The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Kara woke up on Saturday morning; reading week was officially over now, after yesterday, but there was still the weekend left before classes were going to properly start up again. She was planning to fully make use of her time, today, but unfortunately, after a week’s length of time spent with Alexa, she couldn’t spare any more to her girlfriend just now. The obsession about Haigure Fit had fully sunk its claws into her mind, and it had to be her priority for the day.

But it was true that while she’d been focusing so much on Alexa for the past week, she’d been paying no attention to the other people in her life; and before she completely disappeared into the hunt for a story, it was probably worth the time to check in with the other people in her life besides Alexa.

Now that her reading week was over, and Kara was facing the prospect of classes again, she was thinking of how mostly everyone had gone home for that week off from classes, and though her home was only five minutes away from the university, she was feeling a little homesick in that moment, so she decided the way she most wanted to start her day was to call home to her mother, Laura Chase.

Her mother was a reliable woman, so when Kara called the home phone, which her mother kept, though it was a bit anachronistic at this point, she only had to wait through two rings before she got an answer.

“Hi, Mom,” said Kara.

“Kara,” her mother said warmly. “How are you doing? Steph and I were sorry not to see you this week.”

At the mention of her younger sister, Kara was curious. “Has Steph woken up yet?” She asked.

Her mother laughed. “On a Saturday? No, I think it’s still a bit early for her. She didn’t go to bed until late last night; she was out late, too—getting into trouble with her friends again, I think.”

Kara laughed with her mother, and shook her head. She felt a touch of affection for her sister, all the same. She was a little immature, still, only a senior in high school and never having quite outgrown her tomboy phase. She still got into trouble frequently; and oftentimes, it was Kara she called to bail her out, instead of their mother.

Their mother was understanding; so loving, but she had raised both Kara and Steph all alone as a single mother, and though Steph was never really ready, yet, to stop throwing herself into trouble, she, like Kara, greatly appreciated everything their mother had done for them, and though she couldn’t stop the trouble all together, she liked to shield their mother from it, in thanks and gratitude for all she had done and sacrificed to raise them on her own, with little to no help from anyone else. So when she really got into a jam, it was Kara that she called; so their mother wouldn’t have to worry.

She was an understanding woman, though; she gave Steph a late curfew, and left it to her to decide how much of her life or her escapades that she wanted to share, if she did; Kara felt appreciation for her mother all over again. She remembered that she had been like that even when Kara was a teenager; she had appreciated it at that time, too—though she had never been as lucky as Steph, to have an older sister willing to come at any time and bail her out.

“So Steph is still sleeping,” Kara continued speaking. “What’s going on with you, Mom?”

“Everything is pretty much the same,” her mother replied. Kara heard the tinkling of a spoon in a mug and knew her mother was mixing her morning coffee while she sat at the kitchen table, like she’d done a hundred times when Kara was growing up. “There’s a meeting of the Rosedale Exercise Club later this morning, and I’m planning to go, like always. I bought myself some new workout clothes just a few days ago, and I’m keen to try them out.”

Kara smiled to herself again; her mother had always been an active woman, a fit woman, and she’d instilled that drive for exercise in both her daughters. Steph had picked it up more than Kara; she had always been the more athletic one, playing team sports, and wearing athleisure even when she didn’t have to, but Kara appreciated fitness in her own way, exercising now and then just for the enjoyment of it.

All three of them looked remarkably similar, like the same woman at different ages; all three with peachy skin, and the same shade of blonde hair, and similar blue eyes, with thin lithe bodies; they were all a B-cup in bra size, and the Rosedale townspeople had often made the joke that three of them were clones of each other because they all looked so alike.

Kara and her mother chatted a while more, and finally Kara wrapped the conversation up. She didn’t know when she’d next be talking to her mother, or her sister, for that matter, depending on how demanding this Haigure Fit story was going to turn out to be, but it would be best for her to get on with her day.

She dressed herself, and pocketed her cellphone, and then ventured out into the common area of her dorm suite.

She was surprised to find her two roommates sitting out there; they must both have come back in the night, or the early hours of the morning, while Kara had been asleep. In the end, the last-minute, impulsive stakeout that she’d taken up the previous evening, into the night, had tired her, so when she had finally fallen asleep, she’d slept heavily, and she must have missed them getting in.

Veronica Granger, Kara’s roommate who had the first room in their three-room dorm suite, was sitting on the couch; she’d obviously gone to get coffee herself, and was now sitting and drinking it, looking tired. Kara sometimes felt like she got along with her better than her other roommate. Veronica was on the newspaper with Kara, so they always had that in common, and so conversation came just a bit easier between them.

Veronica’s curly brown hair was a bit mussed, and her glasses had slipped down the bridge of her nose slightly; she was thin beneath her soft baggy sweater—it hung—and hid her small breasts underneath; she took another sip of her coffee.

Aisha Freeman, Kara’s other roommate, who lived in the second room of their suite, was standing in the kitchenette, microwaving something to eat. She was wearing a sports bra, and sports leggings; she’d likely put a jogging sweater overtop to coverup and go for a jog in a little bit, after both eating and digesting. Kara remembered Alexa saying something about an impromptu track and field meeting later that day, if enough of the track team had made it back ahead of classes restarting.

Aisha was looking a bit more put together than Veronica; her short black hair had been neatly styled already, though it was still early, and the dark skin of her face was looking a bit porous, as if she’d scrubbed herself particularly hard with her face wash that morning; and her large breasts were tightly held by her jogging bra, as they would have to be... it made sense that Aisha was a bit more done up than Veronica; Aisha would be going out, and Veronica would be staying in.

“I didn’t know the two of you had come back,” Kara said, and both her roommates looked to her.

“I got back at around two in the morning,” Veronica commented. She looked up from where she sat on the couch.

“It was closer to midnight, for me,” Aisha contributed, turning from the microwave. Conversation was always a little more stilted with Aisha; but Aisha was friends with Alexa, since they were on the same university team, so she and Aisha always had a person in common even when they had few interests to discuss; and because of her mother’s interest in fitness, Kara at least respected people who were fit even if she couldn’t quite share their enthusiasm. The pattern laid by her mother, that admiration for people who were committed to fitness, extended beyond her friendships, Kara knew. She was sure part of the draw to Alexa came from it, for certain.

Veronica shook her head at herself, disrupting Kara’s reverie. “I don’t know why I’m drinking this coffee,” she said. “I’ll still fall back asleep after this, I know, and sleep through the middle of the day. It was too late a night for me; I hardly got any sleep.”

“Not me,” Aisha said. “I’m up for the day; especially once I get my jog in, I’ll be completely wired and good to go until tonight.”

Kara smiled to herself again; the familiarity of the people in her life was comforting to her; even just listening to her roommates go back and forth speaking to each other was a specific kind of comfort, and she appreciated it.

“Well, it’s nice to see you girls back for sure,” Kara said. She took her phone out, and sent two texts next, one to her friend Rose, and the other to her friend Barbara, within the same group chat so that all three of them would be able to see equally. They were both prompt to reply, and Kara said her goodbyes to both Veronica and Aisha as she headed out to meet with both Rose and Barbara. The last thing to do that morning before she got started, the last part of a perfect start and so a perfect morning, the last chance to check in before she went dark to focus on her reporting, was to share a cup of coffee with them.

When she got back to the coffee kiosk closest to her dorm room, both Rose and Barbara had already arrived; Kara had special appreciation for them both. They were friends that were not tied to any activity; friends just for the sake of being friends.

Rose—Rose Connelly—was Kara’s best friend from childhood; and every time Kara saw her on campus, it was a special delight. From the time they had both been kids, the two of them had both dreamed of going to college, and most importantly, going to the same college together. Every time Kara saw Rose at school, it was a reminder that their dream had come true.

Now Rose was smiling brightly at Kara as she walked into the coffee kiosk’s seating area. She was pale at the best of times, but it looked like as the weather had turned colder with the fall chill, Rose hadn’t been getting outside much at all. She’d been skinny even as a kid, and she still was—and today, her red hair was a bit wind-tousled from the walk over here; she was wearing a fall coat that she hadn’t taken off yet, but she’d unfastened it, so her small breasts were showing beneath her cotton t-shirt where it was visible beneath the coat.

Barbara was smilingly greeting her too, as Kara sat down with them; they’d already gotten three coffees and brought them to the table, and Kara again thought she must have gotten her taste for coffee for her mother, who hadn’t even been able to last their brief conversation earlier that morning without mixing coffee for herself. Barbara hadn’t been Kara’s friend quite as long as Rose, but she had made a natural addition to their duo, and the three of them had easily become a happy trio of friends together, and Kara never tired of spending time with them both.

Barbara Vance was nerdier than the other two of their trio; she was a member of Rosedale University’s science club, and she was also shorter than them both, but stood with a solid stature. And she had red hair just like Rose’s.

Barbara didn’t come from Rosedale; but since Rose had grown up with Kara, she obviously had. Rose’s mother, Sharon Connelly, still lived in town. She actually got along quite well with Kara’s mother, Laura; the two of them had been in frequent contact as they children had been growing up; Kara had been in and out of Rose’s house, and Rose had been in and out of hers. There was still a tacit understanding that Kara could turn up at Sharon’s house any time, and Rose could do the same at Kara’s; besides this, Sharon was also in the Rosedale Exercise Club with Kara’s mother; Kara thought with a start that Sharon would be seeing her mother just later that day, when she inevitably went to the same exercise club meeting with her.

Rose took after her mother in looks, like Kara had taken after her own; they’d always both of them had this in common with each other, as well as many other things; they were each the spitting image of their mothers, but Rose had no siblings, so she had no sister to share her mother’s looks with; but Rose had undeniably gotten her red hair from Sharon, and there could be no doubting that.

“So how were your reading weeks?” Kara asked, once she was sitting down, and sipping her coffee. The taste of the caffeine had given her facility for words back to her. “Sorry I was out of touch; I spent mine basically just with Alexa.”

“I went back to Rosedale, and stayed in my old room, obviously,” Rose said. “Mom was happy to have my company; she keeps telling me it’s not the same since I moved out to come to Rosedale Uni; says the house feels different without me in it, so I think she was happy to have me there again. Barbara?”

Barbara drank from her own coffee. “I stayed on campus, actually,” she said, with a serious look in her eye. “There’s a new project I’m working on for science club, and I really appreciated having the peace and quiet for the time I spent researching. There was no one else in the library when I was there; and no roommates either, so I could just completely focus and get a lot of work done.”

“A new project!” Rose exclaimed. “Tell us what it is,” she insisted, batting Barbara on the arm.

Barbara smiled a secret smile, and shook her head. “I want to keep it private, until I know if it’s going to work out or not. I promise once I’ve worked it out I won’t be able to start talking about it. It’s hard work, but if I can pull it off, I’ll be really happy.”

“Keep your secrets then,” Rose said, clearly feeling friendly. She turned back to Kara. “And you said you spent your time with Alexa?”

Kara nodded; the conversation moved on, but she thought that she could understand Barbara’s perspective well. Until she had cracked the story of Haigure Fit open, she’d be keeping it pretty close to her chest too; and she’d have a lot to say about it later, when she had the story.

When the three of them had finished their coffee, Kara said her goodbyes to them. It was finally time to go in to the Rosedale Uni News office, and see if her editor was there; if she could get the go-ahead from her on the club announcement for Haigure Fit; she hoped so; then she’d have a pretense for asking questions, investigating her suspicion, and what she’d seen last night.

The newspaper office was a bit of a further walk away from her dorm, but when she got there, she found the other paper staff had had a similar impulse to hers; wanted to get ahead of classes re-starting by coming in even on a weekend; a lot of them must have gotten back yesterday, in the day, or the evening, last night...

Kasumi was the first person Kara saw, when she crossed the threshold of the newspaper office; she had her camera in hand, a natural fit for her, as she was one of the paper’s photographers. She was Kara’s favorite one to work with, and she always went to Kasumi first when she was looking for photos to accompany her pieces; Kasumi was always extra nice to her, extra sweeter, sweeter to her than anyone else she interacted with; Kara often wondered why, but never spent any serious thought on it. It worked for her benefit in the end, anyway. It was probably the reason why Kasumi was always so available to help out with photos when Kara asked, no matter what else she had going on.

Kasumi Suzuki was the only person of Japanese ancestry who worked on the school paper, though she was in good company with the rest of the student body; her hair was long and dark, her eyes chestnut brown; she was lithe like Kara, but her breasts were smaller, only A-cups; her skin sported a light tan, and she was most often seen wearing skirts. She looked up at Kara and smiled as Kara walked in.

At the next desk, Carol Harris was sitting. She was not a student, but the faculty associate to the newspaper who handled the administration for them from the university’s side; she was also an English teacher at Rosedale Uni, and Kara always tried to make sure and get spots in her classes; she was one of Kara’s favorites out of everyone who had taught her so far.

She was petite for a woman who was middle-aged, and her hair was also red; redheads could be hard to find out in the wild, but there quite a few of them at Rosedale. Carol Harris had a small bust beneath her blouse. She didn’t look up when Kara entered, or when she walked past, to absorbed in whatever work was before her.

There was only one other person in the newsroom, and it was the person that Kara had come to see: Elena Grant, the newspaper’s editor. She was a very no-nonsense person, blunt, not afraid to shoot down a story if she saw no potential in it; and Kara admired Elena very much for her journalistic skill.

She was sitting down, going through emails it looked like; and she was so tall, she was tall even when she sat. Her hair was short and dark, her breasts were medium-sized, and her skin was fairly pale, also. It seemed a lot of the student body had been growing paler than their natural complexions as the days grew colder.

“Elena,” Kara addressed, and Elena looked up. “Do you mind if I pitch you a story?”

“Shoot,” Elena said, leaning over the arms she’d crossed on her desk’s surface.

“This new club showed up over reading week,” Kara launched into it. “Haigure Fit; they’ve moved in and taken the sixth club-front in the quad. I thought we could run a club announcement for them in the paper; I was going to go over there today, and do a brief interview with whoever’s there to get the necessary content for a write up.”

“If you can turn it around for me in a handful of days, go for it,” Elena said. “Our first issue back after midterms and break is looking a little thin; a piece like that could really help pad it out, but I need to know I can count on it being done in time.”

Kara smiled in relief; she had her pretext after all. “Don’t worry, Elena. You can always count on me. I’ll head right over now and get started talking to people, and then I’ll have the announcement finished in a day or two.”

“Well, good luck with it, then,” Elena said, returning to work.

Alexa woke up on Saturday morning; she thought dreamily of the time she’d spent with Kara the day before, and how much she’d enjoyed it. She’d slept a little late; but when she checked her phone for messages, there was nothing from Kara. It didn’t bother Alexa; there must have been something that Kara was keeping herself busy with; which was fair enough. Alexa was planning on going to track and field practice later that afternoon herself, and seeing that it was already well-past ten in the morning, she wouldn’t have had enough time to see Kara anyway.

She shouldn’t waste the rest of her morning lying in bed. She didn’t want to, so she got up and dressed herself in what she was going to wear to practice later, the typical athletic clothes she was so often seen in, and then left her bedroom.

She found both her roommates were sitting on the floor around the coffee-table together, on the rug. They both looked up at her when she came out, but she sat down along the third edge of the coffee table, which was still available.

Alexa looked at Kiari Advani first; she was a science club member, and science was her favorite thing to talk about. It wasn’t exactly Alexa’s interest, but she heard about it often enough when she was spending time with Kara in group settings, because one of Kara’s closest friends, Barbara, was into science, and in talking with Barbara now and then Alexa had picked up enough lingo to genuinely be able to follow what Kiari discussed, and to even sometimes interject herself.

Kiari was of Indian ancestry, and she was shortly, but stately in her stance, and her breasts were quite small, often swallowed up by whatever she was wearing.

Alexa looked down at the coffee table; it looked like Kiari was doing a puzzle, and Marie was helping her.

One of the things that Alexa liked so much about where she lived and who she lived with was that the three of them had no trouble sharing a companionable silence. She’d spent plenty of time in Kara’s dorm suite, and Kara and her three roommates always seemed to be talking, seemed to need to talk.

It made sense that Kara and Veronica were that way; they were both reporters, and Aisha was friendly by nature, but Alexa was happy to live among people who were more reserved. Constant chatter could be tiring. Sometimes she just didn’t feel like talking; it was nice that Kiari and Marie were like this too; though Marie was expressing basic friendship just by action and not words, simply by contributing and helping Kiari with her puzzle even though it was Kiari’s puzzle, which she’d been working on alone for a long time; there was no payoff in it for Marie, but she was helping anyway, enjoying the silence with Kiari as the two of them set the puzzle, piece by piece, into order.

Alexa watched as Marie set another puzzle piece into place. Marie Wong—Alexa would be seeing her again at practice, as Marie was on the track and field team too. That was if Alexa left the dorm suite for some reason; right now, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to. If she hung around here long enough, she and Marie could just walk to practice together, as they often did.

Marie was fairly athletic, maybe even as enthusiastic about it as Alexa herself was; of Chinese ancestry, and of medium build, right down to her breasts, which were also mid-sized.

Alexa sat in the companionable silence, appreciating the care with which both Kiari and Marie placed each puzzle piece; just watched, feeling no particular draw towards participating in the puzzle placing; just happy to be an observing participant, not an active participant.

The hours passed this way, until it was early afternoon, and at last Alexa and Marie both spoke, giving Kiari a goodbye as they both stood together, each of them already dressed for practice because they’d planned ahead for it; and they walked together to the track field.

The other members of the track team were already huddled up, with their coach standing by. Alexa noticed her first, Sarah Baker—their track and field coach, a muscular, tanned woman with large breasts and short blonde hair. She was watching the huddle; Alexa and Marie hurried to join it.

Everyone from the team was already there: Maria, Aisha, and now Marie and Alexa.

Alexa’s eyes lingered on Maria once she was huddled with the rest of the team; she always felt a bit on edge her. Together, she and Maria Santiago were both co-captains of the team, but Alexa always got the distinct impression that Maria wanted to be the sole team captain, that she resented Alexa also sharing the title, and that she was waiting for a definitive loss from Alexa, which would justify her being booted out of the co-captaincy. She was always more rivalrous with Alexa than necessary; trying to outrun her and informally race against her even when the team was only doing warm-up runs. Even during training, when everyone else was being friendly with each other and trying to build each other up, there was always a distinct heat coming from Maria, and it always made Alexa uneasy. She could physically feel how much Maria felt frustrated with her.

Maria was of Hispanic ancestry, and both her eyes and her hair were dark; her breasts were large, and she was more muscled than Alexa was, though to Maria’s abiding frustration, Alexa could keep easy pace with her when it came to running, no matter how hard Maria pushed herself to get faster, to eventually be able to leave Alexa behind.

Together, Maria and Alexa called off the huddle as co-captains, and directed the team to start practice with a multi-lap run around the university’s running track course. All four of them set of running, and Coach Sarah called out encouragement after them; as usual, Maria and Alexa were keeping pace together ahead of everyone else; Marie and Aisha had both fallen a bit behind; they weren’t quite as fast, but they both had slightly better endurance than Maria and Alexa. Maria and Alexa often ran in the short spring races; and Aisha and Marie were favored for long distance running.

Alexa looked over at Maria as she ran along beside her; every pore of her body exuded determination, and she was hitting the ground of the track hard with her feet, staying in her penciled off lane but veering a little too close to Alexa’s side, as if she wished she could just give Alexa a shove to get her out of the way. She’d never actually done this, but at moments like this it always looked like she really wanted to.

Maria was putting more speed on; but Alexa was easily matching her, so no matter how hard Maria drove herself, Alexa was right there beside her, keeping up, which only increased the look of annoyance than hung about Maria as they ran; they were both going fast, now, very fast, and Aisha and Marie were a more distant memory behind them; the two of them went faster still.

Maria tried to go faster and leave Alexa behind; but Alexa was trying for the same thing too. She increased her speed but Maria matched; then Maria increased her speed, but Alexa matched; they went back and forth like this, chasing each other on, lapping the course once, twice, three times.

After one more go around, they’d done the course four times, while Aisha and Marie were still only on their second lap together; each time they ran past their coach, Alexa was sure that she could see a look of pride, and happy expectation in her eyes.

Coach Sarah never really intervened to try and temper the rivalry that went on between her two star runners, and co-captains; Alexa suspected this was because she thought their rivalry drove them both to compete harder, in attempts towards besting each other; and that that competition gave rise to skill which, when it was tested in competitive track meets with other schools, only served to benefit Rosedale Uni, because the two of them so often won their races.

Alexa bore down harder, keeping her breathing regular; but she wasn’t feeling tired yet, not yet, and it didn’t look like Maria was. The two of them would chase each other to go faster more than they would ever actually race each other today, and no winner would come out between them; and so they would both train harder, and no winner would come out between them, then, either. But that was alright; Alexa was used to it. It just meant that today’s practice was going to feel longer than it was.

And yet—there was nothing Alexa found quite so satisfying as feeling the wind whip over her, feeling her heart pumping harder in her chest, reliable and even, even when it was accelerating, feeling the blood circulating her. Her hair was short, but still long enough to savor the feeling of wind passing through it. She loved running more than anything, and if she ran long enough, it always led her back to the same feeling of euphoria inside. She’d never asked Maria, but she imagined the other girl had to feel it to; she couldn’t have run with the same drive and determination if she hadn’t.

They came around the start of the track course again, starting their fifth lap together, still moving neck and neck, neither one breaking away. One would get ahead a few paces, but just for a moment; then the other would be back in line with them; but Alexa didn’t care. She’d ran long enough to be filled with joy again; if she hadn’t had to control her breathing she would have been laughing in joy all the while she ran.

After getting her editor’s approval, Kara didn’t waste any time. That was how she always was when she was following the lead for a story. And there was nothing concrete yet to back up her hunch, but she just had a feeling that the story behind Haigure Fit was truly massive; she just had to find the way into it.

And at the same time, what she’d seen the night before had been so close to sinister that part of her was simultaneously hoping that her hunch, for the first time ever, was wrong; that the club would turn out to be completely benign in the end; better benign and boring than... interesting, and dangerous. She remembered the look on the blonde girl’s face with a shiver again as she made her way from the newsroom back to the quad. Though she knew that this hope for banality would disappear if there did turn out to be a story; in the face of gathering evidence, Kara would face up to what was really happening, instead of wishing for it to be different.

The lights of Haigure Fit were not darkened as Kara had last seen them; they were illuminated, even though it still was not possible to see what was happening inside because of the way the blinds had been turned in the window. She was going in herself today; she’d have a better idea in just a minute.

She didn’t hesitate as she pulled open the door to the club; she had never been one to hesitate in the face of potential danger.

She was immediately disappointed as soon as she crossed the threshold; there were no immediate answers to her questions visible to her from the entry of the room. The space had been divided up; or maybe it had always been like this, but there was clearly a very large back room where... whatever was happening... was happening, and in front of it, just in from the exterior door, there was only a much smaller room which looked like it was for administration purposes only.

There was very little furniture in this smaller entry room, and the door to the backroom was closed, though there was a light visible beneath the door, and if she strained her ears, Kara thought she could hear movement taking place in there; muffled speech, like one repeated word over and over, but she couldn’t make it out.

There was very little furniture in the entry room, and there was very little of anything else, either. The only thing the entry room seemed to contain was a girl who looked like she was one of Rosedale’s students. She’d been standing behind the solitary table in the room in what looked like an unnatural position; odd parts of her body thrust out and others thrust back. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but when she noticed Kara come in, she straightened into a normal standing stance, and came around the table to meet Kara halfway through the room, halfway in from the door, as Kara had already started walking towards her.

“Hello, welcome to Haigure Fit,” the girl said, brightly—she wore a similar expression to the one Kara had seen on the blonde last night. She looked happy—just so happy to be here. This student had black hair; she was taller than Kara, and she, like the blonde last night, was wearing only a leotard.

Kara found it just as uncomfortable to look at today as she had yesterday; this student’s leotard was indigo colored; like the blonde’s, it only covered the front half of her body, and barely did that. Her back was completely bare, her breasts were barely contained and the sides of them were completely exposed, the neckline plunging for her stomach; the crotch was so thin it easily rode up into the girl’s vagina and crack; and under the much brighter lighting here than Kara had had available to her last night, she saw that this girl’s vaginal lips were completely visible around the crotch of the leotard; she had her pubic hair carefully trimmed, the style of personal grooming Kara preferred for herself, but this girl was also a complete stranger. Kara really didn’t want to know how a random student groomed her vagina, but this leotard was making her see it.

“Can I help you?” The student prompted Kara again, and Kara realized that she had only been standing in front of her staring at her in her leotard. It was just such a strange way to dress; and to have seen the blonde last night dressed the same way, and now this girl today... there was definitely something here, but Kara had come to find out what that was, and she had a job to do.

“Yes,” Kara said. “I’m Kara Chase, I work with the university paper. The Rosedale Uni News, maybe you read us. Anyway, we noticed that Haigure Fit had opened up as a new club on campus and we wanted to run a club announcement in the next issue of the paper. So I came here to get some information—maybe talk to some people, so I can write the announcement for you guys.”

As Kara had been talking, she’d pulled out her notepad and pencil, and now she had both in either hand, ready to start taking notes. She preferred taking notes by hand when she was doing research for a piece; she processed information better when she set it down on a page.

The student receptionist smiled at her patiently. “Thank you, Kara. Haigure Fit would like an announcement in the paper very much. But I’m afraid talking to us won’t give you a very accurate understanding of what our club is all about. You should try on one of our leotards yourself—we have an exercise session taking place right now in the back, it will be no problem at all for you to join.”

Kara blanched; she’d had interviewees dodge questions before, and stonewall her, withhold information. That wasn’t what was throwing her—the fact that the girl had immediately pivoted to inviting her to join an exercise session, that was what was strange—that she actually wanted Kara to try a leotard on herself.

There was something, too, about the way the girl spoke... something that was very deliberate, bordering on unnatural, but Kara had to get her story. She couldn’t just let this girl deny her what she was searching for.

But she had to keep things light, too, because she still had no idea what was going on here, or what she was really dealing with.

“Oh, no, not me,” Kara laughed, affecting good nature. “I’m just the reporter; I observe the story, I don’t participate.”

The girl’s eyes seemed wide, and perceiving. “Sometimes the best stories come from firsthand experience.” She turned and left Kara standing there, and moved back behind the table; there was a standing cabinet set in the wall; she opened it, and Kara saw folded material sitting in piles inside. She took a piece of this material out, held it in her hands with something that seemed like great respect, and then closed the cabinet again and came back to Kara.

When she fanned it out, Kara saw it was a leotard. She had brought a leotard over for her.

This one was hot pink in color.

Kara swallowed the feeling of palpable discomfort. Just looking at that thing gave her great unease. She knew in just one glance she didn’t want it anywhere near her.

“Thank you, but really, I’m just here to ask a few questions, get a few quotes.”

The girl lowered the held-up leotard. “That’s a pity,” she said. “Unless you are willing to experience the success of Haigure for yourself, you can’t accurately reflect it in your write-up, and I’m afraid we can’t give you any more information about what we do here than we already have.”

The collective ‘we’ this girl was using wasn’t very comforting either.

“Can you tell me who your club president is? Does your club have any other offshoots besides this fitness branch? What’s your ultimate club goal? Do you have a manifesto, or a club motto?”

The girl raised the leotard again. “If you’d like to know, please just put this on and come back with me into the exercise room.”

Kara swallowed again; she knew herself well enough, knew her own track record to trust herself enough where another girl might have doubted or second-guessed herself. She had a powerful gut feeling that there was danger here. If she put that leotard on... if she followed this greeter back to the exercise room... in the exercise room itself... something would happen, and it would not be good. She very badly wanted to know what was going on in the exercise room right now... but she couldn’t go this way. She didn’t want to go this way; there was no way to find out safely. If she wanted to know, she would have to follow along with this girl’s demands, and she wasn’t willing to do that.

“I’m not putting that on,” Kara said, with a bit more of an edge in her voice.

Again the girl lowered her hands. “Then we have nothing more to share with you; thank you for your time, but I think you have enough information to write a short blurb about us, and that’s all that will be necessary.”

The window to put on the leotard was closing now, even if Kara had wanted to change her mind—the girl was walking back to the cabinet and putting the leotard away with the others—there were so many there, though; there had to be some number in the count of fifties or sixties at least... or more... it was the best estimate Kara could make in the brief glimpse she got before the girl closed the cabinet.

“You’re right,” Kara agreed, returning to a state of affected cheer. “Thank you for the information you have given me, and the things you have let me see. It will definitely be enough. Have a nice day,” she added; she slipped her notebook and pencil back into her pocket—neither one of them having been used at any point throughout the interaction, in the end. The girl didn’t say goodbye, and Kara rushed back out of Haigure Fit.

When she got back outside, she took a minute to catch her breath, get her bearings. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had just narrowly escaped something, and it had her heart racing. She trusted her instincts. She probably had. There was no reason to argue with it.

And truthfully, she did have enough to write a satisfactory blurb; she’d do that later, but the write-up for the paper had only ever been a pretense, had been planned as such from the beginning, and the interaction she’d just had had only left her with more questions, more suspicions, had given her hardly any answers and done nothing to allay the suspicions she’d already had. She had an idea for the next step in her investigation already; her first route to the truth had been blocked, but a good reporter always found another route for their investigation to take one their planned one failed or fell through.

She went back to her dorm room; Aisha was gone, probably to track practice, where Alexa would also be, right now; and it looked like Veronica’s prediction earlier had been earlier; from the heavy breathing Kara could here through her ajar door, it seemed she had gone back to bed and was no sleeping in the middle of the day, in spite of the coffee she’d drank earlier.

Kara went into her room, and shut the door, then sat down at her desk. She took out her phone, made a quick search on the Rosedale University campus site, and then dialed a phone number.

After only one ring, someone from the Rosedale University Administration office answered.

“Hi, it’s Adelyn,” the woman on the line said. “You’ve reached Rosedale’s Administration office. How can I help you?”

“Hi, this is Kara Chase calling. Who should I talk to about the administration of a specific Rosedale Club?” Kara asked.

“That would be me,” Adelyn said. “What information are you looking for?”

“It’s true that all Rosedale Clubs have to make their registration information public for anyone on campus to access, right?”

“Yes, that’s Rosedale’s policy,” Adelyn affirmed.

“That’s what I thought. So I was hoping you could access some club registration info for me. Club president, associated members, date of registration, that kind of thing.”

There was some typing audible from the other end of the call. “That should all be doable,” Adelyn said. “Just give me the name of the club, and I can bring that all up right here.”

“The club is called Haigure Fit,” Kara provided, leaning forward in her desk-chair.

There was some more typing. “I’ve found it here. Haigure Fit. The club president is Lilith Cromwell... there’s a second club associated with them, called the Haigure Appreciation club, there’s even less information on that... oh, that’s strange.”

“What?” Kara gripped her phone tighter—she felt her heart racing anticipation. She’d just known there was something up with this club.

“Well, the club was never officially registered through our office. It just looks like someone’s logged into our system, created a page for them, but there’s hardly any information on them because they didn’t actually register themselves with us.”

“Did they officially reserve the sixth clubfront in the quad?” Kara asked.

“No—that space is still listed as being vacant in our system. Is that where they’re operating out of?”

“Yes, they just sprang up there yesterday,” Kara confirmed.

“Well, they never got our permission to operate, or to use that space.”

“But that would be in direct violation of campus policy, right?” Kara asked. “Does that mean they should be shut down?”

Adelyn paused. “Yes, it definitely means that—any club that fails to adhere to Rosedale policy is banned from operating on campus. It’s troubling to me, though, that someone logged in and created a page for them. Only staff in the Administration Office are allowed to access the club database; so someone in our office had to have done this. But whoever did will also need to receive disciplinary action.”

Adelyn seemed to catch herself. “Sorry, none of this is your problem.”

Some clicking was audible now. “The dean is in a meeting right now, but as soon as she’s out, I’ll bring this to her attention. She’ll make sure Haigure Fit is shut down, and I’m sure she’ll want to call this Lilith Cromwell in personally and discipline her, as well.”

Kara breathed a sigh of relief—the thought that Haigure Fit would be gone from campus just made her feel so much better, though she couldn’t fully even explain to herself why that was. “I was supposed to write a club announcement for them for the newspaper—”

Adelyn cut her off before she could finish asking. “I’d definitely say, still write that announcement, but be ready to pull it from the issue, because I’m sure the dean won’t want to leave this unresolved for very long. In fact, if I can catch her after she’s out of the meeting, I’ll give you a call back right after this. I don’t expect Haigure Fit should be open for more than a day or two.”

“Thank you,” Kara said. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“This number is good to call you back at?” Adelyn asked.

“Yes, you can call me back here,” Kara assured her. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Kara,” Adelyn said. “Students can’t just move in and occupy vacant spaces to start operating clubs without registering through the campus, so Haigure Fit definitely needs to be banned from Rosedale Uni. But this would have just slipped through the cracks if you hadn’t called attention to it, so thanks for doing that. I’ll call you back in a few hours.”

Adelyn ended the call; Kara got out her laptop, and started drafting a brief blurb about Haigure Fit. She took the time to send an email to Elena first: just a quick one. Working on the announcement for Haigure Fit; have already been there and back. Will be done by tonight, but waiting on a call back from Admin Office. Haigure Fit never officially registered with that office and are going to be banned from campus; should be gone within a day or two.

Elena replied in just a few minutes; that was the good thing about everyone on the paper, they all used email reliably, so even when the staff was spread out across campus, or even spread out throughout the community of Rosedale, the town, they all easily stayed in touch no matter where they were. And Elena in particular never seemed to close her inbox no matter what else she was doing.

Her reply was even briefer than Kara’s initial email. Great, keep me posted. Kara shot back a Will do, and then closed out of her email.

She went back to her word processor, and started writing out a few hundred words about Haigure Fit—she described it as a new fitness club that encouraged its members to wear leotards; she chose to describe this as a motivational method, a way of inspiring motivated mindsets in Haigure Fit’s members, and didn’t note that it seemed the leotards had a more menacing purpose.

Kara didn’t include any of her other suspicions, either—the fact that Haigure Fit had essentially been operating illicitly in a space they hadn’t even actually reserved, the fact that they had tried to pressure her into wearing a leotard when she’d gone in there herself, or the fact that they apparently already had someone inside the Admin Office who had tried to slide a policy violating registration into place for them without anyone noticing.

She worked at the blurb for a while until she was satisfied that it was as good as it could be. If all went well, the paper would never even have to run it; Haigure Fit would already be gone, and whatever the Haigure Appreciation Club was, that would be gone too.

It was just as Kara was finishing up the announcement piece that her phone rang.

She answered. “Hi, Kara, it’s Adelyn again.”

“Hi, Adelyn,” Kara said. “What can you tell me?”

“I’ve just spoken with the dean,” Adelyn continued speaking. “She’s quite displeased that there’s a club operating without approval. As I thought, she’s going to ban them from the campus, and she’s already scheduled a meeting with this Lilith Cromwell student to discipline her personally. Lilith’s scheduled to come in for a meeting tomorrow morning; I’ve already gotten in touch with her, and she agreed to show up. After that some campus staff are going to go over to that sixth clubfront in the quad and shut them down, clear all their stuff out of there and kick them out. The club should be gone by the end of the weekend. Plenty of time for you to let your editor know that you won’t need to run the club announcement,” Adelyn joked; and Kara felt touched by her attentiveness.

“That’s great, Adelyn,” Kara said. “I’m glad I could help.”

“I can give you a call tomorrow afternoon, if you like, and let you know when this has all gone through.”

“That would be great too.” Kara was still a bit curious, though; and she liked Adelyn, though their contact so far had been brief. “Do you mind if I ask, Adelyn... what is the Admin Office going to do about the person who logged into the system and created the club page for Haigure Fit?”

“The dean’s asked me to do an investigation of the office personnel and find out who did it,” Adelyn volunteered. “Then I’m to bring the results of my investigation to her, and she’ll determine what disciplinary action is necessary.”

“Have you done anything like this before?” Kara asked—she was genuinely interested now.

“Yes, ensuring policy compliance is part of my job. I’m the dean’s number two, and from time to time if or when Admin Office staff breaks our ethics code, I’m the one who has to look into it. Part of being her Executive Assistant. Sometimes I have to pass off investigations to Rosedale Uni’s human resources department, but sometimes the dean prefers to deal with internally, like this time, in which case it all falls to me.”

Kara found herself fascinated—she was learning more about how her university, which she loved, functioned, right up to the dean’s office within the university administration department. And Adelyn was a pleasant person to talk to.

“I hope this goes without saying, Kara, but all this information is pretty confidential. We’ve dealt with Haigure Fit’s policy violations, we don’t want to be reading about it in the paper, okay? The problem has been resolved—it doesn’t need to be publicized. You understand me?”

Kara nodded—then remembered Adelyn couldn’t see her. “Yes, I understand. I have no problem with that.” It was true—she really didn’t. If Haigure Fit was shut down, there was no further story to right about it. In the end, the mystery had resolved more easily than she feared. A weird, maybe slightly fanatical club had sprung up, occupied a space they hadn’t registered, they’d been caught, reported, and were now going to be shut down. There was nothing else that needed to be said about them, and it certainly didn’t need to be brought to the attention of the student body. It would have been different if the dean’s office were trying to cover up corruption, but they weren’t. They just wanted to avoid bad optics, wanted to avoid looking like they didn’t know what was happening on their own campus. Kara could respect that—after all, they had swiftly and correctly dealt with the problem.

Of all the obsessions Kara had ever had, this one had resolved the most easily. She was relieved for that reason to—not only would Haigure Fit, with its slightly menacing quality, be gone as soon as tomorrow, but this also meant she wouldn’t have to lose either her mind or her soul in the pursuit of finding out exactly what was going on with them. She was glad that things had turned out so well.

“Thank you, Kara,” Adelyn said. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow as promised, okay?”

“Okay. Talk to you tomorrow, Adelyn,” Kara said, and the two of them hung up.

Kara wrote another email, attaching the blurb she’d written to it. She only wrote a few lines into it. Here’s the announcement as promised. I don’t think you’ll need it—the club is going to be shut down tomorrow. Admin Office going to call me in the afternoon once it’s done.

Then she sent it to Elena.

Kara got up from her desk and stretched—she was free now. Whatever had been up with Haigure Fit didn’t matter now—it would be over now, which meant she was free to spend the rest of her day however she wanted without having to worry anymore.

She headed back out on campus to do just that; in just an hour or so, Alexa would be finished with practice—and Kara could see her today after all. She was anticipating seeing her—until then she’d hang out the library, and then she’d head over the track to Alexa to surprise her as her practice was ending. It was a good plan for the day—and above all, Kara was just so glad that the Haigure Fit issue had simply turned out to be a slight hiccup, and now, it was completely resolved.