by Ozhojabbe » Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:46 pm
Chapter 3
Tara
In the immediate aftermath of the game, Tara didn't know how to feel. She had apparently been staying a while at John's house thanks to some intervention on her sister/granddaughter/mother's (which was it originally?) part. Their mom had been all in favor of it - she knew she couldn't provide the kind of life John could for her two daughters.
Wait a minute. If Elizabeth was originally her... mother? Who was taking the role of Tara's and Elizabeth's mom now? Had the game created a new person, or just rearranged people's memories?
She tried to call their mom, but just got a voicemail. She wanted to ask Elizabeth about it, but she had disappeared without telling anyone where she had gone. Oh well, she supposed that mystery would have to wait.
No, her first true order of business was to celebrate being a teenager again. She was *this* close to reclaiming her goth identity, she could feel it. She frowned in the mirror at her current get up. She was wearing a pink, collared shirt under a navy blue shrug and an eggshell skirt. Her purse was hot pink.
Okay, she definitely had some work to do. She asked John if she could borrow some money, and he was all too happy to oblige citing her excellent grades this last semester. Well, that was definitely a perk of the new arrangement.
She took one of John's many cars and went to the mall.
At the mall she was surprised when she ran into a girl from her class.
"Oh, Vanessa! It's so great to see you, how have you been?" Tara found herself saying, much to her dismay.
Her ideal mall trip had always involved as little human interaction as possible. She preferred to get in, buy what she needed, and get out. Talking to someone, especially a cheerleader-type like Vanessa was antithetical to this philosophy.
"Oh, Tara. Wow, didn't think I'd run into you here. Doesn't your sister's sugar daddy have people for this sort of thing?"
Tara laughed. Yuck. "He does, but I prefer to go shopping myself. Having someone else do it for you isn't the same, and I'd miss out on the possibility of bumping into old friends like you."
Friends? Tara and Vanessa were only acquaintances *at best* in this reality, and she had hated Vanessa's guts before the game. Tara hated that she was just instinctively acting out the role of a people pleaser. Was this somehow a remnant of yuppie, or was ladylike more all-encompassing than she had thought?
"Well, I was just going to meet up with Jenny. Did you want to join us Tara?"
Tara wanted to say no. She wanted to get out of her preppy outfit, and back into a goth one. She wanted to reconnect with Velvet, Damien and Blaze now that she was a teenager again. But she found herself unable to turn down an offer like this from someone like Vanessa.
"That sounds great to me! You know, John gave me way more money than I need - maybe I can buy you and Jenny some outfits while we're out?"
Tara wanted to scream. When did she become so fake?
* * *
Elizabeth
It was several hours after the game, and Elizabeth was on the prowl. She knew the best bars and clubs in town required you to be over 21, but when she began planning her night out one of her girlfriends told her about a club where the bouncers and bartenders were more than happy to take bribes.
She admired the lights and writhing mass of people when she got in. This was definitely her kind of place. It didn't take long before she found a partner - a total frat type - to dance with. If you could call it "dancing."
Elizabeth didn't know it, but she was reinventing many of the moves from the Jamaican dance style known as daggering. But for their clothes, her and her partner were practically having sex right there on the dance floor.
That wasn't enough to satisfy Elizabeth's exhibitionist streak though. She began leading her partner to the Western wall of the club. He hoped that she was leading them to a more private place where they could as intimate as she clearly wanted to be.
Elizabeth tried to remember the last time she had been sexually satisfied. She had been married to John for a year, and that felt like an eternity to her. Even though it was ill-advised given their prenup, she knew she needed this. (Besides, the prenup was only to protect John's illustrious family name - given his proclivities, he probably didn't care much one way or the other about it, right?)
"Fuck me against this wall," Elizabeth demanded lifting her skirt slightly, and adjusting her panties.
Her partner looked around in confusion. Rather than being taken to a private location, they were very publicly located right now. On a good day he might have worried about being kicked out of the club, but he had had enough to drink that the risk of being caught only improved the mood for him. He unzipped his pants, but tried to use one hand to keep them mostly up - it probably wouldn't fool anyone beyond a cursory inspection, but he was too drunk to really care.
He began fucking her right up against the wall. It didn't take long for the dancers near them to begin taking notice and press away in disgust. A few stopped dancing entirely, and just watched in shock at what was happening.
Elizabeth drank in the attention they were getting. Until now, something like this had only been a fantasy, or manifested in tamer acts like deliberately moaning loudly in the hopes that someone would hear her in the act. It was better than she had ever imagined - this was definitely the perfect way to end her long drought.
Their dancing had already worked them both up, and it wasn't long before Elizabeth found herself riding the peaks of her first orgasm of the night, but before her partner could finish she saw a bouncer weaving through the crowd towards them. This sent her into higher plateau's of arousal than she ever thought possible. She didn't even care what happened next.
* * *
John
John was with his lover, Frank, when he got the call. Elizabeth was at the police station on charges of public indecency, and she was asking him to bail her out. He sighed. He didn't mind her screwing around behind his back, she was just his beard and nothing more, but he didn't appreciate her taking the risk of providing the tabloids with ammunition against him. It was bad enough that he was already under greater public scrutiny for marrying someone nearly three decades his junior.
He made a few calls. He was going to keep this whole mess as private as possible. If word got out, Elizabeth would have outlived her usefulness and he would invoke their prenup without pity, but he hoped it wouldn't have to come to that.
Once he was done, he rejoined Frank in the bedroom.
"Is everything alright, honey?" Frank asked as he assumed the role of big spoon.
"Everything's fine, it was just something with Elizabeth." John said shaking his head.
"I don't understand why you keep her around. It's 2017, a rich guy like you shouldn't need a beard."
John knew he was right. Why did he keep up this farce, trading one controversy for another? Wait... no. He knew why. The game. He hadn't always been richer than god, and a closeted gay man. He used to love Elizabeth, and Tara had once been his disappointing... daughter? That all felt like another life, now. It scared him how easy it was to forget what he once was, and just accept this new reality - even when aspects of it didn't really add up.
John turned to Frank. "I don't really want to talk about it right now."
* * *
Tara
Tara hung out with Vanessa and Jenny until the mall closed. She didn't buy anything that she had come there to buy, but she did buy a lot of preppy outfits she would probably only wear once as well as a few well-placed gifts here or there for her new "friends."
She didn't even remember that she had wanted to reconnect with Velvet and the others until she was already home. Well, she supposed she would just have to try and talk to them at school the next day.
The next day rolled around, and Tara, Elizabeth and John all ate breakfast making rather icy small talk about nothing in particular. Tara didn't know the whole story, but apparently Elizabeth had managed to get arrested last night. John had succeeded in making the charges go away, and suppressed any images that might have found their way to the press, but he was not happy with her.
Tara found the way the three of them interacted *so* strange. Even though they knew about the game, Tara was surprised by how easily her mom and dad seemed to embrace their new reality. Sure, even she sometimes caught herself thinking of Elizabeth as her older sister or forgetting John was her dad, but her visceral rejection of who she had become seemed to act as a natural countermeasure to completely forgetting the way things used to be.
Were they also screaming on the inside at how out of character they were acting, or had they just found it easier to give up their old identities and accept their new realities? (Or perhaps the explanation was even simpler than that, Tara was the only one who hadn't had her head messed up by a word like 'educated' or 'dimwitted'...)
After she finished her breakfast musings, Tara went to school. She was excited to find that Damien and Blaze were in her first period Math class, but when she tried to join them in the back of the room, they rolled their eyes and switched seats to get away from her.
She got up, and sat next to them again. "Come one guys, can't we be friends?"
Blaze spoke up. "Why the hell would we want to be friends with someone like you?"
"Look guys, I may not dress like you, but I like the same kind of music - like I love..." Tara started to privately panic when she realized she couldn't remember any of the bands she used to listen to. She just needed to remember one, to get her foot in the door - she could always relearn to appreciate the music later, right? "Uh, Crib of Rot?"
"You mean Cradle of Filth?" Blaze said in disgust. "Yeah, sounds like you're a really big fan of them."
Blaze and Damien relocated a second time, and this time Tara didn't follow them.
Vanessa sat down next to her. "Tara, you're a saint for trying to reach out to those unfortunate souls, but you should know they're a lost cause. Plus, I'm sure being seen with them won't do you any favors socially."
Tara wanted to lay he head down on her desk and just cry, but instead she just managed to say sadly, "Yeah, I guess you're right."
Things didn't go any better at lunch when she tried to sit with her old friends. The worst thing was she couldn't manage to stay unhappy about it. She found herself dismissing the trio with thoughts like 'whatever, they're kind of creepy anyways' and doubling down on her relationship with Vanessa and Jenny.
When she finally got home for the game, she was ready to see heads roll.
* * *
Game Time
The three competitors had gathered in an a room where they wouldn't be bothered by servants and the like. They were sitting in silence, waiting for the dice in front of them to begin smoking.
Finally, John couldn't resist the urge to speak any more. "Tara, I think we need to talk about the game. I know we had some bad blood before all of this, but surely we've screwed each other up enough to sate our collective desire for revenge? Why don't we bury the hatchet, and come up with a strategy to make this game work out well for us, no matter who gets the wish?"
Tara was surprised by the man's words. It appeared that he was capable of remembering more than he tended to let on.
"Jo-, uh, dad. I'm sorry, but I..." she almost didn't want to say it. She wanted to forget the years of anger and angst. She wanted to forget how horrible being a yuppie, and a... proto-yuppie had been the last two days. But she couldn't. "I'm not going to go easy on you guys, or whatever it is you're trying to convince me to do. I was willing to sell my soul for this before, and I'm not about to back down now."
John was saddened that Tara felt that way. He really wondered where things had gone wrong. He and Elizabeth hadn't been that bad had they? He looked over at his young wife, who wasn't even paying attention to their conversation. She was chewing her gum, and going through her phone trying to find the best pictures to put up on Instagram.
Suddenly, the room filled with smoke, and Mischaqiel's shark-like smile was in front of the three competitors. "Good, good. I can't tell you how happy I am you turned down his little offer - that would have made things quite boring for me, and I don't like to be bored."
Elizabeth looked up from her frozen phone in disappointment, and Mischaqiel continued. "Case in point - yesterday's repeated use of the word 'young'. I've decided to make the following changes to the rules: First, you all only have 8 seconds to come up with your words - that was going to happen no matter what."
Nobody was too surprised by that. The time apparently got shorter every day.
"Second, from here on out if any of you say a word that was already said before, you lose. I'm also implementing a small penalty to Elizabeth and John for repeating words."
John wanted to protest, "That's not fair! That wasn't even a rule-"
"SILENCE MORTAL! I don't care if its fair. You bored me, so you get a penalty. Your penalty is that for today's rounds both of you have to say two words instead of one with your allotted time."
This mollified John somewhat. The 8 second time limit would make it tight, but two words was also twice as many opportunities to mess with their opponents. Maybe they could manage a win after all.
"Now, Tara you'll start us off again. You're free to choose the direction of play. The last word was 'young.'"
Tara considered. Who was the bigger threat? She looked from her dad, to her bubblegum chewing sister, er, mom. It was pretty clear who she needed to eliminate first. "I'll have my dad follow me, and choose the word *Geezer*"
John watched as the skin on his arm grew loose and developed liver spots. He didn't have a mirror, but he could feel his face sagging. He found himself slouching forward until a cane appeared in his hand. He didn't have time to worry about this transformation - he needed to come up with two words for his wife. "*Ravishing*, and uh..." Crap, was he going to lose on the first round? "*Girl*!"
Elizabeth felt herself growing taller, and her breasts shrinking. In her pants she felt the most curious sensation. Soon, Elijah stood there looking at his husband and sister. The 18-year-old was still dumb as a rock, but what he lacked in book smarts he more than made up for in appearance. He would have given Adonis a run for his money. "Uh, my turn I guess." He didn't want to do anything *too* bad to his sister. "*Lesbian*... and... *Neat*" Those would be pretty harmless, right?
Tara suddenly found herself unhappy with the room they were in. Sure, it wasn't *that* bad, but she suddenly noticed all the ways in which John kept his room disorganized. The other change was more subtle. Tara's memories of boyfriends started to disappear one by one, replaced by memories of girlfriends. For her word, she had half a mind to pick 'tidy' to improve the surrounding conditions, but she knew that would be a waste of a turn - she wanted that wish and she needed to sabotage her opponents if she was going to do that. "*Tired*"
John suddenly felt exhausted. He could barely keep his eyes open. He had to think of a word... but, he was too tired. It would be so easy to just doze off and let Elijah handle everything...
Mischaqiel's discordant laughter filled the room. "It would appear John was eliminated. Elijah, you have 8 seconds. The last word was 'tired.'"
Elijah considered his options. He needed to keep his sister from winning, but he was still reluctant to do anything too bad to her. "*Drunk* and, er..." Crap. Elijah realized too late that K was proving to be a fairly difficult letter.
Tara suddenly felt like she had taken *way* too many shots. She was beyond wasted. She could barely sit up straight, and when she tried to put her arm down to steady herself, she fell off the chair she was sitting on and decided to just stay there after a few futile attempts to stand up. She could barely see straight, let alone think straight and she was sure that Elijah had won with this move.
So it was a surprise when her nose was filled with the smell of sulfur, and she heard a whisper in her ear. "Congratulations, Tara. You've won. What do you wish for?"
Tara tried to process the words but she was spectacularly sloshed. "I wizh..." She barely knew what she was saying. "I wizh I wazn shooo drunk."
Mischaqiel snapped his fingers, and Tara's haze lifted. She looked around in confusion - what exactly had just happened?
"Well, thank you three for a most... entertaining game." The demon cackled. "I'll be taking these with me," he picked up the dice, "but feel free to seek out another one of my games. I love rematches."
He disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the world started moving again, leaving the three of them to sit there in stunned silence.
* * *
Epilogue
John and Elijah were quite the May-December romance. An octogenarian millionaire, and his 18-year-old husband who never even graduated high school. Most people assumed that Elijah was just a gold digger, but the two of them actually cared quite deeply about each other, and just wanted to enjoy the brief time they had together. Every now and then, something small would remind them of their old lives, but this never caused too much strife - all things considered they had done pretty well for themselves. Sure, John had to occasionally use his considerable wealth to shield the two of them from the consequences of indulging Elijah's exhibitionism, but what relationship didn't have its ups and downs?
Tara on the other hand did not count herself so lucky. When Elijah explained the wish she had made when she was blackout drunk, she wanted to pull her hair out. She was still stuck acting like exactly the kind of person she hated, and she didn't let herself forget how she was *supposed* to be. She inexorably drifted from the people she wanted to be friends with, and found herself magnetically attracted to "friendships" with fake people who she loathed. Her one solace was her girlfriend Karen, who was almost as much of a neat freak as her, and who was the only person besides John and Elijah she ever told about the game. She didn't care how long it would take, she was going to find another one of Mischaqiel's games, and she was going to set things right. She and Karen were already putting together a game-plan for when that fateful day arrived.