FortySixtyFour
patreon
Renfaire Fantasy 2: Chloe's Escape pt 1
🕑 Added 2023-12-31 18:34:09 +0000 UTCAs the evening light dimmed and night began to fall, Brian found he was withdrawing into himself more and engaging in the heated discussions less and less. The argument exchanged back and forth across the campfire ceaselessly, the same beasts morphing into slightly different phrasings for renewed attacks or working to chip away at trivial aspects of the opponent’s rationalizations for this or that. Influencing Chloe with the charm robbed her of her free will and was wrong. Letting her free meant she would bring down terrible things upon them. The meat of the matter did not change, and as Brian gazed into the fire with gritted teeth he realized that they were deadlocked. Each side’s reasoning resonated with him somewhat but failed to fully sway him, no magic solution or perfect argument or be-all and end-all epiphany seemed forthcoming that would lift them out of the miserable moral quandary.
I’m gonna have to just decide what to do, Brian thought. And, it’s gonna have to be something I can live with. The thing is—I REALLY just… don’t want Chloe to be my problem anymore. Yet, nothing seems dumber than just naively trusting she could keep her word and leave us alone. But also, it’s not like we can just kill her.
“If you can’t convince me you’re not a threat to us, you’re going nowhere,” Kelly’s voice remained firm. “Not if there’s any chance you throw in with the Masters.”
“You’ve never even met the Masters, and if you had, you’d know I would never go along with them, no matter what,” Chloe ridiculed them. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Bad things happened to Steph in one of the previous timelines,” Kelly glared. “I won’t allow that to happen. I’m not letting you keep up your psychotic pursuit of Brian, either, and—”
“Oh, puh-lease,” Chloe laughed.
“Uh, no? You’ve been completely fucking psychotic!” Emily retorted. “Think about everything you’ve done. The whole convention weekend. The pregnancy scare bullshit. The false accusations. Stalking Brian, stealing his phone. Lying to Stephanie to try to separate them—do you fucking realize what almost happened just with that?!”
“I was trying to help her,” Chloe snapped. “To keep her from making my mistakes, from suffering the way I—”
“So, we can just kill her, right?” Emily interrupted. “I’m done. I’m so done. With this bullshit. Let’s just kill her. I’m so for real. If—”
“Chloe—” Even Stephanie’s voice had run cold, and Brian hated to think what everyone’s heightened emotions were doing to her. “Chloe, what almost happened to you, in that alleyway—is what almost happened to me. If it hadn’t been for Emily and Rebecca—”
“Yeah, okay,” Chloe let out a scoff in retort. “Sure, I bet. You hear my fucking story and then just try to co-opt what happened to me as if it happened to you. Real fucking convincing. Except—”
“Kill her,” Emily hissed out again.
“This isn’t getting anywhere,” Brian said, rising to his feet.
Everyone went silent at that, and though everyone’s eyes turned his way he scanned off into the treeline where the scattered bits of visible sky had become difficult to make out. It felt as though the girls were all expecting him to deliver a decision, but he simply didn’t have one. Kelly, Stephanie, and Emily would probably support whatever choice he made, and realizing that seemed to undermine whatever call was made, because rather than a majority rule it would be charm influence. He couldn’t brush off the affect the charm had on them while also hoping to use it to change Chloe into someone who was more agreeable and easier to live with. That very hypocrisy was what kept poisoning the somewhat more sensible rationales thrown back and forth in their argument—it was exactly the moral quagmire Brian would have the most difficulty grappling with, and he hated it.
“It’s getting dark. We should get the tent set up,” Brian said. “The sleeping bags. This… isn’t getting anywhere.”
“Because you know you have to let me go,” Chloe’s tone was so smug it almost pushed him into an immediate angry decision, and he had to take a deep breath and steady his nerves to bring his thinking back into balance.
“If you kill me, you’re a murderer,” Chloe stated the obvious. “If you change me, you’re a rapist, you’re the same as the Masters. If you let me go, I will go to the police, obviously, yes, but you’ll be given court dates and a fair trial and serve out your prison time. All of you. Or, are you going to rape or murder me just to avoid taking responsibility for everything you’ve done? Hah ha ha… wouldn’t that be just like you?”
“Brian, if you can’t, then just like, take Steph down to the car,” Emily said in a dangerous voice. “Kelly and I will finish up here, then we’ll be along to join you, and then we all drive away and you just don’t ask about what happened to Chloe. How’s that sound? Whatever happens doesn’t gotta be on your conscience—yeah, just don’t even worry about it.”
“Steph, walk Brian down to the car,” Kelly instructed.
“No,” Brian shook his head. “No. Guys—grab the sleeping bags and start on the tent, I guess. I want to talk to Chloe, alone.”
“Brian…” Emily warned.
“I can set up my big tent, too,” Rebecca offered. “There’s space.”
“Emily, no—they do need to talk alone,” Kelly decided. “Stephanie?”
“I—uh,” Stephanie blew out a long breath. “I do think I need, um, need some air. Some space from this, a break.”
“Fine,” Emily huffed. “Fine.”
“Can I get this shit off of me, now?” Chloe lifted her bound wrists. “Please?”
Stephanie gave Brian’s shoulders a squeeze from behind before withdrawing, following Kelly who was ushering a fuming Emily down the steep slope back towards the road. They had honestly probably waited too long to make camp for the night, the sun was mostly set and at this point the campfire was doing more to illuminate faces across the fire than ambient light from above.
“Brian?” Rebecca checked with him. “I’m going to unbind her the rest of the way.”
“Yeah, go for it,” Brian waved her on.
Brian watched on with a grim look as Rebecca carefully unwound tape from the medical braces and then unlatched the velcro releases to free Chloe’s hands.
His ex-girlfriend had always possessed a slender figure, but those forearms were even more frail now. Delicate wrists were discolored with bruises, and Chloe seemed to have difficulty with her fingers. Rebecca made her hold them out in the firelight and flex them, which Chloe did, slowly. The thin trembling digits didn’t seem to be able to clench into a fist the whole way right now, and Rebecca stood there with patience and assisted Chloe through closing and opening her hands before Chloe shooed her away with a scowl.
“I’m fine,” Chloe snapped, taking the first opportunity unbound hands offered and indulging her favorite habit—crossing her arms in front of her in a show of disapproval. “Fuck off.”
“Okay,” Rebecca sighed. “I’m going to go help.”
They remained silent as Rebecca left them and started to pick her way down the path after the others—Chloe stared at Brian with a look of defiance, while Brian simply felt tired and fed up with all of this.
“So,” Brian cleared his throat to address her. “The pregnancy thing. What was that about?”
“Hah,” Chloe smirked. “You know what it was about. I was trying to fucking save our relationship.”
“No, I mean,” Brian let out a dry laugh. “How? Why? Since when was my commitment to us the issue?”
“I hope you’re kidding,” Chloe laughed in return. “I seriously, honestly hope that was a joke.”
“Commitment isn’t just me bowing down to whatever you say,” Brian felt a flash of anger at finally saying those words. “When you—”
“Oh, of course, so, commitment is me bowing down to whatever you say,” Chloe retorted. “Because you’re the man, right? You wear the pants! And, I’m supposed to just be your little submissive beaten housewife and go along with—”
“So, instead you lied,” Brian shot back. “Because; you’re obviously not pregnant. We both know why it’s not possible for you to be pregnant by me.”
“Proud you’re so impotent, is that it?” Chloe mocked him. “Did you have trouble getting off your little teeny weeny dick, so you want to blame me? Or, does it only work if you’re whacking off to sicko porn, is that it? Oh, that’s right, Brian. I know you were cheating on me by watching porn. Sicko degenerate pornography.”
“Yeah, I watched porn,” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “Why wouldn’t I? I have my own needs. You had zero interest in sex or any kind of, uh, intimacy with me, outside of whether or not it was some kind of leverage you had over me, or some kind of stupid power trip bullshit.”
“It’s still infidelity,” Chloe refused to let it go. “Perversion. Beating your pathetic little noodle weiner to sicko rape fantasy pornography. Rape videos and pedophile pornogra—”
“Whoa whoa whoa, what?” Brian held up his hands. “Since when did I ever—”
“You thought I wouldn’t have ways of finding out?” Chloe shot him a triumphant look of absolute disgust. “Latina teen videos? ‘Petite latinas?’ Those are obvious pedo dogwhistles for groomer content, Brian.”
“The fuck?” Brian made a face. “No? They’re all over eighteen, so—”
“Oh, please,” Chloe barked out a laugh. “And you’re twenty three. Almost twenty four. It’s disgusting. Let me guess—you were just visualizing your sweet little underage friend Emily in those, weren’t you? It was some twisted sadistic fap fuel for you to fantasize about your friend, and she would have been disgusted to—”
“Emily is twenty-three,” Brian refuted, unsure if Chloe was being serious or not. “Underage? We’re the same fucking age—legal, consenting fucking adults. Having an occasional preference for teen Latinas in my searches is not a fucking crime, Chloe. Half of what I looked up was like, big Brazilian asses, MILF, or like, random hentai doujins.”
“Isn’t that even worse?” Chloe still looked as though she had caught him. “It’s still all infidelity, because you were with me. In a relationship with me. How do you go about—”
“Did we have some kind of agreement there I wasn’t aware of?” Brian shook his head. “Hah. Aside from me like, trying to throw out an olive branch now and then and going down on you, we were on a ten month dry spell, weren’t we? Or wait—no, eleven months. Eleven months. Almost a whole year, just about half of our time together. I had assumed we were both looking at porn and just… addressing our own individual needs?”
“Yeah, right, then what about the rape videos, Brian?” Chloe smirked. “What excuses do you have ready to tell me for those?”
“Rape videos, what rape videos?” Brian gave her an incredulous look.
“The Japanese ones,” Chloe reminded him with a sneer. “Like the one on the train or subway or whatever.”
“Japanese?” Brian’s brow screwed up for a moment and then relaxed as he laughed, remembering what title she must be referring to. “Hah, holy fuck—are you talking about Mouth to Mouth Aphrodisiac and Lesbian Molestation? Because first of all, that’s a goddamn work of art, and second of all—not real rape, literally no one would ever think that wasn’t staged. Obviously staged. Yeah, like the crowded train car full of salarymen dudes all around them doesn’t notice the two girls stripping and moaning and squirting everywhere, just because they’re all turned the other way. How polite of them! Truly Japanese. If—”
“So that justifies it?!” Chloe spat. “Are you fucking serious?! You literally watch a video glorifying rape, and—”
“I don’t have to justify it,” Brian argued, shaking his head. “It’s fantasy. I’m completely capable of separating fantasy from reality, Chloe. And, in the first place—how the fuck did you even find any of that? I always browsed privately when I looked at that stuff, so none of the links or search terms or—”
“‘Browse privately,’ right, okay,” Chloe swore. “You hid it from me—which is wrong in the first place—because you knew what you were doing was something to be ashamed of. You knew it was wrong.”
“That’s discretion, not shame,” Brian refuted her. “What I get off to doesn’t need to be in your face reminders every time you type something in and see the autocomplete pop up. I’m not proud that we were obviously going separate ways with all that and tending to our own needs, instead of—”
“Brian—I know everything you looked up,” Chloe wore that victorious look of hers. “Everything. I installed a fucking keylogger. Okay? So, just stop. I know everything. If the others knew the sick shit you were into—”
“Like what?” Brian shook his head in disbelief. “Chloe—I’m comparatively vanilla in my tastes, to everyone I know. Hell, did you know Michael and Tanya uploaded amateur sex vids of them doing stuff, last year? Will and Mark both get into—you know what, I’m not even gonna tell you the weird stuff they’re into, you wouldn’t believe me. Balloon animals, fursonas, futanari stuff. Blueberries, clowns. Handholding.
“My own stuff I’m into is downright basic, Emily would gleefully one-up everything on my own list, and Kelly would be down with all of it. Stephanie would be—I don’t know, interested or curious, and that’s about it. Nothing I’m into is much of anything anyone but you would get judgemental over.”
“They’d only be okay with it because you fucking magic mind-controlled them into being your sex slaves!” Chloe erupted. “No one, and I mean no one would ever go along with your pathetic pornographic weirdo shit otherwise. And you know that. Well—guess what, Brian? I’m not letting that happen to me. I’m not letting that happen to me!!”
Before he could react, Chloe lurched to her feet across from him—and turned and dashed off into the woods. Brian rose from the log as she hurried away but didn’t give chase. It was darker out but not night yet, and she wasn’t managing to run all that fast—a slight jog would bring him to her in a matter of seconds. He watched her go with an impassive expression, because the sight didn’t make him feel anything at all.
There wasn’t a sense of urgency that made him feel she was going to escape, and he didn’t feel compelled to run after her and beg out an apology or try to placate her like he had so many times in the past year when they were together. Brian felt nothing but annoyance, and as he watched her crunch through the leaves and ferns he patted at his pockets just to remember he didn’t have his phone for a flashlight anymore.
Great, so now I’ll have to go traipsing across the goddamn mountain after her, and then what—drag her back? Talk her down?
“Brian?” Rebecca called from the road below. “What was that?”
“Chloe took off and ran,” Brian reported in a yell, blowing out a heavy sigh and shaking his head. “I’ll get her.”
“She what?!” Emily squealed in panic.
“It’s alright,” Brian shouted back. “Uhh. Bring a light, though?”
Car doors slammed and he saw Rebecca immediately running back up the path, but Brian wasn’t too concerned. Chloe was still in sight, and she wasn’t heading up the mountain away from them or even downwards towards the road—the young woman was just hurrying across laterally from them so as not to fight any inclines, and her hurrying speed wasn’t something that would actually ever take her too far away.
Until a moment later, when to Brian’s surprise the fleeing form of Chloe’s back abruptly vanished, dropping down completely out of sight with a bone-piercing shriek.
What the—
He was rushing forward after her in confusion even before he realized he’d started moving, dodging small trees and ducking around branches as he tried to see what the hell had happened. She hadn’t simply fallen down, she had disappeared, leaving not even a prone figure for him to see. Which shouldn’t have been possible. Chloe was just gone.
“Well, shoot,” Rebecca panted, almost having caught up to his pace as they parted the growth of ferns and swatted aside greenery to run their way forward. “I—I guess that’s ironic?”
“Ironic?” Brian demanded. “Where’d she—?”
“So, um,” Rebecca let out an embarrassed laugh. “Well, I did dig out a grave. I thought it was far enough away from the camp area that I wouldn’t have to warn you guys about it?”
( Previous: The Forest for the Trees pt 3 | Renfaire Fantasy | Next: Chloe's Escape pt 2 )
/// Oh no!
Comments
Stephen Weinberg
I would have vastly preferred to keep Christine around. Chloe is just…boring. Ideally someone would find a way to have a noncoercive breakthrough with Chloe to turn her back into Christine, but…that would be incredibly unrealistic without magical assistance. But I don’t think the author has been foolish enough to write into a corner. I am guessing we are about to see a) a strains-credulity bit where Brian gets through to her b) a more plausible but still a stretch bit where Stephanie talks to her one on one and her empathy powers help her achieve a huge clinical victory c) Emily’s powers kick in and turn out to be just what they need. (Some sort of healing power would be far less ethically troublesome than charm magic.)
Zeikfreid
Running away only to fall into your own grave, I'm looking forward to Emily or Kelly making some kind of joke regarding it.
GaiusMarcus
Ooooopsie!
Thomas Pruckner
At this point Brian has to stop thinking about the right thing to do and to think about which decision will make him and his loved ones happy. Maybe with whatever happened when Chloe fell into the grave something got triggered. I feel like her trigger for running away was getting close to the core of her trauma and her problems with the world. Chloe is a persona Christine made up to protect herself from being treated like her father treated women like his assistant - her hate for him is mixed with her adoration she had for the assistant and her spoiled nature created by her father to keep her happy. "I'll not let you do that to me!“ sounds to me like her panic becoming her true fear of being treated like the women her father used, instead of all her irrational crazy banter from the whole discussion before.
Jacob Bissey
I think this reply was meant for another thread. Having said that, I agree, the magic was never reinforcing her terrible behavior, if anything it was directly causing cognitive dissonance. But also, the magic is blatantly not in her system any longer so even if it had been reinforcing her disorder, it wouldn't be now.
Jeanie6754
Good Job Boss 😜. Have a great New Years Eve 🎉
Jared Rolph
I keep going back and forth on what to do. I'd be too selfish and treat her like the coyotes we put down to keep away from the calves. So i give Brian props for being, well, for just being a better human being. Again, she'd be gone, and I wouldn't give it a second thought.... that's what makes this story great. On one hand, you get mad they don't just handle things, and on the other, you really see the thought processes from so many different views, this way, you want to read more!!!
Marcus Cassin
I don't think I could ever write a villain like her. She's one of my most hated characters in all of time, and I've seen a lot of villains. Still kinda hoping the group finds a way to bring her back to Christine, because it's nice to see a horrible person try and atone for their mistakes, but... It certainly is a dilemma.
Marcus Cassin
Honestly, "head trauma fixing her personality" kind of sounds like a cheap fix... But also, other than using the stored magical cum, I can't imagine an ending that isn't tragic. She's so broken, inside, and just unwilling to listen to reason...
Marcus Cassin
I doubt the magic is forcing her to stay broken. That seems to be against the intent of the charm. She's just so deeply broken due to her conviction that everything she does or desires is justified, that it took something as strong as the shock of almost being raped to shake up her delusions for a moment, and then the charm enabling vampire magic helped hold her steady, until the blood magic wore off.
Jacob Bissey
Precisely what I was getting at, thank you
MrSkyentist
Is it just me or have none of the crew realized the obvious. The "masters" knew where Brian was and that he got injured, so the second Cloe went to the police they're going to go after her day 1 as revenge for taking out 2 of their guys sent to get Brian. It would screw over literally everyone and she would end up mind controlled anyway. It would literally be in the local news since it would be such a ridiculous thing with her having been missing for so long. She's obviously not going to be swayed in her opinion, but none of them have even brought it up, and Kelly of all people should know based on her interactions with Emily's mom and colleagues and what she's learned.
Marcus Cassin
Locking away somebody who's a danger to others is absolutely the right thing. Just because the execution of it has historically been poorly done, doesn't mean the idea behind it isn't sound. Nobody has such a strong right to freedom that it overrides other people's right to be safe; Chloe has forfeited her freedom by making it clear she would use it to bring danger upon innocents.
Marcus Cassin
I mean.... There's a magic way to redeem her, if it could be pulled off. Pitty that the vampire thing isn't a long term solution; no sex required. But it's way too dangerous.
oldntokn
They should have taken care of Chloe while Brian was unconscious. She is one of the most vile and evil creatures that i have read about. There is no redeeming that kind of evil. A rabid animal should be put down.
Nchalada
Oh that's fab!
Joe ?
Please tell me she fell bad and snapped her neck so we can move on from her as a character.
Jostikas
That is a bloody brilliant end-of-chapter. Also a nice look into the other side of our ever-matter-of-fact caretaker Rebecca. "Everything will be fine for you" and if it won't be, then everything will be prepared.
Jacob Bissey
Yeah, at this point the story has been kind of written into a corner, and the issue has been going round and round long enough that it's starting to get a bit old. I'm glad 4064 found a way to force the issue and I sincerely hope this enables the story to move forward from the wangst cycle, I love a good moral quandary as much as the next guy, but you can only examine the issue from every angle so many times before it's just frustrating to read about.
Jacob Bissey
Brian needs to worry less about choosing the "right" thing and worry more about choosing the least bad option, because there is no "good" option here. If they kill Chloe they are murderers, not acceptable. If they let her go and she goes to the masters, they have to fight a supernatural war they aren't equipped to win. If they let her go and she goes to the police, they go to prison for saving her life. If they use the jar of cum they heal whatever injury she just sustained and make her someone more psychologically healthy. Because they have the jar they don't need to ever perform any kind of sex act with her, so not rapists. And, honestly, people who have proven to be a danger to themselves and others are forced to receive psychological treatment all the time, even being held against their will. Sure psychiatric hospitals have a long history of abuse and corruption, but the basic principle of forced confinement and treatment for the sake of public safety is very sound as not the "right" thing or a "good" thing, but as the least bad option when someone's mental illness makes them a danger.
Shaqjor477
As much as I like a good hateable bad guy, the story would be infinitely improved if Chloe/Christine was gone for good, and even better if it was an accident. I am at the point where I have a hard time reading anything she has to say. She needs to not be worth thinking about, so they can worry about the actual bad guys. Fall on a shovel, and cut her fucking head off.
Sean
I'm having trouble with the mirror power in my head. The more I read about her the more it sounds like she was always unhinged after what happened to her. It makes me wonder if the broken mirror shards means the charm is reinforcing her personality and thus not allowing her to change without a magical solution or if the mirror is more like a personality gauge that breaks or repairs itself dependent on her willingness to mesh with the group. The more set in her actions she is the more it makes me think the magic is actually forcing her to stay that way. It kind of reminds me of that Thor line about Loki. You don't need to predict how she'll betray you if you understand that betrayal is her set reaction. There's nothing she can do other than betray. I'm excited to read how this resolves.
AzureXIII
Thank you for another great chapter also have a happy New Year. I don't think this is the end of Chloe simply because this is title chapter 1 of Chloe's escape I think she probably broke her leg or something though. I hope no though because I was kinda hoping that the way they solved this was getting Chloe locked up in a psychward but if she actually broke something she could make that seem like Brian did that to her. I could also see her hitting her head being a cause for change in her personality again which I guess could be a good ending like someone else said where she spent the whole first book digging her grave and now this grave is where Chloe is buried and Christine is born. I am excited to see what happens next.
mhaj58
It’s always so frustrating when dealing with a woman who’s entire mission to live her life doing and getting what she wants, and then uses a rotten cycle of excuses, denial, deflection, and indignation to avoid responsibility. I hope to never have a woman like her in my life.
Too Much Sanity May Be Madness
Y'know, if this is the end of Chloe / Christine (which I don't think it is), I would be okay with that. The whole first book was about her digging her metaphorical grave; her story ending by literally falling into it would just feel satisfying.
Zach
I hope she didn't shatter anything falling like that. Rebecca probably dug a legitimate 6+ foot grave, or until she hit bedrock. That's a long fall if you're unprepared and frail from a month-long hunger strike and no exercise. Twisted ankle at minimum, broken limb likely. > because rather than a majority rule it would be charm influence. Brian, dude, that's just how people are. Not being in charge and letting someone else make the call and shoulder the responsibility is normal. That's why you were hoping to not be the deciding voice.
ebonscar
God I laughed so hard
George Kappatos
Comedic brilliance right there. Happy New Year everyone.
Connor Willoughby
I can imagine! It’s exhausting to read in a very cathartic sense. I was really worried at the end of the last chapter that she was going to convince Brian to turn himself into the police, which is just proof of how insidiously manipulative she was for so long in his life. Absolutely love this story though, and I am so glad that it didn’t end when the Con did
FortySixtyFour
Most of it is written but the Chloe / arguing sections take me longer to get polished enough for posting as she can be exhausting to write. Will conclude this arc before jumping back to RE:TT though
Connor Willoughby
You dropped us all off the (metaphorical) cliff with that! Need to know what happens next ASAP
