Fade to Blink - A Quantum Date Ch. 03

Naked, the collar and leash attached, a Collie tail in me, I was sprawled on my bed in front of my screen, waiting for him to come home. Fuck Johnstone and his psyche shit. I was slippery between my legs, the juices probably starting to wick into the bed's liner blanket. I LIKE being Jimmie's pet. And I did. My nipples hardened at the realization. This was easy. I didn't have to think. The template was simple. He hadn't punished me since...that day I'd fully accepted what I was doing, the sting still echoing on my buns. I reached back and rubbed the skin unconsciously. August. It wasn't a temporary thing; Jimmie's kink. It was our thing now. I wanted this; and not just because it gave him so much pleasure. I wanted to be his pet. The image of Marybeth's face popped into my mind and I grunted a laugh. There's no way you'll ever understand this, bitch. But I hope it gets you off.

I heard the key in the lock but didn't turn around, trying to finish my thought. I could see him in my mind's eye walking in, looking at me in my costume, or more precisely, not in costume. I had started to think about my everyday clothes as a costume, and the way I was now as normal. I knew it was making him hard. I imagined the thickness of his penis, visible against the front of his pants, as the sound of his keys clinked in the dish on the sidetable. And then, the soft shurshurring of his shoes on the carpet, heading to the bathroom before he attended to me.

I sighed a little laugh, thinking about how different this part of me was from the part I showed at work. No fucking way I could let this out there. If anything, I'd become more assertive, Henry suggesting I should expect a promotion by the end of the year, Peter letting me know what I needed to do more of, how I needed to "demonstrate a bit more leadership." If they could see me this way! I cringed at how horrible that would be if somehow this part of my life was exposed at work. Except it is! I shivered again at the constant reminder that Johnstone, and Marybeth, and fucking Hodgson! absolutely knew what I was...what I'd become.

Marybeth. In spite of my best efforts at keeping it going, our relationship had cooled. Maybe that would have been the case even if she weren't a spy; it's what happens when two people hook up, right? Your other friends take a back seat. But what we were doing, what she'd done...it was confusing. On the one hand I was having fun fucking with her, giving her the juicy details, getting her off the hook from having to keep track of what she was supposed to know vs what she'd learned through her surveillance, or...just getting her off: knowing she was juicing up at night. But as much fun as that was, it wasn't enough to make up for what she'd done, for playing her role in Johnstone's pet project. Hah! You made a joke, Annie!

Not to say I was happy about losing my connection with her. I really had felt there had been something authentic there. Hah! I shook my head at how stupid my thoughts were. There's no way I'd really know what Marybeth's feelings were about our relationship. We'd never gotten to that point where we could have talked about it, and now, obviously, we couldn't.

The tiny spark of anger, not fully extinguished, swirled in my chest, reviving the memory of Jimmie's and my terrible fight. My eyes blurred again from the pain of that night: the revelation that Jimmie, too, hadn't been fully honest with me, that he too had been using me in some larger game. I shook my head and closed my eyes again, feeling the tears fly off. No! No. That's not what's happening. That's not what happened!

Early-September 32

Like almost every day since August, I was coming back to Jimmie's place, and like almost every day, the minute I walked in the door, the orange gooeyness hit me: expanding up from my core, my muscles relaxing, my pussy swelling. I didn't know what was in store for me tonight; Jimmie had kept things unpredictable, but even without specifics I knew there'd be something. We'd gone to dinner after work, neither of us up for cooking, both of us tired from the day. But that didn't change our routine. Before he had closed the door behind us, I'd gotten out of my jeans and underwear, and by the time he'd come out of the bathroom I was waiting for him on my rug. I was surprised to see him still dressed. Something's up.

"C'mon up here, Annie." He patted a cushion next to him on the couch.

I crawled up, watching him watching my breasts hanging down, taking a seat off to the side on one thigh, the tail poking onto the cushion, the leash draped across my breast. I looked down, concerned, again, that there wasn't a towel. It doesn't matter anymore. I tried not to count the stains marking the cushions.

He turned to face me, inviting me to undress him, the goo a constant backdrop, guiding my hands across his chest, down to his belt, stripping him, playing with his penis, wrapping my hand around it, stroking it slowly, watching it stiffen, my fingers playing in the wrinkles of his ball-sac, my lips planting kisses on his cheek, his neck, shoulders, across his chest. And throughout it all, I felt...orange. Like my skin was orange, the whites of my eyes must have been orange, the juices leaking out of me, yellowish orange. I giggled at how stupid it was, staring into his eyes, feeling his hands caressing me, his fingers drifting between my legs. His eyebrows lifted at my having giggled; I just shook my head.

"It's too hard to explain," I whispered softly into his ear, feeling the warmth of his chest against my breasts, "much harder than this." I squeezed his cock, feeling him pulse back in response. He moved his arm, his fingers pulling out of me, and I knew him well enough to lean back and accept them, washing them clean of my juices.

"I'm thinking we should have some ice cream. What do you think?"

I eagerly nodded, and then, as he untangled his arms and legs, I second guessed myself. What is he planning with the ice cream???? The orange blob flared, blurping into my chest and up to my head as I watched his butt turn the corner into the kitchen. There had always been something...not a week had gone by...since April...when he hadn't been playing me.

And as I was fantasizing what he might be thinking, I flickered.

When I came back I could feel the anxiety building into a panic. It had still been only about seven or so seconds, I calculated, not long enough for him to even get the tubs out of the freezer. But this was it. I had to tell him. It would only be a matter of time when he saw it, and I didn't know what I'd say then.

I could hear him getting the bowls--my heartrate increased, my anxiety skyrocketed. I closed my eyes and breathed, waiting until he came back.

"Hey?"

I shot my eyes open as he set the dishes on the coffee table.

"Are you okay? Are you crying?" He sat down and wrapped his arms around me, turning to slip his knee between my legs.

I guess I had been, but I hadn't realized it. I nodded, sniffling. "Jimmie..." I looked up at him, my vision blurry from the tears. "I have to tell you something." And before I could chicken out, I told him. I watched his face go stony, an expression I'd never seen before, but I kept going, giving him the entire list of times I'd flickered out and back. When I was done, my sniffles had turned into hiccups, my anxiety held in check by the hope that he was taking it okay.

And then the dam burst.

"Fuck! Annie!" He looked at me like his dog, long potty-trained, had just peed on the carpet. "Really? And you're telling me this...now?"

I really don't cry all that much. I mean, yeah, I cry when I can't take shit any more, or I'm so frustrated I just can't stand it, but otherwise, I don't cry when I'm sad. But seeing his face, his...alarm? Anger? I didn't know what to make of it, but it was loud, and my sniffles rode the anxiety storm until I started to sob.

His arms circled around me into a tight embrace, his hands stroking my sides, my head buried in his neck. We sat, holding each other, my body shaking from my reaction.

He kissed the top of my head and whispered apologies in my ear. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I shouted at you. I...I just...you caught me off-guard. I guess I feel like you had to hide it from me, and I don't know what I feel about that. I mean, I feel like you don't trust me..."

In spite of the intensity of my feelings, a part of my brain caught on his words, distracting me. I pulled up a little, wiping the tears from my face, sniffling and trying to catch my breath. After a few false starts, I finally found my voice. "I know, Jimmie," I started sobbing again, "I know. I don't know why I didn't tell you. I...just...I just hoped it was a one time thing, and then it kept happening and then I felt like I should tell you, but it just never felt like it was the right time..." I had deteriorated into a full crying jag and he just held me, planting gentle kisses on my ear and hair.

"This changes everything, Anne. You know that right?"

I hiccupped and sniffled, wondering what that actually meant. "Why?" I wiped my eyes again so I could focus on his face. "What exactly is everything? And what, exactly, changes?" I untangled my hands and arms and pushed up to sit next to him, careful to not sit on the tail, his knee still between my legs. I knew it was a big deal, I knew it had been a big deal the first time it happened, but I needed to know why Jimmie thought it was a big deal, and whether my not telling him was the part that changed everything, had ruined what we had.

"So, yeah. So," he wiped his hands across his face. "We need to talk about this." I saw a new expression I hadn't remembered seeing before. Determination. Grit. Something. He removed his knee and got to his feet, my eyes tracking his penis, dangling but not completely deflated. I shifted my gaze up: a different expression darting across his face as he looked at the table. I followed his glance and saw the bowls of ice cream were turning to mush. Ice cream, face, penis, ice cream, ball sac, thighs, ass cheeks, traps, ass cheeks. "Let me put these back in the freezer." He turned to the kitchen with the bowls. "Let's sit in the nook. It'll be easier..."

Easier. Easier for what? I shook my head and stood as well, the stupid leash almost tripping me. Annoyed, I reached behind and took off the collar. Something had definitely changed. Whether it was everything, I couldn't get my head around, but if everything had changed, why should I be a goddamned pet? If everything had changed, then maybe Annie had to be the woman, and not Jimmie's pet dog. It occurred to me, in that moment, when I took off the collar and leash, that maybe I had been holding back, that maybe my not telling him meant I wasn't fully committed to him. I was about to join him when I felt the fucking tail.

I watched him head to the nook. "I'll be there in a sec," I called after him, detouring to get the fucking thing out of my ass. What the actual fuck, Annie! The acceptance I had of our relationship, of where he had brought me, was cracking. As I wiped my ass, the tail sitting in the sink, I stopped to stare at myself in the mirror, my face puffy from crying. What does he think this changes? An image popped into my head: a building imploding, being demolished, crumbling down around me. I stared again at the woman in the mirror, trying to understand what I had been doing just a few minutes before, and what I was feeling now, my decision to remove the collar and tail a rejection of the relationship we'd been building. But maybe that started when you didn't tell him about flickering...?

I grabbed a towel, barking a sharp, tiny laugh at my constant concern for his furniture, and joined him in the nook, debating which chair to sit in. He was leaning on his elbows at the head of the table, his eyes drilling into me as I approached, glancing up to my face only after I'd sat down next to him, my lower half hidden by the table's edge. "Okay," I said, my hand on his, "talk to me. What the actual fuck is going on?"

He stared at me, his eyes flipping between my face and my breasts, collecting his thoughts, I guess, maybe. "Yeah. In a minute. First, tell me about when you first flickered, again."

I sighed, the concern I'd kept it from him returning, my sitting without the tail and collar a rejection of our agreement. I shivered, feeling more naked than I'd felt in months. But none of that seemed relevant; something else was upsetting him. "Okay," I sighed again, "it was sometime back in late July...no, wait. It was the first week in July; I had come back from the holiday and was relieved to see so few people were in the office. It just happened." I shrugged slightly, looking at him for reassurance that that was enough.

He nodded. "And you hadn't been near the freezers?"

I shook my head, inventorying all of the times I'd been down there. "No. Just the two times -- at NHO and the Mid-90. Hodgson met me upstairs when he recruited me."

He exhaled, his shoulders slumping, his fingers intertwining with mine, apparently ready to talk to me, I guessed, but who the fuck really knew? Not me.

"Okay. So, Annie...hold on." He untangled his hands, pushed his chair away and reset it in front of me, dragging mine away from the table to face him, our knees almost touching. My self-consciousness at being out of my collar, of being stripped naked hit me hard, the image of the building collapsing echoing behind my eyes. I'd never seen him this way, his expression shouting something at me, but nothing I could remember before. Eyes, mouth, ears, chest, nipples, abs, hands, arms, hair, hair, hair, penis, balls, thighs, hair, hands, eyes, mouth. I shook my head, confused. He reached over to stroke my shoulders.

"Just. Tell. Me. What. The. Fuck. Jimmie." Staring at his face, completely blind.

He closed his eyes and I saw a tear squeeze out. Holy holy shit. This is going to be bad.

"So, Annie, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry." His eyes opened and they were glistening. "I haven't told you everything...everything going on, and...fuck...I'm sorry."

He leaned forward a little, his hands moving from my shoulders to rub my back, pulling me into a loose embrace. I could feel my own tears coming back, my anxiety level shooting up. He's going to break up with me!!!???

His lips close to my ears, he spoke softly. "I want you to know that I absolutely meant it when I said I love you. I do. I truly do. All of this," he sat back and waved his hands around us, I suppose meaning our relationship, physical, sexual, emotional, whatever, "is totally real to me. It's the best...time I've ever had with anyone." He leaned back in, his fingers rubbing down my spine. I shivered, holding my breath, waiting for the shoe to drop. "So, when I tell you what I'm about to tell you, I'm worried you're going to think just the opposite: that none of this is real, that I've just been using you." He sat back again, his face twisted in the way I now recognized as grief, or pain, or...despair? "But I haven't." He exhaled. "I think we've both been used, actually."

Okay. So, he's not breaking up with me. Right? I just shook my head, completely confused. "Just tell me, Jimmie. Just say whatever the fuck it is you need to say!" I was crying now, the mystery way beyond my frustration threshold.

"Okay, okay. Johnstone. You remember the guy from HR? The one who was all over the guy from the basement who flickered?" He saw me shake my head, not connecting the dots. "When I told you about the time we'd seen the guy disappear?"

I nodded, wiping my face and wishing I had a tissue. I sniffled. He reached over for a napkin lying on the table, handing it to me. I honked into it, obliterating whatever he'd begun to say.

"Anyway. Johnstone was the psychologist who was like 'What did you feel?' and 'Was it like the other time?' yeah?"

I shrugged, still not clear what this had to do with anything.

"So, Johnstone...fuck...Johnstone is the one who's trying to figure out why some people flicker when others don't, and he's got a hypothesis." He stopped and stared at me, tears pooling in his eyes. "He thinks that it's as much from the freezers as it is from the people." He closed his eyes and shook his head a little. Opening them again, he continued. "Some people are more sensitive to the effect, and, erm, he sits on a committee that...among other things...has been assessing people for their 'receptivity.'" He stopped again and then finished. "After they'd evaluated all of the existing employees they focused on new hires, and...shit, well, hiring in general."

When he said "new hires," he'd used air quotes and that confused me.

"Wait," I had to rewind what he said. "'...focused on new hires', what? Wait. What?" I remembered the battery of assessments I'd had to fill out as part of the application process, the realization hitting me like a tsunami. "Wait. Wait! What? I've been part of a psychology experiment?!!!! I'm, like a fucking guinea pig?" I could feel my face reddening, anger boiling up into my chest. "And, what? You're supposed to be my...what? Handler? What, Jimmie?! What is goING ON?!" I pulled back from him, angry and confused, looking around to remember where my clothes were, to figure out how to escape. I'd have to quit, and find another job and lose Jimmie and and and. I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate, the dust cloud of the demolished building billowing up, flowing into the cycle of my anxiety, a funnel cloud threatening to become a massive storm.

"What?! Annie! No! NO! That's not it at all!" He was trying to stroke me, but I squirmed away. "Breathe! Annie! Breathe. Please stop! Please." He sat back, his face shouting something at me. Anger? Pain? Red, hands flailing, chest, hair, thighs squeezed, face, eyes, teeth bared.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, forcing myself to hold my breath and count, exhale and count, inhale and count. I could feel my heart rate slowing, the tornado of anxiety spinning around me, but not in me. I reached my hands to my face and began to sob, all of the possibilities of what he'd just said swirling, my shoulders hunching, my elbows resting on my knees, my body shaking. I jumped when I felt his hand on my upper back, the need to pull away just slightly less than the need to be soothed.

"It's not a psychology experiment, Annie." His voice quiet but cutting through the swirl. "It's a physics experiment, and yes, you've been put in the middle of it, and...fuck...now...fuck, now I think I've been a part of it too."

My skin prickled into goosebumps as if the room had gotten colder. I felt exposed, like Jimmie really had stripped me naked and dropped me in the lobby of MEI. I sat back, wrapping my arms into a protective hug, Jimmie's hands sliding off of me. I felt violated. I'm feeling like a trust has been broken! My head exploded: this wasn't the first time I was feeling this way, but it was the first time I'd put a label on it. I was experiencing a broken trust! I hated it! Like all of my joints were melting away and my body was going to fall apart. All of the times in elementary school, in middle school, in high school, when my "friends" had betrayed me, had made a fool of me. It had been years since those times, and here it was again. But now it had a name.

"...and now, now that you've actually flickered, and nobody knows...we can do something with that..."

I heard the words but they took a backseat to what I was feeling. I studied it, even as I was reacting to it. Distrust! How fascinating and how ugly. I blinked my eyes open, wiping them with the back of my hands to see what Jimmie looked like in this new world. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't see anything different than I'd seen a few heartbeats before. And the more I stared, the more the feeling began to fade. Sitting there, looking at my naked boyfriend, the echo of the pain and loss and betrayal, was ebbing away, being replaced by my need and desire and love for this guy. The orange goo, ever-present, was slopping around in my insides. STOP! Annie!