The Sculptor Ch. 02

I pull out of Zoe's head again and give her a satisfied pat on the ass. I've learned two things: 1) Zoe Kim likes to be spanked, and 2) I can change people's memories by giving them suggestions as a voice in their heads.

How am I gonna use this to find out all the stuff Zoe likes, though? I could find another memory of a sexual encounter and keep telling her to ask for weird stuff, I guess, but that would take a lot of trial and error. I have a better idea. Where was that studying memory again?

I am in my room, studying for an econ exam. I have been at this for hours and I'm pretty sure I have hours left. Trying to wrap my head around these concepts is really frustrating. Perfect. I try incepting her with a modest proposal: "Zoe, I think you've earned a porn break."

Zoe immediately agrees with me. It's not very hard to convince someone who's studying for exams to procrastinate, especially if they don't think anyone's watching. She loads up a streaming-video porn site and clicks one of the videos on its front page, of some amateur couple fucking in their dorm room. They're attractive enough, but they're not really doing anything interesting. They're not even particularly good at fucking. Useless. "This video is boring," I tell her. "Find another one." She hits the back button and browses around before settling on a video about two teen girls hooking up in a locker room. I didn't realize Zoe is bisexual, which is useful information, but not really a "fetish" as such. My goal is to get her to go as far as she can.

"Still too boring," I suggest to her. "You're really frustrated right now, and you need to cum HARD. Find something raunchier." She does a search specifically for videos starring Asian girls -- easier for her to imagine herself in the scene, I guess -- and chooses one whose name promises rough sex. She watches it for a while, hand busy in her panties as the girl on the screen is fucked hard from behind over the hood of a car, her hair pulled and her tight ass slapped repeatedly. Zoe seems quite content to let this play out to its conclusion, but I'm not. I already know she likes it rough. I need her to get even dirtier. "You need more than this right now," I insist. "Just really go all-out. Pull up the kind of porn you'll be ashamed of when you're done." She hesitates, bites her lip, then finally and with trepidation types a specific name into the search bar: "Miya Yamaguchi." She types this one-handed, still masturbating with her other hand as she does it, as though just the act of typing this name feels naughty to her. I've got a good feeling about this one.

It turns out that Miya Yamaguchi is an Asian-American starlet who is well-known for doing quite a lot of S&M bondage porn. She's got a niche. Zoe is practically salivating as she chooses a video entitled "WHIPS, CHAINS, AND POWER GAMES 3, SCENE 04: MIYA YAMAGUCHI / RIKK STRYKER." There's a bit of cheesy, poorly-acted plot at the beginning: Miya gets a few minutes into giving the leading gentleman a professional massage before taking off all her clothes and attempting to give him a "happy ending," unaware that he's actually an undercover cop. He ("Rikk Stryker," apparently) handcuffs Miya and takes her "into custody," which in this case means hauling her off to a dungeon where he uses a bunch of sex toys on her and then fucks her. The acting part all seems like a waste of time to me, but Zoe is really getting into it. She leans back on her pillow, legs spread, knees up, feet planted, biting her lip, fingers deep inside herself, as Miya is tied up in all sorts of unlikely poses. Teased, whipped, abused, plundered. Nipples clamped, asshole hooked, left in bondage with a buzzing hitachi wand strapped to her. Fucked hard in every hole. Makeup running, sweat covering her body. Zoe is fucking herself steadily with two fingers of one hand, groping her nipples hard with the other. But every time she feels herself getting too close, she backs off. She's invested in this porn break now. Wants to make it last. So I eventually convince her to find another video.

In the video Zoe selects next, Miya is being dominated by a woman. A slender, buxom blonde woman, who manhandles her just as roughly and firmly as Rikk Stryker had. Zoe is rapt, barely even blinking, licking her lips unconsciously when Miya's head is shoved roughly into the blonde woman's shaven cunt. She replays a short segment where Miya licks the blonde woman's toes a few times over, which is a good datapoint -- nice, specific fetish -- but not particularly my cup of tea.

Soon, as Zoe eagerly watches Miya deepthroat a dildo, teasing herself just shy of orgasm yet again, I realize that I'm getting into this experience too. It feels a lot like dominating a woman usually does. She doesn't know it, but Zoe is debasing herself for my pleasure just as Miya is being debased for hers. "You should be naked for this, little girl." I make this command almost reflexively, before taking the time to consider whether it's really a good idea, but Zoe obeys enthusiastically: her clothes are gone almost immediately and she's off in her own world. Sucking her fingers, rolling her nipples roughly, fucking herself hard to the rhythm of the blonde's strapon. Eventually the strapon finds its way into Miya's ass, and Zoe raises her eyebrows just a bit and bites her lip hard but her fingers stay where they are, in her pussy. Now that won't do. "Go ahead," I urge her. "Try it, slut." Zoe slowly, tentatively withdraws her wet fingers from her pussy and begins to run them around the rim of her ass, stroking her clit gently with her other hand.

As Zoe explores her asshole for what I'm assuming is the first time, I reflect that this girl is so submissive that I'm effectively domming her from inside her head while she watches porn by herself. That's much more reliable information than hearing her ask for some doggy-style spanking. Whose voice does she hear when I command her? Mine? Her own? Some man or woman from her past? The blonde woman on the screen in front of her? Her fingers are still dancing around the rim of her ass. "Stop stalling and just do it, whore. You know you want to." Her middle finger, still wet from her juices, sinks into her ass slowly, up to the first knuckle, and she moans aloud. She keeps the finger where it is, not delving much deeper but thrusting with it gently as she fucks her pussy with her other hand. She is breathing heavily and moaning softly. The TV is audible from the living room, I notice. "I wonder if your roommates can hear what a slut you are for me," I ask helpfully, and Zoe works herself to a fever pitch, fucking herself front and rear as fast as she can, her orgasm nearly within reach, watching Miya Yamaguchi get railed in the ass by her Amazonian blonde domme.

And yet she's still holding back. Which only makes sense to me. I know what she's waiting for. I can't deny it from her any longer. It'd be plain inhumane. In my best astrally-projected approximation of a growly whisper, I give her what she needs: permission. "Cum, you slut. Cum for me. Do it now. Cum as hard as you fucking can!"

Zoe's eyes shut in pure bliss and she falls back into her pillows. "Yes, daddy!" she says out loud, with more volume than is probably wise, and her orgasm hits her with the force of a freight train. She doesn't notice the ecstatic wail being ripped from her lungs until it's already mostly over, and she can't clap a hand over her mouth to quiet it because both of her hands are already busy at her other orifices. She's still cumming, but she has the presence of mind to roll over and bury her face in a pillow to silence herself. It's too late, though. She knows her roommates must have heard that.

"I'm glad they heard," I tell her, and she lets out several more muffled yelps into her pillow before she finally comes down. She rolls onto her back and splays herself across her bed bonelessly, absently knocking her laptop aside with her hip. Her hands slowly pull free of her holes and she runs them gently, sensually, over her still-sensitive skin, gasping for breath, not yet ready to give any consideration to the giggles she can hear from the living room.

I guess that worked.

PART 3: TESTED BY EXPERIMENTATION

Erika stares at me, blinking a few times. "Are you back? Did you do it? I can never tell when you've done it."

I lean back in my seat. "I've earned a drink, I think. This round's on you, sweetheart."

She grins. "Yes, sir! Nice job, baby. Tell me all about it in a second."

She returns with another beer for me and a gin & tonic for herself. "Ok, so, to start, how did you do it?" I accept my beer gratefully. "Well, I did have to use Recall. But I used it in a new way and learned something." I explain to her that watching Zoe get laid had shown me fairly little apart from a relatively tame affinity for rough sex, so instead I showed up in her mind while she was alone, and she had responded to my words. She took to my early suggestions and my later commands like a very obedient fish to water, and I'd been able to use this to see the raunchiest porn she likes.

Erika is blown away by this. "Not bad! A pretty ingenious use of a new skill. So gimme the dirt. What did you learn?" I take a nice long pull. "Well, for one thing, she's bi." Erika raises her eyebrows. "Reeeeeally." "Yeah, and she's also a huuuuge submissive." Erika's face lights up and she glances over at Zoe involuntarily. "Reeeeeallly!" I laugh. "I'm starting to think there's a reason you chose this girl in particular. Aren't you also a huge submissive?" Erika chuckles, sipping her drink. "Yeah, with you maybe. You're a big strong magic demigod who can teleport me into bondage and fuck me for hours with his huge horse cock. She's a tiny cute little punk-rock fuckdoll who I just wanna squeeze and fondle and handcuff and edge over and over with a vibrator." "Sorry to tell you this, but you might have trouble edging her after the upgrades I've made to her clit." Erika waves a hand dismissively. "I can still edge her. Just gotta have some patience. For that matter, you can still edge me, Mister Man. Hint." "Patience is not a virtue I possess. While time's moving, anyway." "We can come back to this later. What kinds of things did you tell Zoe to do, apart from watch porn?" "Well, when I was watching her have sex I got her to ask the guy fucking her to spank her. She was a fan. Then during the porn break I got her to play with her ass while watching her porn self-insert take a dildo there. She was really hesitant, but she still did it. Aaaand I may have, uh, implicitly encouraged her to let her roommates hear her cum." Erika giggles. "Ooh, naughty. We've all been there." She sips her drink thoughtfully. "The operative question is: did you just get to see what the memories would have looked like if she'd done different things, or did you change her actual memory of the events, or did you change the events themselves?" My eyebrows shoot up. "If I can literally change the past --" Erika nods. "The implications are staggering. But we could only really find out if that's the case by tracking down Travis and asking him how he remembers the evening going. See if his version matches up with the one you saw in Zoe's head. But we have no idea where he is, so we'll table this for now. Our objective is Zoe's fetishes. Were you able to find anything specific and kind of unusual that she was into?" "Well, she seems to be into sucking on women's toes, if that's your thing." It is not mine, but to each their own. Erika smirks. "I can work with that." I raise an eyebrow. "Work with it how?" Erika is unbelievably pleased with herself. "We're doing science, remember? Ideas are tested by experimentation, Monsieur Artiste. I'm going to talk my way into Zoe's bed, and I'm gonna make her be a good little girl for me, and I'm gonna edge her over and over whether you say I can do it or not, and I'm gonna find a reason to put my toes in her face while she's all horned up, and we'll just see what her reaction is." "How are you so sure you're gonna be able to pick her up?" Erika gestures at herself. "Uh, hello, magic body? I think I've got a pretty good chance." I cast a critical artist's eye at her outfit. She's wearing a hoodie, yoga pants, and sneakers. "You need to change." I don't have time to wait for her to do it herself, though, so I stop time and do it for her. Erika's suddenly-immaculately-made-up face looks down at the tight T-shirt, leather jacket, short skirt, and heeled leather boots I've dressed her in to match Zoe's tastes. "What? No I don't. These clothes are fine, you jerk. I dressed up nice for you." I just smile. "Yeah, you sure did, babe. Just messing with you." "Good." Erika makes as though to get up, but then pauses, grinning wickedly, as though she just came up with something. "What are her thoughts on threesomes?" I think about it for a second. "I don't think they ever came up." She rises, picking up her drink. "Well, my challenge for the night is to fuck Zoe and test out your observations of her turn-ons. Your challenge for the night is to make her super horny for three-ways." "How should I do that?" "I don't know, fucking incept her. You did it earlier when you made her find the dirtiest porn she knew, and then she fucked her own ass and liked it because you told her to. Hell, she called you Daddy and she didn't even know you were an actual person. You've got her wrapped around your little finger. You can make her think stuff. Figure out a way to make her think this." "That seems... hard. But I'll try." "That's the spirit, babe." She winks. "I'm gonna go get laid. When we're done I'm gonna suggest we double up on you. She better say yes." With that, she's off to Zoe's corner of the bar, to compliment the girl's pretty purple hair.

I sit and finish my beer as Erika approaches Zoe and says hello. I clearly read the phrase "Erika, with a K" on Erika's lips as she introduces herself. She runs her fingers through one of Zoe's pigtails, probably talking about her hair. Very forward. Zoe glances around a little, embarrassed, but smiles and plays with her hair a little after Erika's hand retreats. Her eyes look Erika up and down when the blonde girl glances away for a second, and she bites her lip a little. I guess she's into it. The dominatrix I just saw her masturbating to was a busty blonde, come to think of it. She probably has a "type."

Over the next hour or so I pretend to play on my phone while I watch Erika very proficiently chat Zoe up. It's a very well-done performance all around; my guess is that Erika is reaping some confidence benefits from her newfound nigh-supernatural physical attractiveness. In very short order, she has Zoe away from her friends to get another drink, then manages to keep her at the bar where they can talk, just the two of them, getting more visibly flirty and touchy with each passing minute. I take the liberty of freezing time to help them along with this once or twice, moving Zoe's hand onto Erika's arm or side. When I start time again afterward, her hand lingers where I left it for a good while.

A few drinks later, they're merry, tipsy, and hanging off of each other. Zoe points toward the ladies' room; Erika nods and follows her in. It seems innocent, the way girls always go to the bathroom in groups, but when they come out, arm in arm, they're grinning, like they have a secret, and they don't even stop to finish their drinks before heading straight to the door. As she opens it, Erika turns, catches my eye, and winks.

Well, she held up her end. I'd better do my part before I lose track of them. I stop time right as Zoe is crossing the threshold and take her back to my table. I strip her naked again -- call it a nervous habit -- and touch her forehead to mine. What does she have in there that I can work with?

PART 4: QUANTUM LEAP BUT WITH THREESOMES

"Maybe try a threesome clip", I tell Zoe again as I stow away in her mind for another porn break. She obeys -- Zoe is a very good girl -- but she doesn't watch it long. She watches for a few minutes at most, rubbing at her crotch half-heartedly, before sighing and closing the browser tab. This keeps happening.

I've replayed this memory four or five times by now. I've found that if I rewatch a memory I'd previously changed, but don't intervene this time, the memory plays out like it would have if I'd never been there at all. That's useful because if a change goes badly, I can undo it by replaying the memory and keeping my damn mouth shut.

But no matter how turned on I get Zoe with mental dirty-talk and the works of Miya Yamaguchi, watching a threesome clip turns her right off. Even if all three actors in the scene are ones she'd happily watch in one-on-one or solo clips, once they're all in the same place at the same time she loses interest. Even a clip where Ms Yamaguchi herself is bound and double-penetrated by a pair of frat bros, or another where she is captured and tormented for a solid hour by a haughty rich couple, produces the same result. Things aren't looking good.

Zoe lies naked on her bed, staring at the ceiling and letting out a couple more loud, dramatic sighs. I think I can safely conclude that threesomes make this girl sad. To get any further I need to know why. I guess I haven't tried asking her yet.

"Zoe, why do threesomes make you sad?" Her reaction to this question being broadcast into her head, unsurprisingly, is not to answer it aloud but to roll over onto her stomach and cover her head with her pillow. Well, I tried.

Being a voice in someone's head can't be the solution to everything, of course. I'm probably just favoring it because it's my newest trick. I'm inside her brain; I can probably figure out a little more about this reaction myself. I just need to empathize.

I focus my attention as deeply as possible onto Zoe's sadness. I reach for it with every synapse in my body. Show me your sadness, Zoe. What's behind it? Please don't let it be trauma. If it's trauma, I've hit a dead end.

Finally I begin to feel it. A very deep melancholy. Specifically... regret. With just a tinge of betrayal. But no trauma, thank God. I keep looking: if she's thinking this hard about her regret, the specific memory causing it has to be somewhere in her thoughts right now. I just have to let her lead me to it.

I am lying in bed in my freshman dorm room, in early spring of my first year of college. Jackpot. The memory plays itself out for me. I keep quiet and watch.

*****

It's about 3:30 in the morning, sometime in early February three years ago. Zoe Kim is jarred from sleep by her freshman-year roommate Emma staggering drunkenly home from a party and shutting the door a little too loud. It wakes Zoe up pretty thoroughly, but she only rolls over and pretends to still be sleeping. No use in making Emma feel guilty for waking her up. Within a couple seconds, though, Zoe hears whispers. Emma isn't alone.

"Sssssh!" "Shit! Sorry!" "Be careful, Danny! Zoe's still asleep!"

Zoe's eyes widen. Danny? Emma brought Danny home? Zoe's wanted a piece of him for months. He's even starting to flirt back now that that bitch Robin is out of the picture. And Emma knows! Zoe's practically talked Emma's ear off about it. But they're hooking up with each other now? And coming here to do it?

Danny's slurred voice rises a bit above a whisper. "Are you sure? Maybe we should wake her up. You can fit three people in a dorm bed if you all get really close..."

A sharp little giggle. "Daaaannnnnyyyy, you're so bad! Maybe -- I don't know" -- more giggling -- "I don't know what she'd say! No, don't do it! I'm too nervous!"

Zoe's mind is a strange mix of unfamiliar emotions. Danny does want her. But he chose Emma. And Emma wants her too. But she chose Danny! Zoe knows she likes girls at this point -- a few very nice memories with members of her high school soccer team (which I've already helped myself to a viewing of) make that abundantly clear -- and she's always thought Emma was so sexy, with her thin, tight, petite cheerleader's body, her long, pretty brown hair, her full, pouty lips, her bright blue eyes. (To my 2017 mind she looks a lot like Natalia Dyer, but she wasn't famous yet in 2014, so Zoe couldn't draw that comparison herself.) Zoe and Emma got really close once -- they fell asleep together in Zoe's bed one night after a long evening of partying, near-naked, and nothing exactly happened but waking up together caused some unexpected feelings. Ever since then they have been playing little games, for months, getting changed in front of each other, hanging around the room in almost nothing, each trying not to let the other catch her stealing a peek.