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Joy opened his eyes and knew something was wrong. It was night; Ben was supposed to be asleep! He looked over, already knowing what to expect. Of course Curiosity was out of his bunk.
“Fear, wake up,” Joy nudged her. “Psst!”
Fear blinked once, then sat bolt upright. “Oh no! What’s he doing now?”
Ben wasn’t sure why he felt the need to be sneaky as he padded across his room to the bookshelf. Mom didn’t mind if he read in bed when he couldn’t sleep. She had even given him the flashlight. But still, he was sure to be extra quiet. He found the book by memory, by the light filtering in from the window, and didn’t turn on the flashlight until he was safely back in bed.
Fear hid behind Joy as they tiptoed down the hall to headquarters. Sure enough, Curiosity was manning the console, and he wasn’t alone. Next to him was – well, it wasn’t an emotion. Joy didn’t know the hulking thing’s name at all. It was one of the other entities in Ben’s mind, and it made Joy uneasy. It lurked around headquarters more often than it should, until Joy and the other emotions chased it away. All except Curiosity. But Curiosity wanted to talk to everyone.
Ben’s fingers moved on their own, flipping through the book, as if they remembered just the page to turn to. It was a book for little kids, he thought. That’s why he felt strange about reading it.
“I’ve spanked Susan seven times since breakfast,” said the mother in the book. “And I just heard a crash so she is probably getting ready for another one.”
“H-h-hey!” Fear called out as loudly as she dared. “Get away from there!”
Curiosity and the hulking not-emotion turned. “Why?” Curiosity asked, wide-eyed.
Fear started to stammer out a response, but Disgust was out of bed too and beat her to it. “Because it’s weird!” Disgust shouted. “Ben doesn’t want to read about that!”
“Wait!” Fear said suddenly. “Did anyone hear that?”
Ben quickly clicked the flashlight off and shoved the book under his pillow just as the bedroom door opened. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, but he heard mom’s footsteps across the floor and felt her gently kiss his forehead.
Joy stayed behind on sleep duty as Disgust, Anger and Fear wrestled the thing out of headquarters. “Take it to the Vault!” Anger had ordered. Curiosity stayed behind, though safely away from the console.
“Why would you let that thing in?” Joy shouted at last, breaking the quiet.
“I don’t know,” Curiosity said, hanging his head.
“You don’t even know what it is!”
“But I wanted to. Don’t you?”
“No!” Joy shouted. He took a deep breath. “Look, I know you have a job here too, but sometimes you get Ben into trouble, and today was almost one of those times. So, no more flying solo. And no more letting strangers in. Are we clear?”
Curiosity nodded sadly. “Yes, Joy.”
Joy’s hands danced over the console. This was his moment. Headquarters had been a mess lately, since the new puberty emotions had started to arrive. Anxiety had been bad enough, but then Horny had showed up (“She’s not even a real emotion!” Anger had raged) and the brawls between her and Embarrassment had knocked the console completely out of the floor more than once.
But now they were all working together. Anxiety’s planning had paid off (though she still rode shotgun on the console, running projections with Fear), Embarrassment and Horny were keeping each other in check, and Anger and Disgust and even Curiosity were sitting back, content to just watch. Joy was in control.
Megan’s lips tasted like chapstick and ketchup, but Ben didn’t mind. He’d known she was fun, but it was only when Ryan had said she had a crush on him that he’d realized she was hot too. Maybe other guys didn’t see it, but that was their loss.
“Have you ever done this before?” she asked when they took a break from kissing to catch their breath.
“Of course,” Ben answered-
“Ennui!” yelled Joy and Anger together. Ennui just shrugged and flipped back a switch on her console app.
“-No, actually, not really. Is that okay?”
“Good save, Embarrassment!”
Megan nodded. “Me neither. I like that we can be each other’s first.”
They had an audience, Joy knew. Not just in Headquarters; all of Ben’s mind was focused on this moment.
“Is this okay?” he had asked her as his hand gently rested on her butt, and in response she kissed him harder, her teeth bumping against his. Now he wanted to explore more. He lifted up his hand and brought it down against the seat of her jeans. “Are you a- a naughty girl?” he asked. He didn’t think it was hard, but the noise was louder than he expected.
This time Megan pulled back abruptly. “Hey, not cool,” she said.
Joy was so wrapped up in the moment, he didn’t notice the figure that had come into headquarters until it had come all the way up to the console and tentatively pressed a button.
“You’re not supposed to be here!”
In the distance Joy already heard the police whistles. He looked toward Curiosity, who gave an apologetic shrug. It wasn’t the first time the Secret (as Joy had started thinking of it) had escaped the Vault, and it caused problems every time.
“You’re ruining Ben’s first kiss!” Anger yelled.
“Megan’s gonna hate us forever!” added Fear.
“Yeah, ‘cuz of monster-thing over here,” sighed Disgust.
Embarrassment and Horny exchanged a silent nod, then stood up together. Horny grabbed the Secret and lifted it effortlessly, while Embarrassment quietly slunk next to Joy at the console, hunched over the controls, and took the lead.
The Secret’s breakouts became harder to prevent. Somehow a guard would leave the vault unlocked, or the walls would crack when a sarchasm opened up (which happened more and more often), and Joy and the rest would find the Secret in headquarters, pulling up memories of spanking scenes from old cartoons that Disgust was sure he’d gotten rid of. Several times the Secret made its way to the dream studio, directing strange spanking dreams that unsettled Ben’s entire mind and took all of Joy’s energy to straighten out, giving him no time to actually run the console.
Eventually it was Anxiety who had to step up and broker a deal. The Secret could have its own island – a small one, disconnected from any of the others. And when headquarters was quiet and Ben had some downtime, they let the Secret come over the narrow bridge and join them. Not to run the console itself, of course. But it could sit next to Horny while she took control, albeit with Fear, Disgust and Anxiety all hovering nervously nearby, making sure nothing went too wrong.
The system was working. Until one day, Joy noticed Curiosity slipping away during one of these sessions, heading down to Analytics.
Ben made the connections slowly. There was porn of this specific thing he liked. There were entire websites devoted to it. That must mean he wasn’t the only one. Some of the models seemed to enjoy it, and there were comments talking about parties, and relationships. Some of it was probably just fantasy, he told himself. But what if not all of it was?
“Come on,” Joy put his hand on Fear’s shoulder. “Time to take a break.”
“But what if it all goes wrong?” Fear said, gripping the controls tighter. “You’ve seen Anxiety’s projections!”
Joy shot Anxiety a look. Anxiety grimaced and passed over a sheaf of printouts. “But what about these projections? Think of how much Ben has missed out on already!”
“Oh no!” Fear covered her face with her hands, but she let Joy steer her away.
In the parking lot, Ben relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath.
Joy turned to the Secret – Kink, they wanted to be called now. “You got this, buddy,” Joy said. Nervously, Kink stepped forward and put their hands on the console.
Ben walked right by the table the first time. He thought the pretty college student, the middle-aged librarian-looking lady and the retiree with the vet ballcap must just be a family having an early dinner until the woman flagged him down. “Ben, right? I’m Shannon. You had that deer-in-the-headlights look. Welcome to the munch!”