Author's Note: Please be warned, this chapter does rachet up the bloodiness quite a bit. It is not gory in the traditional sense (you'll see why) but it does involve a stabbing or two. If that sort of thing bothers you, this very well might, too.
*
Footfalls echoed in my head like the steady clap of a factory press. I could not feel the ache on my soles, despite my wildly inappropriate for running footwear. Any other time, I'd be glad to for it, but this time I knew it was The Freedom instantly healing each small injury, smoothing out all feeling that did not equal pleasure, turning it into such. Still the exertion did seem to be keeping The Freedom's other...less savory side effects at bay.
As I ran, I attempted to gather all my observations about The Freedom I had so far. Direct injection and sexual acts passed it, but it was unclear if anything else would. The smell and the voice of the afflicted seemed to have certain seductive and/or paralyzing qualities to it. After orgasm, there was a brief refractory period during which you were "yourself" again but there did not yet seem to be a way to extend it indefinitely although the sleeping pills did seem to make it last significantly longer. Given what I'd seen with my mom, the refractory period shrinks to nothing over time. Given Mr. Barron's behavior, the period could also be accelerated away by immediately being re-aroused. The Freedom could "remind" you of memories that had never occurred in order to heighten your desire. It also "created" fantasies you never had before and makes you feel like you always have had them. It changed your body almost immediately to your "ideal" version of yourself.
I hoped I'd be able to control myself long enough to convey the details, to pass my knowledge on as a way to help others. As I considered writing them down immediately, an image of me pouring candle wax on a trussed up naked local news anchor woman overtook my optic nerves. She was the black haired lady from Channel 5 with the full lips who always seemed a bit too flirty with the weatherman. I could smell the smoke of a just extinguished candle and heard her saying, "Tonight at 11, which anchorwoman is a bad, bad girl who loves being tied and dominated by college girls? The answer will probably not surprise you." I kicked the metal cage around a nearby trashcan, the sudden shock of pain shattering the hallucination. I forgot the idea of writing down my knowledge. I ran harder.
Finally reaching Filliais Hall, home of the Chemistry Department, I slowed my pace. I was concerned with drawing attention to myself. If anyone stopped me, if they interfered in any way with me passing off The Freedom in its liquid form, I feared I could not stop myself from victimizing them and that once I did so, all hope of the sample being used to stop this would be lost.
Easing past a display case in the main hall, I paused to glance at myself and cursed. I looked, well, like an attention seeking slut. Plus, the flush on my cheeks and wind whipped hair made it look like I had taken a few moments to get off in the bathroom before visiting my professor. There was no time to be proud though. Or, as The Freedom briefly urged me, to "appreciate" myself more fully while looking at my reflection.
"You're late," my TA Mark Hazzell commented without looking up from a stack of papers as I walked in, "You're lucky I had other work to keep me here."
He was sitting at his desk in his "uniform": untucked flannel shirt, carpenter khakis, scuffed boots, five o'clock shadow. He always looked so unfinished to me. At that moment though, my first thought was, "He's handsome."
"Not the time," I growled, dramatically tossing the plastic bottle onto his desk, and talking as much to him as my suddenly diamond hard nipples, "We've got more important things for today, Mark."
He looked up at me, bemused look on his face dissolving into a none too subtle up and down ogle of my body. I cocked my hip and stared. Then, thinking it perhaps a bit too sexy sassy, I just sat down.
"Well," he cleared his throat and picked up the bottle, glad for the distraction, "What is this?"
"I'm hoping you can tell me. I—I—" I came up short, gasping. A suddenly jolt of pleasure shot through me without preamble. Gripping the desk, I pressed on, voice thin and reedy, "My mom took it, I guess... on her psychologist's advice. And it made her...very—uhhhhhh—different."
I paused to catch my breath, unfocused desire literally burning inside me. When I felt reasonably under control, I began again. "She has also injected me with it and...well...ohgod," I mumbled, losing my vision to a bright mental flash of Mark on a leash before me.
"Are you okay?" he said, coming out from behind his desk to comfort me.
As he touched me, I threw back my hands, exclaiming, "Don't touch me!" The tiniest brush of his hand left my skin hot and vibrating.
"Oh...okay," he whispered, looking a bit scared.
"Sorry, sorry...part of the thing with it. Very...sensitive. Anyway, I sent someone to the hospital with a sample and thought I'd give one to you."
"Well...alright. Can you...wait here? I think there's enough here for a couple different tests."
"Sure, sure," I huffed, ignoring the persistent throb of my clit, "But I might have to go. If I'm not here, call the hospital and give them what you've got."
He nodded and jogged out of the small lecture room down the hall to the grad lab. I totally neglected to give my other observations and theories.
With a heavy exhale, I flopped my head backward over the top of the chair. For the first time, I was thankful my college insisted on being a liberal arts school with incredibly strong science programs and spent the money to make it happen.
With the departure of Mark, the burning want in my body seemed to dissipate as well. Unfounded optimism led me to consider the possibility that perhaps being separated from people would make The Freedom easier to manage.
While I arrogantly considered that I might have found a way to outthink The Freedom, the bodily intruder reminded me pride comes before the fall. Without warning, The Freedom sparked my body's pleasure responses. I screamed out as every erogenous zone was stimulated at once. My body snapped into a rigid straight line, body parts smacking part against the chairs gathered around me. I bit down on my tongue, the salty brine of blood coating my mouth. I clawed at my skin, the very feeling of cloth on skin being so intense it felt as though my body was literally burning.
"Oh god, oh god, oh stop, don't stop, no, no, stop, ooooo, FUCK! OH GOD! Pleasssssssssse...so good, so good. Don't want this! Uhhhhhhhh," I babbled incoherently, falling out of the chair onto the cold, dirty tile floor. Pleasure gave way to hard orgasms that shook me so hard I must have looked like I was having a seizure. Muscle and tendons strained so hard that the part of my brain capable of any kind of thought feared my body was literally tearing itself apart.
Then, just as quickly, everything stopped. Gasping, I crawled to Mark's desk and struggled to pull myself off the floor. A glimpse of myself in a small mirror on the table's surface confirmed that, If I hadn't before, I definitely looked the part of a fantasy fuck princess now, cheeks perfectly flush, eyes wide and bright, lips plump and wet, breasts heaving with exertion. I prayed that I had just experienced the last stand of The Freedom, its extinction burst.
Just as I fully righted myself and made the decision to get to somewhere isolated, just to be safe, The Freedom struck once more, dumping neurotransmitters and adrenaline in my bloodstream. I came, mouth open in a silent scream, brain coating me in an auditory and visual hallucination of being serviced by dozens of men and women at once. They crawled over me, touching me, rubbing me, kissing me, licking me, fucking me. As the aftershocks ripped through me, darkness enveloped me and I lost consciousness.
When I came to and brushed myself off, the "real" Wendy was gone, long gone. There was only The Freedom Wendy. And she was hungry.
I sauntered into the lab, hips swaying back and forth, and slid right into Mark's personal space.
"Find anything?" I softly inquired while provocatively leaning on the counter beside him. I followed The Freedom's guidance and positioned myself to give him a free and clear peek down my shirt.
He kept his eyes glued on the microscope while responding, "It is actually pretty fascinating. You were smart sending on this on to the hospital. It's neither just chemical nor just viral. It's definitely a drug, but there is also a viral load in suspension within it."
"Is it," I began, walking to his side of the counter to get closer, "something you could reproduce?"
He paused and I saw his nostrils flair, taking in my scent. Then he responded, "Actually, with this sample, yes. The chemicals are not that complex...they all appear to be derivatives of wildly available meds that do things like increasing blood flow, regulate adrenaline, reduce anxiety...things like that. And since the viral piece is still alive in this sample, it would be easy enough to breed, I'd think."
"Excellent," I cooed, some part of me dimly recognize the echo-y, honeyed quality of my voice. It was the voice of one who had embraced The Freedom.
