An urban legend about shadowy groups--or maybe a government agency that FOLLOWS you, keeps you under surveillance and then, if you continue to "misbehave," they snatch and "Replace" you. There are tales of terrible punishments that the taken are put through--images from some dark place.
Aimee, a young college girl, is one of the Followed. She has found a "Circle" of the Followed where those experiencing the phenomena meet and get guidance from their strict leader on how to manage themselves to keep the "Followers" off them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the grungy basement of Lewellen Hall, Aimee Brooks sat reversed on a little plastic chair, her face boiling with blush. She had her jeans down to her ankles and her shoes off so she was just wearing socks.Her panties were down as well and she sat at the very edge of the chair's seat so her buttocks were pushed off into the air, her knees bowed out to either side. The position was just awful!.
She hugged the back of the chair, looking out at the semi-circle of The Followed. In the Brawin College, the group: Followed. It was hard to get into: you had to pass a three-step process of two interviews and the final test that ensured you weren't just getting your information from message boards.
Aimee had passed the student interview portion of the test. Yes, someone is following me. No, it's not all the time. They wear long coats. They're dirty. They... smell... a bit like cabbage. No: they've not gotten close. Yes: I'm scared.
Scared wasn't really the key term though--it was more like shamed. The Followers had shown up the first time in Aimee's first week of school where she'd gone to a party, didn't know anyone, got totally, totally drunk, and wound up mostly undressed, kissing another girl passionately. It had been tawdry, disgusting, and she was pretty sure there were pictures. She'd been horribly ashamed when she woke up, with her first ever hangover, on the couch. That was better than the other girl who was nearby, and had wet herself.
No, the shame of waking up in a strange house, hung over, vaguely remembering the passionate kissing and petting was bad--horrible--but the problem had started when she got back to her dorm and, unable to get a handle on her emotions and arousal, had gone to take a shower. She'd masturbated in the girl's bathrooms, in a stall--thinking of her exhibitionist performance she'd put on--and the sullen heat of the other girl pulling her across her lap, and spanking her over her panties. She came, on the toilet, remembering the girl announcing in giggles, how wet her panties were.
It had been a perfect storm of shame and humiliation and her horrible dirty-hot arousal at thinking about it had been wretched--but while she was unable to suppress a moan from the dorm-room toilet (thankfully no one was in there), she knew as soon as she'd cum that the memory--in all its unbearable glory--was going to be on the tips of her fingers again and again. Unwilling to bear the shame of her arousal at it, she'd lay in bed, squirming, refusing with all her might not to go back to the hot-wet bonfire of humiliation and thus unable to masturbate in bed. It was a good thing too--she'd have woken her roommate.
So it went for two days--her refusal to revisit the terrible broiling-hot shame soaked memories, and then her failure to refuse herself an orgasm. She'd managed thus far not to moan out loud where anyone heard her, but each time she'd revisited the scorching night, she'd cum so hard that her control could not keep her passion quiet.
It had been awful--and it had gotten worse. She saw the first "follower" tracking her out on a run to the 24-hour supermarket four blocks off campus. She'd been in the mausoleum-quiet store with several boxes of snacks in a shopping basket when she'd felt something shift behind her. Felt, because she couldn't pin down anything she'd seen or heard--but when she turned, the form was there: gray long coat. Hat. Not super tall--maybe 5'6"? It was hard to tell, but the figure shifted back behind a display, partially hidden.
In the brilliant lights of the all-night supermarket, she had felt first a wave of fear--and then anger. Someone was following her and ducking out of sight? She'd tromped back down the aisle to the bulging display and grabbed the partially visible coat. It, and the hat, were hung on a hook used for gift cards. They were empty of people.
The coat was old--stained--it smelled of sweat. It had felt dirty in her hands--it was definitely not for sale. But worse: if the owner had just flattened themselves against the display on the other side of the stack of soda cans, and she'd never lost sight of the edge of the coat, how did the person get it off? Where did they go? It was eerie. If anyone had been around, she'd have asked them what they saw, but no one was. Furious, she took it to throw it out. Whoever it was, good luck getting your shitty coat back.
When she went to pick up pads from the feminine hygiene aisle, the sense of someone looking over her shoulder was sudden and compelling. She spun, seeing nothing--but down--down along the back wall of the grocery store was a double door to the stockrooms. She just barely caught the figure--no, another figure, in one of the same dark gray coats, slipped inside.
She'd chased it--blushing: away from home, it was one of the rare times she'd bought menstrual pads herself and it was embarrassing. Being watched doing it--scrutinized--followed made it worse--and she was mad. She'd pushed into the back room, feeling the chill of air conditioning and standing in the under-lit area. She could see shelves of stock items, and the garage door for the loading dock. Nothing was moving.
No, what caught her eye was the employee break area with a thick lacquered wooden paddle hung from a peg on the wall. Under it was a printed paper on a clipboard with employee names and a number of "corrections" with "strokes" for each correction. It also had a 0,1, or 2 for "layers." Most were 2. A few were 1. Three were 0's. She'd gotten out of there. She'd thought about it--hard--on the ride back to her dorm. Layers were layers of clothes. Pants, panties, bare-bottom?
She'd blushed hard. The shame from the other girl struggling with her (in play, yes--but...) and then spanking her (hard--yes, not out of bounds, exactly--but ow!)--had led to her desperately wanting to masturbate but being unwilling to risk the communal bathrooms and knowing she couldn't trust herself to keep quiet in bed. It had been awful, laying there, arousal throbbing in her pussy. She'd broken a few minutes before midnight and woken up Carrie with her moans. At the time, she thought that was mortifying. She had lain in a terrible, damp spot on the bed, only imagining what Carrie must have thought! Her shame lashed her as she tried to focus past the disgrace. Worse, as she lay there, the feeling of wetness under her buttocks--the sense of humiliating discomfort--somehow, agonizingly, made her horny again.
That was before THEY started Following her in earnest. She saw Them. Big or slight--at a distance, watching her. Distorted in shadows. A man with binoculars here. A figure on a balcony tracking her with a telescope. That was also when she noticed some flyers up on campus bulletin boards talking in cryptic terms about Them and The Followers. Before this had all started, the terms and images would have been meaningless. Now, though, she understood completely what the messages were. Using the contact information posted on bulletin boards around the school, she got in contact and she met Dane in the campus bar and he gave her the quiz, nodding through it.
"The second phase," he said, "If you have to go talk to Ms. Pearson. She's the group leader. She's a Professor in the English studies department with a specialty in feminist literary theory." He looked at her. "It's not a fun interview--but if you're being Followed, you need to be in the group. She understands how to keep them off you."
"Who are They?" She'd demanded in hushed tones. "What do They want!?" In a forceful, whispered voice she could still clearly hear herself using the capital letters.
"Talk to her," he said. He gave her a card with Office Hours on it--it was for the Followed Club. "Do what she says."
# # #
Ms. Pearson was frighteningly good at identifying those who broke the rules. In her case, it was the primary one: masturbation. It was forbidden, and yet she was unable to resist. How Ms. Pearson uncannily knew who had done what, wasn't clear--but she could sense the guilt and maybe track the release of tension in her group.
