Chapter Five: A Look In The Mirror
In all the history of psychological torture, human torturers have had to contend with one fundamental limitation: their guesswork. After all, you can never truly know another's mind. It is a vast, dark chamber, and the ways it will react to any given stimulus is always a mystery.
But not this time.
Kevin has something no other captor has ever had, an incredibly potent weapon at his disposal, a weapon that used to be mine. His intent to punish me is informed, aided and abetted by my own powers.
I've been compelled to share, in lengthy and disturbing detail, which scenarios would devastate me the most as an individual, and as a woman. What would make me feel most personally defeated, and above all, as he put it, a traitor to my own gender.
It isn't easy to wrap my mind around what this means, exactly. Kevin doesn't need to guess how to hurt me: he has perfect information. I can't delude myself that it's going to be fine, or that I can take it, because what awaits me is literally tailor-made to be my absolutely worst nightmare, made manifest.
Kevin has turned me into the architect of my own destruction.
For the longest time, as I walked the halls and grounds of campus, I used to feel untouchable, a special girl with a special secret. Everyone and everything here was in the palm of my hand. If I didn't like something, I could correct it. There was great power in that, and I realise it all the more, now that I've lost it.
The power to right injustices, the power to stop bullying, the power to free women and girls from the oppression of the patriarchy... and yes, the power to claim some side benefits, though I was always so restrained in my indulgence.
But now...
After discovering me, Kevin has systematically removed my ability to hypnotise anyone without his full, prior and explicit consent. My loophole is gone, my chance at freedom reduced. But worst of all is that this makes me feel like I've been utterly declawed and defanged, a harmless kitty rather than a tiger.
Now, I walk through campus as a mere mortal among mortals.
How do normal people do this? Hell, how did I do it, before my power first manifested itself? I know for sure that I was unhappy then, and I'm unhappy now. Being human is a miserable experience, and I miss feeling like a goddess.
But apparently, goddesses, too, can be subjugated.
I know it's not entirely rational, but I feel that if Kevin could subdue me when I still had control of my powers, then now I must be fair game to everyone I meet. I could be at the mercy of anyone who might wish to take advantage of me.
Like in olden days, what's to stop a bully like Sarah from putting me in ny place? Or a male student with more libido than sense from pushing me against the wall, and having his way with me?
This is trauma speaking, I realise. Being subjugated by an incel intent on revoking my feminist and lesbian status has shaken me to my core, and now I'm jumping at shadows, but can you blame me? I'm just as vulnerable as all the girls I used to protect, and now there's no protector anymore. My powers will be used at Kevin's behest, and no one else's.
I've created a monster.
Of course, Kevin has done far, far worse than just bring my power under his full control. My libido has been increased, so that I find myself panting and squirming with desperate, needy arousal, and I immediately understand why so many doms resort to chastity as an instrument of control. There's nothing quite like your very pleasure, your sex being mastered by someone, to put you in a submissive mindset.
Even someone you hate.
If possible, things get even worse. The new limitations on my powers were to be expected after my defeat, and I suppose to a degree so was the libido control, but I've done so much more to make Kevin's job of taming me easier.
I've obediently supplied him with all the tools he needs to start undoing me, piece by piece, until there's nothing left of the person I used to be. And that's why my feet take me to my destination, quite literally against my will.
I've spent the entire day paying visit to girl after girl, here on campus. Most of them are girls I've changed in some way or other over the past couple of years. Making them more confident and assertive, nudging their sexuality away from men, helping to end abusive relationships.
I've also taken a few privileges here and there, of course--help with homework, stuff like that. Kevin, of course, wants them changed back, and I've gone through the entire list. One by one, I've used my power on each and every girl, telling her to never like or respect me again, to consider me as little more than a hypocritical slut, and that's for starters.
I've lowered their confidence, convinced them that they crave the validation and approval of a man, and that they should start looking to Kevin's blog for guidance in life, which would almost be pathetically amusing, if it wasn't so fucking horrifying.
I'm creating a cult, I realise with a shudder. A cult of male supremacy and feminine meekness, enforced through supernatural powers, with a dorky loser as its centre of gravity.
As our master.
The members of the campus feminist collective have been the hardest to change, so far. They don't know how much they owe me, to what length I've gone over the years to make sure campus would conform to our vision. From Professor Carter to chauvinistic jocks, I've kept them safe, asking for nothing in return.
And now, they never will know. In the fullness of time, there won't be a feminist collective on campus anymore. Thanks to the poison I've slipped into their minds, each girl will naturally reach the conclusion that a woman's place in life is at a man's feet, and that Kevin is the hottest guy they're likely to meet in their lives.
All of this is horrible, and worst of all, stems directly from my subconscious. Apparently this is what my psyche considers as the ultimate defeat, and the supreme gesture of betrayal towards my fellow women. Systematically undoing every single one of my accomplishments. Rolling back every progress, every advancement. Feeding feminists to man's yoke. My work of years, dismantled and lying all in ruins, at Kevin's feet, alongside the growing ranks of followers I'm recruiting for him.
It makes my heart squeeze to think about it--but the worst task is yet to come. Perhaps that's why I've left it for last...
I can hear the thunderous roar of my own heart as, full of anticipation, I knock on the door. When it opens, the face that greets me is a friendly face, an innocent face. Sandra is the friendliest, most trustworthy person I know, one I've never seen the slightest need to change.
The warmth I see in her brown eyes makes my guts twist at the horrible, unspeakable betrayal I'm about to commit against her.
"Hey, come on in!" She says, tying her hazel locks into a bun, and making way for me to enter her room. I'm uncomfortably aware of the fullness of her breasts under her sweater, and the way her tight jeans round her curvy thighs--I've always known she's pretty, intellectually, but with Kevin's tampering with my libido, my sex-starved imagination is beginning to wander...
"So, what did you want to talk about? What's been up with you lately anyway?"
Her questions snap me back to reality. I sit on the chair by her desk, as she mirrors me on the bed, draping one magnificent leg over the other, her socked foot bobbing up and down.
I gulp, both in distracting arousal, and in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable. Sandra has been incredibly trusting with me. She's left me space when I recently cut off all my social commitments, never inquiring too much about what was on my plate. She couldn't know I was fighting for my very freedom, and losing.
So of course, when I told her that I wanted to talk, she immediately let me in. She probably assumed that I was finally about to share whatever issue I was facing with her, and in a way I suppose that was true... Just not the way she imagined.
"My dear friend," I manage to say at last, in a trembling voice that doesn't quite sound like my own. "Please forgive me, I'm so sorry..."
Sandra arches an eyebrow, and I swear her puzzled, inquisitive expression makes her look even more beautiful. "Sorry? About what?"
I try to warn her, then. In a last ditch of defiance and desperation, I try to scream that she should run away from me, or cover her eyes, or wear a pair of well-polished sunglasses... but of course, the words die in my throat, and Kevin's instructions take over my motor functions, my will.
And so, inevitably, I push my power into her mind.
What really, finally and completely breaks my heart is the look on my friend's face, as the surging power of the sea slams against her with a mighty roar. She can't know what's happening of course, not really, and yet it's as if some primitive part of her understands that she's being taken over.
It lasts only a split second, but I can see it flicker across her face. Confusion, hurt, betrayal. She doesn't deserve this. She's a smart girl, a pretty girl, with dreams and loves and fears. A true feminist, and fiercely independent, but so sweet and caring, a person with no enemies, who's never hurt anyone.
Her only fault? Being my friend. Being turned into an instrument of my punishment. I don't care how many times he forces me into self-hypnosis, I will never forgive Kevin for this... nor will I forgive myself, either.
