“How did that make you feel?”

“How did it make me feel when I found out that my girlfriend was a serial cheater who’d been sleeping with other women for years? Pretty fucking upset!” Lara lied.

Dr. Sanaa Imani’s pen scratched at her notepad. The therapist, sat reclined in her throne of an armchair, did not spare Lara her spectacled gaze for even an instant as they spoke. Lara’s heart seized; for a moment she was transported back to childhood, to an afternoon’s misbehavior that led her to the school principal’s office. Now, as then, her cocksure confidence dissolved, and she felt herself a girl in the presence of an adult to whom her deceit was surely as transparent as a pane of glass. She was certain she was about to hear merciless judgment handed down to her from those pursed lips, but all Dr. Imani said was, “That’s a very natural reaction.”

“Duh.” Lara pulled her bad attitude tight around her like a cloak against the wind and rolled her eyes. “Do you even have to ask? Is ‘How does that make you feel?’ some kind of obligatory thing for shrinks?”

“It’s basic, but it’s an important place to start.” Dr. Imani did not indulge her patient’s churlishness. “We need to face your feelings about your ex-partner’s infidelity head-on in order to help you find a path forward.”

Lara shifted in her seat. “Yeah, well, like I said, I was upset. Betrayed and pissed off. Same as anyone would be. I broke up with her over it, didn’t I?”

It wasn’t a total lie, she reasoned. Lara had certainly felt all of those things. It’s just that there were those other feelings too. A lie of omission, at most—and not even that, really. As Lara kept telling herself, the other feelings weren’t real. She was just confused. Traumatized, even. After what she’d been through, was it any wonder a few wires had gotten crossed? It was just a mistake. The shrink would help her get her head on straight, and they’d vanish like they’d never been. It wasn’t even worth bringing up.

She kept telling herself that.

“You did. And since then, you haven’t had any contact with Zoe?” Dr. Imani asked.

“Absolutely not.” Lara snorted. “I blocked that whore on my phone and everywhere else the first chance I got.”

More pen scratching, as Dr. Imani’s eyebrow raised itself into an arch at the term of abuse Lara used for her ex, but she said nothing. Lara still wasn’t sure what to make of her therapist. After reading about her online, she had jumped at the chance to book a set of sessions. Black, like her. A lesbian, like her. Where else was she going to find that combination?

In her presence, though, Lara was less and less sure of her choice. Anything was better than explaining dyke drama to a clueless suburban mom, but the older woman sitting across the coffee table from Lara had a way of making her feel small and see-through that she naturally chafed against. Her blazer-over-turtleneck outfit and thin glasses made her seem like some stuffy academic, while her office, crowded with bookcases and books, had the atmosphere of a gloomy confessional booth. The only saving graces were Dr. Imani’s reassuringly masc haircut—shaved sides and short, tight, natural curls perched atop her head—and her pleasant, cherry-and-smoke perfume.

“I see,” Dr. Imani remarked. “No closure, then?”

“Nope.” Lara folded her arms insolently. “What closure could an eager, cheating bitch like that offer me?”

“There must be something you need. Or else you wouldn’t have come here.”

Lara felt her cheeks turn a shade redder.

“Let’s come at this from a different direction,” Dr. Imani suggested, before Lara could form a retort. “Do you miss Zoe? Or your relationship with her?”

“Hell no!” Lara bristled. She might have yelled, but the atmosphere seemed unwilling to tolerate such an outburst. “She was stepping out behind my back the entire time, why would I miss that?”

“But that isn’t how you experienced it,” Dr. Imani observed. “Earlier, you mentioned that when you finally found out, it came as a complete surprise. You were with Zoe for some time prior to that. There must have been happy things too. What were they?”

“Well… I guess,” Lara admitted mutinously. In truth, there had been no shortage of happy things, but one immediately rose above the rest and to her lips. “She… was always really good at helping me relax.”

“How did she do that?”

“She, uh… hey, does it really matter?”

“I’d like you to talk about it. Remember, Lara, there is no judgment here.”

“R-right.” Lara had not imagined that this, of all things, would come up. She considered another lie, but she was reluctant to juggle too many of those—and besides, she knew she needed to give therapy an honest try if she was going to get better. “Even so, this might make you laugh. Especially given what you do. See, she would, uh, hypnotize me.”

Dr. Imani didn’t laugh. Something flashed behind the older woman’s spectacles. Not amusement. Something else. “Recreational hypnosis.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Lara hated how many times she had already blushed this session. She wasn’t the blushing type. “It was nice, you know? Just this calm little thing we could share. I think she said it was a kink she indulged for a previous girlfriend, but it wasn’t that for us. It was like she could make the whole world disappear.”

It was difficult not to think fondly of it. Hours spent in the warm cradle of Zoe’s lap, the lullaby of the trans girl’s voice drifting to her ears. Lara wondered if Zoe had ever done that for any of those other girls—and then, once she realized what she was wondering, she blushed twice over as, against her will, she pictured some other girl in Zoe’s lap, or perhaps Zoe in theirs, making Lara’s ex-girlfriend their little songbird. Treasonous heat knotted in her gut, and Lara shifted in her seat again. Not here. Not now.

If Dr. Imani noticed anything, she didn’t give it away. “And now you’ve lost that.”

“Yes,” Lara admitted.

“That must be hard.”

“I guess.” It was.

“Then there’s more to this story than just your anger, Lara.”

“Right.”

There it was again. That sense of smallness. Lara, a mere brat, chastened by a teacher’s lesson. She hated it—but she could not deny the wisdom in Dr. Imani’s words.

“I’d like to go deeper on this, Lara. Tell me how she hypnotized you.”

“How?” That struck Lara as strange, but Dr. Imani’s even voice and the steady scratch of her pen made anything but answering seem inappropriate. “She had this, uh, crystal pendant? She’d get me to look at it.”

“A visual fixation?” Dr. Imani rose to her feet and made for the desk in one corner of the room.

“I guess. Suppose this is your area of expertise, huh?”

“Not quite,” Dr. Imani called back, searching through a drawer. “I don’t practice hypnotherapy. But as a scholar of the mind, I hold a certain interest. Was it effective?”

“Yeah. Very. Eventually, I had to ask her to stop wearing it around. It got… distracting.”

Lara realized that a smile had slipped onto her face. She took pains to wipe it off. All the good things in the world didn’t justify the way Zoe had betrayed her trust.

“Something like this?” As Dr. Imani returned to her seat, she opened her hand, and out of it slipped a chain, suspended from her fingertips. At its nadir sat a rich, round honey-amber crystal that now swung gently, catching both the light and Lara’s eye.

“Yeah, uh…” Something about its golden brilliance pierced the office’s hallowed atmosphere. It shone out to Lara like a beacon, even though it was a different color stone. “Really similar.”

“I thought so.” Dr. Imani sounded almost as fascinated as Lara. Her low, smooth tones pulled her patient along with a sense of shared, almost conspiratorial interest. “Crystals like these make very effective fascinators. They’re semi-transparent, so different intensities and qualities of light can shine through and illuminate different facets. A maze of brilliance that shifts every time you look at it.”

Lara nodded. She hadn’t thought to bond with the older woman over something like this, but she could sense in her voice their shared appreciation.

“How did you feel when you looked at this pendant for your ex?”

“Safe. Calm. Relaxed. Free.”

“Free?”

“Free to… let go.” Lara answered slowly but easily. She was already reminiscing. Already back there, in Zoe’s lap. Dr. Imani’s presence made that feel all the more natural, somehow. She had a storyteller’s bearing. With her it was easy to tip backwards, into the past. “Of everything.”

“I see. It must have been painful indeed to lose that feeling.”

“Yeah.”

“You miss it.”

“I… yeah, I guess I miss it.” Something inside Lara clenched tight at the confession. Good riddance—that was what she’d been trying to tell herself. But Dr. Imani was right. She missed Zoe.

Certain things, anyway. Not the cheating. Obviously.

“That’s natural.” Dr. Imani was still holding the crystal pendant in her hand. Not swinging it, just letting it sway idly according to the motions of her body. It looked so right on her. It was almost the same color as her eyes. “Anything we do many times is habit-forming. Especially pleasant things. You have a lot of habits bound up with Zoe’s pendant. Habits that are now broken. Habits that your subconscious mind may be crying out for, leaving you feeling unsettled and confused.”

“Yeah.” The crystal, full of fond memories, seemed to be staring back at Lara somehow. A pale facet at its heart, a golden, slit-like eye.

“Over these sessions, we can work toward addressing those feelings. Changing those habits—if that’s what you’d like. But moving on must begin with acceptance, Lara. I want you to try to accept your fondness for the happy things. For the relaxation Zoe brought you. You must work to accept how you truly feel. Understand?”

Unease frothed within Lara. The whole reason she was here was that there were feelings she couldn’t accept. But Dr. Imani wasn’t talking about those, was she? Safe in that knowledge, it was surprisingly easy for Lara to let her worries go. “I… guess.”

“You can do more than guess, Lara,” Dr. Imani chided. Her voice was gentle, but Lara felt herself shrinking anyway. The crystal pendant seemed, somehow, between them. A lens, magnifying on the one hand. Diminishing on the other. “Give yourself more credit than that. You understand.”

“Y-yeah.” Lara felt so warm now. It was like she was right back in Zoe’s lap, bathing in that golden, loving glow. She should have hated that—but she had missed it so much. “I understand.”

“What do you understand?”

Lara blinked. When her eyes focused again, the crystal was new to her. Its gaze entranced her afresh. “I…”

“You understand that you will accept.”

“Right. Accept.”

“And what will you accept, Lara?”

“U-uh…” She felt so soft. So pliable. It had been so long. “My…”

“Your feelings.”

“My feelings.” She nodded sleepily. “Yeah.”

“You will accept your feelings.”

Lara nodded again. “I will… accept my feelings.”

“Very good.”

The jilted lesbian blushed yet again.

“And how do you feel right now?” Dr. Imani asked. In her left hand, still, the crystal. In her right, her pen. Her notebook was resting on her knee. Scratch, scratch.

“R-relaxed,” Lara drooled.

“I can see that. Yes, Lara. You’re very relaxed. Do you know why?”

“Crys… tal.” The faintest of alarm bells rang in Lara’s head. She didn’t listen to them. She wanted to be dull and relaxed. She accepted the feeling.

“Very good. Yes, you’re relaxed because of this crystal. This crystal has a potent effect on you. You’ve accepted that. You’ve spent so much time building that habit. Working it deep into your subconsciousness.”

Lara almost nodded, but as she slumped forward in her seat, letting the crystal loom ever larger in her view, something snagged on the fading remnant of her mind. “But… not that… Zoe’s…”

A sharp tut silenced her.

“Perhaps I’ll prime you with a fuller explanation of psychological transference in a future session. But for now, what matters is that you’re already sinking. Whatever part of you knows the difference isn’t present enough to matter. So, listen to me carefully, Lara: no. This crystal. You are weak to this crystal.”

“I…” Even though Lara’s voice was still faintly reluctant, she was already nodding.

“You are being hypnotized by this crystal.”

“I’m… being…” That, at least, was impossible to deny.

“This crystal hypnotizes you.”

“Hypnotizes… me…”

“This crystal is a key that opens your mind.”

“Key… my… m-mind…” A distinct shiver raced through Lara.

“Because it’s hypnotized you so many times before.”

“It… but… wrong… color…”

“No, Lara.” That voice, still calm, still measured, seemed now to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was absolute. “This crystal.”

“B-but…”

Lara could keep up the fight no longer. Her flailing mind succumbed, and her memories changed.

Thanks to Dr. Imani, she understood now that what she’d done with Zoe had left holes in both her mind and her heart. An absence, longing to be filled—and now it was. What Dr. Imani offered to her was the perfect shape, and with the blessed warmth of trance to grease it, it slotted in perfectly. A cuckoo key, but one that would work all the same.

In Lara’s mind’s eye, Zoe’s crystal dulled from red to amber.

She had always been hypnotized by this crystal. Over and over again.

“That’s better.” As Lara’s conscious mind dwindled to nothing, her mouth fell open and her eyelids sagged. The scratching of a pen lulled her deeper. She was the very picture of compliance. “This is proving a very productive first session. Now, it’s time for you to be completely honest with me, Lara. You’re going to help me to understand what truly brought you here—and I’m going to do the same for you in turn.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“How did it make me feel when I found out that my girlfriend was a serial cheater who’d been sleeping with other women for years?” The indignation in Lara’s voice quickly drained, and she hung her head in shame. “Confused, I guess.”

“Confused?” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “That’s an unusual response. Most people would be angrier.”

Lara winced. That seemed to confirm what she already suspected: that there was something wrong with her. “It’s just… a lot to process, I guess. That I’ve been having these feelings. These fantasies. I guess I should be angrier, shouldn’t I? Instead, I’m just wondering what it means.”

“Let’s make sure we’re not mincing words here. It’s important to face up to these things. What feelings are you talking about?”

“I… fuck.” Lara had to squeeze her eyes closed and imagine herself alone. Had to shrink into herself. Anything else was too humiliating. “When I think about what Zoe did to me, I feel… aroused. It turns me on.”

“Good. And what fantasies?”

“I… f-fantasize,” Lara confessed, voice high and girlish, “about her, and… those other girls.”

“What do you do when you have these fantasies?”

“U-uh… I… you know…”

Lara could not say it. Mercifully, Dr. Imani didn’t make her.

“Wait, how do you know about that stuff?” Lara asked. “I don’t remember telling you about it.”

“You did,” Dr. Imani told her with the casual confidence of someone remarking on the time or the weather. “Near the end of our last session.”

“Oh.” Lara supposed that had to be right. Her memory was a little hazy.

“You seem uneasy with your fantasies, Lara,” Dr. Imani observed from her throne. “Let me remind you that there’s nothing wrong with having kinks or fetishes. There is no judgment here. You’re allowed to have these feelings.”

A kink? A fetish? Lara supposed she couldn’t deny that was what it had become. All the same, she shook her head.

“But it wasn’t a fetish when Zoe cheated on me!” she replied, anguished. “That was just… cheating. It was a betrayal. I wish I could be angrier. I wish I could hate her the way she deserves. Instead I’m… I’m getting off to it like some kind of pervert.”

There was nothing Lara hated more than the rising heat between her thighs as she contemplated that.

“You don’t have to hate Zoe,” Dr. Imani reminded her. “Even if that’s what people tell you that you’re supposed to feel. You’re allowed to make peace with her. To accept what she did. To forgive her, even.”

“Forgive her?” Lara snapped. That was a bridge too far. “No way. How could I ever forgive her? Why the hell would I want to?”

“That’s a good question.” Dr. Imani remained, as ever, immovable. “Confusion suggests conflict. Perhaps you feel, on some level, as if Zoe was doing you a favor? Gratifying you? Making your fantasies come true?”

“Hell no!” Lara couldn’t believe what she was hearing—and after it had seemed like her therapist actually understood. “Not for one second! I never even had these feelings before she went behind my back. And I know for damn sure she wasn’t doing it for my sake.”

“Something else, then. You’ve mentioned that Zoe is transgender. Perhaps that’s the source of some of this intense resentment?”

Lara blinked, stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Cis partners of trans women often learn to enjoy the relative privilege they wield. Learning that Zoe had been receiving so much positive sexual attention might have struck you as a threat to that—on a subconscious level, of course.”

“A thre- look, no!” Lara bit back. “Are you crazy? I resent her because she cheated on me. It’s that simple.”

“And yet, you are confused,” Dr. Imani pointed out. “In fact, you seem angry. Anger can often be a defensive reaction, especially against hard truths. Why are you struggling so much to accept that you enjoyed what Zoe did?”

“Because…” Lara spent a few moments tying herself in knots around the question—but then let her anger slice through them. She bolted to her feet. “No, hold on. I didn’t say that. I didn’t enjoy it. That’s not what I meant. You… you need to stop confusing me, or I’m going to leave.”

“Calm down, Lara.” Dr. Imani sounded like a schoolteacher talking to a child—painstakingly gentle, but always with a subtle reprimand at her heel. “There’s no need for that. I’m sorry that this is all so confusing for you. Why don’t I explain it another way?”

“I don’t need you to explain… whatever the hell you were getting into,” Lara warned. “You’re messing with my head.”

“Alright, Lara. I apologize. Why don’t you sit down?” As she spoke, Dr. Imani tugged at one of the sleeves of her blazer, exposing her wrist. Wrapped around it was a chain necklace and a gorgeous, amber pendant. “You can tell me what it is that you do need. This is all about your side of the story.”

Lara was seriously tempted to storm out, but that seemed like a waste of time and money—and besides, it’d have been childish. She sank back into her seat, eyes glued to that crystal pendant and the way Dr. Imani was idly toying with it. Once again she met the gaze of that strange, vertical, reptilian eye at its heart. It seemed to beckon her downward, and taunt her with memories that slipped out of view. She couldn’t look away.

“That’s better. Why don’t we reorient ourselves? What are you looking to get out of your therapy, Lara? We’ve agreed that you’re confused. How can I help you with that?”

“I just…” Suddenly, Lara wasn’t sure why she’d gotten so worked up. It had been mere moments ago, but now she was so relaxed. She was already losing the thread of her anger. “I want these awful fantasies to go away. I don’t want my cheating ex to have left this mark on me. I don’t want any part of me to feel like it was right or good.”

It felt so right to put it out there like that. So clarifying. Unburdened, Lara could sit back and sink into her new calm.

“That makes perfect sense. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Lara. But remember what we spoke about last session? Acceptance.”

“Acceptance,” Lara echoed. She remembered something like that, anyway. “Right.”

“You need to accept how you feel.”

“Need to… accept… feel.”

“Very good. And how do you feel at the moment?”

There should have been so many answers. Anger. Shame. Betrayal. But the key had entered the lock. Lara opened herself, and all of it flew to the winds like the evils from Pandora’s box. In the end, there was only one answer.

“R… relaxed.”

“You know, forgiveness can be very relaxing too.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“How did it make me feel when I found out that my girlfriend was a serial cheater who’d been sleeping with other women for years?” Lara let out a fond, longing sigh. “Lucky, I guess.”

“Lucky?”

“For a moment, anyway,” Lara qualified. “Before the reality of it sank in, it was like… Zoe cheating on me was like a wet dream come true. I’d never told her, and I’m not even sure I was aware of it myself, but deep down, I knew. I wanted it.”

“Then, what was the problem?”

“The problem was that she betrayed me!” Lara clenched her hands into fists, furious at more than just her ex. “And… that I blew up at her. I mean, of course I did, right? Going behind my back like that—she shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I get that. I’m not some kind of crazy fetishist who’s gonna let my sex drive overshadow my relationship ethics. It’s just that maybe, in another life, if I’d been honest with her and myself. If we’d done it all a different way. It could have been…”

“Could have been what?”

The sigh that passed Lara’s lips as her head filled with fantasies was a moan in all but name. “Incredible.”

The two of them were sat, like before, in Dr. Imani’s office. Little had changed—except that the therapist now wore, around her neck, an amber crystal. It sang to her with a strange, nostalgic song she couldn’t place, but that called her backward into the golden past of her relationship with Zoe. It must have been the same one her ex had had. Lara didn’t know how that was possible, but she didn’t question it either. She couldn’t.

“It sounds to me as though the only thing you truly regret is the breakup. Have you considered reconciling with Zoe?”

Lara shook her head mournfully. “It was kind of a hard break. I don’t think that would work out.”

“Have you tried?”

“I can’t. No contact. I blocked her number and all her socials.”

“You could unblock her.”

“Yes, but-” Lara’s head throbbed. Without realizing it, she had been staring, unblinking, at the crystal pendant. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and a little clarity ebbed back to her. “No, wait. W-why are we talking about me getting back together with the person who cheated on me multiple times behind my back?”

She couldn’t say it without blushing, but she didn’t falter either.

“Because that’s what you want, Lara.” Scratch, scratch, scratch, against the walls of her mind.

“Yes, I… no, I mean. No. Yes, it’s nice to think about what might happen if it all worked out somehow.” Lara put her face in her palms and rubbed her fingertips against her eyelids, trying to banish the strange, golden impressions that danced before her in the dark. They vibrated like plucked strings whenever Dr Imani spoke. The therapist’s voice was coming from everywhere and nowhere—and from inside Lara too. “But that’s just a fantasy. I need a partner I can trust. Someone who doesn’t just do things like that—even if it turns out that I like them. I’d be crazy to get back together with Zoe.”

“Let’s address that head-on. Why? What would be so wrong about it?”

“She cheated on me!” Lara tried to say it as calmly and declaratively as she could, but even with her eyes shut she could see amber, and something wet and needy slipped into her voice. The fire of her anger was quenched.

“Yes, she did.”

“Are you telling me I should get back together with someone who cheats on me?”

“You enjoyed it.”

“Well, yeah, but…” It seemed so simple to Lara; why was she having such trouble putting it into words?

“Look at me, Lara.” Lara shook her head mutely. For some reason, she didn’t want to.

“It’s about trust,” Lara forced out. “I-I need to be able to trust her. Yes, I enjoyed it, but… she should have told me, shouldn’t she? It should’ve been something we talked about. Agreed on.”

“Maybe it still can be.” Scratch, scratch.

“You’re missing the point!” Lara erupted. With her eyes shut, she was dark and alone. Her returning clarity was accompanied by a terrible sense of danger.

“Can you explain that to me, Lara? Can you look at me?”

Again, Lara shook her head. She knew, somehow, that if she opened her eyes, something awful was going to happen. “It’s over between me and Zoe.” Who was she trying to convince more? “For good. I made up my mind. No going back. I burnt that bridge, and I did it for a reason.”

“You did. But perhaps if you come clean, Zoe would be willing to give you a second chance.”

“A se-” That suggestion—that very phrase—was like a white-hot nail driven into her skull. Instantly appalling. Instantly intrusive. The very worst parts of her melted around it and formed themselves into its shape. All Lara could do was choke out a dark laugh at how twisted she was becoming. “She? Give me?”

“It sounds like you were very rude to her, Lara. Cruel, even. Cutting her off like that. Perhaps she’s suffering right now, just as you are, from a lack of closure.”

Eyes clamped shut, Lara could not see Dr. Imani, but she could certainly imagine her, sitting tall, firm, resplendent, this infectious, golden light shining from within her—or perhaps from behind her, leaving her a bleak and majestic silhouette against its brilliance. The older woman was implacable. Irresistible. The searing brand of her low, insistent voice made the very air between them twitch and shriek with the monstrosity of her suggestions. In the face of her own erosion, Lara tried, yet again, to restate what was most important.

“I broke up with her because she cheated on me.” But I enjoyed it. “I went no-contact with her, because I can’t trust her as my partner.” But she might be willing to give me a second chance. “Zoe betrayed me behind my back over and over again. She’s an unfaithful slut.” And that drives me wild.

“You see? That kind of language is precisely the kind of cruelty I’m referring to. Perhaps you should try to see it from her perspective, Lara. Empathy is an important part of any reconciliation.”

“Re… but I’m not…” Worst of all was the way that Lara could feel part of herself wanting it. A captive part of her was, even now, intertwined with Dr. Imani’s words, a prize pupil yearning for her approval. What way was that to think about a therapist? “W-why am I considering this?” Lara murmured. “Y-y-you’re doing something to me.”

“We’re simply talking, Lara. Perhaps you’d feel better if you opened your eyes.”

“No!” Lara snapped. She was shaking. She was flushed hot. Golden fantasies flowered within her; the only way to trim them back was by marshaling her reason. “I’m n-n-not going to r-r-reconcile with Zoe. I don’t care what her fucking p-perspective was. What could possibly justify t-t-treating me that way?”

Scratch, scratch, scratch. “Perhaps she could tell that you deserved it.”

More than white-hot. More than a nail. A supernova. As it took root within Lara, her eyes flew open in shocked reproach, ready to scream, to run, to throw hands—but as soon as they did, there it was.

The crystal.

Its glare was magnificent. It loomed large in the room, as bright as day. A beacon. A sun. There was no escape from it, not once Lara’s gaze met its strange, lidless eye. The strength she had been mustering fled her limbs and she slumped forward, mouth drooling open, eyes reflecting each facet of the crystal that was her whole world.

“N-no…” Lara groaned, straining for control of herself. It was no use. The key had turned the lock. The crystal opened her, and owned her.

“Yes,” came that stern voice. It seemed to come from the phantasmal light, as though the crystal itself was a burning bush. An angel. “You deserved it.”

“I…” There was no resistance. Not really. Lara was far beyond that. Only a few mental obstacles remained to cast shadows of doubt, and the crystal smoothed those away with waves of gold. “I… d-deserved… it.”

“That’s right. You wanted it, and you deserved it.”

“Wanted… deserved…” The idea, already firmly planted in Lara’s skull, began to evolve, the marriage of desire and desert giving rise to a poisonous sense of rightness.

“Very good,” the crystal told her. “Zoe gave you what you wanted and deserved.”

“Z-Z-Zoe…” That prompted more resistance. Lara’s bitterness toward her ex was deep, but the foundations had been weakening, and the crystal was so very insistent. Each rise and fall of its wearer’s chest seemed to reveal new shards, new facets, all of them piling atop one another, a great weight that stamped its mark on Lara’s thoughts. “Wanted… I… y-yes…”

She hated what she was saying. Some part of her did, anyway. Each word she echoed was accompanied by a terrible sense of penetration. A key, sliding into a lock. She could all but hear the click of it biting home, slotting through her mind’s defenses. She could all but feel the pieces of her own psyche moving, retracting, sliding into a new configuration. The crystal was changing her. With her eyes so wide they hurt and her drool painting a trail on her thighs, she was becoming something new, and something lesser.

“Accept your feelings,” the crystal demanded, and Lara shuddered, its awful song striking a harmony within her. “It would make you happy if Zoe took you back.”

“Ba… n… nnnnghh.” Lara was collapsing into the sun. With the last of her strength, she forced herself to remember what Zoe had done to her and how it had felt. Her body provided the final betrayal. She felt a glow of warmth from her cunt; the crystal was there too, stroking, stoking every memory of infidelity into a crucible’s golden melting-fire. “H-h-h-haappyyyyy,” she drooled finally, in surrender.

“Good,” the crystal soothed. It gave off such warmth, but the crystal itself was cold. Ice. It did not move. It did not change. It could only be obeyed. “Very good.”

In one final, awful moment, before consciousness itself slipped out of sight and she was left a mere vessel, Lara felt the writhing, ravenous cuckold growing beneath her skin like she was no more than a cocoon for another’s design. Then, all at once, she beheld the full shape of what had nurtured it—not just the pendant, but these sessions, and Dr. Imani’s twisted therapy. The epiphany began to die moments after its birth, smothered in golden light, but one last lucid question for her therapist was left upon Lara’s lips as her mind fell away.

“W-w-why are… you… doing this… to me?”

Beyond the light, Lara could faintly make out pursed lips, now turning upwards. “Because I can.”

“How does that make you feel?”

No single word Lara could think of came close to capturing the roiling mixture of dread, shame, anticipation, and horror swelling her stomach as she stared down at her cell phone. Between her hands shaking violently and the oppressive, amber auras clouding her vision, she could barely make out the digits on the screen, but the simple knowledge that it was Zoe’s phone number was like bleach on the inside of her skin. No single word could encompass all that she felt—but one blazed bright at the forefront of her mind anyway, painstakingly etched there a foreign hand. “Excited.”

And she was. Speaking it into existence dyed her anxiety to nervous excitement. Her abject horror retreated into the background—but not completely. Lara was left feverish and tongue-tied; between her breathy, stammering voice, the blush in her cheeks, and the sweat on her forehead, she seemed, along with the rest, deliriously turned-on.

Which, of course, she was.

“Very good.” Dr. Imani’s approval pulsed toward Lara through the shining crystal hanging around her neck. It filled her. It warmed her. It stroked her all over, from the inside of her sickly brain to her damp, throbbing cunt. “I’m pleased you’re feeling more positive about your therapy today.”

Lara nodded submissively. Through her hypnotized eyes, Dr. Imani seemed twice as tall as before. Twice as wise, twice as formidable. She dominated the room with effortless ease, and Lara was no more than a clueless little girl before her.

She had stopped questioning it. The will to do so had been taken from her. “Yes, D-Dr. Imani,” was all she could say.

“I think we both know what comes next, Lara. Be honest with yourself—and with Zoe. This is your chance to unburden yourself. To seek closure, or to reconcile. Whatever you need. It’s up to you.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. They both knew it, but that was another thing Lara had lost the will to question. Fighting to still her shaking hands, Lara began to type out a message to her unfaithful ex-girlfriend. She had spent the entire week in a fog, thinking about what she might say. In the end, there was no question of closure. Lara knew what she wanted and deserved all too well. Her fantasies ruled her; consumed by fetishism, she had flattened herself into a paper doll, two-dimensional and defined by a single, overriding label.

Cuckold.

It didn’t matter whether she could trust Zoe or not. It didn’t matter if her ex could change. It didn’t matter what her friends and family might think. It didn’t matter how hard it could ruin her life. The only thing that mattered to Lara was getting her fix. As she typed out her message, she considered a thousand tiny ways she could sabotage herself—rescue herself—but the crystal’s gaze was merciless, and it would tolerate nothing but the sordid, demeaning truth.

‘hey zoe. i was hoping we could meet up and talk about what happened. i understand what was going on now and i just want to see you again and try to work things out. i’m really really sorry i blew up at you before. i hope you can give me a second chance.’

Lara looked up at Dr. Imani, as if for approval, and found herself peering through tears. Her therapist, supremely confident, simply nodded. “Send it.”

Her index finger was trembling so hard it took her several attempts, but in the end, Lara managed to stab the button—and then, it was done. Her dignity, tossed irretrievably to the wind. The scales of her soul tipped back toward horror, and the phone slipped through her fingers to clatter against the ground. The sound made Lara sob. What was she doing? What was she doing to herself?

“There. Very good.” Involuntarily, Lara shuddered again. She could feel the crystal’s warm touch all over it. It felt violating. It felt good. “You’ve just taken a big step. I’m very pleased.”

“T-t-thank you,” Lara stammered. She could not see. The world was a blurred mosaic. Only the crystal shone through, a lighthouse in the fog. As her mind began to collapse in on itself, there was no other guiding star she could turn to. “D-D-Dr. Imani, c-c-could you h-hypnotize me again?”

“Of course.” Lara sobbed once more—this time, from gratitude. Anything to save her from facing what she had done. Anything to ease the birth of her new self. She trusted her therapist. “Look here, Lara. At the crystal. All you need to do is look and relax.”

Thankful for the permission, Lara moaned rapturously as she let herself meet the crystal’s gaze. The key slid into the lock. She was complete again, and she was free—free to fall back, through the weeks and months, back into her cheating ex-girlfriend’s warm, comforting lap, and beyond, through the years, ever-shrinking, ever-diminishing, lessons about trust and confidence unwritten with each passing heartbeat. Dr. Imani spoke to her again, while she was in freefall; as usual, Lara did not mark or remember what was said, but let out a great, terrible shudder as a crack sundered the heart of her being. The cocoon split, and from within, it emerged: the butterfly that had become a caterpillar again.

“How does this make you feel?”

Lara’s eyes were wide and shining, and her mouth a bright, childish smile that split her face as she watched her therapist fuck her ex. Conflict, betrayal, doubt—these too had been taken from her, and in exchange she had received the clarity of an inch-deep puddle.

“Wonderful,” she moaned, pouring all that remained of her heart into the answer.

“H-h-holy shit.” Zoe’s moan formed a duet with Lara’s—Lara’s low, breathy, the base notes, Zoe’s driven high and virtuosic by physical pleasure. “Y-you’re quite the therapist, S-Sanaa.”

“And you’re quite the fuck, in the hands of someone who knows how to take care of you properly.”

Nobody could see the truth of that better than Lara, from her spot in the office armchair turned spectator’s seat. Before her, therapist and ex-girlfriend were locked together in passion, Zoe bent over the table, facing Lara, while Dr. Imani stood behind her, a strap-on fastened around her waist. With each synchronized movement of their hips, Zoe’s whole body rose and peaked with pleasure, the hard nub of her little cock straining and twitching adorably while she arched and moaned. Lara had never seen Zoe as anything less than a girl, but she had never seemed like more of a woman than she did now, wrapped up in the conquering embrace of another woman.

And Dr. Sanaa Imani was every inch a conqueror. In shedding her clothes, she had shed the glamor of an uptight academic, but she had lost none of her dignity in the process, instead merely unveiling a woman who was in the prime of her life and fully one with her sexuality, all her expertise bent toward Zoe’s pleasure. The contrast could not have been more extreme: Dr. Imani was the master of everything she touched, while Lara would be grateful to ever know Zoe’s touch again. Lara could finally picture her therapist outside of her stuffy office and in some classy dyke bar, an ambush predator, waiting for some pretty, eager young thing to crawl up into her lap and beg for her attention.

A pretty, eager young thing like Zoe.

As she watched them fuck, Lara was brimming over with gratitude—to Zoe, for taking her back. To Dr. Imani, for helping her figure everything out. The crystal pendant was nowhere in sight. Zoe would never know about it, and Lara didn’t need it anymore. That golden glow still burned with her. She was cured.

“Thisss—fuck!—doesn’t exactly f-feel ethical,” Zoe laughed, speared through by giddy euphoria.

“You’re one to talk,” Dr. Imani purred sardonically. “Anyway, all I did was help your cuck girlfriend understand herself. This,” she gripped Zoe’s hip firmly, “is just a side-benefit.”

“I’m not g-gonna tell or c-complain.” Zoe’s breath hitched; her voice sang with pleasure. She glanced down at Lara and smiled—a genuine smile, but egged on toward a smirk by Lara’s naked, pathetic enjoyment. “H-how about you, babe?”

Lara shook her head, an overeager child receiving a birthday present. “No. Nonono.”

Never. This was what she craved. What she wanted and deserved. The feelings that had brought Lara to Dr. Imani’s door finally made sense to her. The hot prickle that stained her face when she imagined Zoe drawing pleasure from other women. The thrilling danger-rush as she imagined ‘she’s better than you’ dripping from her lips. The stab of bolt-from-the-blue anxiety whenever she found herself, at any idle moment, wondering: where’s Zoe? She could be with anyone. She could be warming any bed. It had become difficult for Lara to believe she’d had such a bad reaction to Zoe’s cheating at first. Now, it was as natural to her as breathing to transform all of those feelings—like lead to gold—into something as sweet-bitter as licorice and utterly addictive.

A betrayal of trust? Trust was overrated. This was so much more important.

“God,” Zoe panted. She was as enraptured with Lara as Lara was with her, the cis girl’s emotional masochism like a red rag to a bull. “She’s so… I c-can’t believe it. I missed her, but I m-missed this even more. And n-now I don’t even have to s-sneak around behind her back!”

That much was true. Lara would always welcome this. Beg for this. But she wanted worse, too, and so she found her weak, pleasure-stained voice.

“You can… s-still sneak,” Lara begged, her hand working between her own legs as she filled herself with fantasies of coming home at the wrong time, unlocking the door, and hearing Zoe’s moans spill through the house, intermingled with those of a stranger so much superior to Lara, and already making their bedroom her own. “Iiiifff you w-want.”

As one, Zoe and Dr. Imani laughed; Lara’s heart almost stopped. In that moment, they looked like such a couple. The older woman, the teacher, guiding a giddy young ingénue toward maturity and sin. A natural hierarchy in which an inept thing like Lara’s only place was on the sidelines. It was so right. They belonged together.

She almost came on the spot.

Nothing had ever made more sense. Lara had accepted her feelings—and with acceptance came understanding.

Lara was meant to get cheated on. She wanted and deserved it.

Zoe was meant to cheat. She wanted and deserved better.

And the world was full of better women who couldn’t keep their hands off her.

Lara’s fantasies were her guide. Her Bible. Her pleasure was the truth of her—and so was the pain, the way it rose sometimes, even now, watching Dr. Imani claim her. That surge of regret as she recognized Zoe’s first orgasm building, and the anguished half-sob threatening to spill from her lips. That vestige of shattered pride made it all the sweeter. It was nothing more than the dread of reaching the rollercoaster’s peak before the plunge sweeps everything away.

“F-f-fuck!” Zoe moaned, peering back at her new lover. “Y-y-you’re so g-good!”

The plunge hit. Lara came, and drowned in the oozing contentment that came from abandoning all pretenses and accepting her place at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

She kept watching, quiet and patient, as Dr. Imani fucked Zoe for what felt like forever—until, finally, they were done too. Dr. Imani fell back into her armchair, spent; Zoe, weak-kneed and faint, slumped into her arms, clinging to the older woman so tight, it lit a pleasant, jealous little fire in Lara’s breast. That was her girl, being taken by another—just as it should be. But there was no time for her to masturbate to that. She had something more important to attend to.

“Lara,” Dr. Imani addressed her. “You’ve made some wonderful progress today. I think there’s just one more thing we need to cover. I’ve been keen to help you develop some better relationship communication skills. Why don’t you show Zoe what you’ve learned?”

“Yes, Dr. Imani,” Lara replied, as she rose to her feet and began to strip.

As she removed and folded her clothes, Lara was keenly aware of her girlfriend’s eyes upon her. With each layer of clothes she removed, she stripped herself of another layer of dignity, of security, of personhood. She wasn’t naked for sex, for pleasure—she did not deserve those things. Simply for the act of prostration. For Zoe and all the other women who fucked her, she would make herself bare and low. If her relationship with Zoe was to succeed, there needed to be no pretenses or illusions between them. Zoe was a woman in bloom, flourishing in the arms of others.

And Lara was a naked girl, kneeling and pressing her forehead to the floor, her every possession laid out in front of her.

“Zoe,” she began, her words rehearsed like a wedding vow. “I’m sorry for the way I once spurned your kindness. I understand now that you deserve to take your pleasure with anyone you want, and I only deserve to take pleasure in your pleasure. I understand that you did the right thing by cheating on me. Please, I beg you: take me back. I promise I’ll never try to stop you from fucking whoever you want, be it behind my back or in front of my face. Be exclusive with me again, so you can trample all over that boundary and watch me squirm. It’s what I want. It’s what I need.”

Zoe’s lilting, giddy giggles and gasps were a symphony to her. But Lara wasn’t done.

“Dr. Imani,” she continued. “Thank you for taking me on as a patient. Thank you for showing me the light. I wouldn’t be back together with Zoe if not for you. I don’t know how I can possibly repay you. Thank you so much.”

The gratitude she felt was true. When Dr. Imani replied, “You’re welcome. Please, don’t mention it.” Lara felt a little lighter.

Zoe stood from Dr. Imani’s lap and rounded the coffee table. She took Lara’s hand and guided her up to her knees. The two of them locked eyes. They fell for one another.

“Lara,” Zoe whispered. “I… won’t say I’m sorry. Guess we’re beyond that now, huh?” Lara nodded. She knew Zoe wasn’t sorry. Not really. Not after this. What did she have to be sorry for? “So all I’ll say is… yes.”

They kissed, and all Lara could think about was the way Zoe tasted of Dr. Imani’s perfume—cherry and smoke, a mature scent, rubbed off onto the younger woman. It crystallized, in that moment, that from now on, Zoe was going to grow and change, experiencing and being experienced by women beyond counting, each new, adulterous lover leaving their mark on her, body and soul, while Lara would remain just like this: a cuck, unchanging, trapped in amber by her own desires.

Smallness suited her. Nothing could have been more perfect.

“Lara,” Dr. Imani said, from across the room. “I don’t believe we’ll need any more sessions. Do you?”

“No, Dr. Imani,” Lara replied. The therapist always knew best.

“But Zoe,” Dr. Imani went on, to her girlfriend. “I believe there are a few things we might benefit from discussing regularly. And privately, of course.”

The light in her eyes left no doubt as to her meaning. As Zoe giggled again, so very pleased to be the older woman’s toy, Lara shivered once more from her cuckold’s pleasure. If asked, she could not have described the feeling. All she knew was that, for her, nothing would ever feel better again. From now on, all her joy would be stained with gold.