ChaoticArmcandy

  The next week or two passed in a blurred haze of stress, lust and embarrassment. Any hopes I’d had for sated lust and finally being able to concentrate on exams evaporated almost immediately. If anything, I was more horny, more of the time, than ever.

  I distractedly botched an exam, then barely made it through a b shift, fidgety and hot-cheeked, before rushing back to my room. Not finding Alexi there, I crawled into his bed and fell back on the use of my fingers.

  I knew the way he would look at me when he found me, and if anything, it turned me on even more. That knowing smirk, as he threw back his covers and revealed me, hot-cheeked and heavy-lidded, with my hand busy between my legs.

  The building tide, the euphoric, bubbling lift, the heady, skyrocketing flush, the crumpling release. The mingled thrill of sexual humiliation and gender validation—did these things normally go together? Why, oh why was I like this?

  And yet, with his fist yanking my head back and his lips whispering hotly in my ear, I felt myself to be more of a girl than ever. It felt so good…

  All I had to do was surrender more completely to what I desired—and shamelessly beg for it without limit—than seemed possible, and in return he would do and say such things to me—things that I could not seem to stop wanting. It was gloriously easy, and delicious. It was sweetly addictive. It was all I could think about—for the most part.

  Some part of me knew that I wasn’t thinking clearly, or pinly, or much at all, outside of this thickly gzed lust. In the background of my mind, there was a pressure, a sense of something overlooked.

  Sometimes I did remember Aralia’s offer, and the crity of the internal leap that always accompanied the thought of getting to live openly as a girl. That leaping feeling was a sweet, clear note that cut through the noise and dissonance of my distracted lust. Other insights came through as well, as if they were using the same portal. Not all of them were as sweet or clear…

  Despite the understanding between us that Alexi wasn’t going to betray me, I was aware that he wasn’t exactly good for me, either. He was clearly using me. He was always talking down to me. The fact that I was so hot for it that I was eating out of his hand was beside the point. Should be beside the point.

  I was so helplessly hot for it, though?

  And, cue: spinning, distracted lust thoughts…

  …Anyways, yes, while Alexi had the obvious power over me of being able, at any time, to turn me in, that wasn’t actually the thing that worried me the most.

  What was really beginning to scare me was this other sort of power he held over me, the sort that I gave him by melting at the least provocation into an obedient, pliable, wobbly-legged…

  …Anyways.

  Sometimes I wondered, darkly, how far could he push me? I really didn’t know. I was losing count of the number of times that I’d been so turned on, and so deeply submerged, that it felt like Alexi could get me to do anything he wanted. How far did I really trust him?

  The things he said to me—while often very affectionate—were absolutely devoid of respect, and yet I pped up every ounce of objectifying praise, shuddered in pleasure at every filthy, demeaning word. And this, too, disturbed me: why did humiliation feel like the most vish affirmation of my most inner self—that I really, truly was a girl, on the inside—that I’d ever gotten?

  The basis of that affirmation, I couldn’t help thinking, was built on shaky ground—didn’t it depend on the same propaganda of masculine supremacy that every day seemed more and more anathema to what I was doing with my body? There was almost nothing more degenerate than becoming a girl, after all, according to the social hygienists.

  And yet, that was the same logic of feminine inferiority that Alexi was pying on when he, um…did the things that made me feel so much like a girl. If that logic was poisonous to me, weren’t my resulting euphoria and validation nonsense?

  My undeniable craving to be reduced and humiliated didn’t make any sense to me. There was obviously something toxic buried hopelessly deep in me—something that was essentially at odds with my very survival and existence—except I couldn’t help melting into a grateful puddle whenever the person fucking me invoked it.

  So, even if all kuffa weren’t truly degenerate and wrong inside, as I’d been secretly daring to consider, was I still broken beyond repair?

  What if the dark yet clear ntern beam of inner wanting that I’d followed this far wasn’t actually trustworthy? In fact, how could it be, if there was such poison and nonsense and contradiction mixed so seamlessly into my desire and my euphoria and my lust?

  The social hygienists taught that kuffa were impure, unclean, unnatural. Their degeneracy—our degeneracy, I reminded myself heavily—was supposed to be contagious. I certainly felt all mixed up and compromised. Nobody in their right mind could accuse me of being pure. Or natural.

  I remembered the hollow hills and narrow ravines around Stuhkrad, the crystal-studded cave I’d stumbled into with other town children, lined with figurines and statuettes. I remembered the revulsion in their faces and their voices, and the shame that had accumuted in my lungs—that still clung there like bitter leaden dust.

  And yet, the forest natives had clearly thought differently of us. I had seen that cave and realized that something else had existed before the Imperiat—something that the social hygienists would never admit. If such a world had once been possible, wasn’t it likely that there were others?

  There must be kuffa in other nds who had never heard of social hygiene, never had their insides coated in yers and yers of sharpened, deadening particles of contempt for their entire childhoods.

  But what, I wondered gloomily, would they think of me? What even was I, besides fully polluted by the Imperiat, fully implicated, fully complicit? Would they, too, feel revolted by me? Would they consider me contagious because of my Imperiat-conditioned shame?

  This line of thought was almost too heavy to hold. Mostly I flinched away from it, and fell back on the easiest strategy—that of not thinking. Ironically, I found myself grateful for the easy comfort and respite that sex offered me. For the next few fraught, distracted weeks, I was haunted by a vague shadow of anxiety.

  On top of that, I was running reagents in the b one day, a couple of weeks into the next term, and a spike of terror pierced me as I turned and saw who had just palmed a request form into my back.

  It was one of Alexi’s 'friends'—the mocking one, Creswell. I looked him full in the face and bnched, then quickly dropped my gaze and turned away, but too te. His eyes had widened slightly at me, before narrowing. My stomach began jumping and twisting with icy terror. As I made a bee-line for the exit, I felt his stare burning against my skin.

  I hurried along the corridor to the stockroom, pulse bounding and hands trembling. Creswell had always seemed like the most dangerous one of those boys to me. His sudden attention, the idea of him noticing me—of noticing differences in me—filled me with caustic arm. Aralia’s warning kept running through my head, growing more and more dire with each repetition. ‘Don’t come running to me with someone already on your heels, or I’ll be forced to let them have you.’

  I dithered in the stockroom, trying to decide what to do. I had some notion of tracking down Phineas and calling in my favor—perhaps I could get him to deliver these reagents—but inside me a fearful urgency was building.

  I wanted to go to Aralia. Tonight.

  This choice had been waiting coiled inside me for weeks, I realized suddenly. As it sunk in, a fierce exultation began to run through my veins. This is happening. I would not look back.

  I clocked out early, let myself out the back exit and took the long way back to my room. It was empty—Alexi was still in css, thank the fates. I cleared out my scanty wardrobe and stuffed it into my travelsack with most of my belongings, then packed my small, threadbare bookbag with only a few items—my remaining doses, my secret notebook, that noble’s heavy purse, the letters from home.

  I hesitated, then scribbled a cryptic goodbye note that would hopefully confuse anyone attempting to seek me out, and left it on my pillow. I took a roundabout way back to the sprawling alchemy complex, pausing at an older cssroom building that was only ever used for storage anymore to stash the rger travelsack in a room piled full of dusty ventition hoods.

  I was severely hoping that my vanishing would raise no eyebrows. A frightful number of students washed out each term. The pressure of exams alone made some of them crack and break down, go on benders, run away, or disappear into some other kind of crisis for days, weeks or even longer. The only loose end was Alexi, and whether he would let anything slip about me. I hoped he wouldn’t—he’d made such a fuss about knowing how to keep his mouth shut…

  I craved what he had offered me, but…I needed this more.

  Would he be stung by my wordless leave-taking? Stung enough that he’d be tempted to strike back at me? I hoped not. He was more the sort to shrug it off smiling than to curse me for abandoning him, but still I wondered…

  I brooded all the way to Aralia’s office door. The hallway was empty, and I paused before knocking to squeeze my legs together. The stress of the day had cooled my lust temporarily, but it seemed to be boiling up again. Hadn’t I come just st night? I remembered Alexi fucking me…

  I tried to take a deep breath, but only managed to engage my upper ribs. My pulse thrummed rapidly and I wiped my palms before knocking, but my face was hot before the door even clicked open.

  Aralia’s golden gaze pinned me and, predictably, a wave of toe-curling heat washed through me. Her face was impassive as she registered me standing there, and checked that the hallway was clear. As she turned her attention back to me, though, and watched my face redden, I thought I saw the corner of her mouth quirk up.

  She beckoned me inside and closed the door behind me. “Were you followed here? If you were, tell me now.”

  “I—um, no,” I stammered, thoughts and tongue tangled by her sudden proximity and spicewood scent.

  “Good. Sit.”

  I perched nervously on the edge of the chair and watched her prowl around the desk and sit across from me.

  “Does anyone else know that you are here, or that you have come to see me before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good. Does anyone else know you’re a girl?”

  The affirmation implicit in her words and their phrasing hit me right in my tight chest, and the constriction there melted before I even had time to consider the question. Even as my mind scrambled to choose whether or not to tell her the truth, my lungs rexed and the full, deep breath gave me a moment to think. I made a snap decision.

  I shook my head again.

  Aralia narrowed her eyes at me. I stiffened as she stood, and rounded the desk. Then she was yanking my head back, her fist in my hair. I gasped up at her, my cunt pulsing.

  “You’re a bad liar, Ellie,” she remarked. “Now, if I think you might be lying, why should I take the risk of providing you with a cover legend or go through the trouble of setting you up as an asset? In fact, why would I trust you to reliably operate or report back to me if you cannot truthfully answer a simple, basic question of import?”

  She tightened her grip as she said the st word, and my pussy clenched.

  “S-sorry! My—ah, my roommate,” I gasped, my head swimming with arousal. “W-we were having sex.”

  Aralia’s hawk eyes narrowed. “Bckmail?”

  “N-no—he could have, but, um—”

  “He didn’t compel you at all? How did he start fucking you, then?”

  My cheeks heated. “I, um, well, he—he just, ah…”

  Aralia raised her eyebrows.

  “…saw me naked a-and, um. It happened really fast?” The st words left me all in a rush. “He’s from Faso and said something about n—ah!—not snitching.”

  “Faso? Hmm.” She stared out the wide window into the distance. Her grip sckened a bit. “Well. They are a proud and close-mouthed people, that is true.”

  She shook herself a little, and looked back down at me, her golden gaze piercing, her grip tightening again. I inhaled sharply. “Anyone else?”

  “No—ah, no.” I squirmed.

  “Good. Well, your roommate may prove to be a complication, but not an insurmountable one. What is his name?”

  “Alexi, um, Kincardine.” I saw her blink. “What will you—”

  “You are not the one asking questions right now,” she interrupted.

  She yanked my head back at little as she said it and I could not stifle an audible moan.

  Oh, had I just—

  Oh, no.

  There was no way she hadn’t heard me.

  I went scarlet red.

  She stared down at me incredulously. “Are you...turned on?”

  My cheeks bzed a few degrees hotter.

  Aralia rolled her eyes.

  She released her grip and I sagged in the chair, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. She paced around to the other side of the desk, again, and sat. When I got up the courage to look at her again, I saw she was watching me with an expression of mild fascination.

  “Ellie, give me your factoring notebook.” I hesitated and she sighed. “It’s not like you could compromise yourself more than you already have. I’m trying to figure out what you did to yourself.”

  I reluctantly handed it over, wishing I’d stashed it as well. She flipped through it, and gave a low whistle.

  “Well, well, haven’t you been a sloppy girl.”

  Aralia looked up in time to watch me actually die from how hot my face was. She smirked at me and I shuddered and squeezed my thighs together.

  “You have so many unbound principles whizzing around in your system right now it’s a wonder you aren’t soaking the furniture.” She narrowed her eyes, first at the chair I was sitting in and then at me. “Are you soaking my furniture right now?”

  My mouth opened and closed speechlessly, like a fish. I couldn’t honestly say that I wasn’t. She watched me sweat and squirm, the blood pounding hotly in my face, a faint smile pying on her lips.

  The smile looked…nice on her, I thought fuzzily. Wait, had I ever seen Aralia smile before? I didn’t think so. Was she…teasing me? Intentionally? My clit throbbed.

  “Ellie, if you wish to enter into this arrangement with me, you’ll have to be able to answer simple yes or no questions.”

  I gaped at her, my face burning.

  “I suppose that’s a yes, then.” Aralia sighed. “I expect you to wipe that seat before you leave.”

  My mind crumpled. I was so hot I felt dizzy, almost intoxicated.

  She leaned forward and I got the distinct sense that she was enjoying herself. “Now I think I understand better how easy you must have been for your roommate to fuck. He had no need for bckmail when you’re such a pliable little slut.”

  I stared deliriously back at her, my heavily hooded eyes gzed with arousal and humiliation. It seemed ludicrous that steam wasn’t rolling off me.

  Aralia actually giggled at me. For a moment, even she seemed taken aback at herself.

  “All right,” she made a calming gesture. “Simmer down. It’s rather entertaining to toy with you like this, but I mustn’t break you.”

  Her eyes gleamed as she watched me squirm. I tried to focus on breathing.

  “I will hold onto this, for now.” She waved my secret notebook. “Since it’s rather dangerous to have in your possession. And I’ll try to get you an alchemical hepatic to mop up some of those free principles floating around in you. Whether you keep taking the alterant that you synthesized, however, I will leave up to you. The body changes you induced should be stable by now. The hepatic will do more to reduce your infted arousal if you don’t continue, obviously.” She smirked knowingly at me. “Your call.”

  I blushed, again. “I—um, okay.”

  She clicked something onto the desk and slid it across to me—a strange-looking coin. I reached for it, but she kept her finger on it. I looked up at her, to find her sharp, gold-ringed eyes searching me. All the pyfulness was gone from them.

  “You won’t be able to change your mind, after this. Your new identity will not be revocable. You will be my asset, and do as I say, until I decide to release you from my service. Is that understood?”

  I hesitated for only a breath before nodding, as firmly as I could. “Yes.”

  “Very well,” she said neutrally. “This coin will grow hot to the touch when I need to speak with you. Wear it under your clothes, against your skin.”

  She left the coin on the table and brought out a purse. It clinked as she deposited it next to the coin.

  “Now, listen carefully. Go to the bursar’s office and tell the clerk you wish to purchase a staff commission for your sister, as a maid here. There’s a standard ‘fee’ for such dealings. This will cover it. I’ll have the records altered afterwards, to obscure the trail and to pce you where I want you. After that’s done, meet me at this address in town at ninth bell. Bring the commission.”

  She scribbled something on a piece of paper and showed it to me. “Memorize it, and leave the paper here. Don’t be te.”

  She leaned forward. “Ellie.”

  I looked up from the paper, slightly dazed.

  “If you are caught, here is what you must do. Tell them only of the bribe you used to obtain the position. Nothing else, and obviously nothing of my note and my involvement. Such bribery is commonpce and pusible. It will raise no eyebrows.”

  I nodded hesitantly.

  Aralia stared at me levelly. “Beyond that, keep your mouth shut. Do as I say and even in the event of your capture, I will still be able to exercise my considerable influence to keep you from being disappeared, experimented on, or otherwise disposed of.”

  I flinched and she sighed, though not unkindly. “We need to talk about this now because we won’t be able to then. Believe me, they will see you as a dangerous object to be controlled, not as a student and not at all as a person.”

  She paused for a moment, and her eyes were hard and fierce and distant.

  “It will spin your head how fast they erase you from their conception of what constitutes a human being. You may be in a state of tremendous shock. They will threaten you with fates many times worse than death. Any hope they offer you will be a lie or a coercive attempt at manipution.”

  I swallowed, dry-mouthed, and she refocused on me.

  “The most important thing you can do is stay silent and unresponsive, and let me py my role. To do this, I will have to pretend that I don’t know you and care not a whit about you, and you must py along. Silently. Is that understood?”

  I nodded quickly.

  “I cannot emphasize enough that every tiny cue you give them or word you say will only make it worse. They can and will use anything and everything against you.”

  Her voice, though no less serious, softened almost imperceptibly.

  “Try not to get caught, of course. But, in the event that it happens, I promise that I will not let them have you.”

  My eyes were as wide as they had ever been. Had she really just said that? Promised that? My head was spinning. Could I possibly trust her?

  She watched me carefully, and I clung to the eye contact. After a long moment, I realized she was waiting for a response.

  Oh.

  I flushed. “Yes, um, okay—I mean, I’ll do as you say.”

  Her eyes twinkled and I self-consciously averted my gaze. Right. I’d forgotten the address already. I gnced at it one more time and hurriedly snatched the coin and purse.

  As I reached the door, I looked back and saw that she was still considering me with a slightly curious or fascinated expression. I inhaled as I felt the almost-physical force of her golden-ringed gaze nd right in my chest. Then the door was firmly between us and I was in the corridor, trembling with nerves.

  ChaoticArmcandy