The New Principal Ch. 20

It's funny how accurate the depictions of medical emergencies can be. It felt just like a bad TV show. Everything is hazy and you only remember things in flashes.

I do remember Veronica looking down at me. I think I must have been still fucking one of the girls, but I can't be sure. It felt like I was being drained. That makes sense, I suppose. It sounds like I was still cumming when they brought me to the hospital. Not actual cum by that point, of course. I must have been a husk.

I still don't remember what she was wearing, but, again, I do remember Veronica's face. The emotions that passed over that face in the space of what had to be only moments were the only thing I was able to hang on to.

She first had that wonderful arch amused look to find me in a tangle of nubile students, but then the force of the lust pouring off of us hit her, and her eyelids dropped and it looked like her lost focus. Her mouth opened and she moaned. I thought she might even join us, but even under her growing arousal, she must have known something was wrong. Her face hardened, and I saw real fear.

Then things went hazy again.

Never let it be said that our librarian doesn't have a good head on her shoulders, in addition to all of the other parts of her body that I admire.

She arranged things, I wasn't sure how, but she managed everything. It wasn't her, but somehow, someone got me to the hospital.

I only remember various flashes of lights and the sensation of being carried around.

I do have vague recollections of nurses coming to me in the night to perform all sorts of erotic magic on my unconscious body, but I'm pretty sure that didn't actually happen. Phantoms of my overactive imagination?

After a time, and I had no idea how long, I started to become more aware of my surroundings.

"He's awake again?"

"I think so. Go get the doctor."

"Unghhh."

"Good Morning, Mr. Lee. Can you hear me alright?"

I was able to crack open an eye. It seemed impossibly dry. Crusty and irritated.

"Hng."

A new shape came into the room.

"Well, then, this is progress, isn't it? Hello, Mr. Lee. I'm Dr. Newsome. Can you tell us how you are feeling?"

"Ucckk..."

"Ah, you'll want some water, I bet."

One of the shapes that was slowly coalescing into the form of a nurse pushed a straw into my mouth, and I sucked in the most delicious, soothing, perfect fluid I have even tasted.

"It's a strange thing. We've been hydrating you this whole time, but you are still dry as a bone. Is that any better?"

I popped my lips open and closed a few times, letting the water coat my mouth. My lips felt horribly chapped, but I felt I could speak.

"I... feel... awful..."

It got a chuckle out of someone in the room, but it was true. I felt like I was riding the worst hangover of my life. My brain pounded like it was determined to crack its was out of my skull, and my mouth and my entire throat felt like there was newly-installed wall-to-wall shag carpet all the way down to my belly. And on top of that, each swallow was like taking a big healthy gulp of glass shards.

"Aw, fuck... what... happened?"

"Well, we'll talk about that later. Right now, know that you are going to be fine. But you've had a real narrow escape here. You're going to need some time to recuperate, but you'll be just fine."

There was a strange emphasis on that repeated word, 'fine.'

I was happy to realize that I could reach out to grab the bottle of water, but that immediately turned pear-shaped when I saw my hand move toward the bottle. It felt like it wasn't my hand, like it was disconnected to my brain. I tried to order my hand to clasp it, but I knocked it to the ground.

"Ah, well, we'll try that again. Like I said, you are going to need a bit of time."

Then I heard a voice from the hallway outside my room. I couldn't hear the words clearly, but it was Veronica. That I knew.

"Sure! Ms Rai, come on in. I'm sure he would be happy to see you."

I saw her come in the room. Her expression was unreadable, but she looked very tired, and even thinner, if that was even possible.

I caught her eyes and they lit up at seeing me awake.

"Hey there." I was able to get that much out before the pain of swallowing make me wince.

"Hey there, yourself, Ben. It's great to see you awake."

Something was odd in her voice. She didn't sound comfortable somehow.

I looked her deep in the eyes, which were slightly damp, trusting the trick to answer my questions.

Her eyes were gorgeous, set in that model's face of hers like limpid pools in a flawless geography of dark valleys and crests.

But all I saw were her eyes.

Her perfect eyes.

The trick was gone.

Then I must have passed out again.

After that, I woke up the next day and started keeping a more or less regular schedule of sleeping and waking. Veronica, Kimberly, and Jennifer came to visit regularly, but were only allowed to stay for very brief moments, and they had clearly all agreed to only talk about innocuous things. It was incredibly frustrating, but I assumed it was out of caution. Who knew if the hospital was bugged, and maybe they didn't trust the doctor or nurses.

I did recover, but slowly.

They said that I had severe dehydration, but that the main problem was brought on by an allergic reaction of some kind. I knew I had never been allergic to anything, but I told them I was a little lactose intolerant, and that seemed to fit the bill for them. Must have been some bad milk I had gotten. The explanation didn't seem to make much sense to me, but I wasn't really in any condition to think things through clearly.

The real shock was finding out the date. It was already October. The Fashion Show was in early August. It had been nearly two months. On the one hand, that explained why I felt so horrible, but on the other hand, I still couldn't figure out how I could have been out for so long.

Despite all that, in a few days, I had graduated from being wheeled in a wheelchair to the recreation room to actually walking myself. Slowly, and with all kinds of odd muscle and joint pain, but it was under my own power.

The staff seemed oddly impressed with me. I was able to eat with no problem, and I was getting more irritated with being locked up, which they said was a good sign.

And in turn, eventually I was scheduled for release. I have to say that I wasn't terribly impressed with the hospital, the doctors, or the nurses. They seemed more interested in just letting me recover on my own then actually treating me like I had an illness, but I suppose if they thought I was just some idiot with a milk allergy who must have downed a couple gallons, maybe they earned their apathy.

Again, I was so incredibly thankful for my friends. I was in no shape to get home myself, but Veronica, Kimberly, and Jennifer were all there to help sign me out of the hospital and drive me back to the Green House.

And in just a little while, I was out of the hospital on a Saturday evening, and we were all there in the library of the Green House sipping on tea in a very awkward silence.

"Okay, so now we're here. Can you finally tell me what you've all been dancing around this whole time?" My voice was still a little scratchy and I'm afraid I was a bit short with them, but I didn't have a lot of patience left.

There was a brief pause, but Jennifer finally broke in.

"We were able to get you back to the Green House for your convalescence. But it's not technically yours anymore."

"Wait. Did I get fired?"

Kimberly tried to be cheery. "No! No, you weren't fired, but well... You aren't the principal anymore, but you're still on the books."

"What? Then who is the principal?"

"Dr. Sten."

"Who?"

"Melissa Sten. She's the old chemistry teacher I told you about. We were going to try to get her to come back and teach for us, but I had heard she got a job up in Seattle. She's back now though. She took over at the beginning of the fall semester."

"Wait. Didn't we have a plan that you would take over running the show if anything happened?"

"Don't blame Kimberly." We were all on a bit of edge. Jennifer must have thought I was attacking Kimberly. "She did an incredible job holding things together after... after the fashion show."

"No... No, that's not what I meant. I was just hoping... nevermind. So... What... Is it all permanent? I'm still not thinking straight. Tell me the whole story. I still don't know what even happened that night."

Kimberly and Jennifer looked at Veronica, who seemed the most reserved and unwilling to talk. When she did speak, it was a quiet, anxious voice that I barely recognized coming from her.

"Do you remember the prop room?"

"Sort of. I was there with Penny and Cynthia? Or Deborah. One of them..." I winced at not being able to remember who I had been fucking that night.

"Deborah, but Cynthia joined in later. I... I came in on you three, and you were all naked and going at it." Her voice got a little warmer as she spoke. "It was incredibly hot... but something didn't feel right. I felt that wave of lust that you put out. It just washed over me, but it was stronger that I'd ever felt. It was aggressive and forceful in a way I couldn't understand. But I was turned on... I was so hot for you... The girls were just shuddering on top of you... their bodies... just covered all over... covered in your cum. It was impossible how much..."

She shook herself out of her reverie, now seeming even more uncomfortable.

"But then I looked at you. You weren't right. Your eyes were rolling back in your head and your face was bright red. You were spasming... convulsing like you couldn't stop cumming. Your penis was still hard and pulsing... and I couldn't tear myself away. I felt myself walking toward you and the twins. That's when you looked at me. You looked me in the eyes and I felt a warm rush over me like you were going to come into my mind again, and I felt so happy. But your eyes were wrong..."

She stopped talking for a moment. Kimberly moved over and sat on the arm of her chair to put an arm around her. Jennifer kept looking at me.

Veronica sniffed. Her eyes on the ground, she continued. "That must have snapped me out of it, seeing your eyes. You looked... wild... panicked... I knew that you couldn't control it anymore... I ran out of the room. I knew we couldn't help you. Jennifer wasn't there, and Kimberly would be just as useless as I was. I got Kimberly to get everyone out of the building... Your trick was starting to effect everyone there, and I didn't know if you could... or would... stop it. But... I had to get someone to help."

Jennifer picked up the story as Veronica started to have trouble again.

"The only man she could find was Mr. Grant. He took you to the hospital and got you set up there. Then Kimberly and I took care of the twins... But after a good deal of going over things, we're also pretty sure it was also Mr. Grant who spiked your tea with something that night. The doctors think it was an allergy, and that's probably for the best. I... We think it's something else. He put something in your tea and you lose control and pass out. We don't know what or how..."

Veronica broke down. She jumped out of her chair, nearly knocking Kimberly off it, and rushed over to me, falling on her knees at my feet. She reached out and grabbed my legs.

"Oh, god, Ben, I'm so sorry. I didn't know! I knew it couldn't be a woman and he was the only man there. I had to! Later on, we figured it out and I thought he killed you! I thought he killed you..."

The rest of her words were lost as she hugged my legs and buried her head in my lap.

It was so disconcerting to see her, such a composed, in-control woman sobbing at my feet.

I tried to lift her up onto my lap but didn't have the strength, so I just leaned over to try and hug and comfort her.

Kimberly was crying a bit now too. Jennifer was clearly affected, but was more able to hold herself together.

"The doctor said you would recover, so we all decided to wait until you got out of there to figure out what to do. But things have changed, Ben."

Kimberly sniffed, then spoke in a clear voice.

"Ben, I still don't think you understand what you've accomplished here. We... All of us have talked about this... You've changed us all. Maybe it was the trick, but I'm not sure I believe that... It's more that that. We're different people now, and not just because we've been sleeping together. It's like with the Dionysus Club. You did so much to help them find themselves. But for us... We're... we'll do anything for you. We all love you, Ben. And the idea that you were... gone..."

Again, Jennifer broke in. "We need you, Ben. And we're not about to let a little thing like a near-death poisoning get the best of you. We're going to get you back in shape and back in that gaudy principal's chair."

I gave Jennifer a questioning glance, and she smirked.

"Ben, it's not about the sex. Okay, the sex is utterly mind-blowing, but it's not just that. Listen to me when I say that you've been more important to me, to all of us, as a friend and as a colleague than as a sex-toy." Her smirk got wider. "And again, that's accounting for the sex being simply world class."

Veronica looked up at me, her eyes moist and red.

"You know I'm not some shrinking violet, Ben, but you really fucking scared me."

There was a heavy silence in the room.

"You know I don't have the trick anymore, right?"

Veronica squeezed my legs tight.

"It doesn't matter."

"We figured as much." Jennifer continued the thought. "We were careful in the beginning, trying to make sure you got a male doctor and nurses. But we couldn't feel anything, either. Once you left the theater, everyone calmed down. Some of them were already entangled with... er... new friends, but even they seemed to calm down."

"When you woke up that day, I was in the visitor's room, and I came in to see you. I was so worried. Then you looked at me with those eyes, and your face got focused like it does. I swear I almost cried, but then, there was nothing. I didn't feel anything, and you want back to sleep. That's when we figured that the trick was gone for sure."

Kimberly had wiped her face clean and taken on her professional tone, sitting up straight in the library chair.

"But the trick isn't totally gone on campus." She looked at me seriously, and the other women echoed her expression. "Something is still going on. After the night at the theater, everything calmed down. But when we started the new semester with Dr. Sten in charge, there were some weird things going on. Even now, some of the students are acting strange."

Jennifer clarified things. "They're horny as all hell, but only some students, and only with some faculty. You can probably guess suspect number one."

"Mr. Grant?"

"Full points in one. He's always been awkward and creepy enough so that the girls have stayed away from him, even when they really should be going to the nurse, but now he's got a little coterie of students that follow him around, giggling and fawning all over him."

"Ok, ok, ok. This is way too much to take in. Let me see if I've got this. The principal is Dr. Sten, now. I don't know her, I've got no idea about that. The school is operating fine, but there are pockets of weirdness, probably sexual, and maybe trick-related, around Mr. Grant. Is this about him, or about Dr. Sten?"

"We're not sure. Also, that's a decent start, but the school isn't exactly operating fine." Kimberly kept her professional mien. "Dr. Sten was one of the teachers who appreciated the previous principal's style."

"And what style is that?"

"All the clubs are shut down. The experimental classes are not being offered. We're back on a very strict demerit system. We've got more demerit detentions than the spa can handle."

"Ah, right." Jennifer continued. "The spa opened. It's incredibly successful, and it's absolutely gorgeous. But the town council and Dr. Sten muscled Takashima and his family out of managing it. There was something in the contract about letting you handle some of the decisions, and Dr. Sten pushed that to mean she handles things. Anyway, he's pissed. The wrinkle is that where we planned to have some students intern at the spa, now they are basically doing all the work gratis to work off their demerits. And you should see the uniforms they have to wear. Under other circumstances I would be all for it, but things are fishy there too. The price just to get in is astronomical, but they have customers waiting in line. The town is lousy with people, almost all men, just hanging around, hoping to get in. It's been great for business for the town, but it's creepy as hell."

"Ok then. Mr. Grant has groupies and he never did before. The school is a fascist police-state. And the spa is... This is really bad. It's not what it sounds like, is it?"

Kimberly brightened a little. "Well, that's one piece of good news. The clubs are shut down, but like I said, you have inspired people. The Dinonysian Club and the Journalism Club are still active, but they're underground. We tried to tell them to lay low and not get into trouble, but they wouldn't listen, especially the Xu twins. It's no surprise that they would be getting demerits like there's no tomorrow, but they did it on purpose. The two of them, along with a few other girls from the club, are basically indentured to the spa because of their demerits. The upside is that they've been passing information to us."

Jennifer was clearly excited about this angle. "They've been brilliant. But there's still something we don't get. Just like you, we were worried this was some kind of red-light district situation, too, but the twins say there is absolutely no sex going on in the spa. On the contrary, there are incredibly strict rules for the girls who are working off demerit points there. They're all dressed in the sexiest little swatches of barely-there fabric, but it's all look, no touch."

Veronica spoke up, still hugging my legs. "They're being groomed."

"What?"

"I don't have any proof, but I swear... I know a little about these things..." There was a long pause. "I swear the girls are being groomed to be sent off with the customers. Maybe not soon. Maybe they'll even wait until they graduate, but that's what it is, I just feel it."

Jennifer nodded. "I thought about that, but I just couldn't... I can't believe it. That would mean... Dr. Sten would have to know about it."

"Oh god. Well, if that's it, we really do need to do something."

"We need to get you back as principal."

"I'm not sure I'm much use right now. And anyway, I was never the one actually doing anything. It's always been you three."

"It's going to be all of us." Jennifer looked around to each of us, one by one. "We can't do anything anytime soon. Ben's not one hundred percent and we don't know enough anyway. We need to gather information, and then make plans. Only when we are all ready, then we can act. If we do this right, we can get back in control and weed the place of these assholes once and for all."

"Can we afford to wait though? I'm a mess, but..."

"You need to rest. Build your strength. You've got to learn how to make friends without frying their brains like you did ours." Jennifer smiled widely and stood. She walked over to me and kissed me lightly on the top of the head.

"Wait a minute... One last thing."

"Yes, oh once and future principal?"

"Did you all say you loved me back there somewhere?" I tried to make is sound like a lighthearted joke.

"Yes, you big doofus. I love you." Even as she bopped me on the head right where she had kissed me, Jennifer showed the opposite of my attempt at light humor. Her voice cracked, and her eyes welled up. "I do love you. So, don't go scaring the crap out of us like that again, capice?"