Note: This story contains themes of incest, mind control, magic, fantasy, and body modification. All characters in it are 18+.
********************
Willem and Jake lay next to each other on the bed, neither one willing to break the silence between them. They had lain like this for several minutes, both boys staring at the ceiling as they each tried to gather the courage to say the thing that neither of them knew how to put into words.
Finally the tortured silence finally came to an end.
"Will you take me home?" Willem asked quietly.
Jake turned to look at him. Willem kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Okay," said Jake.
Neither of them moved.
"I'm not gay, Jake," Willem said softly.
Jake got up from the bed and started to put his clothes back on.
"I know that," he said as he stared at the wall.
Willem closed his eyes. He could still feel Jake's semen inside him. The buzzing was quiet.
Jake walked over to the door, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. Willem turned to look at him, fearful of what might come out of Jake's mouth.
"I'll meet you downstairs," Jake said before slipping out into the hallway.
Willem put his head in his hands. What had he been thinking? He didn't even have the curse to blame. Sex with Jake was something he did of his own volition. But that wasn't entirely true, was it? Even if the curse hadn't directed him to fuck Jake, it was still the only reason why he was attracted to men in the first place. The curse was definitely to blame. It had to be, it was the only explanation.
Willem sighed as he began to get dressed. He'd royally fucked things up. Jake was his only friend at the moment, and now he'd blurred the lines with sex. He needed to find a way to walk it back, to tell Jake that it was just sex and nothing more. It wasn't a big deal at all if you really thought about it. They had already fucked once before. This time was just like an encore. An aftershock. An echo.
As many shitty similes as Willem tried to employ to justify having sex with Jake, none could dispel the awkwardness between the two boys as they drove home in continued silence. Eventually it got too much for Willem to bear.
"For fuck's sake!" he shouted out of nowhere. "It was just sex. We're both adults, we don't have to make a whole thing out of it."
"Right. No, totally," said Jake, his hands tightly gripping the wheel.
"So we're good?" said Willem.
"Yeah, man. Of course we're good."
Willem breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Now let's take this fucker down."
Jake nodded. "I'll post it as soon as I get home."
He pulled into Willem's driveway, putting the car in park.
"So... I guess I'll see you around?" asked Jake.
"Definitely," said Willem. "I'll come by the coffee shop tomorrow."
Jake nodded, a relieved smile crossing his face. "Cool."
He leaned in and hugged Willem, surprising him. Aside from when Jake had hugged him in the hotel room earlier that night, they'd never hugged before. Hell, Willem had never even hugged Josh or the twins, and they'd been his best friends for years. It was strange how weird a hug with Jake could feel when they'd literally just had sex.
"I'll see you later, then," said Willem, his face growing flush after Jake released him from the hug.
He got out of the car and headed back into his house, eager to wash off the scent of the congressman that still clung to his body like bad perfume. He lay in bed later afterward with his eyes closed, returning once again to the hiding spot within his mind. He just needed to center himself again and he would be all right.
As he went through his old memories, replaying his heterosexual encounters one by one, he began to notice something strange. There was something different about them--they were fainter, further away. As he thought about fucking Allison, and the feeling of her body underneath him, it was like he was watching a movie about someone else's life. Like it was something that had happened to someone else, something he'd heard about rather than something he'd lived through.
Willem pulled out memory after memory, but they were all the same. His first kiss in the seventh grade. Getting a handjob in his car after homecoming. Fucking Jessica Stevans when he was so faded he was surprised he could even get it up. All of them felt stale, cold, emotionless. They may as well have been memories of reading the phone book.
Willem started to panic. His hiding place was the only thing he had left of himself to stay grounded. Now that he could feel that slipping away too, how could he know that he wouldn't lose himself completely before the curse was through? What if he somehow stayed stuck in this hell forever?
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "This is all temporary," he said to himself. "Just 65 more to go. No matter what, this hell will end. She promised it would end. I will get myself back."
He rolled over onto his side, clutching his pillow. "I'm straight," he whispered to himself. "I will always be straight." He continued mumbling that to himself over and over again as he slowly drifted off to sleep.
By the time he woke up in the morning, he felt much lighter. He was more than a third of the way through the curse, and it was only the first week of July. He'd had a bit of a slow start at first when he tried to resist, but ever since he'd made the decision to power through he'd been making excellent time. He was easily on track to meet his goal by the end of August. And sure, the memories were a little bit fainter and further away, but they hadn't gone entirely. He still had his anchor. All he needed to do was stick to the plan and everything would be golden.
When he went downstairs for breakfast, he found his mother humming to herself as she set the table for four.
"Are we expecting someone?" he asked.
"Your Uncle Jeb is in town," she said cheerily. "He's stopping by for breakfast."
Willem's heart skipped a beat.
"What?" he asked. "I thought he was still in prison."
"Early release due to good behavior," she said, folding the dinner napkins and placing the silverware delicately on top. "He's really turned over a new leaf, Willem. It's important he knows he has a place to come to. A place where he feels welcome."
Willem scoffed. "The last time I saw him he stole all of my video games and sold them for drug money. How welcome do you expect me to make him feel?"
Willem's father came in carrying a stack of pancakes with a sullen look on his face. "I don't like it either, son. Just be polite until he leaves. In the meantime, I've locked away the jewelry and the good china."
Willem's mother smacked him lightly on the arm. "You boys are terrible. Like I said, he's changed. So we're all going to support him and that's that! Got it?"
Willem nodded. He had no intention of getting on his uncle's bad side.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Willem's mother skipped over to the door and opened it, throwing her arms open wide.
"Jeb!" she squealed as she wrapped her arms around her brother.
