I'm looking right at the other half of me

There was tension in the air that night, after Dakota gave her ultimatum. Nobody seemed in the mood for doing anything. They just wanted the day to be over.

“Is it just me, or does anyone else feel… overwhelmed?” Carly asked as she paced around the Banquet Hall. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that everyone’s okay, really, I am. And I’m also glad that these transformations are going to wear off. It’s just… I don’t know, this is a lot to take in. I’m not used to strenuous stuff like this when it’s not for a challenge, you know?”

And considering Carly had lost the last three challenges in a row, that was quite a statement.

“Not to mention the fact that we’re going to have to leave them to their own devices,” Marley noted bitterly, glancing at the two tied-up women. “Even if they might not be able to leave their rooms, that’s still going to be a pain.”

“What should I do?” Gina asked worriedly. “Is there something I should be doing right now?”

She looked anxiously over at Morgana, **** for some sort of input. But with that gag in her mouth, all Morgana could do was roll her eyes and grunt.

Not exactly constructive.

Mary could tell that Gina was getting more and more anxious by the minute. She walked over to the reformed punk, and placed a comforting hand on her arm.

At least, she was trying to be comforting, anyway. Gina still jumped about a mile into the air in fright.

“Y-yeeek!” The blonde screeched, her face turning pale. She looked warily at Mary. “What, uh… what are you doing?”

“Nothing, I’m sorry,” Mary said, raising her hands defensively. “I was just worried about you. You seem to be affected by this the most, given the fact that you’re transformed into someone else too, you know?”

“Hey, that’s a good point,” Kim noted. “Gina’s affected by the whole ‘Hall of Mirrors’ transformation, too! So we could learn a lot more about what’s going on in their minds if we try to work with her, and see how she thinks of things.”

From where she was sitting, Dawn rolled her eyes with an expression that screamed “finally!”

She’d been gagged as well, since the girls realized there wasn’t really a reason NOT to do it, and all her duplicitous and horny talking was making things more complicated.

“I-I don’t know anything!” Gina said, shaking her head frantically. Her knees were knocking together. “I just… I was just in the Hall of Mirrors with them! And then mistress- I mean, Morgana, she pounced on me, and then…”

Now that Morgana had been gagged for a long enough time, Gina could finally start thinking for herself again, since she was no longer under the effects of Morgana’s Sotto Voce transformation. She was still very horny as a result of Dawn’s pheromones (which didn’t seem to have a method of canceling out) but as long as Morgana wasn’t the source, as long as she wasn’t speaking directly to Gina (or looking at her) then Gina would be fine… probably.

She still slipped up more than once.

“Look, it’s okay,” Mary said gently, hugging the other girl to her chest. She could see so much of the old her in Gina right now. Pure, kind, sweet, and completely overwhelmed by all the horny events that surrounded her. Being assaulted and bullied by Morgana certainly hadn’t helped in that regard. Right now, what the blonde needed was a friend.

Mary felt a little sick to her stomach, thinking that it would be nice if the real Gina was this conciliatory and sweet.

I’ve gotta remember that this is a transformation, she reminded herself. It isn’t real. Not any more than those two over there are Dawn and Morgana.

Mary didn’t want to accept the fact that two people she knew were capable of doing such horrible things deep down. She was certain that the mirrors and their transformations had completely warped them to the point of being unrecognizable.

“It could be worse,” Holly chirped, sauntering over to Gina. “At least you got to have some fun, right, Gina?”

Gina turned pale, then she turned red. “F-fun!?” She exclaimed. “It wasn’t fun to be used like that, to be… to be bullied…”

Her complexion only deepened its shade, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

“I just… I just wanted to be a good girl,” she mumbled sadly. “A good girl for everyone, doing the right thing… and it just got so twisted…”

“Hey, don’t listen to her,” Mary said, shooting Holly a look. While she wasn’t cross with her friend, Holly needed to be aware of the fact that there was a time and a place for being a pervert, and this certainly wasn’t it.

Luckily Holly didn’t need to be told twice, and wisely backed off.

“Look, if she doesn’t remember, she doesn’t remember!” Dani snapped. “Stop pressuring her, it’s not solving anything!”

She was the most irate one there, and with good reason. She’d been sexually assaulted, after all, while Kim had just done some pampering and Gina had only received some spankings. Dawn had practically **** her, and yet…

It wasn’t Dawn.

Dani explicitly remembered being a willing participant to those activities, and engaged with them gleefully, unlike Mary, who really had been assaulted by those two.

Just another reason why she was so upset right now. She knew that what she’d done was wrong, and what Dawn had done was wrong. It was like two people had gotten incredibly drunk, and even though neither one would have slept with the other sober, the **** made them do things they would never do normally.

So who was to blame for that? Who should Dani get angry at?

The answer, obviously, was Dakota. But that was useless, impotent rage that Dani already had plenty of after the night she spent with Sylvia.

So with no one else to take her feelings out on, she put that anger to use defending Gina from the others’ questions, since Gina was the real victim here.

“Dani, I’m not trying to pressure her,” Mary said, shaking her head. “I just want to make sure that she’s okay, that’s all. And see just how much of her is still… you know, Gina.”

“I’m all Gina!” Gina wailed.

“Well… yeah, I know, I just mean our Gina,” Mary said, knowing that didn’t exactly make anything better. “You know, the trashy punk who smokes, drinks, does ****, gets tattoos, has indiscriminate sex with anyone that even looks at her…”

“Mary, I think you’re going overboard here,” Holly said, raising her eyebrow. She could tell that Mary was starting to project some things onto Gina that the other girl had already moved past.

Mary kept Holly under control? Well, now it was Holly’s turn to keep Mary under control.

“I’m not like that,” Gina said adamantly, shaking her head. “I’ve never touched a drop of the devil’s nectar in my life! And I would never mar my body with tattoos! See?”

She held up her arm and rolled up her sleeve. Apparently, Gina’s punishment transformation had been removed by this new good girl transformation as well.

“So you don’t remember anything about being the old Gina?” Kim asked curiously. That didn’t align with what she remembered about Dawn. Dawn had seemed completely aware of the kind of girl that she’d used to be.

Gina sighed and hung her head. “Okay… yeah,” she admitted. “I remember. I remember being that… that person. But it’s not so simple, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Carly asked, walking over to them. She hadn’t gotten anywhere by pacing, after all, and she could use for a little bit of the stability that knowing what was going on would provide. “What’s not so simple?”

“Everything,” Gina said with another sigh. “I do remember being that other version of me, but it’s so hazy, like… like it didn’t really happen…”

She thought for a minute, trying to find the words to describe what she was feeling. It seemed that even though Gina was no longer a lazy slacker, her new version didn’t inherit any significant boosts to her intelligence or diction.

“…It’s like when you wake up from a dream,” she said finally, lifting her head. “Like, have you ever had those dreams where you’re doing something that you would never do, living a life that you’ve never had?”

“A few times,” Carly nodded. “I think that’s pretty normal.”

“All my dreams are of things I would never do,” Dani said bitterly. “Doesn’t stop them from happening, though.”

“I’ve had a few dreams where I was a multi-billionaire,” Kim admitted sheepishly. “I always kind of liked those.” She turned to Mary. “What about you, Mary? Any dreams that are unlike you?”

Mary’s face slowly turned a deeper shade of red while Holly smiled in amusement. That answered that question.

“I, uh… well, look, it’s like this. When I first… I don’t know, transformed into me, it felt like I was finally waking up,” Gina explained. “Like I was the ‘real’ Gina, and the Gina I had apparently always been until now was one big, long dream. And like a dream, it’s really faded and unspecific… I can’t really recall much of anything.”

“So the mirrors make it hard for you to remember your real past…” Marley said thoughtfully. “And yet Dawn seemed to remember her past self pretty well.”

“Guys!” Holly just thought of something.

“Morgana didn’t seem to acknowledge her past that much,” Carly recalled. “Maybe she was too ashamed? Or maybe she forgot it, like Gina.”

“Guys,” Holly said, a little bit more insistently.

“Could be,” Kim agreed. “Dawn’s memory is really, really good after all, maybe that changes how the mirrors work on her.”

“GUYS!”

Everyone turned to Holly, who had grown impatient.

“What is it?” Mary asked her friend.

“…Gina spent like half her life blazed out of her mind on **** and ****, remember?” Holly pointed out. “You think she remembers that much about her past normally?”

…Holly raised a very good point.

“No, no, it’s definitely different… maybe?” Gina wasn’t quite sure herself. “Anyway, it feels like I’m really Gina. Like I’m the real thing. But… I’m not, am I? I know on some level that I’m not real… that I’m just a fake.”

“It’s like you’ve been overlaid onto the real Gina like clothes on a dress-up doll,” Sylvia said quietly, catching everyone’s attention. She’d been sulking at one of the tables. “The real Gina was stripped away, and what was left of her was dressed up in your transformations. That’s how it works. You’re not the same person, even if there are similarities.”

“Oh, hey!” Dani’s eyes widened. “That’s right! Sylvia would know all about this stuff, wouldn’t she? Since she was the host and everything!”

Dawn rolled her eyes again. Finally, the morons had come up with something that could work.

“So it’s that simple, yeah?” Carly asked, sighing in relief. “They’re not the real them, then? And they are just going to wear off…”

Sylvia shrugged. “It’ll wear off, sure. But if you guys just go back in and do it again, well… things won’t go well for you.”

“No way,” Mary said immediately, shaking her head. “I’m never going into there.”

“Same,” Dani nodded. “I was already done with those temporary transformations, and that was BEFORE I knew there was a chance that I could be completely changed as a person. No, thank you, I like being myself too much.”

The thought of what could have happened to her yesterday if she’d been a little more reckless sent a shiver down Dani’s spine. And it wasn’t just a chill from being barely covered by just a towel, she was genuinely frightened of what could have happened to her.

“What if that thing changed my sexuality?” She asked quietly, putting the point out there. “Dawn never displayed any interest in girls before, right?”

She glanced at the cat girl, who shook her head and grunted, confirming Dani’s concerns.

“Exactly,” Dani sighed. “I got incredibly lucky. Dakota might have programmed one of those to make me like guys!”

“I think we should just avoid using the Hall of Mirrors from now on,” Kim said. “Gina’s practically a completely different person. She’s still submissive, but she hardly remembers her old self at all. Even if she’s not trying to **** us or turn us into the perfect girls for Nick, she’s still not herself. It’s just too risky.”

And nobody wanted a repeat of what had happened today.

“So I guess that’s it, then?” Sylvia looked around at the others. “No more using the Hall of Mirrors and its transformations?”

Carly nodded, and then shook her head. “No way,” she agreed. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Absolutely not,” Marley agreed with her sister.

They seemed to have a consensus. And yet, Mary looked kind of sad.

“Hey, Mary, what is it?” Holly asked, walking over to her. “What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Mary said, shaking her head. “It’s just… before this all happened, last night… I was just thinking… I was hoping, well… that I’d be able to get a temporary transformation of my own, one that would let me wear… something other than this.”

She gestured down at her clothes.

“I mean… these aren’t the kinds of things I like wearing,” she said. “I like cute shirts, fluffy sweaters, long dresses… I can’t even wear my wedding dress again, you know?”

Mary sighed and sat down. “I was hoping, but… it’s too dangerous. I don’t think I can risk it, the possibility of turning into someone completely different.”

She looked at the others. “I wouldn’t want to chance turning into someone like Dawn or Morgana by accident, either.”

Mary looked really dejected about that, and everyone realized that maybe she had a point. The Hall of Mirrors transformation had given them all an out, one they hadn’t even considered.

Gina had undone her clothing restriction transformation, and turned back into her punk self, even if she was backtracking a bit right now.

But what about the others?

What if Kim wanted to wear something besides a schoolgirl uniform or underwear? She’d never been able to afford nice clothes before, and now she’d never be able to wear anything fancy that wasn’t lingerie.

What if Carly wanted to wear something other than cosplay for once? There were all sorts of nice outfits she might like to try on, and more importantly, she didn’t even get to pick what she got to wear every morning!

And what if Sylvia wanted…

…

…Well, nobody really cared about what Sylvia wanted to wear, including Sylvia. Dressing slutty was practically ingrained in her very existence.

But Mary…

Mary hadn’t chosen to dress like some slutty cowgirl. She preferred modest clothes.

Of course if she’d been given the chance, she would want to wear something of her own choosing! Even if it was just a different outfit displayed in the mirror, there was still the chance that it might be something modest like Gina’s clothes right now!

But the cost was too high, and she knew that.

It didn’t mean she couldn’t be sad about it, though.

“Hey, come on,” Carly said, walking over and sitting down next to Mary. “I think you’re focusing so much on the negatives, you’re not seeing the positives here!”

Mary looked up, frowning. “…Positives?”

Of course Carly would think that clothes like this were fine, she had no problem dressing up like a slut. And yet, ironically, her outfit for today was more modest than anything Mary had worn in weeks, wedding dress included.

It felt a bit laughable for Carly to be encouraging her like this, frankly.

And yet, Mary didn’t say any of that. Because Carly was being nice to her. The two of them weren’t exactly close, and Mary didn’t really consider her a friend. But she appreciated how kind the other woman could be.

“Think about it like this,” Carly said, offering Mary an encouraging smile. “You’re the kind of girl who does everything for the sake of her husband, right?”

Mary’s jaw dropped.

“Hey! I’m not saying that as an insult, or trying to be judging, okay?” Carly assured her, pulling back slightly and holding up her hands. “But you like making Nick happy, right? Heck, one of your transformations is about trying to change US to make Nick happy!”

Mary paused, hesitating with uncertainty, and then nodded.

“Well, I think Nick really likes your outfit,” Carly assured Mary, feeling her transformation creep up on her. She had to give Mary good, correct advice about what would please Nick the most. “Yeah, because he’s such a good guy, I’m sure he’d want you to wear whatever you wanted. He’s sweet like that, you know? Always thinking of us?”

“Yeah…” Mary smiled bashfully and nodded.

“But if he was really thinking just about himself, and what he wanted to see? I think he’d prefer you wearing clothes like this,” Carly said, running her finger down the open neck of Mary’s collar.

Mary’s eyes widened. “You really think so?!”

Carly paused for a second and then shook her head. “No, Nick would probably like to see you wearing nothing at all, if I’m being honest.”

That caused a bunch of the girls to burst out laughing, Mary included, which helped to lighten the mood. Carly grinned and patted her friend on the shoulder.

“What you need to do, Mary, is think about it like this,” Carly said. “Why do you want to wear nice clothes? Something other than this, I mean.”

“Because I like them,” Mary said. “They don’t show off my body…”

“And why don’t you want to show off your body?” Carly pressed, which earned her a few stares. She made it sound like exposing yourself to everyone with skimpy clothes was totally normal… which for her, it kind of was.

“Because… my body is just for my husband’s eyes,” Mary asserted. “Letting other men see me like this… or even other women… it’s humiliating!”

That brought a smile to Carly’s lips.

“Ah, that’s just it, though. Why do you need to let other people see you?” She asked. “That’s not what you want, right? After all, wouldn’t it be better, for you and Nick both, if you just remained home 24/7? Cooking, cleaning, popping out babies for him? That’s the dream, right?”

Carly couldn’t believe the garbage coming out of her mouth. She’d always prided herself on being a feminist, even as she exploited the lust of men for money (or maybe because of that.) But here she was, telling Mary that what was best for her was to be some 50’s stereotype?! And not only that, but leaning into Mary’s fantasies about getting pregnant… as the only woman here to actually go through a pregnancy before, Carly knew firsthand how difficult it was. Having children was something to be taken seriously, not something to be encouraged to make things sound hotter and sexier!

She should be ashamed!

And the other girls gave her questioning looks as well.

But not Mary.

Mary felt like she had just looked upon the world from space for the first time.

“I… I didn’t even think about it that way!” She cried, jumping to her feet. “That’s right! If I’m going to be Nick’s perfect wife, then I don’t even NEED to wear clothes!”

Of course, she wasn’t going to strip down in front of the other girls or anything. After all, Nick wasn’t here to check out her body!

Kim doubled over laughing. “Well… way to go, Carly, you certainly got through to her, I guess!” She cackled.

Carly’s cheeks turned red. “I-I didn’t mean it,” she mumbled. “This transformation just makes me say what I believe Nick would want…”

The fact that she acknowledged it compelled her honesty really didn’t help matters very much, that was for sure.