The Truth - Chapter 18

Sandra and Jon walked up the street arriving at the door to Beed's a few moments after seven. Debra was not standing in the window. They exchanged a look before entering. The salesgirl, Tabitha, watched them enter. As they approached she said, “Ms Beed is expecting you. They’re waiting for you in her office.”

“Thanks, Tabitha,” Jon said. As they walked through the curtain, they saw Debra standing in the changing room where she first became rigid four days ago. “Curious,” he mumbled. Then he knocked on the office door and opened it. “Ah, Ms Beed, a pleasure to see you again. Who is this lovely woman?”

Ms Beed was sharing a drink with another woman. The other woman was a few years younger than Ms Beed, impeccably dressed, made up and coiffured. She carried herself without a sense of vanity: a regal aura seemed to surround her.

“This is my good friend and business partner, Mira York,” Ms Beed introduced. “Mira, this is Jon and Sandra. They are going to bring Debra back to the living.”

“Dorothy tells me you can make living girls into statues. I would have thought she was kidding except I've met Debra many times before she spent the day hard as a rock. I still think this is some kind of ruse and she is trying to get a good laugh at my expense.”

“Oh, I assure you Mira, the Debra you know was standing stock still in this boutique this whole time.” He turned to Dorothy and said, “We had a wager. I'm not sure why you invited Ms York to attend your lose of a bet.”

“We will attend to that once we settle the bet,” she stood up. “Shall we?”

“I'd rather talk business since our bet mostly involves Debra's pay scale and I'm guessing Ms York is here for something else.”

“You are very direct, young man.” Mira stated. “We want to pay you to do what you did with Debra to all our employees.”

“Why?”

“Image. It is hard to get young people to pay attention on the job. They’re always texting. Dorothy has to confiscate Tabitha's cell phone before each shift or she won't do anything. So fine, if they were stiff all day at least they wouldn't be on the phone.”

“Interesting,” Jon said. “Imagine seeing dresses modeled by an apparent mannequin that comes to life and asks if you have any questions. And if you don't returns to being a mannequin right there.”

Dorothy let out a low whistle, “Could you do that?”

“We'd have to discuss how big a cut of the business I would get but I'm sure that won't be an issue.”

Mira laughed, “I want to go talk to Debra before I hand you the keys to the building.”

Jon stood up and gestured to the door, “Certainly.” And he followed all three women out.

“Dorothy, before we do anything, can you verify that this is the same woman on the back of whose knee you made a mark before she became rigid?”

She smiled and bent down to look at the back of Debra's knee. “It is indeed her and that is my mark.”

“Debra, in that case, you should return to flesh.”

A few seconds later, Debra turned to Dorothy and said, “I'm ready for another shift.”

Dorothy and Mira could not hide their shock. “I knew it would happen,” Dorothy said, “And I'm still shocked it's really her. How do you feel?”

“Perfectly fine, Ms Beed.”

Mira took Debra's hand, “You were stone cold a moment ago.”

“I know. Isn't it amazing?” Debra said.

Sandra took a phone from her purse and waved it in front of Debra before handing it to her, “Debra, let's go sit down out front and let Jon talk to Dorothy and Mira alone. You probably have some messages to catch up on.”

“Good idea,” Debra said. “If you'll excuse us.”

Jon held his arm out toward Dorothy's office and followed the older women into the office, closing the door behind him.

“We'll give you 33% stake in the store's limited liability company in exchange for you training all our employees to be able to do what Debra does.”

“51% and a $100,000 signing bonus to do this only to worthy sales and modeling staff. Final offer.” Jon countered.

“What does worthy mean?”

“It means if I say I won't do a certain employee, I won't do it and that employee will be fired shortly thereafter.”

“Does that offer include the two of us?”

“No, we will negotiate that separately.” Jon looked at the clock on Dorothy's desk. “My offer is only good for the next five minutes. Make a decision.” And with that he thought to himself “I am rigid” three times.

Mira's voice rose as she spoke, “He did it, too.”

Dorothy touched his arm. “What have we got to lose?”

“Not much,” Mira replied. “It's a deal, Jon.”

Jon returned to flesh and shook both ladies' hands. “I'll have legal papers drawn up and send them to you for signing in the morning. I'll sign the papers when you hand over a bank check in my name for $100,000.” He stood up as if to leave, “Ladies.”

“Wait, what about us?” Dorothy complained.

“I want to be a mannequin,” Mira explained.

Before Jon could answer, his cell phone rang.

* * *

She could not resist touching the empty space between her legs. Nothing. Nothing at all.

She went over to Jon's desk. He wanted her to clean up the spell system if she could and find any old format spells and convert them to the new form format. She soon found the recently signed spells that would transform harem member's genitalia to various configurations, including smooth emptiness. She was not listed as an authorized user of the spells.

While sorting through the spells, the phone rang. “Hello?”

“Sarah? It's Irina. Is Jon around?”

“No, he's out.”

“Oh, I got home before Tracy and I wanted to ask him to do a new spell for me.”

“Well, I'm going over the spells now so if you describe what you want I can write it up and he can sign it when he returns,” Sarah advised.

“Oo, that could work,” Irina cooed. She described the effect she wanted and with some directed questions from Sarah, they created the spell Irina wanted.

“I'm sure Jon will like this spell,” Sarah replied. “I'll have him sign it as soon as he returns and I'll even have him activate on you if you like.”

“That would be awesome. Thanks, Sarah.”

“See you later.” Sarah said, hanging up. She set aside the new spell and returned to her prior task. After half an hour she noticed a discrepancy in the spell serial numbers. Each spell form received a number when the magic took effect so you could look back and put the spells in order later. There was a sequence of about a dozen spells missing. Before she could investigate further, the door bell rang.

She got up and opened the door. A young woman in jeans and floral print blouse was standing nervously in the hallway. “Oh, you aren't Jon, are you? Sandra said if she wasn't home I should knock here.”

“Jon and Sandra went out, can I help you?”

“I don't know. My name is Genny and I'm Sandra's former boss' secretary.”

“You seem distraught. Why don't you come in and sit down? Sandra should be back soon.” Sarah said. “What happened?”

“I'm just really confused. Sandra had me sign a piece of paper and the next thing I knew I was giving Jerry a blowjob. I hate sucking dick or I use to. I couldn't get enough of Jerry. He eventually told me to stop what I was doing immediately and I just sat there for a moment with my tongue on his dick not moving. He seemed just as confused by my immobility as I was. I managed to say, 'Can I go now?' And he said, 'Yes, sure. That'll be all.' So I got up and went back to my desk and we didn't say another word to each other the rest of the day.”

“You said Sandra had you sign something. Did you read it?”

“It was a form of some kind. Right after I signed it, it disappeared.”

“Did it say something about Jon's Harem?”

“No, it was Sandra's Harem. She made it sound like she had a band and I thought it was joining a mailing list or something.” Genny's eyes welled with tears.

Sarah wondered how well Sandra had modified the spells. “Genny sleep Genny,” she said and Genny fell asleep on the sofa. With alacrity, Sarah returned to the desk and started reconstructing the spells Sandra had cast. She discovered Sandra had made Jon turn her into his likeness and then to give her the Pen because it was his. With the Pen she created a subset of spells that gave her all of Jon's powers on anyone she wanted and she negated Jon's ability to affect her unless she wanted to be affected. But Sandra's understanding of the bureaucracy of spells was incomplete and she found a loophole. She filled out a form and then called Jon.

“Is something wrong. Sarah?”

“You need to trust me. Something is terribly wrong. I need executive privilege in the spell system right now.”

“Granted,” Jon said. “What is it?”

She signed the spell immediately and Sandra appeared suddenly sleeping on the couch next to Genny.

“Sandra made a mess with the Pen when we gave you to her as a present last night.” Sarah began. As she was talking it sounded like someone entered the room Jon was in saying something about Sandra. “Is that Debra? Tell her you are well aware of Sandra's disappearance and I'll explain everything when you get back.”

Jon said, “Okay, hold on for a second if you can.”

“Not a problem,” Sarah replied.

“Dorothy, please dismiss Tabitha for the night and lock up the store. Take Mira with you so I can have a moment.” Jon said. Then he spoke into the cellphone. “What happened exactly?”

“Sandra added someone she use to work with to HER harem. You will need to clean this up as soon as possible before it gets out of hand. I just teleported Sandra here and put her to sleep. I'm currently creating a cancellation spell to stop her from doing this again but we have no idea what other spells she may have cast. I'm working on a spell that does that too.”

“Okay, I have a form for Dorothy to sign but she has a friend here with her so I need another one for her to sign.”

“That may not be wise to do before cleaning up Sandra's mess.” Sarah said. “I have a spell right here to take care of them after the store is locked. When they return to the office have them sit down.”

“Actually they just returned. Is the store locked and secured?” He gestured toward their seats as he asked the question.

“Yes,” Dorothy said. “Now we can disc--” She felt herself freeze in place mid-word. She saw sitting across from her a mannequin that looked just like Mira.

Jon said, “Ah, perfect, Sarah. We'll be home right away.” He ended call. “Ladies, I need to run. You wanted to become mannequins and I've delivered but it will cost you dearly if you ever want to do it again. I'll be back soon to continue our negotiations.” He turned to Debra who was posing the women so they could see one another better. “Let's go.”

They left the office and Debra said, “Awesome, who's Sarah?”

“You are about to find out. Debra and I teleport home Debra and I.” Jon took in the room as they arrived. Sandra and a young woman he never met before were asleep on his sofa. Sarah was picking up a stack of papers for him to sign with the real Pen when she paused. “What am I feeling down there?”

“Oh, I forgot I set that up to happen when I returned to the apartment.”

She paused to look down her skirt to find her previously genitalless crotch now had a cock and balls attached to it.

“You can deal with that later.” He sat at the table and said, “Explain each and every one of these changes to me.”

“Nice to meet you,” Debra said. “I’ll just stay out of the way.” And she turned into a mannequin.

“Likewise,” Sarah said and then began explaining to Jon the spells that allowed Sandra to override Jon's commands and to make commands as if she were Jon. Sandra had even revived the 'I insist' and 'believe me' spells. Apparently, she did not know about the audit trail in the spell system that allowed Sarah to figure out what had happened. She also handed Jon some spells that removed him from the list of people who could be affected by harem spells.

Jon looked at the spell to remove him from the harem lists and said, “Teleporting is very useful. Rewrite this to allow some of the safe actions.”

“Okay,” Sarah said. “That leaves Genny here and probably Jerry though she didn’t actually add him to the harem.”

“Right.” He stood up and carried Genny into his bedroom and lay her down on his bed. As he returned to the room, he added, “I'd love to hear what Sandra says happened. Sandra awake Sandra.”

“What happened?” Sandra started. Seeing Jon's expression she added, “Uh Oh.”

“Uh Oh?” Jon was incredulous. “Did you think I wouldn't find out?”

“How did you find out?”

“Someone named Genny stopped by,” Sarah said.

“She's perfect for your harem.”

“My harem or yours?” Jon asked.

“Well, I got a little power crazy perhaps but I was still looking out for you. I didn't recruit any hunks for me to fuck.”

“Enough. Tell me everything you did today and don't gloss over anything. I command it.”

“Since you put it that way, you teleported me to my apartment this morning....”