Talking Things Through

Holly led Paul up the stairs and into her apartment, relieved to at least be able to take this behind closed doors. Of course, privacy also allowed Paul to do things to her, or make her do things, that he couldn't out on the street. But she wasn't panicking. That wasn't going to help her now, and may even make Paul feel more powerful and become more emboldened in his commands. She didn't see him as a monster, and still believed she could reason with him.

Her calmness was partly down to her usual pragmatic nature, but it also came from Holly knowing this day had been coming from the moment she turned 18.. She didn't even particularly blame herself for choosing Paul. From her experience with men, just about any guy she knew would have gone this way, or worse, and a stranger who discovered her secret by chance would have been tougher to talk down from this.

"Holly sit down on the bed, for now we are just going to talk" Paul ordered her.

Holly did as she was told, then noticed Paul was looking angry with her. She couldn't figure out what he possibly had to be annoyed about in this scenario, but he was about to let her know.

"Look at you, covering yourself. Denying me a clear view of what you know is now mine" he spat strangely resentfully "Do you not get how things are between us now? Put your hands by your sides and sit up straight. Then we can discuss our situation"

It hadn't been worded as a command, but Holly knew it may as well have been and dutifully did as she was told.

She still hoped she wasn't yet beyond the point of no return here, as unlikely as that seemed. Apparently the crush Paul used to have on her hadn't gone away. She realised his sexual urges had combined with some misplaced notion of having romantic feelings for her and were causing him to act like this. The next step was inevitably going to be that he would fuck her, right there in her own bed in her own home. She decided to have one more attempt to reason with him before it came to that. This was definitely risky, and broke her own rule of not antagonising her "master". But she was quickly running out of options.

"You know, it's not too late for you to back out of this, Paul" Holly told her friend turned tormentor "I will pretend none of this ever happened, and we can both get on with our lives"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Paul asked her incredulously "Why would I walk away from everything I have here?"

"Because you have a girlfriend who loves you, or at least could do" Holly tells him bluntly "I will never love you, especially not now. And I'm not even slightly attracted to you. Of course, you could use my curse to make me think you are hot and I am besotted with you, but I would be under a spell. It wouldn't be real. Do you really want to throw away a proper relationship for something completely fake?"

Paul paused for a moment. He didn't seem mad, which was a relief. And it looked like her candour may have had an impact on him.

"Maybe you are right" he told her "I shouldn't just throw away everything with Jane for this"

Holly breathed a sigh of relief. Some significant level of public humiliation aside, perhaps this had all worked out okay, all things considered, and she was effectively free from her curse.

"I think I can make this work" Paul thought out loud, which hadn't been what Holly was hoping to hear "Jane can continue to be my partner, potentially the love of my life. You can be my whore. My sex toy. My relief. You can do all the things for me that she can't or won't. This might even be good for my relationship with her. And you are going to begin serving me right now"