Chapter 12

June, 2024. Julie Lambert.

The Coordinator’s fall from grace was apocalyptic. Julie never again saw her in-person after prom night. As soon as she got home, though, she dismantled both curse-boxes. Both of her enemies had done more than enough to destroy themselves already — making either act irrational any longer would simply appear to give them a mental health excuse for their behavior. As it was, DB was simply a girl who couldn’t lie well, and all the Coordinator’s erratic behavior was limited to the privilege walk and the prom itself. It could be seen as a credible if extreme psychotic break in a sexually repressed person under pressure.

Journalists swarmed the school, but faculty didn’t let them inside. The Coordinator was arrested, and remanded for psychiatric evaluation (which, as the curse-box was dismantled, she passed). Media attention focused on her activities as a corrupt activist, however. It obviously came out that she’d fixed the prom for the girl she fucked very quickly — Janet Virmire gave interviews about being intimidated by her into fixing the ballots. Media notice also came to the borderline-abusive privilege walks, with the sobbing students and jocks kneeling in their underwear. Even that, though, was not the biggest scandal.

Alison Dikscheide had covered up rapes and tried to orchestrate a hate crime. She’d tried to goad Toshia Köhler into running for prom queen, while also using sockpuppets to agitate far-right students into ‘punishing her arrogance’. The plan fell apart when one of her self-selected fascists, Donny Broekner, softened his views midway through the semester. Being a paranoid conspiracy nut, he’d figured out some technical similarities between her DEO and sockpuppet postings, and brought this to the attention of her boyfriend Lorcan Flannigan. And that, as they say, was that. Lorcan and Donny gave their evidence to reporters on both sides of the fence, and Dikscheide confessed a week later.

The DEO was entirely scrapped, and the Student Services Office was quickly reinstated. The story made national news. Wokeness got a lot less popular nationally, for the duration of the current news cycle at least. Randy Beumiller and Jim Peterson had their expulsions rescinded. The Stallions were re-instated in time to play the final game of the school year. All the sensitivity training was scrapped.

There were a lot of faculty heads on the chopping block for letting the scene at the prom go on as long as it did — and for letting Dikscheide have free reign at the school even before that — but one thing the PTA, school board and City Council all agreed on was that the school year would finish normally and the students would graduate on time. After missing one year due to COVID and ‘equity,’ the parents and the powers that be simply would not tolerate another lost year under any circumstance. So Julie’s final month of school went down in a manner so normal as to be surreal, under the circumstances.

Dwight Pendelaro got outed as the locker room recorder during the investigation of the DEO, and several dads were discussing a lawsuit against his family. Brett Tollard caught up with him after graduation and beat the shit out of him. His family decided not to press charges. MWA did, indeed, make it on Carlson. Again. Repeatedly.

The scandal became a national talking point during election season due to its combination of salacious appeal, political context, mockability, labyrinthine twists and sheer bizarreness. It was like the January 6th hearings, but with hamsters, cake and titty vids instead of nerdy PowerPoint demos — which was probably why people actually paid attention to it. It affected the national discourse and seriously fucked with the Democratic primaries, as the DNC swerved to try to get a less woke candidate for president in — Julie expected them to end up with a fairly sane centrist instead of the presumptive Squad puppet, though it wasn’t clear how long it would be in court. Still, she thought it an optimistic sign for the direction of the nation when a presidential election included a viable, major-party candidate who wasn’t a deranged narcissist. There might even be two of them, depending how the Republican primaries went.

Alison Dikscheide faced a wide variety of legal charges, and pundits predicted her trials would draw national attention and help to tear down or at least retard the very social movement she had devoted her life to promoting. It was not a great time for progressive politics overall, but if there was one thing the notoriously schismatic progressives could agree on it was how much they all hated Alison Dikscheide and her utilitarian non-ethics. As a figure of national ridicule akin to Jussie Smolett, she did not have a bright career ahead of her.

Troy earned ever-lasting bro-cred and kudos from the fraternity set for getting his rod polished by the Coordinator at prom. Miraculously, he didn’t get expelled for fucking a faculty member — likely because the interim administration didn’t want to justify any expulsions while the scandal was still boiling. He was slowly realizing his act was going to define him for the rest of his life, however — he was all over the tabloids. At least he had clear verbal consent on record!

His athletic scholarship offers all dried up instantly, of course. It wasn’t clear if he’d get accepted by any university at this point, given his ‘fame’. If he did, it would probably be a party school with influential frats. That suited him, and his grades were mediocre anyway. Julie had heard rumors he was thinking of opening an OnlyFans after graduation. He was handsome and ripped enough to pull it off, but he didn’t exactly have a giant cock and even if he did those platforms weren’t as generous to hot straight guys as they were to pretty girls. But Julie didn’t think her spell influenced Troy, so his future wasn’t her top concern. Given his publicity and the scandal footage, ending up some kind of dudebro-flavored influencer might actually be his best outcome.

By the end of July, Roborovski hamsters were designated an invasive species in Hobbs State Park. By the end of August, that applied to the state of Arkansas as a whole — recent heat waves and other effects of climate change had altered the biome just enough for them to take hold explosively, as it more came to resemble their native desert habitat. This also meant everyone in Arkansas learned about Marvin’s experiment and the AFHU — and which side genuinely bore the blame. Stories of his abuse got out, and at least in Arkansas public sympathy was firmly on his side. Bringing an AK-47 to prom tends to polarize public opinion, after all — even if that was the one and only thing the actual AFHU members probably weren’t complicit in. All the TikTok videos they made describing their Utopian hamster experiment turned out not to hold up so well when viewed with interest from outside their normal ideological bubble.

After graduation, Marvin secured a very lucrative contract with the State of Arkansas for a patent on a humane chemical sterilant designed for use on hamsters. How much it was a sympathy prize could be debated, but his stuff did work. He also started getting in shape and looked better — well, somewhat — and Julie heard he and Pink Highlights Bonnie were going steady. She might still be a bit out of his league, but at this point they definitely had things in common, and she likely felt she had a debt to him as well. So maybe the kid wasn’t so dumb after all. He still sucked at algebra, though.

PHB did also get her fifteen minutes of fame. Her speech went viral, getting tens of millions of views on YouTube. She got a bunch of news interviews, a guest appearance on Gutfeld and a book deal — and stood to make a ton of money. She even got an invitation to an interview at a Chappelle comedy special. She actually rejected a Carlson appearance in spite of a five-figure payout — she couldn’t abide his attitude to the Ukraine war (among other things). Principled young lady. Tucker might say things that needed to be said at times, but he was also a cunt in a wide variety of different ways.

Still, PHB was in demand. That was good, Julie reasoned, since in the age of the smartphone words are forever and no publicly traded corporation would ever dare hire her. Her career choices were now likely limited to celebrity blogger, Vox News anchor, talk radio pundit or a constant stream of low-paying precarious jobs before the woke mob again managed to find and pressure her employer du jour to let her go. Actually, she was probably pretty well set up to be a firebrand pundit — she was pretty, wholesome, smart, politically erudite and strikingly charismatic when she wanted to be. Julie wasn’t sure how that life would affect her anxiety issues, though. Whether or not her fate was overall a positive one remained to be seen.

“I had to do it,” she confessed Julie on her last night in Bentonville. “I knew that speech wasn’t wise, but it was necessary. If I just kept thinking it and never said it, I wouldn’t be able to keep looking myself in the mirror every morning. I’d have put a bullet in my head eventually. As screwed as I realize I am on some fronts right now, I feel weirdly optimistic. It’s like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Whatever else happens, at least I’m not holding it all in any more.”

Julie nodded. “When one listens to a debate that transfixes society and comes to the conclusion that both sides are equally psychotic and detached from reality, it becomes a moral duty to speak out. Mere sanity becomes the most eminent of all qualifications for punditry.”

PHB grinned. “You do get it.”

“I just hope everything turns out okay for you. Get money and save it. Make contacts. Don’t get used as a puppet by the far right, and never trust anyone that says they’re your friend. There are people out there right now sitting in their homes, premeditatedly brainstorming the most effective ways to destroy your reputation, your whole life. Be careful.”

“Oh, Julie, you’re so wise, and so weird — but you’re also so cautious. We’re teenagers. Sometimes the world needs teenagers to be foolish and just seize the moment. We’re like cosmic radiation. We bend and break rules so that newer, better systems emerge in their place. Teenagers are society’s antibodies against authoritarianism.”

“You’re right, PeeBee, and at the end of the day you’re braver than I am. I salute you.”

“I owe you, though. I really do. You listen, and you point things out. That speech I made ... I mean, you can probably tell I’d thought a lot of it out ahead of time. It was things I needed to say, even if I didn’t know if there’d ever be a good opportunity to say them. I was ... if we didn’t each say what we did, back in the cafeteria, that speech ... I would have said things harsher. Like that men are men and women are women, and anyone else thinking otherwise is fucked up and needs help. It’s easy, when your future has been fucked up by woke people, to end up leaning too far the other way. I’m glad those aren’t the words I went on public record with. It still would have sold, I think, but I wouldn’t be as proud of it.”

Julie hugged PHB. No one spoke for a minute or so. “I believe,” Julie finally said softly, “that the world will be sane again. Someday. I believe Americans will once again be one people undivided — and not under the terms of the woke, either. And I believe you brought that day closer than it otherwise would have been.”

PHB nodded. “It’s a dream worth fighting for, even if it gets you cancelled and wrecks your future. And, in the end, I do believe those things too. Optimism is good. We need more of it.”

Julie just hugged her friend. There was nothing else she left to say. PHB had jumped on a grenade for her. Without her speech, media attention might have focused far more on Julie herself and her role in thwarting the AFHU. She knew PHB had done what she couldn’t — an Adept could never attract that kind of publicity. It would make them a liability to the True Lodges. She’d have to be more distant with Bonnie Díaz in the future, to keep her out of the twilight world she lived in. She’d still keep an eye out for her, though. She owed her that, at least. Maybe I wasn’t the Mockingjay, or the protagonist in any of those other cheesy YA dystopian novels. Maybe I was just a supporting character that gives the real hero a bit of wisdom and support when she needs it most...

Julie had never intended the curse-box to lead to events as flashy and overt as what went down at her prom. It didn’t exactly violate the Praei Silentum, but it brushed the edges of it by drawing so much mundane media attention. So she underwent a period of quiet tension and fear for a few days after everything went down. Surely some other Adepts would suspect esoteric intervention in the Magnolia West Academy scandal. As it turned out, though, she needn’t have worried.

The True Lodges had a deep respect for the British monarchy dating back to Robert Boyle, Sir Francis Drake, Doctor Dee and the Royal Society. They weren’t very woke to begin with, and after the way leftist intelligentsia treated Elizabeth II — on the very day of her passing, no less — the philosophy of wokeism wasn’t going to be making any grand inroads into Hermetic circles. So Julie knew she needn’t be worried about occult retaliation — at least, not from the True Lodges proper, and she was still under their protection as a Practicus.

Lord Elkridge, Magister Templi and Imperator of the Royal Academy of Esoteric Studies, called her up to invite her to London — at his expense! — to share a few glasses of bourbon. Certainly a prestigious honor in the occult world. So she called in sick to school for three days, boarded a private Cessna Citation Longitude and took in a pub crawl Mahogany Row style beside a duo of British aristocrats with a solid five centuries of life experience between them.

The overall subtext was that people in high places were both amused by her actions, and pleased with their impact on the national political discourse. That was important, as it meant less people would want to kill her — and her political protection was very much affirmed. The True Lodges had pulled strings to keep her name and role in thwarting the AFHU downplayed in the media, for which she was grateful. She was even able to secure something of an aegis for Lorcan, who ended up on registries as a friend to the True Lodges.

The pendulum, tragically, was still swinging. Perhaps Julie and PHB had slowed it ever so slightly. That was, really, as much as any human being could hope for. They was still just two out of 8.1 billion, Adept or not. Julie knew she had no right to expect more. It looked like the Republicans were surging on culture war issues. Most of them wanted to ban drag queens and CRT in classrooms (wonderful!), criminalize social media censorship (great!) or even ban corporate diversity training in general (nifty!) — but a bunch also wanted a universal ban on gender-affirming surgery (definitely not wonderful!), and some kooks even wanted to revert gay marriage (comedically stupid as both strategy and policy). Everyone on both sides still seemed to be running the Rule of Dopamine electoral strategy.

A gubernatorial candidate in Missouri ran on the total trans-ban platform — and polls said, at the height of the Dikscheide scandal, he was set to win. Julie, being responsible for the scandal, felt a need to do something. By a complicated stratagem she obtained a sympathetic link and built a curse-box for him similar to DB’s — just making him more candid and open with his true views. It was entertaining, seeing him spontaneously explain the true and secret meaning behind the Book of Revelation during a live Vox News interview. After that, the polls certainly did not have him in a winning position. Why are these kinds of theocrats never theologically literate? Similar candidates at least dialed back their more radical rhetoric for a brief time.

She didn’t feel at all comfortable with this, though. It again risked attracting attention from other Adepts, and the ethics were deeply questionable. I’m acting like one of the Secret Masters of History, now, deciding politics with means mundanes aren’t even aware exist! It’s morally grotesque! Radicalism can not cure radicalism! If she was serious about slowing the pendulum, she reasoned, more mundane and patient methods would be called for. Over the next year she could get on Robin Hood and get together money to donate to sane and moderate politicians. That was how the system was supposed to work, right? Slowing PHB’s pendulum could become a lifetime calling, honestly. She had to think more about if that’s what she wanted from her life, and if so how she wanted to approach it.

Decepticon Bonnie’s final month of school was not an especially enjoyable one. If it went on longer than a month, Julie would have felt pretty bad. She essentially became an outcast, trying to avoid other students as much as possible. Julie never sought direct retaliation for DB’s theft of the tiara. She didn’t set anything up. She didn’t have to — she had suitors. Lots of them. She was, after all, the Dream Girl of Magnolia West Academy. Every boy in school was eager to impress her, and they all knew what DB had done — including the daring, larcenous and creative ones.

It started the week after prom. During the night, someone smuggled a live skunk into the school and hid it in Decepticon Bonnie’s locker. She took it right in the face when she went to get her first period chemistry textbook. She made use of language almost as rancid as the stench, too, as her classmates helped her to the school nurse’s office (as well as expression some rather outré ideas about skunks, chemtrails and Bolivian intelligence agencies — Julie wondered if her curse-boxes were habit-forming).

Three days later, a different enterprising prankster managed to lure an antelope out of Hobbs State Park to the east and into the swimming pool in the back yard of her family’s property. Lest anyone mistake the intent of the deed, said pranksters draped a colorful sash with the words “Affirmative Action Prom Queen” around the beast’s neck which remained there even when Animal Control arrived to contain it. Really, who would try to take such a thing off a panicked antelope?

Do you know the kind of sounds an antelope makes when unexpectedly dropped in water? Well, neither does Julie, and she’s really smart. Bonnie Kellerman does, though.

All of this was really only the lead-up, though. The pièce de résistance came a few nights before graduation. Determined not to be shown up by the previous tricksters, a trio of absolute mad lads stole a helicopter from the local news station, raided the town zoo and air-dropped a meter-long alligator adorned with a similar sash on the roof of Decepticon Bonnie’s house. It was probably just intended as a nuisance to get down. Regrettably, thanks to recent heat waves, she had made the unfortunate decision to sleep with her skylight open.

She didn’t actually get eaten. Rumor has it she did wet herself, though, and get chased through wholesome suburban streets by a somewhat lethargic reptile while clad only in her panties. She did not attend the school graduation ceremony, though she did manage to graduate. She left town very shortly after, changing her name, look and hair color in pursuit of some much-needed anonymity. Bonnie Kellerman had learned, over the period of a month, to really hate the rumor mill.

Even though she had no role in them, the pranks had elevated Julie’s own status in the town’s legendary, making her the archetypal maiden to be won by amusing masculine derring-do. Phone vids of her dancing sexy in a translucent wet dress going viral on the Internet certainly helped with that as well. That nobody won her (in the waking world, at least) didn’t dilute the potency or pathos of the stories. If anything, it made her into an unattainable ideal, and conveyed the idea that merely striving for her attention was a coming-of-age rite in itself. She had been woven into the zeitgeist of a whole generation of horny young men (and no few women). She had not managed to become a prom queen, but she had become a legend instead. It really is better to be loved than feared. It may not last as long, but when it does fade you will still have true friends at your side.

July 17th, 2024. Julie Lambert.

Julie sat in a folding chair out on the main lawn in front of MWA as the acting principal gave a boring, stodgy graduation speech. The remaining Angels — DB and Jen had dropped off the squad after prom — sat together on the left-side front row, while the Stallions sat together on the right side. All the students looked majestic in their cap and gown regalia. “And that’s why this say it’s my especial honor to usher our proud young graduates of MWA into the adult world of social responsibilities and fiscal obligations!”

The pudgy man made a grandiose gesture, and a large banner unfurled across the stage. It had apparently been tampered with, however. “Congratulations! 2024 Graduating Class of the Bentonville School of Erotic Massage!”

The principal stared, horrified. The graduates all burst out laughing. A synth-metal score underscored the outbreak of spontaneous hooting and dancing. Troy stood up and sauntered up to the acting principal, shoving him off the stage and seizing the podium. “Hey, y’all! We’re free! We made it; we survived high school in the age of plague, madness, smart phones and ball-busting bitches like Alison Dikscheide! Now that’s something to celebrate! But going out into the adult world, it’s important to have skills that are both marketable and personally satisfying to practice — and I need to say, for me personally, adult massage is at the top of the list! That’s why I’ve taken the effort to put together a little career skills presentation for all of you today that I think you’ll find pretty entertaining...”

It was a dream, obviously. Technically, it was Troy’s turn to get in a wet dream about Julie — but this one was going to be a bit different than all the others. It was what Julie thought of as a broadcast dream. She’d gotten hair clippings from many of her close friends and contacts when they went as a graduating class for complimentary haircuts, and refined and altered the dream-walking spell to create a kind of communal version. The real graduation had been very sedate and controlled, with police everywhere — the last thing MWA wanted was another formal event spiraling out of control. No student speakers were permitted due to heightened tensions and security was oppressive keeping reporters interested in the Dikscheide scandal out. It was a bit of a drag, honestly — enough so, apparently, that Troy’s fantasy was going to be a better graduation ceremony; a raunchier one.

Julie had set up some ground rules. Anyone could leave the dream any time they wanted. Everyone was under a post-hypnotic suggestion to respect the emerging couples and pairings, even though they all thought it was their own dream. Everyone also knew, on some subconscious level, that this was for fun and there were no real consequences to anything here. Everyone was more relaxed about public sexual things, too, and tended to take what was happening as normal — Julie had strengthened the octagonal mirror warding in her orrery. And no one would remember the dream — a one-time blessing from Hypnos. It had taken a lot of prep-work and mystic energy, but Julie was newly free and felt indulgent. She wanted to share her sense of joy with her friends — and she was sure they were all going to enjoy the celebration.

There were four Asian-style massage tables on stage, complete with bedstands full of towels and massage oil. It looked like props ripped from porn videos more than a real massage parlour either respectable or adult, though. It was at least upscale. Troy grinned. “I’d like to invite Bonnie Conkler, Deon LaVelle, Nora Alders, Bonnie Liu, Marvin Stockman, Bonnie Díaz, Brett Tollard and Bonnie Lowenthal to come up on stage. Yes, it’s mandatory — you should be confident in your new career skills!”

The students hooted and cheered as the selected classmates — about two-thirds of the real people actually in the dream — stepped up. RB, Nora and PHB — the ‘good girls’ — all blushed and looked a bit reluctant. They weren’t, mind you — it was just socially customary for them to act like they were. And sexy — their reluctance was more than a bit sexy to Julie. She wasn’t at all upset at not being called up herself. The dream had imagery taken from Troy’s mind and fantasies, but Julie was in essence writing the dream-script on this one. She had a decisive idea of how she wanted it to end, but she was quite willing to play voyeur for a bit before it got there.

She’d realized being in control would be essential, if she wanted to pull off a big group dream and actually have everyone have fun. Being lucid and aware, and knowing everybody involved fairly well, she trusted herself to script a dream that didn’t cross anyone else’s limits and resulted in a fun time for all. As much as she liked everyone else, she knew she couldn’t trust them that way. After all, they weren’t even aware other people were actually involved.

The students invited on stage lined up. Troy stood between Nora and 8HB to continue his parody speech. “Now, as you all know we’ve had a final year of high school full of fiery ideological debate. I don’t claim to follow these things as closely as some people, but I think the most central question is this: should high school be sexy? Is it still okay to have hot cheerleaders doing sexy dances in skimpy costumes on the football field 2024, and hot jocks railing hot cheerleaders in the parking lot after a big victory? How about you skinny nerds out there, getting way more pussy than anyone gives you credit for — like our resident GOAT Kevin Solentino, who apparently managed to tap two Angels in one night and still had time left over for cock? Anytime I hear people raggin’ on the guy, I just have to laugh. If the very tape you use to condemn him is actually accurate, he’s more of a man than any of you fuckers will ever be!”

That’s an odd sentiment from Troy, who Julie always thought of as one of the jocks more likely to be prejudiced. How much of that was just resentment of the DEO? It’s a shame he was sticking up for Kev in front of an audience he thought was real and Julie knew was imaginary, but at least the sentiment was there. “So what do you all think? Should high school be sexy, or is that inappropriate in 2024? Is the world actually full-on pussified, or are we still allowed to throw wild bingers, put spy cameras in the girls’ locker room, snort cocaine in class and smash total hotties like it’s going out of style? What do you say?”

“Fuck yeah!” the whole student body shouted back in perfect unison (absent Coach Larkin, who looked disturbed). Their agreement probably has something to do with them being imagos from Troy’s imagination, mind you. That didn’t explain Julie’s own cheer, however. Am I developing a fetish for the concept of inappropriate behavior in and of itself? Is that even possible?

“It’s a fascinating question with many different dimensions we could contemplate,” Troy continued, “but let’s all be honest here. Wouldn’t you rather contemplate these dimensions?”

In a single smooth gesture, Troy grabbed the backs of Nora and PHB’s gowns and tore them off — the garments might as well be tissue paper, for all the resistance they put up. For whatever reason, both girls had fancy lingerie on underneath. Nora had a sheer, loose-flowing white nightgown with a ruffled trim; Julie could see the shadow of her nipples and bush through the gossamer fabric. PHB had a black lacy bustier with neon pink highlights matching her money piece, sheer black stockings, a black lace garter belt and lacy wristlets. They both looked absolutely gorgeous, though of course Nora’s abundant assets stole every male gaze. The shocked and defrocked students screamed and covered themselves performatively, yet hardly seem truly traumatized.

The other students on stage laughed at the two girls’ misfortune. Brett ogled Nora’s abundant attributes, laughing, while Marvin only seemed to have eyes for PHB’s girlish frame. With a wicked smirk, 80s-hair Bonnie grabbed Brett and Marvin’s own robes and tore them free. It looked like Troy hadn’t bothered to give the men any underwear whatsoever, so they were buck-naked on stage, hands clasped over their junk. Marvin was Marvin in this dream, not Dorn, but he had a decidedly idealized physique. He’d been working out, Julie knew, together with PHB — but she doubted he’d made that much progress. Well, it was an aspirational vision, then. Pink Highlights Bonnie apparently thought pretty highly of his aspirations, too.

Deon came up behind 80s-hair Bonnie and tore her own robe off in retaliation. Yikes! 8HB definitely got the spiciest lingerie — a kind of body-conformant lacy minidress with an open v-neck fishnet weave. It really made her already impressive cleavage pop — she couldn’t compete with Nora up top, but she could easily be a centerfold. She didn’t bother to cover herself, either, instead biting a fingernail, posing and flashing a flirty look at the crowd. She was such a showoff. Honestly, though, that bod was only a bit idealized — given the time Julie put in at the gym with her, she’d earned the right to flaunt it a bit.