"First the cute, shy blonde one, now the tall, square-jawed, self-righteous Catholic one? Goodness, so many new toys to play with! But, we all must remember: different playthings require different approaches...
"And don't we still have a few more flowers to pluck? Pity to allow them to... loiter around like this. Honestly, my initial acquisitions have been so exciting, I've almost become distracted..."
*****
Tired, sore, bleary-eyed, Mason stumbled out of the barn and glanced out toward the field and across the rolling hills.
An honest-to-goodness miracle. Not a Menudian in sight!
And yet... why not?
Perhaps they'd all finally crawled back into their mysterious little holes for good? He didn't trust this eerie calm one bit. One thing was for sure though: that rickety old faded red structure, straight out of a Norman Rockwell illustration, had apparently turned out to be quite the safe spot.
Gently closing the barn door, he darted west, where he theorized he'd eventually come across the parking lot and, in theory, the road that would take him back to the town, the campus... and back to God damn safety? Ah, but that was going to be a long walk -- a couple of hours, at least -- and his snack supply was running low. Assuming the Menudians would continue to remain dormant, of course, which would have been one foolish assumption indeed.
Nevertheless, Mason proceeded to sneak through the foliage that skirted the meadow. The evening's sleep had been far from the most luxurious he'd ever experienced, but somehow, he'd managed.
Now if only he'd managed to wipe away that image, almost frozen in place like a photograph, of Emily's peculiar facial expression as Menudia's methods overtook her. Why couldn't he have just... looked away?
Having tried in vain all night to swap out that haunting facade for another, the only alternative that bothered to appear was an image of his
own
face, with that same alien, impassive expression on it, virtually unrecognizable, and yet presenting itself in his psyche with microscopic clarity.
He was beginning to realize that perhaps it wasn't Menudia's
numbers
that necessarily gave her such overwhelming strength, but a kind of "soft power," almost as much psychological as it was physical, like the carefully chosen scent and lighting scheme at a Vegas casino. The
allure
of joining all the others, that temptation to simply
give in
, to be seduced by the promise of leaving all your responsibilities behind...
But that was
them
, not him! Self-control was all he'd ever known, virtually having become his identity. If he ever became something
other
than that, then who, precisely, would he be?
Like, if there had been a way to "try it out" for a little while, and then switch
back
, like giving a new cable company a shot, maybe he wouldn't have been so terrified of it. But the notion of never being the "same" again, never being able to "undo" it...
Just as he was passing the pond, this dilemma still churning in his mind, he spotted a familiar figure making her way down the hill and toward the water.
It looked like... hey, wasn't that Karen?
Mason breathed a sigh of relief. Ah yes, there was still a little hope left after all.
Naturally, throughout those volatile college years, having to stand idly by watching every other nerdy, inexperienced girl at Sacred Saints suddenly hook up with that very first boyfriend and get her cherry popped, the bitter taste of envy in his mouth, he consoled himself with the knowledge that there would always be hopeless cases like Karen.
You could say that she and Mason were allies of a sort. Like him, she surely felt that subtle sting of betrayal whenever one of her fellow celibates inevitably "joined the club." There was an unspoken bond, never discussed, but always present. And as long as he could glance at Karen, and be assured that there was still at least
one
other student alongside him who was equally frustrated, equally stuck, then he didn't feel quite so bad about himself.
But upon closer inspection, Mason soon came to realize that... something was different about her.
Very
different.
It couldn't be. Not Karen.
It seemed impossible. But somehow he knew.
Oh no
.
Her brown hair, previously having been braided blandly behind her head, now flowed messily and teasingly about her shoulders. Gone was the plain black zip-up hoodie, as she was now prancing around in a bright pink t-shirt with a zany, rainbow-colored graphic on it, eagerly taking advantage of its having been a couple of sizes too small for her, which gave her the chance to show off her cute midriff.
Mason could also see that she must have jettisoned her bra, since her pointy nipples were now poking excitedly behind her t-shirt. Although not entirely absent, her rampant acne seemed to have been toned down by some skillfully applied makeup. On top of all that, the top button of her grey corduroy slacks was dangling open, her fly half-unzipped.
It was the last thing he wanted to admit, but he found this transformed Karen unexpectedly... sexy?
It wasn't just the way she was carrying herself, or how she was utilizing her outfit to accentuate her figure; it was the contrast between who she'd been before, and who she'd suddenly become. The very transformation itself was a part of the allure.
Yes, he felt betrayed, yes, he felt angry, but mainly he felt... astonished? Mason had never even thought about Karen in that "way" for one measly second, but looking at her
now
... he resented his own impulse, but he almost wanted to just stare at her and gape.
Perhaps he should have sprinted back into the woods, but he was too fascinated, too curious. If that's what becoming a Menudian could do for
