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Message-ID: <56878asstr$1194606602@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Shalon Wood <dstar@pele.cx>
Subject: {ASSM} Prudence, TX Population 1276 63 (Mff ff Mm rom)
Lines: 303
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:10:02 -0500
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
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Standard disclaimers apply; this story may or may not contain, in any
given part, graphic depictions of lesbianism, homosexuality, group sex,
bdsm, underage (teen) sex, magic, occultism, violence, and biting 
sarcasm.  If you're underage, or if for any other reason it's illegal 
for you to read this, or you're disturbed by the content, please don't 
read it.

Archived at http://prudence.pele.cx, and we've got a web-forum at
http://playground.pele.cx/forums as well, for discussion of both
Prudence and our other stories. Send an email to velvet@pele.cx and
I'll add you to the mailing list to be notified when Prudence
updates. 

Comments *greatly* appreciated.

Enjoy,

Velvet
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark found Karen in the band hall, warming up on a flute was just a bit
more expensive looking, with a subtly different gleam, than those belonging
to the other two girls already seated in the front row. She tossed it
carelessly onto the chair beside her when he walked up and said he needed
to talk to her.

She smiled as she stood up, then took a second to smooth her dress down,
just incidentally stretching the already tight fabric across her
substantial breasts in the process. She slithered between the music stands,
an expression that could only be called 'predatory' on her face as she
approached the out of the way corner where he waited.

He studied her for a long moment, wondering what was going on behind that
smug, knowing smile, and wanting to make her speak first before he gave
anything away.

She seemed more than happy to oblige. "Yes, Mr. Hasseran? You wanted to--"
She paused significantly and trailed a finger down her chest, running it
between her breasts. "--speak to me? Regret something you said, perhaps?"

The very bluntness of it took him by surprise. Kayla and Kris had both
mentioned that many of the girls had been trying to attract his attention,
but they'd never done so in any way that he'd actually noticed. This,
however, was not subtle in the least, and he'd have to be blind and deaf to
miss the girl's meaning. He hid his surprise, though, save for a raised
eyebrow, and shook his head sadly. "You know, Karen, I thought you were a
nice girl."

"I can be _very_ nice, if I'm given a chance," she purred, leaning towards
him and licking her lips. "Surely I deserve as much of a chance as...
anyone. Don't I?"

He couldn't claim to know the girl well, but that seemed out of character.
It was too extreme even for a slightly unstable teenager with an unrequited
crush. Chastity's description of her as acting as if she'd been possessed
suddenly didn't seem nearly as unlikely. How would a person go about
finding out, though?

Mark hadn't never 'looked' at someone he wasn't already bonded to, before,
and he wasn't certain that he even could, since all he'd 'seen' had been
the lines connecting him to the others. It was worth a try, though, so he
lowered his lashes slightly, letting his eyes go unfocused as he searched
for Karen's mental (Magical? Spiritual? Psychic? He wasn't sure of that,
either!) energy. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, though, so it took
him a moment to 'see' the sickly green haze that flickered around the girl.
As soon as he focused on it, though, it disappeared. He frowned, wishing he
had some clue as to what that could mean.

"--now that you don't have to pretend anymore?" the girl was asking
sweetly, when he returned his attention to her.

"Pretend what, Karen?"

"No more baby," she said with a nasty, satisfied smirk. "You can have the
marriage annulled. And since everyone knows now that you're not as
lily-white as you pretended to be before...." She slowly ran the pink tip
of her tongue across her upper lip.

He shook his head, biting back the urge to snap at the girl. "Karen, I hate
to burst your bubble," he said carefully, "but she wasn't pregnant, and she
didn't have a miscarriage. They did a pregnancy test as a matter of course,
in fact, and I could show you the negative result. I didn't marry her
because I had to. I married her because I _love_ her." He studied her face,
hunting some clue, some explanation of her behavior. "Why does the idea of
someone loving Kristen bother you so much?" A horrifying thought occurred
to him, and he took another 'look' at her, this time searching for lines--
lifebond type lines-- trying to connect her to him.

He could see _something._ Not a lifebond, thankfully, but something else
reaching out from her towards him. To his inner eye it looked wrong,
twisted. There was no room for two-way flow, no give and take, just a sense
of hunger, an intense desire for possession. Instinctively, he shoved at
it, rejecting it, utterly revolted, just as Karen took a step towards him,
her face ugly with rage. "She doesn't deserve your love!" she hissed. "She
doesn't _need_ it! She has everyone else's." The hungry force groped for
him, sending out seeking tendrils that slithered along his shields and left
dark, brittle spots wherever they touched.

Mark fed energy into his shields and reached out through his bonds with
Kristen, Kayla, and Aaron, wordlessly asking for help.	"Karen... are you
that desperate for love? That you need to deny it to her?"

She glared at him petulantly. "Why did she have to decide she wanted _you?_
She had everyone else. All she could want. But noooo, she just _had_ to
have the _one_ thing I wanted, too!" She put her hands on her hips and
stomped her foot. "She's so _selfish!_ How could you possibly love her?"
she demanded, her eyes wild and slightly unfocused.

He stared at her as he felt strength flow into him from the others. He
could feel it, and could 'see' it patching the dark spots in his shield
with emerald, gold, and silver. He could feel the wordless support and love
that came along with it, and that steadied him as he looked at her crazed
eyes, letting him make a decision.

Deliberately drawing on the bonds, and especially the healing energy that
Kayla held, he reached mentally, trying to touch _Karen._ Not the Karen he
saw, but the Karen that Chastity had described, trying to draw her back out
from wherever she was hidden. He could see his effort, a solid blue rope of
power with slashes of green, gold, and silver, reaching towards the girl.
Then the alien presence lashed out, brushing against one of the gold
patches, and he felt Kristen recoil in pain and nausea. The gold patch was
left blackened and raw looking, as if it had been _burned_ by the green
mist. He was certain, then, that the sickly green wasn't just the girl's
own power but something new, something added and likely controlling her. He
urged Kristen back, feeling part of Kayla's healing power following her,
wrapping around the 'burned' area, soothing and protecting. Then, working
on instinct from lack of any real knowledge, he did his very best to attack
the green mist, intending to burn it away from Karen.

The mist jerked back, singed, and then disappeared into the girl. A pink
fog rose up and surrounded it protectively as Karen glared at him. He
didn't let up, though, but kept trying to drive the green out without
hurting the pink. "She _hurts_ people," Karen snarled. "She makes people
hurt each other. Can't you _see_ that? Like you just hurt me?"

It was hard to keep up his attack and talk at the same time, but he managed
it. "She's not selfish, Karen. She's probably the most unselfish person I
know. She _helps_ people," he said. "It wasn't me that hurt you."

She retreated a step, and the pink flared up, totally encapsulating the
green, so that he'd have to burn through it to get to the other. "You don't
think it hurts me that you'd choose _her_ over me? That you give her
whatever she wants, and won't even let me touch you? Are you so blind that
you can't _tell_ how I feel about you?"

The pink fog had thickened as she spoke, turning almost opaque, and there
was no way he could get through it without harming it, so he pulled back.
"You want something _from_ me, but what are you willing to _give?_ It's all
about taking, and that's not love. Love starts with friendship." He held
out his hand. "I can't be your lover, but I can be your friend. Which would
you rather do; be my friend, or curl up in a hurt ball? You have to make a
choice."

She reached out and grasped his hand, hording it tightly, then smiled, a
mad light in her eyes. "Oh, I've made my choice, Mark," she said, softly.
"Once I would have given you anything, you know. _Anything._ But you
ignored me. Rejected me." Karen tightened her hand, her nails digging in
and just barely breaking the skin. "Everything that happens now is because
of _your_ choice, remember that."

Without warning, she dropped his hand and shoved past him, running out the
door before he could stop her.

His hand burned where she'd scratched him, and Mark looked down at it,
startled. Bits of rot-green mist clung to the tiny wounds, and as he
watched, the mist seemed to sink into his flesh and disappear. Cursing
silently, he darted out the door after the girl, sparing only a
split-second's thought to try to draw Kayla's attention to the cuts. Cool
green energy brushed across the wounds and they closed almost instantly,
taking the pain with them.

He made it out the door just in time to see Karen backing her little blue
convertible out of its parking space, and before he could take more than a
few steps, she'd already pulled away in a cloud of flung gravel. As she
executed a tire-squealing left turn, he caught a glimpse of her face--
tear-streaked, wide-eyed, and twisted with bitterness.

With a tired sigh, he turned and ran for the main building.

***

Luckily, Angie had decided to come in to work that day. She was unlocking
her office when he found her, and her eyes widened in alarm as she took in
the look on his face.

"There's a problem," Mark said grimly. "Karen seems to have... snapped. She
made threats against Kristen, and when the latest were brought to my
attention, I went to talk to her. She told me I'd rejected her, and that,
quote, 'Everything that happens now is because of _your_ choice,' and then
ran out and took off in her car like a bat out of hell. I don't think she's
at _all_ rational."

Angie closed her eyes briefly, then said with utmost conviction and
sincerity, "Oh, _fuck."_ Then she opened her eyes and gave him an
exasperated look. "You sure do know how to complicate life, Mark Hasseran."

He nodded. "I've noticed. But, look... I'm worried about her. The way she
was driving, I'm afraid she's going to end up dead." He glanced around,
making sure the hall was still empty, then leaned forward to continue
quietly, "And it's more complicated than you know. I could say, quite
literally, that I don't think she's herself, if you understand what I mean.
I don't know what's going on here. I thought, since you were the school's
de facto guardian of the students' mental health, if you were to call the
cops and tell them you have reason to think she's irrational, you could
have her pulled over, maybe?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Mark, there are only two cops in the entire
area. The likelihood of one of them being near enough to catch her is slim.
I'm more worried that she'll hurt someone _else,_ honestly."

"What do we do then?" He ran a hand through his hair, frustration rising
fast.

"I don't know, I really don't," Angie said. "Do you think we need a... a
priest or something? To perform an exorcism? If her parents gave a shit
about her,  I could call _them._ But I've talked to those useless bags of
flesh before and... well, the only one whose opinion she's ever cared about
is her best friend, Chastity, and those two haven't been talking to each
other all week."

"Angie, I wouldn't trust the Reverend as far as I could throw him," he
said, bluntly. "Shit. If Aaron's mother was anywhere near here, I'd say
bring her in, but... damn it. Do we need to call the police? She's made
threats, and what she said to me there seems to be another threat, so do we
even have an _option_ here?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not really. I hate to do it. She hasn't had an
easy life, poor little thing," she said. "But... if she's threatened
Kristen, I don't see a choice. Maybe if the police get brought in, she'll
end up getting the help she needs. A court will _order_ psychiatric
evaluation and assistance for her. Her parents won't have a _choice_ abut
complying. Do it."

"Shit. Go find Chastity and tell Ward, then. I'll call the cops." Mark
rubbed his forehead. "I hate to do this."

"I know. I do, too. But she _needs_ help, Mark. And... and I won't let her
hurt Kristen. I... I..." She swallowed, blinking back tears, and her voice
quivered with shame. "I'd rather have her _dead,_ Mark, than let that
happen. I don't care how wrong it is."

He lay a hand on her shoulder. "Easy. I feel the same way. It's okay. Go on
and let Ward know."

Calling the sheriff was easily done, since the number was still on his
cellphone's memory. After two rings, the man picked up. "Sheriff Wilson,"
he said, in a neutral, professional tone, then, "Damn it, Hasseran! Your
number just keeps showin' up on my phone all the damned time! What is it
this time?"

"Sorry, Sheriff, but we've got a situation here at the school. One of the
girls has been making threats against another student, and when I talked to
her about it, she made what I think was another threat, then took off in
her car. She didn't seem at all rational when she left, and isn't safe to
be driving."

"Well, _shit,"_ Wilson gave an exhausted sigh, then asked, "Okay, who was
it, and what's she driving?"

"Karen Bradshaw, and it was small, blue, and convertible."

"Right. I know what Karen drives. Seen her around town in her little
Mustang. Anything else?"

"Just that she's _not_ rational. The threats were against Kristen-- she's
convinced I only married her because she's pregnant, and she was going to
shove her down the stairs to make her miscarry. Then I'd divorce Kristen
and be free for her. Nothing I said could convince her that Kris wasn't
pregnant." Mark rubbed his head again, the sheer frustration at all of it
almost overwhelming him. "Her last words were, 'Everything that happens now
is because of _your_ choice.' If that's not a threat, I don't know what
is."

"Damn it. Okay. Are y'all gonna press changes, or do you just want me to
try to talk to the girl?"

Mark was silent for a long moment before answering. "Sheriff, as Kristen's
husband, I'd prefer you just talk to her. Kris doesn't want any more
attention, and neither do I. But as a teacher, however-- I'm not sure we
even have a choice not to."

"All right, then. Tell you what-- I'll talk to her first, and see what's
up. But if necessary, I'll take the little girl in and let the courts deal
with it. Might be that just the chance of that'll scare her straight, or
jar those parents of hers into taking a proper hand."

"Her best friend is the one who told me about the threats," Mark said. "She
says her personality has changed completely over the last couple of months.
I think she needs to see a counselor."

"Sounds like it. I'll take care of it, and let you know."

"Thanks."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you like this, you might want to take a look at Strange Love, an
e-zine of sf/fantasy/paranormal erotica. The first issue is on sale
now for $2 at:

http://strangelove.pele.cx

Take a look!

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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