47. What Were You Thinking?! Part 1
Saturday Mid-Day
The light in the short entrance hallway to her apartment didn't respond when Maddie flicked the switch a few times, and the other rooms she could see were unusually dark as well. She made a noise of confusion as she walked in with Leila behind her, saying, "Leave the door open while I go look at the breakers, babe." She started to rummage around in her purse for her phone, wanting to use the flashlight mode, when her arms were suddenly pinned against her sides by a strong grip.
Moments later, Leila let out a yelp as the door was slammed shut, leaving them in darkness. Maddie caught a glimpse of two people jumping out from behind it as it closed, at least one of whom had grabbed her girlfriend. "Leave her alone!" she yelled, struggling against the arms encircling her.
There was the sound of loud scuffling and then a male voice Maddie didn't recognize cried out, "I've got her, but she's really strong!" The last word stretched out into a kind of yell as the strange man fell to the ground with Leila, who was clearly struggling to get away despite her lack of vocalization.
Another voice, feminine and sounding slightly accented to Maddie's ear, said, "I don't think she's got it on her! She's naked, nowhere to hide it! Did she have a bag when she walked in?"
Maddie stopped struggling abruptly when Cassie's voice rang out loudly, almost in her ear. "Okay, come check Maddie's bag for it instead!"
Suddenly grasping what the assault must be about, Madelyn shouted, "Trigger trance!" angrily. When she felt Cassie's grip slacken she easily disengaged herself and scurried toward the living room. There were sounds of confusion from the two strangers, probably because they didn't know why Leila had given up fighting, nor why Cassie had stopped responding to them.
Finally locating a light that worked, Maddie noticed that the windows had been covered with blankets to increase the darkness. She was a little surprised to see that both of the other attackers were nude, and thought she recognized the girl from school. The man was sporting a pair of antlers, which delayed Maddie's realization that she actually knew him slightly from college as well. These were clearly the friends Cassie had accidentally used the remote on, and probably she had spread her nudism to them as well.
Thinking quickly, Maddie pulled the remote out of her purse and pointed it at the naked pair, who were blinking against the light and looking toward the entranced Cassie with concern and growing alarm. Their eyes went even wider when they saw the device being brandished at them, and Maddie snarled, "Get the fuck away from my girlfriend or I'll use this to turn you into a couple of piss-drinking sex slaves!" She shook the remote a little to emphasize her threat and was pleased to see her adversaries quickly retreat from Leila's prone body.
"Stay on the ground!" Maddie ordered as she approached the couple, trying to remember if Cassie had mentioned their names to her. Too frazzled to concentrate on such details, she made her way cautiously toward Leila and leant down to whisper her awake, keeping the device trained on the terrified pair that were now hugging each other for comfort. Madelyn found her power over them almost intoxicating, and it took all her resolve and restraint to avoid zapping them punitively.
Once Leila had been revived and gotten a brief explanation, Maddie handed her the remote and said, "Keep an eye on those two while I deal with Cassie." Looking scared but determined, the bunny girl nodded and did her best to be intimidating as she stood guard. Her nervously twitching cottony tail betrayed her anxiety, but her girlfriend was the only one in a position to notice that at the time.
Madelyn eyed Cassie speculatively, wondering how to protect herself from her roommate now that the secret of the device was out, or at least some of its secrets. Any triggers she gave people had to be sexual, she remembered, so after some thought she stood on her toes to whisper into the redhead's ear, "If you try to use the remote on me, my friends, or my family without my permission, you'll be completely unable to orgasm unless we forgive you." She was relieved that the trigger was accepted quickly and without fuss, and told Cassie to awaken, stepping back quickly just in case.
Cassie blinked in confusion for a moment or two before taking in the drastically different situation. Her expression went from confusion to panic and then to a kind of angry despair. "Well, fuck," she muttered, noticing the bunny girl pointing the device at her lovers. "I guess this means you win, bitch," she said coldly, glaring at her.
"What did I win?" asked Leila, appearing completely baffled. Maddie wasn't entirely sure what was going on either and stared at her roommate in confusion.
"Us, I guess, you monster!" shouted the angry redhead. "I don't know why you're trying to turn people into your naked sex-pets or whatever, but I guess you have some kind of power to make us black out or whatever, so there's not much hope in resisting you, is there?" she sneered.
Leila looked even more bewildered than before and turned to her girlfriend, hoping for an explanation. Maddie thought she had a glimmer of the misperception Cassie seemed to believe, so she asked, "Um, why exactly do you think Leila is behind everything?" The picture got increasingly clear as her roommate explained her reasoning and the changes she was aware of. For the most part it seemed plausible to connect everything back to Leila, but Maddie saw one glaring mistake in Cassie's conclusions.
"I kind of get why all the nudity and petplay and animal features seem like they're linked," Maddie offered, "But you hadn't even really met her yet when you adopted nudism, remember? That happened basically right after you got back from your softball camp, and you didn't even know I had a girlfriend until later that night."
The look of shock on Cassie's face was rather comical, right down to her mouth forming an 'O' of surprise as she realized her mistake. "But that means... you!" she finally managed to gasp out.
Feeling just a little smug and aroused at the reminder of her power, Madelyn nodded and confirmed, "Yep. Me. I used it on you, and you became a nudist. I'd already used it on Leila at that point, and she turned into a bunny girl."
"But... I have so many questions, now!" Cassie said loudly. "Where did you get it? Why did you use it on us in the first place? Did you pick what it did to me, or was it just random like with Dana and Miguel?"
Maddie held up her hand to interrupt her roommate and said, "It's kind of a long story, and not all of it is nice. I feel guilty about a lot of it, and I promise I'll explain, but first I need to pee. Are we done with the fight scene? Are you and your friends going to be civil?"
Cassie glanced over at Dana and Miguel, who were still somewhat cowering in a corner with the remote being pointed at them, and nodded her head. "Yeah, as long as you promise not to use it on us, or make us black out again, we'll call it a truce."
"Good!" said Maddie, taking off her dress and sighing in relief. "I hate wearing that in here. Leila, let's go dump our things in my room."
The girlfriends walked down the other hallway to the bedrooms, cautiously keeping an eye on Cassie and the others in case it was a ruse. Fortunately, all three seated themselves on the couch and made no hostile moves, although they began whispering to one another as soon as they sat down. Maddie whispered to Leila, "Keep the remote with you for now, just in case," as they deposited their bags on her bed and went to get cleaned up.
"What are you planning to tell them?" Leila asked while they took turns peeing and washing up a little. "I mean, it's your call obviously, but it feels kind of like an invasion of privacy to spill the beans on everyone else you used it on. Well, actually, I guess I mean 'we used it on,' since I'm the one who zapped Ruth. Definitely not my proudest moment, although I'm happy she's not so mean anymore, but it doesn't feel right to give other people the details, even if I'm sus for being embarrassed about my responsibility."
Maddie kissed her girlfriend to break off the stream of consciousness, then replied, "We won't tell them about all of that. I'm not going to go into details about my mom and sister, either, other than to say how I got accidentally zapped in the first place." Leila smiled and nodded before puckering up for more kisses, which Maddie couldn't resist giving. A few minutes later they carefully peeked out of the bathroom, just in case there was another ambush waiting. Confident that the coast was clear, Maddie led Leila back toward the living area.
Cassie and her friends looked up, also somewhat nervously at first, but appeared relieved when the remote was not brandished at them and the girlfriends merely seated themselves in the two mismatched chairs near the sofa. "I guess we should make formal introductions," said Cassie, probably trying to ease the tensions the five nude people were still feeling.
Once that was taken care of, Maddie launched into a summary of the events surrounding the remote and her activities. She started with how it must have been used on her and how it made her almost unable to resist using it more. She mentioned zapping her family but not anything about their traits or the fact she had fucked them, and made vague references to Tina and Ruth as simply, 'a couple of other women we know' who had also been affected. Questions about the nature of the remote followed, so Madelyn gave her best guess about how it worked and the fuzzy limits of its power, to the best of her understanding.
"But..." Cassie interrupted, "The remote didn't say anything about nudism when I used it on Miguel and Dana. Is that normal? Does it make everyone want to get naked?"
"Ah. That's not quite it, but it's definitely related," said Maddie. "Something I didn't realize at first is that some of the higher-level traits can be transferred to others, mostly by having sex with them. That's why we're all sitting around in our birthday suits. It's your trait, Cassie, but we've all fucked you and caught it, to varying degrees. I don't think it can spread from me to someone else, for example, but I can't rule it out." She frowned, wondering if Tina's toplessness was related to their sexual escapades or merely a coincidence, and wished she'd thought to scan her before leaving.
"Oh!" said Cassie in surprise. When everyone looked at her she blushed slightly and admitted, "I had sex with one of my teammates the other day, in the showers at school, and after we were done she didn't get dressed again. She's been sending me naked selfies occasionally, from the grocery store and other places. I guess now I know why."