The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The woman stalked up the hallway, her tread muffled by the strip of tired green carpet as she passed by the wooden doors. She was a black woman, tall and slender, with a fizzing mass of hair a few shades darker than her skin. In fact, she might have disappeared into the gloom of the corridor entirely, except that she wore a vividly red and yellow dress which reached nearly all the way down to the carpet, allowing only occasional glimpses of the many threads that crisscrossed her sandaled feet. A patterned silk shawl had been carefully arranged over her shoulders, followed on one side by a purse swinging from on a wide leather strap. A matching strip of fabric was wrapped across her high forehead, pushing her hair back out of her eyes.

She was carrying a large plastic laundry basket, and it was piled high with a collection of clearly malodorous clothes, T-shirts and jeans and other things best left unidentified.

She came at last to the elevator at the end of the hall. She started to push the down-arrow button, but then she saw that the car was already coming up to her, and so instead she simply stood and waited.

The elevator arrived, the car clanging into place, and the doors wheezed open.

Inside was another woman, and the two of them exchanged places with barely a glance. The doors closed on the black woman, and she disappeared from view.

The newcomer started down the hall, backtracking along the black woman’s steps. She was carrying a burden herself; a large sturdy cardboard box. If this box’s numerous labels were to be believed, it had originally been constructed for the purpose of transporting twelve (12) bottles of something called ‘Croce Brand Malt Liquor.’ It clashed somewhat with the rest of this new woman’s possessions, her tight bun of coppery hair, her gold-rimmed glasses, the sleek leather purse slung over one shoulder (a thin strap instead of a wide one this time), and the rest of her expensive and stylish clothes. Behind the glasses, her expression was one of pinched annoyance. A spark burned at the back of those blue eyes, both hot and icy.

She came at last to a certain door, about halfway down the hall, and here she halted. There was a sound here, finally, a tinny but pentatrating murmur. Her scowl deepened as she shifted her burden to free up one of her gloved hands. She lifted that hand, curled now into a fist, and she hammered on the door. Once twice three times. The metal apartment numbers had only been tacked loosely to the door, and they rattled slightly from the impact. There was no other response. She waited, then hit the door once again, just once, and she spoke. Her voice was loud, and matched both her clothes and her expression.

“I know you’re in there, Hungab. You’re always in there. Open the damn door.”

Another long pause, then a voice from the other side of the door, sounding very faint and far away.

“Not locked.”

She gave the knob a sharp twist and pushed the door open, her knee appearing out of the split in her long buttoned coat to perform the latter operation as her hand reclaimed its grip on the box. The portal swung wide with a defeated creak, and she breezed through into the room beyond, her hem of her long coat flapping a little in her wake.

The new room was a good match for the hallway. A few red-and-blue striped beer cans lay scattered across the worn brown carpet, along with other things: An empty potato chip bag. An equally empty cigarette package. A veritable forest of paper, small crumpled white bits.

It was hard to say what color the walls were, as they were so thickly covered with things that had been taped or tacked into place. Pinups from adult magazines. Posters of comic book characters. Posters from a certain type of movie, which didn’t look all that different than the pinups. There were also several calenders, mostly free things that you might find in a bank or a restaurant.

As far as furniture, there was little. A wine-colored couch sagged along one wall. It may have started its long and eventful life as something far better, but now its spirit was throughly broken. Directly above this was hanging the only actual painting in the apartment, an indifferently executed thing which hung from a nail and was tilted at an unsightly angle. Pushed up against one of the other walls was a cheap particleboard bookshelf, painted white. It was stuffed with books, or at least things that were generally book-shaped, slim and splotched with color. Comics. A squat metal cabinet had been shoved into yet another corner; it was coated with more posters, with only a few slivers of blue paint showing here and there. The cabinet’s flimsy door had swung itself partway open to reveal haphazard stacks of videotapes in cases, filling all of the cabinet’s shelves and stacked three or four deep. More flashing gaudy colors. Sitting on top of the cabinet were two empty pizza cartons, the lid of the top carton flipped up so it was resting against the one of the posters (it was of a tall figure in gold armor and billowing cape, with the words COMMANDER AMAZING springing out above it in mock 3D). Next to the cabinet, a battered TV perched on a makeshift stand fashioned out of two wooden apple crates, the various cables running to their proper outlets on the wall. (A glance at the TV’s screen revealed it to be the source of the hallway sound; there was a scene of white-robed figures moving through a tangled forest at night, to the accompaniment of a collection of pounding drums.) A VCR sat on the floor next to the TV, its lines of red and green lights pulsing back and forth as the tape unspooled within. The case for that tape lay discarded on top of the VCR, looking like a gutted clamshell. Next to the VCR was the first of two very ugly floor lamps which provided the rest of what little illumination there was; the heavy gray curtains had been pulled shut tight over the windows.

To one side was the door to the small bedroom. Opposite this was the small kitchen, the expected fixtures lurking behind a long brown counter. It was hard to see the exact details, since the counter was crowded with an incredible collection of clocks, all facing into the room. Most of them were cheap or at least ordinary, but they were all functional, and a decerning eye might notice that two or three of them at least were actually quite nice, their brass pendulums swinging smoothly back and forth.

In the middle of it all stood a low wooden coffee table, with more items strewn across it. Several layers of papers, sporting the overlapping rings left by a now-empty coffee cup. (Painted on the large cup in leeringly bright letters were the words ‘Worlds Best Lover’, with a heart where the second ‘o’ should be.) A cheap plastic phone, with another cord running across the carpet to terminate in the jack near the counter. A green plastic bowl with a few last potato chip fragments lurking in the bottom. A square metal ashtray, nearly full to overflowing.

And slouched next to the table, the crumbing remains of a leather easy chair, a thing even more decrepit and fossilized than the sofa, to the point that its original color couldn’t be determined. Now, it was brown. Sort of.

The balding overweight man filling the chair completed the scene to perfection. He had been watching the TV, but now turned to glance in the direction of the newcomer, the motion bringing to mind a pig wallowing in a mud-hole. He started to get up, then he saw who it was, and a look of recognition lumbered resignedly across his face. He sagged deeper into the chair and shifted a smoldering cigarette butt to the corner of his mouth before speaking.

“Oh. Miss Starr. It’s you.” He removed the butt altogether and started to take a swallow from the beer can he was holding, then realized it was empty. He stared at it for a moment as if totally baffled, then absently tossed it to one side. It happened to bounce off the sofa before coming to rest with the others on the floor. He jammed the cigarette back into place.

The woman framed in the doorway ground her teeth as she clutched tightly at her burden.

“Yes, Hungab. It’s me.” Miss Starr came the rest of the way into the apartment and closed the door behind her with a neat hook and a pull and a kick from her booted foot. She cast a pointed glance at the TV. He followed her gaze, then shriveled a little and started rooting around in the fetid depths of the chair, finally extracting from somewhere a remote control. Squinting at the device, he punched buttons with careful concentration, and the drums on the TV fell silent, the action still proceeding, but with the green word MUTE now glowing in the corner of the screen. The ticking of the clocks could now be heard as he positioned the remote in one of the few empty spots on the table. When he had done this, she continued. “It’s time again.”

“Time?” His muddy brown eyes were blank under his thick grubby eyebrows. “Time for what?”

“Quit playing games, Hungab.” She put down the box with a quick jerking motion, then unslung her purse and leaned it up against one of the cardboard sides, letting the strap slither out of her hand. She bent over the box and snatched something out of it; straightening up, she revealed it to be a new bag of potato chips. “Do you want this or not?”

He looked at the bag, looked into the bowl beside him, back at the bag.

“Uh... yes?”

“Then you know what you have to do.”

She extended the bag towards him, just a little, not moving from her position. His eyes shifted back and forth again, the eyes of a weasel scoping out escape routes from the hen-house. Finally, moving at a crawl, he pulled himself stickily to his feet. Scraps of things, potato chips and who knew what else, flaked off his undershirt onto the floor. He inched across the room to her on his grubby gray sneakers, coming just close enough to reach out and snatch the bag. Moving much more quickly, he scuttled back to his chair. He flopped back into position with something between a sigh and a groan. He started to rip into the bag, then seemed to become aware of her again.

“Uh... thanks. Miss Starr.”

“Of course.”

The bag popped open in his grip. He poured some of the contents into the bowl, carefully set the bag aside, grabbed a handful of chips and scarfed them down, spewing a few crumbs. After a moment, his chewing slowed, almost but not quite stopping.

“Something wrong?” Her voice displayed little real concern.

“No!” He gave a twitch. “Nuthin’. It’s just...”

“Yess?”

“These things are salty.”

Miss Starr’s lips pressed into an even thinner line. Instead of answering, she slowly, slowly, pulled off her gloves, one finger at a time, and filed them away in one of the many deep pockets of her coat. This task complete, she bent over once again and extracted a second item from the box. A six-pack of red and blue cans with the word ‘Hornblower Beer’ plastered around their sides. Or rather it was a five-pack of those items, with one plastic loop empty. She held the cans by this loop, away from her body, with just a couple of fingers. Hungab looked at the cans, licked his lips, started to get up again...

Then sank back into the chair. He hunched his shoulders in a way that was almost defiant, didn’t look at her again. He stabbed at a button on the remote, leaving a potato-chip residue, and the drums came back up. He gripped the chair’s wide armrests with both hands and redirected his whole attention to the TV. The movie’s camera-shot had pulled closer, and the figures there were now revealed to be a group of women, all evidently wearing long white dresses cut low in front and very gauzy, drifting among moss-covered trees in a line. The moon rode fat and low to the horizon behind them. The drums beat on.

Behind him, Miss Starr stood like a statue for a moment.

Then her legs came to life. She crossed the room to the chair, lifted the cans into position like a bombardier and dropped them onto the table with a clatter. Her hand fell back to her side. He gave a start of surprise and looked at the cans like he’d never seen one of the before, then cautiously reached out and wiggled the nearest one free. He pried it open, took a small experimental sip, then a bigger one. He finally spoke, nervously, suspiciously:

“What’s this for? I mean...” Another swallow. “I know what you do with it, but why—”

He stopped as she quivered, the fire behind her eyes getting very hot, narrowing down to a laser beam for a moment. Instead of exploding, however, she returned to the door. Slowly. Very slowly. From the back of the door jutted a hook, and hanging from the hook was a single clothes-hanger, sleek and metal. She unbuttoned her coat, pulled it off, carefully arranged it on the hanger, smoothing away wrinkles with short flicking motions. Apart from her boots, she was now wearing a blouse and a pair of slacks, both of which nicely complemented her hair. The coat stashed away, she bent over for a third time and pulled out a large black garbage sack. She began collecting things from the floor, one at a time, very methodical, and stuffing each into the sack. Can. Can. Can. Cigarette package. Can. Potato chip bag. Coming near the curtains in her curcuit, she paused to yank them open, revealing a view of the taller buildings across the street, with blue sky beyond. She spoke in a horrible calm voice as he blinked against the soft light.

“Every time we go through this. Why do you always have to be such a fucking...” She checked whatever she was going to say and went off in a different direction. “It’s Tuesday.” Still holding a can, she pointed a forefinger at the nearest of the wall calendars. It was from ‘Seafront Bank’, and featured a shot of a lighthouse perched high over a rocky cliff. “It’s 5:23 PM.” This time she jabbed at a cheap digital clock with glowing red numbers. The white cube was precariously balanced on the curving top the largest of it fellows, a true work of art which had been lovingly assembled over a half-century before, standing almost two feet high and made of some dark wood. The whole somehow brought to mind the sight of a floor victim waiting for rescue on the roof of his house. “What happens every Tuesday at 5:20 PM?” She stuck the last can into the bag, and then straightened the painting.

Hungab thought for a moment, masticating another handful of potato chips. When he spoke, he was threading his way through a verbal minefield.

“Every Tuesday. 5:20 PM. You come.” Another thought seemed to occur to him, and a cautiously hopeful note crept into his voice. “And sometimes you bring me stuff. More stuff.” He held the can as if he expected her to snatch it back at any moment.

She pulled the built-in loops of the garbage bag shut with a vicious jerk, jammed the whole into the liquor box, then took out a new item. A medium-sized coffee can, dark brown with a yellow plastic lid clamped tightly into place.

“Yes. I always bring... ‘stuff’, Hungab.” Back to the table again. “And just like always, you don’t get any of...” She paused and quivered, her eyes shut for a moment. “...all of it... until...” A very different sort of trailing off this time, as she snatched the remnant of the cigarette from his unresisting mouth and ground it out in the tray.

Hungab scratched at his grayed-out shirt with a set of fingers. A package of fat pink hairy sausages. This delicate operation complete, he cast a vague eye around the apartment, still squinting from the light, not looking at her as she briskly emptied the contents of the ashtray into the can, sealing the lid tight with her thumbs when she was done. As she collected the pizza boxes with her free hand, his bloodshot gaze finally came to rest on the painting above the sofa. Inside the frame was a depiction of a cluster of bright red berries, growing in a meadow. He stared at this, taking a chug of the beer as she again returned to the box with her burdens. She collapsed the pizza cartons with a few deft motions and jammed them into place, along with the can. Another thought jockeyed into position and deployed itself across his face, moving maybe a little faster this time. He studied her out of the corner of his eye, and he almost seemed to risk a smile.

“Ooh. Do you mean you want me t—”

The phone on the table rang, a grating sound that sawed at the ears. Hungab extracted his attention away from her with a blink. He picked up the remote and punched a button. This time, the image froze on an image of the last woman in the row, an actress with short-cropped blonde hair who in real life was probably almost as tall as Miss Starr, but a great deal more busty. She didn’t have on a white dress, but instead wore a striped gray-and-blue sweater and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Like all the rest of the women, however, her feet were bare and her expression was one of glazed horror and arousal. Back in the real world, Hungab balanced the remote on top of the remaining four cans of beer, and only then did his groping fingers find the handset of the phone, which had continued through all of this to shrilly demand his attention.

“This is Hungab... Who?” He listened with crinkled brow, and then suddenly something came seeping into his eyes and his face that hadn’t been there before.

Miss Starr stared at the woman on the screen, then down at her own clothes. Down at her feet. She silently stepped out of her boots, lined them up next to her purse. She was barefoot now, like all the rest... She plucked something out of the box, held it curled in her hand.

“Oh! Andrew! Hey!... Yeah, damn right I’m ready. Hang on...” Hungab took another hasty swallow of beer, then put the can down and started rooting around in the papers on the table before finally locating a single crumpled sheet and pulling it free. He flattened it against his hefty thigh, consulted whatever was written there, then spoke into the phone, very slowly and carefully. “Rook to Queen’s 3.... Right... OK... Be seeing you.” He let the receiver clatter back into place. The instant as he did this, Miss Starr made the return trip back to the chair, all the bits of paper crumpling softly under her soles. The thing in her hand was a fresh unopened package of cigarettes, and she wordlessly held out to him. For the first time he looked directly at her, then shifted his gaze to the cigarettes. She looked down as well, and for an endless moment they formed a tableau. Then something drained quietly out of her face, and her hands came to life, seeming to move themselves. One hand tapped the package against the wrist of the other. Once twice three times. The package was ripped open. One of the white tubes was extracted, and lifted to her lips. The extracted cigarette dangling, the carton went on the table. The hands trembled as they did all of this. Just a little.

He turned the paper in his hands, sliding his fingers along the edges again and again.

There was a book of matches from a Chinese restaurant lying on the table next to the carton, still half-full. She peeled a match off, struck it to life. The smell of the sulfur was very strong. The flame of the match went to the cigarette’s tip, and she sucked. The tip glowed red and she stifled a string of coughs as she blew out the match and dropped it in the tray. It sent up a thin thread of white smoke as it lay there all alone, marring the perfection.

The cigarette was silently passed it to him. He pulled off a long drag, then blew the smoke towards the ceiling, studying the twisting arcane patterns that formed there among the air currents. His voice was different now.

“Miss Starr. Eleanor. I guess I do know what you want.”

She said nothing, but twitched. He retrieved the beer off the table and drained it in one long swallow, seeming to crumple it down to nothing with only the force of his pull. He casually tossed the remnants away and they hit the exact same spot on the sofa before landing on the carpet. He gestured with the cigarette towards the TV.

“Start that up again.”

Moving in a quick smooth motion, she pushed the proper button, and the action resumed.

“What else did you bring me?”

Eleanor turned on her heel, walked back to the box quickly, her legs held stiff. She dropped to her knees to root around, finally pushing the garbage bag aside and extracting another video cassette clamshell, this one still sealed up in the store’s plastic wrap, the bar code sticker glued in one corner. She went back to him and held it out with both hands, where he studied it with seeming disinterest. It was a garish thing, with the words BIKINI BABE BRAINWASH 6 screaming out over a picture of a brunette in a tight red swimsuit, posed wide-eyed and rigid, a huge spiral filling her background and her eyes. Eleanor spoke.

“It just came out this week, Mr. Hungab. I know you like this sort of thing.”

He didn’t answer, but instead his gaze slowly dropped to the cans sitting on the table. She looked at them as well, then back at him. More drainage, something passing between them, slippery and quick as an eel. The case fell out of her hands. One of the sharp corners did a nasty ricochet off her unprotected foot before coming to rest and she bit silently at her lip. She started to reach for one of the cans on the table, but she saw his expression, and her hands froze in mid-motion.

“Those are warm, Eleanor.”

She shifted the remote to one side, took the remaining cans and carried them around the counter, into the kitchen, walking very quickly now.

Except for a few dirty dishes stacked in the sink, the kitchen was spotlessly immaculate.

She opened the refrigerator door. Instead of the scattered collection of moldy monstrosities that you might have expected in this setting, there was a lot of food inside, high-quality, all of it fresh. Sitting on one shelf next to a jar of olives and container of mayonnaise was the remains of another six-pack of Hornblowers. She silently rearranged things so that her new warm cans were in the back, stripped free of the plastic rings. The rings she snipped apart with a handy pair of scissors and tossed into a waiting garbage can. Returning to the refrigerator, she took one of the cold cans. She started to go back to the chair, then shot him a nervous glance over the pile on the counter. He wasn’t looking at her, but was watching the TV again, his expression sour. She reversed course. Opening a cupboard, she found a tall glass mug waiting on a shelf. She snagged this, carefully cracked open the can and poured out the beer, down the side, preventing foam.

She had to do all of this very carefully. Her hands were trembling rather badly now.

The drained can went into the garbage with the rings. Back out to the chair, holding the mug with both hands, forcing herself to walk slow, not spilling a drop. She held it out to him, handle-first. He snagged it without comment and swallowed a long pull before putting the mug down and picking up the thread of the conversation once again.

“’This sort of thing?’ That sounds like disapproval, Eleanor.”

Her mouth made a little noise as she scooped the tape back up, held it up again for his inspection.

“No. Not at all. Mr. Hungab. Would... would you like me to put it on?”

“Sure. Why not. But close those damn drapes first.”

She was almost running now. Just as the drapes slid shut and the darkness descended once again, a seagull dipped into view for a moment outside the window, riding the air, then soaring back up out of sight. She dropped to her knees again, in front of the VCR, being very careful not to block Mr. Hungab’s view of the screen. She reached out to push the button labeled Stop, and...

“No. Wait.”

She froze, her finger resting on the button.

“This is the good part. Hold on a second.” She twisted her eyes so she was looking at the screen. The women had all come wafting out into a clearing in the forest. Masses of torches burned all around the parameter of the space. There was a calm lake in the center of it all, the gently rippling water reflecting the lights of the torches. The drums pounded and howled, and the kneeling woman found herself swaying slightly to their rhythm.

Which is what the other women, the ones on the screen, were doing as well, all except the blonde in the sweater, who stood very still at the edge of the clearing, watching, her paralyzed spread-armed posture almost identical to the figure on the cover of BBB 5. The women began to dance, slow and sinuous, their dresses falling away like mist, torchlight catching the angles of their firm, healthy bodies. Pink and black and brown...

Still swaying, Eleanor put down the new tape, began unbuttoning her own blouse. Then that wasn’t going nearly fast enough, not like those dresses, and she ripped it open, ripped it off, discarded it with a fling. Not getting up from her kneel, she did a long slow wiggle out of her slacks, and she was wearing only her glasses, her silk bra and her matching panties.

The naked women were all wading out into the water now; it was shallow, not even coming up to their knees. The blonde woman followed, a reluctant dog being pulled on a leash, still wearing all of her clothes except of course for her shoes, her feet vanishing into the murk. Eleanor stared, even as her finger was pulled in the same fashion, pulled back to rest on the Stop button.

In the center of the water, there were more trees growing, huge gnarled things. Snakes crawled along the branches high and low, dozens of them it seemed, long bodies splotched green and brown. And then there was the center of the clearing, the very center, with a large thing looming up against the stars, with the standard latex horns and glowing red eyes. The thing saw the blonde woman and it laughed as the other women knelt before it and groveled in the mud and the slime. The voice supplied to it was rich and deep and rolling. (And, a last fading corner of Eleanor Starr’s mind whispered, more than a bit silly...)

“Ahhhh... Doctor Sandergard. Haw wunnerful fah you ta join us all... Nhaw then... Lemme see mah newest pet...” ‘Doctor Sandergard’ reached for her sweater, started to pull it off...

“OK. That’s enough.” Mr. Hungab’s voice. “Stop it.” Eleanor tore her eyes away from the screen and her finger lurched against the button. Click. The image died and after a moment of fuzz was replaced with a smarmy infomercial for something called ‘Master PC’. Mr. Hungab went on, his voice very different now. “It’s all downhill from there. She doesn’t even have time to get that damn sweater off before the hero turns up with that damn idiot witchdoctor and they save her. I swear, some damn people have absolutely no sense of priority. Put the new tape in.” She started to eject the tape, but he stopped her with a barked command. “And do it right this time, bitch. I remember how you did before.”

She shook all over. She did it right. Push rewind. Sit and wait and wait, listen to the whir, listen to the people on the TV use words she had trouble understanding. Finally there was a click and clunk and the tape was wound back. Eject old tape. Put it back in its case (’VOODOO SURRENDER’). Take the case over to the cabinet, moving carefully, so carefully. Find a place to jam it into the cabinet with all the other tapes. (’TWISTED THERAPY 3.’ ‘ISLAND OF DR. FANG.’ ‘ATTACK VALKYRIES’) Close the cabinet. Back to the VCR. Claw off the plastic wrap with her fingernails and pry open the new case. Extract the tape. Put it in the VCR. Watch it start up, watch the letters FBI start to scroll smoothly across the screen. Scurry back to the chair. Kneel and stare up at him.

He watched the TV for a moment, then punched the fast-forward button on the remote. The figures in the promos and the ads started moving at high speed, flashing in and out of sight. Then he lifted his finger and he rotated his head so he was looking down at her. She stared back, falling into the deep black pools that were his eyes. Something burned back there, hot and icy. He casually reached out and stroked a two fingers across the lenses of her glasses, leaving thick smudges of salt and grease.

“Do you have anything else for me, bitch?”

The bitch moved her head, a thing that started as a nod and turned into an utterly defeated droop.

She crawled slowly back to the box, where the thing was waiting for her, down in the very bottom, just sticking out from under the coffee can. She took it in her palm, then, her eyes drained dry behind the smudges, she peeled off the last layer of her clothes, let them slip from her fingers.

Then she crawled to the chair, crawled on her belly, her wake pushing aside the bits of paper.

He took a sip of cold beer, still turning the paper in his other hand...

Her head still bowed, the bitch raised her upper body, extended her hand and peeled open her fingers, revealing the small square package lying there in her palm. Its silver coating shimmered even in the dim lights.

He smiled, leaned back and spread apart his thick, mejestic legs.

The TV played on unnoticed in the background, and still the paper danced in his fingers.

He was watching the movie, sipping at the new beer the slave had fetched and poured, smoking the new cigarette she had lit for him. The slave was back on the floor, kneeling, naked, her head bowed, her hands laying limp in her lap. Liquid trickled between her thighs, warm and thick, and a couple of strands of hair had worked their way out of the bun, flopping down over her face.

He gave the her hair an idle stroke, still watching the screen. (The slave had rewound the tape so he hadn’t missed anything.) A gorgeous Latina woman wearing a skimpy black bikini was strapped into some kind of elaborate machine, a wire-festooned helmet clamped down over her skull. Lights flashed in sequence, spirals endlessly turned. Her unresisting body was tuned in, pulsing in perfect synchronization...

He looked down at the slave, saw something.

“Speak, slave.”

She continued to stare at the floor.

“This slavegirl has given the Master everything that she brought...” The slave’s throat swallowed hard and her fingers curled tight for an instant. “Can this slavegirl please...”

“Yes?”

“Can this stupid slavegirl please...” She shuddered all over, somehow brought out the words... “be blessed with... whatshecamefor?”

“Hmm? Oh. Oh yes. I suppose.” He took hold of the slave’s hair, pulled her head upright, twisted it so she was looking at him. He held up the paper. It was perfect and white now, glowing in the darkness with crisp sharp edges. He began folding it, locking down each fold with a professional sliding motion.

There was a word for it, what he was doing, but the slavegirl could no longer remember it.

With each fold, her body spasmed, her eyes never blinking. Still folding, he spoke.

“Are you ready, slave?”

“This slavegirl is ready, Master Hungab.”

“For what are you ready, slave?”

“This slavegirl is ready to be taken. Ready to be taken the rest of the way down.”

He made one last fold, and spread his hands. There was a shape there. A tree, spreading its branches to the sky, spreading its roots across his palms. The lines of scribbing had been twisted into forming a hole in the tree’s trunk, a grinning mouth.

She stared, unblinking.

That was where all this had started, under a tree, in front of Miss Starr’s apartment building...

He had come shambling up the sidewalk in his rotting old shoes, and he had...

He had taken the tree between his fingers with almost painful concentration, slowly rotated it so that the roots were pointed skyward. The grin had become a frown, filled with fangs, dripping old poison, swallowing everything...

He had taken her all the way down.

Her head turned in perfect time with the figure, and was still tipped to one side, her neck twisted almost the snapping point.

The tree trembled as if being stretched under tremendous pressure...

Balanced...

Stretched out across an endless field of flowers...

birds...

snakes coiling...

berries.

ripe.

luscious.

black.

and so very very poisonous...

His hands didn’t move, but the tree ripped violently in two, the pieces fluttering to the carpet.

She was taken all the way down.

Forever.

Mr. Hungab sagged in his chair and watched the movie. Bikini Babe Brainwash 6. He made a noise that was part belch, part sigh. It was enjoyable enough, hell, there was even some plot this time around, which he didn’t personally object to. But BBB 4 was still the best of them. They hadn’t found anyone nearly as hot as the chick who had played Cassandra, the star of BBB4. That scene where Dr. Howell finally fucks her brain all the way over, and she crawls to him in that tight leather bikini with all the silver buckles, licks his shoes... (The guy who had played Howell, Troy whathisface, hadn’t been half-bad either, actually...)

At least the guys who had made the new flick still understood that it was the hypnosis, the taking of control, that was the real turn-on. As he had said to Miss Starr, some people just had no grasp of...

of...

The phone rang. He found the remote, paused the movie, and answered.

“This is Hungab.”

“Hey, Hungab. This is Andrew again.”

“Who?” Mr. Hungab’s brow crinkled.

“Andrew. You remember.” No sign of impatience, and something clicked somewhere. It was his friend Andrew.

“Oh, hey! Andrew! That was quick.”

“Yeah, well, I have to go out later. It seems its been decided we’re going out to the opera tonight. You know how it is.” Mr. Hungab in fact had absolutely no idea how it was (opera... that was something like a movie, wasn’t it?) but he made a noise of agreement and Andrew continued. “So I’m going to risk a quick move for once. You ready?”

“Damn right, I’m ready!”

Hungab found a stub of a pencil somewhere, a piece of paper.

“Pawn to Queen’s 5.”

“Pawn to Queen’s 5. Got it.”

He scribbled it down.

“Talk to you later.”

“Be seeing you.”

Mr. Hungab hung up. He carefully assembled the board in his mind, laid down the squares. Then the pieces. A pawn over there, a rook here, right in front of that bishop...

He moved the pawn. Turned the board, and studied it from all angles.

The game was getting interesting.

Then there were sounds behind him, a door opening and closing, and something drained out of his face. The board fell apart, the pieces scattering. Hungab sagged a little further into the chair. It didn’t matter; he’d figure it out later.

He was getting kind of hungry, anyway. He looked over at all the clocks, his eyes squinted. Wasn’t it almost time for dinner?

The woman stalked up the hallway, her tread muffled by the tired green carpet as she passed the numbered wooden doors. She was a fairly tall woman, her coppery hair wound into a tight meticulous bun. She wore a long cream-colored coat that buttoned down the front, slacks, and a pair of soft black boots. There were gloves on her hands and a purse swung from her shoulder on a thin leather strap. A pair of crisp gold glasses perched on her nose, the lenses carefully polished. In her hands she was carrying a liquor carton, which was filled with a collection of garbage. Two folded up pizza boxes, a sack of beer cans and other things, best left to the imagination.

She came at last to the elevator at the end of the hall. Still holding the box, she extended a forefinger and pushed the down-arrow button. She waited.

The elevator arrived, and the doors wheezed open.

Standing inside was another woman, and the two of them exchanged places with barely a glance. The doors closed on the woman with the copper hair, and she disappeared from view.

The newcomer was a short Chinese woman, her black shiny hair worn in a pageboy cut, her eyes surrounded by matching frames, square and rather chunky. The expression behind those frames was flawless and perfect, but something smoldered the back of her brown eyes.

She wore shiny black boots that laced all the way up in front, and jeans, and a dark gray sweater. On her back was strapped a petite leather pack, and in her oven-mittened hands she carried a large metal pot. Various tantalizing smells wafted out from under its lid.

She started down, backtracing along the other woman’s steps, passing the numbered doors.

Finally, she stopped at one of them. Carefully balancing the pot, she raised her fist, and she knocked, one two three times...