What is Love?

Soon you are back at your place, and Maisie is camped on your couch getting to grips with her new game.

You would think having turned your forever crush into an avid gamer girl who prefers to be naked at all times around you would have made you ecstatically happy. But the sparks that were unexpectedly flying between you last night seem to have completely evaporated, and despite Maisie's nudity it all feels depressingly platonic again.

If you hadn't been so eager to get out of the store you would surely have steered Maisie towards a different kind of game. The one she is playing is neither multiplayer nor co-op. It is one of those single player RPGs that takes about eighty hours to complete solo. The view you will be afforded for those eighty hours will be exquisite, and there was a time where this would have been beyond your wildest dreams. But after what happened yesterday, you want more.

You have tried to discuss your kiss with Maisie, and what happened afterwards, with her but she has shut you down and brushed you off, as she typocally does when she finds a subject awkward to talk about. You are **** to keep making alterations to Maisie's personality. You don't want to feel you have lost who she was and turned her into a different person. But you have to do something. You try a command which you consider to be pretty mild.

"Maisie, I want you to be more open with me. I don't mean tell me every little secret, just be more free with your feelings and comfortable discussing things with me that you would ordinarily find difficult, and not worry so much about the consequences of our conversations"

There is no obvious change in Maisie, who remains engrossed in her game, but you know well enough by now these commands always take. You decide to breach the subject of your kiss again.

"Maisie, I want to discuss what happened yesterday evening again"

"Okay" Maisie answers without looking away from the screen. Right, that's a good start. You would never have gotten an "Okay" out of her before. But you still have to be careful how you phrase this.

"I'm just a bit confused why you are acting like our kiss never happened. It felt like you were into it at the time"

Hopefully that wasn't too blunt. It was an honest question, and one you need to know the answer to.

"I had a moment with you last night" Maisie tells you quite openly as she continues to play "Everything was just right. We were having so much fun together, the stripping and the forfeits were kinda hot, fucking with your neighbour made me laugh so hard, and you were being so manly demanding I kiss you that in that moment, I wanted to"

"And then I fucked up and told you I loved you" you interject before you have to suffer the indignity of her reminding you.

"So, so much, and also that I'm perfect" she adds "And it was like the spell broke instantly. Because you don't actually love me. Or maybe you do as a friend. But you aren't in love with me. You just like me and really, really want to have sex with me"

That may well be true, but it hardly feels like it should be a deal breaker.

"So those jocks you date, they all truly love you do they?" you ask, thinking you have made an excellent point.

"No, they don't" she sighs as if you are not getting something , pausing her game and putting down the controller "They mean nothing to me and I mean nothing to them. We're eighteen for fucks sake. It's a bit of harmless fun. It felt like that is what we were having last night, but then you reminded me that we are so much more than that to each other. Let's say we did get together. I have two options. Either we stay with each other for the nest, like, seventy years and never experience anyone else, or we split and fuck up our friendship. And obviously, in your case there is more to it than that"

"What do you mean?" you are genuinely confused by that comment.

"You have this power over me, the curse. You are such a great guy and I am super appreciative you haven't used it to take advantage of me, like, at all" she says as she sits fully naked in your apartment indulging in her new found love for your favourite pastime. You do sometimes feel a little guilty about making her oblivious that stuff like that was down to you "But you are only human, and if things got ugly you could lash out at me with it, or reprogram me to want to stay with you when I didn't"

"But I would never do that!"

"I don't think you would either. But it was my Aunt's ex who found out about her curse post break up. And I'm not even going to get into some of the shit he did to her in ****. I was eight years old at the time, and that's when I found out it could be me on the receiving end one day. Obviously you are nothing like him, he was always an asshole. But you can't blame me for being a little paranoid"

And you can't. But this is beyond frustrating now. Maybe you aren't in love with Maisie. But you will never find someone who could come close to her. That isn't some teenage infatuation speaking, it's the hard truth. She is a clear ten in anyone's books, whereas you are average looking at best. You don't have great charisma or money, and there is nothing remarkable about you. There are seven's and eights who won't give you the time of day because they consider you beneath them. The only reason you even get to talk to Maisie is because you were friends years before anyone cared about stuff like that. And the curse that she trusted you with should, you feel, have bonded you even closer together. Instead it seems to have created another barrier, one that may be insurmountable considering how closely linked it is to her childhood trauma.

She now considers the conversation over and is back to her game. You really are **** to keep making these tweaks to Maisie's psyche, to who she truly is. But there has to be an ethical way to remove that obstacle without dramatically changing your friend. Something positive, that could help her even. You think you have it.

"Maisie, you are no longer afraid of your curse. You understand it is now in the hands of someone who truly cares about you. You realise that what happened to your Aunt Carly can never happen to you. In fact, you may even be open to exploring the potential benefits of your curse with me. You know that now there are things I can do for you that no other man ever could"

Was that last bit too much? It wasn't untrue.

You sit and watch nervously as you wait for Maisie to respond. Then she pauses her game, puts the controller down, preens her hair a little nervously, and looks across at you.

"Hey, I've kind of been thinking about something..."