Almost Golden

Chapter 1
Almost Golden

Almost Golden

By Tainted Sins

wednesday, 1:02 pm

Song watched the cashier ring up the skimpy pair of purple thong panties. She watched her ring up the four pink ones, the green ones, the orange, black and red ones too. The satin, cotton and latex ones. The one that was nothing but strings except for the little pink heart to cover her kitty. Of course, not all of the underwear she had selected were thongs. She had also been tempted by the cotton Wonder Woman panties, the yellow panties with the smiley face across the bum and the white panties covered in ruby red lipstick kisses.

"I left all my undies at my ex’s," Song told the cashier. "Bad breakup in the middle of the night. Don’t really want to deal, ya know?"

* * *

A Side Note: tuesday, 11:55 pm

Todd Perkins came, then dismounted. Song rose from the doggie position—a 22 year old 5’2" blonde Venus with perfect round titties too big for most guys to get a proper grip on, full pouty lips and a flat tummy with a diamond piercing through her bellybutton. She sat up and let her bare legs dangle from the bed (she had moved in with Todd two months ago); she was naked. Todd was nearly so. He wore a condom and a pair of white gym socks.

Todd sat on the floor and pried the soiled condom from his large deflating member.

When he looked up and she caught his attention, Song grinned and spread her legs, revealing her cute little pink kitty and the thin line of blonde pubic hair just above it.

"Christ Song," Todd said. "Not tonight, okay? I’ve got to be at work by nine tomorrow."

wednesday, 1:02 pm

Right now Todd is standing in front of the mirror admiring himself as he models the pink thong panties with the white lace trim Song wore for him last Valentine’s Day. He’s jammed his feet into a pair of her black stiletto heels, and, turning right, then left, then full circle on wobbly legs, examines himself from every angle. The slight bulge of his half inch dick is noticeable but can’t be helped. As much as he’s jerked off since 11:57 pm last night, he has found himself unable to orgasm or to make the embarrassingly small erection or the corresponding horniness subside.

Still, he has more important things to worry about: What to wear? What to wear? What to wear?

Despite now finding himself to be completely illiterate, Todd discovered he was something of a savant when it came to applying Song’s makeup; plucking his eyebrows; shaving his legs; cutting, curling, styling and dying his black hair blonde (and trimming and dying his pubic hair as well).

That had all come easy and naturally to him. But now he has already tried on the entirety of Song’s wardrobe (stretching most of the material beyond repair), and he just can’t make up his mind. He knows that all girls want is to get inside his panties, so the trick is to display and highlight the goods with the proper attire. But he also knows that if he comes off too slutty, girls will only use him for his body rather than loving him for his mind (a mind that is now incapable of performing his low level data entry job or understanding the rules of football, but that is instead infested with useful, albeit quite random, tidbits regarding cooking, housekeeping, childcare, personal hygiene, flirting, pouting and oral sex).

Todd glances at the clock. Less than four hours and the girl from the escort service will be here!

He holds up two skin tight miniskirts—one red and one black. He squirms into the red one. It looks hideous! He pulls it off and throws it to the side with a muffled scream. He squirms into the black one. A little better. He turns and bends over and looks over his shoulder. The glimpse of the pink and white Valentine’s Day thong isn’t right. He pulls off the skirt, the thong, then slides into a neon green thong, then back into the black skirt. He bends over again. The view of the bright green line vanishing between his ass cheeks is better. But is a miniskirt really appropriate for a first date? Maybe he should go with a dress.

Todd starts to strip. He frantically eyes all of Song’s clothes scattered on the floor, the bed, some still hanging in the closet. Then, in a fit of frustration, he sits down on the floor, wearing only the neon green thong and black stiletto heels, and begins to weep uncontrollably into the miniskirt clutched in his hands, black mascara running down his cheeks: this will be the third time today Todd has had to fix his makeup.

What to wear? What to wear? What to wear?

* * *

"That’s too bad," the cashier responded with the overly sweet pseudo sympathy of a salesperson as she continued to ring up the seemingly endless pile of panties. "Breakups can be hard."

Song smiled. She reached inside her purse and patted the Ken doll dressed in Barbie clothes with three strands of Todd’s pubic hair wrapped around the neck and a three inch pin stuck through one ear of the rubber head and out the other. Song knew the kind of hell Todd would go through until she chose to remove the pin and wondered absently if she ever would. "Yeah," she said. "They can be pretty rough."

"Would you like to purchase any bras today?" the cashier asked after totaling, boxing and bagging all of Song’s new underthings. The woman had been avoiding eye contact, keeping her eyes on the counter and on her work. But now Song waited, forcing the cashier to look up before giving her an answer to the upsale.

From toe to head, the woman didn’t seem comfortable looking anywhere: Song wore black combat boots; then it was bare legs and bare skin all the way up to a purple and maroon plaid skirt that managed to cover her bum only if Song stood perfectly straight; at her waist, there was more skin, her tummy was bare, you could see the diamond piercing; then the long sleeved pink netted top with silver sparkles—it was tight and see-through, and Song was very obviously not wearing a bra; her large nipples were quite clear beyond the pink tint and silver glitter, and the tight hug of the material revealed the exact proportions of her even larger tits; around her neck, Song wore a black leather collar with silver spikes and a metal hoop at the front where a leash might be secured; her shoulder length blonde hair was masterfully unkempt with all the intended chaos of a rock star, complete with darker streaks running through it to add to the frenzy; her pink lipstick matched her top, and the thick black eyeliner and blue eye shadow brought out her deep green eyes.

Song’s smile widened as she watched the cashier’s eyes search for a place to rest that would not give away her obvious disdain.

Bio of the cashier: Linda Morgan. 25 years old. Brown hair. She is wearing a black pantsuit and white blouse that revels only the slightest bit of a push-up bra aided cleavage. Her favorite food is French toast. She has worked for the lingerie store for one month shy of a year, and has applied and been passed over for managerial positions twice. She hopes that her recent enrollment in several business courses at the local community college will ensure that the third time is the charm. She is not seeing anyone regularly, but averages three dates a month.

"Nah," Song answered the woman finally. "I think bras are for cheaters," she said, staring directly at the woman’s meager and brassiere enhanced cleavage.

Linda scowled at this but said nothing. "Your total comes to $532.37."

"Wow. That’s a lot," Song said. "Would you be a sweety and pay that for me?"

"I don’t think so."

"Please?"

"Ma’am, if you can’t pay, I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave."

"Can I take the panties with me?"

"No. And if you continue to waist my time like this, I’ll have you escorted out by security."

"Ya sure you want me to go?" Song popped the pink bubblegum she’d been chewing.

Linda, face reddened with anger, opened her mouth to respond...

...but Song beat her to it. She raised her hand to the level of the woman’s face, extending both middle and forefinger as her tongue twisted with the syllables of one of the seven forbidden languages: "њỗ•†! ╔╘שׁ₪! ∞ﺻЊ! With this curse, I take from you your judgmental sight."

The woman looked like she’d been struck. Her jaw dropped. Open-mouthed, she grunted and whimpered as she struggled to look away, but could only stare helplessly at the two fingers and long pink fingernails as the color drained from her eyes. Her brown irises receded, shrinking more and more, until, within seconds, there was nothing left but black pupils floating in a sea of white.

Linda stopped struggling. Her expression slackened and dulled into complete and utter indifference.

Song lowered her hand and popped her gum.

"’Kay," she said. "What’s your name?"

"Linda," Linda said.

"’Kay, Linda," Song said, "bark like a dog."

"Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof—"

"No, no. You weren’t that big of a bitch. Bark like one of those little yappy fuckers. Like a wiener dog. High pitched, ya know?"

"Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf—"

"Stop."

Linda stopped. Her lips a straight line. Her face blank.

"Okay, let’s play," Song said. "Stick one finger up your nose and one finger up your butt."

Linda didn’t hesitate. Without question she raised her left hand and stuck her finger up her nose as far as it would go, while her right hand vanished down the back of her pants. Song blew a bubble as the woman shifted her hips back and forth until she’d gotten her second finger all the way in her asshole. The bubble popped.

"’Kay, now have three orgasms in a row."

Song looked on with amusement as the woman’s thighs shook, and her body spasmed, and her breathing grew faster. And all the while Linda didn’t make a sound, her expression didn’t change in the slightest—she looked bored beyond reason as she stood there, a finger in her nose and a finger up her butt, waiting for the orgasms to pass.

They passed. The gum popped.

"I should leave you like this," Song said. "No point of view, no opinion of your own, hardly more than a living blow-up doll. What do ya think? Want to be an opinionless blow-up doll for the rest of your life?"

Linda merely shrugged. "I don’t know."

Song turned and looked behind her. Past lunch hour on a weekday and school was still in session: the store was empty, the mall was close to it. Song turned back.

"Okeydokey. Since that’s whatcha want, strip out of all your clothes right here in the mall, just like a stupid blow-up doll would."

The woman slipped out of her jacket and dropped it to the floor, then, not quickly and not slowly, she unbuttoned her blouse and dropped that to the floor too. She reached behind her and unclasped her white bra. It fell, and her A cup boobs hung naked and on their own merit.

When Linda reached down to unbutton her pants, Song walked back into the aisles of underwear to browse. When she returned dangling a pair of hot pink thong panties with the word "easy" written on the crotch in girly handwriting, Linda was naked and motionless behind the counter and staring at nothing in particular. Song glanced at the woman’s discarded underwear and rolled her eyes.

"Oh Jesus! Granny panties? You work in a lingerie store and you wear granny panties?"

Linda said nothing.

Song dangled the thong inches from Linda’s face. "What do you think of these?"

"I don’t know."

"Ever wear anything like this before?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I used to think only sluts wore thongs."

"What do you think now?"

"I don’t know."

"Well, you were right. Thongs are only for sluts and blow-up dolls." Song glanced down at the woman’s cootch. "Damn, girl! You need to shave down there once in a while."

The woman stepped out from behind the counter and began walking in the general direction of the door.

"Not right now," Song said.

Linda stopped.

"Put these on." She shoved the thong into the woman’s arms.

Linda stepped into the delicate fabric and pulled them up.

Song looked at the curly brown pubs poking out the top of the thong, and the word "easy" written just underneath. Easy was an understatement, she thought. Right now the stupid bitch would spread her legs for anyone that could speak the English language.

Song stepped closer to her, and looked her up and down. Linda waited. "Hmm," Song said finally, "Ya know, come to think of it, I’m not sure you’ve got what it takes to be a blow-up doll. First of all, these aren’t very impressive, now are they?" Song said as she placed her hands under the woman’s small breasts and jiggled them.

"I don’t know."

"Well, what did ya think of your little titties before today?"

"I wished they were bigger."

"Why didn’t ya get a boob job?"

"I’m Catholic. I was worried what the people at my church would think."

"Catholic, huh?" Song popped her gum. "That explains a lot."

She thought it over, then cracked a smile. Song held up her right hand, showing it to be empty. Then she closed it into a fist, tapped it once with her left hand, turned the fist over and opened it palm up. A small vial of clear liquid now sat where nothing had been a moment before. Song uncorked it and handed it to Linda.

"Drink it," she said.

Linda drank.

Before she had even emptied the vial her nipples were rock hard. By the time she had downed it all, they looked swollen and painful—almost twice their original size. Song instructed her to toss the vial away, then said: "By the end of the week, your titties will be the size of basketballs."

Linda said nothing.

Song raised her two fingers again. Some of the brown began to creep back into Linda’s eyes. As it did, a slight look of concern started to breech the woman’s face. Then, uncertainly, she reached up and covered her exposed breasts.

"Can you imagine what your friends will think? Can you picture the looks of strangers off the street as you go bounce, bounce, bouncing by? You’ll have to have your bras custom made and buy your tops from the fat girl section. What ever will you tell your priest? If you can even manage to squeeze into the confessional booth, that is. You’re even going to have to admit to your doctor that your humongous boobs are causing you back problems. You won’t even be able to lie down on the chiropractor’s table properly. They’ll have to figure out something special just for you."

Only half the brown had returned to Linda’s eyes, but she was horror stricken. "No, no! You can’t do this to me! You can’t! I’ll do anything you want! I swear! I’ll pay you! I’ll...I’ll...I..."

The color faded. Linda’s arms dropped to her side.

Song sighed. "Okay, fine. If you really don’t want to grow gigantic boobs, just tell me and I’ll give you the antidote."

Linda stared.

"Linda, tell me you want to be a stupid blow-up doll with big gigantic boobs."

"I want to be a stupid blow-up doll with big gigantic boobs," Linda said.

"’Kay, well, your boobs will be bigger than your head in a couple of days, so that problem’s solved. But we’ve still got some work to do. I noticed you’ve got a bit of a tummy on you, and it looks like you’ve been food courting your way to a fat ass on your lunch breaks," Song said, giving Linda’s bum a hearty slap with her open palm.

Linda didn’t react.

"Well, what are you waiting for girl? Let’s see some jumping jacks, and count ’em out as you go."

Barefoot and wearing nothing but the little pink thong, the twenty-five year old business student hopped, throwing her legs apart and her arms in the air, smacking her hands together palm to palm and saying, "One!" Which was then followed by two and three and four. Her small (soon to be huge) boobs bounced wildly as she bounded about.

Song watched the display, knowing that if she didn’t say stop the woman would continue doing jumping jacks until she dropped dead. She waited until the cashier got to seventy-two: she was soaked with sweat and struggling to breathe.

"Stop," Song said.

Linda stopped, panting.

"Ya know, Linda, I really don’t think this is going to happen. All that work and your ass looks as fat as ever. Tell me you have a fat ass, Linda."

"I have a fat ass," Linda said.

"Yeah ya do. And who ever heard of a blow-up doll with a fat ass? They’re supposed to have cute little bums like mine," Song said, flashing her backside briefly and giving it a playful slap. "Tell me ya don’t have a cute enough bum to be a blow-up doll."

"I don’t have a cute enough bum to be a blow-up doll."

"That’s right. So time to drop even lower on the food chain."

The gum popped.

Song raised two fingers. They crackled and glittered and sparked, emitting a faint scent of ozone. "ǿº! קװ! ُ! ‡!" she said, the image in her mind leaping to and from the tips of her fingers. "With this blessing, I give you the sight of another."

Linda stared, once again transfixed by the dazzling, dreaming pink fingernails. And then, slowly, her eyes filled with color: not the jaded brown she’d seen in the mirror so often, but a wide, curious blue.

Neither of them spoke. There was something different about Linda besides the blue irises. Something odd in her mannerisms. Song broke the silence with a giggle as she realized what it was: the woman’s eyes darted to Song’s chest then away again, to her chest then away again. Linda was sneaking peaks.

"This can’t be happening," Linda croaked. Now that Song recognized the behavior, she could see the woman’s entire body wracked and trembling with constant conflict between desire and the fear of getting caught. The poor thing couldn’t keep her eyes off Song’s big titties for longer than a few seconds, nor did she dare keep them there for anything longer than a glimpse.

"So tell me," Song said, "’cuz I’ve always been curious, what’s it like seeing the world through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy?"

"You didn’t," Linda said. "You couldn’t have..." But her horrified protests were half-hearted. The see-through pink top now demanded the majority of the woman’s attention.

"’Kay," Song said, snapping her gum. "Well, you said I had to leave, so I guess I’ll scram."

"You don’t have to go!" Linda blurted out suddenly as Song turned towards the door.

Faking a confused look, Song spun back around. "No?"

"I mean, you can stay...I mean, if you want to, that is," the woman said, flushed.

"But I can’t afford all those sexy panties I want," Song said in a high pitched babydoll voice. "Which really sucks ’cuz I’ve had to walk around all day without any undies on at all, and my little kitty’s really really cold." She rubbed herself through her skirt as if to warm it.

Song saw the dampness spreading across the word "easy" at the crotch of Linda’s panties. The woman’s face twisted with confusion. She’s fighting it, Song thought, amused. She wondered how long the memories, intellect and morals of a fine, upstanding Catholic woman would last when she was reduced to feeling like a hot and bothered all American, and very virginal, Boy Scout.

Song didn’t stick around to see. She stopped rubbing her kitty. "Well, see ya," she said with the snap of her gum.

"I could buy them for you..." Linda said sounding desperate and miserable. She quickly added: "As a present, I mean."

"Could you really?!" Song gushed, her face brightening. "That’s sooo sweet!" She threw her arms around Linda, embracing her firmly—pressing chest to chest—and planted a big kiss on her cheek, leaving behind a mark of pink lipstick.

When she pulled away and looked at Linda, Song didn’t think the woman’s smile could get any wider, or her cootch any wetter for that matter, she thought as she glanced down—teenage boys were so damn horny!

"I really like your panties, by the way," Song said.

The smile vanished. Linda looked to where Song was staring. She looked mortified. Like she was going to be sick. "I...I, well I mean...they’re not...they’re not mine...they’re the store’s...."

Song placed her hands on her hips. "Why Linda, you’re not embarrassed to be wearing girls’ underwear are ya?" Pop.

The woman looked so confused, so lost. "Yes. No. I mean..." Her eyes teared. "It’s true, isn’t it? You really did it. I’m seeing everything just like a boy would."

"Mmm hmm," Song cooed. "And I think it’s about time you paid for my clothes. Because, believe me Linda, now that you’re thinking with the penis you don’t have, I can get a lot more out of you than a bag full of panties."

Linda stood frightened and still. "You can’t...I mean, I don’t want to...to..."

She was so nervous and awkward. Song thought it was just darling. She pressed in close to Linda again and whispered in her ear, "You know, if you buy those panties for me, I might model them for you later tonight." Then she nibbled gently on the woman’s earlobe.

"O-okay," Linda stuttered, her voice riddled with self-loathing. But she couldn’t stop herself. One more peak at Song’s boobs sent her hurrying back to the register. She pulled her purse from behind the counter and fumbled with a credit card.

Ah, the pathetic optimism of young boys, Song thought as she sauntered to the counter. When the receipt was printing, Song grabbed a pen from her purse and pulled Linda’s hand to her. On the woman’s open palm, Song wrote the number to a pizza joint in pink ink and scribbled her name underneath, drawing a heart in place of the "o."

"That’s my cell. Call me when you get off work?"

Linda managed a grunt. Bolstered by the promise of a first date, the woman now stared openly at Song’s boobs. Song didn’t mind. Linda would get her fair share of gawking when the potion she’d drank made her own pair of titties far more noticeable; Song wondered if the woman’s new boyhood persona would be bothered by all that attention.

"Wow, this is so cool!" Song said as she picked up the bag of undies. "We just have so much chemistry. It’s almost like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend already, huh?"

Linda’s eyes widened at this.

Song grinned. The woman, her blue eyes flooded and overwhelmed by Song’s marvelous endowments, displayed little more intelligence than a Neanderthal. Easy as pie. "And believe me," she continued, running her finger between her breasts, then up and along and around her nipple, letting it harden beneath her top, "I know how to treat my big strong man after he gets home from a long, hard day’s work at the lingerie store."

"You are so hot," was all Linda could think to say.

"Awww, thank you sweety," Song said with a blush as she picked Linda’s wallet up off the counter. "I’m going to show you just how hot I really am later tonight."

"Are you going to show me your boobs?"

"Mmm hmm," Song moaned. "God, you make me so wet when you talk dirty like that. If you keep it up, I’ll just have to lie down and masturbate right in front of you. By the way, hon, I may need to pick up a few things for our special night. Do you mind if I borrow some money?" She had already emptied the cash from the wallet, and now was plucking the credit cards free.

"Okay," Linda said, hardly noticing. Then she said, "I want to squeeze your big boobs too."

Song tucked the credit cards away into her purse, including the one Linda had used to pay for her panties. "Mmm, baby, you’re making me so hot, I don’t think I can wait any longer." She stepped behind the counter. She locked eyes with Linda and wordlessly began playing with her titties through her pink top: squeezing them, bouncing them, pinching them, teasing them.

Linda was shaking she was so nervous and horny.

"You’re going to have to lick me," Song said.

The woman paused; her face a wreck of shame and guilt and lust. The situation had just become more real. "B-but...you’re a...you’re a woman..."

"Mmm, ya noticed that, huh?"

"B-but...but...I’m not supposed to...to..."

"Pleeeaase baby. Put your head between my legs and lick my tight little kitty. I’m so horny I can’t stand it. I need you so much."

A few lines from a bad porno.

And that’s all it took to make Linda Morgan fall to her knees and stick her head up some strange woman’s skirt. Song could tell immediately that, despite the raging pseudo male hormones that had turned Linda into an easily manipulated moron, the woman still remembered being eaten out: she knew where to lick.

After only a few minutes, Song felt her legs buckle. She let out a gasp and pushed Linda’s head hard into her crotch and held it there as she orgasmed. She moaned, and her body shook with an overwhelming warmness, and her kitty quivered and bucked against Linda’s nose and eyes and lips and hair.

"That’s a good boy," Song grunted. "Just sit there and let me cum all over your face."

Linda did just that. And when Song’s orgasm subsided, she was pleased to see that the nearly naked woman remained at her feet, face still pressed obediently against her snatch.

Song decided to take the time and enjoy the splendid view; stop and smell the roses, as the saying went. She plucked her gum from her mouth and stuck it down on the woman’s back. Then she pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit it and began to smoke with Linda’s head still buried between her legs. The woman’s nervous breathing was pleasant, as were her muffled yelps of pain as Song let the ash fall on her bare back between drags. When she had finished her smoke, she put the butt out on the counter, and gently stepped away, letting her skirt lift up and fall away, revealing Linda’s sweat and girl juice soaked face and matted hair.

"Thanks babe, that really hit the spot," Song said.

Linda looked on, scared and ashamed and unsatisfied and still very, very horny. Song wandered around behind the counter and gathered up Linda’s discarded pantsuit and underwear. She noticed Linda’s mouth open in protest, but then, apparently too embarrassed to admit ownership of women’s clothing, she remained silent.

"So I’ll see you tonight?" Linda said.

"Oh, you’ll be seeing a whole lot of me tonight," Song said with a wink. "Just call me on my cell, ’kay?"

"Okay."

As an afterthought, just before she left, Song turned and said, "Oh, and by the way, I can’t wait to see what you’ve got hidden under those cute panties of yours. I bet you’ve got a really big dick, huh? Don’t you think guys with little dicks are just soooo funny?"

Then she was gone.

And Linda was forced to suffer through her first terrible bout of penis envy alone.

* * *

By Way of an Explanation:

While Song’s recent actions may seem severe to some when considering their provocations, it should be noted that this sort of rash cruelty is not common to the girl’s behavior, though, neither is it new.

Like many people, Song’s life revolves around love: being in it and being out of it—and, as with most people, her actions are a reflection of said status. In this case, however, Song is a witch. A fact that affects her romances far less than one might think, but, rather, merely widens the scope of possible actions when love is lost.

For those limited in power, this idea often seems strange—even nonsensical—nevertheless, it is a long known fact that witchcraft and love never have and never will mix. Consider:

When one is able to shape reality, reality loses its weight. For an adept witch practicing her craft, there are no forces independent of her own mind. She sees something as so, and it becomes so. The interior and the exterior (imagination and reality) are inseparable. The more powerful the witch and the more she exerts her influence upon the world, the more true this becomes. And when one is left with only their thoughts for company, it can get very lonely.

So Song does not always practice her craft. And, when she’s in love, she never does. She works a regular job, pays the rent and spends her evenings and weekends with her boyfriend. This was the case with Todd Perkins, whom she first saw on stage at a small club five months ago. He was lead singer in a local band called "Eyes Dilated," and, after their set, Song was quick to introduce herself. A date and a relationship soon followed.

But, as oftentimes happens, as the months went on, passion yielded to comfort. And the key difference between comfort and passion is that comfort allows resentment. And, enough resentment added up over time, becomes contempt.

Cynicism, narcissism, pain, regret and rage are all common reactions to a love once felt dying such a miserable, unpoetic death. And, for a while at least, a reality independent of yourself no longer seems so very important.

* * *

wednesday, 1:54 pm

The food court was nearly empty. A smattering of people old and young ate and murmured amongst themselves: women with small children, sluffing teens, the elderly—vague faces amongst the vast sea of tables. The blonde witch walked through the post modern wasteland with her bags and her purse towards the Jade Dragon Fast Food Emporium. Although she was quite fond of Chinese food, at the moment, Song was not particularly hungry.

A Bit of History: Song’s journey into the occult began at the age of fourteen when she spent her weekly allowance on a 127 page book entitled "Predicting Your Future." After that, she was hooked. She dedicated her eighth grade life to the study of palmistry, graphology, phrenology, cartomancy, numerology, tasseography, astrology and I Ching. She had no time for friends or for boys, and her grades fell so drastically that year she was forced to take summer classes in order to avoid being held back. Later, when her study of the supernatural had broadened, and her magical experiments had proven prophecy to be fallible at best, Song looked back on her fourteenth year wasted on the flawed arts with regret. And, ever since, she has never found fortune cookies or the people who giggle as they break them open to be very amusing.

The short dark haired man working at the Jade Dragon Fast Food Emporium stared forward in a dull stupor. Even the approach of a beautiful girl in a see-through top didn’t seem to lift his spirits.

"Hiya," Song said.

The man’s eyes rolled up to regard her, as if even that were a great effort. The gold nametag on his uniform identified him as "John."

John sighed. "Can I help you?"

Song had often wondered whether it was the fast food industry itself that drained these people of their souls, or if people lacking souls to begin with merely sought the fast food industry out. Either way, the man’s lack of any obvious passions was something Song might have pitied back when she was with Todd, but now...now his indifference was almost enviable.

"I need a quickie. What’s good here?" Song said.

"Huh?"

"I’ll have an egg roll." She hadn’t planned on ordering anything, but, well hell, why should this guy get a free ride through life? Who was he to be free from the torments of want?

Song pulled a ten dollar bill from her purse and placed it down flat on the counter while John fumbled with the silver tongs (dropping them twice). With her pink pen, Song drew a perfect square in the center of the bill, and, inside that square, the dollar’s ink faded into plain white. Song’s lithe fingers worked quickly, drawing eleven smaller squares in a memorized pattern within the larger square. She then wrote a single letter inside each of the smaller squares.

She had first discovered the diagram while reading the unpublished and unaltered works of Abramelin the mage. Abramelin had been a humble, God-fearing sort of fellow, and, as a result, most of his spellwork was quite dull. This particular paradigm of Cabala mysticism, for example, had been designed to aid noble families in producing heirs by, as Abramelin put it, "...enhancing and enflaming all traits of maleness which apply to, and may therefore, aid in conception."

In other words, helping inbred lordlings get it up for yet another round of sweaty, all night incest action. Song had never actually tried the spell. She’d discovered it a few months back during her nightly research after Todd had fallen asleep. But she hoped to make it a bit more interesting by substituting the letter "C" in the top leftmost square—the square which dictated the spells’ potency—for the letter "Q." Of course, Song had several other proven methods available to her to achieve the effects she imagined this spell might yield, but she found the unpredictability of using another’s magic invigorating. Besides, diagram work was less taxing than straightforward bewitchment, and she still had plans for this place.

"Your total comes to $1.79," John said. The egg roll, wrapped in paper, sat on a plastic plate which sat on a plastic tray.

Song gestured to the bill. "There ya go."

John picked it up off the counter. Song thought for a moment the guy wasn’t even going to glance at the damn thing, but then, just before sticking it in the register, John examined the obvious flaw in the currency in the same sluggish manner he did everything. As soon as his eyes were on it, the diagram glowed red and was gone, leaving the green tinted face of President Hamilton in its place.

John blinked.

"Out of ten?" he asked.

"Yep."

When the young man handed her two twenties and ninety-six cents as change, Song realized the magic had left him somewhat dazed.

"Let me see your hand," Song said, and the man did not resist as she pulled it forward and opened it. True palmistry, one of the schools of the flawed arts, involved the reading of the eighteen layers of the palm which exist on various metaphysical levels. This includes the prominent creases of the skin, the subtle creases in the skin used for finger and palm printing, the veins beneath the skin, the heredity lines running through the blood beneath the veins, the spirit lines beneath the blood, and, eventually, all the way down to the threads of fate themselves. When all eighteen lines are combined and considered simultaneously, a person’s past and future become as clear as the images on a TV set: images that are true and that will run their natural course, barring any further supernatural interference.

* * *

The Pertinent Details of the Reading of John Phillips’ Palm:

Day 1

For over an hour after Song leaves him, the nineteen year old finds it almost impossible to concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. The few customers who show up during that time are forced to instruct him step by step, repeating themselves multiple times, to get their food. They seem happy enough, however, when John gives them their change.

This crippling lack of concentration lasts until sometime after 3:00 pm, when the rush of high school kids storm the mall. More specifically, high school girls. John’s focus returns in the form of a short skirt, a cleavage, bare legs, a girl in jeans bending over, a girl in a tank top, a group of blonde girls giggling as they pass, an upturned nose, a pierced nose and creamy pale skin of a redheaded goth girl, the twin mounds shaping a T-shirt, shaping a blouse, shaping a dress, another dress, another T-shirt, the shape of their backsides; chubby, or skinny, or heartshaped, red lipstick, blue lipstick, pink lipstick, black lipstick, full lips, thin lips, girls smiling, laughing, making out with their boyfriends, holding hands with their boyfriends, their boyfriends grabbing their ass as they walk, high heels, flats, tennis shoes and gym socks, open toed, bare toes, painted toenails, painted fingernails, slender arms, bare armpits, bare shoulders, sweet faces, sour faces, blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, long hair, short hair, curly hair, blonde, brown, black, red...

When John gets off at 9:30 pm, he does not remember working. At least not since selling an egg roll to that obnoxious blonde girl. So intense was his fascination that, for a while, John lost awareness of his own existence. His memory of the day is nothing but a hundred random images strung together without rhyme or reason.

At home, John listens to rock music, works on his model airplane (the ninth to add to his collection) and studies for the test in his engineering class tomorrow at the local community college. All the things he’d been looking forward to doing prior to 1:54 pm, all the things that helped him get through a long day at a shitty job. Now, though, John finds the melodies of his favorite band strangely uninteresting, his successful attachment of the rudder to the plane is unsatisfying, and the subject of engineering—his chosen major—is downright boring.

Frustrated, John goes to bed an hour early. He dreams about humping some girl until he wakes up to find himself cumming helplessly in his boxers. A few hours later John has the same dream and messes the bed a second time.

Day 2

John still lives at home. That morning his Mom asks him why he washed his sheets (a chore John had previously never taken upon himself to do). John answers irritably, "They were dirty."

John’s foul mood only worsens at the breakfast table as he worries about the test that is less than an hour away. His Mother yammers on and on about the neighbors, about the lawn, about a lunch date with his aunt she has scheduled later in the day. John has to bite his lip to keep from shouting at her to shut the hell up as he struggles to recall the reading he had barely paid attention to the night before over her ceaseless barrage of pointless syllables.

Then his Mom bends over to pull the corn muffins out of the oven.

John doesn’t even realize he’s staring at her ass until she stands back up and he feels the painful boner pressed against his thigh, straining his blue jeans. His stomach drops and his brain questions frantically, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" but the erection does not subside.

All the while his Mother is in his presence, talking and talking in her lovely sing-song voice, John stares intently, feeling like a freak, his boner concealed by the tabletop. When she questions him about his appetite, John manages to eat half a muffin.

After breakfast, John is forced to wait while his Mother clears the table and washes the dishes, unwilling to risk giving his terrible secret away. By the time she leaves the kitchen, John is already late for class. He stands and slowly limps to the door.

In his car, John refuses to do anything to relieve himself. He keeps his sweaty hands on the wheel and drives to class. By the time he arrives, his dick has softened enough to make the trek in.

The journey proves pointless.

John is only three questions into the test when his eyes wander to a girl one row down and three seats to his left. He gets a boner and stares at her for the rest of the class. When she stands and walks to the professor’s desk, handing him her test, John thinks of the dream he had last night and imagines she was the girl he’d been humping. With a vacant grin on his face, John sits there, both hands still on his desk, and cums in his pants.

Afterwards, John feels vaguely embarrassed and stupid, and is forced to use a notebook to cover the stain. He spends both his breaks at work jerking off in the men’s room in order to avoid a repeat performance. His strokes are sloppy and awkward. It is not that he is inexperienced. Although not obsessed with sex, John, like most guys, has been known to masturbate on occasion. But now he has trouble keeping a grip on his cock, almost as if it were a size too big for his hand. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much skill or dexterity to set him spraying all over the toilet.

That night, John dreams about his Mom bending over to get the corn muffins and messes the bed again.

Day 3

John wakes with a sticky erection standing straight up through the left leg of his soiled boxers. It is noticeably larger than his once average sized member: thick and long and throbbing. In his half-dreaming state, John thinks of boobs—no one’s in particular—and convulses as he squirts all over himself and the bed; thick, stringy gobs, and far more of it than he had ever managed in a single session. By the end of the orgasm, John is near tears. The smell is heavy in the air and lingers for a long while.

"What’s wrong with me?" he croaks. His voice is lower than he remembers.

In the bathroom he sees that his face is covered in acne. His skin is oily and, within moments of his entering, the room reeks of sweat. His once bare chest is now a field of curly black hair.

It has to be some sort of hormonal imbalance, he decides. Maybe he should see a doctor. Maybe a girl doctor. He imagines how she would squirm with his big dick inside her, and ends up masturbating on the bathroom floor for fifteen minutes until he reaches his second climax of the morning.

He takes a shower. He is naked. If he had a girlfriend, he thinks, she would probably shower with him. He jerks off again.

Opening his underwear drawer makes him think of girls’ underwear drawers, and, before long, he is in his Mother’s room looking through her panties (she is out running errands). John openly weeps with shame as he jerks off while sniffing and caressing each of the forbidden garments. Afterwards, he scrubs the carpet and wipes off the chest of drawers, cleaning the mess as best he can.

Sitting in the car in the driveway, he is still crying, wondering how he became such a pervert, until the thought that if he could find a hooker he could fuck her in this car causes him to jerk off again.

John arrives at work late, he carries a duffle bag and is wearing gray sweatpants rather than the required black slacks of the Jade Dragon Fast Food Emporium. Despite his morning exploits, John has found himself incapable of going even ten minutes without getting a boner, and, as big as his dick is now, the slacks were simply too painful to wear. Even his boxers proved too binding. So now he stands behind the register sporting a ridiculously large and obscene tent in his pants.

John does his best to focus on nothing, to try not to look at any of the girls as they pass. It does him little good. The first woman to approach the counter and speak to him causes him to immediately ejaculate. John does his best to ignore her look of disgust and serves up her order. He watches her dump the meal in the first trash can she passes.

John hurries to the men’s room and changes into a clean pair of sweats from his duffle bag. When he returns, he tucks the soiled pair safely under the counter. He doesn’t know what he hopes to accomplish by all of this. Every thought he has seems to lead to sex which leads to another mess he has to clean up. So he goes on in quiet desperation, thinking as little about it as he can.

It doesn’t matter. When his manager shows up, it takes him about two seconds to fire his ass. Seventeen year old Emily Bowers is not happy when she is called to fill in for John on a Friday night, but, unbeknownst to her, this is the least of her problems.

Tim, her manager, offers a vague explanation (apparently John was caught playing some lewd practical joke), then leaves shortly after. She’s not long into her shift when Emily notices the smell. It’s oddly familiar, and, when she locates the gray sweatpants and sees the stain, she knows exactly what it is.

"Oh gross!" she says. "I don’t get paid enough for this shit." Then, reluctantly, she grabs hold of a dry part of the sweats with the tips of her fingers and hauls them off to a garbage can at the far end of the food court.

Emily is unaware that the brief contact she’s had with the sweats has gotten her pregnant.

Day 4

John’s door is locked. He is naked and covered in body hair. His dick has stopped going limp and now puts most guys working in the adult film industry to shame. Fevered, he sits at his computer and downloads pictures of women.

The rules of reality have blurred.

He plays with himself, and, the woman whose picture he happens to be staring at when he cums, wherever she is in the world, feels a tickle in her belly as the new bun arrives in her oven.

When John finally collapses in his chair and passes out from exhaustion, 39 porn stars, Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, both Olsen twins, most of the models featured on Victoria’s Secret website, and 6 women with home pages on GeoCities are knocked up.

Day 5

John is no longer capable of coherent thought. His manhood rivals a horse’s. He lies on the floor and drools, fascinated by the endless stream of obscenities his mind conjures. Every once and a while, he cums.

Epilogue

In the days that follow...

John’s door is kicked in by emergency services after he fails to answer his Mother’s concerned queries (the only effect her voice has on him now is to cause his fantasies to turn to women wrestling in corn muffin batter—he cums on himself moments later).

His discovery and subsequent hospitalization leads to a flurry of debate by various psychologists, psychiatrists and M.D.s. He is kept in a standard hospital room for observation, but, six weeks later, after all the doctors, nurses and patients of the female persuasion on that floor find themselves pregnant, John is quickly quarantined.

From then on, the people who care for and study him all have penises.

* * *

Song let go of his hand. "Guess I went a little overboard upping the voltage, huh?"

John hadn’t been paying attention. "Um, what?"

"Nothing."

She looked the young man over as his attention wavered. He had no clue what was about to hit him. The results were far more extreme than she had intended, but, while Song was adept at the replication of Cabala mysticism, she was still a novice when it came to understanding its inner workings: unknotting the spell now would be a pain in the ass. Besides, model airplanes and engineering classes? The dork could use a little excitement in his life. And, at the end of the day, was being stuck in an endless wet dream really so bad?

"By the way, when you’re helpless to do anything but think about sexy girl parts and squirt allover yourself," Song said, "you might want to ask yourself if showing me a little fucking congeniality was really such a chore."

John looked down at the bins of steaming Chinese food. His brow furrowed. "Uh, what did you want again?"

Song ignored him and set her sights on the thing she had come for in the first place: the barrel of fortune cookies.

She had first developed the spell when she was sixteen. In it’s original incarnation, the hex involved a week’s preparation which concluded with a nightlong ceremony, complete with a wide assortment of magical props. Now, Song could do it with words alone.

Song glared at the plastic that covered each individual cookie, at the cookies themselves, she thought of the strips of paper tucked inside, at the stupid happy words printed on each one that made everybody smile, that some people even took home and stuck to their fridge as if the ambiguous proclamation was really a harbinger of happy days. She thought of Todd.

It’s all bullshit, she thought. It’s all bullshit, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

She spoke and her eyes burned:

Fortunes find those who fortunes seek,

Let them know my pain,

Let my black heart leak,

Let them find their futures foul,

Futures dark and bleak.

"Um, did you want white rice or brown rice with that?" John said.

Song was already walking away.

To Be Continued…

 

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