Sometimes you get what you want, but not how you wanted it.
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Claire was pissed. She'd been at a house party last night, a few blocks from the University campus, and the evening had faded out in a blur at some point. Sure, she'd had a few drinks, but not that many. Someone must've slipped her something, even though she was always careful about what she ate or drank at parties. She knew for sure she'd had sex last night, but not who she was with. Fuck! She did, however, have suspicions. Drake. Well known ladies man, handsome, charming, braggart, and enthusiastic notcher of bedposts. She remembered dancing with him last night. It must have been him, but she had no proof.
She swore she'd find out, so she started asking around. Her friends Lucie and Asheya spoke to as many of the other people as they could recall being there. The two girls remembered seeing her dancing with Drake, but got distracted about the time she disappeared from the party. After sifting through the gossip and lies and stories, they came to the conclusion that Claire was probably right. That shithead Drake had spiked her drink and fucked her.
She was going to go to the cops but there were lots of people who would back the miserable bastard up in his lies. And she also had zero evidence, just a suspicion. He was way too popular, with way too many of his friends giving him an alibi, and her story would fall on deaf ears. And she had no DNA evidence, as he had worn a condom. But one other thing their questions revealed was that she was definitely not the only one. She found three others who suspected Drake of doing the same thing to them in recent weeks. Two had reported the incidents but they were not taken seriously, as they had no proof of anything. This just incensed Claire. Repeated accusations should warrant investigation, but no, not around here. He was too popular, his family too 'important', so things like this just got swept aside. Bastard.
Claire asked around her circle of friends for ideas about how she could get back at Drake and exact some revenge, because it looked like official channels would yield no satisfaction at all. They tossed around some ideas, but really had nothing. Asheya said her Auntie Grace was some kind of occult priestess or something like that. "Maybe she could curse him!" she suggested. Claire just laughed along with the others at that idea.
She got together with the other three girls she'd found to discuss possible revenge ideas, but they couldn't think of anything useful either. When she laughingly mentioned Asheya's aunt maybe doing some voodoo shit to him, one of the other girls said "Why not try it? We got nothing else. And nothing to lose." The others agreed, so with no better ideas, Claire arranged to meet Asheya's aunt.
Auntie Grace was a tall, thin, grey haired old black lady, who didn't look or act like any kind of witch or shaman or anything. They chatted a bit, and Grace asked for details, like how many of them there were, how sure they were of the perpetrator, and how eager they really were about this revenge business. Claire was deadly serious and absolutely certain about Drake. She'd finally confronted him the other day and he'd laughed in her face and said he was up for a rematch, any time. What an infuriating prick!
Grace said there might be a way, and gave Claire a musty old leather-bound book. "Read this, it has what you need. But watch out! The old ways are dangerous, they usually fail, but mostly because the people workin' the curse are not set on it. If there's four of you and you really want it, you might succeed. But you gotta mean it! Don't even try if you're not gonna mean it." the old lady admonished her.
Claire showed the book to the others, and they each read through it. Or tried to. It was written in some weird Latin script that they had to translate. They found references in other sources that helped, but the words were based on some old dialect and the translations were sketchy sometimes. Jillian suggested one of the curses sounded like it was what they wanted. It summoned some kind of demon that would attack the victim in his dreams. No physical harm would be done. It would just invade his dreams, and then render him incapable of pursuing women. They agreed that this would be prefect. Since there was nothing physical, he couldn't go to the cops. Just like their own situation.
They researched this particular curse. One thing they found they needed was the blood of a virgin. The girls had amongst them a few friends who were virgins, so that should be possible. Just a pinprick for a drop of blood, right? Another thing they needed was something personal from the person they were cursing. That was going to be more difficult. The last thing any of them wanted was to go near Drake. Beth suggested maybe some hair, from a hairbrush or something. "Like they use in those TV crime shows" she said.
They found out where Drake lived and went there one evening when they knew he was out. It was simple enough to watch his social media feeds to determine that. Claire and Jillian went to the front door and pretended to be scouting for some campus org and chatted up the guy who answered the door. He was easy to distract. Two cute girls wanting to talk to him? Oh yeah! Beth and Rylan easily slipped in the back door and snuck upstairs. They checked a couple of rooms and found Drake's.
Something personal was required for the curse, and they figured they'd find something in his room somewhere. When Beth opened the closet door she found a bulletin board with a dozen used condoms stapled to it. "Eww! He keeps trophies." she said.
Rylan reached out and used a tissue to pull one off and dropped it in a baggie. "That's even better than hair." she commented.
"Do you think he'll notice it's gone? He probably counts them to feed his pathetic little ego." said Beth.
"Who cares? Even if he notices, there's nothing he can do about it except blame his roommates."
"Oh god, can you imagine the argument over that? 'Which one of you guys took my used condom?'" said Beth in a faux tough-guy voice.
They hurried downstairs, and slipped out the back door. When they came around the house and onto the sidewalk they called to the others, who excused themselves and left. Claire and Jillian were excited that they got his semen, because one of the translations of the curse they were going to use might have meant they needed his 'seed'. "That's the best thing you could get, it's perfect!" said Claire.
They discussed the ritual and the other things they needed to do and needed find for it. Lots of weird shit like candles, black drapes, robes, and symbols that needed to be drawn on floors and walls, the usual crazy occult stuff, just like in those trashy movies. Since Halloween was coming up soon, there was loads of the stuff they needed in those pop-up costume stores. And they might as well play it up big time. The better the atmosphere, the better it should work, right? At least they'd have a cool Halloween party, if nothing else. And maybe doing it on Halloween would enhance the power of the curse. Who knows?
Claire had been reading one translated version of the curse she found online, and realized that the 'blood of a virgin' was not just any blood, but should be the blood from losing her virginity. Shit. How were they gonna get that? When she brought this up with the group, Jillian said one of her friends, Naomi, was a virgin and was looking to punch her v-card. She wasn't a pretty girl, and she had a rather abrasive personality, so she'd never had a boyfriend. Maybe she'd go along with this. It was worth asking.
"Does it have to be done during the ceremony? Or can we just, you know, collect it and use it later?"
