'Cause I don't wanna lose you now

Kim sighed. Today was a very long day. Because of Dawn showing up and interrupting things, getting Kim all distracted with how sweet she smelled and how horny that scent made her, she wasn’t able to get her work done with any expediency. When her boss learned of how she’d been slacking off, she’d been **** to stay back for another hour and a half to make up for it, which hadn’t been fun.

Overtime you didn’t get paid for never was (not that Kim actually got paid for her job or anything like that anyway).

She was pretty exhausted, though. And she could use a good petting from Dawn (or petting Dawn herself) to relax.

“That’s really weird,” she said aloud, shaking her head. “Thinking like that. I mean, come on. It’s not like I’m really into Dawn that way, right? She’s just a friend.”

There was definitely something going on. Kim had never been attracted to girls before. Not Mary, who very well might be her best friend, not Dani, the tomboy who worked out with her every other day, showing off her sweaty, bronzed flesh, not even when she was a completely different person for 24 hours, not anything.

She was pretty sure that she was pretty straight. And yet Dawn had been able to tempt her with an alluring and distracting display all the same, one that even now was getting her heart pounding with excitement.

Kim swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. She really wasn’t ready to get worked up like this.

“It’s fine,” she whispered to herself, pacing back and forth in the hall. “This is fine, it’s going to be fine… I’m still into guys.”

While she was pacing, she could hear some faint voices on the edge of her soundline, and they caused her to prick her ears up.

That was interesting.

Are people talking? She wondered, approaching the door. She’d been heading for the Kitchen to see if anyone wanted to catch an early dinner, since that’s where everyone usually was when it was one of Mary’s cooking class days. Maybe she’d even be able to snag some free samples. But for some reason there was nobody there. Which was weird. But as she got closer to the source of the voices, she could hear things clearer, and she picked up the pace.

She was certain of it now, those were the voices of her friends.

“Hey, guys, what’s going…” Kim threw open the door and walked inside, but was stunned by what she saw when she entered the room.

“…On?”

The girls had gathered together in the Banquet Hall, and were in the midst of a heated discussion. Everyone in the harem except Rose was present right now, and Nick, of course. And they were all talking so loudly it was hard for her to make out the content of the conversation.

But one thing Kim noted as uniquely questionable was the fact that two of the girls were tied to chairs, struggling to get free.

“Dawn?!” Kim exclaimed, spotting the cat girl in one. And as for the other chair, a tall intimidating goth woman with a gag in her mouth was staring daggers at the crowd of women with her crimson eyes, practically burning with rage. “…Morgana…?”

“Oh, hey,” Dani said, glancing up at the schoolgirl approaching them. “It’s Kim.”

“Guys, what’s going on here?” Kim asked, approaching the others. But she stopped about halfway through as a familiar sensation washed over her. Her body began to surge with hormones and suddenly she’d like nothing better than to rip her uniform right off of her trim figure and bear all her hard work for everyone to see. “And why do I feel so hot?” She asked worriedly.

Dani frowned, her cheeks flushing. She turned and glared at Dawn, who smiled back at her and stuck out her tongue.

“It’s because of Dawn,” Holly said, giving the cat girl a light smack in the back of the head. Since she wasn’t a contestant, it technically wasn’t against the rules for her to get physical with a member of Nick’s harem, even if Dakota might not be a huge fan of her doing so. “She got a new transformation from the Hall of Mirrors.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kim said, averting her eyes from the seductive cat girl, who had arched her back against the chair to show off her sizeable chest. “She and I, we… we had a conversation or two on that topic, you see… she came to the shop where I was working at.”

Kim left out the part where Dawn had semi-seduced her into giving her pets and headpats until her boss stormed in and made her get back to work. That was more of a private issue.

“Then you should know it wasn’t just a physical transformation, or even a mental one,” Dani scowled, crossing her arms over her chest. “Dawn’s exuding pheromones right now that are getting all of us turned on.”

“Except me,” Holly informed them. “I can only get aroused by the thought of Nick, and him having sex with another woman.”

Her cheeks were flushed all the same, and her eyes were glassy. A dopey grin split her face in two.

Holly’s immunity to Dawn’s pheromones wasn’t exactly helpful if the girl wouldn’t stop thinking about Nick and getting turned on by it anyway.

Mary sighed. “We can at least gag Morgana so she can’t use her seductive voice on us, but Holly… it’s not like there’s an easy way we can get her to stop making those pheromones, sadly.”

“Wait, you guys are serious right now?”

Kim shook her head incredulously. This whole thing sounded completely ridiculous! “Like… let me get this straight, these two, they went to the Hall of Mirrors and got transformations, and some of those transformations, they what, they involved these weird brainwashing pheromones, have I got that right? Controlling people? Making them turned on? …Well, I mean, I know Morgana has her voice power, but at the same time…”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Sylvia said, walking over to Kim. Her hair looked messy, like she’d gotten soaking wet and then left it to dry. Her clothes were also mussed, and she had a strange odor about her…

An odor everybody shared. They all stank of dried sexual fluids, as if Kim had walked in on an orgy that had finished, but everyone involved had yet to change their clothes.

“See, basically, the Hall of Mirrors made a few mental changes to the girls, too,” Sylvia informed Kim. She shrugged. “The girls didn’t think of that, you know? I don’t know why they thought there wouldn’t be any mental transformations, but…”

“You could have said something,” Carly replied.

“Yeah, well…” Sylvia shrugged. “Anyway, Kim, it isn’t just those two, you know. Someone else just got a transformation too.”

She turned and nodded at a blonde girl that Kim had overlooked. She seemed nervous and anxious, and waved awkwardly at Kim, giving her a shaky smile.

It was Gina?!

“Gina, you… your clothes!” Given that Kim worked in a boutique, that was obviously the first thing that she noticed; the punk girl was no longer the punk girl! The next thing, besides Gina’s nice dress, was her hair- it was the same shade of blonde it had been at the beginning of the season, when she’d gotten her first transformation! “…And your hair!”

“Do… do you like it?” Gina asked hopefully, playing with her bangs. “I know I’m not so good with the straightening, but…”

“Uh…” Kim’s voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Okay, well, I’m still a bit lost. Is that why are they’re both tied up? Are they dangerous?”

She really hoped that wasn’t the case.

“It’s like Dani and I both said,” Sylvia said. “…Well, I mean, pheromones and the like are still a physical transformation, but…”

“Not the important part,” Dani said, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway, their transformations are mental, too,” Sylvia informed her. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that Dawn’s a bit more… hands-on than you remember.”

“What can I say?” Dawn smiled cheekily and shrugged. “I like having fun.” She batted her eyelashes at Kim and pursed her lips into a kiss. “I don’t know why that’s worth tying me up like this! You and I had a bit of fun too, remember? That wasn’t wrong, wasn’t it?”

Everyone turned to Kim, whose face was turning red.

“What are you talking about?” Mary asked worriedly. “Kim, is everything okay? You’re a little… flushed.”

Kim mumbled something and pulled at the collar of her shirt, loosening her tie slightly. “It’s just a little hot in here…”

“Something tells me you’re not being completely honest,” Carly said, cracking a grin. Marley rolled her eyes.

Kim noticed that Carly seemed to be practically glued to Dani’s hip. She didn’t want to say anything, though, it wasn’t her place.

And her thoughts were way more focused on what was going on with Dawn right now. She cleared her throat and glanced at the tied-up girl.

“Anyway, Dawn kind of wandered into the boutique a few hours ago, while I was working, and… you know. Stuff happened.” Kim glanced down and felt her face heat up. The more time she spent around the cat girl, the more she was feeling herself drift back to her previous state from that time, and she wasn’t thrilled about that.

Well… part of her was.

“What kind of stuff?” Carly’s eyes glimmered with amusement.

Kim pouted. “Not the kind you’re thinking of!” She replied. “It was just, well, you know, the girl playing with me! I just petted her a little bit!”

Carly raised her eyebrow. “Heavy petting?”

“NO!” Kim exclaimed. “And, uh… I’m kind of confused, why are we talking about this now?!”

“Because we’re kind of in a difficult position,” Dani sighed. Kim noticed that she had a towel wrapped around her leggings. She wasn’t sure why, but felt that it was probably related to all the other stuff that was going on right now. “Dawn’s still flooding this place with her pheromones, but it’s not like we can just leave her alone, either. If she gets out, she’s going to set her mind towards seducing us into being her little pets.”

Kim winced. She remembered that feeling.

“And Morgana’s even worse,” Marley sighed, glancing at the goth who was glaring back her. “She’s not just trying to seduce us, she’s trying to dominate us. That’s not the best place to be.”

“So let me get this straight, we’ve got two girls that are both trying to seduce us in their own ways, and are using **** to do it, and their transformations. So now we’re all getting really horny, and you guys tied them up to keep them under control? Did I get that right?” Kim asked, rubbing her temples while she ground her legs against each other.

“Basically yes,” Mary sighed, hanging her head. “Trust me, we’re not any happier about it, either… I tried asserting my authority as Nick’s wife, but…”

“She got laughed out of the room,” Holly chuckled. “Then pushed down and molested.”

“Hey!” Mary puffed up her cheeks and glared at the shorter girl. “It isn’t funny!”

“Oh, I thought it was hilarious,” Dawn said, cracking a grin. She licked her lips. “Mary, come on, you wouldn’t mind giving me a taste, right? Maybe it will calm me down and make me nice and docile, that’s worth it, right?”

Mary scowled. “No milk!” She snapped, even though a part of her really did want to feed her milk to the girl. She had to fight those instincts coming from her transformation- that wouldn’t help anything in the present situation.

“So what do we do then?” Kim asked. “Are we just going to leave them tied up for the rest of the day, until their transformations wear off?”

“We can’t do that!” Gina wailed, shaking her head. “That would be mean!”

“Whose side are you on?” Dani demanded, glaring at the girl. “You aren’t planning on letting your mistress out when we turn our backs, are you?”

“N-no, of course not!” Gina’s eyes danced over to Morgana briefly before she turned back to Dani, her face flushed. “That would be bad! I’m a good girl, remember?”

To a debatable level of good, anyway.

“Haah… what a pain…” Marley sighed, shaking her head.

“It’s okay, we’ll figure something out,” Carly said, placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder. Their earlier doubts before were like water under the bridge. “As long as we’re all here, we’ll be safe. We took ‘em last time, and even if they get out, we can do it again.”

“I have an idea,” Sylvia said, raising her hand like a student in class. She didn’t feel any sense of urgency from this issue, given they were on a ticking clock, but if the others were worried, the right thing to do was help them out. “What if I used my transformation to help?”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t think calling them ‘Daddy’ is going to do anything,” Dani snapped. “…Well, maybe Morgana…”

“No, I mean…” Sylvia pouted. “I have other transformations, you know! Look, right now, our biggest problem is that Dawn’s pheromones are still filling the room, and there’s no way for us to shut them off, isn’t that right?”

“I mean, yeah, but what are you saying?” Mary asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “Sylvia?”

“Well, I still have my veto transformation,” Sylvia pointed out. “Dani didn’t want me to use it on her… but what if I use it on Dawn? I can veto her pheromone transformation, or heck, maybe her entire body, that could work!”

A hush fell over the Banquet Hall as everyone considered that.

“Mom, would that really work?” Marley asked, her voice tinged with hope.

“I mean… maybe?” Sylvia could only offer a shaky smile in her own defense, and she shrugged. “It’s not like it COULDN’T work, or anything… a transformation’s a transformation!”

“And you’re saying that with absolute faith as a former host, right?” Dawn said, cracking a grin and licking her lips. “You KNOW it’s going to work, right?”

Sylvia frowned. “I already said it’s a maybe, but…”

“Either way, I’m against it,” Dani cut in. “For starters, we don’t know what that would do. Your Fuck the Voters transformation nullifies it for a week, right? But in exchange, you get it for good. Permanently. Right?”

“That’s right,” Sylvia nodded. “And since her transformation only lasts for a few more hours, then it would wear off by the time mine does.”

“Unless, by taking it with Fuck the Voters, that overwrites things and sends it back to me at the end of the week anyway,” Dawn piped up with a grin. “And turns it from a temporary transformation into a permanent one. There’s a chance that could happen, right?”

The other girls looked to Sylvia. The blonde looked rather surprised herself.

“Well, I mean… I never thought of it that way…” Sylvia mumbled. It was a corner case that had never crossed her mind, but now that Dawn had brought it up, she couldn’t deny that there was a possibility, unfortunately.

“…Yeah, that’s what Dakota would do, huh?” Sylvia sighed. She shook her head. That was just like her. “Well, so much for that idea.”

“I think it was a good suggestion,” Carly offered with a shrug, seeing the disappointed state that Sylvia was in.

“Well, I don’t,” Dani snapped. “Dawn is one thing, but her transformation will wear off. Whereas you’ll be getting yours permanently, right? Well, you’re the last person here I’d ever want to have pheromones that can make us all horny.”

Another silence fell over the room as everyone contemplated that point.

“…Okay, mom, I think Dani might be right on this one…” Marley admitted.

“Agreed,” Carly nodded. “…Sorry. No offense.”

Mary nodded sympathetically, and Sylvia cracked a smile at that.

“Fair enough,” she admitted, shaking her head and laughing. “You’re right, maybe I’m not the kind of person who should have that transformation, either.”

“Exactly,” Dawn grinned. “Just leave it with me! There won’t be any issues at all!”

Yeah, no way was that happening.

Dani sighed. “So in the end, there’s not really anything we can do, is there? We’ve just got to wait for this to resolve itself on its own, huh?”

“Yeah, basically,” Sylvia nodded. She glanced over to Dawn. “Their transformation should wear off sometime tonight. In the meantime, I guess we’re just going to have to stay here and pass the time, you know?”

But there was something she was forgetting.

“…Wait, Dawn, when did you guys go to the Hall of Mirrors?” She asked, frowning.

Dawn batted her eyelashes. “Whatever do you mean?”

“The exact time,” Sylvia said, narrowing her eyes. She had a bad feeling about this. “It was after breakfast, at least.”

“I don’t know…” Dawn smirked. “There weren’t exactly clocks in the Hall of Mirrors.”

Everyone knew that she was bullshitting. Even then, though, there wasn’t anything they could do about it, unfortunately.

“Dawn…” Mary frowned.

“Fine, fine,” Dawn sighed, rolling her eyes. “It was about 7:30. Probably closer to 7:32. Why does that matter now?”

“Because curfew is at 6,” Sylvia said. “Which means we’ll have to turn you two loose by then. Since we can’t keep you tied up indefinitely.”

“But we can leave our rooms after curfew, though,” Kim pointed out. “Just not the Master’s Suite.”

“Under normal circumstances, sure,” Sylvia nodded. “But knowing Dakota…”

“Did I hear my name?”

And suddenly, there she was. Dakota had popped into being right in front of them with a wicked smile on her face.

“Dakota!” Mary cried.

“Should have known you were involved with this,” Dani frowned.

“What’s this I hear about you guys breaking curfew?” Dakota pouted. “You know the show has rules, right? Bedtime is at 6 PM!”

“That’s never been enforced though,” Carly groaned.

Dakota shrugged. She cast a scornful look towards Sylvia. “Just because… certain people weren’t enforcing the rules, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“That wasn’t a hard rule, though,” Sylvia pointed out. “More of a suggestion.”

“…Well, I’m deciding it’s a hard rule,” Dakota snapped back with a smirk. “At least for tonight. Everyone must be back in their rooms by 6 PM. And I don’t mean tied up in bed, either. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

It was pretty obvious where she was going with this.

“So we have to turn them loose…” Carly sighed, rubbing her temples in frustration.

“Well, on the plus side, they’ll just be in their rooms together,” Dakota said, her golden eyes shining with delight. “But yes… turn them loose. Should be fun.”

Sylvia shook her head. Her creator was, unfortunately, tragically sadistic like that.