With no external light visible, Amelia couldn’t say for certain when exactly she woke up. She, not for the first time that week, cursed her choice to spend her graduation money on that professional-grade soil sample testing kit she had never taken out of the box instead of a wristwatch. 

What she could say for certain was that she took an embarrassingly long time to wake up enough to realize she had spent the night in the arms of a strange man. Worse yet, no matter how much her higher self and abstract reasoning demanded that she leap up that instant and try to recover some modicum of dignity from this stranger, her somatic and sensory memory simply would not budge. At a marrow-deep level, she simply couldn’t force his touch to register as anything more objectionable than the embrace of a cozy blanket, and try as she might, she could not work up the tenacity to venture past the crook of his arms. 

His deep, resonant snores nearly lulled her back to sleep before she could do anything more than shift positions to put less pressure on her still-achey hips. When she tried moving just an inch more, she felt the gentle drip of the last night’s seed still leaking from her overstimulated and sensitive pussy lips. 

The little flash of raw unmitigated glee she felt as she began to fully recount the events of the previous night made her blood run cold. She wanted so badly to be embarrassed or upset at this predicament. And yet there was no helping the fact that her brain seemed to be rewriting itself in real time.

It was just so easy to get lost in the bliss; to get completely blackout drunk on the ecstasy of being so utterly, hopelessly in love; and to recall with budding excitement that a living covenant to that love was more than likely growing inside her that very moment.

A small voice deep inside her psyche still wailed that she was in a trap that had already snapped shut around her, but another voice with a different refrain had come to begin smothering it:

‘If this is a trap, I could never bear to be free again.’

—

He awoke to a pair of wide eyes staring rapt into his face, peering up at him from his own lap. Amelia had taken the opportunity to rest her head on his thigh, and had spent an indeterminate amount of time looking up at his sleeping face.

As he stirred, she finally managed to draw herself back from his warmth for a split second. She sat on her haunches, briefly stunned.

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” she sputtered

Liam attempted to rub sleep out of his eye; a reflex he immediately regretted, as his hands were still caked in the residue of the previous night’s passion, and accidentally rubbing it into his eye stung more than he was prepared for.

“Agh, fuck…!” he winced briefly before composing himself “No, you… you’re fine, please, don’t worry. I can only imagine what you must be going through.” He felt the urge to pair the sentiment with a warm embrace, but he restrained herself, even if the way Amelia’s expression shifted made him think she probably wanted one.

He looked down at the filthy hand he had just accidentally touched his eye with, and then noticed that Amelia hadn’t even bothered to put her pants back on, let alone the dripping wad of fabric that had once been her panties. 

Liam felt a pang of sympathy for the custodial staff that were going to have to sterilize this room after they had vacated. His pity cracked somewhat as he recalled that said staff now likely outranked him.

With a groan, he resettled against the far wall. A part of him wanted to bolt the second that door opened, but more practically, neither of them was going anywhere until that door was unobstructed. Amelia followed him the sixteen feet to the other side of the room, sitting next to him and laying her head against his shoulder.

He didn’t have the strength to object. If that’s where she wanted to put her head, who was he to complain? She had been through a rough night. Whatever she needed to feel safe, that was what he was there to provide.

Liam shuddered. That didn’t feel right. That didn’t sound like him. She didn’t need emotional support, she needed a class action lawyer and a visit to the ER. She was the one under the influence of whatever compounds Jardinez gave her; probably at least a cocktail of 3I-chiro-Versperol, and Paramethyltryptamine. He was the one without compromised judgement who would be ethically responsible for whatever happened. If he got her out of here before her endocrine system had time to become accustomed to it, an impartial medical professional should be able to assist with her recovery far more than he ever could. But he had to get her out of here now.

Amelia could feel his body tense, and looked over at him. It was getting awkward, and there were still so many unanswered questions. She couldn’t claim to be firing on all cylinders, but she should at least try to get herself on the same page as everyone else, right?

“Soooooooo…” she finally broke the silence, voice still hoarse from disuse and lingering exhaustion. “This is a really weird time to ask this, but… who are you exactly?” She could hardly get through the question without giggling. It was so ridiculous! Asking someone’s name hours after you had them cum inside you and spent the night in their arms! Liam couldn’t help but chuckle along with her. The situation was hardly a laughing matter, but absent context, he couldn’t deny her comedic timing.

“I’m afraid I’m the scientist that initially synthesized the compounds that you were dosed with last night.” he sighed. That shared little moment of levity had been crushed under the weight of his conscience. “I’m… I’m sorry. They had just moved me to clinical trials yesterday! I swear, I thought they were just performing tests on rabbits! I mean, for all I know they just started tests on humans… but…”

Here he was equivocating again. The evidence had been obvious since the beginning, and he had ignored it because the job paid enough for decent meals and a hotel room. It didn’t matter what this woman thought of him. 

In fact, no, it did matter! In a fair world, she would absolutely hate him! Probably would’ve beaten him to death with one of the chairs. And he wouldn’t fight her on it, because–

“That’s honestly really interesting, but I was mostly just asking for your name.” she smiled sheepishly.

“Oh!” the realization that he hadn’t introduced himself hit him like a brick to the face. “Oh my god, I can’t believe… I’m so sorry!” he pulled back to look her in the eyes. 

“I’m Liam Kuchak. Uh… PhD, etc.”

“H– Hi Liam…” she managed out before her train of thought collapsed under the weight of this new information.

‘Hubby’s name is Liam.’

The thought bubbled up from somewhere her conscious mind simply wasn’t authorized to access; as uncontroversial and self-evident a sensory report as the color of the walls or the temperature of the room. This man was named Liam, and he was Hubby.

‘Hubby.’

That word alone seemed to block out so many of her old thoughts like an eclipse. She couldn’t say it sounded like something she would say, but there it was, a singularity warping her lexicon around itself. Of all the words she found herself zoning out to, that was the one that seemed to have the most inescapable gravity. So many of her old worries, her old neuroses, her regrets and insecurities; that glorious word paved over them with a triumphant finality that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

She had missed everything he said after that. The parts about how to get past whoever finally opened the door and where to turn once they did went in one ear and out the other. He was so lost in recounting the details of their planned escape, he didn’t even bother to object as she nuzzled deeper into his collarbone every few seconds with a contented sigh.

By the time he realized he had been talking to himself for several minutes now, she had already fallen asleep. And he couldn’t remember when precisely she had climbed into his lap.