A Cure For Clinginess
By AbolethLasher
Part 1
You’ve probably heard that in every relationship there’s a reacher and a settler.
Anyone looking at Ariel and I would probably guess that she’s the settler. A crazy hot professional model, and a slightly overweight computer programmer? There’s no question in anyone’s minds that she’s out of my league.
And yet, you wouldn’t have known that if you watched us throughout the day.
I almost feel ghoullish saying this, but I think I got “lucky” in a sense. Ariel had a long string of really toxic relationships, and she’s still dealing with all of the baggage and the fallout from it. When she started dating me—she was the one who felt like she was lucky!
Just being a normal, stable guy who loves and cares about her, who isn’t controlling or emotionally manipulative, and talks things out with her like a rational adult made me an Adonis in her eyes. There’s probably thousands of guys just like me, who wouldn’t even think before saying yes when their platonic model friend asks them out.
I really don’t know what she sees in me.
But I do really care about her, and it’s been so wonderful helping her heal her emotional scars, and grow together as a supportive couple.
There’s just… one problem.
Maybe I should have seen the red flags.
Ariel isn’t one to do things by small measures. She’s all or nothing in almost everything. And I didn’t think about what that might mean about her approach to relationships when she asked me out.
I didn’t even see the red flags when she asked if we should move in after only a month of dating one another.
Maybe I’m stupid. But try to tell me you wouldn’t have said yes to moving in with someone as hot as her if you were in my shoes! Even if you had only been on four dates so far.
The troubles started after the first time we fucked in the new apartment together.
Don’t get me wrong—Ariel was amazing. Whatever else may have gone down between Ariel and her exes, she definitely learned to fuck like a pro. She knows her way around a cock, and she knew so many tricks that I was barely thinking by the time we finished.
But after that, it was like a switch went off in her head.
She wasn’t just in love with me anymore. She was obsessed!
When we were together, she had to spend every waking moment with me. If I tried to have some alone time or make some space, she’d end up crying until I agreed to join her in whatever she was doing.
If we were apart, she would text me constantly, and sometimes even call if I took too long to text her back. She started getting more and more unhappy whenever I went out for a night with the guys, and she demanded to know where I was at every moment of the day.
And good luck if one of my female friends or coworkers hadppened to be around. I don’t think Ariel thought I was going to cheat or anything, but she had been burned so many times before that she got so possessive when another girl was around. She’d cling to my arm all night, shooting dirty looks at my friends throughout conversations and put them down when she wasn’t around.
I tried talking to her a few times about all of this. Tried to get her to tone things down a bit, and reassure her that I’d never think of cheating like a few of her exes had, and that needing alone time to recharge didn’t mean I didn’t love her.
But things just kept getting worse and worse.
So, I thought extreme measures might be called for.
I felt a little bad for considering it, but aside from the crazy sex basically every night, she was becoming more and more unbearably clingy after three months, and I needed distance from her for just one night. I was desperate for a minute alone, and in my desperation I took an action I wasn’t proud of at the time.
See, I tinker in my free time, and I had been working on a special device in that time. I could take the time to explain the exact mechanics, but the short version is that it manipulated electrical signals in the brain to change people’s behaviors and memories.
I had mostly been making it as a challenge to myself. To see if I could.
I never planned on using it on anybody, and if I’m honest, I realized that the thing I was making could be very bad news if it got into the wrong hands.
But in it’s current state, the amount of damage it could do was limited. I had tested it on some guinea pigs and was at a state where I could suppress memories and alter emotional states for a few hours. I could make them forget a maze their had run, or a trick they had learned. But the effects on their mind and emotions was temporary—if I wanted them to forget long term, I’d have to use the machine on them again and again.
But I had never really tested it on humans before.
However, with Ariel constantly wanting to spend time with me, I was finding it hard to find free time to work on it like I wanted. And after the seventh time Ariel came into the office, and complained about the fact that I never wanted to do anything with her, I snapped.
“Hey, Ariel,” I said. “I actually think I have something you could help me out with.”
She lit up when I said that. Her eye’s were bright and it was clear she was eager to please me.
“Oh, really! I’d love to help you out. What do you need from me?”
I pointed to the helmet I had been building.
“I just need you to put this on, and let me run a few diagnostics. It should only take a few minutes!”
She nodded, and sat down. I put the helmet on her head, and powered on the machine.
It was at this point that I gave in to temptation.
This was the first bit of real work on my little hobby that I had been able to do in a long time. And I didn’t want it to stop. Not after the few minutes a simple diagnostic would take.
So I decided to test something a little more advanced.
I powered up the machine, and started coding the logic I wanted it to use. It was all in an advanced programming language of my own creation, but in simple English the commands I typed were:
FORGET You were ever in love with me.FORGET You’ve ever had sex with me.FORGET Your obsession with me.FORGET Your emotional dependency on me.MOOD Calm
And pressed enter.
I watched Ariel curiously as the helmet powered up for the first human test I had ever done.
Her posture was the first thing to change. She had been sitting straight up at attention, like I was the most interesting thing in the world. But as the progress bar on the computer rolled across the screen, she seemed to relax a little. Like she was suddenly less interested by what was going on around her.
When we started, she had been looking at me eagerly, a smile on her face. But as the machine went to work her eyes fluttered, and her face assumed a more neutral expression. She wasn’t helping her boyfriend, the most wonderful man in the world anymore, she was just helping a friend out, and she was clearly getting a little bored.
When the progress bar reached 100%, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks for helping me out, Ariel!” I said.
She tapped her foot impatiently. “That’s it, right? I don’t have to stick around anymore, do I?”
“No, you should be good,” I said. “Thanks for helping me out!”
“Hey, what are roommates for?” she said, slipping the helmet off of her head. “Let me know if you need any other help.” And she walked out of the room.
I did a fist bump when she was finally out of sight. It had worked!
Don’t get me wrong, even after all of that clinginess, I still cared a lot about Ariel. I knew why she was the way she was—anyone would have a little baggage after what she had been through!
But I needed time to myself. I needed space.
And Ariel, with her particular emotional scars, wasn’t going to provide that for me.
I did feel guilty about what I had done. To not only use her as a guinea pig for an experimental device, but to tear away important memories was probably unconscionable. Especially without telling her first.
I knew I would have to come clean about this when her memories came back. If they came back. I had never used the device on humans before. What worked on guinea pigs might not work on humans, after all.
I tried to push such worries away, and get my work done.
Let me tell you, it was amazing how productive I was that day. Ariel didn’t come in to bother me once!
I was so absorbed in my work, that I didn’t’ even notice how late it had gotten until I glanced over at the clock and saw that it was already midnight.
I knew I should probably try to get some rest.
So I went to the bedroom, and tried to get into bed with Ariel, but she sat up and let out a yelp of alarm when she saw me getting into bed.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” she said, pulling the covers up to cover herself.
Oh fuck. I had just went to the bed out of habit, but I hadn’t considered that she might not remember me. Having your roommate try to crawl into bed with you was a huge no no.
I tried to come up with an excuse.
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t doing anything weird. I was just checking on you,” I said.
She looked suspiciously at me, but shook her head.
“Well, I’m fine, thanks,” said slowly. “Is that all you wanted?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, gulping. “I guess I’ll just be going now.”
I turned and walked away, and she called out to me.
“Hey, Joel,” she said. “Thanks for checking up on me, I guess. I know I’ve been a mess after my last break up, but I’m glad I have a friend like you to support me if I need. I’m so happy we became roommates. I did a lot of thinking today, and I just feel so much calmer living here with you. So thanks for that!”
“Of course,” I said. “I care about you.” I wanted to say ‘I love you’, but I controlled that urge.
“I care about you too!” she said. “But don’t think that means I want you sneaking into my room without letting me know. Try knocking next time!”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” I assured her, as I left.
It felt so weird not going to the same bed as her. I was just so used to our nightly ritual of crazy hot sex, that I almost didn’t know what to do.
After futzing about for a bit, I converted our couch into a bed, and got the spare sheets from the linen closet and fell asleep alone, for the first time in a long time. It was so strange not being able to reach over, and run my fingers through Ariel’s hair, or cuddle with her.
In the morning, I was awoken by a weight on me.
I opened my eyes, and there Ariel was on top of me, hugging me like she never wanted to let go of me.
“Oh, Joel, babe! Why did you sleep on the couch? I know you probably got finished with your work late, but I wouldn’t have minded if you woke me up, crawling into bed. I missed your face this morning!” she said cheerily.
I breathed a sigh of relief. My girlfriend was back.
I was so happy that I hadn’t permanently erased our time together from her mind. How long had that lasted? At least six hours by my count. More research would be needed.
No!
What was I thinking? It was totally selfish of me to play with her mind like this.
I had to come clean with her, and tell her everything. I would do it. I would.
But first…
I had never been able to ask my guinea pigs what it was like to forget, and suddenly remember.
“I did try to join you last night, you got a little freaked out,” I said.
Ariel frowned a bit, and had a faraway look in her eyes. “Oh yeah, I guess you did. I must have been half-asleep or something, because I swear I thought it was weird and unexpected for you to be in my room.”
“Huh,” I said. “That is strange. Maybe I woke you from a dream or somethin?.”
“Yeah, it must be something like that,” she said, uncertainty in her voice. “Well, I’m so sorry babe! I’m going to make it up to you.” Then she gave me a devilish grin, and started kissing my neck. “In fact, why don’t I make it up to you right now?”
What followed dear reader, was one of the best fucks I ever had in my life. I don’t know if she was just extra sorry, and wanted to make it up to me, or if not being fucked last night somehow increased her arousal that morning, but let me tell you, I’ll never forget it.
Touching her was electric, like every inch of my skin just wanted to feel every inch of hers. I needed her, and when I finally slipped inside of her, and could feel her enveloping me, feel how wet she was, feel her muscles shudder at my touch I became an animal.
I loved everything about her in that moment. Her flushed skin, her breathing, the way it felt to move inside of her, the feeling of her breasts in my hands, the way she moaned and moved her hips in rhythm with me. Fuck, every time I think about it it gets me a bit worked up.
When I had kept her moaning and squirming with orgasm under me for a time, I finally grunted and pumped her full of cum. God, it was satisfying.
We stayed in bed after that, just enjoying the touch of each other’s skinning, relaxing to each other’s breathing and enjoying the afterglow.
And then it was off to work.
Ariel had a big photo shoot that day, and let me tell you, having seen the pictures, she was glowing a little brighter than usual that day. Like she had just had a ton of fun before the shoot.
As for me, I went off to the office for some work.
I was a little distracted that day, thinking about the implications of my device.
It worked. It actually worked!