Don’t you recognize the man in the mirror?

Author’s note: Hi folks! Shame, here with another chapter. I hope you guys enjoy, and as ever, lemme know what you’re liking or disliking! I know people are probably excited to get back into the actual transforming, so I hope this chapter satisfies and that things are at least engaging enough to make the transformations feel powerful and exciting. Happy reading!

***

Natalie sat on the edge of the bed, fingers running along the faces of one of a little white cards Hank had handed her before leading her to the bedroom and explaining—or trying to, anyway—the situation. The infinite notebook was undeniable proof to her that this was some kind of power beyond her, even if she could somehow write off the woman phasing through a door. Not to mention having been encased in a latex prison for a few minutes at the snap of a finger.

Magic. She hesitated to call anything she didn’t understand magic. Magic had always been a feeling, everything else was tricks. Natalie always considered Hank a magician in that respect. Kissing at Cinderella’s castle, surprising her with flowers on her worst day, every Christmas morning coffee he brought to bed for her. Those moments were magic.

This was witchcraft. Natalie hesitated to even call it that, but what else could it be? It was Natalie’s nature to define and diagnose problems. It made her good in a crisis and invaluable in her career. Even when they first split because of Talia, Natalie maintained a mostly level head by spending hours researching mental disorders and manipulation tactics that could explain Hank’s bizzare betrayal. Sobbing in an Uber minutes before a vacation was the first real breakdown she’d ever had and clearly it had gotten her roped into something much worse than a breakup. It wasn’t a mistake she was going to make again. She needed to detach. Compartmentalize.

Except… something was gnawing at her. “So… the game.” She sucked in a sharp breath, staring down at the challenge listed on the card.

Challenge: Remove Talia Lee’s top. Refuse or fail and retrigger the effect of your next Wild space. You have one hour.

Such a challenge early in the game made her shiver to think of what challenges Talia and he would have gotten over the past six months. “It made you… cheat on me. With her.” She felt her air trying to void from her lungs, but didn’t let the heartbreak of that sentence really hurt her the way it wanted to. If she could understand what was happening, she could find a way through it. It was why she hated playing Hank’s monsturously complex board games he so loved, she just wanted to save her mental energy for something that mattered.

Hank pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, overwhelmed with the guilt of it all. This poor woman had her entire life shaken up and ruined with events that never even happened. “No, that’s not—that’s the bitch of it. She and I have never even slept together.”

Natalie scowled at this, shooting him a look she was disgusted to see his eyes recieve. How could he possibly say such things and still look her in the eye instead of the chest? “I—“ her heart was hurting again, she was getting attached to the situation. She needed to breathe out a breath and try not to see Hank the bastard who spent the past six months on a sex marathon with the girl he insisted was gay. She needed to assess what he was saying and what he stood to gain by convincing her of something like that. “I caught you two. With my own eyes. You two and her sex maid—“ she had to simmer the fire, pulling herself out of the terrible memory. “I caught you.”

Hank made a pathetic whining noise, slumping back against the wall. “It rewrote the past. It made it true, but it’s not. Everyone thinks it is, but it isn’t what happened.”

“I know what I saw, Hank.”

“None of this is real, Natalie. You… you and Xavier have been—“

“Oh, not this shit, again, Hank.” Natalie pinched her nose, hearing that damn excuse. That poison Talia fed him to break his loyalty. “Xavier and I barely interacted in college. We shared one club and ran in different circles. I didn’t even recognize his name when I took the assignment.”

Xavier was a wonderful man whose friendship Natalie had come to enjoy over the first few weeks of the merger. They bonded over going to the same college. And ironically also bonded over how much they gushed about their partners. Xavier had a beautiful wife and was expecting a child, meaning that even if Natalie had wanted to cheat on Hank, which had never even crossed her mind, Xavier was the last man who would indulge her in it.

Hank shook his head, sliding until his butt was on the floor and his face was buried between his knees. “Natalie, you and Xavier have been married for almost a year. You just adopted a dog.”

Natalie shook her head. But he wasn’t talking like this was a lie. Hank was bad at lying to her. He could keep a straight face for a few seconds, but always started smiling or laughing shortly after, even if it wasn’t a funny lie. Concerningly, she believed that Hank believed he was speaking the truth. So the game makes people believe things that aren’t true.

That had to be it. Talia came into their lives with a magic board game and managed to rewrite Hank’s understanding of their relationship. Hank and Natalie had been in Arizona visiting her family ten months ago. So how could he possibly believe that she was somehow married to a man she met seven months ago for twelve months? Witchcraft.

Natalie had always seen Talia as self-absorbed. Not evil, but wouldn’t do anything for anyone if it was much of an inconvenience. She was mellower than a lot of their other friends, which was nice, but Talia never really grew close to her the way Hank had. Was it possible that Talia was so busted up about her own breakup that she made a literal pact with a witch to ruin their wonderful relationship out of spite and jealousy? Natalie truly didn’t put it past her.

“What happens? With the card?” Natalie asked, turning the challenge back over so he couldn’t read the text. Hank shrugged, looking up into her eyes. Was the perverted game making him do that, too? Leer at her eyes?

“You either do what it says in the time frame, you say that you refuse, or you fail to do it. If you fail or refuse, it makes things worse for you in certain situations.”

“It says retrigger the effect of the next wild space I land on. Those are the white ones?”

Hank nodded. “Those can be literally any change. Whenever you land on a space, your biography gets rewritten based on that change. And then that’s the truth, now.” It becomes what you believe now, rather. Natalie internally corrected him. “For turn one, though, you’re going to get a number change, starting on red. Which is already bad for you because you’re the red piece.”

“Why’s that bad?”

“Changes are worse when it’s on a square of your same color. I think you get an extra number or something, but I’ll have to check. The rulebook is out there.” Hank again slumped somehow even lower.

Everything about his body language felt off, but not unfamiliar. Clearly the confident, assured, and sincere man Hank had grown into had backslid quite badly into the man she’d first met. Insecure, small, flinching at every touch. Looking up at her eyes like she wouldn’t notice and like he’d never get the chance to see another pair again. In a way it was validating to see just how much better of a man her presence in his life had made him. In most other ways it was horrifying seeing all the growth, the hard work, the pride, all shot back to where it started. Like she’d never even existed. Never made a mark on him like he had on her.

Natalie nodded, looking back down at the card in her hand. “What is it?” Hank asked sheepishly. “Your challenge? They’re all bad, but refusal can be worse—“

“Oh, I’m doing the challenge.” Natalie assured him, standing up. “I’ll read the rulebook when we get out there.” She said, grabbing her biography off the bed. Then she looked down at him. He looked up, expectantly, staring straight at her eyes.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t have sex maybe as much as you would have liked.” It was something she’d kicked herself for so many nights. Hank had always wanted sex more often than her, but she had brushed it off as typical in a relationship between a man and a woman. In all the movies and TV, the guy was always trying to get laid, or complaining about his girl not putting out. Sometimes his persistence greatly annoyed her, even though he was respectful. But she wondered if he would’ve ever even entertained Talia staying over if Natalie had just sucked it up and entertained more of his advances. Or just committed to something three or four times a week.

The day she left for her business trip, he’d tried to initiate something—admittedly quite sweetly and romantically—and she’d shut it down harshly because of her annoyance at Talia’s presence in their home. Had that been the crack, she often wondered? Had it made her look defensive, or made it seem like she was just holding out for Xavier? His testicular condition maybe meant that he just needed more frequent draining.

Hank sat, eyes wide with shock. “Natalie, no!”

“But can you honestly say that this is what you wanted? You were a teacher with a girlfriend who loved you. Is this what you wanted for us?”

“No! None of this— Mommy and I are just—“ That little compulsion triggered at a poor time for Hank. It was so natural he hardly recognized it at first. After all, Mommy was the primary name he used for Talia. 51% of the time, he’d be physically barred from calling her anything else. The other 49% would just feel more natural.

Her legs broke for the bedroom door. Mommy? She nearly vomited. Mommy? After everything they worked through, Talia capitalized on Hank’s awful childhood to control him? No wonder he’d become so pathetic. He was stuck in some kind of Neverland with a sex mommy encouraging all his worst habits to run from responsibility. All reinforced with this witchcraft!

Talia had failed her challenge by default. Even if Vera or Hank had started sucking her nipples by the time they’d gotten out of the vacbeds, she had less time to do the challenge than it would take to complete and it discarded itself. Vera had opted to refuse her challenge, sensing that Hank was going to be pretty preoccupied with Natalie.

“Mommy!?” The cry came from down the hall, accompanied by the crashing of a door.

“Yes, dear? Please don’t slam doors like that.” Talia chastised Natalie against her own will, turning just in time to see the woman storm up to her on the couch. Sophie watched with sheer giddiness.

“Mommy!?” Natalie was clearly enraged. Talia could feel the shame spread across her face. How debasing it was. How hard to resist, it was.

“Yes, dear. It’s part of the game.” Talia tried explaining, pointing to her notebook, but her voice was three tones too condescending.

“You vile, disgusting woman!” Natalie shouted. “Do you know how sick and twisted you have to be to come into this house and use his fucked up childhood for some sex role play? How dare you!? Do you know how awful his mother was!? And to play into that-that trauma is-is—“ Natalie was quickly becoming aware of how overwhelmed she was getting. She’d met Francine Tock a small number of unpleasant times. The house was packed full of boxes, clothes, garbage, and cat shit. Francine Tock was a very mentally unwell woman who never had the self-awareness to take any accountability. Everything was always her, her, her.

Talia was always her, her, her.

Natalie lunged forwards, Talia throwing her arms up to defend herself from the attack. She’d expected her hair to get pulled, nails to claw her face, or slaps to rake her cheeks. But instead she suddenly felt the bottom of her oversized sweater being yanked upwards. By the time she realized Natalie was trying to disrobe her, Talia’s elbows were the only thing with leverage to fight back as her sleeves were rolled off her arms.

Talia wore no bra, leaving her small breasts and ghostly pink nipples bare during the time her fingers gripped the inside of her sleeves, trying to stop Natalie from taking her garment. But with a yank, the sweater came fully off and Talia’s hands shot down to cover herself. Before Talia, shivering and scared, could even ask why, Natalie gave her answer, throwing the sweater at Hank on his hurried way down the hall.

“That’s part of the game, too, whore!” Natalie stomped over to the rulebook as her card slipped from her fingers with the same invisible **** as her phone.

The argument that was likely to follow was interrupted by happy little claps from the lazy boy as Sophie expressed her delight at the altercation. “Ooh! Cat fight!” Sophie giggled, biting her lower lip. “Although, to be clear, I’m the one playing into that trauma. Well, me and the game, that is.”

Natalie was finding it more difficult to keep her cool. “Well fuck both of you. And you, too, sex maid.” She cast a disapproving glare at Vera. Hank rushed Talia her sweater, turning around so she could redress, a move that Natalie found infuriating and proper at once.

“Sex attendant.” Vera and Sophie corrected her simultaneously. “Jinx, you owe me a coke.” Vera added, cupping her hand to indicate a can. She raised an eyebrow at Sophie like a rich patron at a restaurant trying to tell the server to refill her wine. It was fun rage baiting her.

“I’m not doing that.” Sophie declared, uncomfortable under the cold, blank stare of Vera. “Now ont—“

“Yes, you are.”

“Never interrupt me.” Sophie snapped her fingers, intending to summon a ballgag into Vera’s mouth with no intention of removing it. “Now, ont—“

“Soda!” Vera shouted, referencing a meme of Joe Biden none of the others were familiar with. Sophie turned her head to regard Vera’s gag-less mouth with abject horror. She’d cast the spell! Why hadn’t it worked?

“I’m not getting you a Coke.” Sophie declared, trying to wrestle control back to direct everyone to the game.

“Then you’re jinxed.” Vera shrugged.

Jinxed, that would explain it. Sophie rolled her eyes. A jinx was a limited, inconvenient level of hex. Did Vera actually know what she had done? No, she couldn’t have. She was just being obnoxious. Again. But at least Sophie knew how to fix it. She snapped her fingers and an open glass bottle of Coca-Cola appeared in Vera’s mouth, the widest part between her teeth so that her jaw was **** wide open as soda spilled out of her lips as she sputtered from the sudden intrusion.

“Now, as I was saying.” Sophie suddenly had everyone’s attention again after the display of magic. “Natalie, it’s your first turn of the game, so you go first this phase. Next round, you’re going last.”

Natalie went to ask what she was supposed to do, but was interrupted by the loud click of the Category Deck cage. She supposed she had to figure out what this was eventually. According to Hank, and the rulebook, red meant number changes. She still wasn’t fully sure what that meant. Maybe that was what convinced Hank that she was somehow married for twelve months?

She feared what might happen, but figured that it was better than getting a coke bottle down her throat. She just had to ground herself and remember that the game was going to convince her that something false was true. She just had to hold firm to the fact that no matter how hard she believed the thing that changed, she needed to accept that it was actually the opposite.

She squatted down next to the coffee table, looking to Hank for support, but she could hardly recognize the man who looked back. Why couldn’t he just sit next to her and hold her hand? Did he really think she cheated on him with Xavier? Even if he did, couldn’t he see how badly his own affair hurt her?

She drew her card and jumped back as the cage snapped closed the instant her fingers were out of the way. As if sealing her fate.

She didn’t allow herself to take it slow, flipping the card before she could build the moment up in her head.

Category: Body and Hobbies Number change! Roll 2d6 (1d6+Red Piece Effect), add the value to the existing statistic.

What does that even mean, she wondered. Sophie leaned forwards, small, pallid cleavage pooling in her work shirt. The die on the table began to violently shake before suddenly, as through osmosis, splitting into two identical dice. Natalie swallowed, unable to do anything but stare at the cubes. She didn’t want to touch witchcraft. Even flipping the pages of her biography filled her with an existential terror.

Han’s body crouched down beside her and she almost recognized his voice in the way her tried to coach her. He was teaching her, but still grounding her, comforting her. “You’re gonna roll the dice and then your biography is going to start glowing. When you open it, whatever numbers you rolled on the dice are going to be added to a random stat.”

“And then?” She turned her head. For the first time, his eyes weren’t staring into hers like a pervert. They were locked on with a singular focus, to the dice. Hank was still in there. He was fighting this thing! He was comforting her, coaching her on how to get back to him. On how they could get away from this. Maybe he’d hurt her so terribly, and maybe it wasn’t his fault, but they needed to support each other right now. Get through the other end and sort all the shit after. Wish it all away and just get married like they’d been planning.

She’d put out more, he’d stop thinking so much with his dick. They’d be better for each other. If they just. Got. Through.

She let out a shaky exhale and cautiously palmed the dice, half expecting them to burn her with hellfire. They were disappointingly mundane, feeling as cheap and plastic as if ripped from a Monopoly box, and were equal to the room’s temperature. Yet she couldn’t help but cup both hands around them and give hard and swingy shakes, as if she could summon a good roll through ****. What even would be a good roll? Would she want a stat to be higher or lower. Middle of the road?

The plastic clacked across the surface of the board, one coming to a stop almost instantly on a three, the other bouncing around for a moment before settling at one. Added together was four.

Her heart jumped when the brilliant orange light pulsed from the pages of her book, but she felt ready. Almost. Her fingers grabbed Hank’s hand, holding it for comfort. He jolted like he always used to do when people touched him. Like he was still touch averse. But she knew the real Hank was feeling her hand under all that witching and she needed him to know she wasn’t leaving without him.

Her free hand opened the front page of her biography, somehow bringing her to the dead center of the book, where one entry among many held the same orange glow as the edge of the pages.

Average time per day spent on yoga for past six months: 0 hours +4

.

Average time per day spent on yoga for past six months: 4 hours

Natalie suddenly felt weird. Lighter. Healthier? “Whoah…” She fell back on her butt, feeling like her center of gravity had shifted. This certainly was a strange sensation, but she didn’t remember any yoga. Stress eating, periods of no eating, wasting away in Ashley’s guest bedroom, zoning out staring at walls in her office; she didn’t remember anything different about the last six months. She’d gained weight just from the stress of it all.

“Natalie?” Hank yelped, barely staying in his own awkward crouch despite her hand almost tearing his to the floor.

Something was different, though. About her body. She let go of Hank’s hand, sitting up with **** ease. She paused. She sat up from a laying position without rolling onto her side or heaving her weight for momentum. And it wasn’t hard.

The Star Wars sweatshirt she’d tearfully put on to try and make Hank want her again felt much looser on her. She let go of his hand, allowing both of hers to travel under the sweater to—

Her fingers recoiled at the feeling of abs. She didn’t have abs. She’d never had abs. She’d always been a little on the thicker side no matter what diet she went with. “Wha—“ Her legs! Sticking out of the blue fabric of her sundress, they looked so toned and sculpted. Experimentally she flexed them and couldn’t help but gasp.

It’s all in your head. Her rational brain reminded her. This is just what she imagined being a yoga girl would look like. What she imagined it would feel like. It wasn’t real. Just her brain’s projection. Reality is no longer what you think it is.