Chapter 3 – Follow through

Not as bad as the others, and with maybe an epilogue to follow

The patrol car dropped her back very near to where she had been picked up. She had half an hour before the boutique was due to close which gave her enough time to buy a new SIM for her phone. Alison and Harvey were the only people she’d given her number to and she didn’t want to hear from either of them again, so the only downside of starting from fresh was learning the new number.

She made it to the boutique with five minutes to spare, to find the owner looking rather distraught.

“I’m so sorry madam, I don’t know what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I followed the measurements I took to the letter, but the final result... Well, it just doesn’t look right.”

She brought out a garment that had none of the graceful curves of the original.

“Why don’t I try it on and see. My, er, assets often mean that clothes don’t look right until I’m wearing them.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“You start your sentences with the word well quite a lot, had you noticed? You should be aware and try to break the habit.”

“Well! I never had... anyone speak... to me so... rudely.” She petered out as awareness took over.

“I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that people can sometimes become irritated with mannerisms like that, and I’d hate for you to lose business over something so trivial. Is there somewhere I can change?”

The owner showed her to a small cubical where she wiggled out of her skirt and blouse and into the dress.

Which fit like a glove and probably looked like a sack, but she kept her eyes from the mirror.

“You look wonderful,” she told herself, “like an older version of your young self, only so much more beautiful.”

The reflection was enough to make anyone smile, so she did.

“What do you think?” she asked, stepping out of the changing room.

“W... Oh my! I wouldn’t have believed it possible. It fits you perfectly and looks quite lovely on you. Give me a twirl, will you?”

Carrie did.

“Slower.”

Again Carrie complied.

“You know, I saw the perfect pair of shoes to go with that outfit the other day. Hold on a moment.” She pulled out her cell phone and looked up a number.

“Cathy? It’s Adele. I know it’s late, but I’m with a customer. I saw just the right pair of shoes for her dress when I was passing your shop the other day. Can I send her over? Wonderful.” She hung up and turned to Carrie. “You’ll have to be quick. To the left then fourth shop down on the left.”

She found Cathy, and the shoes were perfect. She even had them in her rather surprising size nine. And they came with a matching clutch – the sort she didn’t need lessons in how to use. She ended up spending a little more than she’d intended, but money was easy to come by. She even insisted on paying the full price for the dress despite Adele’s insistence that she only wanted fifty.

After all, people should be rewarded for being better as much as they deserved to be punished for being worse.

She changed back and returned to the hotel. The manager tried to avoid her eyes, but she walked right up to him.

“The renovations in room seven one three are nearly finished. The place will be vacated tomorrow afternoon at around five. I wondered if maybe sending up something from room service might be appropriate. A crab salad and a bottle of prosecco rosé perhaps.”

“Beeuuurk.”

“Now, now. No need to be like that. I mean this can’t be all bad. After all, how was sex with Mrs Manager last night?”

He tilted his head to one side in a begrudgingly accepting matter.

Carrie’s intuition whispered to her. Most women had it, and it had been one of the ways she’d known she was a woman all along. She smiled.

“You, Mr Manager, will only see your wife the way she was when you first fell in love with her. Everyone loses a little something to age, but not your lovely wife, not in your eyes. She’s just as slender and beautiful as you first remember her. Now, what do you say?”

“Perhaps a lobster salad rather than the crab?”

“That sounds wonderful. Oh, and I wanted to place an order online. Would it be possible to have it delivered here?”

“Not an issue. If you’ll just include the room number in the address as well as your name. We’ll use the name to verify the parcel belongs to you.”

-~oOo~

The following morning she allowed herself a brief lie in. The class reunion was in the evening and most of the day was going to be about getting ready for it. She was up and dressed and out off the hotel by nine. She had makeup to buy and new hosiery, and she’d have liked to visit a hairdressers, only styling imaginary hair would have been futile. Still, stopping by for a few style ideas had to be worth doing. Oh yes, floral bath salts, shampoo, conditioner and perfume. Which meant she’d need some funds, so first stop the coffee shop she and Alison had been kicked out of. She bought a flat white and an éclair. After all, she wasn’t trying increase anyone’s calorie intake now. The éclair she had plans for. She sat quietly in Alison’s habitual spot by the window, looking out at the Saturday morning shoppers. She was actually relieved to be drinking something without any sweetness in it, but then she had persuaded herself she actually preferred salads and unsweetened drinks. She’d also told herself she had a higher metabolism although she was waiting to see if that had any effect. The cream cakes couldn’t have helped that.

Perhaps, if it did work, she should try telling her body to produce more oestrogen and less testosterone, then she wouldn’t have to convince herself of what she saw in the mirror every morning.

She’d expected the manager to challenge her after their last encounter, but he didn’t seem to be about. After a short wait, she waved a waitress over and asked if he was available. A few minutes later a familiar grumpy face appeared.

“You! I thought I banned you.”

She picked up the éclair. “This,” she said. “This is your cock.” She started sucking on it sensually, sliding it in and out of her mouth. He tried not to crouch as his dick swelled uncomfortably in his trousers. She kept going for some minutes until he was at the verge of release, then she stopped and bit gently. “You can feel my teeth,” she said around the pastry.

He nodded nervously.

She bit down gently, squeezing the cake with her tongue until a small spurt of cream entered her mouth.

He grunted with a mix of pleasure and pain. A small stain appeared in his pants.

“How much would it be worth not to bite down?”

“Er, fif...”

She bit just a little harder.

“Five hundred dollars,” he changed swiftly.

She’d removed the cake from her mouth. There were teeth marks in the chocolate and cream leaking from the end.

“I’ll leave as soon as someone brings me my change. Don’t make me wait too long though. I might get peckish.”

He rushed off, muttered some brief words to one of the waitresses, then disappeared through a door.

A minute later the same waitress came over with a plate laden with fifty-dollar bills. “The manager said to give these to you. I don’t...”

“That’s between him and me. Thank you. She spread the bills and counted them swiftly before putting them in her bag. The éclair went into the bin, away from someone else’s temptation.

The rest of the morning involved shopping for the things she needed for the reunion. She also picked up a copy of the local newspaper which showed a particularly unflattering picture of Alison’s pudgy face against the orange jumpsuit she was wearing. The lead article read, ‘Local automobile dealer, Harvey Lewis was viciously attacked by his Wife, Alison, who until very recently wrote the gossip column for this newspaper. Details are scarce, but it seems there may have been mitigating circumstances. More information as the story develops.’

Quite the emerging scandal. Carrie smiled and tucked the paper away. Another piece for her scrap book.

The afternoon she spent bathing, washing her hair, willing it dry and into the elegant up-do she’d finally settled on from People magazine. She could do the same with the makeup, she knew, but she wanted the feel of it and the taste and smell, so once she’d slipped into the sexy lingerie she’d bought, she sat in front of the vanity mirror, softened her complexion and painted her eyes and lips, persuading herself she was doing a wonderful job, and so it seemed.

Lastly came the dress. It looked like it belonged on someone considerably stouter, but she knew what it had looked like the previous day, and it fits her just as well and looked just as stunning the moment she stepped into it. It was short, in a younger woman’s style, which meant that she’d occasionally give people a brief glimpse of her stockings and garter belt, but that was part of what a dress like this was about. The shoes and clutch finished things off along with a faux fur wrap. She looked more fabulous than ever.

The rest of her few belongings went in a small valise. She took one last look around the room and stepped out into the hallway.

Down in reception, she handed the master key across and announced that the renovations in her room were complete, although it would need a visit from housekeeping.

“Also, there should be a package for me addressed to the room. Name of Carrie White.”

The name was another thing she intended to lose as soon as she was done here.

She carried her large parcel down to the parking garage and dropped it on the back seat. The valise went in the trunk. Along with her party shoes, she’d invested in a pair of cheap flats. Driving stick was challenging enough without adding heels to the challenge. She’d been away from the car for a couple of days, but her newfound driving skills remained, perhaps in part due to the more sensible shoes, and she drove out with consummate ease, passing the parking garage access key to the attendant as she left.

It was early, but she’d blown most of the five hundred dollars already, so she headed to the seedier part of town. She found what she was looking for. An overdressed individual in a seriously blinged out Cadillac. A number of heavy-set individuals stood up from wherever they’d been leaning or sitting and started sauntering over to her and their boss.

“You guys have an overwhelming need to kiss your own asses,” she said, pointing at them. They immediately started crouching and trying to reach their back ends through their legs with their lips. She turned to the man in charge. “I take it you’re the pimp around here?”

“I don’t like dat word, but yeah, I got some girls work for me.”

“Ever cut any of them?”

“What?”

“You know, because they came up short, or talked back at you?”

“Hey, fuck you lady.”

“You’re thinking about the idea of cutting up a girl. Right now, you feel disgusted that anyone would do such a thing. You think that anyone who’s done that in the past, yourself included, ought to be punished by having a cock and balls carved into their forehead. You’re going to do that to the nearest person you know who’s done it, even if it’s yourself.”

He flipped out a switchblade threateningly... then started to carve into his own face, squealing all the while.

“Now you’re going to carve a drop of cum for every girl’s face you ruined.”

There were five of them.

“Anytime anyone asks you about those scars, you tell them exactly what you did. Any time in the future you feel like carving up a girl’s face, you’re going to take your blade and stab it in your groin. Now, show me your wad.”

“My what?”

“All the cash you have on you. Show it to me.”

He pulled it out. It was an impressive roll.

“Call your girls here one after the other.” He waved and the first came over. “Give her two thousand dollars and tell her to get out of town.” The next girl had a scarred face. She received five thousand and the same instructions. By the time seven girls had come and gone, the money roll was down to about two thirds it’s initial size. She told him to hand it over.

“You’re fucking dead, bitch. Ain’t nowhere you can hide from me.

She turned to the bodyguards. “The urge will go away as soon as you kiss one of these other dudes on the bare ass, right between the cheeks.” To a man, they dropped their trousers and dived between each other’s ass cheeks. When they were done, she pointed at the boss man. “He can’t pay you anymore. He’s given me most of his cash and the rest he gave to his girls and told them to go. He’s kind of responsible for making you do what you just did. You feel like showing him how much you appreciate his efforts on your behalf.”

She climbed into her car and drove off while the bodyguards kicked the living shit out of their former boss.

Now that felt like a great way to make money.

She timed her arrival at the high school to be one of the last arrivals. There weren’t many name tags left, and two at least most likely wouldn’t be making an appearance given Jack’s recent piece in the news, and Betty being pregnant with no means of support from her husband. Until next week if the branch manager took her influence, and why wouldn’t he? No-one yet had been able to deny her. Oh yeah, of course, Harvey and Alison wouldn’t be turning up either.

She picked up her badge.

“Er, I’m sorry,” the plump woman behind the desk said, “those are the men’s badges.”

“I know,” she said. “This one’s mine. I’d like you to look after this package for me until later in the evening, then bring it onto the stage with you.”
She passed across the large package she’d had delivered to the hotel.
“Now you’re going to say, ‘Oh, alright. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a great evening,’ then you’re going to forget the last two minutes, all except what to do with that package.”

“Oh, alright. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a great evening.” She looked around in confusion. “What just happened?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. You just spaced out for a moment there. You’re absolutely fine.”

Carrie headed into the sports hall with its festive decorations and tables of food and drink. She allowed herself a few nibbles and a glass of punch and began circulating. “I don’t remember you,” was the most common opening line anyone used with her, to which she invariably replied, “Don’t worry, you will.” More observant people offered up something on the lines of, “I thought the girls name was spelled C-A-R-R-I-E.” Again, she had a standard response. “This was how my parents spelt it on my birth certificate.”

Beyond that, conversation tended to peter out quite quickly. The evening was about getting back in touch with your past, and since no-one recognised her, they had nothing to share with her. “Did you actually come to this school?” was a regular last attempt at raising a conversation. Again she only had the one response, “Yes, but I wasn’t here long. I was taken out of the school after the junior prom.”

That did elicit a few responses along the lines of, “Did it have anything to do with that weird kid who came to the prom in a dress? Now what was his name?”

The clues were all there for them to find, but no-one got any closer, and she wasn’t about to help them. She was here to pass judgement, and so far they were all falling pretty short of the mark.

The evening drifted by. There was music and she was invited to dance, which she did more often than not, and racked up the black marks against individuals as they sought to rest their hands on her ass, or spent the entire dance staring at her tits. Each time she raised the topic of who they thought would win prom king and queen with Alison and Harvey not being present. Each time she insinuated her own ideas and saw them take hold.

Midnight approached and the music wound to a close. The same largish woman who’d distributed the name tags at the beginning of the evening stepped forward. She was carrying a large package with her, which seemed to confuse her, so she put it down behind her.

“Good evening friends. We have an exciting situation tonight. As you know for quite a few years now, the honours of reunion king and queen have gone to Harvey and Alison Lewis, probably mostly because we’ve all been a little afraid of what Alison might say about us in her column, or what Harvey might do to any of us if we did anything else. Since they’re not here tonight though, we’re free to choose from anyone else in the room, so... exciting.”

She cracked open an envelope and read, “Tonight’s reunion queen is... Carrie Leach. Come on everyone, let’s give it up for Carrie.”

She acknowledged the smatter of half-hearted applause and made her way up onto the stage where she accepted her plastic tiara and bunch of flowers.

“And our reunion king – the lucky chap who gets to spend the rest of the evening with this beautiful lady is...”

She looked at the card a little confused.

“Cary Leach?”

“That would also be me,” Carrie said relieving her plumpness of the plastic crown, the second bunch of flowers and the microphone.

“None of you remembers me. I mean, that’s hardly surprising since I’ve changed quite a bit, but not one of you even remembers my name.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about that either because, as I’ve mentioned to some of you this evening, I left shortly after the junior prom. That seemed to spark a memory with a few of you, who then recalled an incident involving Primo Jack and a sad little boy who came to the prom wearing a dress.

“Not one of you remembers his name though, despite it being right in front of your face.” She indicated her name badge. “Perhaps this might jog a few memories.” She closed her eyes took a deep breath. “I am as I actually appear. No illusions, no pretence, and everyone can see me as I am.”

A collective gasp went round the room.

“As you can see, time hasn’t been as kind to me as it has to most of you, and I’ll get to the reason for that in a minute.

“My name is Cary Leach. That’s Cary with one R and a Y. My mum was a big Cary Grant fan, whose real name, I’m sure you are aware, was Archibald Leach. I’m pretty sure the surname was most of the reason she married my dad, but neither of them was particularly gifted when it came to parenting.

“I grew up feeling like I didn’t fit into this world somehow. Mum and Dad tried to get me to play with other boys in the neighbourhood, but I didn’t feel like I fit in. Some of you were among those kids; you remember what I was like, how you used to take the piss out of me.
“Eventually I gave up on you lot and went to play with the girls – and some of you lot are here tonight too. That was okay until it wasn’t. Then my folks said I shouldn’t have anything to do with the girls, unless I was dating one of them. You girls changed as well. Suddenly I was like some total stranger to you, not to be trusted, not part of your little clique of girls. Not even dating material apparently.

“That’s when I kind turned into that sad loner no-one remembers. Nothing in common with the lads, nothing you girls fucking wanted to deal with.

“Sometime during our first year at school here, we had that sex ed lesson on LGBTQ and shit. It was the first time I heard about what being transgendered meant, and it felt like they were describing me.

“I didn’t mention it to many people, but somehow Alison Lewis – Alison Peters back then – heard about it and befriended me. She started calling me girlfriend and treating me like I was just another girl. It took me back to the way things had been before, and I fell for it all the way.

“It was her who persuaded me to come to the prom in a dress – a dress very much like this one as it happens, but none of you girls picked up on that, did you. Her boyfriend at the time was Harvey Lewis. I mean, that was true all through high school until they married, so no big surprise there. Anyway, Harvey hooked me up with a date and both Alison and Harvey reassured me he was cool with me or would be if I gave him a blow job at the beginning of the evening.

“You’ll remember the incident. Harvey and Alison got you all to hide among the bleachers out on the sports field, then then my date, Primo Jack as I’ve already mentioned, led me to this quiet place, or so we thought, and had me kneel down and undo his fly.”

“Fuck, I remember that now. That was sick,” a voice said from the middle of the crowd, then laughed.

“Yes Andrew, it was sick, but in a more literal sense than I suspect you’re thinking. You may all remember, Betty Barnes, who I believe was responsible for giving most guys here their first home run? She confided with Alison that Jack tended to go off half cocked, as it were. She was the one who suggested his nickname, which he wore with pride right up until that evening when you all delighted in telling him what it stood for, but that wasn’t until after I pulled his dick out of his pants and was treated to a face full of semen.”

A few people in the crowd laughed. Most of them smiled at the memory.

“Those of you who laughed just now. A bit childish, don’t you think? I mean, no thought about what it meant for me, or for Jack. Sort of baby humour to laugh at someone else’s misery, wouldn’t you agree?
“In my experience, babies wear diapers, so why don’t you come up here and get one each? Just those of you who still thinks that incident was something to laugh at.”
Nobody moved.
“If you make me insist, it’ll be worse for you.”
Still nobody moved.
“Alright. Those of you who laughed a minute ago, you will come up on the stage right now, strip yourselves bare assed naked and put on one of these.” Cary picked up the packet of adult diapers and tore it open.
It took a second or two, but about half a dozen, the previously mentioned Andrew among them, climbed unsteadily onto the stage and started to undress.
It was worse for the one or two girls among them, since once they had the diapers on, they had nothing to cover their breasts.
“That’s better,” Cary said. “Now, babies tend not to worry about when and where they relieve themselves, so neither should you. If you need to piss or shit, just do it there where you stand.”
From the looks on their faces, they all let something go. The diapers weren’t entirely successful at masking the smell either, especially in Andrew’s case since he’d gone the whole way in relieving himself.
“Andrew,” Cary singled him out. “I know that inside you know how humiliating this is. You’re acting like a toddler because I told you to, but inside your head you know you aren’t one, and you feel deeply demeaned by what you’re doing. The thing is, I don’t know if it goes far enough in helping you understand how horrifying that experience was for me.
“It wasn’t just having something as disgusting as that happen to me, although that was pretty bad, nor was it the humiliation of having everyone I knew witness the event and laugh their fucking heads off at me.
“But I guess part of what we’re here to do tonight – what I’m here to do at any rate – is to show you just that. So why don’t you stick your hand down the back of your diaper and grab a handful of what you just put there?
“No? You do know that if you don’t choose to do it yourself, it’ll be worse? Fair enough. Stick your hand down the back of your diaper, grab a handful of your own shit and smear it all over your face and hair, then lick you hand clean.”
Andrew tried to resist, but he couldn’t.
“What’s the matter, everyone? Isn’t this as funny as what happened to me at junior prom? Don’t you think it’s funny? That maybe you should be laughing?
“You know I can make you do it, but if you need me to make you do it, I’m going to have to make you do a lot more.
“How would you like it if I had you all in diapers, pissing and shitting yourself and smearing yourself with your own filth? How would you like it if I left you like that for the rest of your fucking lives?”
They laughed. It was strained in the extreme, their faces showing more of the horror they were feeling than any actual humour, but they were too terrified to do anything else.
Carrie – and it was the girl inside her rather than the bloated man she had grown into – looked at what she’d done and shared something of the disgust everyone was feeling. This was too much.
“Andrew, stop. All of you,” she indicated the group on stage, grab your clothes, go to the locker rooms, clean yourselves up and put your own clothes back on. Leave the diapers in the locker rooms for now, but hang onto them as a reminder of this evening. Be quick though. Don’t make me come looking for you.”
She watched as they left then turned to the crowd.
“I had that in mind for all of you, because that’s what you did to me. You laughed at me during the worst moment of my life then forgot me. It didn’t occur to you to even wonder what happened to me after that, did it? I never occurred to even one of you to think about what I went through.”
“I mean, sure, Alison was at the heart of it. She befriended me, made me feel special, then went to town on getting me ready for the evening. Hair, makeup, the works. I’d lived all my life with an odd sense that I would have been so much happier as a girl, and Alison gave that to me, let the inner me free and I was soaring on the sheer delight of being who I felt I really was, even being seen as such by a not unattractive boy.

“One minute on cloud nine, the next plummeting onto the rocks as it became evident it was all a setup. I cannot express how horrendous that experience was for me. My date abandoned me, the person I thought to be a close friend betrayed me and everyone I knew – that’s you lot, in case I’m not making myself clear – laughed at me while I totally lost my shit.”

The room fell utterly silent.

“You do remember that don’t you? The way this girl – or boy in a dress from your perspective – sat in the dirt, covered in the most revolting of substances, her hair ruined, her dress ruined, her makeup ruined, screaming and crying her heart out while every one of you looked on and mocked her.”

No-one seemed able to hold her gaze.

“So anyway, thank you for these. The crowns are a bit tacky, but the flowers are lovely. If you’ll excuse me a moment.” Again she closed her eyes. “I am a beautiful woman. Everyone sees me as I was before.

“I hope you’ll excuse me, but this is the way I prefer people to see me. As you can see, I have acquired the ability to change people’s perception of reality. It’s a relatively recent change in my life which, as you can also see, I’m putting to good use, even though I don’t really know where it came from.

“I’ve heard that extreme trauma can cause unexpected changes, so perhaps the misery of that junior prom kicked this off. My parents didn’t know what to do with me when I finally made it home after the prom. They were particular disgusted that I should come home in a dress covered in another boy’s... effluence. I was sent to get cleaned up then shut in my room.
“Apparently, I cried non-stop for days and screamed at anyone who approached me. In the end they felt they had no choice but to have me committed.

“They sent me to an asylum run by a joke of a psychiatrist and left me to get better or not as I was able. They made no attempt to visit me, and I know this because they told me. The dress did it for them more than the mess, I think. Dad in particular wanted nothing to do with me until I’d been ‘fixed’ as it were.

“They told me this after I visited them once I escaped from the asylum. So I told them to forget they’d ever had a child. That they knew they’d be terrible parents and had decided that the fairest thing they could do was abstain from sex for the rest of their lives.

“Another thing that may have brought this ability to life might have been the misery of staying in that place. They kept me drugged pretty much until I was a shuffling zombie. You don’t get great exercise like that, and the food they gave us wasn’t the best for nutrition. I have great self-control now because I’ve told myself to have it, but it’s taking time to have any effect.

“Where I am indulging myself, is in getting a little payback against the people who stole the last twelve years of my life. I’ve told you about my parents, but not about my shrink who spent twelve years trying to convince me that I could stop wanting to be a girl, until I convinced him that he’d never be happy unless he was wearing a pretty dress.”

The diaper crowd re-entered the room, Andrew with wet hair but otherwise presentable.

“Jack Sanders has been busy getting his own revenge on you bastards for his humiliation, and taking it a bit too far, so I persuaded him to own up to his shady dealings which, you may have read in the local paper, got him sacked.”

“You’re the reason the bank’s compensating us for the foreclosure?”

“Indirectly, and I suppose similar levels of compensation coming to other people here.”

There were general murmurs of appreciation.

“Oh, don’t think you’re getting away Scott free. You all still owe me for twelve wasted years – no, you can’t move. Your feet are too heavy.”

Several individuals who’d been edging towards the door stopped very abruptly.

“You are going to remember this account number.” She reeled off a string of numbers and instructed them to read them back. “Those numbers are going to be stuck in your mind from this day onward. The only way you’re going to be able to stop thinking about them is if, when your compensation comes through, you transfer the full amount into the account.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Funny that, the way it’s not fair when you lose out, but when it’s some weird little anonymous kid whose life is ruined, that’s just a good laugh, and then you can forget about it. You think I’d do what I did to Alison and Harvey then forget about you fuckers?”

“Shit, that was you?”

She looked across at a face she thought she recognised from the police station.

“Good evening officer. There are quite a few details missing from the newspaper story. Do you want to share them, or should I?”

“I can’t divulge details of an ongoing investigation.”

“That’d be me then. Alison is currently suffering from the aftermath of a severe overindulgence in cream cakes, and she does not make an attractive plump woman. She is of the opinion that Harvey has been cheating on her, and in retaliation to his most recently insisting that she suck him off, she bit off his cock. Harvey, in the meantime, recently sold me his Corvette...”

“I knew it was his!” came from within the crowd.

“He has also learned to love taking it up the ass, and whether or not the surgeon can give him his dick back in any sort of working condition, he’s only ever going to crave somebody ass fucking him from here on.

“Now, how much of that was down to me is going to be up to the police and the legal profession to prove, but it strikes me as a fair response for what the two of them deliberately did to me twelve years ago, especially when your earlier announcement,” Carrie indicated the woman who’d declared her both king and queen for the evening, “suggests that they haven’t changed much.

“As for you lot, I was going to send you out like Andrew just now, to spend the rest of your miserable fucking lives wearing diapers like the childish babies you all are.”

She paused and looked around the room as terror filled their minds.

“But I don’t know. It feels a little harsh. I mean children are supposed to grow up, aren’t they? What kind of asshole would that make me if I just left you like that?”

Wary relief. They knew they weren’t going to get off completely.

“The way I see it, Alison and Harvey were the main instigators in the whole thing with you lot – Jack Sanders included – allowing yourselves to be led into doing something you should have known better about.”

They all seemed eager to agree, to lessen their involvement and therefore the payback coming their way.

“I’m glad you agree. You see, I came across a term which describes you perfectly. I’m guessing you’ve heard of sheeple? Moronic idiots who go along with whatever anyone tells them to do without judging for themselves whether it’s right or wrong?

“Kind of describes you lot, don’t you think? It’s the way I see you.” Hair all around her started turning woolly and white, noses were broadening, eyes turning weirdly ovine, occasional quiet bleating sounds appearing from here and there. “In fact, it’s the way you’re going to see yourselves and each other from now on.” The bleats became more alarmed as the crowd looked at each other. “And you’re going to be stuck like this until you start thinking for yourselves, taking responsibility for your own actions, and not letting anyone else influence what you do or say or think. You’re going to be stuck like this until you start getting a little pro-active and thinking about the way your actions have consequences, and how you should base your decisions with at least some consideration of how they affect other people.

“And now, I think I’m done with you lot. Thank you in advance for the compensation you’re going to give me. I mean, you don’t have to of course, but that account number is going to burn itself into your brains until you do, so your choice. You could think of it as a first step towards considering how your choices affect others. If you hadn’t so casually decided to make fun of my misery, if even one of you had shown me some genuine support, it’s possible I wouldn’t have ended up in the nut house for twelve years, and I would have had the benefit of an income over that period, so it’s kind of fair, don’t you think?

“I could say I hope you make your way towards being better people, but honestly, I don’t think I care. Anymore than you cared what happened to me a dozen years ago.

“If any of you get round to visiting Alison in prison, or Harvey in hospital, do please tell them exactly who I am and why their lives have been so utterly destroyed.”

“You won’t get away with this, beeaah.” The police officer she’d recognised earlier was looking decidedly woolly headed.

“Oh? How do you figure? Are you going to put out an APB for someone who looks like this?” She focused on her appearance, imagining herself with Hispanic features and dark hair and eyes. “Or maybe like this?”

“The car’s a bit of a giveaway. Mheeaah.”

“I don’t really care about the car; just about taking it away from Harvey.

“Besides, if you did catch up with me, what are you going to accuse me of? Using my mysterious mind powers to make people act against their best interests? I can’t see any jury in this country convicting me on the basis of what you have to tell them.”

She took a few steps towards the exit then paused.

“And even if it did look like they might just be crazy enough to convict me, all I’d need to do would be persuade my council to put me on the stand and I could tell everyone, judge, jury and everyone present, how preposterous a tale they were being told, and who do you think they’d end up believing?”

She took the final steps to the door. People were still struggling to move.

“Oh yeah, that’s a point. That heaviness in your feet is going to fade as soon as I walk through this door, but a word of warning, any of you come after me to try to stop me and you’re going to experience the sort of intense orgasm you’ve only ever dreamed of. It’ll leave you rolling helplessly on the ground for fifteen minutes, and no sex you have afterwards will ever be quite as good.”

She walked out the door. Inevitably, there were a few who tried to chase her, but they didn’t make it five feet past the threshold.

She sat in the car and twisted the rear-view mirror to look at her face. A moment’s concentration and the dusky features faded to be replaced by the ones she preferred. She liked this face and planned to keep it, along with the car for that matter. If they chased her then she’d do what needed to be done.

She felt weary. Payback was a bitch, they said, and she was tired of being a bitch. Maybe her subconscious had responded to her ideas about suppressing testosterone and increasing oestrogen production in her body. She certainly felt less of the rage that had filled her after her escape from the asylum. She had her revenge now, but it wasn’t what she’d hoped. What was that quote about it being a dish best served cold? Maybe it was, but if so, the coldness of it all left her feeling sick to her stomach.

She’d been pleased with her solution for the crowd at the reunion at least. Sure she’d taken their money, or persuaded them to give it to her soon enough, but that was her due. She’d endured twelve years of misery because every one of those assholes had laughed at her at the most traumatic time in her young life, so they owed her.

The diaper thing had felt wrong from the moment she inflicted on them, on Andrew especially. It hadn’t when she’d first thought of it, but she felt a gentleness inside her now that hadn’t been there yesterday. It felt kind of girly, which pleased her more than she cared to admit.

The diapers had come as close to giving them a taste – possibly literally in Andrew’s case – of what she’d experienced on junior prom night. She’d seen the fear and disgust in their eyes, and maybe that was enough to wake them up.

The threat had been real. Right up to that moment when she’d seen their reaction, she’d intended to go through with it, but then she’d caught a glimpse of the future – one where she had to live with the consequences of what she’d done. She wasn’t like them; laugh it off and tell herself it hadn’t been her fault.

The sheeple thing had been a so much better idea. Restorative justice was a term she’d heard often enough in her time in the asylum, particularly aimed towards the criminal inmates. No sense in offering forgiveness if no remorse was shown. Three Hail Mary’s and you’re free to go away and do it all over again may have worked for the Corleones, but it wasn’t right. Then again, just as wrong would be to impose a lifelong sentence with no possibility of parole. Her first plan would have done that. Every person present at the reunion eating shit every day for the rest of his or her life, fully aware of how foul it tasted, fully aware of how disgusting it was.

No, the sheeple thing was better. It told them every day something of what they were doing wrong, and that they were choosing to continue doing it wrong, then if they could get their act together enough to change, they could emerge from the misery of their punishment and become better individuals.

You never knew, they might even think the experience was worth the money they were being forced to pay. Not likely, but possible, and hard fucking luck if not.

She thought of Alison and of Harvey. They had been the masterminds behind all the horror and misery she’d experienced, and having done their worst to her, they’d gone on to do it to others. Alison scouring social media for titbits of news she could use to shame her ‘friends’ and Harvey... Well, what could you say about Harvey? Anyone ready to persuade an unwary passer-by to surrender a ton of money for a rusty heap of bolts that would barely make it to the nearest intersection, was capable of a lot worse.

They deserved what they’d been given, surely? Alison might manage to evade a prison sentence with that hideously embarrassing video footage of her husband wearing her nightdress taking it up the ass from some overweight man, all the while begging for more, but she’d never be able to resist a cream cake again in her life, and she’d never lose her reputation as the woman who had bitten off her husband’s cock because he preferred other men to fuck him over anything she could give him. She’d end up lonely and unloved, just like she’d intended for her own victims.

As for Harvey, he might never recover full use of that part of his anatomy he considered so important, and he’d crave being butt fucked every day for the rest of his life, all the while feeling every bit of the degradation of being on the receiving end of what he’d done to women all his adult life.

She felt a small, diminishing part of herself cursing her own weakness as she made mental plans to come back in a year or so. She had to know if any of the people she’d screwed with – Alison and Harvey included, in fact probably especially them – were capable of feeling remorse.

She’d not be able to give Alison back her reputation, or Harvey his ability to fuck anyone, but if the regret was there, she could take away the cravings she’d given them. The ones she knew they despised.

Assuming they showed regret of course. If they didn’t, maybe she wouldn’t feel so bad about leaving them as they were.

She adjusted the rear-view mirror so it showed the idiots convulsing on the ground behind her. She had warned them, and there were consequences to ignoring warnings. She didn’t have to feel guilty about them.

And that was what lay at the heart of the matter: guilt. She had felt it eating at her even as she’d acted on her hate.

That was something one of the other patients at the asylum had said to her once while the rage had been building inside her. Holding onto anger us like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. The best thing to do with hate was to let it go

That meant letting go of the things you wanted to do to those who’d harmed you too.

Of course that was easier now that she’d acted on her hate.

Except it wasn’t because it had been replaced by a deepening sense of emptiness and regret. What she’d done said more about her than it did about the people she’d done it to, and she didn’t want to be that person.

She exchanged her heels for the flats and put on her seat belt. It was late, but she wasn’t tired. The state line was less than an hour’s drive away, after which there’d be an all-night motel somewhere she could put her head down.

She was pretty good at driving stick now. She’d told herself she was, so she was. It didn’t excite her though, so maybe she would sell the car. She’d maybe keep it for a few hundred miles, at least until she drove into some weather that suggested something a little more practical, then cash it in. The balance should keep her going until the first of the bank settlements arrived, then she’d find a small out of the way place to settle down and see what changes she could convince her body to make. If just the hint of a desire could persuade her subconscious to mess with her hormones, who knew what a little deliberate, focused thought might accomplish? Maybe one day she’d be able to stand in front of a mirror without telling herself what to see first.

It took a little bit of the bleakness out of her future. She was alone, but that was no different from the way things had been for the last twelve years. Forgotten by her parents as much as by the people she’d thought were her friends. But then relationships needed work from both sides. She’d burned her bridges here; she didn’t expect a single person in this town to feel kindly towards her now, besides, she had no particular desire for any of them to do so.

No, it was time for a fresh start. Maybe her ability would enable her to make some of the physical changes she wanted in herself, but she knew she wouldn’t really be happy with what she saw reflected in the mirror until she changed on a deeper level. Her abilities were dangerously powerful and likely to cause her as much harm as anyone else should she not learn to exercise a little self-control.

Maybe it was time to do more to benefit people, like she’d done with the hotel manager. That had actually felt good.

Maybe there would be some other fuckwit about who only wanted to take, and screw anyone who stood in his way. What she’d done to the pimp had felt good too.

Actually, scratch that. There were bound to be fuckwits like him. The measure of the woman would be in how restrained she could be in her justice.

“You are kind, and fair and just,” she told herself as she pulled out onto the empty road. “Strong enough to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, and wise enough to know when a gentler hand is needed.”

She felt the change settle on herself. This was the person she wanted to be. And if it was that easy to change herself on the inside... She focused on the physical changes she wanted.