Chapter 6 - Cognitive Dissonance (Julie Huff's POV) F/M, M/F, F/F [Part 7 of 15]
December 10, 2022
Julie: My whole sorority? Not possible. That was a covert operation.
Brendan: At the time. Maybe. It’s legend has spread. Maybe not your WHOLE sorority. But at least 50 girls.
Julie: 50 Girls?!?!
Brendan: That’s a conservative guess. That was a night that made Mia and Piper and you legends. Why would they not want to share it?
Julie: Because sharing it was FORBIDDEN!!! Loose lips sink ships. What we did was cruel. Please know that I see that now. I don’t want that to be part of MY legend. And it’s insulting to you. You got put through Hell for a night. That shouldn’t have to follow you for the rest of your college career. That’s not fair. That’s horrific. This doesn’t bother you?!?!
Brendan: Of course it bothers me.
Julie: Then why wouldn’t you talk to me about this?!?!
Brendan: It feels terrible to say. But I thought that there was NO way that you couldn’t have known.
Julie knew that Brendan did hate saying that. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. Of course she hadn’t known. But not knowing meant that she was an idiot. She lived in the Delta Gamma house. How could this legend have spread so far behind her back? Was she being willfully ignorant? Were her sorority sisters keeping things from her?
Julie: Brendan. Absolutely not. And it PAINS me that you’ve just been putting up with this for me. I’m going to fix this. I’ll let everybody who needs to know that whatever stories they’ve heard are wild exaggerations. I’ll shut this shit down as best as I can.
Brendan: I don’t think that’s going to help much.
Julie: I’ll certainly try. Only a handful of girls were there. We embellish things all the time. Half the girls already know that Mia is regularly full of shit. It won’t be hard to convince them that she’s pumped up this event to more than it was.
Brendan: No. I mean I don’t think that it will help because I think most of them have already seen pictures and some of the video.
Julie’s vision went dark for a second. What Brendan was telling her now was hitting her like a ton of bricks. This couldn’t be happening. They’d deleted all of the video. The video of the chase. The video of the torture. She’d watched them delete it. It was absolutely unacceptable that they’d share it. They’d made it as a fun little thing that they’d watch and laugh about so that all of the girls involved could witness the full endeavor. But they were done with it. It should be gone. She’d always wondered if any of the girls had kept any pictures, but those were all supposed to be gone also. And they were never supposed to be shared. Finally, with spots still in her field of vision, she responded.
Julie: Impossible. That literally can’t be the case. We deleted the videos. I watched the videos being deleted. None of that was EVER allowed to be shared for public consumption.
Brendan: I believe that you believe that Julie. But that’s just not the case.
Julie: How do you know that video exists?
Brendan: Lots of ways. Some of your sisters know things that they could only know by watching video of the event. They’ve got nicknames for me that allude to things in the video.
Julie: Such as?
Brendan: Well, the kindest one is BDB. That stands for Big Dick Brendan. But they know what my dick looks like with surprising detail.
Julie: Could Carla or Cassie have told them?
Brendan: No. They reference the events and the video. They also call me “Squeaks” or “Squeals”. Both are used interchangeably by some of them. That’s for the sounds that I made while Robin was paddling my ass.
Julie was livid. She couldn’t remember the last time that she was this mad. There had to be some sort of misunderstanding. There is no way that her sisters would do this.
Julie: Is there any chance that they were just given really descriptive descriptions?
Brendan: I really don’t think so. And it’s not like I don’t know that the media is out there. I mean, my frat brothers have shown me pictures.
Julie started feeling sick to her stomach. She had been enjoying her calzone but any semblance of hunger or appetite had now left her. Surely he wasn’t serious. Surely her sorority sisters weren’t that depraved and mindlessly malicious. Surely Brendan would have pitched a righteous fucking fit about this earlier if this were actually the case.
Julie: You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.
Brendan: Sorry, Jules. Not joking. I’ve seen them.
Julie: We sent them ONE picture. One! It was of you with the tape over your mouth and LOSER written on your forehead in lipstick. It was from the shoulders up. That was it. That was all they got.
Brendan: No. I’ve seen them. Fully nude. Several hogtied. There’s one of Emily using a Hitachi wand on me. There’s one of Mia standing with her boot on my hip, flexing for the camera. There’s one of you yanking on my nipple clamps.
Julie: Oh Christ. Oh sweet fucking Christ.
Brendan: Jules. Relax. It’s OK. Everything is going to be OK.
Julie felt herself tearing up. She didn’t often cry. She wasn’t a very emotional person. But sometimes she got a little overwhelmed and this was definitely one of those times.
Brendan: Babe. Please don’t cry. I’m fine. I’m stronger than all of this. You don’t need to constantly worry about me. I can hack it.
Julie: No! No, Brendan. You shouldn’t have to hack it. You shouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit. Because you can push it down all you want. But it does affect you. You’re not comfortable in my home. You’re not comfortable around my friends. You probably feel mocked in your OWN frat house. That’s not fair to you. And this isn’t fair to me. My sisters have been double dealing behind my back. This is apparently rampant and there’s a reason that I DON’T know about it. It’s not a fucking coincidence. Why wouldn’t you talk to me about this? And don’t you DARE say it’s because you thought that I knew.
Brendan’s face got very serious. He’d been smiling previously but Julie could tell that it wasn’t a happy smile. It was a gallows smile to keep himself from seeming upset. She knew that all of this did in fact upset him.
Brendan: Fine. I won’t say that. I don’t talk to you about it. Because I figure that talking to you about it won’t fix anything. It only possesses the ability to make matters worse. These are your friends. I don’t want to be someone who comes between you and the people that you care about. I can grin and bare it and not make things uncomfortable. I’m fine with doing that for you.
Julie: I don’t want you to do that for me. My friends shouldn’t be doing this. This is duplicitous bullshit.
Brendan: You’re promising that you didn’t know that the pictures and videos were being shared, correct?
Julie: Of course not.
Brendan: Then I don’t see what you could have done to stop it. They were going to do it whether it upset you or not. There’s nothing you could do to fix it.
Julie: That’s a very naïve statement, babe. Especially coming from you. You know how much of a ruthless bitch I can be. I can rain down absolute Hell.
Brendan: You’re not a ruthless bitch.
Julie: Really? What do you call this afternoon?
Brendan: That’s different. You love me.
Julie: I was fucking TERRIBLE to you all day today.
Brendan: OK. Maybe. But no matter how mean you get during or games…you can’t hide the fact that you care about me. I know you care about me. Even when you’re being cruel. Even when you’re punishing me or denying me or tormenting me. I can feel that you care. Our games are all AT WILL at this point. I wouldn’t trust you to tie me up if I didn’t think that you cared. I know that you care about me. I can tell right now. You didn’t even come close to tearing up when we watched Coco and you’re about to cry because you found out that your friends have been teasing me.
Julie: So you’re saying that you felt “cared for” today?
Brendan: In a way, Yes.
Julie: Today was about strict neglect and denial of pleasure.
Brendan: Yeah. I got that.
Julie: And yet you seem entirely unphased by it. You shouldn’t have enjoyed it at all.
Brendan: OK.
Julie: OK?!?! What kind of response is that? Did you enjoy it?
Brendan: I think I did. You were testing some things out. I don’t know what they were. But you wanted to try some things. You’re testing me psychologically. You’re trying to get in my head. And you enjoy that. And when I know that you’re enjoying yourself…I enjoy myself. That’s the way things work. I love you, Julie. I fucking love you. Capital L-O-V-E. And I want you to be happy. When you’re happy, I’m happy.
Julie: That’s not the way happiness works, Brendan.
Brendan: You’re right. I’m oversimplifying things. But the sentiment remains. Did YOU enjoy today?
Julie: I don’t know. Not really.
Brendan: Interesting. Then why did you do it? What would you have liked to have done differently?
Julie: Nothing. It’s that I wanted you to react differently.
She saw that now Brendan was smiling.
Brendan: Very interesting. Let me put on my psychologist hat now. Let’s dive deeper into this.
Julie glared at him with a non-plussed look.
Julie: OK. I’m beginning to see how my pseudo-psycho bullshit can be annoying.
Brendan: How did you want me to react?
Julie paused for a moment. Was this a trap? She knew that she probably shouldn’t answer with honesty. But she and Brendan had an agreement that they’d always be honest with each other when it came to these BDSM related discussions. She took a deep breath and just told him the truth.
Julie: I guess I wanted you to be more upset.
She was expecting him to be a little hurt by this. But he wasn’t. He seemed invigorated by it.
Brendan: Ooohhh. Why? Why did you want me upset?
Julie: I suppose that I’m trying to push you.
Brendan: Push my limits? You do that all the time. I’m constantly on the edge of what I can handle. That’s not anything new. Are you trying to snap me?
Julie: No. I don’t want the upset to be long term. I just want…
She paused. She didn’t want to give away her whole plan. The pause went on a little too long.
Brendan: You just want…
Julie: I just want you to carry a little more edge into your revenge sessions.
Brendan: My “revenge sessions”?
Julie: I mean when you tie me up. When I’m your captive. When I’m your pathetic, helpless, wet little slut.
Brendan: First…I wouldn’t categorize those as “revenge sessions”. Secondly, I wouldn’t agree with you using almost any of the words that you used…maybe “helpless” and hopefully “wet”. But you’re never “pathetic”. And God strike me down if I ever refer to you or any woman as a “slut”. My mother would wash my mouth out with soap. As well she should.
Julie: Maybe I want you to treat me that way. Maybe I want you to call me a “slut” and a “whore”. I think I WANT to be degraded a little more.
Brendan: Interesting. Let’s dig deeper into THIS.
Julie: Just in the bedroom. Don’t you DARE call me a slut out in public.
Brendan: Of course. I’m not a savage.
Julie: But when I’m your captive. I want to feel like I’m being subjugated.
Brendan: OK. I can do that. We’ve discussed things before. I’m not comfortable with the whole choking thing yet. I’ll work on it. But it skeeves me out a little bit.
Julie: Then we can put that way on the back burner. Your sessions are about you. I get they’re also about me. Clearly I treated today’s as being about me.
Brendan: You just admitted that it was about me.
Julie: I meant that only I enjoyed it. We should both enjoy it.
Brendan: You just said that you DIDN’T enjoy it. So neither of us enjoyed it. We wasted five hours.
Julie: I wouldn’t say that we wasted five hours. I came several times. I may have enjoyed it significantly more than I implied.
Brendan: Then I also enjoyed. Success!!
Julie: When I said that I didn’t enjoy it…I meant that it didn’t achieve the desired effect. You don’t seem any closer to getting that edge. And I swear that this isn’t bullshit. But I think that you want that edge. I think that you want to unleash on me. You just don’t feel comfortable.
Brendan: Maybe I do. And I will when the time is right. I’ll try and push your limits at some point. I’m just working my way up into figuring out what I want.
Julie: We’ve discussed some of the more depraved things that you want. Let’s at least pretend that we’re working towards some of those.
Brendan: Such as?
Julie smiled. She remembered a couple of very frisky drunken kink talks that they’d had where they talked about dream scenarios.
Julie: I believe you told me that you wanted to suspend me upside down like your own little punching bag.
Brendan: Excuse me. I believe I said “spanking bag”. I have NOOOO desire to ever use you as a punching bag.
Julie: OK. Noted. You wanted to swing me around though. And you said that you’d like to have your own little reenactment of the Spider-Man upside down in the rain scene…except with a blowjob.
Brendan blushed deeply when she said this. She remembered the conversation well. She’s positive that he’d never had said it without a decent layer of liquid courage.
Brendan: I thought that you called that “the wild fever dream of a truly deranged mind”.
Julie: I did. I meant that as a compliment.
Brendan: Oh.
Julie: Let’s try it. I have an engineering buddy named JJ who I can talk to about setting up the necessary suspension apparatus.
Brendan: Julie. We are SOOO far away from something like that. We couldn’t do it in my place or yours. I’m sure JJ is great. But there are a lot of considerations that he’s not going to know if you don’t tell him that it’s to suspend A PERSON. If you tell him that you want to hang 110 pounds then…
Julie: Awwww. You’re so sweet. 110? Really?
Brendan: I know better than to guess any higher. Anyway, the load bearing needs of a human accounting for struggling are going to be different. So you’re going to have to tell him it’s for bondage. Then we’re going to have to find a private place that we can install it. Let’s set aside the fact that I have no clue how to do it safely. I don’t know how to tie somebody upside down. How do I hang you by your ankles without pinching nerves or restricting bloodflow? How will it affect your breathing? How long is it safe to keep somebody in an inverted position like that? I don’t know any of those things!!
Julie: OK. Well you’re never going to learn them until we start looking into them. You help to fulfill all of my wildest fantasies. I want to start fulfilling some of yours.
Brendan: You already do, babe.
Julie: Well…then I want to start ticking off the more depraved ones. And consider that maybe there’s some overlap.
Brendan: Are you saying you want to suspend ME upside down?
Julie: No. I mean…maybe. I’m not sure. Yet. I’m saying maybe I WANT to be suspended upside down.
Brendan: Works for me.
Brendan gave a broad smile. Julie knew that he was just instinctively too conditioned not to mistreat people. He wasn’t comfortable exploring what he wanted if he felt that it was an imposition on somebody else. Julie didn’t know how she felt about suspension bondage. Maybe she would enjoy it. Maybe she wouldn’t. But she was very confident that Brendan would enjoy it. But the only way that was going to happen was if he was convinced that she would be into it. That’s just the kind of guy that he was. She appreciated his selflessness. But today she saw the ugly side of it. He’d been allowing himself to be victimized continually for HER benefit. And that didn’t make her feel good. She knew that he was strong and could tough his way through the humiliation and the jeering. But he shouldn’t have to. She wanted more for him than that. She thought that perhaps they should probably just skip the event at Delta Gamma tonight. She’d learned a lot of unsavory things and even before she’d learned them she knew that Brendan wasn’t going to be excited about attending. Now she wasn’t sure that SHE was excited about attending.
Julie: What do you say we just go home and do some good old fashioned fooling around without any ropes? I promise to let you orgasm whenever you want this time.
She gave him a cheeky grin as an inducement, but Brendan waved her off.
Brendan: Babe, you’ve been excited about tonight’s soiree for the last two weeks. I don’t want that to change just because you learned about a little unsavory behavior tonight.
Julie: OK. But are YOU going to feel comfortable?
Brendan: I’ll be top notch. I’d hate for us not to go just because these girls and their perverse teasing got to us. I’m excited to show up and stand my ground as always. They say the best revenge is living well.
Julie: Awww, sweetie. I know that you believe that. But I sure you that the best revenge is ACTUAL revenge. And I’m prepared to show you that. We will go to the party tonight. And we will have a great time. But I want you to keep track of every girl that teases you about Red Letter Night. And I want you to note every girl who has details about it that she shouldn’t. I’m going to teach you what the best revenge is. And it’s not LIVING WELL.
Brendan looked somewhat reticent, but also eagerly excited about what she was proposing.
Brendan: This sounds devious. But you can’t punish people for watching a video. That doesn’t seem fair.
Julie: No. I just want the names so I can track the leak to the proper source. I like to think that I learn from mistakes, Brendan. I’m not interested in punishing somebody who doesn’t deserve it. If I’m going to torch somebody’s ass. I want to know that they have it coming. It helps with that whole pesky guilt thing.
Brendan: I know what your idea of revenge is and I’m worried that it’s a little more scorched Earth than you think it is. You can hang a lampshade over this situation all you want. These girls are your friends. They’re important to you. And that’s OK. I think the revenge should be a little bit measured.
Julie respected Brendan’s restraint, but she was thinking about things a little differently. He was absolutely right in certain respects. These girls were still her sisters. She still loved and valued them. But at least one of them needed to be taught a serious lesson. And if that girl couldn’t accept that then that was a risk that Julie had to be willing to take. She didn’t want to end any friendships. But she was hoping that that wasn’t where this was leading.
Julie: Babe, do you know what cognitive dissonance is?
Brendan: Yes. They teach that in 101. It’s like one of the most important and basic lessons in human psychology.
Julie: I need to know that any friends of mine that I value have some. I agree with you. These girls still are my sisters. And I understand that it should take A LOT of convincing to get you to believe that they’re actually good people. But I GENUINELY believe that they are. But some of them have done some abhorrant things. And I need to know that they recognize that. If this revenge ends my friendship with them…then it was doomed from the start. And I was wrong. But I don’t think I’m wrong. I think they’re going to HATE our revenge. And I think they’re going to BEG for clemency. But I think that they’ll understand it.
Brendan: OK. If you’re accepting of the risks...then I’m 100% on board. I’d be willing to bet that you’re a master of revenge. And I’m excited to learn what your devious mind is capable of. I’ll get the check. Let’s go enjoy tonight’s soiree. And I promise you…I AM prepared to actually enjoy it tonight.