I get used to being cheated on.

Like they say, it really is amazing what you can get used to. The human capacity for adaptation is almost infinite, and now it works against me like a disease. My new life as an exploited, cheated-on, degraded slave is a swamp, and each day I sink a little deeper. Each day it clings to me a little tighter, and little things—like the obscene overtime I work, or the taste of another woman on my girlfriend’s lips—slip beneath the horizon of my astonishment and become, in a sense, unremarkable. Each day, it all gets a little more normal.

But normal does not mean painless. I don’t think I’ll ever truly become numb to the way Luna cheats on me with Ivy after she goes home, leaving me at the office. How could I? I love Luna, and this is the ultimate betrayal—made all the more agonizing by the inescapable knowledge that I’m the one who helped to make it happen. As I press my nose to the grindstone to earn overtime pay I don’t get to keep, the lurid images of Ivy and Luna that flash through my head are like a hundred stabbing needles. They bring me to the point of tears. They make me feel like my heart has been seized in a vice. They make me so nauseous it feels as though I’ll throw up anything I eat.

It’s unendurable. Or at least, it should be. But there’s a famous quote I half-remember from a philosophy class that I once wrote Ivy’s assignments for: she who has a why can bear any how. In other words, you can put up with anything provided there’s a good enough reason.

And I have a why. I have a reason.

It’s that Ivy Robinson is a superior being.

That one simple conviction, stamped into the core of being, robs me of any cause for complaint. Ivy is better than me. The sleek elegance of this worldview leaves me helpless to do anything but dig myself deeper into the awful groove Ivy has carved through my life. How could I possibly object to anything that has happened? Ivy is my superior. She can take what she wants from me. My time. My money. My girlfriend. Anything.

Everything.

Besides, it’s not like I don’t enjoy it. And isn’t that the ultimate proof?

Each one of those stabbing needles lights a fire inside me. The tears that fill my eyes are accompanied by a delirious, masochistic grin. The nausea in my belly brings with it a nauseatingly warm, clenching pleasure in my cunt. I enjoy my fantasies of cuckoldry with relish. They are the high point of my sad little life. They feel more real and more intense than my actual sex life with Luna ever did. I should thank Ivy for that. For putting me in my place, and teaching me the kind of pleasure that best suits weak, inferior little spectators like me.

The shattering of my home life has, ironically, been of great benefit to my career. I spend more time working than ever. It’s what Ivy wants. Luna too, actually. Even though Ivy enjoys rubbing my face in them, they both seem to prefer that I’m out of the way of their trysts. I suppose that makes sense. The presence of a drooling loser in the apartment would probably kill the mood, even though my implanted voyeurism would give anything for a chance to see it up close and personal. Moreover, I know that Luna must still have reservations. She’s my girlfriend. She loves me. It’s easier on her, I’m sure, if she can pretend that I don’t know and that she isn’t hurting me. That must be it.

As a result, I spend an ever-increasing amount of time at the office, clocking up meaningless overtime. The extra padding in my paychecks goes straight to Ivy, but my bosses don’t know that. All they see is a highly-motivated manager filing her paperwork weeks ahead of deadline. Thanks to me, our office has become the most productive in the entire company. Corporate higher-ups know my name, and they mention it approvingly.

Am I proud of that? It’s hard to say. In truth, I’ve always considered my corporate position to be as much a black mark as a badge of honor. Given my social ineptness, it’s always been easier to sequester myself in a cubicle or a private office than to develop much of anything beyond a career. My professional success often seems to taunt me; a reminder of my failure to properly cultivate the other areas of my life. To be rising even higher under these circumstances is little more than a further twist of the knife—and yet, in defiance of all that, I am proud. I have to be. Everybody needs something to be proud of, no matter how petty or poisoned. This is what I have—it is all I have—and so my ego sinks its claws into it and clings on for dear life.

There it is again. That human capacity for adaptation, working against me.

The pride I feel is juvenile. I know that. Like I’m a child bringing a good report card back to a broken home and expecting my divorcing parents to truly care. It’s a regression. Thanks to Ivy Robinson, I am shrinking in every way. I should deny it. I should resist it. I should do anything at all but sleepwalk through my own annihilation—but I don’t.

Well, never mind. After today, it won’t matter. Today, my boss is coming to visit. The regional manager. It’ll be a surprise to most, but not to me. I know why she’s coming here. I know what’s going to happen. What Ivy told me will happen. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I can’t wait.

At the appointed time, I cue Ivy to head down and escort my boss up. Giving her instructions feels like an obscenity, but in public she will play the perfect, obedient employee. A few minutes later, Ivy returns—and with her, Mrs. Samson. The woman I am professionally accountable to. The woman who has, it seems, been singing my praises. After greeting her briefly, I rally the troops.

“Everyone! Gather round, please.” My excitement bleeds into my voice. It takes a moment for most of the office to take notice, but with Ivy’s assistance they quickly catch on. “We have a visitor today—Mrs. Samson, from the head office. Please give her your attention.”

A hush settles over the crowd of a few dozen office workers. They’re nervous; nobody likes it when head office comes calling. Unbeknownst to them, this is good news. Mrs. Samson, a middle-aged, put-together, entirely professional-looking woman, is all smiles. I am too. I’m buzzing with excitement.

“Thank you, Olive,” Mrs. Samson begins warmly. She turns to address the room. “I’m sure all of you are perfectly aware of how hard you have been working over the past couple of months. What you may not be aware of is that, in fact, in this past quarter, this office has surged ahead to become the most productive in the company. You owe yourselves a round of applause.”

The applause is, of course, obligatory. As they clap, many of my subordinates seem a little confused at their supposed newfound productivity—as well they might. They don’t know the kinds of hours I’ve been working. Ivy joins in, although she doesn’t look confused in the slightest. Neither do I. I’m grinning, and everyone who looks at me takes my grin for pride. As the clapping dies down, Mrs. Samson goes on.

“But as we all know, it takes a captain to steer the ship—and at head office, we can see that you have an excellent captain over here. So please, another round of applause—this time, for Olive Barnes.”

They all clap for me. Even Mrs. Samson. Even Ivy. I let it all wash over me. My grin is stupidly wide. I let myself relish it all, as the knot in my stomach grows and grows. This might be the last moment of pride I am ever permitted to feel.

“In light of her frankly herculean efforts,” Mrs. Samson continues, “I am pleased to be able to present Olive here with some formal recognition. Olive Barnes, I hereby award you our quarterly prize for-”

“Actually,” I interrupt, “Mrs. Samson, there’s something I need to come clean about.”

The ice beneath my feet breaks, and I am falling into freezing water.

As Mrs. Samson stares at me, astonished at my temerity, the vertigo I feel is almost enough to make me pass out. In her shoes, I’d be astonished too. It’s only thanks to Ivy’s instructions that I have the boldness to do this. She has choreographed this moment and I am, as ever, her obedient pawn.

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Samson asks.

“I can’t take credit for what’s been happening,” I begin. “It’s not my hard work that’s to thank.”

A complete lie—although Mrs. Samson takes it for inopportune modesty instead.

“Yes, I’m sure it was a team effort,” she says, irked. “But this company believes in rewarding effective leadership, which is why we’ve decided to-”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” I interrupt again. I’m shaking, both from the anxiety interrupting Mrs. Samson in front of the entire office brings me and because of excitement at what will follow. “I mean that I haven’t been working hard.”

Mrs. Samson’s eyes widen slightly. If anything, now she looks concerned. “Ms. Barnes,” she suggests, “perhaps we ought to discuss this privately?”

I shake my head. As much as I would love not to have dozens of pairs of shocked, suspicious eyes raking across my skin, I can’t accept the offer. It has to be this way. Ivy told me so.

“No, thank you,” I insist. “I want everyone to know. I’ve been cheating. I haven’t been working as hard as all of you think. In fact, I’ve been pawning all of my work off on my assistant, Ivy Robinson.”

An egregious lie. The polar opposite of the truth. These past few weeks, Ivy has barely lifted a finger while I’ve spent myself to the point of gray exhaustion at the office. The sheer unfairness of what Ivy has forced me to falsely confess should chafe at me. It doesn’t—because I am sick. Ivy has made me this way, and now sickness sings through my veins, whispering with a twisted promise that overrides any concern for dignity or fear of humiliation.

“Ms. Barnes!” Mrs. Samson’s concern has evaporated. She looks furious. I’ve made a pantomime of her visit. “In your office. Now.”

I shake my head. “I want to come clean. I want everyone to know.” I’m delirious from the mixture of shame and anticipation. That idiotic grin is still plastered to my face. “I’ve been lying to you all. It’s inexcusable. I can’t take it anymore.”

The room around me is a sea of gasps and shocked faces. “But,” someone pipes up, “don’t you always stay late?”

“Just p-pretending,” I reply, my voice trembling. “I’m not doing any work. I let Ivy go home early—but that’s part of it too. She takes all my work home with her.”

All the eyes go to Ivy. “Ms. Robinson,” Mrs. Samson asks, “is that true?”

A pause. A swelling of compassion. Eventually, Ivy looks down. “It is,” she confirms.

The rest of them cannot help but respond to her quiet, upright dignity. Compared to me—feverish, shivering, grinning—she is infinitely believable. With her comment, the room shifts from shock to scorn.

“Well, given that you both agree on the matter, I suppose formal grievance proceedings aren’t…” Mrs. Samson is slow to reassert control—odds are, she’s never experienced anything quite like this—but reassert it she does. Her professional instincts take hold, and she glares at me icily. “The kind of wholesale deception and falsification you have just confessed to are clear grounds for termination. Do you understand?”

I nod. I feel myself in free fall. I’m losing everything—but my prize is so close at hand. That knowledge keeps me smiling anxiously, even now. It’s like I’m riding a roller coaster. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. How damning is it that my first thought is: if I get fired, how will I be able to keep sending Ivy money?

But I won’t be. Ivy would never let me slip away that easily. This, too, is part of her plan; now, just as choreographed, she intercedes on my behalf.

“Mrs. Samson, if I may,” Ivy begins. “As the injured party, I’d like to say that, as wrong as Olive’s actions were, I’m grateful to her for coming clean. I know this is asking a lot, but I’d like you to give her a second chance.”

All the staring eyes around the room shoot wider than ever. Mrs. Samson’s most of all. “Really?” she asks, astonished.

Ivy nods earnestly. Even now, she is the very picture of dignity. “Yes. I’m sure of it. You see, Olive and I have a little personal history. We went to college together, and I occupied a senior role. I think she might have been struggling to handle our respective roles here in the office. I can sympathize—and for the sake of our old friendship, I don’t want to see her put out of a job.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you,” Mrs. Samson replies. She’s impressed. They all are. “It’s unorthodox but perhaps, under the circumstances… although there can be no question of Olive remaining above you, of course.”

I nod. “Of course.”

A contemptuous look passes over Mrs. Samson’s face. “And now I truly must insist,” she says. “The two of you, in private. Now.”

Our public performance complete, Ivy and I both nod. We follow Mrs. Samson into my office— my former office—to discuss new arrangements. She is not sparing with her disgust as she explains, in detail, the severity of my transgressions. I am, naturally, to be demoted. From now on, I’ll be out there, with my former subordinates. The only question is about who will step up to fill my old position.

Who else but Ivy Robinson?

On a provisional basis, anyway. It’s quite the promotion, but as far as Mrs. Samson knows, Ivy’s been doing my job for months. She’s competent—and more importantly, Mrs. Samson likes her. She is impressed with her. That counts for a lot. There’s a certain risk of impropriety, but since impropriety has already occurred, Mrs. Samson clearly feels that it’s best to avoid the expense of a new hire. She will look into transferring me, but Ivy is already laying the groundwork for letting that die on the vine. She wants me exactly where I belong: in my new place, as her subordinate.

We spend a couple of hours writing and signing documents to formalize everything that has been decided. I drift through it like it’s some awful fever dream. I want so very badly to pinch myself, to wake myself up, but I can’t. I mustn’t. I need what’s coming to me. When I am made to put my false confession in writing, my hand shakes so badly that my signature is barely legible. The act of fraud I’m committing makes me more nauseous than ever, but it doesn’t truly feel like a lie. How could it? It’s in service to a deeper truth. The one Ivy has meticulously etched into every atom of my being.

Once all is said and done, Mrs. Samson leaves. There’s still so much to grapple with—the animosity of my new peers, especially—but for now, once we’re alone, I’m free to turn to Ivy with all the giddy excitement of a puppy with a ball in its mouth.

“Very good, Olive,” she tells me sardonically. “You played your part perfectly.”

Her praise raises my hopes to dizzying heights. I need this—more than ever, after what’s just happened. I need the reward Ivy has promised me. I need it, because it’ll hurt so badly that, in the moment, I won’t be able to think about the trainwreck I’ve just made of my entire life. “S-so,” I bleat, uncontrollably giddy. “D-does that… does t-that mean…”

“Oh yes,” Ivy tells me. She smiles, showing teeth, and it’s almost genuine. It’s almost like she’s actually proud of me. “It means that this time, you can watch.”

The bedroom is loud, full of rich, ravenous moans and the raucous slapping of flesh against flesh. The lights are dim, and reflect in alluring patterns off the sheen of sweat coating Ivy’s dark, perfect skin. Beneath her, Luna is a vision of sensuality and satisfaction, and between the two of them, the entire room feels romantic and hedonistic like never before.

I sit slumped on a small chair, shoved untidily into a far corner. My legs are splayed. My skirt is hitched up. My fingers are inside my cunt.

The two of them have been fucking for what feels like hours. Ivy has awakened in Luna a cavernous appetite, and she works tirelessly to satisfy it. With her, Luna seems so much greater than before. A woman blossoming into her maturity, at last wholeheartedly embracing adult pleasures. I have never before heard her make moans like this, or move her hips like this, or wrap her legs around her partner’s body from sheer desperation like this.

My head slumps forward as I stare, enraptured, eyes wide and bloodshot. I cannot look away. I cannot miss even a moment of this. My body is on fire. My mind is on fire. My heart is in flames. My fingers move vigorously inside me, matching Ivy’s rhythm. I wish desperately that I was either one of them. I wish I could be Luna, of course, and taste the pleasure that’s writ large all over her face. But much more than that, I wish I could be anything like Ivy. I wish I could have her virility. I wish I could make Luna feel the way she’s feeling now. If I could be her; if only I knew what it felt like to be inside Luna, filling her, feeling her tighten and rut and give herself to me.

But I never will. Because Ivy is superior to me. I am inferior to her. She knows how to treat a woman. I don’t. I might as well be a mouse wishing to be a lioness.

And because of that, there’s no going back.

Every kiss Ivy plants on Luna’s skin stains it irrevocably. Every mark Ivy leaves with her firm hands and possessive teeth glows as bright red as a fresh brand. As they move together, Ivy’s cock buried to the hilt inside my girlfriend, I can sense that she is breaking Luna to her shape.

Permanently.

Luna will never be mine again.

My hand quickens. I can feel my heartbeat in my cunt. I’m moaning too, in weak, ragged, stillborn gasps of abject, masochistic grief. The sheer, transcendent humiliation of this moment washes away everything else I am. All my achievements—such as they are—mean nothing. This is the crowning moment of my life, and I am frantically rubbing my pussy while I watch somebody else claim my girlfriend’s body. I am far, far beyond shirking from my own pleasure. This new sexuality of mine, revolving around loss and shame, has only recently been stamped onto my psyche, but it’s been stamped so deep as to become fundamental. It’s the truest thing about me. Every other facet of my personality might change—but not that, because Ivy has made sure of it. It is who I am. This is who I am.

Watching the two of them fuck makes me feel small. It’s like how being in a church feels. I’ve never been particularly religious but I still remember how, as a child, going to services made me feel like I was in the presence of something greater. Something transcendent. It made me feel small—but a comforting smallness. A comforting insignificance. If everything about me is so small, then nothing really matters—provided I offer my devotion.

My goddess is in my girlfriend. All is right with the world.

I am smothered by my utter defeat, but there is an insistent pain in my heart that refuses to completely disappear. A clawing, gnawing knot that binds tighter and more painfully as Ivy starts to thrust faster and deeper, bringing herself to the edge. I try to suppress it—it isn’t right, Ivy is superior, she deserves this—but all the same, as the adultery playing out before me approaches its climax, I find myself staring desperately at Luna, hoping, praying for any hint that she might balk. That she might be faking her loud, enthusiastic pleasure. That she’s feeling any reluctance or discomfort at all at doing this in front of me.

Each sign of hope I fail to find hurts my heart, and sends an electric shock of pleasure racing through my body. I’m soaking the chair beneath myself with my frenzied masturbation. My pace far exceeds Ivy’s as I lose control of myself. Pleasure and pain are the same to me. Ivy looks so powerful and so potent as she plows in and out of my girlfriend, her low grunts and lopsided grin betraying the masterful pleasure she takes in her conquest. Luna looks so beautiful as she crashes through one orgasm into the next, awoken to a pleasure she had never known before, basking in the feeling of being claimed, used, watched.

Glowing with the thrill of being an eager, cheating bitch.

It’s agony. It’s bliss. But Ivy’s orgasm washes all that way. And then, so does mine.

The sight of Ivy pulling out of Luna at last and leaving behind a visible trail of thick, white, virile cum leaking out of my girlfriend is what pushes me over the edge.

There’s nothing dignified about the way I cum. My shrieks of pleasure are high, desperately, polluted by sobs and tears. All the same, I keep rubbing myself all the way to the end, milking every last drop of pleasure I can get from this humiliation. Despite the noise and the mess, Ivy and Luna do not give me even an instant of attention. The worst is still to come, as the two of them pull close to one another and settle down in our bed—my bed—to cuddle.

A placid, dangerous calm settles over me. A euphoric, post-orgasmic haze. My pain recedes and, despite the tears still wet on my cheeks, I break into a grateful smile. This was so wonderful. For good or bad, I’ve never felt so alive. For a spectator like me, this is perfection incarnate.

I’m so, so glad I ruined my life so I could watch.

Eventually, Ivy and Luna rouse themselves and, at last, turn their attention to me. Ivy’s face registers little more than contented, effortless disdain, whilst Luna’s is impishly gleeful, her eyes lit up with a spark that makes my stomach flutter. Ivy swings her legs off the bed and perches on the edge. She spreads her thighs apart, allowing me to enjoy the sight of her cock. I immediately begin to salivate. I know what comes next.

“Come clean up after your girlfriend, Olive.”

“Yes, Ivy.”

I obey. It’s only right. This, too, is my place.

Not long after that, Ivy takes her leave. She never bothers to sleep over. In her absence, I become uneasy. Ivy is like the sun. The sheer pressure her magnificent presence exerts on my psyche is immense. It blots out everything else. Without her, all the shadows and dark things inside me come creeping out. The pangs in my heart return, and I wonder why they ever left. Can all this truly be what’s right for me, if it hurts so much?

Of course it can. Ivy has impressed that on me a hundred times. She is superior. I am inferior. She is a player. I am a spectator. She knows best. It’s that simple. I can’t question it. But I can, in my own way, seek solace from it. My girlfriend is still here, and she still loves me.

Right?

“H-hey.” I am alarmed to find myself nervous as I crawl onto the bed and position myself beside Luna. She’s still lying there, basking in her glorious afterglow. A fresh wave of jealousy and insecurity bites into me. I could never make her feel that way. “I love you.”

“Hey,” Luna murmurs absently. Dreamily. Like she’s barely talking to me at all. “Love you.” When her eyes finally focus on me, the expression on her face is beyond my ability to read.

“D-did you have a good time?” It’s a foolish question. I’m just hoping some of the eagerness and gratitude she feels toward Ivy will rub off.

“Yeah.” Luna’s answer is immediate, and followed by a full-throated sigh of contentment. “Oh yeah. Ivy’s so… wow. I’m already looking forward to the next time.”

That remark sends a wave of dread through me, but I try to channel it into something positive and playful instead. “You know,” I whisper, sidling up to her. “It’s been a little while, for us. If you’re eager for another round, then maybe we could…”

I’m doing my best to sound eager and suggestive, as difficult as it is to project any genuine confidence after weeks of Ivy Robinson messing with my head. It immediately gets ten times more difficult when Luna, my beloved girlfriend, fixes me with a smirking look that straddles the line between pity and amusement.

“You mean, without Ivy?” she giggles. The smile on her face slips into my chest like a knife. “Oh, Olive, that’s so…”

Funny? Ridiculous? Unappealing?

“What do you mean?” I ask, wounded. Luna doesn’t answer. Not right away.

“I’m a little too tired for anything else tonight,” she announces, stretching out on her back. It’s impossibly tempting to let the conversation end there. Ivy’s brainwashing is suffocating, but I know that if we head silently to sleep now, everything I’ve just seen will be replaying on the insides of my eyelids, leaving me aroused and ashamed in equal measure. Can I seriously go on like this?

“How about tomorrow, then?” I press. “O-or another night? You’ve always been saying that you want us to spend more time together.”

“I… suppose I have, haven’t I?” Luna’s brow furrows. She looks suddenly distant, and sounds confused by her own words. My heart strikes a double beat. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe I can talk her down from all this madness. I’m not exactly sure what that would look like. I know I can’t save myself, after all. But maybe I can save Luna. She always was my better half.

The hard part is that Ivy doesn’t want that, and what she does and doesn’t want looms large in my thoughts. Ivy is superior to me. That has become the axiom of my entire existence, and now it fights in a tug of war with my desire to save Luna’s soul. The words I want to speak come slowly to my lips because I have to bite back the shame I feel at committing such a blasphemy. Before I can cross that line, Luna speaks again.

“Well, hey, how about this?” Luna turns to me as if offering an olive branch, but the wild, salivating expression on her face sends a shiver down my spine that heralds the devastation her next words bring. “There’s this girl at my work who’s made a couple of passes at me. Bet she’d be willing to let me cheat on you with her.”

What’s worse? Hearing Luna say that with such untempered joy in her voice? Or the fact that it makes my whole body quiver with arousal?

“N-no,” I squeak, fighting to beat back my own treasonous, malformed desires. I want it so badly, even if I wish I didn’t. “I meant, um… just you and I… we could h-have… sex?”

All at once, the glee disappears from Luna’s face. “Me?” she scoffs. “With you? That’s ridiculous.”

Her voice is bad enough. Her eyes are worse. It takes me a moment to put my finger on it, but once I do, I realize with horror that she’s looking at me the same way that Ivy Robinson looks at me.

Like I’m categorically inferior.

“B-but…” I plead. It’s like there’s an anchor chained to my soul, dragging me down into submission. I am inferior, aren’t I? To Luna? To everyone? It’s taking everything I have not to meekly bow my head in surrender. “We’re d-dating, Luna.”

“We… are,” she concedes. Again, that look of faraway confusion sweeps over her. It’s like Luna doesn’t quite understand what she’s feeling, or why she’s treating me this way. I can only hope that  her uncertainty is a crack I can pry open.

“Hey.” I take Luna’s hand and look into her eyes. If I open my heart, I’m sure she’ll respond to me. She loves me. She’s my girlfriend. “How about we s-stop doing this?”

“Stop?” Luna echoes dimly. She looks shocked. I immediately understand why. The suggestion is shocking to me too. Thinking about defying Ivy is like thinking about defying the tides.

“That’s right.” I whisper it eagerly but furtively, as if Ivy might somehow overhear. “We don’t have to keep doing this, Luna. It c-can just be you and me again. Isn’t that all you really wanted? To be happy together, as girlfriends? We can go back to exactly how things were before all of this madness!”

Luna stares into the distance for a moment. I can see the prospect working its way through her mind. My heartbeat quickens. I can sense her coming back to me. Luna is such a good girlfriend. We’ve had our problems from time to time, yes, but she’s always been so patient with me. We’re right for each other. We might even be soulmates. One little drug can’t take that away.

That’s what I tell myself, in the moments before her face twists into an expression of gleeful, adulterous malice that sets my entire being burning.

“Olive,” she laughs derisively. “Why would I ever want to go back?”

The color drains from my face. I shake my head in numb horror. Evidently, I didn’t understand her horror at all.

“But-“

“Until Ivy, do you know how long it’s been since I got fucked properly?” I flinch at Luna’s vulgar cruelty. Those things come to her so naturally now. They didn’t before. “Years. Since forever. Since I started dating you. For a while, I thought I just didn’t like sex very much. Now I realize that you just weren’t up to the task.”

That shame that courses through me is unimaginable. A hundred times worse than anything Ivy could inflict herself—because after all, she’s not wrong about our sex life.

“Now I realize there’s a whole world out there full of gorgeous dykes who actually know how to treat a woman,” Luna continues, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments as she throbs with the glowing memory of sex with Ivy. “As if I could ever turn my back on that. Remember, Olive. You’re the one who asked me for this. Who begged me for this. You can’t show me this pleasure and then expect me to turn my back on it. You made your bed. Now watch me lie in it.”

The shame is soporific. Beaten deeper into my mind by each of Luna’s words, it effortlessly drowns out the brief flare of defiance that drove me to broach this conversation. I know I can’t fight it. I can already feel myself sinking. Shrinking. All that’s left to me is to bleat one last impotent plea.

“B-b-but I love you,” I whine pitifully.

“And I love you!” Luna replies, with surprising passion. I’d been wondering if Ivy had taken even Luna’s love from me. Apparently not. It’s almost enough to make me start hoping again, but I immediately sense something malformed and sinister about Luna’s affection. “Olive, that look on your face as you were watching us… fuck! I’ve never seen anything like it. It was so pathetic. And the way you kept rubbing yourself! I can’t believe it. I can’t get enough of it. I need it.”

A broken smile comes to my face. She needs it—which means she needs me.

Luna loves me. I’m so happy.

“Having you there in the corner was driving me crazy,” Luna moans. She is a woman transformed, drenched in newfound eroticism. “I thought it would be creepy, but it was amazing! Feeling your eyes upon me while I felt Ivy’s cock. Just knowing how jealous you were. How much you were wishing you could be her. It’s like…” Her cheeks are a ravishing red as she gropes around for the words. “It makes me feel like I’m this wonderful, beautiful, perfect ornament. A prize. A treasure. And I’m all yours.” She bites her lip. Love and sadism glow within her as one. “And you’re watching me get broken in half.”

Luna’s aroused, deranged rant is stamping on what remains of my heart—but all the same, I nod along to her words. I get it. I feel it too. The intensity. Before this, I had never known anything like it. We’re both crazed. We’re both ruined. It’s horrifying.

“I’m going to get that girl from work to fuck me tomorrow,” Luna decides. She springs out of bed. “I want to cheat on you again so bad. It’s so hot. I already have the perfect outfit. Ivy left it for me earlier. Let me show you. It’s so slutty. I never would have worn it before. But now, all I can think of is how it’s going to make everyone look at me. I want you to be the first to appreciate it. For you, it’ll be special. For you, it’ll mean knowing you’ll never get to have me like they do.”

My twisted desires betray me. I moan fervently as I watch Luna head toward the other room. Thinking about being cheated on again unmakes me. I know it’s going to feel so good—and I know that this is the pattern my life is going to fall into from now. I will be betrayed over and over, and I will greedily fuck myself to it every time. Arousal and despair blend into something indescribable. The familiar drumbeat Ivy hammered into my skull is already telling me in my own voice: this is right. This is what I deserve. This is what I get for being an inferior little spectator. But just this once, my heartbreak drowns it out. Seeing Luna like this, so completely transformed, is more than even I can accept.

Luna pauses before stepping through the doorway. She turns back to me. “Don’t ask me to stop again,” she warns softly. “This is who I am now. Accept it.” She grins and—devastatingly—winks at me. “You’re dating an eager, cheating bitch.”

Upon hearing that, it takes everything I have not to start touching myself on the spot. Ivy has filled my head with poisonous dreams, and now they’re all coming true. I can’t stop feeling so turned on, but I also can’t stop feeling like I’m staring down the barrel of a gun. I tried my hardest to get through to Luna, and I failed. I couldn’t save myself, so why did I think that I might be able to save her? It’s over. We’re doomed. We have been remade according to Ivy’s whims. From now on, I’m a broken, cuckolded loser, and Luna is an eager, cheating bitch. Only, I can’t handle that. Luna deserves to be better than this. There has to be something I can do. Even now.

Right?

I strain to grasp the shape of a solution. I can’t defy Ivy. I can’t get through to Luna. I can’t think of anyone who might be able to help me. Certainly not anyone Ivy wouldn’t be able to outsmart. She’s the root of all this. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe I need to find a way to deal with her directly. But how?

Then it dawns on me. It’s so simple, it’s embarrassing that I haven’t thought of it before. I have to check my handbag just to confirm the possibility is real—and sure enough, the pill bottle is there. Ivy’s drug. The one she’s been using on me, and making me use on Luna. Clearly, Ivy was so sure I was completely broken, she didn’t think twice about letting me hold onto it. She was almost right—but not completely. And thanks to her hubris, I have the only weapon I need to turn the tables.

All I need to do is bring Ivy Robinson her morning coffee.