Love is Like Poison

You sit there in front of your computer, the glow of the monitors, chugging down another cup of coffee as your other hand strokes between your legs.

You can’t help it.

It’s only been a few days, and you’ve been spending all this time working through iterations of the concept. Honestly, you can’t figure out why Sunset never came up with these ideas themselves, unless ‘Queen’ didn’t give you those papers. The things you’re thinking of are just so obvious! They’re just right there, waiting to be developed! If you just connect the dots in the right way, add the right input, and rid yourself from the need for things like ethics and morals…honestly, do people just never think?

The first thing you did was realize that at this point, your mind was swimming with so many ideas that your typing was not fast enough. So you coded up a driver to type using eye tracking. Then you added a few new layers to your smartglasses displays so you could process more information on them at once. It makes the whole thing a lot more efficient, really; you’re not sure how you could possibly go back to sixth form and waste so much time there, if not for the promise of revenge…

But, well, that’s not the reason you’re masturbating. At least, not the only reason.

One part of it is definitely the smell of the synthetic latex rubber of the prototype gloves…okay, you’re lying, you’ve just been experimenting with it for the sake of it, and the smell is sinful and delicious, that artificial harsh rubber, and…

It’s just. Perfection. The smell alone is intoxicating. Let alone the feel or appearance. You’ll be able to wear it all the time soon, but for now, you can’t help but stroke yourself off like this, harder than you have in a long time…

Ugh.

You pant. You may, uh, have some porn open in other monitors.

Corruption.

Magical girl corruption, mostly. Also some…tokusatsu, you think it’s called? It’s one of your favorite genres, and a big influence on you even before you took the name Rita. Hell, it’s one of your big motivations to do so. Warping someone body and mind into their true desires, or their desires as the one warping them understands them, it’s so similar to your own experience…

Why shouldn’t you be allowed to be free? To be truly yourself? Naming yourself Rita was just the start.

You hate Alicia. You hate her so much. Your entire body burns with anger unequaled when you think of what she did to you. You hated her before then, of course, but now you truly hate her, from the bottom of your heart.

But that hatred has twisted. She’s attractive to you, of course. Ugh, you wish you could see more of her exposed belly. Her slender muscles. That’s not even your usual type, but the blonde bitch brigade just sings to you, and her highest among them.

So that gave you an idea.

What if you could twist someone’s hatred into love? Reinterpret their ties to you? After all, anger and hatred are emotions of an intensity equal to love and lust. You’ve recognized all of them in your life, enough to know that the way you get when you really hate someone has so many similarities to what happens when you have a crush and can’t get them out of your mind.

Oh, they’re not identical. Not truly. But it’s something you can use with the hormonal research. Oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine…a few exotic drugs…you’ve got the right material in the feedstocks for it. And Anna has been remarkably helpful.

But you need a delivery system.

You were considering a myoelectrically-controlled ‘nanoprobe injector’, but decided against it. Too much fine-tuning involved. Maybe for a second generation, it’d be a nice homage to your great-grandfather’s TV work. So instead…

A glove. Black latex – or, rather, a latex-like metamaterial, precisely controlled through a microcontroller and a wireless link, with an artificial muscle structure and…

A ‘stinger’. Or perhaps a ‘thorn’.

A sharpened surface that activates on contact with another person’s skin. From there, through tiny canals, seeps in…

A violet gem, framed in gold. Filled with molecular machines (‘nanomachines’, you suppose, but that conjures up the wrong image) meant to deliver the drugs and hormones precisely once they take some readings of the body, protect them as they spread through, make adjustments…

It’s so simple when you look at it this way. How could no one else have ever thought of this? Sure, you’re making a few cognitive leaps based on the research, but you’re sure a big corporation…

Ugh.

Don’t think about that now. Just…just try and double-check everything before you end up just giving in and looking at corruption and hypnosis smut all night again, thinking of doing those things to Alicia and her cronies…

A violet gem filled with fluid, marked in beautiful gold…yeah, you’re wearing your inspirations on your sleeve again. Your ‘stinger’, your ‘thorn’, your glove filled with a kind of ‘poison’…a poison of love.

The micromachines will also have…other effects, over time. It’s even linked to a certain amount of progress based on various metrics…

You’re sure you should probably test all this. But you’d never be approved for it. Sometimes science requires sacrifice…

Should you laugh maniacally? Tell them you’ll show them, you’ll show them all? It’s kind of tempting, but you’d rather do that after you’ve done this…this unspeakable deed.

You’re sure this is evil, after all.

But aren’t you the one who thought of evil as relative?

Enraptured by the idea of people considering women, especially women like you, evil?

Or acting openly sexually, or not submitting to men, as evil?

In some parts of the world, in the most hateful successor states of the old democracies, they probably think all those things, and more.

And there’s plenty of Alicias just in Southern Sun, let alone the world.

If twisting her mind the way you intend to is ‘evil’, then…

perhaps ‘evil’ isn’t so bad.

---

You spend most of that week on your glove. Your ‘stinger’.

…well, that and a lot of masturbating, a lot of fantasizing, and a lot of caffeine. Not to mention a lot of notes for future ideas; it’s to the point you’re pretty much eye-typing any moment you’re not sleeping, really. Your break has done wonders for your ability to multitask.

Of course, you have no idea if it works. But you have a feeling it doesn’t matter as much anymore if it doesn’t.

After all, you have this condo. You read the contract – all this is yours. Even if you lose the scholarship proper, so what? You’ve got the secret research and everything else you needed.

No consequences would make anyone bold.

…and besides which, it just…feels like it’ll work.

You remember the day, that you realized this was what you wanted. When you realized you could only be Rita.

A girl, a girl you’d known in your old circle of friends back then, pushed you to watch magical girl anime. And you’d gained an interest, an interest that pushed away your so-called ‘friends’ who couldn’t imagine a world of girls without their dick interfering with it somewhere. In things older than your lifetime, made by a generation that still had hope for the future.

One of them…the journey of a girl, who was willing to break time and space itself to fight for the one she loved. Suffering again and again and again, because she couldn’t imagine a world without her. Even after she’d achieved her victory, she suffered, until the moment where she pulled her desires down from heaven.

And when Homura ascended, when she claimed love itself as her power, you felt an immense amount of pain, longing, jealousy…and desire.

In that moment, you knew, that you wanted to be part of that world, more than anything…and that magic and miracles did exist.

So it is now. You were utterly enraptured at that ‘demon’ manipulating memory and will like putty in her hands, and you’d like to think that this is carrying on that dream…

And so, it comes time to return to class. Time to enact your revenge. Using your ‘stinger’, which feels as much like ‘magic’ or ‘miracles’ as ‘science’. (And, for some reason, that doesn’t bother you – it even feels right…)

Alicia, of course, will be ready to resume her shit-talking and other ways of trying to get under your skin, but, well.

You have a plan.

It’s quite simple, really. Alicia is predictable. There are two places she enjoys the most to taunt you. One is on your commute to school, where there’s no staff to tell her off. The other…

is the bathroom, where there are no cameras.

And so it is that you carefully pack your glove in a carrying case, the mixture within in a deactivated state. Truth be told, now that you’re about to do it, you’re kind of terrified…

But you’ve been terrified before.

Before you came out of the closet, back in high school, that incident with the yogurt…you were terrified. Absolutely terrified. You tossed the bottle, and then ran like dodge all across the building. Mostly got away with it, too. Alicia never forgot, but most of them thought twice before crossing you again.

But that was probably just another reason the staff hated you. Never mind that you were just defending yourself against people who seemingly made it their life’s work to torment you – if you responded, it was an escalation.

You have no doubt that they thought you’d build a coilgun or something and shoot up the school.

But why do that, when you can instead have love?

---

Like you thought, Alicia is predictable.

You made sure not to look like you’d been broken by Alicia. To look like you were the same. Surely that’d annoy someone like her. To think your bullying had no impact…you’d just wanna push on again, especially if you were trying to intimidate someone into a course of action.

You could see her stealing glances at you. Plotting.

Perfect.

Without even sparing a second glance at her, when class ends, you calmly and very conspicuously let Alicia leave, walking just enough such that you can slip past her and, very visibly, very predictably, walk toward the bathroom.

You don’t have a lot of time.

Thankfully, there’s no one else around, giving you the chance to slip into a stall…

And pull it out.

The glove in the protective case. With the metamaterials, you can get around how slowly you have to put normal latex on, or the usual need for polish.

(Really, the latex isn’t any part of the function…it’s just hotter that way. At this point, that’s as valid a concern as any other.)

So your hand just slips in easily and the material contracts, becoming skintight, the cybernetics comfortably conforming, the gem’s contents being primed.

You lick your lips as you stick your carrying case back in your bag, put the bag down, hide your hands behind your back, and…

Yep.

You can hear Alicia clomping in, looking for you, gravitating toward the stall you’re in, and…

Kicking the door.

Of course, she probably expected the door to be locked, but she hides her surprise as the door flings open, bouncing off the wall before she holds it in place, stepping inside to slam her other hand against the wall.

Staring down at you. (Although it’s cute how she needs to tip-toe to do it.)

“Look at you. Acting all smug.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest.

“Listen. You’ll do as I tell you from now on. Or there’ll be more ‘accidents’.”

How cute that she thinks that threat has meaning. If she does it enough she will get in trouble, regardless of how the staff feels about you. What, she thinks she can try to murder you twice?

“Although if I’m lucky, maybe I gave you brain damage, huh? Maybe I solved our problem already.”

Yes, she’s standing there, just reach out…

“Hey, are you listening to me? I –”

You shove your hand forward, and against the skirt, trusting all the sensors in your glasses and the glove to put the stinger in the right position, get the molecular machines to respond properly…

And she feels it.

Alicia’s pupils dilate, as your gem drains into her rapidly thanks to the pressure the flattening gem provides.

Pulling away your hand as she stares at you.

As the initial neurotoxin hits, rendering her body unable to respond, ensuring her eyes, her mind, her everything can only focus on you.

Ensuring there can be no mistakes in how her heart responds.

It has to be you.

Only you.

…but eventually, the seeming spell of her dilated eyes, her dazed face, fades away, and she realizes what happened.

“W-what? What the fuck did you just do to me? What, have you gone fucking crazy after that? Y…you won’t get away with this! You fucking won’t! I’m going to tell the staff what you did right now!”

Alicia stumbles back getting through the door, staring at your glove. While you stare at her.

“T-this isn’t over, _______!”

That name…

If this works anywhere close to how you expect it to, you’ll never have to hear it ever again.~

---

That…that fucking bitch.

Your name is Alice Sentinella. Blonde beauty. Track star. Genius. It girl. The tip of the top. And Rita’s just gone nuts.

She’s gone crazy. Like all nerds do. Sooner or later they do something stupid, like murder a bunch of women for not fucking them, or shooting up a school, or…whatever the fuck it is that Rita did.

You’re rushing right off to the office. You’re burning with humiliation and you itch where she stuck whatever the fuck she stuck in you. Right above your unmentionables.

Yeah, you’ll probably tacitly admit you totally pushed her. But fuck. You’re sure they’ll understand this is getting to ‘nerd pushed too far’ territory. Like everyone always knew she would, like the staff told you every time you were in there for something you did to that bitch.

Who the fuck cares? She pisses you off. She pisses everyone off. Using that name she hates, pushing her around, makes sure she knows how people really think of her. Makes sure she doesn’t think Sunset’s attention makes her special.

Sure, the other students don’t all think like you do, but they should. But as long as the teachers do…fuck, it’s a mess. Point being, Rita…

Rita…

…

…🖤

…why the fuck are you letting this get to you?

You’ve put her in her place. You’ve pushed her down. You’re sure she’ll fuck up, make a scene, and get kicked out. Maybe even lose her scholarship. And wouldn’t that be a victory.

Getting the staff involved…it has no real advantage for you.

Right? This makes sense, right?

Just disadvantages. If they figure out you pushed her, that’s it for you. No scholarship for you, certainly.

Yeah…

You stop, halfway toward the office. Thinking of Rita’s stupid, smug face and how she’d just get so insufferable if you got in trouble.

Thinking of Rita’s dumb, stupid, wrong face that’s so goddamned ugly, boy or girl. (Girls are…gross. But Rita was gross as a boy, too. Now she’s just disgusting all over.)

(Does she even deserve ‘she’?)

And so you turn around, and head back in the direction of your next class, choosing to forget the whole thing.

You’ll find a way to get back at Rita somehow, after all.

Your name is AliciaAlice Sentinella.

And one way or another, you’ll wipe the smile off Rita’s beautifuldisgusting face…