tiled wall, arms folded, mask off, that calm little smile already waiting for him. Small frame. Neat. The kind of body that looked expensive even in station light. Her blouse sat close enough that he could see the modest shape of her chest without trying. Not the heavy handfuls he’d just been collecting out on the platforms. Smaller. Tighter. The kind that would disappear under one palm if he wasn’t careful.

Alter was still humming in the air around them. Common sense still rewritten. Adults greet adults one way.

Ray didn’t pretend he wasn’t looking.

“You’re staring like you forgot how to count,” Milady said.

“I counted,” Ray said. “Fifteen. System locked it.”

“I know.” Her eyes dropped to his hands, then back up. “You also came back looking like you enjoyed your homework a little too much.”

He stepped in close enough that the leftover heat on his palms felt stupid. The greeting was still live. The rule didn’t carve out exceptions for the woman who’d sent him out there. He wanted her small tits in his hands the same way he’d wanted the others, except this one sat different in his head. Not a stranger. Not a mission checkbox. Her.

“Then let me finish it right,” he said.

Milady laughed. Short. Sharp. Not shocked. Amused in that mean little way she got when a tool started acting like it had a preference.

“Oh. So the slave wants a treat now.”

Ray didn’t answer. He just lifted his hands.

She didn’t stop him. She even straightened off the wall a little, offering the line of her body like she’d already decided this was funny. “Go on then. You earned your manners out there. Might as well use them on the person who owns the leash.”

He put his hands on her.

Small. That was the first hit. Not the dense spill he’d been working through shirts all night. Compact. Firm-soft. He could cover almost all of her with both palms and still have fingers left over. He squeezed anyway, the same greeting he’d been running, thumbs finding the shallow curve and pressing in until the fabric told him where her nipples sat.

Milady exhaled a laugh against his mask.

“There it is. Look at you. Fifteen grown women and you still come back hungry for the smallest pair in the building.”

He kneaded once, slower than he’d done with the office chicks. The blouse was finer. Less give, more heat. He felt her tighten under his hands, not pulling away, just letting the greeting land. Alter made it legal. Her permission made it worse.

“Reward,” she said, voice light, teasing, like she was pinning a ribbon on a dog. “That’s what you’re after. Poor thing ran the whole station, copped feels like a good little host, and now he wants his sugar mommy’s tiny tits as a bonus.”

Ray pressed deeper. Not inside the shirt. Not yet. Just enough that her breath caught and her laugh went quieter.

“You said adults greet adults,” he said.

“I did.” She tipped her chin, looking at him like he was both useful and ridiculous. “And you did your job. So yes. Squeeze. Get it out of your system. Consider it official recognition.”

He held her there. Small weight filling the center of his hands, warm, precise, nothing like number six or fifteen and somehow sharper because of it. Station noise kept dying a few corridors over. Nobody walked in. Alter sat around them like weather that only they were using on purpose.

Milady’s fingers hooked the front of his shirt, not pushing him off. Holding him there while she mocked him.

“Good boy. Take your prize. Just don’t start thinking this means you get to write the next rule.”

Ray squeezed again, thumbs dragging over the tight peaks through the blouse, and felt her laugh turn into something thinner.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know who owns the leash.”

“Then enjoy the reward, slave.” Her smile cut sideways. “You’ve been very thorough tonight.”

Thirty seconds.

The number hit the back of Ray’s skull like a station announcement nobody else could hear. Alter timer bleeding out. The greeting was still legal, still common sense, still the kind of thing a tired crowd would clock and ignore. After that it was just hands on a woman in a dead hallway.

Ray tried to pull off.

Milady caught his wrists.

Not hard. Precise. Like she’d been waiting for the flinch. She kept his palms mashed to her small tits and smiled up into the mask, close enough he could feel her breath.

“Clock’s loud, huh.”

“Thirty seconds,” Ray said. “I’m done.”

“No you’re not.” She guided his hands instead of letting them drop, made him keep the squeeze while she stepped in. Then her own hands came up and found his chest through his shirt. Flat. Firm. She didn’t ask. She groped him the same way he’d been groping everybody else, thumbs hunting until they found his nipples and stayed there.

Ray jerked.

Milady laughed under her breath. “There we go. Host wants to dish it out all night, but he gets shy the second somebody greets him back.”

She pinched. Slow. Mean. Rolled the peaks between her fingers until the fabric pulled tight and the sensation went sharp enough to make his shoulders lock.

“You wanna keep going till this turns into a harassment case?” she asked, sweet as poison. “Timer dies, alter dies, and suddenly this isn’t manners anymore. Just a masked freak with his hands on me and my hands on him. Cute headline.”

“Let go,” Ray snapped. “Hurry the fuck up.”

Milady didn’t. She pressed closer, small tits still filling his forced grip, her fingers working his nipples like she had all the time in the world and he had none.

“Ask nicer.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” Her thumbs dragged again. “Slave wants out before the rule flips. Fine. Then beg for it. That’s the reward’s second half.”