The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Cameron had been consumed, for the past few days, in the investigation she had sworn she would undertake. The first few days of which had shown little progress; just a lot of time spent jotting in her notebook and then crossing it back out again.

Starting from a pulled back perspective, in which she had considered every student in the school she knew of a suspect to begin with; then doubled back to consider who was more suspicious than her first baseline, for any reason; she went baseline over baseline this way, building up, who was suspicious just because they were a student in a school where one of the students had done this; who was suspicious because they met that requirement and that had one additional point of suspicion going for them; or two additional points; or three—

Unsurprisingly, this approach had not gotten very far, which was why she abandoned it after about three days. There were too many students in school, even in a smaller school like Pine Ridge High. Starting from every student and then trying to narrow it down by thinking of individually suspicious things she had once seen took too long. It was too generalized. She could go on that way for weeks, and make no progress. Or she could change approaches.

It would be better to have a tangible suspicion. Some form of evidence, which would point her towards the most likely suspect. Instead of starting from everyone, and working back, she could start from a single person, determine if it was them or not, and if not, then move on to a next suspect until she had found the person who had really done it. That would be a much more efficient way.

Then it had taken Cameron about a day to figure out where she should look for that piece of tangible evidence that would point her towards someone concretely. The person she was looking for, who had invented the drug, had to be someone who was well-versed and knowledgeable in the science of chemistry; that was the only way they would have been able to synthesize a completely new kind of drug, especially one that could so effect, even permanently transform the human body reliably. Just from what Cameron had seen it do, it had to be a complex drug; which meant its creator really had to have a grasp of the science.

So that, finally, gave Cameron a lead; somewhere to look, something to follow up on. That next afternoon—it had only been five days of investigating, she was only five days in— she hung around school after last bell; as all the students were leaving and after they’d left, Cameron didn’t leave with them. Instead, she went to the chem lab, to take a look around.

She was at first a little disappointed to find that chemistry lab empty. But it would have been too easy, narratively easy, if she had found the culprit in the lab waiting for her. Things didn’t happen that easily in life; only in fantasies extrapolated from life.

Then, as Cameron started off walking around the room, looking, she worried. If whoever had created the drug had just created it and never come back to the lab—or if they came in and out of here in after hours, but never left any trace of themselves—then she would never be able to find them—

But before Cameron could worry too deeply about this, she came around the front table of the classroom, which looked out on all the laboratory counters with their stools, and which was scattered with teacher’s supplies—and there was something else, beyond just the teacher’s supplies and forgotten lesson plans.

There was a lab sign-in sheet.

Cameron felt a little hope starting up in her. That might be something. That might be really something. But only if that drug inventor had decided to leave a paper trail for her, conveniently, when they were doing something at the least immoral, possibly illegal. Would someone intelligent enough to invent a drug, and seemingly discover a new facet of science, really have been that careless? If they wanted to steal lab time, wouldn’t they have just... snuck in and back out again? Clearly they had no reservations about bending the rules; why would they go to the trouble of signing in...? Too easy... too easy...

But Cameron flipped through the pages of the sign-in sheet, flipping back, anyway—the sign-in sheet was for outside hours... either the morning before classes, lunch hour, or the mid-to-late afternoon after classes; clearly for students wanting to work on extra-credit projects or to do some extra-hands on studying.

Beside each student name, and sign-in and out time, there was a description box for detailing what they time allotment was for. Cameron had started at the present day, and moved back; patterns painted themselves for her as she skimmed the names and times. Some days no one booked time; some days multiple allotments were taken up; some people only signed up once, or twice, and then never again—clearly only needed just those one or two extra practical study times; and some people signed up for a dozen or more spots, working on special credit.

But each of these people’s projects were described, however briefly, in such a way that it was clear none of them were making a secret drug; every project sounded plausible, sounded real; just high school kids after high school kids working on small scale things for an extra five, ten, fifteen percent. There was nothing suspicious... everything had an explanation, everything fit...

Until Cameron got about a month and a half deep into the pages.

Then there was another name; many times; but only a cryptic description. “Exploratory time for my best student.” This, unlike all the other sign-in descriptions, had clearly been written in the hand of the teacher; and Cameron flipped back. This kind of signing in dated back to almost the beginning of the school year, but then it stopped, suddenly, with that last date from a month and a half ago.

Cameron wracked her brain... it was making her think of something... it was making her remember something... that date... that had been the date she’d walked past the basement access door... she’d made herself forget the occurrence, because she was weak, she was cowardly... but it had been that day, the day on which the drug’s inventor had handed it off to the mystery traitor amid the group of four... after that, this student, this name, had never taken another sign-in slot.

Cameron remembered harder, with greater concentration... the student had said that the traitor had caught them; so if they had been caught, and confronted on that day... and then if they had taken the one who had caught them down to the basement to make their offer... which Cameron had been just lucky enough to walk past; then that would explain why that student had never booked lab time again; and someone who the teacher themself had described as “their best student” definitely seemed like the most likely candidate for inventing a new drug, discovering newly faceted science.

The name that was written on that line for lab time on that last day was Ian Inell.

Cameron went through her database of mental info, collected through observation of the other students in the school, across years of being overlooked.

She remembered him; Ian Inell—he was fairly intelligent. Everyone knew that Autumn Schwartz was the most intelligent student in the school; and truth be told, Cameron had assumed Autumn would have been the chemistry teacher’s “best student” ... but, Ian was perhaps even more outcasted than Autumn and her group of other two outcasts. He kept only to himself; he moved like a shadow around the fringes of school life, much like Cameron. But no one ever saw Cameron, and Ian had always had at least one observer: Cameron.

And now, he was her primary suspect. But Cameron needed a little more on him; she resolved to track down the chemistry teacher.

The chemistry teacher, the one in charge of sign-in and out, the chemistry teacher who taught all the chemistry classes, at every year level, was Mrs. Alston, and Cameron thought her best bet might be to check the faculty lounge on the way out of the school. Just maybe, Mrs. Alston had stuck around past last bell, like her; and could answer those few questions she had outstanding. That little confirmation she was seeking; felt she was needing, before she could actually confront Ian.

There was no one else in the teacher’s lounge beside Mrs. Alston; one lucky break had led to a second... maybe luck was a thing that generated momentum and replicated more of itself.

“Mrs. Alston?” Cameron said, knocking briefly to the door and peeking in.

Mrs. Alston had been looking down at a stack of assignments on the cheap coffee table in front of the lounge couch she was sitting on; but looked up when she heard her name.

“Oh, Cameron,” Mrs. Alston, with a little relief. “You startled me. What are you still doing here?”

That was one thing Cameron could say. At least her teachers tended to remember her, because they had to. It was their job. And Cameron was a diligent enough student that she was usually well thought of by them... it was nice to be recognized; and Cameron did like Mrs. Alston, even if chemistry was one of those subjects where she tended to struggle.

“I actually just stopped by the chemistry lab,” Cameron explained. She took Mrs. Alston’s acknowledgement as invitation to step into the lounge and stand there, just past the inside of the door. “I wanted to see if anyone had booked time today; so I was looking through all the sign-in sheets for this semester. I noticed that it was mostly people signing-in once or twice and then not needing it again anymore after that; but there was one student that stuck out to me...”

Mrs. Alston did not interrupt to object to the fact that Cameron had been flipping through the sign-in sheets; she just looked at Cameron with inquiring eyes, and that gave Cameron the motivation to go on to the heart of her question.

“Ian Inell used to book time; he started on the first day of classes, and he kept booking time for the first month of school, and then suddenly, in October, he just stopped completely and he hasn’t booked any time since. And I noticed that he was the only one who didn’t book his own time; it looked like you reserved it for him.”

Mrs. Alston nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

“You wrote that he was your best student,” Cameron pressed delicately. “Is—?”

Mrs. Alston nodded again. “He is. Autumn Schwartz is about the only one who gets grades like his; sometimes she surpasses him... though lately she’s showed a disappointing performance. But with Autumn, I’ve always gotten the sense that chemistry is one more subject for her; she performs at that level in every subject. Whereas, with Ian, I get the sense that chemistry is his priority; he puts his greatest effort in this subject and only necessary efforts into his other courses. So, unprofessionally or not, that makes me rank him a little higher than Autumn. Though with Autumn’s performance tanking, he may end up being the highest graded in my senior level chemistry course after all.”

Cameron was pensive. “So when he was booking the time—?”

“Right,” Mrs. Alston nodded, remembering that they were talking about that. “The time he booked. The description I wrote of his project for the booked time was a bit of a joke between us, a way of showing him a little favoritism, since I knew he’d still be logging his start and stop times.

“With a student like Ian, who has such a natural affinity for chemistry, and who has an invested interest to match his affinity, eventually, they start outstripping what I can cover in this course; they get to a point that merits self-directed study. And Ian was doing so well, acing quiz after quiz, and he was getting to a point where he was so far ahead I could tell he was getting bored. So I wanted to help him keep learning; but trusted him to know what he next wanted to learn; so I just gave him a lot of free time in the lab; I reserved it for him day after day, let him know he had a standing invitation, and every morning I expected to find the start and sign-in boxes left empty, that he hadn’t used them, but day after day, he used up all available time; he stayed pretty late some nights. I was glad to see him so involved, applying himself so much.”

Cameron frowned. “But then what happened?”

Mrs. Alston shrugged. “He hit a plateau. It happens, especially for students, for anyone who has spent a month of such intensive study. There’s a point where the mind just can’t take in any further information and there must be a lull, a mental break before more learning at that level can take place. After a month, Ian entered that stage. He told me after his scheduled hour in the lab that he wouldn’t be needing the time anymore.

“And it worked out to be good timing anyway; no one else was trying to book lab time in the first month of the semester, when Ian was applying himself so dedicatedly... but around the time Ian stopped using the lab, other students wanted time in it. His grades have stayed where they’ve always been, gone up above it even, once or twice. So I assume Ian is onto other things. Maybe eventually he’ll want that dedicated kind of study time again; or maybe he won’t. It would sure be great if someone like Ian went on to professionally become a chemist, since he has the aptitude, and the enthusiasm, and I’ve met with him one on one to try and convince him of that, but that’s for Ian to decide...”

Mrs. Alston went on, but it was starting to make sense to Cameron. The pieces were starting to come together... a teacher had allowed herself to indulge her special appreciation for her best student (and now Cameron saw how Ian could be best over Autumn, even before Autumn’s dip in academic skill), she had given him free run of the chemistry lab for self-directed study. And the description Mrs. Alston had just given Cameron of Ian... someone with a natural talent for chemistry and a drive to match, someone leaving the curriculum far behind... all of that easily added up to someone who could invent his own drug if he wanted to... and if he had finished his inventing, and especially if he’d been caught, then he wouldn’t have needed the time anymore.

It was more than enough to justify a confrontation of the suspect, Cameron thought. Mrs. Alston had gone on talking but Cameron had stopped listening. She was nodding, and smiling as she went on, and when Mrs. Alston had reached a natural pause in her speech, Cameron fit her thanks and her goodbye into that time; and the next day, she kept an eye out for Ian that day.

He was along the fringes as always; turning a corner and moving out of sight just when Cameron came into an open space. She didn’t have many classes with him, so she only saw him now and then throughout the day... but her last class of that day was senior level chemistry, and that was one class she did happen to have with Ian.

She sat on the edge of her stool all class, thinking about what she would say, how she should say it; hoping she would have the chance.

When the last bell rang, announcing that it was time to go home, all the students, and Mrs. Alston too, started filing out with a customary hustle and bustle; but Cameron’s eyes were locked onto Ian. She was ignoring everyone else; and pulled Ian out of the lineup that was filing out of the lab.

Ian seemed shocked that someone had paid attention to him; she knew that feeling well, but she was more certain than ever that he was the party responsible for whom she had searched...

Ian stared at her for a moment, trying to place her. A common experience.

The last of their class had left them. They were alone in the lab now; Cameron couldn’t help but feel nervous about it. If Ian was the one who had invented the drug... and he had disliked being discovered before... maybe she’d been a bit rash confronting him by herself.

But it was too late now; she had to make the most of this moment.

“I’ve got my suspicions about you, Ian,” Cameron said; she let herself find her anger again... the anger which had made her vow at the beginning of this investigation... it made it easier to keep going. “I’ve got good reason to think that you invented a drug that triggers transformations in people. I overheard you—I’m sure it was you, when I saw your name, I placed your voice—offering the drug to one of those three who hang around Suzy Benton... I couldn’t tell who, but you made them agree to dose themselves and all their friends with it. I’m sure it was you,” Cameron repeated, plucking up more, pointing accusatorily at him. “I talked to Mrs. Alston, and I saw the sign-in sheets. You were logging a lot of lab time for the first month of the semester—and you conveniently stopped, right after you’d been caught by... whoever you gave the drug too, for use... it was you, I know it, so don’t—”

Ian pulled his arm out from under Cameron’s hand. “You’re right,” he said. “I did it.”

This was completely the opposite of what Cameron had expected from it. Her pointing hand dropped. “You’re owning up to it?”

Ian shrugged. “It’s such a headache to be caught. When I got caught last time, it was such a headache. I don’t feel like putting up any pretenses. You caught me—so now what?”

He leaned against the nearest chemistry station, one arm on the counter.

“What now?” Cameron repeated incredulously. “Now you make an antidote for your drug, that’s what now! And you tell me who you gave the drug to—who is dosing the others without their knowing—”

“I don’t think so,” Ian said, shaking his head affably. “I could; I know the formula for the drug backwards and forwards, I know where the starting place for the antidote would be, and I could get to it with a few days to a few weeks of serious effort... and everyone could change back to how they were before. But I won’t make it, because deep down, they don’t want to?”

Cameron stared. “What? Deep... down?”

“You don’t understand how my drug works, but maybe once you do, you’ll feel less like the hero sweeping in to save innocent victims.”

Ian reached into his pocket, and withdrew a small stoppered vial, which held a clear liquid.

“It doesn’t impact everyone the same way for a very simple reason. It picks up on the subconscious beliefs, the subconscious desires each person has about themselves. Any buried insecurities, or regrets about themselves are found, dug up; and addressed. So if you took it, anything your mind deems your biggest flaw, your biggest regret about yourself, would be corrected, without you having to intervene at all. It just gives you what you want—the version of yourself that you want. It’s that simple.”

Cameron shook her head. “No... there has to be an ulterior motive,” Cameron insisted. “Something you’re hiding... something you’re keeping back...”

“There’s nothing,” Ian said, with a shake of his head. A shake of his head, and then a shake of the vial in his head, which made the clear liquid inside glimmer... entrancingly. “It just finds your underlying regret, and resolves it. That’s all.”

He shook the vial again, with a shift of his hand. “I’ve kept working on the formula on my own, at home. It’s much more effective now. It doesn’t need to be administered over a long period of time anymore. It’s fast-acting. And it’s safe in a large dose; I’ve made it so it’s more easily accepted by the human body. Take it yourself; you’ll see.”

Cameron’s brow creased; in slight anguish; it sounded... like something incredible. She had a lot of regrets about herself, most of which she tried to keep out of her mind on a regular basis. But this sounded like a magical thing; something that could take all those regrets, and resolve them into their opposites, into their perfected states.

She knew what she’d seen happen to the others... who had taken it... she knew... but... but... she was tempted, anyway. To be perfected... who knew how that perfection might ripple out through the rest of her life. Maybe if she were perfected, she would not be so easily overlooked any longer... she was curious...

“If it’s so harmless,” Cameron said, a little breathy with fear. She tried to swallow it down. “Why haven’t you taken it yourself?”

Ian flashed a grin. “I don’t have a lot of regrets about myself. Especially not after inventing a miracle drug like this. But if you’re still concerned, you don’t need to be. The drug only lets you change as far as you’re willing to go. When you’re satisfied with yourself, in that deep underlying—what will be by then, former—place of shame, then you won’t change anymore.”

She had come here to confront him, but now what he was saying was making a strange kind of sense to her.

“Why do you think I wanted to invent a drug like this in the first place?” Ian asked. “I just want to make it possible for people to... perfect themselves.”

He had used the same language as she had—was perhaps thinking of it in the same way she did; as if he understood her motivation. If he did... it underlined his claim, made it seem true. If he had just made the drug out of sympathy...

“Alright,” Cameron said. “I’ll try it.” Her voice shook a little as she said it.

Ian put the vial in her hand.

Cameron unstoppered it. “I can just drink this all at once?” She eyed it questioningly.

“Yes, you can down it right down,” Ian confirmed. “It’ll show a pretty immediate effect.”

Cameron swallowed on air first. Then she swallowed the drug in a go.

With the vial empty, she set it back on the counter... and turned her attention inwards, paying close attention to each part of her body, watching for any trace of something that was beginning to change...

There was something. A shifting... a shimmering... she felt like there was some quantity of warmth inside her, tracing the inside of her body’s form, outlining it from underneath; it was a pleasant feeling, but it was doing something; it was lifting—elongating itself—and then she seemed to find her body morphing to extend around that stretching warmth, keeping it inside and moving with it. She was getting taller.

“Oh,” Cameron said, but it made sense to her. She had always resented her shortness... she had always wanted to be taller, but her height had always seemed stunted, had only gone to the 4′10″ that it was, and then stopped. She’d barely grown much beyond her size as a child; had always looked younger than she was.

But now she was going up. And up. Over five feet now... up... more like 5′5, probably... she was still... growing... this was perfection... the taller she got, the happier she was... that old regret had been so quotidian it had melted into the back of her mind, a constant sadness... and now she felt the inverse of that, felt joy instead of that constant self-regret.

She had stopped, and there was no reflective surface handy, but just from her vantage point, looking down, Cameron had to guess that her height had gone up to 5′8 or 5′9. Maybe she was even 5′10; the rest of her body had stretched with her height; she felt graceful, and long... she felt grand in her stature, she felt impressive, she felt important.

Maybe... it hadn’t been so wrong for Ian to make this drug... maybe... his motives had been clear. The only thing wrong was that the others hadn’t been given the choice, like she had... she still needed to know... who had done it to them... why was it getting so hard to... think?

She felt a headache start to split behind her eyes, and held to her forehead with her hand. “Why... what...?”

Ian looked at her approvingly. “I thought so. You don’t really want to remember everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve found out, do you?”

No... Cameron felt terror inside but it was true... that underlayer of her subconscious... it had been so easy to forget, to bury memory for a month, because she’d been more comfortable with that, even though that was wrong. And now... still... her mind still seemed to regret remembering, finding out, knowing... and she was... forgetting...

She clasped harder to her head, as if she could keep the memories inside that were dissolving. It was all going to go, she could already tell, it was getting foggy... overhearing Ian and the other... the changes she’d noticed in the others... the vow she’d made to make things right, to hold to account those who needed to be held...

“Didn’t you wonder why I admitted to everything?” Ian asked; he looked thoroughly entertained, as he was still leaning against the elbow-height counter beside him. “I never truly intended to let you leave this room knowing and remembering everything; I suspected that you wanted to forget, considering how long you took to even follow up on your first clues. You won’t remember my saying this. It will never even matter for you to know that the drugger was—”

“Barry Pierce,” Suzy said, speaking first, speaking at last after the long beats of silence which had followed the four of them withdrawing the vial from his bag. “Barry, how could you drug us?”

There was no shock or incredulity in her tone. She only felt... low. Deeply betrayed, deeply hurt; Barry. Sweet, affable Barry... goofy Barry, and he had done this to them. There was no anger. There was only something in her, limp and lying down, floored... when she spoke, she only sounded tired.

“I just wanted to help us all improve,” Barry said, sounding a bit defensive. “Ian told me it could make us all the ideal versions of ourselves. That’s all I wanted. And he told me it would only change us in ways we wanted to be changed. So, underneath it all... aren’t you guys a little happy... the things you’re most insecure about, they’re all gone now!”

A goofy grin, severely out of place.

“Barry,” Suzy said, in a serious, hurt tone. “This isn’t a fantasy. The kind of things that have changed for each one of us... they’re the kind of thing that it might be fun to daydream about having different... that doesn’t mean the reality of actually getting them is desirable!”

“But—you said—” he was talking to Magdalena know. “You told us you wanted to let loose more, to be able to relax and be reckless—and now you can, now you are, it was what you really wanted—”

“That doesn’t mean it was a good thing for me to want!” Magdalena threw out; looking wild as she raised her voice around the words. “I’ll ruin my parents!”

“And it doesn’t matter how much I felt insecure about my intelligence,” Autumn said, sadly. “Or how alienated it used to make me feel. I’m losing it forever... and I don’t know who I am without it...” Autumn shook her head. “I can’t believe I ever thought I loved you, Barry. And you drugged me! I can’t—be around you—”

Autumn pushed back from the table, and what started as a low-energy walk quickly turned into a run that left tears falling behind her.

Barry stared. “She—loved—?”

“I’m going to second Autumn’s sentiment,” Suzy said, pushing back too. “I don’t want to be in the same room as you, either.”

“I’ll third it,” Magdalena said, and got up more quickly, if, albeit, a bit more unsteadily.

Both Suzy and Magdalena left Barry all alone in the study room, and quickly vacated the school, too.

To Suzy’s deep frustration, she found her body had not stopped changing. The growth had slowed a bit again, from a cupsize and a half to just a single cupsize in a day. She moved through the C-cup series; then entered the Ds. She was a 30D, a 31D, a 32D, a 33, a 34... it just kept going on; her body spreading out to bear the weight, her breasts getting heavier, getting fuller, but no matter how much bigger, always perfectly shaped, and beautiful.

She could not refuse the word perfect, there was no other descriptor, and Barry’s words echoed in her mind. The most ideal version of herself... deep down, as he had also said, hadn’t she been disappointed in her own body? She’d always thought her breasts were so minuscule... it had been a deep insecurity, and it had been present at all times; though she’d rarely, at any time, thought it explicitly. It had just been something she’d gotten used to, a prism she’d accustomed to viewing herself through.

She felt, still, the unhappiness at her changing. But beneath, the feeling of being without that always present drone of self-judging... it felt so free... and when the gold came to brighten down onto her, it made it easier to be wild... to revel in wildness, until she remembered how necessary it was to hold on to the frustration.

But her breasts kept growing; and she couldn’t stop those sudden bathings of golden joy; they happened quickly, they happened frequently, and when they did happen, they overwhelmed her completely, leaving no room for complaint. When she felt gold, she felt easy... she didn’t worry about any of it any longer; even the growth of breasts as they kept going. 36D, 37D, 38D... she went into the double Ds, she was a 30DD, a 31DD... her body had accommodated the change; both breasts and body fit together, looked like they belonged. When she was gold, the only thing left behind was her pride at the beauty of her breasts in their new size... the relief at finally being without that internal judgement, that sadness about her appearance.

However, whether gold or normally-colored, there was a complication presented by the growth of her body. Her breasts seemed to stop at about a 34DD, and they didn’t grow anymore after that. But while her body had accommodated them at every expansion, her clothes had not done the same. She had been getting by with looser articles, but now even those were painfully too tight. The only things that could hold her now were things that tied with sashes, and even those barely did... she looked ridiculous, and would keep looking that way, until she got some clothes that could fit her.

But over the days, she found herself worrying less and less... about the fact she had been drugged... about the fact her body had transformed... it just felt so much better to enjoy things without thinking so much about them. To let herself follow whim after whim, only thinking of being entertained... She did need to think about what she was going to wear, think about solving the issue her lack of fitting clothes caused her.

Suzy went to the mall... while her breasts had still grown, getting new clothes had seemed like something she could, and should put off... if her breasts were going to keep growing more, she’d outgrow new, perfectly good clothes, too... just like her other, old clothes. And after wasting her saved up money on them, too.

She noticed a girl she thought looked like Autumn across the mall; she looked like she’d been hanging around there for some hours; but she was with a guy; and Suzy had to look twice, to confirm; she was sitting at one of the food court tables, kissing a guy who looked about her age in a patient way, as if she’d been doing it for a while, unaware of the other mallgoers moving past.

Suzy squinted; yes, it was Autumn, who stopped kissing the guy, and took him by the hand to leave the food court with them; Autumn looked behind her just as she moved to the food court’s limits, and Suzy was sure Autumn had seen her. She hesitated for just a second. If Suzy had needed any confirmation of the gulf that had collapsed into the between-space of their friendship, what Autumn did next surely would have given it to her. She did not smile, did not turn all the way around to come back across the way, to say hello or express delight at seeing the girl who had once been her best friend. She looked, she hesitated; she turned away and kept walking without paying Suzy one more minute of attention.

Suzy felt the change in their relationship inside, too. She didn’t even feel all that sad that Autumn had chosen to ignore her. She was more concerned with her mission for that day; she wanted her new clothes. She wanted them as soon as they could be gotten.

She started with her underwear; she needed more chest support now, with her heavier assets; but the pieces she found herself selecting were not the kind of practical, sensible underwear she usually chose for herself. She was drawn to lacy things... black things... frivolous things... satin things... all in deep shades... black, red... or bold shades... gold, tan, silver... shimmering white; satin that shimmered when it moved, reflecting highlights of overhead lighting in the changing room of the lingerie store; when she wore all these things, even under her other ill-fitting clothes, they put her back in touch with that feeling of being carefree, and happy.

Why shouldn’t she be happy? What was there to be unhappy about? She had her perfect body, the one she’d always wanted, and with her breasts wrapped tight in one bra, or another, they looked even better. And they felt better, getting the support they needed to bear their weight.

Her favorite bra was the black lace one she got; the cups left a strip of bare skin arcing up higher than her nipple; so there was lace, and lace, transparent, and then suddenly a flash of arcing skin. It made her feel like she was... adventurous. Exciting... ready for new things, prepared to embark upon them.

She was happy with what she would have under, but she ventured into other stores in search of her other attire. The tops she chose were similarly fun-loving and fancy-free; not loose like the kinds of shirts she had worn before. She chose tops that clung, that seemed to re-sculpt the form of her body in fabric; tops that slipped off her shoulders, tops that cut low, and let her cleavage bulge out. There was really no hiding her breasts completely; but she chose to accentuate them.

She also got for herself a set of dresses; these clung, and hugged, and swaddled her breasts in a way that showed them off impressively. The kinds of bottoms she chose were almost an after-thought, but even there she chose things that took a little risk, engaged in a little scandal. Skirts a little too short or tight that flirted with riding up, hugging a bit higher on her leg... then a bit more... then a bit more still. She got that same spark of fun every time she saw the cloth wrinkle and get a little higher. She chose jeans that hugged to her legs; to her hips; everything she put on drew the eye back to her chest; anyone who saw her in any one of her outfits wouldn’t be able to help but notice the attractiveness of her body.

She found that idea excited her, too. If the guys in school looked at her; saw her in all of these, they would notice her body. Maybe they would want her body. And she’d been long single... maybe she was, after all, ready for a fun fling. Something as adventurous, as light as wearing these clothes made her feel. Something golden.

Someone who would appreciate her breasts would be nice. Who would pay them some attention. She looked at herself in the changing room mirror, in the outfit she had most recently ended up in. A soft, light, bluey green that seemed springlike; which felt even softer in texture.

It cupped around each breast, but the neck dipped low enough to let the sides of her breasts show; to let the underband of her bra peak out in the center of her neckline’s lowest point. A similarly soft skirt that was in a delicate purple; this highlighted the blue tint found within the green-blue color of her shirt. She felt a thrum of pleasure at the thought again... the thought of hands feeling her up, a mouth kissing her there, or sucking...

The thought of flinging like that stayed in her head as she completed her purchase; wore that last outfit out of the store. She reveled in the looks she got on the walk back out of the mall, and through pine ridge. Even for a day still so late into the fall, it was warm, she could get away with clothing that showed so much skin; it gave her a feeling of power she had before only gotten from running and her other athletic endeavors.

She still thought of flinging, all the way home, and thought of it so much that night lying in bed before sleep that, eventually, thinking of it naturally and gradually mutated into fantasizing about it—then half-heartedly masturbating to it, in a happy, pleasured daze that had no urgency, was in no way rushing towards any release. And that dreamlike touching of herself seemed to transition naturally into actually dreaming, and in the dreams of her sleep, Suzy thought again of the light frivolity a fling would provide her. Dreamed it... and dreamed it.

Autumn’s grades continued to plunge downwards. She’d abandoned all pretenses of studying; and openly spent all her time outside of school going to and from the mall, and between that, hanging around there.

There were cute boys at the mall; they looked at her, just for the way she walked, and held her body, in each movement and each stance. And their attention didn’t scare her anymore. When they looked at her, she let them; would sometimes stop and stand there just for a moment, for them to enjoy... and then she would find the courage in herself easily to over towards them... to say something self-deprecating; years of insecurities made this easy, but it came off charming and humorous; and it was an easy hop from there to giving them light touches; light kisses; making out with them.

She found it more interesting than things from old days, old selves; she was learning something more valuable, to her mind. Learning the landscape of a new boy’s body in kisses. Learning how much she could enjoy that.

It still bothered her, though, sometimes, that she had once been so smart and was now, no longer. She knew she was clinging to the past to do it; but she reconvened the study group one afternoon without Barry. She still hadn’t forgiven him, but when Suzy sat, she took a look around. “No Barry?”

This surprised Autumn. “You’re asking for Barry?”

Suzy shrugged. “I’m not so mad at him anymore... it just doesn’t seem like that big a deal. Why be upset about it, when I could be happy instead? If what he said was true, if he was given reliable information by the person who gave him the drug... then it was our own minds that decided how they wanted us to be changed. At least as far as I’m concerned, it worked out well for me... I’ve got the kind of body I always used to dream I would have someday.”

Autumn took a look down at the body Suzy had spoken of with such pride and delight. It had clearly changed, even further beyond where Autumn had last seen it, when Suzy had stood to confront them all. Her breasts had to be double Ds, by now; and Suzy dressed as if she wanted to demonstrate that fact. She was wearing a light yellow soft woven shirt today; it looked comfortable, but it dipped in a low arc that almost completely showed the fronts of Suzy’s breasts while just barely concealing her nipples; her pants were less notable, just a light tan to look good below that shirt. Suzy had to be feeling glad that Pine Ridge didn’t have a strict dress code policy; and that even the lax one they did have was not enforced.

Autumn did not feel at all ashamed next to Suzy, though. She knew her own quality of attractiveness, of sexual power, was not so easily tied to her body, but to her newfound, newly liberated spirit; and that had as much magnetism as an outstanding body like that. But she didn’t feel quite so ready to seek out Barry’s companionship again. In the moment they had discovered his betrayal, she’d felt herself falling out of love with him, even such a long love as the one she’d held and nursed past all rationality.

“Well, I don’t miss him,” Magdalena said. Her brown hair was loose; a section of it fallen in front and covering half her face. “I don’t care if we never see him again; if we keep this group just to the three of us.”

Suzy shrugged, unbothered. “Fair enough. Autumn, did you want to get us started?”

Autumn opened her textbook. She was still study group leader, even if their study group was down a member permanently. That meant she had to concentrate. She had to focus. She had done this all the time, done this on so many occasions, day after day... why couldn’t she do it now? Why was she only staring at the textbook page?

This caused her no lacking amount of internal turmoil, but she forced herself to go on as if she had been the girl from before, the girl who was study group leader.

They all had their math textbooks open; Magdalena and Suzy were watching Autumn with waiting expectant eyes.

Autumn started to read the first math problem on the page, aloud; but she found her mouth stumbling over the words; there were terms she didn’t recognize, couldn’t place anymore... every symbol was a nonsensical sign, and her voice wavered as she spoke; she had no authority anymore, because she knew she was a fraud; knew she had no idea what she was talking about.

Neither Suzy nor Magdalena seemed to notice, though; she had faked her way through it, even despite the fact that she had admitted to them the way in which she was changing. Maybe now if she told him her intelligence was coming back, they would believe her. She could fake her way through this.

She read out-loud problems that she forgot as soon as they were spoken; and when she had read all the way down the page, and left both Suzy and Magdalena to start jotting solutions into their notebooks, she never even bothered picking up her pencil. She was still staring at the first problem with uncomprehending eyes; staring it harder, as if she could see behind it and suss out the meaning at last.

It was when Magdalena ran into a difficulty, the fifth problem in, that her charade fell apart. As Magdalena had done so many times, she phrased her difficulty as a question and posed it to Autumn.

But when Autumn came around the table, as she had also frequently done, the numbers were as nonsensical on Magdalena’s page as they were on her own. She stared at them, chewing at her lip, twirling a string of her hair. Magdalena watched her trustingly; but Autumn knew this was the point at which she could not maintain the illusion any further. She simply didn’t have this knowledge now; she could not provide it to anyone else given that she couldn’t even get it for herself.

Accepting this should have been grim resignation; but instead she felt paralyzed in the moment. Admitting that she couldn’t do it felt like a damnation; she would be condemning herself into an existence in which she would never again be able to do this, and she couldn’t actually make herself say the words that would acknowledge that reality as so.

“Autumn?” Magdalena prompted. “Did you hear me?”

This broke her paralyzation; it thawed her frozenness to running water, and the water that was running was streaming from her eyes, even though internally she was still caught up. “I c-can’t, Magdalena,” Autumn said. “I can’t tell you how to do this. I don’t... know this stuff anymore...”

She left Magdalena’s side of the table with a laborious stepping, and sat back down in her chair with utter defeat; when she’d flopped to stillness, she found the tears still coming, and then found herself crying them more actively.

Even through a blur of tears, she could Suzy and Magdalena looking at each other.

“Is there any point in even having this study group anymore, then?” Magdalena asked. “If you can’t even do math... if your intelligence has been that affected...”

Autumn cried harder. She wished she’d never told them about her dwindling intelligence; wished it could be private and only known to her, if Magdalena was going to throw it back at her with such lack of care. She could still see them for those moments that her eyelids were apart.

“You were supposed to be the one helping us get smarter, make better grades. If you can’t do that anymore, and if Barry’s not welcome anymore, anyway, then we may as well just disband the group entirely and go our separate ways.”

Suzy nodded, wearing a look of consideration; Autumn’s sobs reduced to snivels. The thought of not seeing Suzy or Magdalena did not bother her so much as it once might have; she’d barely seen them since the day they’d all discovered and confronted Barry. They had been her friends, once. Suzy had been her very best friend. But Autumn didn’t really think of them that way. She’d fallen out of love with Barry all at once, but she’d fallen out their friendships’ love more slowly, in her friendships with Suzy and Magdalena. Going so long keeping her distance from them... on some level suspecting them of what Barry had actually done... she’d gotten used to having them out of her life. It didn’t sting to think that might be a permanent thing.

The thing that made her sad now was that she could not hide from her own reduction of intelligence. Once, in this exact room, she had commanded authority, dispensed knowledge, answered every question without batting an eye.

And now she couldn’t. She wasn’t that person anymore, she didn’t know those things she’d known. It was over; the nail in the coffin. Autumn Schwartz was no longer the smartest girl in her grade; had little to no chance of making valedictorian any longer, either. It was too late; and as she felt herself accepting that, she almost felt the beginnings of peace.

She could admit it to herself now. She had only barely said it before; but she could think it fully. It had been lonely to be smart; it had been sad to be mocked for it; secretly, she had wished to be average, to meld with the crowd and become interchangeable. Safe from mockery, more easily able to get along with the other students, and to fit in with them. She had felt it was wrong to feel that way, when she’d been gifted with such a capacity for knowledge and learning. But now that it was gone, she could let go of that identity, and just let herself... be glad... that it was gone. All the burdens that came with it were gone too.

She wiped the tears from her face. “You’re right, Magdalena,” she said; her voice was still a little thick from the crying. “We don’t need to meet and study together anymore. We can all just... go our own ways.” Even the word ‘separate’ seemed a little long to say.

Suzy stood first. “It was nice knowing you,” she said, by way of goodbye. “Good luck with... wherever you’re going next.”

Autumn new Suzy meant, ‘in life,’ but she knew where she was going next, and it wasn’t going to take luck. Next up for her in the medium term was flunking out of senior year; then beyond that, officially entering the adult world with no prospects. She didn’t have work history... her parents had agreed the most important thing to center was her studies, and now she wouldn’t have those...

But that was the medium term. In the immediate term, right after leaving Pine Ridge that day, Autumn was going back to the mall; there were no boys looking at her yet, today, but she didn’t mind. It was nice when there were, but she liked looking at the pretty clothes... so much easier to understand than math problems, and she seemed to have a budding fashion sense that made window shopping more fun, imagining possible combinations of pieces of clothing which could go together and make new outfits.

As she was lingering outside the glass display casing of the mall’s department store, she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder.

She turned towards its owner; a professional, but pretty looking blonde woman a bit taller than her, wearing a stylish gray dress.

“I’ve seen you around this mall the past few weeks,” the woman explained. “My name is Heather Simon; I work with Pine Ridge’s modeling agency. Would you have time to talk with me a bit... about posing for a shoot? You’ve got a real unconventional look... the kind of face and body that’s just different enough to be memorable; to leave an impression. And you have an engaging energy about you. Something a little playful, a little seductive. Will you let me buy you a coffee?”

Autumn let her, and followed Heather back to coffee kiosk in the food cart. When they sat at a table a few steps away, Autumn let herself actually think about it; Heather was saying a lot of things, but most of them went over her head. Something about having her do one shoot and seeing what the local response was... but they’d let her try on pretty clothes.

People who thought about clothing combinations would give her outfits they had designed. She’d been liking pretty clothes more and more lately... the thought of being able to wear them, and show them off, for a little money... even with the small amount that Heather mentioned to her, only a few hundred for a small shoot, Autumn could start buying herself new clothes, prettier clothes. She wouldn’t have to window shop anymore, and the fact that her parents didn’t give her an allowance wouldn’t have to stand in her way anymore.

She let herself think about it. Modeling... she’d never considered it... but the more she thought about it, the more she liked it.

Cheer practice came around again the next morning; it was a Friday, at least; Magdalena was finding it harder and harder to wake up with each newly dawned day. Magdalena managed to keep it together when she was calling out formations, when she was leading drills.

Muscle memory took over; and though she had largely stopped her rigorous exercise, she had been pleased to find that her body had kept itself tight; she had stayed at the level of fitness she’d been at before, though she was no longer actively contributing to it.

It was easier to keep focus during cheer; that was all about moving her body, and she had always liked dancing; it was fun, it felt good to move freely and feel the freedom in each kick and spin and jump. Classes were harder... they weren’t fun, they were not a good time at all; and she cared less and less about things that weren’t good times these days.

After cheer was better than the practice itself. Every time she hoped, and was rarely disappointed, that three cheerleaders she liked to do drugs with—Michaela, Brenda, and Tia—would feel like using.

Once they were all in the locker room again post practice, Magdalena got herself back into her everyday wear; but she was still hoping a little on her heels when she asked Michaela, “Did you bring anything for us to try today?”

Michaela nodded, and dug in her purse. “I got some more weed from my connection last night. Feel like rolling a joint?”

Magdalena nodded eagerly, and rolled one like an expert. Since she was already the one in the rolling position, it was only courteous of her to roll a joint for Michaela, Brenda, and Tia.

The pungent smell that Magdalena was getting from the mossy mess had Magdalena thinking this was a slightly better quality of marijuana; she hadn’t been smoking it consistently until recently, but in that time she’d really applied herself, and she thought she could already tell one quality difference from another.

When she had rolled all four joints, she passed them out to her three new companions.

Michaela produced a silver lighter, and with it, created a flame she touched to the end of Magdalena’s joint.

Magdalena inhaled deeply and felt the first effects of intoxication coming into her mind; then she exhaled the smoke again. It confirmed her suspicion. Something about it felt a bit purer; there was something sharper about the high that was beginning inside of her.

“Is this a better grade of marijuana?” Magdalena asked to Michaela.

“Yeah, I sprung for something a little more expensive this time. You like it?”

Magdalena inhaled deeply once more; the high was getting stronger with each suck of laced air; she nodded eagerly, and exhaled again. She could do it so smoothly now; when she’d started, she’d coughed on almost every inhale and spluttered a lot of the most concentrated clouds away.

“Depending on how high you’d like to get,” Tia said; she kept her joint in place by pressing her lips more tightly around it; and reached into her pocket; she withdrew a ziploc full of pills. She shook the bag to make its creases go out; all the pills shifted inside. “We could crush them up and snort them; or just swallow a bunch of them. I took a bit of a grabstash from my mother’s medicine cabinet. I think she might be on a prescription for every kind of psychiatric drug on the market; it should make for a fun time.”

Magdalena let her hand fall to the counter in front of the changing room sink; they were all gathered there, in front of the mirror that sat behind it; her joint, half-smoked, was still perched between two of her long fingers; but she looked in fascination at the proffered bag of pills.

Smoking a joint of marijuana was routine for her by now; sometimes she smoked two, or three of them in this unwinding time before the day’s classes began. She knew what to expect, knew how it always went.

But this was a complete unknown... maybe a little dangerous... were you even supposed to crush pills up and snort them? And were you supposed to mix random, unknown pills with each other, let alone take some great quantity of them?

It seemed like a big risk... she’d never taken such a reckless drug trip before; and especially not before classes. If they all got that high it would likely mean skipping class; losing track of time, leaving the premises of the school, getting into who could only guess what, if they blacked out...

But it sounded like so much fun. It definitely sounded more enjoyable than the thought of sitting in class after class trying to find focus through the fog of her high. She didn’t care what might come as a result of the decision; she wanted to try it.

She ground out her joint, threw the unsmoked half into the trashcan under the sink. “Let’s try what Tia brought,” she encouraged the others; they followed her lead, extinguishing the flames of their joints and letting them also fall into the trashcan. None of them were worried about being caught; Pine Ridge didn’t ever come down hard on students for doing marijuana, even if they were caught doing it on school grounds.

Magdalena wasn’t thinking of her joint or the high she already had as soon as her joint was discarded. She was turned to new possibilities; excited for each one.

Tia gestured for Magdalena to hold out her hand, and when Magdalena did, she shook a dozen or so pills into it.

“I liked what you said first,” Magdalena said, when all four of them were cupping pills. “Crushing some up and snorting them.”

“Why don’t we do both? Just to cover our bases,” Brenda suggested. “Crush and snort like, six. And then swallow the rest.”

Magdalena set six pills out on the counter behind them; she had her purse at her feet, and picked it up to get her compact mirror out of it. The thin plastic disk it provided when it was sealed up was hard enough that she got the six pills on the counter into a thin powder with very little effort, for which she was grateful, because she was all about immediate gratification these days.

Immediate gratification was exactly what she got when she snorted the powder up from along its line on the counter. She felt it hit her brain; she was already hallucinating when she put the other six pills onto her tongue, and swallowed them; the colors of the walls, the room, everything around her was bleeding like paint; thick, running; the sight of it only made her want to laugh.

She felt like she was flying; and then saw herself moving over land, over oceans of paint like the kind she had first seen run; then she was dizzy, and then she was spinning... and then she was a star-burst sending out star-rays through voids, and then she was standing in the bathroom again when she heard one of her friends speak again. She couldn’t tell which of her friends it was, but the four of them were laughing together and stumbling out of the bathroom; one of them drifting back into a hallucination so the others had to lock arms with her and keep her upright; if all of them fell into hallucination at once, they fell to the floor. But they were leaving school; to chase their high.

Suzy had felt a strange energy building in her all day long. It was close to how she’d been feeling for the past few days; excited about the possibilities before her, a little eager to fling, and appreciating the attention being turned on to her given her new body and way of dressing. She could remember being upset about having change, but the feelings were not accessible to her any longer. She was enjoying herself too much.

Today, which was Friday, she was wearing a dress. She hadn’t worn dresses a lot before, but she liked them quite a bit now. The one she had on today had a flirty skirt; just a sliver too short, a deep orange color with a white dotted pattern on it in diagonal diamonds. It was a strappy dress, and the neckline came a little low; she’d chosen it today because it was, again, a warmer day, and she hadn’t had the chance to wear it yet after buying.

She was certainly getting a lot of attention in it as she went through her day; mostly from the other senior boys. She felt herself flushing with pride at every look; liked them also for what they signified. All those guys looking at her made her feel she had her pick of any one of them; by paying attention to her in this way, they were showing their interest, showing her that they were available to her, if she wanted to step over their way and engage them. She thought she just might.

She was feeling that loose and easy feeling; that happiness that just rolled through her. Her body felt good, she felt good; she wanted to do something with it. And the more she noticed the boys noticing her, the more she felt increasingly heated under their gazes. By the time she had gotten to lunch, she was feeling a bit bothered. There was so much trapped energy inside her, buzzing beneath her skin, and she needed some way of getting it out. She wanted to move her body; she wanted to feel good, and burn some of that energy off, alleviate it.

So as she was walking to her next class, she let herself pay closer attention to the ones who were watching her, as she went down the hall. She was entirely sure what she was going to do with anyone that she chose. But she told herself that any such guy would be good at least for a few stolen kisses before classes... though the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that kisses might somehow fall short.

The guys she watched back as they watched her were all attractive enough in various ways; some of them had different styles of attractiveness. They were all definitely cute; some of them were the kind she once would have admired from afar, the kind she couldn’t have gotten in her old body.

But one boy in particular stood out to her; and Suzy stopped walking behind an open locker across the way from him; trying to make it look like she was waiting to talk to the girl in front of the open locker beside her; just so she could have a moment to scope him out and think him over.

He was only an inch or two taller than her; a 5′4 height or a 5′5 at most; everything about him was a little average. His hair was blonde, but a dustier color than her own; his eyes were green, and the t-shirt he wore was also; he’d chosen tan shorts, clearly feeling the warmth of that day too, or at least he had been when he’d been getting dressed this morning.

He was nice enough to look at; she was trying to cast him subtle glances in between maintaining her cover of waiting to talk to the girl next to her that she didn’t even know. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to know she was looking just yet.

He was nice enough to look at, she confirmed again... but some of the other boys she’d walked past had been better looking. So what was it about him?

There was something in his eyes, she decided. Something that matched with how she was feeling; when he looked at her, that same look that said he wanted to use his body, he wanted to feel good... but he seemed like he would be easy about it. Whatever happened between them would just be about what happened between them... it wouldn’t have to be any larger or more important than that... none of the other boys had had that look in their eye, that said they felt exactly like she did. So Suzy decided he was the one she wanted; though she didn’t think she’d ever particularly noticed him before today.

She turned from the locker and walked across the way.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Suzy.”

He nodded at her. “I’m Thane.”

He seemed surprised she’d actually come up to him, but there was an interested gleam in his eye. Idle fantasy had translated into active wanting.

She was floating on air—feeling that light, and joyful inside. This never would have been so easy for her before, but it couldn’t have been simpler.

“Did you want to spend a little time together, Thane?” She asked coyly. It seemed to come naturally to her now. “I’m feeling good, but I think I’d like to feel better. You think that could be something that we do together?”

Thane’s eyes flashed in understanding. “I definitely think that can be done,” he assured her.

She smiled winsomely; the kind of smile she’d needed to rely on before her body had become an attention magnet in its own right. She was sure the affect had to be more dazzling now.

“That was just what I wanted to hear. Let’s find somewhere to go.”

She didn’t know the extent of what they were going to do together, or how long they would be; but bell for next period had to be ringing any moment; so there was a good chance she was going to completely miss the class that she had scheduled; but Suzy didn’t care about that. More than anything, she wanted to do this; to clear the buzzing, humming demand beneath her skin away, and let her body revel in jubilation.

They went down the hall together, and Suzy pulled him by the hand; not caring for the consequences of being seen holding his hand. They peaked into a few rooms; most had teachers waiting in them, and early arriving students overeager for next period to start. So far, no luck.

Then Suzy thought of the old study room; there’d never been any sign of use in it, even after weeks and weeks. It had seemed like the only people who had ever gone in there were the four of them, from that old former friend group.

“I think I know a place,” she told Thane over her shoulder; she hurried them in that direction, and just as they reached the door, the bell to start the next class period rang.

Suzy didn’t hesitate; she knew she wanted to do this more than she wanted to go to her next class. She dropped Thane’s hand, and opened the door to the classroom.

He went in first; she followed him, and closed the door behind her. As she had expected; there was no one inside the classroom, and the two tables were still pushed together in the center of the room from the very last time the study group had, and would ever, meet.

He seemed to naturally gravitate to the tables, as if they were some marker to confirm he’d gone far enough into the room and didn’t need to venture further. She met him there.

“So do you—”

She put a finger over his lips. “Let’s just feel good together, like I said. We don’t have to worry about anything else.”

She was the one to start the kiss; and though Thane was a little taken aback at first, within a few seconds, he was more concerned with kissing her back than he was with anything else.

Suzy sighed into his mouth. This felt right; like what she had been looking for, everything she had been needing and craving when she’d decided to let herself start looking back. She felt the kiss with Barry earlier had only been a pre-cursor to this. There had been a little heat and passion in it; it had been the first flutter of sexual interaction for her in a long time, and she had enjoyed it on a level of simplicity and ease. This was like that, now, but it was more.

Thane’s arms twined around her body and pulled Suzy closer—Barry had never done that, this was better; their mouths were open onto each other, and their tongues shot electricity through their bodies with every touch; as their bodies twisted in a half-sway, a moving with every shift of their heads, a moving to make sure they were always inclined to each other, always finding the best angle. Suzy had her hands in Thane’s hair, holding his face closer to hers by his hair, and she understood what she really wanted.

The buzz was something she could understand now.

She had a niggling little craving... she needed more, more pleasure; she needed to scratch down on it, she needed to satisfy. Her whole body was thrilling with every brush of their tongues, every feel of his hands, or arms, or his body when her hands wandered down from Thane’s hair to stroke at his chest through his shirt. It was niggling at her, and she was only going to get more frustrated the longer she went without getting the alleviation she had come in here for. She wanted to fuck, she wanted to burn all this desperation out of her body and wash it down with relief, with the quenching flame of orgasm.

She shifted Thane back against the table, and kissed him harder; she had her hands running along the skin of his arms, and she felt it raising itself under them. She kissed like a demand, now, kissed, and kissed... she wanted this, she didn’t think she’d ever wanted sex quite so much—she slid her hand around, and palmed him through the fabric of his shorts.

He was already hard when her hand found him, and she pulled her lips away and opened her eyes to look at him as she felt him in her grip. “Is this okay?”

Thane looked a little flushed. “Very okay,” he confirmed with a harried nod. “Don’t st—”

Stop, he had been about to say, but she cut him off; the zipper of his shorts was easy to get down; the button of his boxers, easy to undo, and then her hand was directly against his dick.

She worked him for a moment, shifting a closed fist around him back and forth along his length, making his skin roll with her.

Thane let out a grunt, but she released him briefly.

With one hand, she lightly pushed him back into sitting on the table’s edge. Her other hand came to her mouth, and she spat forcefully into it; Thane visibly twitched between his legs when she did, and then she put her now slick hand back around him to roll him some more.

He more audibly moaned this time, and Suzy felt some of the relief she’d already been seeking. She was enjoying doing this so much, enjoying how much he was enjoying this, enjoying her ability to give him that enjoyment. It was fun to be a sexy thing like this, to enjoy this act of sexual play in such a carefree way.

She wanted to taste his mouth again, and feel his tongue, so she put her mouth to his, and kept kissing him, her face upturned a bit to kiss him now because of the height of the table; her other hand kept sliding him, and he moaned between kisses and during them, and that set a tingle in her. She felt the vibrations of his vocalizations; they got into her body; she felt them inside her mouth, she felt them get into her chest, and she was more eager than ever.

He was slick enough, she didn’t want to wait anymore. She was so glad she had worn a dress today. She hadn’t entirely planned to come in here and do this; she had certainly never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would fool around at school, let alone have sex there, but the feeling had just come over, and she hadn’t been able to hold it back any further. She’d just wanted the resolution; she didn’t care what obligations she was ignore, what she was missing, what the cost would be. She only wanted to be here, right now, with them.

She rolled her underwear down roughly with the shove of one hand; she was plenty slick between her legs too; the feeling of his tongue, his body, his twitching dick in her hand had more than seen to that.

Suzy kissed Thane more fiercely. Then she raised herself, getting her knees on either side of his thighs. His mouth followed her; now he was the one with face slightly upturned to keep the kiss going on; her hand was still on him, but her entrance was hovering just above his tip, and with her hand already in place, it was more than easy to guide him right where she needed him to be. She had him lined up perfectly, and when she did, she put all her weight down onto him, lowering until he was seated inside her.

He let out a grunt as she accepted him into her body. She was glad, in that moment, for her birth control pills; glad she took them for her skin, for the regulation of her hormones, because it meant she was covered in an unexpected moment like this; she was sure Thane had expected this out of his day even less than she had, so likely wouldn’t have had a condom at all. But she didn’t have to worry about that, or anything. Thane was inside her, and everything was right.

She let herself start rolling with her body, riding him, thrilling now not from his tongue but from every shift inside her body.

Her body. Had it ever felt energized like this, exalted like this? She rocked her hips more excitedly into his, driving him deeper up inside her. He was breathing heavily, and so was she... she let her head fall back, her neck arcing out, and her shifting loosely with the motion. She’d only had it in a loose bun so it flopped easily when she did send her head back.

Thane’s hands came up—he slid the straps of her dress from each of her shoulders. Her breasts were still big enough, such that they could hold the top of her dress up easily on their own; so Thane had to roll the top of it down; and then he quickly unclasped her bra, and she felt the air on her, and closed her eyes into the touch when Thane’s hands set down on each tit.

She squeezed her eyes shut; it was her time to moan, because Thane was digging into her, deep up inside, but his mands maneuvered and manipulated each breast at a time. Rolling, squeezing, kneading, working; a moan escaped her throat and she felt it completely as it was coming up; she had moaned throatily, and she wasn’t stopping, because he wasn’t stopping.

She hadn’t known it would feel this good... she had so far mostly been appreciating her breasts on the basis of how they looked, especially when she dressed them up right. She had not, until this moment, thought about how they felt. But they seemed more sensitive now that there was so much of them; she felt like she was spilling out between his hands no matter how many handfuls he burrowed into her, even as she was spilling more and more enthusiasm down around his dick, getting onto the table, as she got tighter around him all the time... her chest heaved and her breasts heaved with it, further up into his hands.

He bent himself, shifting the angle of himself inside her, and she cried out as she felt him scrape against soft inner tissue in just the best spot; but he had shifted to get his lips to her nipple, and he pulled it into the swirling of his mouth, his longue lapping and circling, entwining around it; while still his other hand danced on her other breast, the left one; and his first hand stayed higher up on her right breasts, squeezing and pulling at grips of it higher up her chest, at the place her breast emerged from below her collarbone.

The feeling was intense; her breasts were giving her so much pleasure; and everywhere in her body she felt so good... she’d wanted to feel good when she’d looked out for a partner, but she hadn’t known she could feel this good. Sex had never been like this. She’d always liked it, but it had never been particularly impressive, had never really driven her to these heights of pleasure.

This was different. This was something she could enjoy with her entire body, something that made her feel like she was some kind of fantasy woman, and that role was so entertaining to occupy. To have a body that was so responsive; to have a partner—she thought it was the first time she’d ever been with a guy quite like Thane who paid her so much attention— give her so much pleasure... she thought it was the best sexual experience she’d ever had, and if all sex could be like this, she definitely wanted to have more of it. She didn’t care if she ever went back to dating seriously.

If she could just go on enjoying her own body this way, moving from guy to guy, finding whoever she could that was interested in going along with her. Everything about it just made it such a wonderful experience... she didn’t want to stop moving this way, completely intuitively, completely on sensation.

Thane’s hand dropped to the place their bodies joined, and he teased the bundle of nerves above her opening, turning her clit and rolling it gently between several fingers and his thumb, spreading some of the lubrication she’d spilled, up, smoothing it around, making her whole body feel like it was sparking.

She rocked harder onto him; his mouth was firm against her right nipple, his other hand working her left breast, his right hand at her clit; she felt more than anything that she was the one driving the pace despite all his attentiveness; she set the pace of their thrusts, she felt with each rock she was sending her breasts into his mouth, into his hand; sending her clit into his other hand; put her pussy around him.

She rocked harder; her pleasure was cresting, and she felt him shaking inside her. They barely knew each other, but their bodies seemed to have found the way to sync up; Suzy knew from past experience how difficult that could be, had been with other partners, but everything about this was lined up perfectly, and with one more tweak of her clit, she shattered in her pleasure, breaking into orgasm with a cry, and just the second later, felt him releasing inside herself with abandon, and when she could think again, she was grateful once more for her birth control.

They separated and fixed themselves up as easily as they had come together; then they said goodbye, and parted.

Barry had thought he would feel something different when his friends went out of his life; had thought he would feel something different when they discovered that he had been the one to drug them all, too. He’d thought he would feel guilt, or deep despair, loneliness, or sadness. But he hadn’t really felt anything at all.

He’d gotten used to being without them; so having them rush off, and avoid him ever since had been more like a formality than anything else. And in the moment of confrontation, he had not felt guilty. He stood by what he’d done; if only for the changes in himself, the drugging had been worth it, but he was fairly confident that his former friends would come around to his way of thinking about what he’d done someday, to appreciate their own changes as much as he was appreciating his.

It didn’t matter to him if he was in their lives anymore at that point to be thanked by them for it. He’d done it thanklessly; and their outrage and betrayal, all directed towards him, had not been unexpected. The only real surprise had been Autumn’s admission that she’d loved him; but she clearly didn’t feel that way anymore, and he’d never felt that way about her, so he didn’t let it trouble him.

He kept his focus on himself; he ran a little harder in gym; applied himself with more dedication to his athletics, let himself go into the weight-room around each school-day. He still turned the coach down when he pleaded with Barry to go out for a team.

Barry’s muscles had kept toning up; he was in the best shape of his life, and other people around him were starting to notice. A lot of the girls looked at him now, standing in groups with each other, giggling behind hands that covered mouths, shooting him furtive glances, flushing if he happened to catch their eyes in his. Positive female attention like this had once been the most important thing to him, but it wasn’t his focus now.

His focus was only on his recreational community football league. That was where his heart stayed, what he was most invested in; and even at school he held himself a little back from using his full strength and endurance. He always wanted to save his very best for the community football field, so he could lay all his efforts out there; he liked the guys who played in it with him, liked working so hard to do something that was only a hobby, only for fun. His classes meant nothing to him; he had just barely started taking them seriously, but now he truly didn’t care. It was just about getting through the day to the point that he could run free and lose himself in the feeling of working his body so hard.

Though he only intended it as a source of fun, he knew it was further shaping his body up, too, which in turn drew more attention that he tended to overlook; his obsession with girls was much less, and his love for food had never really come back, not to the point it had been at before. That had been hard to accept at first, even though he had known that he was changing, and why, but he had, eventually come to accept it. He liked the way he was now better, anyway.

But he found himself pretty naturally falling in with the other jocks in the school; they teased him, too, about not joining any school teams, but they accepted him, and it was nice to have someone other than Suzy to talk to about athletics; he found when he got going he could really go, and his newer friends never seemed to get tired of hearing him go on; and with their own experiences, and appreciation for fitness, they often had a lot to contribute.

When they asked him why he didn’t join a team, it was a good-natured asking, and he always told them the same thing. That he liked rec football for unwinding; liked doing something that was productive in no direction, and only for him; and if he joined a team, it would be productive, it would have to be for a purpose, and he was just happier doing it in his free time. He wasn’t looking to transition into any kind professional playing. Then the other jocks would usually let him be about it. They accepted him.

They invited him to their parties too; where there was no shortage of beer, or good times; he laughed a lot in their company, and at those parties, the attention of girls who otherwise giggled and watched after him was more appealing than it was in a school hallway. Usually he could find a girl to have on his arm; to make out with, or to go a little further, if the girl was up for it. Now he was in better shape, there was no shortage of this kind of attention, and he let himself enjoy it.

Magdalena found her high carried her well into that Friday night. Most of what happened in between was a blur of unreality. Sometimes she could be sure when she was hallucinating. Sometimes she couldn’t, but regardless, the time kept streaking away in a blur of things she couldn’t be sure she’d experienced. Running through a supermarket with her friends; stealing foods, hiding them under their shirts, in their purses, as rays of paint streaked around them; running through a field until they ran through the sky and their legs were resting on nothing, shifting midair, still carrying them forwards. They ran through air, they ran underwater; they ran through stars; they were only lying on their backs looking up at the clouds, school and all its requirements long forgotten.

It was the kind of high that started, and didn’t stop, and it filled Magdalena with supreme euphoria that got into every corner of her mind; every depth of her soul; it had her further up than the marijuana alone had ever sent her, though she knew the traces of that high were still in what she was experiencing.

This was an overlaid high; the intoxication of smoking beforehand lay as its foundation; then above that, the intoxication of snorting crushed pills; and above that, the intoxication of swallowing them. Magdalena didn’t know if she’d ever feel so good again in her life, but it was exactly the thing she searched for. Escape. Mindless enjoyment.

The high wasn’t only carrying her and her friends endlessly on into itself, though they had run off the school grounds out of the desire to follow the high inside them where it could lead them, like a compass... when Magdalena found it starting to stabilize, she realized it had carried the four of them through that entire day into the evening, and it had brought them to one of another in a series of endless parties thrown by other popular students in their senior year.

Magdalena found adding alcohol to the remnants of her other intoxication had an interesting effect. It made her feel too light for her body, like she might float away again; the world seemed on the brink of breaking out into a hallucination, so Magdalena got up and danced hard to the music that was playing over the radio in someone’s living room.

When she spun there seemed to be an after-image following her. She was seeing her arms, hands, where they had been seconds after moved, transparent overlays on either side of her body like she was a moving kaleidoscope; she spun; her arms were fully extended; moving through every angle; they were diagonal, straight up and down, diagonal in the other direction and in every gradation of it; then opposite arms were up and down from her body, into the air and down along. She kept her arms a parallel line no matter where she moved them; and she kept spinning, her legs stumbling through. She could sense reality’s breakpoint; and the feeling of it pulsing, about to break, was almost better than the high itself.

Pretty soon, she found herself not so much spinning to the music anymore as she was dancing with someone else. A male someone. A very yummy looking male someone. And Magdalena was, by this point, accustomed to hooking up with guys at parties while in some state of intoxication, but she’d never been this high, dancing on reality’s breakpoint, and she wanted to know what it would feel like to fuck over its breakpoint instead of dance there. She’d never quite gone to the point of fucking at a party yet, either. She’d been working herself up to it.

There was always a bedroom at the party, whichever party of the week it happened to be, and they found the bedroom, like they always did, Magdalena and whichever boy she thought looked cutest that night. The guy’s general appearance was mostly a haze to her, but she thought he was someone she recognized from her year; she didn’t care so much about that, or even what his name was.

She fell into the bed more than got into with deliberation, but the guy followed her, and she had been right. Fucking over the breaking point was like nothing else. The walls, the whole world seemed to tremble and shake, like it was going to break apart from that vibratory energy that pulsed through it. What would be behind it when that happened?

Everything was shaking more, as she moved on the guy, and felt him in her. Then she realized she was the thing that was breaking apart, and when she split, it was an eruption of pleasure behind; and behind that, a collapse back onto the bed, and into a heavy sleep.