Does your fantasy partner have any addictions? (Note, we will not program addictions to substances your partner could not reasonably attain, as this will leave them in a permanent state of withdrawal).

Does your fantasy partner have any addictions? (Note, we will not program addictions to substances your partner could not reasonably attain, as this will leave them in a permanent state of withdrawal).

***

Holy shit was it good to be back. I had thought I’d take time to adjust, but the second the elevator doors opened and I saw people with panicked looks racing around and exchanging files, it was like smelling blood in the water. So many familiar faces, so many new ones.

A hush followed me as I crossed the office floor. It was an electric feeling, to be feared and envied. “James, you’ve been dodging my emails for two weeks. I want someone from your team in my office before lunch with those adjusted budgets and list of suppliers.” I pointed at a man with the most cunty of faces who had been leaning on the edge of a cubicle telling a joke to its occupant. He looked back at me like he was seeing a ghost. I didn’t even break my stride, reciprocating his nod.

“Fuck me…” I heard him whisper under his breath as he hurried back to his cubicle, granting me a self-satisfied grin. Despite the absolute thrill it was giving me, I was a little confused by the chaos. Launches were stressful, sure, but we were still early. Production hadn’t even been scaled yet, much less had we entered any firm deals with distributors and retailers. Why was everyone making a call or running something to someone? The day just started.

I finally reached Dane’s office on the far side, stopping at his secretary’s desk. Monique looked up from her computer screen and flashed me a warning smile. “You’re good to head straight in, Miss…us? Washington?” She cocked her brow looking to my left hand.

I held up my hand to show off my platinum band, switching to the middle finger. “That wasn’t cute, Monique.” I flashed her a quick grin to let her know I didn’t think she was being serious, but made it clear with my tone not to make any more jokes like that.

“Just excited to see you again.” She assured me, looking back to her screen. “I’m sure we’ll be having dinner at some point this week. We can catch up, then.”

I nodded, knowing Dane was going to insist on a dinner, and he was most certainly bringing the twenty-three year old secretary whose fake tits he paid for. Monique was no saint, even excusing her youth, but their relationship felt a bit more complicated than the usual boss-banging-the-secretary affair. Of course, I had thought the same thing about my own boss-banging-the-secretary affair, so...

I stepped into Dane’s office, finding him just hanging up the landline with an aggressive slam. Dane was forty-two, though the age only showed in moments of anger like the present. His scowl had a way of bringing out forty-two year old wrinkles on a thirty-two year old face. His blue button up with white collar were fitted to showcase his muscular physique.

“There’s a crisis.” I asserted, making myself at home on the couch he kept next to the door. I made a show of getting comfortable, putting my elbow on the back and resting my ankle on my knee. He wanted me back, and I intend to affirm my value. I am a cool head under pressure.

Dane looked up at me and nodded, still frowning. “Francis Lu, the designer for Salùt, no longer wishes to work with us.”

“That complicates the launch.” I nodded, understating for the small laugh it gave him.

“He’s unhappy with the price point. Wants it higher—and a higher commission, too! The greedy fuck. Thinks he’s the next Valentino.”

I nodded as if considering my words. But what I had to say was instinctual, too obvious to have consciously thought about. “Have Monique make a reservation for two at Roma Farfalle’s at noon, then find some way to get his ass at that table. I’ll get myself caught up on the numbers but I’ll get him on side over lunch.”

Dane looked over at me, nodding through his scowl, which made the evil transition into a laugh. And just like that, he looked young and handsome again. “It’s good to have you back.”

“For the week.” I reminded him, though I was beginning to really hope to come back more.

He flashed his eyebrows at me, suddenly busying himself with straightening his tie and thumbing through his pens. “Now that he’s not listening in… how’s that going? You guys…”

I dropped my arm, scratching the back of my neck. “Good. We, uh made a lot of progress the past couple weeks.”

“Good. Good.” He nodded. “Do you think he might be open to you guys moving back? Or at least a little closer?”

“You know what, I’ve got a lot to catch up on before noon. How about we talk personal later?”

Dane nodded, hiding his frustration poorly. “Right, right. I’ll have Monique set up a dinner. Let’s say Friday?”

“I’m flying back right after work, Friday.” I shook my head, unwilling to randomly tack on an extra day to my plans, knowing what that would do to Charlie’s suspicions.

“Thursday, then.” He clicked a pen, writing on a sticky note. I nodded and stood up, giving him a quick salute with a limp hand before turning around to leave.

He’s clearly sick of me being out of the office. Probably about to drop an ultimatum over dinner for me to either come back full time or take my payout and let him hire someone else. I needed a strong negotiating hand by Thursday.

“James,” I called out, as I exited Dane’s office. “You now have until the top of the hour, so chop chop.”

“Fuck me!”

I went into my office, surprised to find it still just as I’d left it. The tear away deskpad calendar still left on the last day I’d been in a few months ago. Moving Day!!! was written in big red letters on the last day of the month, circled once and underscored three times to ensure I didn’t schedule anything else that day. I had been so stressed that I would be called in for something when I was most **** to be present.

My office was pretty Spartan in decoration. Mostly necessities. The one piece of added flavor was a picture frame of me and Charlie’s wedding—which I added after things went to shit—and an ornate wooden jewelry box he’d built me which usually housed my wedding ring whenever I was with Mary.

My eyes widened, the sight reminding me that I needed to FaceTime him and explain the change in the lunch plans. I should not have made the suggestion to call at lunch before knowing what was going on. I chastised myself, gripping the pages of the calendar and ripping the last two months out, getting to work on writing the lunch reservation down for today, and penciling dinner for Thursday.

I grabbed my phone and pulled up Charlie’s contact page: My Light was his name in my phone. My finger hovered over the video call button, but lingered. He’d understand, wouldn’t he? This was important. Fuck, I was such an idiot. First day back and already I was cancelling plans on him.

He can’t expect me to stay home for two months and then not get super busy as soon as I get back. They wouldn’t have called me back if things were going to be easy.

But I had said lunch. Nobody suggested it or demanded it. I said it without thinking. I could try to justify it all I liked for how much sense it made, but I still made the decision.

My finger pressed the button and I pinched my nose, dreading what I was going to say. He wouldn’t get angry. He wouldn’t say anything hurtful. But I was more afraid of what he wouldn’t say. I needed to make sure my evening was fully clear. Maybe use the hotel gym when he was doing Gina’s workshop, but otherwise be ready for hours on a call.

The phone answered after a few rings and I saw he was in the garage, glasses covered in a sawdust. “Hey, is everything alright?” He asked, concerned. Naturally, I had made a point to tell him not to call during work hours, so me doing it must’ve seemed serious.

“Yeah.” I nodded, face palming. “Look, I uh… things are apparently more serious than I thought. I can’t get into it, but I’m doing an emergency business lunch with a client. I know that’s—“

“Oh.”

“—like, the most suspicious thing to say.”

“No, I understand.”

“But I promise it’s just a business thing.”

“I get it. I mean, not like they’d call you in for no reason, right?” He chuckled nervously. He didn’t fully trust it, which was both frustrating and understandable, but at least he knew the reasoning. Even if he was looking at it as a best faith guess and not truth.

“Can I make it up to you?”

“No, it’s ok, really.”

“Please?”

“Tori, do your job. Please. It’s ok. I’m ok.”

“Buy yourself something nice, please? I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now hang up, we’re not allowed to call during work hours.” He said in a jokey manner.

I sighed as the call abruptly dropped. Just some pains getting back into the swing of things, I assured myself. I felt some anger at him. Even though he hadn’t said anything, I could feel him counting this as a strike against me. Maybe I was projecting it onto him, but how the hell could he not think that way?

It’s just one week.

***

As soon as the call dropped, Charlie felt his breath leave him. I’m losing her. Again. That damn job. How can I compete with that damn job? He fell to his knees from the weight in his heart tugging him to the ground. His hand groped at the shoe rack/bench he had just finished building for Frankie and Kai.

Ambition. Drive. These were things he loved about Tori. But they were the flame that made her impossible to hold onto without burning him. She wanted the world and would have it given time. She didn’t mind making enemies and chose her friends strategically. Being on her side was an exhilarating thrill of successes and clever maneuvering that Charlie always found satisfying to watch. Being in her way, well, he never wanted to experience that again.

Charlie was a friend to everyone he met, and didn’t make a habit of making enemies. He never excelled in his career when measured by awards or promotions. Every position of responsibility he ever took was out of necessity or obligation. He liked helping the great be great, and had little appetite for competition so long as he was comfortable and was given space to be kind. He was safe. Boring.

“Can I make it up to you?” He hated hearing that question. Sometimes it baffled him how bad everyone else could be at apologies or even just kindness. Treating others how you’d want to be treated was very childish advice. But the sentiment was the same.

Someone a bit snippy at the store? Think about how shitty a day you’d need to have to be that way. Friend having a rough time? Bring them some food and just let them know you’re thinking about them. See something your partner was talking about? Get it for them and surprise them on a random Tuesday just for the smile.

Feel like you did something wrong? Then don’t ask if you can make it right. Just. Do. Something. Even if the flowers get tossed out a window, or the glass of wine gets thrown in your face, don’t ever make it seem like you wouldn’t be willing to waste effort for someone. Even letting someone ruin or reject your apology effort was sometimes exactly how you made it up to them.

She’s handling multi-million dollar deals. Do you really think your little feelings are worth more than that? Man the fuck up. There was no prestige in being the wife to a teacher—even the kid’s favorite teacher. There was no award for loving him aside from a simple platinum ring that just seemed to weigh down her finger. Nobody was jealous of her husband, nobody was jealous of her packed lunches she threw away, or the hidden love notes around the house she never even looked for.

They wanted her job. They wanted her fancy car. They wanted her money. And they wanted the silicone sex toy secretary she kept on her arm at conferences and dinners.

All he ever wanted was Tori. If she was going to dirty her hands climbing the corporate ladder, then he’d dirty his to hold onto her back the whole way up.

He pushed himself to his feet and went into his office, opening his laptop and pulling up Tori’s Fetish Pill Questionnaire, studying each answer and identifying the ones that had more detailed answers or had seemed to have gotten more of a reaction out of her. Then he opened up a few porn websites, ensuring his adblocker was on to help mitigate the unaccounted for fetishes within the popups.

He navigated to the tag list of each website individually, clicking tags that seemed to correlate with Tori’s answers, then further bookmarking videos that seemed to fit the bill. At first it was extremely arousing, but after half an hour of clinically scrubbing through, it became more of an academic exercise. Which at least also distracted from the **** pain of insecurity.

His media consumption for the next few hours needed to be well regulated. He resolved himself and ensured there was a large selection of pornography that would last him at least six hours. Any porn site with ads that made it through the adblocker were disqualified. He scrubbed through each video and hentai comic and took notes of timestamps and page numbers that actually contained the target fetishes. Any page or few seconds that didn’t contain the target fetish, or showcased a fetish that Tori wouldn’t like, was to be skipped.

Finally satisfied with the prep work, Charlie went into the closet and grabbed a thong and bra, changing into them to hopefully target feminization. Then he went down into the kitchen and poured a full glass of Tori’s favorite wine—a red wine he only recognized by the label.

Charlie was straight edge. He never drank, he didn’t smoke, and until the fetish pills, never fucked with ****. Even at his lowest point, none of those vices ever appealed to him. Even now, he wasn’t looking to get drunk.

As Jens had explained it to him, **** would bind to the living serum of Fetish Pills in the human body. In essence, instead of making the drinker drunk, it would make the pills drunk and highly suggestible. It deregulated the release chemicals, flooding the body with the pill’s contents. And since the membrane programmed the serum as it passed through it, bursting the membrane all at once could result in more rapid—but entirely unprogrammed—transformations. In such a state, whatever the brain was processing became the programming. If new fetishes were accidentally programmed into the body, they could potentially be further developed via future doses. So he needed to ensure there were no GILF ads.

He sniffed the wine glass and nearly vomited just from the smell. How the fuck does anybody like this? He dry heaved over the sink, reconsidering his plan. Was a single glass of wine really going to be the thing that stopped him? It would be his first drink. Ever. Not an accidental sip he spat out, not some residual on his wife’s tongue. This was the stuff that destroyed his parents. Killed his sister.

“I thought you hadda big crush on me orrr somethin’?” Tori’s drunken words played in his head from that fateful night in college. The scene taking form ahead of him. “C’mon, you’ve been a gentleman. You earrrned it.”

He had hesitated more than he would have liked, staring at the inviting spot next to her under the covers she was lifting. His eyes fixed on her gorgeous body in her underwear. “I do.” He had admitted, crouching next to the bed and forcing his eyes off her body and into her unsteady, dilated gaze. His hand grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged it down, closing off the open space next to her. It was an immediate relief to his conscience. “But that’s not a very good excuse.”

“Huh? Why the ffffuck you do all this, thennnn? I puked in yourrr carrr.”

“Why’d your friends let you go home drunk and alone with some guy with a crush on you? I’m sorry, but I knew someone was gonna take advantage of you and nobody was gonna stop it. You deserve better than that.”

“I thought yyyyyyou werrre a creep? Shit. Ha. Sorry. I’m drunk. And horny.”

“Oh, sorry if I gave that impression. I’ll give you more space in the future. I just didn’t know how to approach you.” He had stood up and walked to the door, turning off the light.

“Wwwwait. We’rrrre rrreally nnot gunna have sex rrright nnow?”

“Emphatically, no.”

“This issss the first time that’ssss ever happened to mme.”

“Sorry.”

“Yyou are mah boyfrrriend, now, Mr. Parvel. If you’rre ssseein’ annnyone, tell’em the bad nnews. Cuzz you are mine, now.”

He had left, expecting that to be the end of it. He had planned to give her space so she didn’t feel creeped out, but she got his number from a mutual friend and just kept showing up. Afterall, he was her boyfriend.

I am hers. And she always gets what she wants.

He plugged his nose and gulped down the wine, gagging, but forcing himself to keep it down, feeling the burn all the way down his throat. Ugh! Like wet garbage! He wiped his tongue with a paper towel, afraid drinking something else would dampen the effects, then went back to his laptop. He threw a black blanket over his head and put one end under the monitor, ensuring nothing was in his view except himself in his wife’s underwear and the porn.

It was hard to find flaccid futa porn, especially in large sizes, but he’d found a few pictures and gifs from very niche fetish sites, masturbating as he cycled through them. He came very quickly, arousal amplified by the unregulated Fetish Serum. Against all instincts, he didn’t make any attempts to clean up. Messy sex had seemed to be a common theme in her answers. He also continued stroking his oversensitive dick to try and encourage a faster reload.

Next was the most sizeable collection. Bolted on tits. Tori had very high standards and Charlie knew them. For a long time Tori had wanted some herself, but was waiting to find a surgeon that could make them perfect. Charlie didn’t share any of his research on the matter, as he had suspected she wasn’t getting them just for him and her to enjoy. Of course, the proportions she wanted in her fantasy partner were characteristically ****, so Charlie still had to use mostly hentai and 3d animated porn to combine perfect shape and large sizes. Fortunately not **** as some expansion content he disqualified, but quite large for a person. Same for the nipples, which she wanted ‘bulgy’, which had been surprisingly difficult to find.

Then was girls riding large dildos. One would think it would be easy to find a trove of such content. However, the girls had to showcase multiple desired target features such as age, weight, height, breast shape or size, etc. And there were only a few videos he could find where a pussy pump had been used, as Tori apparently thought the perfect vagina was An oversized set of lips that can never be free of camel toe.

Charlie had been so afraid that his fetishes were unrealistic, gross, and decidedly based on a male’s desire for female biology rather than an understanding of it. But his wife’s answers to the questionnaire were some of the most vile, misogynistic, and depraved things he’d ever seen put to paper. His fetishes were niche, but at least they could all be combined together and still be found in singular pieces of content, rather than being Frankensteined from forums and fetish sites across the internet.

I cannot wait to be her… he thought, switching to a short three second video of a woman begging another to pee in her mouth because she “needs it.” Tori was never going to even think about another woman ever again. It would be such a relief to no longer need to compete.

The new Charlie was not going to be a person, really. She was going to be a sex object, a trophy, another thing for people to envy Tori over. And because of that, nobody could ever hope to compete with Charlotte. Because she wasn’t going to be human. She was going to be less than anything anybody was willing to lower themselves to. Because the last thing Tori wanted was an equal. And the only thing Charlie and Charlotte wanted was Tori.