By the end of the day, Sophia is watching you with dark, calculating eyes. Emma is trying her level best not to look at you, but you don't need her to— you can feel the lust pooling in her, and you know it's directed at you.
You give Emma a small wave as she leaves the school after the bell for sixth period rings. She doesn't acknowledge you, but you can feel a small surge of happiness rising in her at the gesture. Sophia leaves alongside her, but you don't acknowledge her presence.
Then, once they've headed over and climbed into Alan's car, you turn and head back into the school towards the library.
Winslow's library is nothing special, much like the rest of the school. Most of the school's budget went to hiring staff and funding the school's sports teams, the only part of the school that received accolades on a regular basis. The library was one of the things hit hardest by the budget cuts over the years. Its materials are often ancient, outdated things from ten years ago or more, and even the newer books are rarely less than three years old.
But the library does have three things going for it. One, the librarians there are dedicated to their jobs, volunteering to stay in after school hours and monitor the children to encourage the school's peer tutoring program. Two, it's quiet— none of the louder teenagers bothered coming here, so you're generally assured of your peace and quiet while you're up here. And three, Madison is sitting in a chair waiting for you with a grin on her face.
Nobody else is around as you take a seat, so you're free to casually lean in and give her a quick kiss as you sit down. She returns it, her grin growing wider, and she snuggles in against your side, edging her chair closer to yours. You don't discourage her, and even slip your arm around her waist, encouraging her to lean against you.
Unfortunately, as tempting as the thought is, you can't afford to start wasting this time. You're enjoying the feel of Madison against your body enough that you don't try and shift her away, but you keep your hand settled decently on her shoulder instead of cupping her breasts as you're tempted to, and pull out your notebook from your bag.
"Okay," you murmur quietly, unable to stop yourself from giving her a quick kiss atop her head. "How are you, Madison?"
"Better now," she says quietly back. Then she lifts her head up at you, eyes searching yours vulnerably. "Did you like the lunch I made for you?"
It actually wasn't a very good lunch. She'd tried her best, but she either didn't have very much to work with or she was afraid to draw attention to herself by hanging around in the kitchen for too long. The bread roll was grainy and kind of stale, the ham was soft and bland, and the fruit salad she'd made alongside it had too many conflicting textures (banana alongside apple alongside orange, what a combination).
"It was perfect," you reply to her. She positively beams at you, then tucks her head against your shirt again.
"You didn't mind then?" she asks shyly. "I don't think Mom will be happy, but I like making your lunches."
"I didn't mind at all," you purr.
In the end, despite your best of intentions, you still only get an hour of tutoring done. Still, with a pupil this cute, can anyone really blame you?
The next day proceeds much as the first did. You wake up, tired but content, drink your coffee, eat your breakfast, and head over to school. Madison has left you another lunchbox in your locker, this time accompanied by a lovely yellow note— "I made you another lunch. It's a chicken wrap today. I hope you like it! Love, your little Maddie~".
You float through first and second periods, spending the time idly amusing yourself by manipulating Sophia's emotions. The dark anger and cruelty is still there, you suspect you will have to make a concerted effort to ever heal her of that, but you're a little surprised to find that her lust is running up near the surface today.
It's surprisingly fun to tease Sophia like this, bringing her emotions bubbling up and then brushing them lightly to keep them at the surface. She keeps trying to lash them back down, burying them down with dark anger and sadism, but you don't let her, giving soft tugs at her loyalty to keep her from lashing out at you. That's not her choice any more. When she'd had the choice, she'd chosen to lash out at you, hurt you, victimize you.
After second period is over, you can feel a headache forming. You kick yourself internally— idiot, you know that overusing your power can lead to headaches.
Worth it, though.
You head over to the nearest available bathroom, where you look blearily at your reflection in the mirror. Your face stares back at you. There's nothing unexceptional about it, except maybe for faint traces of dark bruises beginning to form around your eyes, as though you haven't gotten enough sleep. Your features are still undelicate, ungirly, but you've taken pains to keep your hair long and soft— your one particularly feminine feature.
Honestly, you're beginning to get a bit worn out. For nearly two weeks now, you've been using your powers near-daily, and even when you haven't been using them, you've been making concerted efforts to try and push your efforts forward. It's taking its toll on you, you can tell. You're a teenaged girl, not a robot. Maybe you should seduce Dragon, you think mirthfully for a second, before realizing how absurd the idea is.
You should take some time off and relax a bit before the stress starts to really affect you. It's not hampering you now, but if it grows too bad— well, you've seen what stress does, and you like not being bald.
The loud sound of the door swinging open draws your attention away from your self-reflection. You turn, and almost blanch when you see Sophia before you can steady yourself and realize that she's not feeling particularly hostile. Still, when you see her take a step towards you, you immediately reach for your power again, ignoring the twinge in your skull, and begin tugging on her loyalty again.
And then you do blanch when she stops behind you and steps forward, pinning you against the bathroom's benchtop. You twist, attempting to turn to face her; she allows it, but then pins you in place with her left hand, pushing you roughly against the varnished benchtop and keeping you pinned in place.
"Hebert," she purrs softly, a cruel grin on her face. It reminds you of a cat, giving a bird a very cruel expression before leaping upon it. You try to disguise your nervousness. It seems to work; at least, no anticipation or cruelty flashes through her.
"Sophia," you reply neutrally. You don't wiggle around or try to escape; every time you even look like you're going to try, that anticipation does try to rise, and you're forced to tug on her loyalty again to bury it back down.
She stares down at you, and you can feel confusion rising in her, although what it's directed at, she can't tell. You're forced to pull at her loyalty again when you feel anger begin to rise, and the puzzlement only becomes stronger.
You stand there, trapped between Sophia and the hard bench, for over a minute before you realize she's not going to let you go any time soon.
Curiously, though, her anger has faded again, and even her confusion has faded. You slowly ease down on her loyalty, and she still doesn't move, just continues searching your face.
You drag your eyes from her face, keeping a wary touch on her emotions so you can feel if her anger suddenly surges again, and drag your eyes down her body. She's unfortunately not wearing particularly provocative clothes, but unusually for the dark-skinned girl, she's wearing a skirt. Normally, she wears long pants, or shorts cut similarly to her track uniform in summer. Something must have happened, you presume.
She's still not making a move to let you go. Your headache is beginning to pound within your head now.
Slowly, slowly, you stop touching on her loyalty entirely, and begin to gently pull on her lust, watching her face carefully. Her expression doesn't change, but her eyes are darting all over your face now, from your eyes to your lips to your ears and back.
For a moment, you stand there, gently tugging on her lust. Then, steeling yourself, you lean slightly down, grab the hem of her skirt, and yank it up.
"What the fuck, Hebert?" Sophia reacts as you had expected, finally pulling her arms away from the bench and grabbing your wrists, attempting to yank them back down. Anger flares within her, but you quickly swap back to her loyalty, tugging on that. The anger subsides hatefully, flaring at the edge of your senses. Her attempts to yank your hands away are weak, and you're easily able to keep holding her skirt up. The anger subsides further, then further again, and you can feel that puzzlement rising again.
"Well," you say, struggling to sound casual, "didn't you want this? After all-" You speak louder when she opens her mouth to rebut you— "— you have been hugging me."
"Hugging you?" she splutters. "I wasn't hugging you, Hebert!"
You shrug, the movement lifting her skirt even higher. You glance curiously down, noting with slight disappointment that she's wearing a pair of athletic boyshorts. "Then what were you doing?" you ask. She splutters for a moment, attempting weakly to shove her skirt back down, but she seems too shocked to give you a coherent answer. You know she is, which is why you reply with a smug expression, "I thought so. You know, you're supposed to get over pulling pigtails in third grade, Sophia. I'm flattered, though."
You have to tug on her loyalty again as your taunts make her anger struggle to rise. You regretfully subside; no matter how fun it is to make fun of her, you really can't afford her anger to break free of your control right now.
"Fuck you, Hebert," she hisses.
A nice idea, but she's not quite ready for that yet.
It's tempting to see exactly how far you can push your luck right now, but with a titanic effort, you refrain. You're actually making progress now, and while you can push her anger down, you're pretty sure that if you push her too far, you won't be able to stop her anger from rising without making your headache so bad you'll have to go home for the day.
Instead, you step forward, still holding her skirt up. She takes a step back, a little frission of fear and— anticipation? intrigue?— shooting through her, but all you do is lean towards her, giving her skirt a soft tug so she can feel that you're still holding it up, and quickly press your lips against her mouth in your first kiss with her, a half-second thing before you're stepping around and away from her.
Well, that's a lie. It's not quite all you do. As you leave, you do reach over to the side and grab her ass quickly. She's not expecting it, and can't quite hide the little tremor that goes through her as you do it. You get the idea the tremor wasn't born so much from the act, though, as it was your audacity. Interesting.
Lust is still at the forefront of her mind, and you can feel that that cold anger has subsided almost entirely, for the moment— you won't need to stick around and hold it down, which is good. You're pleasantly surprised at how warm she feels, actually. Lust, curiosity, intrigue, and even a little bit of respect are there.
Still, you decide, it's probably best if you stay away from Sophia for a few days. Give her a chance to become accustomed to the idea of what you did— and give her subconscious time to justify her rising attraction to you in her mind— before you push her further.
School ends that day, and your tutoring with Madison continues apace. She's an eager student; partly, you think, because she genuinely wants to get her grades up, but also partly because she gets off on you bossing her around and telling her what she needs to do. It's fascinating, really.
Dad's "working late" again today, you find out when you get home. He left you a note on the kitchen table. Idly, you wonder which woman he's staying out with tonight, but dismiss the thought almost as soon as it registers, leaving you sitting in the kitchen with a disgusted expression on your face. Ew.
You expect to be home until nine, maybe even ten1. Thus, you're surprised when the doorbell rings at six.
You're even more surprised when you cautiously swing the door partially open to find Alan and Emma standing on your doorstep.
For a moment, you're tempted to swing the door shut in Emma's face. You refrain, though. Maybe if it had just been Emma, you would have done it— you're not prepared to have Emma in your house again, in your space— but Alan hasn't done anything wrong here. He doesn't deserve you being mean to him just because his daughter bullied you.
Reluctantly, you swing the door wider open. "Come in," you say, trying your very best to introduce some happiness into your voice. It doesn't work. "Dad's not home yet, he's working late. Sorry."
Alan pauses. "Oh." He looks a little let down, but only a little. "That's alright, Taylor. I didn't come to talk to your dad, Emma here wanted to see you."
"Did she now." You peer over at Emma, scrutinizing her face. She looks blankly over at you, then rolls her eyes when you squint suspiciously at her. "Alright then. Um, I already ate dinner, though. Sorry." That's a lie. It's bad enough Emma's in your house. You can't handle the thought of being that domestic with her.
"That's fine." Emma shifts on her feet. You can feel nervousness rolling off her, and... lust. Unsurprising— you have been manipulating her for days now. Still, it does surprise you a little every time you feel it. "Um." Her eyes flick to her father, and she looks demurely down at the ground.
"Can we speak in your room?"
"Can't we speak out here?" you ask plaintively.
She flicks her eyes to her father again, and she grimaces. "It's about... private stuff," she temporizes. "It'd be better if we talked in your room."
You want to deny her, but she has too much over you. If Emma says anything about what you did in her room with Madison on Saturday out here, Alan is going to hear it, and from there Dad's going to know. And you can't have Dad knowing. Either he'd force you to keep your door open whenever you have a girl over from then on, or you'd be forced to use your power on him again. Both are intolerable ideas.
You hold out for a few seconds, though, trying to give yourself as long as possible to prepare yourself. Finally, you can't wait any longer. "Fine," you say reluctantly. Alan looks a little curious at your reluctance, but doesn't pry.
You lead Emma through to your room. She makes no comment about how obsessively clean it is now, nor about the smell of rose perfume that permeates your room to cover the smell of sex now, although she does look over at you with raised eyebrows at once. She sits down on the edge of your bed, smoothing out your Miss Militia bedspread.
