Title: Affection Multiplier App: The Boyfriend
By: BreaktheBar
Chapter 146
Piloting the houseboat was equal parts relaxing and boring—kind of like fishing. I had to pay enough attention that I wasn’t running into anything, veering off course or otherwise being an idiot, but I wasn’t exactly contending with a difficult task. I was about fifty yards behind Becca and the Singles Boat, and she was navigating, so I was just following.
That meant I had plenty of time to start stewing inside my own head. I was worried about Wanda mostly—after the last few days I was starting to get a little used to the emotional responses women could have to the intimate moments we were experiencing, but Wanda had been different that morning. It also made me worry about the App. Not Cassidy, or if she was doing anything, but the App by itself.
I trusted that Cassidy was telling me the truth about it—I had no way to verify that she wasn’t hiding anything from me on that front. So if she was, the App had the ‘Stats’ function and the ‘Perks’ function we’d talked about, but the real thing I hadn’t grappled with yet was right in the name.
Affection Multiplier.
Thinking back on Cassidy’s story from when we’d been graduating high school and in college, which was still a painful brainworm for me that put an uncomfortable tightness in my gut, Cassidy had used the Affection Multiplier effect to get into women’s pants. She’d said something about how easy it had been when she learned how to say the right things. So how powerful was the Multiplying factor?
And what was the impact it was having now?
Cassidy was being careful not to be hitting on the other women on the trip herself but was being truthful and blunt about our situation and her willingness to share me. What was the impact of that?
She and Cattie had been online friends before they had ever met at a Con, but their fast escalation over the past two years despite only seeing each other a few times a year seemed more suspect now. Obviously, each time we’d seen her, the App had been passively working on Cattie’s friendship stats. But that friendship had already been started before the App, so was that even a bad or manipulative thing? It just sped things up and made them feel closer on a faster timeline.
Except Cattie had mentioned that, if she hadn’t been with Heather and she knew Cass was open to it, she would have been interested in a threesome with us before this week. Was that the App, or just Cattie?
And what about Becca? Cass hadn’t met her in person before this week so the App had (hopefully) not been working on her. And yet Becca and I fit so well together, and had progressed so fast… was it just lust, and Cassidy being open and honest had allowed that to spark? Becca was clearly more interested in me than Cassidy, so was the Multiplier effect just making her feel more comfortable working around the weirdness of the Cassidy and me situation?
And then there was Terra and her frustration with JC and the escalating events of touching and kissing. Almost none of it actually had to do with my fiancee, but it felt out of the norm anyways. Add Leia and Ami, and even Zenya, to that list as well. Ginnie seemed to be the only exception since she came across as carefree and horny no matter what was going on.
But Wanda… All of the others I could come up with a barrier of some sort between the App and them. Each of them were becoming friendly with Cass while also escalating things with me, without pushing on Cass as much in the sex department. Wanda, though, I really couldn’t say. She was clearly into me as much as I was into her. Neither of us had known Wanda before this week for there to be an underlying thing. This was all fresh and new, and after openly saying I Love You’s last night and this morning…
It couldn’t be anything other than the App. And that concerned me.
I needed to know more about her situation if I was ever going to alleviate that concern.
“Hey, Tiger,” Cattie said behind me, entering the pilot’s cabin behind me. I’d heard the steps on the stairs and assumed it would be Cassidy, but I smiled warmly and looked over my shoulder at her while staying at the wheel. She was wearing a simple blue bikini top and black cotton shorts over the bottoms that were peeking above the waistline, and she had her sunglasses up on her forehead.
“Hey, Catherine,” I said, reaching an arm out towards her as she stepped into a hug. She hugged me tightly, pressing her body to mine as I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and held her. She held the hug for longer than I expected and I ended up rubbing her shoulder a little. “Everything alright?” I asked.
“Why’d you start calling me Catherine?” Cattie answered my question with her own, not letting go of me fully and instead standing with her arm around my waist and her chest pressed softly to my side.
“Because Cattie is cute and suits you sometimes, but I think Catherine is as beautiful as you are and more adult, and I…”
“What?” she asked.
“Sometimes you make me want to be an adult with you,” I said. “And I mean that in the Adult Capital A way, but also in the more normal ‘we aren’t kids anymore’ way where we can have fun but we can be serious and emotionally vulnerable together way. And if you’d like me to stop I will.”
“No, I like it,” Cattie said. “I like hearing you say my name like that. Not all the time, but when it’s just us, like you, me and Cassidy? I kind of want to be Catherine instead of Cattie.”
“OK,” I smiled, squeezed her a bit around the shoulder again and leaned my head down to kiss her raven hair.
She smiled and stood with me, looking out at the lake, casually holding each other.
“You sure this is OK?” I asked. “This isn’t considered private time, is it?”
“Not in my book,” she said and shook her head. “No closed doors, anyone could come up and join us. Where’s Cass?”
“Talking with Wanda,” I said. “I think things are getting complicated for her.”
“And you’re not part of the conversation?” Cattie asked.
“Cass said Wanda needed to talk to a woman first.”
“And… I feel awful asking this, but do you trust her with that?” Cattie asked.
I took a moment to absorb the question, and another to breathe before I answered. “I haven’t forgiven her yet. I love her, but the pain is still too fresh to just forgive and forget. But I do. And either that makes me a total fool and a chump, or I’m choosing to trust what I’m seeing in her and what she’s promising me.”
Cattie nodded, rubbing my lower back over my shirt as I explained, and didn’t ask any more questions for clarification.
“How about you?” I asked. “What’s Heather up to?”
Cattie made a face. “She’s helping Sherry with a shoot. I can handle my sister’s boobs being out, and even some booty shots or whatever, but Sherry is starting to use toys in her photoshoots and I’m not sticking around for that.”
“Fair,” I said, now taking my turn to comfort her as I pulled her tightening against me with our hug. “Do you… trust Heather?”
Cattie didn’t move and didn’t say anything for a long moment. “For now, I think,” she finally said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I love you.”
She smiled softly, leaning her head against my shoulder as she reached up and took my hand from her shoulder and pulled it to her lips so she could kiss the back of it softly. “I know. You and Cass are what’s making this bearable right now. Knowing how much I love you two, and you love me… it’s helping more than you know.”
I just held her some more, unsure of what to say but knowing she just needed someone to lean on at the moment.
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