Galatea - Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10: EXPOSÉ

Vanessa shouldn’t have been flaunting herself this hard. But she just couldn’t help it. The rush of dopamine that burst through her brain every time a person complimented her ever-improving body was ecstasy. This praise was far superior to any drug.

She knew she had to keep a low profile around her roommate, deliberately dodging Audrey as best she could throughout the past few days. She’d always have excuses as to why, citing the new semester’s awkward scheduling, knowing that Audrey wasn’t at all familiar with the ever-changing classes of her roommate.

Despite this, she was more than willing to put on a show for anyone else who’d so much as wolf whistle her way.

She would twirl in place, her ever-shortening dress revealing more and more of her endless legs with every passing day. It was an exhilarating feeling—like puberty in high school all over again. Wandering eyes finding new reasons to gaze upon her second enhancement as it ascended into stratospheric levels of beauty. A mere responding glance of her smoldering eyes was guaranteed to melt the knees of men and women alike.

But there was one man who was more confused than anything.

“Vanessa? Is… is that you?” asked an incredulous Brian. Perhaps countless hours around Audrey had built up a tolerance for impossibly pretty women, as Brian was not as wooed as everyone else. Though perhaps even that could change with time.

Despite being a rather strange place to sunbathe, Vanessa had parked a lawn chair in the middle of the college grounds. Considering the groundskeeper was off for the day, no one dared tell her off. With Brian having obtained her attention, her luscious backside departed from the banded lounger while retaining its long, lean shape. Even while relaxed, she was performing a situp with perfect form, pausing at just the right angle to give her friend a healthy eyeful of sumptuous cleavage.

“What, is there something… different about me, Brian?” Vanessa replied with a sly smile, dipping her sunglasses down to her nose and flashing a glance at him. Normally, she would have been freaked out over the idea that someone so close to Audrey was beginning to piece together the truth about her ascension, but that was the old Vanessa.

This new Vanessa—she loved the attention, no matter how risky it could be. If anything, the risk attracted her to it more. It was like a high to her. The world seemed to eb and flow with each of her sultry movements, putting those around her in a trance. Back to the way things should have been. Those around her were lucky to be graced with even her side-profile.

“Did you… did you take some of Giles’ serum?” Brian asked, fearing that the answer would be a yes.

“Why do you ask? Do you think I couldn’t have obtained this stellar form on my own?” Vanessa replied, brushing a set of silky black tresses out of her face, revealing more of a sultry smile.

“Well… I just think that, um…” Brian didn’t want to say she couldn’t, knowing how rude that would come off. There simply didn’t seem to be an easy way to answer that question of hers. He was caught between a rock and a hard place—a catch 22 of playful trickery.

Vanessa found herself enjoying this tennis match of taunting. It had been scientifically proven that men, upon staring at a beautiful woman, had reduced brain functions. Surely, not even Brian could resist her luscious profile.

“I’m… gonna go, uh, now.” Brian then said, awkwardly leaving without looking back. He needed to get in touch with Audrey as soon as possible. Something wasn’t right here. Truthfully, Brian wouldn’t have minded if Vanessa had answered with a yes, but he knew that his girlfriend certainly wouldn’t have been happy with that heel-turn reveal.

***

Audrey was confused when she entered Brian’s dorm only to witness trepidation upon his face. Sure, his spontaneous text had been rather vague—a one-line bubble simply reading “come to my place” without any tone indicators or added emojis—but Audrey had hoped that he would be raring to go after abstaining from sex for a whole week and a half.

“Something wrong, Brian?” Audrey asked, a sculpted eyebrow raising without somehow causing a single wrinkle to appear on her perfectly smooth face, a tinge of worry in her bright, sky-blue eyes.

“There… might be. I’m not sure exactly…” Brian responded, equally vague to his message. He was torn internally, on one hand, they had already helped Vanessa overcome her need for the virus. She had been upfront about it and sounded really guilty afterwards. Would she really go behind his and Audrey’s backs just to outdo Audrey?

“Brian, what’s going on?” Audrey’s voice was less quizzical now, dropping an octave from its breathy feminine worry, gaining a determined edge. When they had gotten back together after the Patton misunderstanding, the two of them agreed that there would be no more confusion within their conversations. If there was something that seemed off, that person needed to clarify further.

“Look, I just… I think Vanessa might’ve injected herself with a virus similar to yours. Or it got injected into her somehow. I don’t want to accuse her of anything, but she was… acting strange.”

He was deliberately avoiding any phrase referring to how sexy she had become as to not rile up Audrey, a ruse which she saw through immediately.

“Are you telling me she’s gotten sexier?”

“Ohthankgod,” Brian exclaimed in a single exhale, as if a great weight had been lifted off his chest. “Look, you said it, not me. I’m off the hook here.”

“Pssh, Brian, you’re so silly. Even if Vanessa did somehow get prettier overnight, there’s no way she’d hold a candle to what I’m offering these days.” To accentuate her point, Audrey ran her taut arms down her exposed sculpted stomach, past her supple thighs and seemingly endless length of her deliciously smooth, perfectly tanned legs. She giggled as Brian’s mind and body was reduced to putty from her display, him nearly falling over once her hands rescinded from her ankles with a hair flip right out of a shampoo commercial.

“S-so, you don’t think Vanessa was affected by the virus in any way?” Brian attempted to continue the conversation as if Audrey hadn’t totally just effortlessly frazzled his consciousness from a singular body movement.

“I certainly hope not! After everything the two of us have been through, Vanessa going through with a process like that would just feel like a stab in the back.”

“We could always ask professor Giles. He keeps a rigorous log of what viruses leave the facility ever since that prior incident with my backpack.”

“That sounds like a plan. We’ll head out right now.” Her voice was as thorough as a commanding officer’s.

“Wait—now!?” Brian replied with shock. “But don’t you have classes and stuff?”

“Brian, please. I’m acing every single class I’m taking right now,” Audrey countered as if it was obvious. “My Linear Algebra teacher is saying I won’t even have to take the final exam at this rate. I can afford to miss a class or two. Or five. Lord knows I might need to if I find out that Vanessa did something like that behind my back!”

“Okay, but let’s not jump to conclusions here,” Brian said, holding his hands up defensively. “How about we see what the professor has to say first.”

***

The ride down to the underground lab had an air of tension about it, yet Brian attempted to remain cautiously optimistic the entire way. “Look, we’ll just talk to Giles and find out that this was all a big misunderstanding. I’m sure Vanessa is just… going through some stuff right now and needed a bit of an attitude adjustment or something.”

Audrey didn’t respond, her azure eyes remaining locked forward at the steel elevator door. As soon as it did, she walked forward with a determined stride, Brian needing to put in a light jog just to catch up to her.

When she strode purposefully around the corner, Kevin Giles was practically waiting for her. He was exquisitely muscled, but that didn’t seem to phase Audrey in the slightest.

“Well, well, and to what do I owe the original specimen for this unexpected visit?” Kevin replied cockily, his supersonic ears detecting them as soon as they walked into his office 500 feet above the lab. “Are you, perhaps, here to spar against me? I think you’ll find I prove to be quite a formidable opponen—”

“No, I’m fine,” Audrey replied, not interested in being a lab rat today. “I just need you to confirm something and we’ll be on our way.”

Kevin paused his train of thought to hail Brian as he came moseying around the corner. “Well, whatever it is, I’d be happy to answer! Anything for my star pupil and proof of my academic genius!”

Audrey rolled her eyes at the reduction of her character, putting her in a worse mood. Brian, thinking smart, took over for the conversation from here.

“Look, professor, I’m sure this is all just a big misunderstanding, but you wouldn’t happen to know if any of the Virus in the lab is unaccounted for? Anything missing?”

Giles laughed heartily at the implication of that accusation. “Do you seriously think an intellectual mastermind such as myself would ever make such a careless miscalculation?”

The two college students exchanged flat glances of mutual acknowledgment between each other.

“Okay, so everything has been accounted for then, you didn’t give the viral serum to anyone else then. That’s good.”

“I never said that.”

Brian’s and especially Audrey’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

“Professor… what did you do?”

“Oh, my simple little student, why, I have become Pygmalion himself!” Giles mused. Audrey was confused by what appeared to be a non-sequitur, but Brian knew immediately what that meant. His mind quickly pieced it together and he knew Audrey would not appreciate the final picture.

“You gave the virus to Vanessa, didn’t you?”

A passionate smile grew upon his face. “Ah, my Vanessa, so passionate, so eager, and soon, so powerful!”

“You sick bastard, did you give it to her against her will!?” Audrey replied, raising a fist. Kevin did not seem particularly perturbed by the threat, still lovestruck beyond rational thought.

“As if! She came to me, practically begging me to give it to her! And give it to her I did! She has the most advanced, power-infused RNA strain I have ever created!”

“S-she WHAT!?”

“Oh, she will grow into perfection, you see,” the professor waxed wistfully. “She will be my Gala—ACK!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Audrey grabbed him by the neck and yanked him into the air. His supposedly “superior” strain of virus provided no assistance except for requiring her to use two hands to strangle him instead of one.

“Why did you do that, you piece of shit!?” Audrey spat through clenched teeth. “Why did you let her do that!?”

“Audrey! Audrey! Put the man down!” Brian’s voice was in complete shock as he desperately attempted to rein his girlfriend in, unable to so much as budge the sinuous arms that held his professor in the air.

Audrey reluctantly agreed, not-so-gently releasing Giles. He fell on his feet, stumbling in place as he attempted to recapture his breath, coughing periodically. “Wow, you really have one helluva grip, huh?” Kevin’s voice was raspy and gravelly, more so than usual. “Maybe I underestimated just how much a single virus could improve and adapt after a few months.”

But Audrey was far beyond caring about any of the professor’s verbal thoughts. She ran a distressed hand through her hair, an expression of disbelief frozen on her face.

“How could she… how could she do that to me?” Audrey spoke in between tearful heaving. “She said she didn’t need it! She said it would be fine! Why would she lie to me like that!?”

“I mean, she’s been having a rough time, right? I could see that being a motivating factor.”

“Well, then she could have come to me about it and I would’ve helped her! We’re friends, Brian! Roommates, even! No wonder I haven’t seen much of her lately this week, she’s been hiding her enhancements from me!”

“Maybe this can work out, though?” Brian replied, his defenses becoming weaker with each response.

“Ugh, why are you so eager to defend her, Brian? I thought you were supposed to be on my side?” Audrey then turned around on her heel, platinum blonde tresses following in a perfect monolith of golden beauty. “Whatever, I’ll handle this myself.”

“W-wait, Audrey! Where are you going?” Brian asked with worry in his tone, knowing he couldn’t stop her even if he wanted to.

Audrey stepped into the elevator. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just going to have a little chat with Vanessa.” She then gripped each of the doors and manually pulled them shut, the metal whining as her hands creased the solid steel.