Vera, truth spells, and overt anger

Trigger warning: kidnapping, non-consensual truth spell use, past physical abuse, current sexual assault, and dissociation

Sometimes, being under a truth spell just means not being able to lie about being fine anymore. Not that I was lying to Vera about being fine because I wasn't - that would require answering her inquiries into my well-being at all. But generally, even before I came to and recognized the sickeningly familiar feeling of being compelled to tell the truth, I had been the type of person to claim I was doing fine when maybe I wasn't. My mental well being was my business, not anyone else's, after all, and most people who ask could care less what was going on in my personal life. 

Unfortunately, Vera's first question after I returned to consciousness tied to a chair with her standing in front of me was not something as mundane as "How are you?" No, it was a different type of question.

“So, what’s your biggest secret?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I quipped in response. The easiest way to get around a truth spell is to ask the questioner a question that’s technically true. The spell can’t capture sarcasm, so the easiest way to survive this is to just question my kidnapper. Vera, from, ironically enough, my sociology class on deviance.

"Tell me why I had to drug you in order to get you to talk to me." To my horror, the change in form from question to demand had its intended effect, as my mouth was opening and a torrent of words began flowing against my control or will.

"I don't like you, that's why! You're a self absorbed bitch who has been flirting with me since the semester began! I agreed to go on a study date in part to make you shut up during class and now I'm tied up in a basement I-don't-know-where having had a goddamn truth spell cast on me! I didn't talk to you because I don’t like you, why is that so difficult for you to comprehend?! Have you never been rejected before?!" 

"No, tell me why you really don't like me."

Focus on the present, on why I dislike her right now at this very moment. "Because you're the type of girl who drugged a guy rather than taking no for a fucking answer! Is this your basement or are we in one of the dorms or what?"

"You don't need to worry about that, sweetheart, you're not leaving here anytime soon." My blood ran cold at the pet name, how she so casually talked about holding me hostage for an undetermined amount of time.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!" I yelled, furious, trying to pick the very thoroughly tied knots tying me to the wooden chair that already had my butt going numb. "Why did you do this to me? It's bad enough you look just like my abusive childhood best friend who tried to murder me, now you had commit a felony against me as well!?" My anger was pleasing her, so I stopped yelling.

I had revealed why I disliked her, the truth that had nothing to do with her, and I hated myself for being too weak to resist the damned spell. Truth spells weren't all powerful; I knew the trick to not revealing everything she wanted to know, and yet I had said too much in my anger. I was just so fucking angry, and she found humor in that, in me now at her mercy.

"Tell me about this abusive childhood best friend. In what way were they abusive?"

"Why should I tell you?" I resisted this time, having loosened the rope a bit with my nail. If I was going to escape, she couldn't notice what I was doing, however, so I masked it by fidgeting, rocking the chair back and forth, successful in my distracting her - until I crashed to the ground the way grade school teachers always warn kids they might. I saw red behind my eyelids when I hit the concrete floor.

"Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, won't you ever learn? For one, if you answer the question, I'll turn you upright again." I couldn't have spoken if I wanted to - the air had been expelled from my lungs when I hit the concrete. Concrete was weird word. Con- Crete

 Like the Greek island of Crete. "Have you ever been to Crete?"

"No, Charlie. Hang on." Vera left to probably drug me with more of the truth tea. Yes, a spell can be cast on a beverage without necessarily turning said beverage into a potion. I knew this because - well - alright, just because I wasn't going to answer her questions aloud didn't mean they hadn't had me thinking about the topic, about Grace. Grace, my supposed best friend from ages six to thirteen, a bona fide witch from a long matriarchal lineage of witchcraft. She had used the threat of magic, and eventually actual magic, to hurt me into agreeing with her, no matter how small the disagreement was. I was not an easy guy to get along with, and she took great pleasure in making me obedient. 

And now Vera was going to take great pleasure in doing whatever she wanted to me, while all I could do was lean the back of my head on the concrete and tell myself I was dreaming. This was some elaborate nightmare. Any minute now my alarm would be blaring and I'd shake off the remaining fear from my nightmare. I would take a shower, and the warm water would wash off the gross feeling I always get when I’m out of the house too long.

Vera returned, and my reverie faded with the cold liquid hitting my face. Turned out she decided to use the stuff on regular water rather than waste tea. If I could have moved more than a flinch, I would have. As I was, Vera decided to straddle me, an awkward position even if I had wanted this, which I absolutely did not in any way. She kissed me, and through her kiss ensured the truth spell-infused liquid entered me. I also think she just wanted to kiss me, since she would never have me consensually after kidnapping and drugging me.

“So, tell me about that abusive best friend you mentioned. What kind of abuse?”

“She used to beat me, hit me, kick me, pinch me, steal my shit, also used magic to torture me with nonexistent irritants until I agreed to whatever she wanted. You know, not entirely unlike how you’re using magic to drag these truths out of my mind and body because I’d never be revealing this to you of my own volition.” Part of me wondered how true that last part was. I did have a tendency to overshare with people I didn’t even like, but not like this. Her body weight on my lap was becoming uncomfortable, her chest against mine, and I wondered just how strong she was, or if she was using magic to make the position we were in not nearly as uncomfortable for her the way it was for me. Regardless, I felt her weight, her body against mine stealing breath from me again, without the impact of my crash to the floor, and that was before her hands began wandering below the belt.

“Did she ever do this to you?”

“No, Grace never molested me, we hadn’t even entered puberty for the majority of our friendship.”

“Has anyone ever molested you before?” Don’t answer, don’t give this to her, do not give Vera what she wants.

“Why, are you asking because you want someone to relate to? Huh, since a stone cold bitch like yourself will never receive vulnerability from a man any other way, you have to hex it out of me with your spell-infused water?” She answered my sarcastic questions by kissing me yet again, harder, her tongue entering my mouth, her teeth biting my lower lip, her hands in places I had only ever touched myself before, and as much as I didn’t want this in my mind, my body wasn’t getting the memo. My body wasn’t getting the memo that showing weakness was bad either because my eyes began tearing up involuntarily. I didn’t want what was happening. I was leaking fluids, tears, snot, I suppose I was lucky I wasn't bleeding as well. I was disgusting, repulsed by my own body, by my weakness, by my existence. I had never wanted to disappear more than I did that very moment.

Maybe this was still a nightmare, imagine instead being in that nice warm shower, her hands are your hands, which are in reality still uselessly tied to the limbs of the equally as useless chair that was digging into your back like it was Vera’s tooth in your lip. Okay, that was a shit metaphor. So I wasn’t great at inventing a metaphor for pain while undergoing pain.

I was actively being traumatized, so eventually I just retreated somewhere in my head where nothing she was doing registered anymore. It was as though this was someone else’s body, someone else she was still asking invasive questions to, someone else who was letting her invade him in every possible way there was to invade another person physically short of vivisection - fuck no don’t think that, don’t give her any ideas. 

The body underneath hers hadn’t verbalized that thought, so I was safe, or as safe as I could be, given the insane circumstances. I couldn't know what would happen next, and Vera's theft of both my truth and body had taken everything from me. I would try to stoke the flames of fury towards her again once she was no longer on top of me. I didn't know how long this would last, but unless she wanted to eventually be assaulting a man soiled by his own waste, she would have to release me from this chair eventually.

Maybe I would escape physically then. For now, I had escaped my mind, and thus the ability of her spell to force me to talk. I knew this because she tried asking that same question again, and I stayed entirely silent. She didn't get to take that from me.