Renfaire Fantasy 2: Chloe's Escape pt 1 (Patreon)

As the evening light dimmed and night began to fall, Brian found he was withdrawing into himself more and engaging in the heated discussions less and less. The argument exchanged back and forth across the campfire ceaselessly, the same beasts morphing into slightly different phrasings for renewed attacks or working to chip away at trivial aspects of the opponent’s rationalizations for this or that. Influencing Chloe with the charm robbed her of her free will and was wrong. Letting her free meant she would bring down terrible things upon them. The meat of the matter did not change, and as Brian gazed into the fire with gritted teeth he realized that they were deadlocked. Each side’s reasoning resonated with him somewhat but failed to fully sway him, no magic solution or perfect argument or be-all and end-all epiphany seemed forthcoming that would lift them out of the miserable moral quandary.

I’m gonna have to just decide what to do, Brian thought. And, it’s gonna have to be something I can live with. The thing is—I REALLY just… don’t want Chloe to be my problem anymore. Yet, nothing seems dumber than just naively trusting she could keep her word and leave us alone. But also, it’s not like we can just kill her.

“If you can’t convince me you’re not a threat to us, you’re going nowhere,” Kelly’s voice remained firm. “Not if there’s any chance you throw in with the Masters.”

“You’ve never even met the Masters, and if you had, you’d know I would never go along with them, no matter what,” Chloe ridiculed them. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Bad things happened to Steph in one of the previous timelines,” Kelly glared. “I won’t allow that to happen. I’m not letting you keep up your psychotic pursuit of Brian, either, and—”

“Oh, puh-lease,” Chloe laughed.

“Uh, no? You’ve been completely fucking psychotic!” Emily retorted. “Think about everything you’ve done. The whole convention weekend. The pregnancy scare bullshit. The false accusations. Stalking Brian, stealing his phone. Lying to Stephanie to try to separate them—do you fucking realize what almost happened just with that?!”

“I was trying to help her,” Chloe snapped. “To keep her from making my mistakes, from suffering the way I—”

“So, we can just kill her, right?” Emily interrupted. “I’m done. I’m so done. With this bullshit. Let’s just kill her. I’m so for real. If—”

“Chloe—” Even Stephanie’s voice had run cold, and Brian hated to think what everyone’s heightened emotions were doing to her. “Chloe, what almost happened to you, in that alleyway—is what almost happened to me. If it hadn’t been for Emily and Rebecca—”

“Yeah, okay,” Chloe let out a scoff in retort. “Sure, I bet. You hear my fucking story and then just try to co-opt what happened to me as if it happened to you. Real fucking convincing. Except—”

“Kill her,” Emily hissed out again.

“This isn’t getting anywhere,” Brian said, rising to his feet.

Everyone went silent at that, and though everyone’s eyes turned his way he scanned off into the treeline where the scattered bits of visible sky had become difficult to make out. It felt as though the girls were all expecting him to deliver a decision, but he simply didn’t have one. Kelly, Stephanie, and Emily would probably support whatever choice he made, and realizing that seemed to undermine whatever call was made, because rather than a majority rule it would be charm influence. He couldn’t brush off the affect the charm had on them while also hoping to use it to change Chloe into someone who was more agreeable and easier to live with. That very hypocrisy was what kept poisoning the somewhat more sensible rationales thrown back and forth in their argument—it was exactly the moral quagmire Brian would have the most difficulty grappling with, and he hated it.

“It’s getting dark. We should get the tent set up,” Brian said. “The sleeping bags. This… isn’t getting anywhere.”

“Because you know you have to let me go,” Chloe’s tone was so smug it almost pushed him into an immediate angry decision, and he had to take a deep breath and steady his nerves to bring his thinking back into balance.

“If you kill me, you’re a murderer,” Chloe stated the obvious. “If you change me, you’re a rapist, you’re the same as the Masters. If you let me go, I will go to the police, obviously, yes, but you’ll be given court dates and a fair trial and serve out your prison time. All of you. Or, are you going to rape or murder me just to avoid taking responsibility for everything you’ve done? Hah ha ha… wouldn’t that be just like you?”

“Brian, if you can’t, then just like, take Steph down to the car,” Emily said in a dangerous voice. “Kelly and I will finish up here, then we’ll be along to join you, and then we all drive away and you just don’t ask about what happened to Chloe. How’s that sound? Whatever happens doesn’t gotta be on your conscience—yeah, just don’t even worry about it.”

“Steph, walk Brian down to the car,” Kelly instructed.

“No,” Brian shook his head. “No. Guys—grab the sleeping bags and start on the tent, I guess. I want to talk to Chloe, alone.”

“Brian…” Emily warned.

“I can set up my big tent, too,” Rebecca offered. “There’s space.”

“Emily, no—they do need to talk alone,” Kelly decided. “Stephanie?”

“I—uh,” Stephanie blew out a long breath. “I do think I need, um, need some air. Some space from this, a break.”

“Fine,” Emily huffed. “Fine.”

“Can I get this shit off of me, now?” Chloe lifted her bound wrists. “Please?”

Stephanie gave Brian’s shoulders a squeeze from behind before withdrawing, following Kelly who was ushering a fuming Emily down the steep slope back towards the road. They had honestly probably waited too long to make camp for the night, the sun was mostly set and at this point the campfire was doing more to illuminate faces across the fire than ambient light from above.

“Brian?” Rebecca checked with him. “I’m going to unbind her the rest of the way.”

“Yeah, go for it,” Brian waved her on.

Brian watched on with a grim look as Rebecca carefully unwound tape from the medical braces and then unlatched the velcro releases to free Chloe’s hands.

His ex-girlfriend had always possessed a slender figure, but those forearms were even more frail now. Delicate wrists were discolored with bruises, and Chloe seemed to have difficulty with her fingers. Rebecca made her hold them out in the firelight and flex them, which Chloe did, slowly. The thin trembling digits didn’t seem to be able to clench into a fist the whole way right now, and Rebecca stood there with patience and assisted Chloe through closing and opening her hands before Chloe shooed her away with a scowl.

“I’m fine,” Chloe snapped, taking the first opportunity unbound hands offered and indulging her favorite habit—crossing her arms in front of her in a show of disapproval. “Fuck off.”

“Okay,” Rebecca sighed. “I’m going to go help.”

They remained silent as Rebecca left them and started to pick her way down the path after the others—Chloe stared at Brian with a look of defiance, while Brian simply felt tired and fed up with all of this.

“So,” Brian cleared his throat to address her. “The pregnancy thing. What was that about?”

“Hah,” Chloe smirked. “You know what it was about. I was trying to fucking save our relationship.”

“No, I mean,” Brian let out a dry laugh. “How? Why? Since when was my commitment to us the issue?”

“I hope you’re kidding,” Chloe laughed in return. “I seriously, honestly hope that was a joke.”

“Commitment isn’t just me bowing down to whatever you say,” Brian felt a flash of anger at finally saying those words. “When you—”

“Oh, of course, so, commitment is me bowing down to whatever you say,” Chloe retorted. “Because you’re the man, right? You wear the pants! And, I’m supposed to just be your little submissive beaten housewife and go along with—”

“So, instead you lied,” Brian shot back. “Because; you’re obviously not pregnant. We both know why it’s not possible for you to be pregnant by me.”

“Proud you’re so impotent, is that it?” Chloe mocked him. “Did you have trouble getting off your little teeny weeny dick, so you want to blame me? Or, does it only work if you’re whacking off to sicko porn, is that it? Oh, that’s right, Brian. I know you were cheating on me by watching porn. Sicko degenerate pornography.”

“Yeah, I watched porn,” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “Why wouldn’t I? I have my own needs. You had zero interest in sex or any kind of, uh, intimacy with me, outside of whether or not it was some kind of leverage you had over me, or some kind of stupid power trip bullshit.”

“It’s still infidelity,” Chloe refused to let it go. “Perversion. Beating your pathetic little noodle weiner to sicko rape fantasy pornography. Rape videos and pedophile pornogra—”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what?” Brian held up his hands. “Since when did I ever—”

“You thought I wouldn’t have ways of finding out?” Chloe shot him a triumphant look of absolute disgust. “Latina teen videos? ‘Petite latinas?’ Those are obvious pedo dogwhistles for groomer content, Brian.”

“The fuck?” Brian made a face. “No? They’re all over eighteen, so—”

“Oh, please,” Chloe barked out a laugh. “And you’re twenty three. Almost twenty four. It’s disgusting. Let me guess—you were just visualizing your sweet little underage friend Emily in those, weren’t you? It was some twisted sadistic fap fuel for you to fantasize about your friend, and she would have been disgusted to—”

“Emily is twenty-three,” Brian refuted, unsure if Chloe was being serious or not. “Underage? We’re the same fucking age—legal, consenting fucking adults. Having an occasional preference for teen Latinas in my searches is not a fucking crime, Chloe. Half of what I looked up was like, big Brazilian asses, MILF, or like, random hentai doujins.”

“Isn’t that even worse?” Chloe still looked as though she had caught him. “It’s still all infidelity, because you were with me. In a relationship with me. How do you go about—”

“Did we have some kind of agreement there I wasn’t aware of?” Brian shook his head. “Hah. Aside from me like, trying to throw out an olive branch now and then and going down on you, we were on a ten month dry spell, weren’t we? Or wait—no, eleven months. Eleven months. Almost a whole year, just about half of our time together. I had assumed we were both looking at porn and just… addressing our own individual needs?”

“Yeah, right, then what about the rape videos, Brian?” Chloe smirked. “What excuses do you have ready to tell me for those?”

“Rape videos, what rape videos?” Brian gave her an incredulous look.

“The Japanese ones,” Chloe reminded him with a sneer. “Like the one on the train or subway or whatever.”

“Japanese?” Brian’s brow screwed up for a moment and then relaxed as he laughed, remembering what title she must be referring to. “Hah, holy fuck—are you talking about Mouth to Mouth Aphrodisiac and Lesbian Molestation? Because first of all, that’s a goddamn work of art, and second of all—not real rape, literally no one would ever think that wasn’t staged. Obviously staged. Yeah, like the crowded train car full of salarymen dudes all around them doesn’t notice the two girls stripping and moaning and squirting everywhere, just because they’re all turned the other way. How polite of them! Truly Japanese. If—”

“So that justifies it?!” Chloe spat. “Are you fucking serious?! You literally watch a video glorifying rape, and—”

“I don’t have to justify it,” Brian argued, shaking his head. “It’s fantasy. I’m completely capable of separating fantasy from reality, Chloe. And, in the first place—how the fuck did you even find any of that? I always browsed privately when I looked at that stuff, so none of the links or search terms or—”

“‘Browse privately,’ right, okay,” Chloe swore. “You hid it from me—which is wrong in the first place—because you knew what you were doing was something to be ashamed of. You knew it was wrong.”

“That’s discretion, not shame,” Brian refuted her. “What I get off to doesn’t need to be in your face reminders every time you type something in and see the autocomplete pop up. I’m not proud that we were obviously going separate ways with all that and tending to our own needs, instead of—”

“Brian—I know everything you looked up,” Chloe wore that victorious look of hers. “Everything. I installed a fucking keylogger. Okay? So, just stop. I know everything. If the others knew the sick shit you were into—”

“Like what?” Brian shook his head in disbelief. “Chloe—I’m comparatively vanilla in my tastes, to everyone I know. Hell, did you know Michael and Tanya uploaded amateur sex vids of them doing stuff, last year? Will and Mark both get into—you know what, I’m not even gonna tell you the weird stuff they’re into, you wouldn’t believe me. Balloon animals, fursonas, futanari stuff. Blueberries, clowns. Handholding.

“My own stuff I’m into is downright basic, Emily would gleefully one-up everything on my own list, and Kelly would be down with all of it. Stephanie would be—I don’t know, interested or curious, and that’s about it. Nothing I’m into is much of anything anyone but you would get judgemental over.”

“They’d only be okay with it because you fucking magic mind-controlled them into being your sex slaves!” Chloe erupted. “No one, and I mean no one would ever go along with your pathetic pornographic weirdo shit otherwise. And you know that. Well—guess what, Brian? I’m not letting that happen to me. I’m not letting that happen to me!!”

Before he could react, Chloe lurched to her feet across from him—and turned and dashed off into the woods. Brian rose from the log as she hurried away but didn’t give chase. It was darker out but not night yet, and she wasn’t managing to run all that fast—a slight jog would bring him to her in a matter of seconds. He watched her go with an impassive expression, because the sight didn’t make him feel anything at all.

There wasn’t a sense of urgency that made him feel she was going to escape, and he didn’t feel compelled to run after her and beg out an apology or try to placate her like he had so many times in the past year when they were together. Brian felt nothing but annoyance, and as he watched her crunch through the leaves and ferns he patted at his pockets just to remember he didn’t have his phone for a flashlight anymore.

Great, so now I’ll have to go traipsing across the goddamn mountain after her, and then what—drag her back? Talk her down?

“Brian?” Rebecca called from the road below. “What was that?”

“Chloe took off and ran,” Brian reported in a yell, blowing out a heavy sigh and shaking his head. “I’ll get her.”

“She what?!” Emily squealed in panic.

“It’s alright,” Brian shouted back. “Uhh. Bring a light, though?”

Car doors slammed and he saw Rebecca immediately running back up the path, but Brian wasn’t too concerned. Chloe was still in sight, and she wasn’t heading up the mountain away from them or even downwards towards the road—the young woman was just hurrying across laterally from them so as not to fight any inclines, and her hurrying speed wasn’t something that would actually ever take her too far away.

Until a moment later, when to Brian’s surprise the fleeing form of Chloe’s back abruptly vanished, dropping down completely out of sight with a bone-piercing shriek.

What the—

He was rushing forward after her in confusion even before he realized he’d started moving, dodging small trees and ducking around branches as he tried to see what the hell had happened. She hadn’t simply fallen down, she had disappeared, leaving not even a prone figure for him to see. Which shouldn’t have been possible. Chloe was just gone.

“Well, shoot,” Rebecca panted, almost having caught up to his pace as they parted the growth of ferns and swatted aside greenery to run their way forward. “I—I guess that’s ironic?”

“Ironic?” Brian demanded. “Where’d she—?”

“So, um,” Rebecca let out an embarrassed laugh. “Well, I did dig out a grave. I thought it was far enough away from the camp area that I wouldn’t have to warn you guys about it?”

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/// Oh no!