Pill 5

Dosing Cheryl proved difficult.

She had a subtle distrust of people that I never noticed until I tried to get her a drink. At first, I thought she avoided allowing me do things for her because of our roles, but after a frustrating couple of days I paid closer attention to how she interacted with anyone near her.

It was small things.

Cheryl's body moved around people in an unconscious fashion, as if they were furniture that she did not want to bump into. Her shoulders tensed when someone came into physical contact with her, even for a handshake. She reacted to unexpected movement like an untrained fighter reacting to a feint.

My mother's awareness of Cheryl's behavior surprised me, which was followed by an intuitive leap that the two women shared certain mannerisms.

At the time though, these were only the symptoms of a problem I needed to overcome so I did not consider why the women behaved so strangely and similarly. I only cared that Cheryl's use of zealous solicitness to control her interactions with people was making it impossible to get what I wanted.

Week two of 'No thank you, David, but can I get you something?' placed me perilously close to the edge. It was the wrong time for someone to have a problem with Michelle becoming my girlfriend.

"I'm talking to you, asshole!" that someone yelled loudly.

It was a bright Monday morning and I was leaning against the building across from the doors I used to enter the school. As if my frustration with Cheryl were not bad enough, I spent a rare weekend alone because Maria acquired a new boyfriend, Michelle's parents grounded her over a massive fight with her older sister, and Miss Malone visited family.

I did not mean to ignore the individuals trying to get my attention: not that it would have made a difference had I been more attentive.

The small circle motion to trap the wrist of the hand that grabbed my arm was automatic. The grip released the instant I applied pressure.

"Don't do that again," I said without looking at who put their hand on me.

I had expected the confrontation, but not the location they chose.

"Leave him alone!" Michelle said loudly from the front of a growing crowd.

Our classmates smelled blood and gathered like vultures.

"Shut up, bitch!" one of the football team's sycophants growled.

I turned to see that four guys had chosen to put me back in what they thought was my place, two bootlickers and a pair of benchwarmers.

"Apologize to her," I said to the one that had spoken.

"Go fuck yourself!" he spat.

"I don't need to," I replied. "I have Michelle... you know, like the football team has your ass when the cheerleaders are at practice."

Everyone's heads snapped back at my words.

"The bitch is our property, faggot!" the bootlicker snarled.

"Let me get this straight," I said calmly. "This is about Michelle and me being an item, right? Yet the best insult you can come up with is calling me gay. If I were gay, there wouldn't be a problem, shit-for-brains. Unless of course, I had the same thing for your ass as the professional benchwarmers behind you do."

People rarely understand what it means to begin studying martial arts before full motor control is achieved. I thought differently about the situation than my opponents. My mind was calculating scenarios the instant they registered as a threat.

Even that did not explain what happened.

I moved before he realized he was going to throw a punch. I waited for his fist to arc towards where I had been so that everyone could see what he was doing before I attacked his strike.

I drove the edge of my hand into his shoulder as the punch overextended his arm. He screamed in reaction telling me I had done the damage I fully intended.

I moved backwards a couple of steps sliding along the wall. There had been no football players or their friends behind me but the circle of our classmates did not give me much room to maneuver. I needed some clearance, or I would get tangled in the people I wanted to put down.

The other bootlicker moved around his friend and threw a punch from somewhere in the next zip code. I let it miss and front kicked his thigh. The blow straightened his knee painfully, freezing him in place.

Two short driving steps were the lead in to a vicious, short left hook into his liver.

He crumpled with a groan.

I looked at the two football players and smiled.

The crowd tasted the promised blood and tightened behind the players to prevent escape. On a subconscious level, the two players must have felt our classmates' desire to see them torn down and get some of what they had been dishing out since we entered high school.

It forced the players to come at me.

It would have been easier for them if it had been one on one. They tried to work together; a mistake against a trained fighter who had faced sparring partners who knew how to do it correctly.

I slid to my left and they turned to continue facing me without realizing I had lined one behind the other. I feinted forward to draw the attack.

The first player threw a wild haymaker. I moved inside of his arm to rob it of any power. He was big so the contact still moved me but I grabbed his head to catch myself.

Two Mu-thai knees, left and right, into his ribcage made him tense and lower his head. I aided the head-dip down and drove up with my knee.

His nose lost the collision.

I let him go and shuffled to the right while twisting my head. The second player's punch impacted hard throwing me towards the wall. I relaxed letting my body absorb the contact with the wall. I put my hands on the wall and pushed off burying a sidekick into the second player's gut.

"David!" someone screamed getting between the fallen player and me.

My mind focused as the person put their hands on my chest and pushed back.

"Stop, David!" Miss Malone screamed. "We saw everything, David. It's okay."

She kept talking and pushing me until she pinned me against the wall with her body.

"It's over, David!" she said pleading with her eyes. "It's over!"

I looked over her shoulder to see some teachers breaking up the crowd while others kept the kids on the ground.

"What have you done, Master?" Miss Malone whispered looking behind her.

I sat quietly staring out the window in the principal's office.

The principal had carefully interviewed most of the people who witnessed the confrontation while waiting for the parents to arrive.

The parents of the boys stood up as soon as my mom entered the administrative office, but the principal deftly maneuvered everyone into his sanctum before the shouting began.

My mother was very attentive as the principal told us about the findings of his interviews; by coincidence two teachers had seen the entire thing and two others witnessed the second act between the football players and me.

The other parents constantly interrupted arguing that their 'precious angels' could not, would not, and did not do what the principal described. The thirty or so witnesses had to be wrong, and obviously I was the one that jumped their sons.

My mother dialing her cell phone silenced everyone.

"Hello, Gerald," she said sweetly into it. "Have you heard about what happened to my son in school this morning?"

The father of one of the sycophants stood up angrily.

"Yes, I know," my mother continued. "I can't believe the state of our schools. Your daughter is going to attend here next year, isn't she?"

I stood up when the father took a step towards my mother.

"We will be pressing charges against these boys," my mother said clearly. "I know, Gerald! Boys will be boys, but really to have four hoodlums attack my son is criminal. Can you imagine if it had been your little girl? There is a limit!"

My mother turned towards the other parents when the father who stood up took another step forward.

"David," the principal warned me as I smiled.

"You think your man enough, kid?" the father growled.

"Take another step towards my mom, and you'll be in the hospital bed next to your kid," I replied coldly.

"Can you hold on a second, Gerald?" my mom said into the phone. "It seems one of the boy's father wants to show me where his son learned his manners. I think he wants to be a co-defendant with his little boy."

"Enough!" the principal interrupted. "Everyone sit down and let's talk this through."

My mother shrugged and whispered into the phone before putting it away. She sat down raising an eyebrow to the standing father. I placed my chair between them when he sat down.

The parents were unsatisfied with the week suspension that the principal leveled on everyone involved in the fight. They thought I deserved far worse, and that their boys deserved much less.

The two police officers knocking on the door to get the list of witnesses from the principal silenced them. My mother walked out of the office with a smug smile on her face.

My father was very disappointed in me when he heard about the fight and gave me a long lecture about lowering myself to someone else's level.

Miss Malone's piano lessons were structured so that my mother could be taught and leave or choose to sit through mine. After the first couple of times, my mother always elected to leave and have Cheryl pick me up.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Miss Malone said after my mother left on our next schedule lesson time.

"I'd like to play first," I replied.

"Okay," she whispered playing her fingers through my hair.

Miss Malone allowed me to navigate my own way through the piano lessons. She was very good with technique and style but like my mother, her playing lacked a life of its own.

An hour later, my fingers came to a halt on top of the keys.

"You really should play professionally, David," Miss Malone sighed.

"I wouldn't love it then," I answered softly.

"No, you wouldn't," she said nodding.

She stood up and walked into the kitchen. I was sitting on the couch when she returned with a glass of water. I took a sip and watched her sit down next to me.

"So what happened, David?" she asked.

"It wasn't unexpected, Elizabeth," I said shrugging.

"Everybody knew it would happen eventually," she replied. "The bad seeds on the football team dislike you too much to let your refusal to kow-tow to them go."

"I don't remember an election where anybody voted them God's choir," I told her.

"This isn't the smart way to handle the situation, David," she insisted. "You could have avoided them."

"I don't think it's smart to eat cow shit for four years," I replied.

She was quiet for a few minutes before speaking again.

"You're good, David," she told me. "But not four to one good."

"They hesitated," I said shrugging. "It was really two to one and two to one."

"I saw the whole thing, Master," she told me. "You made it look too easy."

I nodded slowly.

"You haven't noticed the effects of your experience with the Pill?" she asked.

"I noticed a change in the dojo, but there are plateaus. I thought I crossed one," I said.

"How have you changed?" she asked.

"Better concentration and my body moves more naturally," I told her. "I did the forms under the influence of the Pill; it was one of the things I let myself remember."

"Do you remember anything else about your time under the Pill that could have changed you?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I destroyed everything... the videotapes and the notes of my instructions."

"Master, we have you put under the Pill again," she said. "We can't know what else you did to yourself."

"I only have three Pills left," I whispered.

Her teeth clicked as she her mouth snapped shut.

"You already know who you're going to use those Pills on," she said.

"One of them," I responded. "I have to save another in case you want be set free."

"I'll never want that, Master," she hissed.

"I have to save one in case I have to set you free," I said staring into her eyes.

She looked away, but her hand grabbed mine tightly.

"That still leaves you a Pill," she pointed out.

"Just one," I said quietly. "And I don't know if I did anything bad to myself anyway."

"But Master," she pursued nervously.

I reached over and grabbed a handful of her hair. My slave's eyes softened as I smiled at her and guided her head to my groin.

I liked it.

I had noticed the change in my martial arts classes, but put it down to having reached a new plateau where my body and mind were closer to being one. The fight left me with no corner to hide from the truth.

I liked what I had done to Maria and Michelle.

I enjoyed looking at Miss Malone in class and knowing I could take her on top of the school desk if that was what I wanted.

I loved smashing that asshole's nose on my knee.

I liked the power.

"Hey, little bro," Cheryl said the next afternoon sitting down on the basement sofa. "How are you enjoying your vaca... I mean, your suspension?"

I gave her a smile, which she returned. She put a full sports drink down on the table.

"I thought your mom was going to come down on you hard with something like a six-month grounding," she told me.

"They jumped me," I pointed out. "I was only defending myself."

"You get into a fight with four guys; they end up in the hospital for at least the morning, and you were ONLY defending yourself," she said raising an eyebrow. "Come on, little bro!"

Before the Pill, the 'little bro' would have been...

Now, it grated.

"I admit I enjoyed it," I told her. "But I didn't, and wouldn't have started it."

"You finished it though," she said seriously.

I nodded slowly.

"It's not over, David," she told me. "Football players have friends."

The tone of her voice was different than any I ever heard Cheryl use.

"It's over, Cheryl," I said quietly. "The coach kicked the two players of off the team; no player is going to risk that and their asslickers know better now."

"Something is going to come along someday and kick your ass if you keep going like this, David," Cheryl warned.

"Probably," I said smiling. "But it's not going to be a high school jock or one of their butt plugs."

Cheryl shook her head and opened the sports drink bottle to take a sip.

"Do you want me to get you a drink?" she asked politely.

"One of those would be awesome," I replied pointing at her bottle.

"I'll be right back," she said getting up and heading towards the stairs.

It took me a few seconds to realize the opportunity in front of me.

I looked at the bottle that Cheryl left behind and it hit me. I sprang off the couch and almost made it into my room without touching the ground. My heart pounded as I opened Cheryl's bottle after I retrieved a Pill. I crushed it between my fingers to force it to dissolve quicker. Cheryl started down the steps while I was shaking the bottle like a madman.

"Are you okay?" she asked handing me the bottle.

I nodded and yanked the drink out of her hand to pound it down. She looked nervous so I glanced away trying to recuperate. My heart was still beating crazily, but I could not do anything except sit back down.

Thankfully, Cheryl set off on her best lecture about the bad things that would happen to me unless I learned to be reasonable. I answered with a steady stream of nods and okays waiting for her to finish the sports drink.

It was incredible that like with Maria, I missed the moment that the Pill hit Cheryl by a few minutes. I nodded and okayed a couple more times before I realized Cheryl had stopped talking.

The nervousness hit me when I turned towards Cheryl. I studied her beautiful face for a few minutes before I gave her the instructions that Miss Malone had designed and redesigned after Michelle.

Her eyes were bright with life when she looked at me a half hour later. I was sweating profusely, another difference from when I committed the same procedure onto Michelle.

I sat back on the couch and closed my eyes.

"Why do you avoid contact with people, Cheryl?" I asked distractedly.

The frustration of having tried to dose her for the last couple of weeks came out in my voice.

"I don't trust them," she replied in a voice much softer than I expected.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. Cheryl always had a slight edge to her voice; something else I had not noticed until recently. Miss Malone's instructions for the mode I had Cheryl in left her in a state where her personality showed through, but she was still open for instructions.

The edge to her voice should have been there.

"Why not?" I asked curiously.

Her eyes teared and she bit her lip painfully.

"Relax, Cheryl," I commanded.

Cheryl sighed massively, but did not answer my question. It was the strongest negative reaction against the Pill's effect I had seen.

"Why don't you trust people?" I asked.

"He hurt me," Cheryl replied in a monotone voice.

I sat back surprised by the change. Cheryl sat rigidly staring hard at me as if trying to push me away.

"Who hurt you?" I asked.

Cheryl bit her lip again and shook her head.

"Who hurt you, Cheryl?" I asked in a voice I had only used on Miss Malone.

"My... big... brother," she replied fighting to hold each word back.

"What did he do?" I asked almost unwillingly.

"He..."

"What did he do to you, Cheryl?" I asked again.

"HE RAPED ME!"

The words escaped her mouth as if a dam had burst. Cheryl collapsed in on herself with soul-dying sobs. I sat frozen staring at her while she cried for fifteen minutes as if it were the first time she had cried over what happened to her.

I sat empty of thought; nothing had prepared me for Cheryl's release.

"What happened?" I asked when Cheryl recovered.

I did not know what to think, during or after.

I turned towards the stairs slowly. My mind must have registered her presence because I was not surprised to see my mother watching us.

She walked up to Cheryl and stared at her for a long time.

"How did you do this, David?" my mother asked dangerously. "She's kept this secret for too long to have just decided to tell you."

For many teenagers, the first instinct would have been to lie. There were a couple of problems with that strategy for me; Cheryl had not and would not acknowledge my mother's presence, and I had never successfully lied to my mother.

"I drugged her," I said.

The silence stretched out for a really long time.

"I see," she said finally.

My mother moved around to sit across from Cheryl and me.

"What can you do with her?" my mother asked sharply.

I considered how much to cop to, but waited too long to reply.

"Answer the question, David!" my mother bit out.

"I can't make her kill herself," I replied nervously. "I guess I could convince her that she's walking down a flight of stairs when she's actually stepping off a roof though."

My teeth clicked as I tried to control the urge to babble.

"I see," my mom answered staring at Cheryl.

"What were you planning to do with her; now that you have her?" my mother asked with no inflection to her voice.

I shrugged.

"That was a stupid question," my mother said sighing. "You're sixteen, and Cheryl is a lovely girl completely in your control."

She pursed her lips and stared at me.

"Miss Malone?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"How did you..."

"Your Elizabeth is good about keeping it hidden in public," she interrupted. "But it wasn't a good idea to teach our piano lessons in her apartment. She relaxes in ways that a woman can read."

"Oh..." I replied.

"Michelle also?" she asked.

I nodded.

"She doesn't strike me as the type that would need a 'little' help where you are concerned," she said curiously.

"Miss Malone said I could make her the perfect girlfriend," I replied too quickly.

"And what is your idea of the perfect girlfriend?" she asked with a tiny smile. "Or is it Elizabeth's idea of a perfect girlfriend for you?"

I wanted no part of either question.

"So what ARE you going to do with Cheryl?" she asked in a hard voice.

I looked at the subject of our conversation.

"I don't know," I said truthfully. "I didn't know that had happened to her."

"Neither did I," my mother said sadly. "And I should have."

She stood up and looked at me.

"Have you done this to your father or me?" she asked suddenly.

"NO!" I answered rearing back in surprise.

"I didn't think so," she said pensively. "I wouldn't be able to ask these questions if you had. At least, that's how I would do it."

She walked to stand in front of Cheryl, and ran a finger along her cheekbone gently.

"You've never disappointed me, David," my mother said without looking at me. "Take good care of her."

"You're not going to make me stop?" I asked trying not to sigh in relief.

"Make sure Cheryl talks to me," she said ignoring the question. "I can help her."

She walked to the steps and stopped.

"You're going to do what you're going to do, David," she said turning to look at me. "Just remember that you're too old for me to clean up your mess."

I sat quietly staring at Cheryl after my mother made her way upstairs.

"Cheryl," I said.

"Yes, David," she replied.

"You need to talk to my mother about your rape," I said softly. "Listen to her advice."

"Yes, David."

"Go to your room and take a nap, Cheryl."

I was still sitting on the couch when Michelle and her sister stopped by after cheerleading practice.

Samantha became an addition to Michelle's non-sexual visits after my fight at school. Michelle was elusive even under questioning mode about why, other than Samantha did whatever Samantha wanted. I did not complain since the blonde, blue-eyed captain of the cheerleading team made a nice decoration to the space anywhere near me.

I thought about giving Samantha a Pill but one sister was enough, and I needed to be frugal with what I had left.

"How's the suspension?" Samantha asked snidely.

I chalked her attitude towards me up to the natural urge of the crowned Queen of a high school to keep her peons in line. Dating her little sister put me far over any line Samantha could find acceptable. Her ultimate triumph would be to pass her high school crown to Michelle, and I was not the type the heir should have as a boyfriend.

Michelle was unmovable in the face of her sister's objections, which frustrated Samantha to no end.

"It's not bad," I answered. "I'm getting a lot of studying done."

Samantha gave me an annoyed look when she could not figure out a way to continue digging at me.

"How was school?" I asked Michelle to prevent a round of general sniping from her sister.

Michelle knew what I was doing and broke out into an incredibly over-descriptive breakdown of her school day starting with everything that happened in homeroom. She had not gotten to the first period bell before I zoned out.

"Sam!"

Michelle's worried voice brought my thoughts from Cheryl's family history to my two visitors.

"Samantha!" Michelle screamed moving to her sister's side.

"Don't touch her!" I commanded without thinking.

My mind processed information; Samantha was rigid with every muscle in her body locked, and on the desk in front of her was Cheryl's unfinished sports drink.

"David!" Michelle said looking at me desperately.

"Calm down!" I ordered.

Michelle relaxed instantly and sat back.

"What's wrong with Sam?" she asked with some strain in her voice but in control of herself.

I grabbed the sports drink bottle and put the top on. There was maybe half a cup left. My mind was fighting for me to think through the consequences of what happened, but there was something more immediate in front of me.

"David!" Michelle exclaimed when I started the sequence of instructions that would make Samantha mine.

"Shut up, Michelle," I said without looking at her.

The instruction sets were exact with precise wording. Two within the span of a couple of hours was a stressful experience. I had to go over a few sections when Samantha's repetition of the instructions showed I made mistakes.

When I was done, I sat back in my original spot and stared at the sports drink.

"Do you know how much she drank of this?" I asked Michelle.

"David," she said. "What's going on?"

"Michelle," I said hardening my voice. "How much did your sister drink?"

"Not much, maybe a swallow or two," she answered quickly.

"Why did she drink from this bottle?" I asked.

"We got into a fight because I wouldn't go get her a drink," she said. "She thought that was your bottle so she drank out of it."

"And she only had a swallow or two?"

"Yes," she replied.

I sat back and thought about it.

The Pill had been diluted by the twenty ounces of liquid. There must have been a certain amount of settling considering how long it had been between when Cheryl drank and Samantha drank. Samantha had at most two swallows, maybe four ounces.

The Pills were huge but I never considered that a lesser dose would be as effective.

"What did you do to Sam, David?" Michelle asked in a rising voice.

"She's mine now," I answered plainly.

"What do you mean?"

I put Samantha into questioning mode.

"Why have you been following Michelle to my house lately, Sam?" I asked.

"I want you to make me scream," Samantha said staring at me.

"What?" I asked surprised.

"I heard you with Michelle," she continued.

Her eyes were digging into me.

"You were fucking her brains out," Samantha said. "I'm going to steal you from her so you can fuck me like that."

Michelle gasped.

"Why?" I asked stupidly.

"I want to feel what you make Michelle feel, David," Samantha replied. "I want everything you give her and more."

I did not know what to say to that.

"You have a boyfriend," Michelle told Sam.

"I broke up with him," Sam answered. "I want David!"

"You can't have him!" Michelle said raising her voice.

"Yes, I can!" Sam insisted.

"Both of you cut that shit out!" I interrupted.

They sat back and looked at me.

"Sam, what the fuck are you talking about?" I asked letting her interpret the question.

"I've fucked," she said.

Hearing the high school Queen admit that so blatantly and using those words tightened my lower back with expectation.

"It hasn't been much fun... there's something wrong!" Sam said in frustration. "You're doing Michelle right. I WANT THAT!"

Samantha was pushing against the control of the Pill; not fighting it, but like something inside of her was finally getting an opportunity to come out.

"She's yours now," Michelle stated in a curious tone of voice.

I turned to face her. I leaned back as something behind Michelle's eyes rushed towards me. Both sisters were bursting at the seams from something finally being allowed free.

"Give her to me," Michelle demanded.

"WHAT?" I spat.

"Give Sam to me," Michelle insisted. "You can do it, can't you?"

I got up and put furniture between the two sisters and me.

"I'll do anything if you give her to me," Michelle promised.

"What are you talking about?" I asked confused.

"I want Sam," Michelle replied. "Give her to me!"

"For what?" I asked.

"I want her to be mine like Miss Malone is yours," Michelle answered desperately.

"Yes!" Sam hissed looking at her little sister.

I jumped back, putting more distance between the two obviously insane girls and me.

"She gave me my first orgasm," Michelle said looking at Samantha hungrily. "She ignored me after that, and I wanted her to do it again so bad. She just ignored me!"

"Both of you shut the fuck up!" I ordered feeling nauseous.

The girls were confusing me, and I needed them to be quiet for a few minutes while the world stopped spinning.

"Give her to me, David!" Michelle begged a couple of minutes later. "I'll do anything for you if you give Samantha to me."

"You'll do anything for me anyway," I told her.

"I'll be your slave like Elizabeth," Michelle said boldly.

My mouth dried.

"How did you guys get here?" I asked.

"I drove," Samantha offered.

"Good," I told her. "We're going for a ride."

"What's wrong, David?" Miss Malone asked as I guided the two girls into her living room.

"I Pilled Samantha accidentally," I explained.

"How do you Pill someone accidentally?" she asked smiling mischievously.