Tina looked up at me, but then dropped her gaze back down again.
"I-I..." Tina trailed off.
Two hands grabbed my head from behind, and turned my face towards her.
Fingers dug into my cheeks and temples as the hands held my head firmly. For a moment I debated on using my switches to stop this whole farce, but stopped myself. I had to clear my name first. I was no r*pist, not now, not ever!
"Look, Tina, the nerd is helpless. He can't hurt you," Dan's voice said right behind me.
Then I pushed harder on Tina's 'guilt' switch.
"I can't," she finally blurted.
"Man, you must've done a number on her, nerd," Dan said.
"That's okay... We'll do you even worse, I promise."
"No!" Tina yelled, and every eye in the room turned to her.
Richard went over to console her, but she shook him off.
"I lied," she confessed, tears streaming down her face.
"He didn't r*pe me."
Her voice had gone tremulous, and she buried her face in her hands as she sobbed.
"What are you saying?" Richard asked; confusion painted across his face.
Tina looked at him blankly, and I could see anger in her red rimmed, tear stained eyes.
"I'm saying I fvcked him, and I enjoyed every minute of it."
Everybody's jaws dropped except mine and Tina's. Richard just had a pained look on his face, he look like someone that has lost his soul.
"I seduced him, but felt guilty about it, so I lied to you. But I can't... I can't let you do this to him when he's innocent."
"Like hell he's innocent!" Surprisingly it was Dan who made the statement, and not Richard.
"He still screwed with your girlfriend, Rich. I say we teach him a lesson, and make sure he never touches another man's girl again."
I felt the man's fist hitting my right kidney hard a moment after he released my head, wracking my body with pain all over again.
l'd like to say I took it like a man, but,
it HURT!
"No, Dan."
Richard's voice was barely a whisper, and I wasn't sure if l'd heard him right, through my agony fogged brain.
"Untie him." He turned his back on Tina, and faced the rest of the room. "It's one thing to beat up a r*pist, but I won't hurt a man whose only crime is being seduced by this slut."
"Richard, I..."
Tina reached for Richard's shoulder, but he yanked it away from her. The large man walked up to me, and stared me in the face. I could see that he hated me still, but I had to give him some respect for his actions. He helped untie me, and I turned to face the room. I knew it was wrong, but I felt like I needed to get revenge. I quickly made two new switches in each man, and Tina. I flipped the first, and watched as their eyes grew large, and their bodies became completely paralyzed. I walked up to Dan first, and had to look up at him, as Tina was the only one in the room shorter than me. I reached up with my right hand, and pinched the base of his neck where it met with his shoulder.
Simultaneously, I flipped the second switch, and smiled as he fell asleep. To everyone else, it would look like I'd given him the Nerve Pinch. A truly geeky revenge. I looked to Richard's other four friends, and couldn't bring myself to do anything to them. Sure they had helped kidnap me, but none of them had struck me, they only watched. I released their 'paralyze' switch, and told them to go. To a man, they fled that small basement, beating each other out of their way, in their haste to get away from me. Turning back to Richard, I felt my anger flare up again, until I saw his eyes. They say the eyes are the true mirror to the soul, and if that were true, Richard was in hell. There was no fear in his eyes, only pain, and hurt, and betrayal.
"Go," I said quietly (I felt that phantom switch move again), before I could change my mind, and released him too. As he ran up the stairs after his friends, I noticed that his pants seemed a little bulky around the waist, and I thought he must be wearing a diaper.
No wonder his pants had stayed dry.
Finally it was just me, Tina, and a softly snoring Dan in the dim basement. I debated on giving Dan a few kicks, to pay him back for the kidney punch, but I realized that the fight was out of me after seeing how broken Richard had become. Turning to Tina, I released her, and watched as she crumpled to the floor, crying.
"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, her face once again buried in her hands.
"I didn't know they would take it this far."
"Get up," I demanded, my voice as cold as the storm had been earlier today. She looked up at me, and I felt my anger rising again.