After AnimeCon: Condensation (Patreon)

    “See—then, it’s a magic thing, it’s like a magic compulsion,” Brian remarked, and the distaste apparent in his voice snapped Christine out of her daze.

    “What?” Christine asked, staring across the fire at him. “I—I don’t get it.”

    “It smells like nothing to Rebecca, who isn’t zapped,” Brian explained with a sigh. “But, with you zapped in—initiated to the magic or whatever, you’re suddenly compelled to—”

    “No, I um, no,” Christine interrupted him. “I get that. I, what I don’t get, I guess, is why you have such a problem with it. Doesn’t it… benefit you?”

    “It—” Brian’s look of confusion at her question gave way to a look of anger and he wasn’t able to finish articulating whatever it was he wanted to say.

    What? Christine frowned, hugging her arms against herself as she suddenly felt uncomfortable. DOESN’T IT benefit him? So—I don’t see what the problem is.

    “You really never knew him at all,” Stephanie said in a flat voice. “Hah…”

    “I just—” Christine faltered. “Sorry. I’m trying to understand? It just, it’s just—this whole thing seems to benefit you, and ah, everyone? Right? The magic? If I drink the um, the magic stuff, it’ll make me like you more, or fall in love with you, or whatever’s going on. All of it benefits you. Right? So, I guess. What’s the drawback?”

    “Do you really not get it?” Emily laughed. “Guys—look, she’s still broken. Not too late to return her. C’mon.”

    “No, she’s right about it benefiting everyone,” Stephanie shook her head. “Just, Brian needs time to accept that.”

    “Yeah, well she sounds like a psychopath when she says it,” Emily snorted. “Sorry that Brian’s empathy for other human beings tripped him up from taking total advantage of the situation.”

    “Emily—fucking chill,” Kelly said. “That’s not what Stephanie meant.”

    “I know it’s not what Steph meant,” Emily’s emphasis made her meaning clear.

    “Chloe’s right,” Kelly shook her head. “Brian doesn’t have any real reason to doubt himself on all this. Right?”

    “I’m—” Brian blew out a ragged breath and then adamantly shook his head. “Fuck, guys. I’m not getting into all that again tonight.”

    “Sorry,” Christine blurted out. “Sorry.”

    “H-he loves us, and we love him,” Stephanie reasoned. “That’s what matters, and, that’s all that matters. It’s—I think we need to look at it in the other way around. It’s not the charm making us feelings, it’s because we have feelings for each other that the charm works in the first place. I think.”

    “Then, why is Rebecca not affected, when Chloe now is?” Brian shook his head. “It’s because the charm zapped—”

    “I’m not unaffected,” Rebecca spoke up.

    “...You’re not?” Brian asked, taken aback. “But—”

    “Brian… sorry, but you’re gorgeous,” Rebecca said with a small smile. “Shirt off, sitting in the firelight with water droplets gleaming across your muscles? Oh, come on! You’re good-looking, and you’re a good man. The fact that you still treat this situation as a responsibility, rather than a power to abuse—how many men would be able to remain strong in the face of so much temptation, be able to temper themselves with restraint? I erm, I may not have magic opening my eyes to all of this, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely blind to your qualities, Brian.”

    I was, Christine felt her thoughts sour with remorse.

    “I—” Brian somehow managed to look even more uncomfortable at her praise. “I… don’t know. Maybe if you’re affected, it’s like because of residual… something or other from back there at AnimeCon when you did accidentally get zapped.”

    “Brian, please,” Kelly scoffed. “You’re sexy and a sweet guy and you know it.”

    “No, I mean—if you think about it, we’d known each other before, but Rebecca wasn’t attracted back then,” Brian argued. “So—”

    “You were handsome,” Rebecca countered. “I respected you. If there had been some opportunity where our hearts opened to one another, who knows what could have happened?”

    “Opportunity…” Stephanie murmured.

    “I get what you’re saying, but,” Brian shook his head. “Is it really still right, if some dumbass magic macguffin is just… artificially opening our hearts to each other?”

    “In my eyes, yes,” Rebecca argued. “It is still right. It may be opening a door for us, but what goes through that aperture to connect with one another—that’s us, that’s real. Are automatic doors like at a grocery store wrong on principle, just because they open for us, instead of us opening them?”

    Automatic doors? What?

    “I don’t think that—” Brian slumped his shoulders and held his head in his hand. “Sorry, I’m just. Exhausted. I want to believe all of the feelings are real, but as long as there’s any room for doubt… I mean, just look at this one-eighty here with Chloe. Just a little bit ago, she would have murdered me—c’mon.”

    “And, murder is wrong, so,” Rebecca didn’t relent. “So, she had very strong feelings for you, but they were misplaced in a big way, and maybe the magic is helping to correct some of that?”

    “Yeah, ‘correct some of that,’ hah,” Brian scowled. “That’s the part I just have some issues with.”

    “Well,” Emily grunted. “S’better than being murdered? Fuck, man. Should we have not corrected those murdery impulses? I mean—what the fuck.”

    “I don’t know, Emily,” Brian sighed. “I’m just—I’m tired. Of all of this. I just want—I just wish—”

    “Why don’t we just settle it once and for all?” Kelly proposed, and her tone made it clear to Christine at least that Kelly was making an effort to lighten the mood. “There’s that bar back in Tionetta, right? Randy’s. I’ll take Brian there tomorrow night—”

    “— Rudy’s,” Stephanie corrected.

    “—Rudy’s, Randy’s whatever—I’ll say I’m his sister, that Brian here has been through some heartache. If the ladies are all makin’ bedroom eyes and grinding up on him to Jan Danvers songs, then,yeah. No magic involved, the proves the charm’s all natural, and it’s settled that Brian’s a keeper that any girl in her right mind would be thrilled to be with.”

    “Funny,” Brian said.

    “It’s actually not funny, though,” Emily let out a tsk of frustration. “Because you’re completely unable to be objective about your own worth. And, oh yeah—whose fucking fault is that.”

    “Emily, hush,” Rebecca said.

    It’s… my fault? Christine felt that silver dusting of extremely unwelcome self-reflection come on again. I guess it kind of is. I just… he’s a guy, so I never really considered his state of mind to be ‘my problem.’ Guys, they’re supposed to be stoic, to MAN UP, so—but no, we were also in a relationship, so I probably should have at least cared a little. I didn’t care at all. Or, no—that’s not true, either. I did care, but only in how he might expose weaknesses I could leverage against him. Always, ALWAYS treated him like he was the opposition. I was actually maybe just the most awful human being, wasn’t I?

    “It’s my fault,” Christine said out loud.

    There was a moment of silence where she felt the weight of everyone’s attention turn towards her. Brian’s stare was hollow and empty and Christine felt her own eyes flick away from him, completely unable to meet his gaze—Stephanie looked wary of her, Rebecca was sympathetic. It was predictable that Emily displayed nothing but hostility and disgust, but that made the look Kelly was giving her a bit of a surprise.

    “No, it’s not your fault,” Kelly’s voice was firm. “Chloe went down into that grave, and she never came out. Chloe died there tonight. Okay? You’re gonna be Christine, we’re all gonna start calling you Christine, and—”

    “If we’re not treating her as Chloe anymore, then we’re not going to be punishing her by however many fucking years as a maid,” Brian said. “Since—”

    “No, we’re still doing that,” Kelly argued. “That’s part of her rehabilitation. We just now started trying to separate all the blame of who she was from who—”

    “Two years, at least,” Christine found herself saying. “I… I need to. Please, Brian. I need to do something.”

    “But…” Brian seemed to be at a loss.

    “I can sew her a pretty outfit?” Stephanie promised. “If you want?”

    “Exactly, Christine needs to do something,” Kelly said. “Because we do need to address what guilt she already feels. What we don’t need is Emily heaping on more, when it’s not deserved. Okay? So, she’s Christine, now. Not Chloe. Give her a fucking chance, at least.”

    “I really wish I could,” Emily responded. “But, she hurt Brian, she hurt him so fucking much, and I just can’t let go of that, or just brush it off with a new coat of silver paint. Fuck that. I’m sorry, I can’t. She hurt him.”

    “Then…” Rebecca said softly. “How do you propose she makes amends for that, and heals the hurt that was caused? What do you think we should do?”

    “I don’t know,” Emily hissed. “Fuck. I don’t fucking know. I’m not thinking productive thoughts. So, yeah. Keep it to myself. I get it. Fuck.”

    “You can hurt me, if you want,” Christine gave the girl a helpless shrug. “I… I understand. If it helps, you can—”

    “No,” Brian shook his head.

    “No,” Rebecca sounded concerned.

    “Don’t fucking tempt me,” Emily scoffed. “No, in fact. You know what? Let me take a closer look at you.”

    “Emily—” Rebecca warned.

    As if full of piss and vinegar, Emily crossed around the blazing fire pit towards her, and for a second Christine felt sure that the girl really would take a swing at her. Rebecca’s posture tensed, and Kelly took a step forward, but Emily held up her hands and slowed her approach. Her expression was still filled with anger, but for once seeing the familiar Latina so livid made Christine feel afraid—not so much for the threat of physical violence, but in new, indescribable ways her mind wasn’t able to process immediately.

    I don’t have the CHLOE things to say, Christine realized—her mouth was empty of the usual jabs or subtle insults she had always kept Emily off balance with. All the snide remarks, the retorts, rebuttals. I… don’t have anything I can say to her at all.

    There was a hollow sensation at not having that typical ironclad litany of words to use against Emily. She was no longer in any position to belittle her, there was no narrative to ply to keep Emily off-balance and reeling, and having nothing when she’d always had something made Christine feel so uniquely vulnerable that she almost swayed on her seat.

    “No, look at me,” Emily instructed, stooping in so that she was at eye level with Christine. “Look me in the eyes.”

    That was the last thing she wanted to do, but Christine complied. A sort of dread that was morphing into incomprehensible blind terror was filling her up inside as Emily got right in her face and stared deep into her soul, searching for an excuse, any excuse that would validate the resentment she visibly simmering beneath Emily’s skin. Christine wanted to look away, she wanted to shrink back, but the pain and rage distorting Emily’s expression held her spellbound and unable to avert her eyes.

    “Emily…” Kelly cautioned.

    This was a test, and Christine felt sure she must be failing because Emily’s features twisted into a scowl. She didn’t want to think of herself as Chloe anymore, but Chloe also wasn’t just a skin she could shed and discard—Christine was inescapably tied to all of Chloe’s sins. Her synapses were empty of Chloe but were still arranged and branched out in Chloe ways, her jerking and stuttering thoughts as they fought through the searing haze of silver were built on Chloe patterns, and she altogether thought herself thoroughly poisoned by Chloe through and through.

    “I guess you don’t seem much like her anymore,” Emily delivered her verdict. “...Fuck. Fuck.”

    Christine found herself muddled in confusion, because not seeming like Chloe appeared to piss Emily off even more than she had been when starting to examine her—but there was something else, too. It was ghostly and faint and in any other circumstance she would have attributed the feeling entirely to her imagination, but she felt it.

    Blue.

    Emily’s proximity was like a breath of condensation fogging the strange silver pane of her mind for an instant and then vanishing—a bright, vivid blue. Experiencing that hint of moisture was an act that revealed how parched, barren, and lifeless her inner mirror was, and all at once Christine longed to reflect those beautiful colors, ached for them. As Christine watched Emily straighten back up and step back to give her personal space again, there was an alien pang of feeling for the girl.

    Uhhh what?

    It felt like Christine’s head was spinning with different emotions now, and she couldn’t help but stare. Emily was cute, now. Not objectively cute, as in a dispassionate evaluation Christine could make about her appearance; Emily appeared cute to Christine’s personal tastes, attractive. Appealing. The difference was mesmerizing.

    After years of what must have been seeing Emily in only incomplete shapes and mismatched pieces, suddenly they fit together in a way that made sense, and even just the profile of the Latina’s face seemed rather fetching. She was cute. Her pixie cut looked good on her, and even despite the displeasure written on Emily’s face, her features were adorable. Even Emily’s stubborn broken obsession with Brian that had seemed so incomprehensible before slotted together now into a whole. In ways that had been beyond Christine’s ability to understand before, back when she had been so Chloe about everything.

    What… the fuck? Christine quickly looked down at her knees as silver surfaces within her mind distorted—or perhaps it was as if the distortions were finally evening out and things were reflected with clarity.

    “Christine…?” Stephanie asked, seeming to sense the change.

    “Fucking fine!” Emily growled. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit anymore. I’ll call her Christine, if that makes everyone happy. But, here—gimme the jar. She still has to fucking drink it all. Agreed?”

    “I’ll drink it,” Christine blurted out. “I can drink all of it.”

    Everyone turned to look at her again, and the different reflections of amusement, exasperation, and what might have been mockery were incredibly humiliating. A different sort of humiliating though, not one that had her ire rising up to meet it by dispatching insults and turning things back on them. Instead their attention made her nipples throb and goosebumps rise across her skin—the eyes on her made her want to twist and squirm with ashamed arousal.

    It’s so that we can get this over with, Christine told herself. I’m not like a cum guzzling slut. I just want all of this over and done with! It smells fantastic anyways—I had no idea ejaculate smelled so amazing. Is it like, pheromones or something? It’s so heady and strong. Musky? It has that strange sort of musk to it that just makes me associate the smell with really, really good sex. Fantasy sex. Is that weird? That’s weird.

    “Here,” Kelly passed the jar to Emily.

    Emily opened it back up with a jangle of the metal clasp against the glassware, and raised the jar up to steal a whiff of it for herself. Watching the Latina bring the jar up to her face startled Christine enough that she rose up off of her log slightly in fear that Emily was going to drink some of it—Christine was quick to ease back down into place upon the seat before anyone seemed to notice, but she dry-swallowed and worked her lips all the same.

    Okay. Okay. Calm down.

    “Smells like last night,” Emily reported. “Like the sex we had last night. No, like this isn’t even a smell, it’s like—it’s like—”

    Emily inhaled deeply again, and once again seeing it drove Christine a little stir crazy—sweat was beading like mercury across the mirror surface of her mind, each tiny little droplet was reflecting strangely alluring blue from somewhere else, and when they grew large enough to draw lazy silver trails down the glassy pane it created watery clean streaks. The dull, difficult to see through mirror was spotted with condensation and the trickle trails tickling down towards her gut made her knees weak. The trailing lines of clarity upon the foggy pane were altogether tantalizing, they made Christine want to wipe and smear away that dreary Chloe residue that made everything so faded and colorless. They filled her with urges, made her want to shove slick fingers inside herself in desperate search for satisfaction.

    Oh my God.

    “It’s more than even just a smell,” Emily decided, swishing the contents of the jar before her nose as if she were a semen sommelier. “It’s imbued with… more. Sensations, feelings? Emotions?”

    “Magic?” Kelly summed up. “Basically?”

    “Yeah,” Emily nodded. “Some like, essence of everything we shared last night. It’s all in here. Crazy.”

    “You’re—” Stephanie let out a small groan. “Emily, you’re teasing her. Please. Just, just let her drink it. You’re making her crazy.”

    Everyone’s judgemental stares might as well have been caressing her body up and down this time, because they made Christine shudder and rock slightly in her seat. Both hands were shoved down into her lap, failing to suppress a damp heat growing there, and even shifting position slightly made her hyper aware of how wet she had become, because she could feel her lips sliding against one another. She was more turned on than she ever remembered being before in her life, and everyone could tell. Christine knew they could tell—how could they not see it? More than just see it, Stephanie over there felt it.

    The condensation across Christine’s mirror may have been beading blue, but the whole thing was visible right now within the dark recesses of her mind only because of the distant pink flame. Just as they were in reality sitting around a campfire and relying on only that for illumination, on the other side of the mirror it was Stephanie’s bright pink soul lighting everything up. Christine felt herself enter a daze as she searched inward trying to grasp the imagery and sort them into concepts—it was difficult.

    Is that the dreamscape they were talking about? Christine wondered, trying to strain to capture the fleeting sense of it before it started to all just seem like her imagination again. It’s… it’s hard to figure out. I AM the mirror, the mirror is also a metaphor for self reflection, it traps me and also IS me, and there’s different sides to it and maybe the one side is like looking through a window and seeing through the veil to this other world—but then also, I can’t TURN the mirror to see through it as I please, because I AM the mirror, and that’s, that’s jumbling up my perspective? I’m SO fucking horny—I can’t process any of this.

    “You want this, don’t you?” Emily held the jar up just out of reach. “You like, really want this. All of Brian’s cum.”

    “Please,” Christine heard someone shamelessly panting for it, and by the time she realized it was herself it was too late to stop the words. “Yes. Please? I need it.”

    “Emily, come on,” Stephanie growled, the need in her voice mirroring Christine’s own.

    Mirroring? Because—oh yeah, because of mirror. I’m mirror. She’s—light. Flame. Fire. Reflecting. And, she does yeah anyways, because of her thing. Her yeah thing. It feels.

    Christine’s chain of thought became a nonsense babble of impulses and impressions that weren’t even properly arranged into words, and she reached up with shaking hands to accept the glass jar from Emily as Emily stepped closer. She couldn’t think. She needed that orgasmic ambrosia laden bright with magic, because it would fix her, fill her, fulfill her, it would squeegee all of the ashy Chloe clean from her mind and make her go colors.

    “Hold on,” Kelly interrupted.

    “No hold on,” Christine protested.

    Then she flushed with embarrassment, because she’d never intended to leak her babble talk out loud. Just—she needed to drink this, she needed all of that warm cum inside of her, she needed it needed it needed it needed it NEEDED IT.

    “Just give it to her!” Stephanie whined. “Please. It’s—she needs it.”

    Thank you! Christine gave them a dumb nod of complete agreement.

    “No, I mean like—there’s no set ritual to this, or anything,” Kelly tried to explain. “But, I feel like we need to be more of an active part of it. Of her uh, initiation. Not just sit her there and watch her go chug chug chug. That’s… impersonal? It doesn’t feel right. We need to be a part of it.”

    “I’m… I’m not gonna lie, I’m not super comfortable with all of this in the first place,” Brian admitted. “It’s weird, it’s making her weird, and it starts to feel more like we’re just… I don’t know. Drugging her up, or something.”

    “We are, kind of,” Kelly sounded thoughtful. “But, not like the ‘bad’ kind of drugs, Brian, chill. This is going to help her. We’re giving her her medicine.”

    “Her med-i-cine,” Rebecca chirped in a cute voice, and then let out a nervous laugh. “Hah—sorry.”

    And then he didn’t want to take it, but he had to take it, because it was his med-i-cine, Rebecca’s sing-song from months ago came to Christine in a memory. I said, Prince Charming, you are so handsome. But, you do have to take your med-i-cine! It’s GOOD for you! 

    It had been one of the idle nonsense recollections from some car drive somewhere they had shared—in their friend group Rebecca was the easiest to ask for a ride somewhere, and the only cost to doing so was putting up with Rebecca’s stupid silly chatter nonsense about her cat, or her camping trip with the LARP weirdos, or what old dumb movie she had watched last night. Emily took advantage of her the most, but Becca and Chloe wouldn’t shy away from calling Rebecca up for a ride whenever that was convenient.

    Except—Christine was no longer the aloof princess Chloe. Chloe, who had hidden a sneer of contempt while using Rebecca as free transportation, simply because the dumb oaf was too sweet and nice to ask for gas money from anyone, no matter how long a drive it was. No, now she was Christine, now her masks had been stripped away and her social status knocked out from under her—she was a vulnerable, pathetic and mewling existence Rebecca kept in a shed and looked after like a pet.

    The sudden and strangely submissive implication seemed to strike Christine at just the right time, and it made her want to drop down on her hands and knees in the stamped dirt surrounding the firepit and beg. She needed her medicine, and she wanted to beg for it, she would bark or meow or whatever it was made them pleased with her. Christine wanted to submit to them, she wanted to be their pet. If they would only just let her gorge herself on that delicious cum!

    “Y-you’re—?” Stephanie sputtered. “What was that?!”

    “Was what?” Brian asked.

    “Christine!”

    “I-I don’t know!” Christine pleaded. “Please. Please.”

    “What happened?” Rebecca asked.

    “I don’t know! You’re—you’re all making her weird!” Stephanie said in a fluster. “Would you—could you just give her the jar, already?!”

    “Both of you come over here,” Kelly insisted, waving them forward. “C’mon, hurry. We—we all should be a part of this. I think it helps.”

    “A, um, a part of this how, exactly?” Rebecca asked, stepping forward. “Like—”

    “No fucking clue,” Kelly said. “Just feels right?”

    Christine watched in a daze as Kelly came up and placed a hand on her shoulder, and some other black area of her mind lit up with distant stars. She was cocking her head to rub her cheek against the back of Kelly’s hand before she even realized what she was doing—it was just nice. Kelly was nice. Sexy, hot. It was an all-at-once change of perspective, as though some bewildered part of Christine’s awareness was being dunked back and forth from one side of the silvery pane to the other. Just as it had been with re-experiencing Emily, taking Kelly’s objective attractiveness and internalizing it to a subjective attractiveness felt fucking weird, in a really good way.

    Rather than sizing up competition with wary eyes, Christine wanted to grope across Kelly’s magnificent breasts with her fingers and teeth, she wanted to taste Kelly, make out with Kelly, undress her, slip that plunging top down even further to expose those perfect tits, to pull the young woman’s succulent nipples into her mouth. She could make out the outlines of those nipples already now, because they created little outdentations in the fabric of Kelly’s shirt.

    Wait—OUTDENTATIONS isn’t a real word, right? Christine struggled to think. What’s the word for the opposite of INDENTATIONS?

    The curvaceous figure Kelly sported had built up walls of annoyance within Christine’s mind that now were torn down—instead Christine now felt raw desire and only wanted to explore and indulge in every inch of Kelly’s flesh. The sudden change in perspective across Christine’s mind was like a slap to the face, and she could only watch in a daze of excruciating arousal as the glittering red reflection of comets and constellations revealed a whole new side of Christine’s sexuality. The sudden attraction to Emily had been in sordid wet little pangs, and then the rush of lust for Kelly had Christine feeling completely starstruck.

    “OOokay she’s right!” Stephanie squeaked. “It—it does work. Brian, um. Rebecca, too—we should all. I don’t know, touch her, or uh, stand in real close. For while she does actually drink it. It amplifies. Multiplies? I don’t know!”

    “She’s practically drooling,” Emily observed with amusement, still holding the jar up just out of Christine’s reach.

    If her legs weren’t trembling so much right now, Christine might have tried to lunge for it.

    “...Fine,” Brian sighed, rising up to his feet.

    Staring past Emily to watch Brian cross around the fire pit and approach them had Christine’s heart leap up into her throat. The sudden sapphic pulls that drew her towards girls all of the sudden was strong, but seeing the shirtless Brian was a stark and brutal reminder that she was still very, very much attracted to the sheer masculinity he had on display. He just seemed so… solid, unyielding, and the magical representation of him pinwheeling in her kaleidoscope of dancing colors and spinning mirrors was the very earth itself. The foundation they all stood upon—huge, solid, and somehow relentless and unstoppable. 

    Because he brought Stephanie with him, he wasn’t just a titan, he was a flame-wreathed juggernaut of power, his presence seemed crushing, he fed fires and drew down stars from the sky and released rivers. He was the center, the axis upon which the dreamscape revolved in the dizzying glimpses roiling one after another through Christine’s perception. Still perched upon the edge of the sawed-off log that was her seat at the campfire, Christine began to subconsciously spread her legs wide in invitation.

    “See? See?” Emily teased.

    Christine was still clad in only her bra and panties from when Rebecca had been helping her clean up with a washcloth, and the chill in the air was a titillating reminder of how exposed she was. Her pale, almost sickly skin tone was flushed all over as her heart raced, her long legs felt awkward and gangly and she didn’t know where to place them. Likewise, she didn’t know what to do with her hands, and she clenched and unclenched them, wishing for something—or someone—to grab onto.

    “I still don’t like this,” Brian’s tone of disapproval made Christine want to writhe back and forth, it made her ache to be punished.

    “It was cum conversion therapy, or put her out of her misery,” Kelly reminded him, and her hand on Christine’s shoulder gave a squeeze of reassurance that spat silver butterflies into Christine’s tummy.

    Emily cupped Christine’s cheek with one palm and the blue in the mirror was back strong, Stephanie put her hand on Christine’s opposite shoulder, and the ensuing proximity of pink was so radiant and overwhelming that she was too dazzled to see for a moment. Attraction arrived on tongues of brilliant pink as expected, but the flavor of it was so drastically different that Christine found herself even more swept away. Stephanie had an innocence and purity to her that filled Christine with total admiration—her magical impression was more than just a difference, it seemed the polar opposite end of the mental spectrum from the familiar Chloe feelings Christine was so desperate to be freed from. 

    Brian was the canvas upon which blue, red, and pink appeared, and when Rebecca placed her hand on the crown of Christine’s head—nothing.

    Christine had been bracing herself for yet another whirlwind of magic and emotion, but instead Rebecca’s hand was just a hand. Strange and dead, the hand was physically there, but on the other side of the mirror it wasn’t there at all—it was as though a series of markers had been uncapped and were drawing insane scribbles throughout Christine’s mind, but then one marker in particular was dry of ink and just not creating lines; Rebecca.

    “Okay Christine, are you ready?” Emily asked. “Brian, grab her tit or somethin.’”

    With another heavy sigh that made Christine yearn to find some way to please him, Brian finally lifted his hand and placed it on her upper arm, just below Stephanie’s hand. The effect was incredible, because the pinwheel of messy thoughts and feels snapped into place and were all at once squished, as though everything was trapped between the two panes of a microscope slide and pushed into clarity. The window into the dreamscape was revealed as lenses were forced into focus, the blotted array of colors became crystal clear—the vivid plasma pink of in high definition, the flow of water in perfect detail, and the stunning imagery of a fallen star, a meteorite still burning with brilliant red.

    Across it all, the lingering remains of Chloe were a patina of dried blood upon the glass, drawn so sharp now that she could read each and every individual fleck of crud stuck to the surface of her mirror. That unfocused dull haze from before was now revealed a multitude of fine specks that filled her with loathing and disgust, that radiated all of the sick twisted Chloe thoughts and unbridled insanity that Christine needed to be clean of.

    “That helped!” Stephanie reported. “It—I can’t describe what that did, but it did it. I-I think we’re good. Let her um, let her drink, now?”

    “I feel… something,” Kelly said, sounding distracted. “Yeah, I don’t know what, but it’s something. Feels strange.”

    “I don’t feel anything at all?” Rebecca told them, sounding embarrassed. “Still. Yeah. I’m uh, I’m not tuned in.”

    “I feel something,” Emily said.

    “Please,” Christine mouthed, all but rocking back and forth and panting beneath the many hands placed upon her. “Please.”

    “Brian?” Emily asked for permission. “Last chance to call things off. It’s cum-conversion therapy, or we brain her with the shovel and dump her in the grave. Not too late, and—I’m cool with either way. Okay? Don’t want you to feel guilty about this, later, or be all like oh boo-hoo, we were using magic to influence her, and that isn’t fair. She tried to fucking kill you. She tried to fucking kill you. So, she either takes her bitter medicine, or—”

    “It’s not bitter—” Stephanie murmured.

    “—or, she exits the play, stage left,” Emily continued. “Goes into the grave, and we just forget all about her. C’est la vi.”

    “Go or no go, Brian,” Kelly urged. “Your call. Last chance.”

    “Chloe?” Brian asked. “Or—right, Christine?”

    “Please—” Christine panted, wetting her lips. “I-I want to drink it. Please.”

    “Let her have it,” Brian sighed.

    “Promise me you’re not gonna guilt trip,” Emily challenged. “Need you to say it. Gotta hear you say it. Promise me. We are not gonna mope, or dwell, or beat ourselves up over—over this.”

    “Emily—” Brian grimaced. “It’s not like we have a choice, alright?”

    “We do have a choice,” Emily argued. “We’re either putting Chloe in the hole so she can rest in fucking pieces, or we’re giving Christine a chance at life, in which case, yeah fresh start for everyone, clean conscious, and all this guilt trip bullshit is just done.”

    “Fine,” Brian said, his beautiful brow furrowing. “Clean conscience. Not conscious.”

    “Listen to what I mean, not what I say,” Emily stuck her tongue out. “Jerk.”

    “No, not fine,” Kelly insisted. “Brian; promise us. Really swear to us. Emily’s right. We’re either giving Christine a fresh start here, or we’re putting Chloe in the grave. I’m sorry there’s no room for middle ground, but… that’s just how it is. You need to tell us that you’re not going to feel sorry for Chloe, or for your heavy fucking conscience about the mind control bullshit to weigh down Christine and stop her from having a chance at a clean slate.”

    “Because, it’s not mind control!” Stephanie said. “I don’t think.”

    “I really don’t think it is,” Rebecca agreed.

    “I’m cool with it either way,” Emily shrugged, swishing the contents of the jar right in front of Christine’s face. “But if you aren’t gonna be cool with this, we put it all to bed now and brain her.”

    “We’re not killing her,” Brian said.

    “Then—?” Emily asked.

    “Give it to her,” Brian said. “I’m not cool with it if it’s brainwashing or mind control or altering her personality or rewiring her views, or whatever. But, maybe it’s not doing that, and maybe it’s just helping—I don’t know how to say it. Helping open her up to be a better person. I do want to believe that. Just, all the sex stuff and inducing lust or all that makes that hard to trust.”

    “Well,” Kelly’s hand on Christine’s bare shoulder gave a slight slapping tap tap tap. “It’s love magic. What can you do about it? S’just the way it works.”

    Emily lowered the jar again in closer, so that the open lip of the vessel was just barest inches away from Christine’s lips. She couldn’t help but let out a long whimper of need. There weren’t words for how much she needed to drink all of that magic essence, and so she found herself unable to contribute to the conversation going on up above her head. She was just waiting for a verdict. Anticipation and fear scrabbled at the corners of her vision, but she was too turned on to let anything distract her from her prize.

    “I… guess,” Brian relented. “Let her have it. I honestly already made the decision when I kissed her back there, in the grave. So, yeah. I promise. If it’s ‘kill her’ or ‘change her,’ the one I can live with is changing her. I guess. And then… my conscience will be clean, so long as we always treat her right, never take advantage. Do right by her. Which we will. Right?”

    “Right,” Stephanie nodded.

    “Absolutely,” Rebecca chimed in. “Yeah.”

    “Uh-huh,” Emily snorted.

    “Sure, maybe,” Kelly tapped Christine’s shoulder again with impatience. “Yeah, whatever. So…?”

    “So—bottoms up, bitch,” Emily said with glee, tilting the jar forward.

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