The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Kitty and Cammi in Church Country

2. THE END OF KATE AND CAMILLA

The tinkling of a Ravel piece, Camilla’s ringtone, played on relentlessly. At this point, she wasn’t even interested in seeing who the caller was. She knew it was Kate. Two days ago, she’d tried to reach her twice. Yesterday, she phoned five times. Today it was almost ten. The cell lit up Camilla’s work space in the mid-evening dark.

“I wonder if she knows she could just leave a message,” she muttered. She was tempted to turn the thing to silent, but left it on in case Adam, the web developer who took her out the previous Tuesday, decided he wanted a second date. That was looking unlikely, though. To be sure, she was getting some sort of sick fascination at her friend’s insistence, as well.

What bothered her more than Kate calling so much now was the deep drought of communication that piled up for months and months beforehand. She didn’t even post on her Facebook wall or anything. Lately, she wasn’t even posting on her own. It was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth. In the past, Camilla had occasionally harbored doubts about her old high school girlfriend’s reliability.

Now, it seemed, she was needed, and that hardly seemed fair. She waited for the piano melody to stop, humming along to it as it inevitably quelled the intrusion. She convinced herself that she didn’t have time to catch up with Kate, which was only reachingly true. Her professor had, in fact, extended the due date of her paper a week longer than the three that were already left. She’d have plenty of time.

Regardless, she called up her dissertation in Word and ran a finger along the rim of a mostly empty wine glass. She promised herself that she would finish five more pages before indulging in another.

* * *

“I’d love to,” she lied to Kate late the following evening, “but I’m really bogged down with work at the moment.” Camilla turned the volume down low on an episode of Mythbusters and pulled a blanket over her legs as she curled up more comfortably on the sofa. She managed a decent running start the night before, but was wayward now.

She’d barely made a dent in the paper at all that day, too exhausted from the throes of a final stretch of classes in her semester’s full course load. “I don’t, know sweetie, we’ll see.” She stared, bored, at a commercial for heartburn medication. “Love you, too,” she said, and shut her phone.

Kate practically begged her to tag along on a trip to visit her brother’s new place out in the boonies. Apparently, he worked now as a day laborer on a farm and lived on site with three other guys. It was far from appealing. “Just for the weekend,” she insisted. “I’d pick you up Friday and we’d be back pretty early on Sunday.”

The offer really wasn’t enticing in the least. Besides, Camilla was just assigned more lab work in another class, and knew she wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself if she was away from her desktop, fretting over getting it done. She eventually wormed her way out of the conversation, and from her old friend’s pleas, like, “You know how much I hate sitting in a car that long all by myself.”

She did, all too well. Hundred-mile runs to IKEA, or catching concerts in Pittsburgh, were how they’d done a lot of initial bonding. But that was years ago now. Besides, what if Adam called and asked her out again? Camilla downed some Excedrin and gripped the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, and attempted to will away that faint but obnoxious first glimmer of a migraine.

An e-mail notification chime from her phone pried them right back open again. It was her meddlesome, overbearing mother. She wisely shut the thing off, along with the TV, and kicked her feet on the couch. Why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone?!

* * *

It wasn’t until late Friday morning that she finally called her parents. It had only been a few weeks at best, but they were treating it like the first time they’d heard from her in years. She arranged her wall of DVDs as they talked down to her. She was nearly done reordering the bookshelf of all her silent movies, by director, by the time her mother wrested the phone from her husband, to say her own goodbye.

She was hoping to make a clean break of it after talking to her dad. She could make out Chuck, the chocolate lab that was a part of the family ever since her eleventh birthday, bark in anguish at the icy demands of her mom. Even the dog was scared of her.

Camilla braced herself for more “helpful” criticisms. She had been gracious in allowing the folks fifteen whole minutes of her time, but it felt more like a double feature of two epic films from her extensive collection.

“No, I didn’t say anything under my breath,” she promised, wearily. Her mother took what seemed like an abnormally long pause, before the girl realized she had an incoming call.

“—need to get your priorities sorted out,” Camilla’s mom blathered on after getting clipped. It scarcely mattered that she missed the first chunk of the maternal spiel. “Your father and I can’t provide for you forever. Sooner or later, there comes a time when we all have to pay our own way. Volunteering at your school’s film department is all well and good, but unless you...”

She let her mom go on thinking she was advising her daughter dutifully, as she checked her now-missed call, even going the extra mile to palm her phone’s speaker to silence the old lady’s bitch-fest. She saw that it was Kate, and wondered which of these women she wanted to talk to less.

“You’re just going to keep yelling at me like this, aren’t you?” she asked, frustrated and defiant. When her mother antagonized further, she kicked herself for not fielding Kate’s call. Her girlfriend always used to suck up to Camilla’s mom when they were teenagers, and she, in turn, let the girls do as they pleased, charmed. It would have been the perfect out.

Mom bleated on. “I’m sorry for raising my voice,” her perfectly reasonable child offered, defeated. Thankfully, like much else, her parents took care of her cell phone bill. Not having to worry about using minutes up in that way, she moved on to the shelf with all the French and Czech New Wave.

* * *

Camilla felt vulnerable and pathetic some time after the dust had settled, after she and her mother said their derisive goodbyes. It wasn’t much past noon. As she waited to corral some amount of motivation for her paper, or the lab work she was still lagging on, she scarfed most of a platter of nachos and diligently guzzled half a six pack, both splurges at the taqueria kitty-corner to her apartment complex.

It wasn’t particularly healthy, but whenever she was down on herself, especially when the turn in mood was illogical or mom-related, binge eating frequently helped get her on an even keel. Sometime early on in college, she discovered another of the few genetic holdovers that she didn’t have to be ashamed of: a metabolism like a bullet train. When many of her dormmates puffed up with the freshman fifteen, she stayed slender and slight. Girls grew to resent her habit of wolfing down whole boxes of mac and cheese during finals crunch and not gaining an ounce.

Naturally, this wasn’t entirely advantageous. Not every guy wanted to tear her door off its hinges, to get with the chick who didn’t seem to have passed puberty with flying colors and full-drawn curves. Her few frolicsome encounters with sex yielded variously uncomfortable results. If it wasn’t bad enough to hurt her, which it did at times, it was never anywhere close to being thrilling.

Fair-featured and with flaxen hair, sometimes showing that smile many remarked to be “nice”, Camilla figured she’d be the eventual prize of the right, real, intellectually engaging man. The kind to look past the body she’d never have, all the way to her core. Someone she’d just click with, and know, for sure, instantly.

She flicked some crumbs off her grey satin blouse and grimaced at a cheese stain not too far away. No wonder Adam hasn’t called, she thought. He knows what kind of a loser I am. It’s probably written all over my face. She scooped the last bit of guacamole off the take-out tray with the last chip, and pushed aside depressing notions of her one-date/no-follow-up destiny as of late.

With a full stomach, she woke her computer up from sleep mode and forced herself to get to work. She hit her stride within minutes, and plowed through a couple more pages in a half hour’s time. Barring some sloshed misspellings, Camilla was making good progress. A little before one o’clock, she heard knocking at her door. Guessing she drunk-ordered some Gloria Swanson movie or something and forgot about it, she went on typing to let the package get delivered.

The rapping only got louder, now playing at rhythmic. When she heard her name being called, she knew at once: Kate. She hurriedly changed shirts and cleared beer bottles off her coffee table, though her friend was prepared for her to be evasive. “I know you’re in there!” she wagered.

Truth was, she was just tipsy enough to forget exactly what Kate had been bothering her about, only that she had been doing it a lot. What the hell, she considered, how long has it been? Camilla ripped open her front door and greeted her with a big warm hug. “Hi, Kate!” she practically screamed.

Registering her old girlfriend’s quizzical look, she toned it down self-consciously, not wanting to disclose how drunk she was feeling. The more honest she was about her skeezy afternoon libation, the more honest she’d have to be about being bummed out half the time. “It’s so good to see you!” It was, strangely. Though obnoxious in her over-enthusiasm at times, Kate was (recent absence an exception) someone she could count on with certainty.

She always had an air of maturity, inside and out. The brunette, with hair more than a couple shades darker than her own, had, unlike her, actually become a woman. It happened pretty early, too, and by sophomore year of high school, she had a swooping hourglass figure that attracted much curiosity from boys. Even though they were rarely put to proper use, Camilla acquired what meager dating tips she did have from her friend.

“I wish I could say the same about you,” she said bluntly. “You look pale, Camilla. Overworked, too.” The overworked student sighed. It was already just like old times: no matter how much she worked to hide what was going on inside, right away, Kate knew instinctively if something was the matter with her friend.

“It’ll be good for us both to get out of the city,” she begged one more time, wishing Camilla didn’t have to weep out a laugh. “I don’t know what to expect, myself,” she continued, “The last time I saw Brandon was even longer than the last time I saw you, but... just being there with you, I...

“I just don’t see how either of us can have a bad time.” Kate reached into her purse and pulled out a jewel case. It was the mix CD they’d cobbled together for a trip to New York City their senior year of high school. “Come with me, Camilla.”

After drying her eyes and packing a light bag, hitting “save” on her paper, she did just that. Sure, it was impulsive, but she’d been an exemplary student all year, and was entitled to this. She’d worry about everything when she was sober enough to care. Maybe she’d be having so much fun, she still wouldn’t. Just maybe.

* * *

“I wouldn’t be too scared of him hitting on you,” Kate assured Camilla as they made tracks down the interstate, “if I were you.” They’d just been talking about her brother’s hormonal levels of flirtation back when they were teenagers. How he always seemed to hover around whenever Camilla came by to study or sleep over. He was so obvious, even their little sister in grade school razzed him at the time.

Hills and meadows whizzed along as Kate drove on, GPS navigating her onto a rural route. “He’s got a girlfriend now, incidentally. Though I guess seeing as you’re actually making the trip with me, I can admit that once I suggested bringing you along, he didn’t shut up about it. ‘Oh man, Cammy might be coming?’ ‘You said Cammy’s visiting too, right?’ ‘Make sure to get Cammy, it’s been years!’”

She chuckled as Camilla groaned. “It’s not like that!” Kate cried, playfully hitting her friend on the shoulder. “He loves you. My whole family loves you.” What Camilla didn’t want to dig up from underneath the topsoil of her repression, and confess to Kate (much less herself), was that she always had a little thing for Brandon, too. But brother and sister were awfully close, and even if they hadn’t been, she’d still feel weird.

Plus, he wasn’t really her type, anyhow. Too much of a muscle-bro for her tastes. “I always hated when he called me that,” Camilla remembered. “Nobody else, and I mean nobody, has ever called me that! Not my grandma, not my kindergarten teacher, not—” She gasped as the car lurched to a crawl. The windows had been rolled down for the better part of the ride, and now the strong, slow country air pooled in, as thick as custard. It was startling and different.

The dirt road the girls now had to take was shielded by a magnificently tall sign, reading, “Cherub Cove: If You Lived Here, You’d Be Holy By Now”, with crosses at either side of the message. It was rough going on the way, like the cramped path was intended strictly for pre-automobile vehicles. It took a minute to trundle a couple dozen feet forward on it, looking to stretch at least a few miles long. Kate drove on it for ten unchecked minutes in her decade-old sedan.

“This can’t be good for your tires,” Camilla supposed, trying to not even silently judge her friend’s brother’s new born-again devotion (something Kate failed to mention at all), or the necessity of this trip in general. “No, I don’t think so, either,” Kate said, stopping her car and fumbling to get her phone out in trepidation. “Let me just give Brandon a—eep!” Rattled, she showed her cell to Camilla. She’d never seen anything like it.

The device was just a baseline model, a standard issue far less impressive than a smartphone, but the display on the screen nevertheless now showed a perfectly-rendered chalice, gleaming gold in high definition. The cryptic request, YOUR SERVICE IS NEEDED, blinked on and off, varying in color among red, white and blue. “Kinda creepy,” shuddered Camilla, downplaying just how frustrated and freaked out she was. “I’ll just try him on mine. What’s his num—”

Same chalice, same message. She felt almost like she had contracted a disease, and limply let her phone fall to the floor out of shock, waiting a bit sheepishly before picking it back up and trying in vain to unlock it, or turn it off, even. No dice. “‘Your service is needed’?!” she raged, agitated. “What the fuck does that even mean?” It seemed like more of a command at this point. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and sharp, vaguely hyperventilated breaths were threatening to give way to a big burst of blubbering.

Kate wanted nothing more than to rein in her friend’s threadbare nerves. “Camilla! Get a grip!” Though what was going on was more of a disturbingly absurd inconvenience than a definite danger, it was still easier said than done. There was no one travelling toward them that they could see down the road, and nobody behind them. Overgrowth, prickers, and tough knotted vines cluttered it at either side, allowing no room to stop off, and worse, no room to turn around. They’d somehow made it past a rather sizeable ditch in one piece. The only sign of civilization was the distant hum of a tractor some miles away.

Both of the girls were working up a considerable coat of nervous sweat now, helped along by the area’s seeming oasis of unseasonable heat and humidity. This part of Pennsylvania in mid-April approximated southern Georgia in the thick of August. It had been rather brisk and rainy back in the city, and they apparently came overdressed for this hazy, soupy unreality. Kate rolled her jeans up and got down to her tanktop. Camilla’s mind froze as the rest of her cooked in corduroy and flannel.

It was getting awfully muggier, the temperature seeming to jump up another five degrees. Like the dewpoint was controlled by the girls’ anxiety. “Just breathe like I am,” Kate urged, and in a couple settling moments, Camilla’s rapid, overwhelmed intake had slowed to nearly match the natural ebb and flow of the dense, lush greenery around them.

She hadn’t asked Camilla to draw deep inhalations afterward, though, but found herself copying her out of some reflex: a repetition of long, alternating mouth and nasal breaths. The rhythm inexplicably served to dunk the both of them into the boiling broth of all that was seen and unseen, there on the dirt road to Cherub Cove.

* * *

The two peach-red, doused ladies, after a couple dozen or so cycles of this, had shared a lapse in cognition. It had to have lasted about a minute or an hour. Maybe both? Neither of them were quite certain just how long they were simply sitting there in Kate’s parked car, invisible paperweights on their bottom lips, before Camilla pushed hers to say something. It took some minutes of effort, as her face was all gummed up from goopy sweat and jellied jungle mist.

On her fourth try, she was, at last, able to work her messy mouth around the sentence fragment she sluggishly threw together. The three previous attempts only served to make her resemble some half-gestated fish-woman hybrid. Her lips had opened quite violently for air, then smacked shut, as if gluing to themselves, partway through the single syllable of the first word. She was successful only after balling her tongue and forcing a good amount of slime out that way, like blowing a dart.

What Camilla needed to say couldn’t possibly wait any longer. It was imperative and worth risking suffocation to get it all out: “Milk and cotton candy.” Not “This is fucking crazy!” or “We have to find someone who can help us before we get rooted here!” She paused, unsticking her lips with greater results. “It smells like milk and cotton candy around here.” She should have framed her realization in the past tense, though, because she couldn’t smell a thing now.

Sure, she was doing a good job getting the green gunk off her mouth and around it, but she hadn’t yet picked it out of her nostrils. The sweet musty jam had darkened and hardened on top of her winter clothes, like a leaden lime rind, leaving her unable to. Her limbs were anchored down and useless, pinned to Kate’s car seat. She didn’t know if Kate was changing too, and had no way of craning her carbon dioxide-starved stem to inspect. She suspected as such, though. Her friend’s silence (excepting a bubbly gurgle and miscellaneous liquid sounds) spoke verdant volumes.

The weirdest thing about it all was that it didn’t seem weird, at all. The more she just resigned herself to the oppressive heat, the less of a problem it became. If her lips hadn’t soldered themselves shut again, and probably for good this time, she might have been inclined to grin. So what if she was more plant-girl than girl-girl now (and would, in due time, become more plant than anything)? All she had to do was keep quiet, hang out in one place, and let her chlorophyll provide for her.

Like an all-natural beach bum. Or a real sun-kissed flower child.