Story: St Doria

 

There are names for all sorts of strange mental phenomena. Déjà vu, that slippery sense of repetition without cause. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, where coincidence masquerades as conspiracy, and you start to see something everywhere when you're sure you hadn't before. The Mandela Effect where you'd swear blind that something had happened or was true, but actually was not, cognitive dissonance, the uncanny valley, each one a neat little label for the brain’s more theatrical misfires, and that is by no means an exhaustive list.

And yet, there’s no official term for the moment you become painfully aware of how often you use a particular word. No tidy syndrome for the creeping self-consciousness that turns a perfectly functional piece of vocabulary into a linguistic landmine. You say it once too often, and suddenly it’s radioactive. You start dodging it. Circumlocuting. Reaching for synonyms like you're writing out a thesaurus while your family is held captive. Not because the word is wrong, but because all of a sudden you feel tremendously self conscious around using it. 

A good example might be how "like" gets used as punctuation, a verbal tic that turns every sentence into a stammering ellipsis, used more frequently this way rather than actually comparing two things. Or "just", that apologetic little modifier that sneaks into written sentences without actually changing the meaning behind what's been said. Harmless, until you see it. Then it’s everywhere.

Alex knew that feeling intimately. Not just the awkwardness of overuse, but the stakes of it. Because for her, the word wasn’t just awkward to use, rather it was cursed. "Help." A simple, innocent plea. The kind of thing you might say when your pencil rolled under the desk, or when your friend was carrying too many books. But in Alex’s world, "help" was a trigger. A trapdoor. A summoning circle drawn in syllables.

A handwritten invitation to a hot yuri orgy.

It was amazing they hadn't been caught when there were this many girls involved. Then again, since there were this many girls involved, one could almost say that they already had been caught.

Right now, Alex was headfirst in between Patrick's legs, while she was trying to scribble something or other in a notepad. She had half a mind to pluck it from her grip and toss it around the room so she could focus on having fun.

But then again, there was a more mischievous, naughty side of her that was whispering...

<i>Hey, wouldn't it be fun to make her toss it away herself? Watch her try to write things down, but she's too horny to be coherent?</i>

Lick, lick, li~ick! That voice in her head was right. Patrick's body was wracked with pleasure, but still she was trying to write, even as she moaned and whimpered and her hips bucked and her body convulsed with pure, undiluted pleasure. Lick, suck, smoo~ooch~

"You do realise this doesn't end until we've all cum ourselves stupid, right?" Frank asked, settling in next to Patrick while behind her, Jamie was laying out like a starfish caught on the beach under the noon sun. Seemed happier to be in that position, though. "We simply won't be able to help ourselves."

"Mmmmmnnnnnnrgh~" Patrick groaned as her breasts shot up a size on the spot. Good thing seh'd already taken her clothes off, that would have absolutely ruined her shirt. "None of this makes biological sense! Ooooh!" She tried to swallow her fist, oh how cute. "Must make notes, must make notes, must make - "

Frank shut her up with a deep smooch. As for John and Oliver, the two of them pulled away from one another to join the party, as it were. While the two of them had adorably fallen into one another, they were drawn in to the fun that the rest of them were having with Patrick, here.

"Trust me," John whispered. "You'll be addicted to this soon."

"You shall have to fight it back," Oliver whispered, adopting a typical overly dramatic tone. "The urge to say the word will consume your thoughts, beaten back only by your reason... Until you cannot help yourself."

"Where is the mass c-coming, coming, coming from?!" Patrick groaned. "We're all so much curvier, so much bustier, our butts are bigger, our feminine attributes are - Gyah~ This makes no biological or physical sense!"

"Yes, yes, we've gone over this already," John said, then set her mouth upon Patrick's nipple.

"Give in to the sensation, the euphoria, the sapphic delight!" Oliver insisted, settling her mouth upon Patrick's other nipple.

If you asked Alex normally what her view of this situation was, she'd be mortified, humiliated beyond belief. She wasn't into girls - or that's what she'd tell herself. However, under the influence of this spell, this curse, this sinister sorcery, another part of her was emerging.

A part that was enjoying the control she had over them. Frank was physically superior to the rest of them. Patrick was much smarter, and so was Jamie. John could probably talk any of them into doing whatever, and Oliver's performance abilities were well above the ordinary person.

And they were all dancing in the palm of her hands. All of them were instruments of pleasure for her to use as she wanted, and all it took was saying a simple, common word.

Mm~ Perhaps she should do it? Go door to door, for each of the first years and utter that word. Help. Help. Help. Drop it in a casual conversation. I was wondering if you can help me? It's such an easy word to use. If one were to rank words by tiers of use in casual conversation, you'd have words like 'a' 'I' 'the' 'and' 'or' 'but' at tier 1, and 'help' would be...? Hrm, perhaps tier 3? Fairly common, but situational. One might go a whole conversation without hearing it - but then again, it's not uncommon either. It's very easy to slip in without seeming unnatural. If you try to slip in a word like banjo or defenestrate, people would quirk an eyebrow. Those words are only going to come up in a very particular context.

It would be a big help, too. Figuring out who else was a girl. Yes. Yes, of course, of course. It was the only real way to tell, wasn't it? If they were all girls, then - Oooh~ She'd have such a big harem. If they were boys? Then the only thing to worry about was when they asked 'what do you need help with?'

That thought was like a splash of cold water that shocked Alex just enough that she stopped what she was doing. Patrick seemed to take that as a sign that here, now, is when she should finally climax. She gripped that pen so hard she broke it in two, spilling ink all over her hand. 

"Ohhhhhh fuck, I love this, I love this too much~" Patrick burbled. The other girls all writhed and moaned as well.

What was she thinking about just now? Alex was genuinely shocked with herself. Had she been planning to - To what? Go door to door with the expectation that everyone from her year was actually a girl? What might she have said if they had questioned it?

That thought made her take a big gulp. She didn't have a ready answer, and she didn't much like the fact that she was trying to think of one now. Um. Pretend to be a charity? No, that's really scummy. Why did you want to do this again? Be honest with yourself, girl. You wanted to check, yes, but that's not the real reason is it?

You wanted to get more girls... like this. Look at them. They were all out cold, all because of you - or more precisely, your stupid curse. Worse yet, all it would take was any of them saying that word, and then...?

It would all kick off again. The pleasure, the sensation, and perhaps more worrying than any of them, the planning. Bringing in more girls disguised as boys. Bringing them all under her umbrella, all of them, together, lost in forbidden pleasure, lost in sensation, lost in her curse. Just like Frank had said. Unable to help themselves.

To put it another way: Alex could feel control of herself slipping, little by little... and she couldn't even ask anyone else for help without making it that little bit worse.