"Sit," he grunted. Ace looked around the room nervously. It was quite plain, other than the myriad of shoes that he filled two bookcases with. Just like Candice, he was obsessed with shoes, and Ace found it funny that nothing changed.
Ace sat next to him but didn't look at him.
"Don't be like that," Chad grumbled.
Just like Candice, he was impatient. He wanted whatever he wanted, and he wanted it now. He pushed Ace onto the bed and he didn’t protest. He and Chad kissed on his bed, at first nervous and excited at the prospect of doing something that felt rebellious: cheating on their girlfriends.
Whatever conscious Ace had seemed to slowly kick in
“Let’s not do this,” Ace mumbled.
He was red all over and rubbed some spit off of his mouth. He pulled down his shirt and wondered when it started to come off.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Chad conceded. “This is just, we’re just angry and confused.”
The words sounded very familiar to Ace, but he couldn’t remember where he heard them from.
“We were just messing around for fun,” Chad mumbled.
Ace then remembered these were the words he told Ronnie when he broke up with him, and it was not nice being on the receiving end of these words.
“I should just talk to Aurora,” Chad said. “This meant nothing.”
“ What? You brought me here!”
“That, that’s not true, you followed me."
He got off of Ace and adjusted his pants, but his body made it clear that he did in fact like it.
“This means nothing. I rubbed up against a chair once and this happened!”
Ace grinned and this just made Chad angry. On top of his sexual frustration and deep denial, he, like Candice, was unable to deal with a wide range of emotions.
“If you don’t want to ‘cuz you don’t like me that’s cool,” Ace said. “Just don’t lie and say you didn’t like it. ”
“I choose to be normal!”
“What is your problem, ” Ace shouted. “It’s just us! You don’t have to pretend!”
“Exactly,” Chad said. “That’s how it starts. ”
“You brought me here! What the heck is your problem? ”
He pushed Chad away, and he looked sad. "
Sorry," he mumbled. "I did invite you here."
Ace said nothing and now it was strangely awkward and silent. Chad, like Candice, did not know what a true apology was and decided that they could just continue.
"Let's uh, let's start over," Chad sighed.
"That seems good," Ace agreed. "We can-" Chad kissed him again and this time Ace was slightly annoyed but let him continue. As they kissed all he could think about was how this was no different than how he and Candice would fight all the time. They would argue, make out, maybe have sex, and then a new imaginary problem would be brought up.
The cycle would continue, yet for some reason, Ace still returned to her every time. He considered that it would be best to leave, and he started to argue with Chad again.
They were now incorrigibly loud, and someone had made a noise complaint, as they had been going on for quite some time now.
By the time the community advisor, Vanessa, had come to the room she had hoped they would have stopped, and she didn't have to write another noise complaint. They however were still screaming, and she was worried a physical fight might break out.
One of the participants' voices got louder suddenly and Vanessa was now extremely irate that most of her time was taken up by telling people not to smoke weed indoors or to at least fuck silently. She banged on the door, but the noises continued and she was shaking with rage. She was simply going to report them instead of getting them to stop.
She looked at the room number, C9-02, and then knew whose room it was.
Oh god, this is Chad’s room, Vanessa thought. I don’t want to hear him and Aurora fight.
She listened intently outside the door, hearing words like kiss, and phrases like denial. Vannessa paused as she realized that it was the sound of two men inside the room and she went berserk.
“I know you’re in there Chad,” Vanessa screamed. “Get your dick out of whoever that is!”
There was a sudden silence, and then some shuffling and loud noises.
"I'm telling Aurora," Vanessa shouted.
Chad arrived at the door, sweaty, and nervous.
“Hey-”
Vanessa pushed him to the side and looked around. No one was in the room.
“Someone was in here,” she shouted. “I know it!”
“You don’t know anything!”
“Yeah I do,” Vanessa barked. “I’ve had to suffer through getting all of you to at least fuck quietly for the past nine months! I heard you talking about sex in here!”
“Get out of my room!"
“No, I can search within reason,” Vanessa declared. “I’m finding out who it is, and I’m telling her. ”
Ace was under the bed, and the blanket was draped over the side, covering him.
Ace knew that he had done something stupid and that he should have listened to Levi. This different Candice was no different, and Ace regretted that he ever came. Ace was now holding his breath, sweaty, underneath a bed that somehow had more shoes underneath it than in the bookcases. Vanessa pushed open the closest and saw nothing. She went into the bathroom, pulled back the curtains, and again found nothing.
“I was alone,” Chad said.
“So you’re trying to tell me that you’re an extremely vocal masturbator that argues with himself, ” Vannessa asked.
“I mean, no…..”
“Even if it's true I’m still writing your ass up."
Vanessa looked around the room erratically trying to find clues. She looked at the ground and saw a pair of shoes, bigger than the others.
“I knew it,” Vanessa shouted.
“You know nothing!”
She glared at him, and they said nothing.
A little sneeze could be heard, and Chad felt his soul wither away.
Vanessa threw the blanket on the floor and found Ace sweaty and surrounded by shoes that cost more than his dorm fees.
“What the hell,” Vanessa whispered. “You found someone that looks like her? I don’t know if that's sweet or disturbing.”
“Can…. can I leave, ” Ace asked.
Vannessa rolled her eyes and pulled him out from under the bed. Ace looked up at her and froze up.
She looked like Levi, and from her authoritative glare, pulsing blue eyes, and permanent sneer he knew it could be no other than his body double.
“This is weird as shit, ” Vanessa said. “You can’t even find someone that looks different. ”
"This is Aurora," Chad lied.
"Let's call Aurora then," Vanessa grinned.
“No, don’t-”
On the first ring she picked up, Chad started to wonder if he would be lucky enough to die in his sleep than deal with whatever problems he had created for himself.
“Hey, you wanna meet the guy who-"
Chad grabbed the phone out of her hand. He quickly opened the window and threw it down five floors, and it landed on the pavement, cracking on impact. Chad looked at her, surprised that he had done what he did.
Vanessa, just like Levi was quick to anger.
“I’m telling her anyway,” Vanessa screamed. “All you did was piss me off more. ”
“You’re just jealous you stupid lesbian,” Chad screamed.
"You're just jealous I had her first," Vanessa said coolly. Ace was enjoying this alternate world, their soap opera unfolding in real time.
He paused and then thought about a female Levi and a version of him together.
He told himself not to think about it.
“I would have beaten the shit out of you Vanessa if you had a dick,” Chad said.
"Why? So you can fuck me in the ass afterward," Vanessa jeered. Ace's eyebrows shot up at the comment and Vanessa turned to glare at him.
“Your face on that body creeps me out,” she said.
“Get out,” Chad said. “Both of you.”
“But-"
Get the fuck out," he hollered. "Both of you!" He pushed them out and Ace was left standing in the hallway, with no idea where he was.
“I don’t understand how people like you can make so many bad choices, ” she huffed. “It was a lot easier to not fuck him than it was to fuck him. ”
“We never did anything!"
“Who are you even? Do you even go here?”
“Yeah…”
“I’ve never seen you around, and I’m always here, ” Vanessa said. “Are you one of those shapeshifters?”
“No! What? No, I-"
"All you shapeshifters are nothing but thugs and criminals. ”
"Oh, gods. This is what Levi meant by worse things. You're racist.”
“I am not!"
Ace walked off, but Vanessa followed. “Give me your school ID,” she shrieked. “I’ll find you! I know where types like you hang out! On the corner and near the cigarette stores!”
Ace ran faster and left the building. He finally lost her when he hid inside the men’s restroom. The other men inside shouted in protest when she flung the door open, and Ace simply hid inside the handicapped stall. He waited until everyone left to leave, and started to hate every single decision he had made.
While washing his hands Lush appeared in front of him in the bathroom mirror.
This time Lush took the appearance of a handsome man. Ace let out a high-pitched shriek.
“How are you here,” Ace bleated.
“I can travel through all mirrors,” Lush declared.
“So then you don’t need me to take you out of the storage unit?”
“Yes, I do! That mirror is my house.”
“Huh... I wouldn’t want to live there either…. ”
“ That doesn’t matter right now! I’m very disappointed in you,” Lush huffed.
“I didn’t do anything,” Ace screamed.
“You are a loose man!”
“Well… none of this matters. This is all just a pretend place.”
Lush laughed.
“No, it's not! This is a real place! Another reality!"
“ What? ”
“Why does everyone think where I send them has no consequences,” Lush asked.
"I thought you would send me someplace to meet someone nice," Ace shouted.
“Yes I did,” Lush confirmed. “I didn’t send you to bump uglies!”
“ We didn't do anything! I’m not getting scolded by a mirror!”
“Yes you are,” Lush said, loud and shrill. “If you don’t learn your lesson I’m not letting you come back!”
“You can’t do that!"
His voice cracked at the very thought of being stuck in this place with Vanessa and her dog whistles.
“I sent you here so you could see for yourself that just because your partner is a man, that doesn’t change-”
“He is not my partner,” Ace shouted.
Lush rolled his eyes and groaned.
“Why did you chase after the same person,” Lush asked.
“T-they aren’t the same person."
"Yes, they are! Do you really want to spend time with someone that treats their partner like that? Cheating so easily?"
“It’s not cheating. It’s just another Candice, except with a penis and he yells at me less. He also didn’t smack me, so that’s a huge plus.”
Lush had a look of shock on his face.
“You’re a battered woman...You keep going back to the same horrible man! Or woman, I guess in this case!”
It was very obvious to everyone except Ace that Candice was often very verbally abusive to him. It was very obvious because she would demean him and then make him feel that his self-worth was only dependent on their relationship together, so no matter how many horrible things she said to him, he never left her.
No one understood after two years of dating how Ace didn’t notice her horrible treatment, but she had done it so slowly, soon it became normal for her to tell him daily that he was “weak and dumb”, “a woman”, or “worthless without me”. At this point in their relationship, she had begun to smack him sometimes. At first, Ace thought it was playful, but now it hurt, and he believed he was weaker than her and stupider than her.
Whenever they were alone she was absolutely sweet to him.
She would tell him all the things he wanted to hear, and then some. She draped her body all over him, sucking out his life force like a succubus, feeding on his misery and pain. She would have sex with him often, and Ace didn’t mind, but soon she made him have sex with him even when he didn’t want to. Ace told himself that it was impossible for him to not want sex because he was a man.
So now Ace was normalized to not arguing with anyone when they wanted sexual favors, believing that he couldn't say no. Candice had dug her claws into every part of his life, and Ace never noticed when his friends drifted away. He was a very social person, but with Candice, in his life, all he did was think about what she wanted, what other people thought, or if he looked like a girl.
The only person who was still close to him was Fenton, who had long given up on getting Ace to leave her, and was simply focused on making sure she didn’t completely warp his mind.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ace said. “She’s just going through a lot right now.”
“She’s been going through a lot,” Lush clarified. “Even Chad is somehow going through a lot so he cheats on his girlfriend?”
Ace realized how ridiculous he sounded but didn’t want to admit he was wrong. It was easier to believe that he and Candice had a normal relationship instead of admitting that he had two years of his life stolen by a horrible woman.
"Did you at least realize that you also have prejudices," Lush asked. "Everyone from your reality is very racist."
“That is impossible! Earth has some issues, but I immigrated there, and after a while people accepted me.”
“That wasn’t what I meant...I’m not letting you return until you’ve learned your lesson….”
Lush disappeared, and Ace was too thick-headed to understand what Lush was trying to drill into his skull.
“Shit,” Ace whispered.
He waited about five minutes, and Lush did not return. He quickly left the bathroom and now was panicking about where to go. He reached into his pocket to get his phone, but it wasn’t there.
He left it at Chad’s.
