CW: questionable consent; rape mention; BDSM; mind-control; anal; humiliation
-- Part 6 - Rebecca --
Please call me when you can
.
Urgent.
I wondered how truthful that was. Whether it actually
was
an emergency of some kind, and if that emergency was one that
I
would be able to impact in any way. In all honesty, the only reason I could think of that would push Hannah to get in touch with me, specifically, was if my power over her was starting to crack her defenses.
There was no denying that my... outburst at her had been from a place of irritability. I was angry at my parents for hiding their lives from me, angry at Holly for fucking my dad, and needed the release. Hannah had refused to give me what I wanted, and so I made sure that, without giving in to me, she wouldn't get what
she
wanted.
However, it was also true that she had come a hair's breadth too close to figuring out what was wrong, and that I was doing more than just hypnotising her. That would need to be addressed. Fixed.
After the mess with Holly and Erin, and having had the clarity to leave them both with only shadows of what I'd done to them - Holly with vague memories and an unexplained attraction to her boyfriend's son, and Erin with a pain kink and no gag reflex - I knew that there were limits. Perhaps not limits on what I could do to people, or have them do to each other, but certainly limits to what my conscience would allow.
So, what was the limit with Hannah?
Had I already crossed it, by forcing her to be unable to cum without anal stimulation - something she was
vehemently
against - or was it a fitting punishment?
Punishment
. I laughed at myself as I reached the bottom of the road Holly and Erin lived on. The sun was still up, though lower in the sky, and the pathways bordered by hedges and trees were criss-crossed in long shadows. Left was home; right was Hannah.
I was punishing her for sinking herself onto me, mid-way through us dirty-talking about all of the things I could do to her. She was getting off on the idea of me
renting her out as a cum dump
- and, what, because she was too turned on to realise I wanted to stop mid-flow, she deserved this?
Because that's where the argument started. She crossed an invisible line she had no reason to know existed, which I had drawn with no notice or warning; then, when she realised I was 'hypnotising' her for the sake of anal sex, she threw me out. In all honesty, it was a fair reaction.
So why don't I want to undo it?
I could feel, as I pause at the T-junction at the bottom of the hill, how easy it would be to go and stand outside Hannah's home, tune in, and undo the damage. Let her go, apologise, and hope that the sex - which was
unbelievable
- might be back on the table.
But I could also feel how much I wanted her to stew with it. To understand that actions have consequences, and that throwing me out meant she threw out the solution to her problem.
So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think to do - in order to let us speak without her thinking I was controlling her, and for me to hear whether she was ready for us to talk. If I was honest, there was no one I would be more willing to tell the truth to; to reveal what I was able to do, and the mistakes I'd made with it, and how all I wanted - in truth - was to use it to make people feel good.
'People' including me, of course.
I pressed her name in my phone, and listened for her answer.
'Jamie,' she answered after one ring. 'I've been... I've been trying to get ahold of you.'
'After you threw me out?' I asked, immediately regretting it. 'Hannah... I shouldn't have done what I did.'
'
Hypnotising me
, Jamie? That's... honestly? I kind of liked it. I like the lack of control - but the main thing in a relationship like this is that you have to trust the person you're giving control to. I don't know if I can trust you.'
I nodded, knowing that she made a good point. 'I understand that.'
'So... I've made up my mind. We're done.'
I sighed - she didn't know. 'Hannah-'
'No, Jamie. You might not get it, but the reason I liked what we did, is because it made me feel powerless
in sex.
But I know my worth - and it's a lot more than this. You can't just control people, and expect them to fall into line.'
'Let me - let me see you, and I can undo-'
'I don't need you to,' she snapped. 'Jamie, I don't need anything from you. I'm going to sort this out myself, and that's that, okay?'
I paused, figuring I shouldn't say anything rash. 'Okay, Hannah. But the hypnotism, that won't just go away.'
'I'll deal with it,' she said, and I could tell she wanted nothing else on the subject. 'What we had was fun, but you went too far, Jamie. Remember that.'
And then, she hung up, and I turned left.
When I got home, mum and Dan were there, sharing a drink and watching TV on the sofa, and as I came in they shuffled to see me.
'Jamie,' my mum muttered, but I just walked past, into my room, and sat at the foot of my unmade bed, wondering what to do.
I tuned in to them - my mum and Dan, and felt their worry, and my mum's care and love for me, Dan's guilt and shame. They didn't have any animosity at me for storming off, or being angry. They just wanted this to work.
Something I could help with.
So, I got changed into clothes that smelled less like incest-orgy, and more fresh-out-of-the-drier, and went to join them on the opposite sofa.
'Let's talk,' I said.
*
It was a week later when I decided to go back to work. Each morning, I'd been sending Mr. Cooke emails to let him know I wouldn't be in. None of them had been contested, and I hadn't heard a word out of Hannah to complain, either, so the work couldn't have been too heavy.
In fact, despite the hot weather and clear skies, the tourism that usually flooded this little village was lacking at the moment - though there was an expectation that 'any day now' it would kick up again. I only had a couple of weeks left until I was moving away, and my greatest worry was that it would end up the same day all of the Americans flooded in, blocking up the tiny country roads with their wider-than-needed beastly cars, making it impossible to get anywhere.
Well, that wasn't my only worry.
As I approached the coffee shop's back entrance, my mind drifted to that first day with Hannah - the day everything really changed. When I started to use this ability for my own pleasure. It was, I had to admit, a
wonderful
memory, but it was bittersweet in its legacy. Since our falling out, I hadn't received a single video or message from Hannah - proving that she was, in at least
some
capacity, able to crack through my instructions. That I wasn't all-powerful.
That had been a common theme of the week. I'd reflected on Ali, and how my attempts to bring us together had only made us fall apart. How my 'punishment' of Holly and Erin was misguided, and only now served as a shameful masturbation-inspiration in the dead of night. How I had pushed away Hannah by asking something of her she had no intention to give.
I wasn't all-powerful, and this gift wasn't something to be thrown around. So, I'd taken a week off. Lived my life as a 'normal' person. And it had been fine.
I'd talked to my mum, and Dan, about how they wanted him to move in when I was gone - they didn't want to make anything awkward while I was still here, but they fully intended to build a life together.
Dad, and Holly... that was a more complicated situation. Since my interference with Erin and Holly, we'd tried to have a sit-down dinner; for my dad it was the first time I'd met Erin
or
Holly. In fact, to Erin and Holly, whose memories I'd wiped of me, it was the first time either - and yet there was a tension in the air. Some part of them, I was convinced, knew me. Remembered me. What I'd done.
Whether their reaction was positive or negative was besides the point (though I
did
recognise that Holly was particularly chummy with me when my dad left the room, and Erin was a little restless in her seat. But that's for another day.)
But now, with all of that behind me... well, I figured that there were a few more bridges I'd started to burn, and I hoped that the time to put the fire out hadn't passed.