Pretty Fate Machine: Pt. 02

The Line Begins to Blur - Late June 1999

Sneaking around wasn't something I was good at.

I'd gotten drunk once. It was some post-track meet party, and someone had handed me a Jack and Coke. I'd spent most of the night playing video games in a side room, trying not to throw up from the awful taste. To be honest, most of that night was a blur.

My clearest memory was trying, and failing, to act nonchalant. I'd puked as soon as I'd walked through my front the door, mostly from the fear that my parents would catch me stumbling in so late.

Playing it cool was not my strength.

"You're absolutely, positively sure she's at the gym all afternoon?" I was keeping my voice low while Naomi led me into her foyer.

"HEY, MOM!" Naomi screamed, cupping her hand to her mouth for effect. "RYAN AND I ARE GOING TO DO CRACK IF YOU WANT TO JOIN!"

I flinched a bit, but the silence proved her point. We were totally alone in the house.

"Point made," I said, slipping off my shoes.

"You turn red so easily." Naomi chuckled. "Seriously, your ears look like they're on fire."

"Hardy-har-har. I'm glad you're taking this seriously."

She led me down the hall to the computer room, more of a nook just off the kitchen. Unlike the attic, it was immaculately staged. Not a hint of dust or clutter.

It was also totally exposed. If someone were to walk through the front door, we'd have seconds before our cover was blown.

"So, if she comes home early...?" I dragged a kitchen chair next to the monitor.

"If she comes home early, I'll just yank out the power cable before she can see anything." Naomi sat at the keyboard and flicked on the screen.

"It's a laptop, though." I pointed at the closed black Gateway docked on the table. "You pull the plug, and nothing will happen."

"Then I'll turn off the screen. Keep it cool, Mr. Privacy." She was already connecting. The modem started its mechanical cry of life as she logged in.

Naomi was fixated on the screen, waiting for the browser to load. I found myself entranced by her in at that moment. Even now, years later, I can picture her clearly.

She was slightly hunched, with a familiar sharp determination in her eye. It was the look she had when she ran the final sprint of track or buckled down to solve an AP calc problem.

Naomi's outfit was one of her staples, something I'd seen her wear countless times senior year. A loose black tank with some white squiggly lines and Japanese characters. She'd once told me it was an album cover, but I couldn't remember the name for the life of me. Her black sports bra was visible from the side but not enough to be scandalous. Just comfortable.

I'd figured out she favored the most restrictive, compressing bras out of practicality. The couple of times I'd seen her without one, her profile was impractically top-heavy. I'm sure some kids would have accused her of implants, especially after seeing her mother.

Her jeans were ripped, partly by design and partly from wear. They were probably just old Levis from Macy's, but she filled them out preposterously well. She wore those jeans almost every day to school, but I'd only ever noticed her after my friend Aaron had asked if I thought she was cute enough to bring along to prom. To be fair, Naomi hadn't ever been seen as a "hottie" in our school; that honor went to the cheerleaders and Clueless-wannabe cliques of blonde rich girls.

Since we'd started dating, I'd seen Naomi use her mirror exactly once to apply some dark eyeliner before heading out to the battle of the bands the week after finals. Her idea of dressed up was smoky eyes and a thrift-shop jacket that looked like some punk had donated it after finding Jesus. It was covered with buttons and patches for bands I didn't know.

Naomi was effortlessly hot back then. It's my last memory of the 'old' her, one I still come back to often.

I didn't know what I'd expected when Naomi told me she'd found something about Perfect Wife Inc. online, but I certainly didn't anticipate the site she pulled up.

"Alt Mind Control Sluts?" I read from the page header.

"I've been searching around, and AMCS has a ton of information on hypnosis and brainwashing." Naomi seemed unfazed by the pornographic banner image of a woman with cartoon swirly-circles for eyes drooling over an impossibly large penis.

"But this is... this is porn." I'd looked around the web--nervously, furtively--on occasion, but I'd only gotten as far as Playboy and some edited nudes of Sarah Michelle Gellar. This was a whole different level.

"Well, yeah. Some if it's porn..." She scrolled through the forum, looking for one in particular. "But ya know... it's pretty tame."

From the titles of topics alone, I had to disagree.

"Ahh, here we go. It's linked somewhere in here." Naomi clicked through to the discussion page and began reading out the top message.

LOOKING FOR VID OF HYPNOTIZED GIRL

Saw a few years ago on tape. Busty blonde--easily DD cup--looking into the camera and talking dirty like she's hypnotized. It's not like normal dirty talk, it's all about how badly she wants to be a dumb housewife. Begs to get knocked up by a huge cock.

Ends with POV blowjob and facial.

HOT AS FUCK.

Anyone have a copy they can share???

I shifted in my chair behind Naomi. Just hearing her read out the title had gotten me hard. I felt somewhat guilty, but really, how could I not get horny with my girlfriend showing me porn?

"Now, which one was it?" Naomi turned to me. If I'd been red earlier, I must have looked like I was close to a heart attack by then. But she didn't even blink, let alone joke about it.

"I watched a bunch of these last night after you left. There's a bunch of links, and I can't remember which one..." She looked mildly guilty. "That's... that's ok, right? I mean, it's just research? You're not weirded out? I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. "No, totally cool. I'm impressed you could wade through all this stuff."

Naomi gave a small snort. "Like I said, it's all pretty tame. It's not like... really porn, ya know?"

I didn't, but I nodded anyway.

In the first link, it was immediately clear it was some hardcore stuff. A blonde with implants was getting screwed doggy-style. No talking, no point-of-view, just screwing. I expected Naomi to close the video out after a few seconds.

"I'm going to let it play... just in case it's the one I was looking for near the end." She said it under her breath, mostly to herself. I didn't object.

So Naomi went through a dozen videos. None of them really matched the description, but she watched each to the end. After the second video, I noticed she was shifting in her seat, obviously turned on and half-grinding. By the tenth, she'd begun to absentmindedly rub herself over her jeans. At some point, she'd started muttering along with the women in the videos, letting out barely audible moans when the men climaxed.

The whole time, I sat behind her rock-hard and flushed, not wanting to break her fixation.

The last link she opened was different, though. It wasn't a video at all but a bunch of bulleted text.

The URL was "archive.perfectwifeglobal.html/index," and it was a list of files and folders. Most of them were red with strikethrough, but one was stuck out in bold black:

HomeReBoot.html

"Oh, yeah!" Naomi giggled a little. "It wasn't a video! Oopsie."

"You forgot it wasn't a video?" I asked, dumbfounded.

Naomi ignored the question and double clicked on the HomeReBoot file. A new window opened up, just random characters and scrambled text.

"Did you open it in the right program?" I leaned forward and squinted. The text was scrolling down, but it was still just gibberish.

"Mmhm." Naomi had taken her hands off the keyboard and had begun rubbing herself again. "This is the right program for good girls..."

The text started to blur by. I couldn't look away.

"And I'm a good girl..." Naomi sounded miles away.

There was a pattern I could almost make out. It was nearly strobe-like, flashing shapes too fast to discern...

Naomi is seated and I'm standing behind her. I'm bending down and kissing her deeply while she plays with herself. I'm cupping her tits, working my hands below her bra to feel her hard nipples. My cock is pressing through my shorts, up against her back. Porn is playing on the computer loudly. Naomi seems to be breathing in time with the woman on screen.

I'm holding Naomi down and she's smiling up at me, licking her lips. Her jeans are half off, and I can see her red underwear, totally soaked through. I'm instructing her... about... something... telling her how dirty and perverted she is. She twitches her hips each time I call her a name. "Slut. Whore." She begs me to make her a good girl. I tell her I will, and she moans with pleasure. I pull my cock out and she grins at it and licks it and I can't think anymore and she takes me deeper and I want to fill her cunt and I tell her and she moves faster.

Junko is home, looking down at us; two teenagers half naked and in heat. She unpacks her groceries and asks us how our day's been. Naomi answers in a light, childish voice about how I'd promised to make her a good girl. I ignore Junko and begin fingering her daughter through her wet panties. They talk more, but I don't pay attention. I slip down the red cloth and taste the writhing slut beneath me. Naomi comes loudly. Junko asks me to stay for dinner.

We eat pork chops. I'm wearing a clean shirt, and Naomi's freshly showered. Naomi and I sit across from Junko and Naomi's little sister. We talk about school and movies. We laugh and smile and everyone's happy. Everything is wholesome, warm, fuzzy. The mashed potatoes are great.

I shuddered in the night air, snapping back into awareness. I caught myself mid-step and nearly face-planted on the concrete road.

It took a few minutes to get my bearings. It was dark out, and my watch said it was 10 PM. As I sat on the curb halfway back to my house, I tried to remember what had happened.

It came back in bits and pieces, not all of which made sense. The last thing I was certain of was watching Naomi look though those videos... then she opened that strange text file.

I walked into my house in a daze. The surreality of the situation was still washing over me. I had these moments in my head, but they all seemed cloudy. More like daydreams than true memories. Already they had started to fade and bleed together, making it difficult to maintain any certainty of what exactly had happened all afternoon.

From the living room, my parents laughed at a Seinfeld rerun. I called out to them, giving some vague excuse about a headache and heading straight up to my room.

The second I closed my bedroom door, I dialed Naomi from the cordless I'd grabbed on my way upstairs. Only when I had one digit left to press did it occur to me Naomi may not pick up. I could get Junko.

What could I say if that happened? "Hey, sorry I might have been screwing your daughter on the kitchen floor earlier. Oh, and dinner was great."

My finger hovered over the button for a moment. I held my breath and dialed with a silent prayer.

Naomi picked up after the third ring, and my heart started again.

"Hey, Ryan!" She sounded... bubbly.

"Naomi, I... I don't remember what happened." I was off balance again; there was no worry in her voice.

"Huh. What do you mean?" She sounded distracted.

"I mean I don't remember anything after we saw that Perfect Wife site." I flopped down on my bed, exhausted. "And... I do actually remember a little. Like... making out, or more..."

She giggled and said something inaudible to someone in person on the other end of the line. So maybe she was just faking this attitude?

"Naomi, are you ok? Is your mother in the room?" I asked.

"What--oh, yeah. One second." Naomi put her hand over the receiver. I could faintly hear her calling goodnight to her mother and walking up to her room. It seemed like time was moving at half speed, and after a small eternity Naomi popped back on the line, sounding just as cheerful as before.

"Okay, Ryan, you've got me all to yourself." She giggled again.

"Naomi... I'm really worried." Part of me wanted to just launch into everything, from the trance state in the attic to the fading X-rated vignettes from today. But I was starting to question what I actually remembered, and Naomi's blissed-out attitude was disarming.

"I... I'm worried about that site. I think it could have messed with our heads. I can't remember... much." I struggled to find the words without sounding crazy. But this whole thing was crazy.

"Ryan...Y-you--" Naomi stuttered for a moment, then paused. The voice that came back was clear and familiar. "You're right. Something's really wrong. It's like I can't get my brain to think straight."

I breathed in relief. She believed me, and I wasn't just losing my mind.

"I think we need to be careful going forward." I sat up and started searching for a pen and paper amid the clutter of the room. "I'm going to get an expert to look at the site. Don't visit it yourself. Maybe just stay off the computer for a bit, until we know what Perfect Wife can do."

We made a plan. Naomi's words were quick and pointed. I heard the gears turning as we talked. She would be on recon with her mother, no more internet stuff. I'd do some digging online but avoid opening or watching anything suspicious. We'd keep each other posted by phone and email and stay vigilant for any odd behavior.

"God, Ryan, this is unreal," Naomi said after we'd hashed out the details. "I just want you to know I really appreciate you not freaking out and running away from all this. I--I love you."

In spite of all the madness, I felt a warm, fuzzy relief to hear her say that.

"I love you, too," I said, grinning ear to ear.

"Goodnight, Ryan."

"Goodnight, Naomi."

I hung up, still buzzing. It was late, but I was wide awake and restless. My parents had gone to bed, so I slunk downstairs and booted up the PC.

I was going to be careful. I just needed to look at that AMCS site again.

For research, I swore to myself.

I made my way back to the same forum post, to the same link, to the Perfect Wife index page.

But it was gone. The directory was empty. All the red-strikethrough links were gone, along with the strange HTML page. Now there was just one file.

PerfectWife_FullProgram.ghost

I clicked the link and waited.