Chapter 4: Bargaining

Amy's thoughts drifted back into the present and she tried to focus on her two guests. She pushed the old feelings away and looking over at the teenager and her hunky older boyfriend—her heart felt the return of the jealousy which had so consumed her lately. Their meal was nearly finished, and Amy's plans were on schedule.

When she began clearing the table of empty plates, Stacy started to help. Despite Amy's protests, she wouldn't stop and Amy had to hold back the angry insults that were flooding her mind.

In the kitchen, Stacy began stacking dishes next to the sink while Amy started washing them. When she knocked over a dishtowel and a scrap of paper, she knelt to pick it up. She couldn't help but read the handwritten title on note—'Getting Keith for Myself and Destroying that Teenage Slut!' The title was underlined four times. Stacy had to read it twice just to be sure.

She pocketed the note quickly and said, "I'll go check if there are any more dishes on the table."

Stacy hurriedly entered the dining room, pulling the note out and shoving it at Keith, hissing quietly, "Look! I accidentally found this!"

Keith took the note and his eyes shot open in surprise. He quickly scanned the list of tasks and saw that Amy actually planned to take her revenge on Stacy and try to break them up tonight by using the 'Vulcan drug' on them. He was then relieved when he realized she'd scheduled when she'd take her dose and it had yet to happen. She wasn't going to take a dose until after she served dessert.

"She's was going to try to use 'Vulcan' on us!" Keith whispered.

"What is your history with this woman?!" Stacy asked.

"I don't have a history with her. I met her about an hour before I met you in front of your house! We can't let her do this though. Some of the things she has planned for you are just sick. Let's get out of here."

Stacy stopped him, "We can't just leave. She'll just find another time to do this. We've got two choices—we either let her do her thing, but swear to each other that no matter what happens, we're still together..."

"I don't like that option at all, I don't think you read this list. Some of these things aren't just degrading, they're downright evil," Keith answered.

"Or," Stacy continued, "We can try and outfox her. Beat her at her own game."

Keith nodded, "I like that plan better."

While the two of them discussed their strategy, Amy was going over her own. She had a near-perfect memory for things she wrote down, so she mentally went over her plan in her head while she washed the dishes. It might seem odd that Amy was washing the dishes by hand in a posh apartment, but Amy grew up in orphanages and foster care, it was basically a given that she learned how to do dishes in her childhood, and though most of her foster parents tried to make her do the dishes as a punishment or a chore—she actually liked it.

Amy liked the simple repetitive action, the warm water, and the time it allowed her to spend in her own head. She was a bit excited about tonight's ... activities. Her jealousy and anger were fueling her thoughts.

When she finished cleaning the dishes and had set them all in a rack to dry, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out the chocolate éclairs she'd bought. While the rest of her meal had been homemade, she really enjoyed these éclairs from a local bakery, so she'd bought half a dozen just for tonight.

When she sat down with the éclairs, Stacy said, "Oh! We're out of wine. I'll get another bottle."

Stacy hurried into the kitchen and made a quick search of the fridge until she found what she was looking for. The dosages were quite a bit more than the ones Keith still had in his own fridge, but she'd had to wait to try 'Vulcan' until her medical tests came back.

Keith and Stacy had discussed who would take the drug while Amy had been finishing the dishes. Stacy was eager to try the drug, and Keith was wary of them both using it—so far, none of the tests on 'Vulcan' had studied the effects of what happened when two people used the drug simultaneously, and he didn't want to be a true guinea pig tonight.

Keith also was wary of him using the drug alone, considering some of the things they might do to Amy to punish her, he might be so aroused he might order Stacy to do something she might not want to do. He figured that Stacy wouldn't order him to do anything he wouldn't want to do anyway, so she was the likely choice for tonight's 'counter-revenge'.

Stacy quickly snapped the stopper off one of the vials and upended the liquid into her mouth. She quickly understood why it was better to mix it into a drink—the drug tasted vile. But she swallowed it all down and grabbed a new bottle of wine.

Keith had told her a lot about the 'Vulcan drug' over the course of the last week, so she knew how it worked, mostly, and she understood that it's limits were still untested, but that she could basically get Amy to do anything with verbal commands. She understood the drug wouldn't really work too well with non-verbal 'thought' commands since Amy was a woman and those generally only worked when the two people were of the opposite sex.

Not that it mattered much—Keith and Stacy would want Amy to understand that she was being used, abused, and manipulated for her attempt to drive them apart. They wanted her to suffer tonight and to learn that she couldn't just force her way into Keith's heart and abuse Stacy just because Keith cared about her.

After a few minutes of enjoying the éclairs and a new bottle of wine, Keith nodded slightly to Stacy, telling her to give the drug a try now. Stacy knew it would take a few minutes to come into effect, and now it was probably working.

Stacy said, "So, Amy ... other than dinner, did you have any big plans this evening?"

Amy smiled, "Yes. I was planning to use the 'Vulcan drug' to drive you and Keith apart." Amy suddenly snapped her mouth shut, thinking, 'Did I just really say that? Out loud?'

Stacy nodded, "I see. And how did you plan to drive Keith and I apart?"

Amy said, "I was going to force Keith to watch as the boys who live next door come over and pull a train on you." Amy's thoughts flashed back over the evening's events, 'Did I accidentally put the drug in one of these éclairs or something? How do they know what I was planning?'

"Interesting. So you planned on facilitating a rape, is that it?"

Amy nodded, "Yes. I think a teenage slut like you deserves to be treated like a slut."

Stacy frowned, "And why is it that I'm a slut?"

"Obviously because you just threw open your legs so Keith would start to fall in love with you."

"We just started dating. Why do you think Keith is falling in love with me?" Stacy asked.

Amy realized by now that Stacy was definitely using the 'Vulcan drug', and she tried vainly to fight the effects, "I ... he ... he told me himself on Monday. He ... he said he thought ... he was falling in love with you."

Stacy turned surprised to Keith, "Did you really say that!?"

Keith blushed, but answered compliantly, "Yes. I did."

"Did you mean it?"

"Of course," he replied.

"I love you too," Stacy said. It wasn't a command, but deep inside him, Keith knew with every fiber of his being that Stacy did, in fact, love him. It may have been an effect of the drug, but Keith didn't care. He suddenly felt so wonderful and loved and it didn't matter if the feeling was part of a mind-altering drug effect.

Stacy turned back to Amy who had started to get up from the table. Amy wanted to get her own dose of the drug before things got out of hand. Forcefully, Stacy ordered, "Sit your ass down! You're not doing anything tonight that I don't approve of. Understand?"

"Y-Yes," Amy whimpered.

"I found this in the kitchen," Stacy held up Amy's written plans for tonight's revenge activities, "and I was wondering ... would you enjoy it if these things you had planned for me were instead done to you?"

"NO! Please! Anything, I'll do anything but that. I wouldn't enjoy it at all!" Amy moaned.

Stacy grinned, "Now be completely honest. If I were to let you go now and Keith and I were to leave, would you try to steal him away from me again?"

Amy focused all her energy on a fruitless attempt to fight the drug's effect, "N-n- ... yes. Yes, I would." Amy slumped in her chair, exhausted from the effort that didn't work.

"Hrm. Well, it seems to me that there's really only one option for Keith and I then—we're just going to have to punish you, and then blackmail you. Do you have a video camera?"