BXBX NOVEL Chapter 836
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Lily sat on her bed staring at the wall as Kat rubbed gentle circles on her back, “There there, it’s over now. We survived,”
“I don’t think I can ever look at my Mum the same way. Or whips, hairdryers or triple A batteries. Or really quite a disturbing number of things frankly. I didn’t know half of that information... and somehow a lot of it is only really applicable to lesbian relationships! I know my Mum is straight. She’s told me that, even after knowing that I’m gay. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think she was at least bi!
“But even still... I agreed to ‘something somewhat embarrassing’ as a punishment! That wasn’t embarrassing that was mentally scarring and I wish I could remove it from my mind regardless of how physically painful it is. If repeated head trauma as a way of memory destruction was in any way reliable, I’d go for it. Even if it wasn’t safe! It was that bad! How are you not a mess!”
Kat just continued to rub Lily’s back as she explained, “Well see... it turns out that having a perfect memory can be good in some ways. Because I have some many memories they HAVE to be more organised then a normal human. I’d probably go mad drawing connections between everything all the time otherwise. It means that I can basically quarantine a memory and lock it away deep in the back of my mind. Perhaps not healthy from a long term trauma perspective,
“Cause I still know it’s there. It’s a bit like a big neon sign saying ‘Evaline’s traumatic talk. Do Not Cross’ in my mind. So I’m currently super aware of the fact that it’s in my head... but I’m not constantly replaying with it or actively dealing with the information involved. So I’m fine. For now. Perhaps I can keep it in the box forever but frankly I doubt it. I’m hoping to just... sort of let other memories build up around it until it becomes unimportant but we’ll see,”
.....
“That doesn’t seem like a healthy coping mechanism Kat,” pointed out Lily.
Kat shrugged, “Perhaps but you aren’t really taking it well and I doubt I’d be any better if I didn’t do this... so... I can have my breakdown later if need be.”
“Yeah... some of the things she knows about cats...” Lily shivered, “they were things I didn’t want or need to know. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel comfortable with my Memphis form again... especially not near any other cats,”
“You like that form too much to give it up. Even after you got the ability to swap you still spend most of your time as a Memphis,” said Kat.
“True,” acknowledge Lily, “and I’ll admit a lot of this is just me complaining to make myself feel better... plus as much as I wish I didn’t know those cat facts it’s not like I didn’t know them at all. In fact I think I told Mum all of them when I was on a pet research binge. Probably why she picked them, a sense of irony. Doesn’t make it any less pleasant... and I was serious about a couple of those things...
“I’m going magic power for all my lights now. I did not need to know that about the batteries. I mean... really who does that?”
“Your mother apparently,” intoned Kat dryly.
“Yea... see...” Lily started, stopped and then started again, “see... I just... I don’t know if she actually does or not but... I think she might and it’s really not the type of thing I wanted to know you could DO or the type of thing I wanted to know my mother does. That just makes it WORSE. I mean, at least with the whips I can understand. It’s not my kind of thing but I already knew it was something people did you know?”
“Ah... not really?” said Kat, “I mean... yes now... even if I don’t actually know what you’re hinting at it wasn’t really something I looked into before Vivian had that talk... I didn’t really go into the details afterwards... so no I don’t know and that’s probably for the best really,”
Lily groaned and let herself flop down across Kat’s lap. Kat swapped from rubbing Lily’s back to carefully massaging Lily’s legs. Kat wasn’t particularly skilled at it, but her instincts were guiding her ever so slightly. Well, that and the fact she could watch Lily’s reactions for approval even with words. That certainly helped. “Do you think that’s the whole punishment?” asked Kat, “I don’t think she said you were done... just that ‘this session’ was done,”
“Oh god no please don’t say that,” whined Lily, “I don’t want you even suggest such a thing, just in case Mum didn’t notice before and is going to make use of it now!”
“What are the chances? Honestly?” questioned Kat.
Lily huffed, “Pretty damn poor Kat. Pretty. Damn. Poor. I bet Mum will hold this over my head for months. ‘I can still continue your punishment Lily’ or ‘If you do this I might forget about that second session Lily’ and ‘Well I said I wouldn’t do session 2, but what about 3, 4, and 5?’ It’ll be a nightmare. Kat can we go on a Contract and escape?”
Kat bent down and gave Lily a light kiss on the cheek, “Lily you know that’s not how it works. Even if I could just call up D.E.M.O.N.S and get a fresh contract that’s what got us into this mess isn’t it? Surely your mum will be more annoyed if we just left without saying anything again...”
“Urgh... all this pain and I still don’t have permission. That means I’ll probably need to spend the night here at the very least to GET that permission. I’m not super keen for that... especially not with the fact I’m going to be made do a bunch of extra chores as further punishment, I’m all but certain. Maybe I can apply for early emancipation?” considered Lily.
“I doubt it Lily,” said Kat, “Even if you were actually ready to go through with it, and it wouldn’t cause irreparable damage to your relationship with your parents there’s still a few other issues. Such as the fact you’re noticeably a cat girl, something that would undoubtedly raise a few questions... and even if it didn’t you can’t put down ‘visiting other dimensions with my Succubus girlfriend’ as a job occupation. And with no job, no desire to meet in person, and as horrible as it sounds in this context, no criminal charges to bring against your parents... it’d never work,”
“How do you know so much about this?” asked Lily.
Kat sighed, “I... may or may not have looked into it pretty heavily at one point. I thought it might be better to apply for early emancipation at one point in time to save Gramps on the cost of having an extra person around. It was a bit before you moved to our school. Gramps found out and sat me down. Really explained how much work I did helping him around the orphanage and pointed out that if I wasn’t there, another child might be.
“I said they could take the bed, but Gramps pointed out there are other orphanages and it wasn’t my duty to try and make it easier for some potential future child that may or may not exist currently especially not when I’m one of the most helpful kids at the orphanage. Then he proceeded to con me into promising to finish school. I think that might be part of the reason he was so sad when he told me I’d have to leave the orphanage soon. He promised to always have a home for me... and he was sort of put in a position where that wasn’t true anymore,”
“Oh. I didn’t know...” said Lily awkwardly.
Kat gave another shrug and brushed her hands through Lily’s hair, “I think it was a bit of teenage rebellion really. I didn’t have a proper plan for leaving. Thought I’d sleep in the woods or something... the memories are... more than a little fuzzy now. So I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it even if Gramps didn’t catch me. Well that and I doubt the government would have approved but that’s a different issue.”
“I thought you had a perfect memory?” said Lily somewhat hesitantly.
“Yes but not the memories from when I was human,” said Kat somewhat sadly, “they are... much less clear. As time passes it only becomes more and more clear just how... fragile and unwieldy those old memories are. Pretty sure most of them aren’t actually memories but memories of memories of memories at this point. A bit like a window with a crack in it. If you haven’t noticed it’s fine but once you see the crack it’s always your focus.”
“Comparing your new perfect memories to a cracked window seems in poor taste,” said Lily.
“Would you prefer I instead say it’s like running your finger through a layer of dust? It’s so clean now I can see properly see and be offended over the dust on either side of the line?” proffered Kat.
“Yes. Yes I would,” said Lily.