Chapter Six: Revelations 2 2:20-23

“The first lesson when studying Sub-Audiology is how to use your device,” Mistress sang merrily. “This, of course, is something you are forbidden to do!”

I nodded respectfully, wary of another lash from her crop. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll barely even touch it.”

She tapped my head lightly anyway, the background music in my head crescendoing with the next little blossom of ‘ow’. “Good! Now that we’re clear on where we stand and what you can do, let me ask you something, will you dear?” She looked at me expectantly.

“Of course, Mistress.”

“What all do you think I’ll let you do?”

“Ma’am, I don’t have the slightest clue,” I said, already flinching a little.

The expected strike came and went, hurting just as much as the ones that had beaten me to my knees in the first place. “Oh, I rather wish you would be more creative, Ladron. No, I’m going to teach you the magical art of what you Americans call ‘Humming’!”

“Yes… Ma’am.” I replied, gritting my teeth and trying not to rub my aching head

“Mhmm! Hmm-hm-hm, hmm-hmm hmm, hmm?”

I stared at her. “Please don’t hit me again.”

She hit me again in the same spot. “Come now, Ladron, would I be so cruel?”

“No, Mistress.”

She beamed at me, her fading blonde hair and electric blue eyes giving her the air of a manic Nazi. “I’m glad you don’t think so little of me after all! Shall we get started, my new dear friend?”

I thought about giving her a simple answer, but the woman clearly had a different version of reality than the one I was currently living in. “... Yes Mistress, your humble friend is forever grateful for your time and patience.”

Mistress smiled again and patted my head with her hand. “Oh, you learn so quickly! We’ll simply have the best of times now won’t we, Ladron?”

“I’m sure we’ll have more than our fair share of educational fun, Mistress. I-”

“Fun? Yes. Educational? Most of it.” Meredith started strolling around me lazily, her short heels echoing in the barren, blackened concrete room.

Other than a window thicker than your Mom, there wasn’t much to look at, and I didn’t dare let my eyes rest on Mistress too long, just in case she thought I was ogling her or hatching a plot. Normally I would have, but I doubted I could run far enough fast enough to get away from her, and I couldn’t gauge her reaction speed at all, so an attack was out of the question. Meredith Bronson slowed down in front of me every time she completed yet another circuit about my kneeling form. It was easy for me to avoid looking at her when she wasn’t in plain view, but the length of her dress, maturity, and general appearance was a very unfortunate distraction. By no means had Meredith made a clear or apparent effort to doll herself up. She left her hair down, the natural waves, highlights, and lowlights all texturing and blending together to set her up for being the buxom blonde, and she certainly didn’t disappoint. Minimal make up was my preference, and on Meredith, there was barely a trace of it, and what was there was tactfully and gently applied. I knew Shelly would probably want in on the action if anything were to happen, but I didn’t want an early Merry Christmas because beyond Mistress’ good looks lie an anal-obliteration waiting for some sucker to say, ‘sure’.

I say all of that because my dumb-ass decided to risk looking at Mistress for the first time since she started walking around me, and my dick-head eyes were immediately glued to something that wasn’t her face. The booty was real, and it was not worth getting cropped in the face for looking at. “Ah, ah, ah! You haven’t even learned a spell and you’re eyeing the boss’ wife?”

While I tried to put the black back in me, I evidently took too long to answer because she struck my back. “Fu-OW!”

“Why, I would feel bad for you, but I can’t imagine what you could have been thinking of in that fuzzy little head of yours~ What if you would have done something… rash?”

Ladron Gadai backed down to no man. Meredith didn’t have fricking balls, and she had a lifetime of magic experience over me at the moment, so I said, “Mistress, forgive my insolent eyes and hear my thoughts and judge for yourself the…”

“Hmm?” She leaned down, a grin playing on her lips while her eyes reflected nothing. “Would you perhaps be thinking of ‘honesty’?”

“I was searching for veracity, but honesty is basically the same thing,” I squeaked.

“And your thoughts? Hmm?”

In my head, the soundtrack to my life had scratched as if someone had jerked the needle off the record, freezing me in place for a moment. Bubba Sparxxx, Lil John, Eminem, and Trace Adkins sprinted through my brain lobes with cleats, beat the think out of my hypothalamus, and glued my grey matter to the toilet seat after clogging it and breaking the handle. In other words, I was thinking of booty, hips, a set of thighs that told no lies, and the instant death I faced from Commissioner Bronson the moment any of that shit passed through my lips.

My mouth was a shitake mushroom and my tongue was fresh from Afghanistan. “At that particular moment I was thinking, ‘Holy frick’, and then I was thinking, ‘Stop looking’, which then did not happen.”

“Oh? I like that you censored yourself for my tender ears,” her eyes warmed for a moment, almost as if she wasn’t batshit crazy, “even if you were ogling me.”

I smacked my lips, nodded a couple of times, and hoped I didn’t die. Or get beaten again. “Can… Can you not kill me and... please tell my girlfriend that she’s the best person I’ve met on this poo-ball.”

“Is that all?”

I thought about it. “Hmm… HmmM. HmmMMmmhmm Umhmmhmm-”

“Stalling for time?” Mistress asked amusedly.

“Lmlmmm…” I closed my eyes and the song snapped into place, the room brightening while the melody repeated itself over and over- Ad infinitum, as it were. Apparently, the frigging humming I was doing was a spell.

Mistress wasn’t smiling when I opened my eyes, though she could have been for all I knew. Her back was turned, so I had a face full of floral print on round mounds. “Would you look at that…”

“M-Mistress?” I asked softly.

She turned to me, her face finally honest for once. There was no smile; no more facade. Meredith was looking at me as if I was a legitimate threat. “You… You certainly are interesting, aren’t you?”

“I-I’m sorry Mistress, I-”

Meredith bent down to look me in the eye, but there was nothing there for me to read into or get a feeling from. I can usually suss out how someone’s feeling if I pay enough attention, but Meredith could kiss me or slap me for all I knew. Imagine my surprise when she asked, “Who do you belong to?”

“Uh…”

“That’s good. As your Mistress, you will be mine.”

“... Is that... Is that going to be fun?” I didn’t think it was, but I could hope.

“It’ll be as fun as I want it to be.” Her reply was flat, completely toneless.

“Okay.” I tried to lean away from her, but something kept me from moving. Instead of doing anything, Meredith just stared at me until I opened my mouth again.

While she still didn’t say anything, she let her right hand rest on my cheek, her thumb on my lip. She began to hum something I couldn’t quite understand, but I felt the effects in my very bones, the pleasant, heavy feeling reminding me of nothing in particular. The aches I’d had from earlier were being soothed away, and I was feeling pretty good by the time Meredith stopped. Once her song was finished, she stood up and offered me her hand, so I took it while in a daze and got myself to my feet, nearly falling on Mistress since my knees were surprisingly weak. She held me until I could get myself sorted, but when she let me go, there was a certain kind of pain on her face, as if she was warring with herself over something. She placed her hand on my cheek again and her mask went on like it had been before, solid and incomplete as it was.

“That is all for today, Ladron. The spell you just used was a basic activation slash dispellation song. There are more powerful versions available, but that one will suit you for right now.”

“C-Could we cover a shield spell real quick, Mistress?” I asked tentatively.

“That will be reserved for tomorrow’s lessons. For now, go rest and do school work. I expect you to have an original composition ready to share by the end of the week.”

“I-”

“One of your completed ones will do. I have decided your role, as is my right as your Mistress. Do you object?”

“N-No ma’am.”

“Good. As a Sub-Audiology analyst, you’ll be picking apart songs and putting them together for our men and women to use in the urban field. It would seem as though you do well in creating new songs and analyzing them, no?”

“Um… I really suck at song analysis, but I can copy one after a few listens…”

“Then perhaps I’ve chosen a touch hastily in my desire to get your career started. What do you excel at when music is involved?”

“... Making it? I have a couple of albums, an EP or two, and a lot of singles I’ve put out.”

“How many of them are Va Faxar?”

“Two, I think.”

“Hmm.” Her expression didn’t change much. “Do you have a way of playing these songs right now?”

“Yeah, my phone.”

“Send the files to my cloud and I’ll analyze them for you. Once we know what the songs mean, I will let you know whether or not you can use them.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

“You’re welcome. If your songs prove useful, I will reward you.”

“Again, my gratitude knows no bounds.”

“As I would hope. You are dismissed.”

I didn’t waste any time in getting the fuck out of dodge, though I couldn’t really name one particular reason as to why. There were plenty of individual reasons that would most likely be perfectly fine on their own, but having them all together just made things unnecessarily complicated on my poor emotionables, so I decided to just be scared and go away before Meredith dicked me down or something. I never looked back, nor did I run because I knew Mistress was following behind me, the loud footfalls courtesy of her heels echoing in the barren room. After I was out of the PPD and into the city, IU took a little time to hyperventilate until I almost blacked out,m needing to pull ovewr for a little bit to clear my mind. After a quick hit from my stresserette pack that I kept in my car, I was smelly and ready to get back on campus. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Meredith had even more hidden depths to her than I could have ever imagined, but it wasn’;t something to dwell on for a sane mind.

I met up with Kel, a guitarist who planned on turning the Rock genre into something worth listening to again (His words, not mine), and we went to the first class of the day. He didn’t ask me many important questions, but he was surprised when I mentioned that I didn’t know who the new professor was. The way Kel described him sounded familiar. Another red-faced short guy was going to be teaching yet another class, and I was having my doubts on whether I’d rather be taught by a shouty ass-hat or a homicidal maniac. The answer was clear and easy to see, but that didn’t mean I had to be happy with Dorset’s replacement. It wasn’t until I walked into class that I saw my new professor, and it wasn’t even a full ten seconds before I facepalmed and found a seat, trying not to be seen.

Logan Markkson was barely qualified to teach kids how to finger a fretboard, let alone teach me a damned thing. At least, I’d thought he was just an alumni with a love for Philly. Once class started, it was pretty clear that Logan knew what he was talking about, maybe even more so than Dorset. The class was generally quiet and attentive during his lecture, which was odd for the afternooners. I blamed it on either Napoleon Charisma or magic because they each seemed equally likely. All in all, it was a good class and I felt like I wasn’t wasting my time, so that was doubly nice. I was sure to leave before the lecture was actually over, having someone Skype me the last five minutes so I could still learn and not get called out at the end of class. True to form, Logan asked for everyone to stay for a little bit so he could find me, but upon learning that I wasn’t there, he just dismissed everyone and life was good for the moment.

When I got home, Shelly was lazing around on the couch in the living room, looking like a zombie while digging further and further into Destiny 2. It looked alright from what I’d seen of it, but it just wasn’t my type of game, despite the graphics and free-roam aspect. Instead of sequestering myself away in my room, I sat next to Shelly and she immediately paused for all of two seconds to start cuddling and snuggling up to me, wrapping my arm around her so she could lean against me and keep playing. It was odd to be the one watching someone else play something for a change, but it wasn’t a bad thing by a long shot. Shelly was damn good, and that does mean that she had better reflexes and generally smarter plays than I ever could have. She was a natural with a controller in her hand, unlike Kara who would basically feed the enemy team points in between moments of adequacy.

Shelly eventually stopped playing for the sole purpose of trying to shove her tongue down my throat, thought that may be a bit of an exaggeration. The kissing was intense, but for once, it didn’t seem like something I had to do. It was like Shelly just… It would be hard to describe. I guess you could say that the moment we broke apart, the sight of her wiping her lips off and the sparkle in her eyes… I didn’t know how bad at the time, but I knew I was head over heels for my best-friend-come-girlfriend, and life didn’t seem like it could get any sweeter. Following the revelation that I was well and truly in love, I texted Mom and Casey, though I knew only one of them could actually read the message. I still liked to think that Case picked up the phone from wherever the afterlife spat her out, but I knew Mom would be happy on the living plane. It didn’t take her long to text me back a million emojis and a couple of letters that were probably supposed to be an acronym of some sort. I figured that she was happy, so that was that.

I wasn’t ready to tell Shelly what I thought since I wasn’t completely sure, so I pretended to be the guy with the brain and used the inspiration she’d given me to fuel my persuasive prowess, as weak as it may be. It barely took any convincing to make her give up on Anthem and come to my room for a quick recording sesh. We picked up where we left off with our lyrical brainstorming resulting in a Chillstep love song that was actually pretty fucking good. After the first full playthrough of the song, I was hooked. There was… The melody just… The rhythm just had this quality that… I can’t and couldn’t even describe it, despite hearing the song time after time after time. Shelly had sung her part perfectly and my mix just elevated it even more, the bass bringing her alto to the next level with its smooth, thunderous undertones and the sheer flexibility and range of Shelly’s voice.

Beyond the normal recording, there was another layer of song that wasn’t Vaux Faker or Va Faxar as far as I knew, just something I could cut from the song and play on its own once I isolated the pitch and sub-beat. It was something I’d only learned after coming to Curtis, and it was honestly one of my favorite things that I could say that I’d mastered. Then it hit me. After posting our song on Soundcloud and having it be put on the approval list for iTunes and Google Play Music, I shuttled Shelly out of my room with a parting kiss and made a couple of texts using the phone I didn’t l like touching. Maxim messaged back with the thing I’d asked for, specifically one offensive spell, one disarming/disabling spell, and one shield spell. In return for his knowledge and moderation, I sent him the song that Shelly and I had made, but it wasn’t enough, so I sent him the Road to Redemption LP and sated his musical desire for the time being.

The spells he’d sent me were in pure note form, as in black and white to be read by me, not all over. Since it was just notes, I didn’t know what the fuck to do with them since playing the shield spell by all means should have erected a solid-light kite-shield for me to hold and not die with, so I asked Maxim and he told me to figure it out. Instead of doing that, I made copies of the spells on paper, put them in my wallet, then made sure that all of the evidence of me going against Mistress Meredith was as dead and gone as homo fishius, or whoever my most fishy-but-human-ish ancestor happens to be. Honestly, she’d probably pull some timey-wimey put-the-lime-in-the-wormhole-and-frick-it-all-up type crap that I really, really, really wasn’t trying to let happen. iPhones being inferior devices, I couldn’t safely take the damn thing apart because I’d never bother to let one soil my skin when magic wasn’t involved. My resulting lack of knowledge meant that I was going to have to factory reset or jailbreak my device-thing sometime before anything could ping the exchange. I didn’t want anyone coming to dig up what

I’d just tossed out, so I did the only thing I actually knew how to do with an iPhone beyond basic stuff: Plug it in and let the games begin. I had the older model cracked within eight minutes, wiped the files from my hardrive in five minutes forty-two seconds, and shoved my device in my pocket.

Nothing happened. I’d expected something to happen. Anyone would’ve. I decided to shake my head and pull my hand out of my pocket with an oh-so wearisome sigh. Such misfortune. Much sad. So distraught. Wow. The hand on my shoulder was gently resting as if there was a care not in the world for the owner of said hand, even as I about fricking pissed the stitches out of my britches when I felt it. I almost started convulsing my way into the afterlife before Marissa gently slapped me back into my regular self. After a moment to collect what little of my bejeebers had survived that monstrous assault, I gave my girlfriend’s slutty OMGBFF (Don’t tell either one of them I said that) a bland look. “Now that was a little rude. As old as I act, you’d like to gave me a damn heart attack.”

Her face scrunched up as I spoke. “... Who the hell are you and what did you do with Ladron?”

“Listen here, ‘Rissa,” I pointed at her and her eyes widened, surprised or something. “Ya’ll can’t just go sneakin’ up on quiet folk. One day you goin’ sneak up on the wrong fella and he goin’ eat your ass with a glass kitchenware set. Table-forks included.”

“Dude, you fucking redneck-”

“Bitch, I’m a cannibal; you a fuckin' animal; chew you up, crush yo' ass right between my mandibles, can't stand a ho! Better step back before I lands a blow! Rap anotha stanza ‘cause my verbals finna fuckin’ blow! Step back and watch the show! Fuck yo’ punk ass jelly rolls! I’m unstoppable; diabolical-”

“Can you stop rapping? You’re not good,” Marissa said flatly.

I glared at her, annoyed and half-terrified out of my mind. “I rap better than your cherry-topped ass. Why are you in my room?”

“Your device pinged. Don’t fuck with it again or I’m fucking you up.”

“Try me, Gingy.” My answer was little more than a grunt, but it carried the same weight, I like to think.

She slapped me before I had a chance to move, but it didn’t exactly feel like one of Meredith’s. “How was that?”

“Like you’re weak as fuck.”

This time, as I saw Marissa’s shoulder move, I ducked in and started forward, wrapping her up in a hug that I didn’t think was too tight. She struggled for a couple of seconds before she realized that I was just holding her, giving up pretty quickly. “... There really isn’t a mean bone in your body, is there?”

“I gotta be pushed way further than Joe Blow and John Doe, I’ll say that much.”

She patted my butt and I let her go with no kerfuffle, earning myself a kiss on the cheek. Marissa looked up at me with one of her usual grins, tinged with a touch of genuine warmth. “You know you don’t have to just use your device to learn about magic, right? We can always use mine if you want a quick lesson, and Logan is still willing to supplement your lessons from Meredith as long as you don’t bring her home.”

I cracked a small smile. “Thanks, I was probably about to do something stupid.”

“I figured. Shelly invited me over, but would you mind coming and hanging out with us? I know-”

“To keep an eye on me? I don’t mind.”

She seemed surprise, but she didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. In any case, I ended up putting one of Shelly’s plainer bras on my head and wore it for the night before going to bed with both young women. My hands stayed in decent places, but I had to guide two pairs of hands back from indecent areas around me. I eventually just switched places with Shelly so that she was in the middle, so Marissa and I cuddled her to death and back. Waking up with three people in a queen size bed was something I’d never experienced before, but with Shelly in my arms, it was something I could get used to. I’m sure anyone would have preferred to be alone with their person of choice and I happened to be one of them, but it’s not like I was upset or anything.

I got a text from Mistress Meredith that I was to report to the PPD Training Room in about forty minutes from when I read it, so I didn’t wait for either of my lady friends to wake up and just headed on over. Meredith and Commissioner Bronson were both waiting for me when I got there, but the Commissioner only stayed long enough to chat with his wife in quiet whispers that I couldn’t make out, seemingly taking orders from her. It didn’t really matter to me, but when I saw Meredith’s patented psychotic smile playing on her lips, I had a bad feeling about the day ahead of me. We started with basic things, like analyzing the music I had sent her.

We began with Montana and the VF stylings within that song. There was another room attached to the Training Room called the ‘Sound Lab’. The name was nowhere to be seen, but Meredith called it that, so that’s what it is to me. Inside the Sound Lab there was a lot of familiar equipment and panelling that made the place look similar to a recording studio, but then there was a mixture of Steampunk and Cyberpunk technology that was mouth-watering to say the least. Odd instruments that I had never seen before, including what appeared to be a flat fretboard attached to a metal ball. The board was attached to the rim of the hole in the ball, but the strings, instead of going inside, went around the ball and attached to the back of the fretboard, held in place by tiny grooves that also changed the pitch and tone of the note. Mistress let me get my hands on that and a few of the other instruments in the room before she started guiding my experience back to song analysis.

Before I’d gotten distracted, Meredith had me isolate the Vaux Faker from Montana, which was hella, extremely, so much hardnesser than I thought it would be. Honestly, getting the underlying track out of the song was by no means easy like it had been for SSS (Silver Satin Sands), the song I had made with Shelly. No, it was damn near impossible for me to tell which frequencies held the Va Faxar notes and which were just Vaux Faker, which I didn’t get the full gist of the difference anyway. Mistress Meredith said that it basically broke down as Va Faxar being the root and Vaux Faker being the tree. If I had to say, then it would have to be like the difference between a typical spell and a cantrip, both of which are still magic. With Vaux Faxar, you needed a full incantation, a ‘Round’, as Meredith calls it. Meanwhile with Va Faxar, the base of the magic, you just need the emotion and a sound to go along with it. The ‘Cadance’ you make results in the spell, rather than a full song. I guess you could say that Va Faxar would be the notes of a song while Vaux Faker would be the song itself.

Getting back to the ‘interesting’ world of song analysis, it took four hours for Meredith to explain to me that I was looking for frequencies that topped or bottomed out of the human hearing-range, so that was… Nice, shall we say. I was plenty pissed with myself after I managed to crack that little secret since decoding the rest of the song was pretty easy, but I quickly learned that the lyrics I’d heard before were no longer present in the song. Meredith and I refined and played the track time and time again, the static that came from the process of ripping a beat out of a melody being a little hard to work with. However, once we cleaned it up and got the static and extra noise to go away, I heard the spell I’d accidentally made as it was truly meant to be sang/sung/vocalized. The voice was neither male nor female, and it sounded a bit like there were dozens of clones singing the same thing. It was a beautiful melody that I just listened to the first time I heard it, but Meredith smacked my head pretty fricking hard for zoning out when I should have been paying attention to the new lyrics.

Oh sun on high, how I sing for thee

Thine music breathes wind through thickest trees

Soliloquy I hold for thee

Forging melody for posterity

One more chance to sing along

Nature calls for its next song

Crescendo fortissimo largo

Tidal wave for the Argos

Final wave to the Pathos

Committed sins against the Ethos

Broken thought in the Logos

Crescendo fortissimo largo

Anaklusmos come for the Argos

Maximus colludes with the Logos

Say goodbye to the Ethos

Peace will go with the Pathos

Crescendo fortissimo largo

Crescendo fortissimo largo

Oh sun on high, how I sing for thee

Thine music breathes wind through thickest trees

Soliloquy I hold for thee

Forging melody for posterity

One more chance to sing along

Nature calls for its next song

Crescendo, fortissimo, largo.

Even after hearing it again and again, I couldn’t believe that it was the same song. Apparently, Meredith thought it was as beautiful as I had since she was tearing up as it ended the first time and was outright crying a little the second, both of which were odd when I saw the actions coming from the single most terrifying person I knew. Besides Dorset, of course. In any case, I had no idea what the spell did. According to Meredith, that was a good thing, and earned me a hug from the buxom dominatrix-that-had-missed-her-calling. I was shocked when she wrapped her arms around me and pressed herself against me in what was the most genuine and true show of emotion I’d ever seen from her. Then, while I was still surprised, she gave me a peck on the cheek and stroked my hair, the smile on her face finally reaching her eyes. It wasn’t even a full two seconds I spent staring into those galvanized waters before I lost myself in a thunderstorm, rain cascading around me. My mouth went dry and my knees went wobbly, another reaction occurring between those two points in a place I would’ve rather been unaffected. Lo’ and behold my luck, I gave Meredith a handle to hold onto.

“Another one,” she whispered to me, her eyes holding me in place just as well as her hand.

“Gyeah, shure.” I could barely feel my tongue, the muscle almost like it was made out of wet cotton and lead shot.

Meredith kissed me on the nose, making my face flush furiously, my ears hot beyond reason. “Good boy. Maybe I’ll give you a special treat if it’s a nice song~”

“I-I… I have a-” I started.

“Oh, I know Michelle. She’s my brother’s daughter.” Mistress got up from the soundboard and equipment we were working with and turned from me, checking her nails.

“Oh.”

“Hmm? Do you have a problem with that?”

“No ma’am, it’s just… A small world. A very small world.”

She smiled at me, her eyes no longer holding the same warmth. “It is, isn’t it? Shelly’s told her Auntie Merry so much about you.”

“I… Um... “

“It’s all good, I assure you. For someone who obviously doesn’t have any interest in sex, you sure are unfortunately endowed. Well, for your preferences, anyway.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Well then.”

Meredith didn’t wink, but she did blink with intent, and I couldn’t discern whether that intent was to intimidate or to seduce. Either way, I was a little scared, a little turned on, and a lot fearful for my relationship with my favorite female of all time. “Don’t worry that pretty little head of yours for a second, Ladron, I’m not going to use my relationship with Seashell to spoil your fun. Now, if I think you might be using that little device of yours more often than you should be, such as last night…”

The pointed look she gave me made me blanch, the heat from earlier leaving all at once, suffocating me. “I-”

“Give me your device and load up your next song. The reward is the same if there’s nothing to punish you over.”

I handed over the iPhone, only at that moment noticing that it was rose gold and had a thin black line on top of it, like a scanner of some sort. “I-”

She snatched it from me and glared at it, whispering under her breath. “Ah, do I know you?” Maxim asked, his voice coming clearly from the phone's speakers.

I closed my eyes and prayed to a God that I had a harder time then more than ever believing in, but nevertheless I sent one up to the fella upstairs and begged for a big one. While I realize how unfortunately I worded that, I needed my skin and bones to human properly, and I wasn’t very optimistic about my chances of being able to do that with the things I mentioned. Want to know why? Well, it’s because either Meredith was going to flay me alive, or Maxim was going to turn my bones into non-bones, and God was neither replying nor laughing at my pathetic attempt at self-salvation. I felt helpless in a moment that stretched on forever and ever, the eternity of anxiety rattling my core and my shell-less nuts.

Then Meredith stuck her hand out at me, the screen blank.

I reclaimed my phone and she fell to the floor, which was the order of the day because I fell to my knees closeby. Grateful for a gracious bladder and impeccable control over my bowels, I carefully, ever so carefully, reached out to poke l Mistress’ shoulder. I poked her. She did not move. Ladron became very worried and I was becoming worried about Ladron worrying because he was me and I, he, but neither he nor I nor we were terribly happy about disassociating with ourself by accident. If it were done through purpose and intent, we’d be happy or ecstatic, perhaps, for the complete and utter separation we’d achieved. At the moment, me and my Ego were floating down, looking at myself as I knelt, staring at my hand. It was disconcerting to see myself in third person, but I can say that I was honestly surprised. I’d thought I was an ugly duckling that was never going to grow out of the duckling phase and I’d been fine with that, but after looking at myself from someone else’s perspective, I had to say that I didn’t look as atrocious as I’d thought. Maybe if shock and paranoia weren’t painted on my countenance, I’d have found myself to be a little less… well, not striking, but… It was hard to say then, but I believe I almost found myself to be attractive enough to date Shelly and that was a surprise.

For a few minutes, I was trapped outside of my body, and I may or may not have indulged myself a little with my out of body experience, but it’s not like anyone got hurt, nor did anyone know what I did. I won’t say what I did, but I will mention that Meredith’s black skirt and ash-grey blouse were getting dirty while she was on the floor. I’ll also mention that she looked pretty damn good in blue, but that’s neither here nor there. Shortly after I’d decided to stop playing I-Spy with myself, I found myself back in my body with my device in my hand, Maxim Gregorovich looking at me expectantly.

“Hello?” he asked impatiently. “I haven’t got all day, Ladron.”

“... Um…”

“She’ll be fine. I’d insist that you slap her to test the spell, but that-” I smacked her rear and let my hand rest there. “What did you do? You did not go far.”

“I probably just started something that’s gonna get me hashtag MeToo’d by someone at some point, but for now I slapped her butt.”

“Ah. To lay a hand on a sleeping woman is-”

“Despicable, I know-”

Maxim barked out a laugh. “If only because they have no chance for a slap! Ah, how many fine zhopa I have felt in my day, consent not always asked for.” He added the last part like it didn’t matter, but I was pretty sure that it did.

I removed my hand, watching it carefully as I pulled away. “So that’s never gonna be talked about again.”

‘

“Oh, I’m going to lord this over you for the rest of your perverted life, you little cretin.”

“You practically-”

“But not literally. Slip a finger in her, I dare you,” Maxim prodded, chuckling merrily.

“I’ll stick a finger in you, buster. Why’d you knock her out?”

“Did you not find her to be within your darkest desire?”

My blood froze in my veins, but I played it as cool as I could. “I’m not into being beaten and degraded, or being treated like a slave slash puppy.”

“When did I say you were, Lad?” he answered, significantly better at the coolness game than I was.

“That’s not true, Maxim.”

“I’d rather say that it is. Maybe it’s something about the family, hmm?”

“You can shut the fuck up.” I seethed.

Gregorovich shrugged in the screen, looking all too pleased with himself. “Lad, I meant no offense to strike no nerve within you.”

“Sure seems like it.”

“You can believe as you like. You can take my present or you can leave it-”

“People aren’t presents. Guess you are just about as evil as everyone says.”

“And yet, here we are.” His gaze was calm and collected, like an ambush predator waiting for the slightest mistake on my part to seize the opportunity. “Your darkest, most despised temptation and a locked room. Hours to do anything you please.”

“I’m not raping Meredith.”

“No, it would just be a bit of punishment for her crimes against you, no? For thinking herself above you, that she was better than you. You know that our ‘sweet’ little Merry here would kill you sooner than kiss you, and she sees many reasons to kill you. Would it be so wrong-”

“Yeah, it’d be so wrong that I’m not going to do it. I might run that kink by Shelly someday, but not today, and not with Meredith. Besides, she’d probably kill me until I died to death of being unalived to a state of lifelessness.”

“Meredith or Michelle?”

“Yes, and on top of that, I get it, Maxim. It’s sick. Doesn’t mean that I like that I’m into it, and it doesn’t mean-”

“Oh, come now, Lad. Why else would a young man ask for three combat oriented spells? You were warned time and time again that I was an evil man. I told you that I am not. Would you like to discuss this?”

“Yeah, actually, ‘cause I have a funny feeling that it pertains to me anyway.”

“It does, indeed. Do you know how Legends choose their Vessels, Ladron Gadai?”

“I don’t, so pretty please tell me before Meredith wakes up.”

“If you could rape her and get away with it, then I think she would be very hard to wake in your given timeframe. That being said, we Legends don’t necessarily just pick anyone that we’ve observed. No, in fact, after our lives have ended, there are a few events that I cannot reveal to you at this moment, but at the end of those events, we are given a choice: we may either carry on as Legends vicariously through our Vessels, turning them into our Vassals, or we may rest and let the world continue to turn on an axis of thorns.”

“That tells me almost literally nothing about how Leggybois choose vassinas.”

“Shut up, you shut, er, fool. Either one, feel free to choose.”

“You’re being awfully mean.”

“Сын, I’m a man who has killed more people than you have met. I am not always the most tactful, and you are being rather uncooperative.”

“Right. Mass murderer. I’m just gonna…” I started to hang up with Maxim’s watchful eye on me. Then I hung up. Except my finger didn’t touch the glass and the phone felt like it was glued to my hand. “I’m not allowed to hang up, am I?”

“When you can go, I’ll let you know,” Gregorovich replied easily. “For now, you sit. You listen. Clear?”

“Like a decent gem.” I wasn’t scared, I was just feeling irritable.

“See? Who do you fear more, myself, or your proclaimed ‘Mistress’?”

“Mistress, duh.”

“Yet you would lay a hand on her?”

“I’a pimp-slap yo’ ass.”

“... That’s quite creative of you. Touch me in my realm and I shall invite unfathomable horrors unto your… How you Americans say, gooch?”

“That’s both gay and threatening. One matters a little less than the other, but both matter since I’ve already got everything I need from you. I don’t want your full power. I’ll be perfectly content with your spoonful-”

“Lad, are you saying that you intend on abandoning, no, shunning, my gifts?”

I smiled at him. “You said it yourself, Maxim; You’re a mass-murdering psychopath. You and I might be dark inside, but I’m a nice grey, and you’re a Blaq Russian.”

He smiled back. “Clever, but it was the end of a bull with no head and two tails. From start to finish, you were spewing shit, ha! You are my kind of dark, Ladron. That’s the only reason I was able to choose you.”

That pinged something deep inside of me, right in my chest cavity. I wasn’t exactly sure where my heart was, but I could vaguely feel something next to it, aching fiercely. It might have been my most useful muscle or it could have been my lie detector not going off, its needle digging into the tender soft-tissue of my beating heart, dragging a straight line around it. “I really wish you were lying.”

“But you know for yourself that I am not, no?”:

“... Fink and Winnfield. Who-”

“Dorset was ‘blessed’ with one of my Grandfather’s own role-models in youth, a man by the name of Josef Mengele, a Kraut.”

“... Famous Nazi. Yeah, I know of him.”

Maxim chuckled. “Ah, how my Father told me tales of his screams! Josef was always such a bastard with his punishments, but taking his own medicine made him quite ill. Especially when my father exposed his stomach and staunched the bleeding. That was an interesting experiment.”

“I’m guessing you had a fun childhood.”

“Made me an excellent field surgeon. Blood and bone were my expertise, but uniting the world-”

“Oh, c’mon, you fricking lunatic! You can’t pretend that you were still trying to good all along!”

Maxim smiled. “Have I ever lied to you, Ladron?”

“Pretty sure you’re doing it now,” I replied flatly.

He looked me in the eye and that was all it took to know that Maxim was being veratible as could be. “Hmm? Have you got something to say to me, Lad?”

Wisdom guided my tongue, placed there by fear’s quaking hand and encouraged by whispers of dread. “Sorry for the accusation, comrade.”

He nodded toward me. “I won’t make you accept this particular gift. But, if you don’t, she’ll still think you did. If you do something…” Gregorovich’s sly, wolf-like grin. “Perhaps she’ll forget this all happened? Perhaps she’ll want more.”

“... I either cheat on Shells with her psycho Aunt while she’s passed out, or I get the shaft and everyone thinks I’m a rapist. I doubt it’ll even go to court,” I murmured numblty, the weight of my choices in life settling nicely on the top of the fucking SHIT-PILE I’d invited onto my shoulders. Life hurt.

“Do something interesting and she likes you. Respect her and she hates you. Modern women, da?” Maxim cackled, the perfect Feminazi enemy all coalesced into a cishet-white-male with wurld dalmatian aspirations, or something of the sort.

I stared into his eyes, cold and mirthful as they were. I’d never noticed it before, but he took genuine joy in just about everything he did, whether it was wrong or right. To Maxim, he did try to save the world in his own way, and I didn’t even need to hear the majority, or even any, of his story to be painfully, achingly aware of that. Maxim Gregorovich had done just enough to plant the seed of doubt in my mind about him and he’d lead me straight into a trap, courtesy of my own stupid mistakes. The option was obvious to me and it was… To be completely and totally honest, I looked for a gun. I considered biting my tongue off and just choking on it. I kept a knife on me, and Marlene let me keep my pen knife on me since it wasn’t over three inches long, but…

How many people- No. How many sane people can say that they would rather kill themselves rather than kill someone else? That they would get stabbed for someone who’d bullied them and made it clear that the sacrifice wouldn’t be worth it outside of a pyrrhic, moral victory? That they would rather take action to cause themselves to die before…

I didn’t walk away proud, and I didn’t walk away with my tail between my legs. Leaving the Sound Lab with Meredith singing songs of praise for my compositions and adoration falling from her lips in cascading droplets, raining guilt into my bones, making my chest ache. I hadn’t- Well, I had earned it, that was fair enough, but I hadn’t earned it the way Meredith would’ve intended, and that still bothered me. Before you set me ablaze and make voodoo dolls of me, I still did something weird and creepy like a mother-fricker, but I did not have sexual relations with that woman. I simply kissed her until we both reacted, and apparently that was good enough. I still wanted to puke, still hated myself, and was still considering suicide with a hale and hearty vengeance.

All in all, I considered it a productive day, and it wasn’t even over.