The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Chameleon Band

Part 5

Geoffrey finally has everything he ever wanted.

All wrapped up in one gorgeous body, he has both a helpless slave to serve his every need and a hated ex-colleague to torment and tease. Unfortunately for Anna, she is that tormented slave. Geoffrey is a callous, cruel bedfellow, but she is surprised to find there are compensations to be found in her new life.

DISCLAIMER

This story contains explicit sexual themes. If you are a minor, or if you are offended by writing about sex or non-consensual mind control, then this story is not for you. I suggest that you navigate somewhere less scary instead.

No Blood and Gore Warning: Don’t worry. The megadeath is all over for now.

It should be obvious, but this is a carefully constructed FANTASY. The characters in this story are not real. If you have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, then, again, this story is not for you. Go and look at some nice things instead.

And if none of that applies to you, then enjoy...

How do you live with someone you despise?

The question was very much at the heart of Anna’s existence. Yes, she absolutely despised Geoffrey, and she supposed he must reciprocate to have done all of this to her. And yet here they were.

For Geoffrey, living with this woman he hated was easy. He had dozens of ways to punish her. Or to render her unable to speak or move if he bored of her.

But for her, living with this disgusting, slobbish idiot was the reality in which he had trapped her. Being his fuckdoll was her primary role, but thanks to Dom, the actual act of sex was an effective escape. She struggled with the minute-to-minute reality of being his slave in every other way. She was his cook, housecleaner, personal shopper, financial manager, bathroom attendant (the most disgusting function of all), and everything else he was either too lazy to do himself or cruel enough to impose on her.

His London townhouse was ridiculously huge for one man and his slave—huge enough that most of its neighbours had been converted into four very spacious, luxurious flats. The ground floor was his living area and (as if he had any friends to invite) his reception rooms: an entrance hallway from which the stairs ascended, the living room, kitchen, a small shower room and the dining room. Behind, in a complex that had been the garden, the previous owners had built a private spa with a pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, plunge pool and a small but well-equipped gym. All of the gym equipment had come with the house. Her programming compelled Anna to keep her master happy and safe, though not necessarily fit. Nevertheless, in the first weeks of her slavery, she had tried to convince him to use the gym until he had told her never to raise the subject again. He loved the two hot rooms, though, and their sexual possibilities, and left the rest of the facilities to Anna, although he would occasionally watch her working out.

The first floor (to phrase things in the British way: the first floor is up the stairs) was home to a guest suite, the laundry room and the library—or at least a space lined with shelves, which Anna was quietly populating with a growing list of reference material on history, meditation and philosophy. This floor she thought of as her domain. The library was her office in her capacity as his naked personal assistant, and it was to this floor that she retreated when Geoffrey was either asleep or out on his travels. Geoffrey had no interest in what she did on the PC, trusting her slave programming to prevent her from doing anything that would harm him, and seemed utterly disinterested in the books she bought herself.

The next floor was his Master Suite—a title which made Anna smirk. Arranged around his vast bedroom were: a walk-in wardrobe-cum-changing room, a separate room which Anna had dubbed the fucking room, with a second rubber-covered circular bed, a sex swing and various other apparatus for draping her over—and the largest bathroom in the house.

The attic floor was used very little. Victorian servants’ quarters had been converted into three more guest suites, but Geoffrey mainly stored his old junk up there—or ordered Anna to carry it up and store it. Her input meant it was reasonably tidy, and she doubted Geoffrey remembered half of the things he had vicariously dumped there.

So they got along, more or less. Mostly

Geoffrey—Geoff to his friends (and to her, since he had commanded her to call him that)—had some serious character flaws: misogyny, near-terminal laziness, and the constant low-level mind games he played, to name just a few. It was fair to say that life as his slave wasn’t a world of fun, but she was becoming resigned to the fact that she was stuck here. Dom had programmed her to please him—to find ways to delight him, even—and those compulsions meant that she could never escape or harm him, no matter how much she might wish to.

The most challenging mountain she had to climb was that she hated him. She had already detested him long before he had robbed her of her career, her friends and her very identity, and now her hatred was a tangible thing, a burning in her heart, a constant scream buried at the back of her head. He was well aware of it, and even revelled in it, taunting her by forcing her to go through the existence of a loving partner even though he knew she was seething inside.

She supposed it was a defence mechanism that she had tried at first to find aspects of his character that were lovable, then failing that, had instead looked for something in him to like. She was still searching.

So the mission she had chosen for herself was to change him: to gradually make him likeable and, perhaps one day, even loveable.

She knew she had a terrible journey ahead of her, but sometimes she was even optimistic.

But not today.

Today, about two hours ago, she had woken with the daily desperate compulsion to clean herself inside and out, and so had crept from the latex-covered fuck-bed where he had left her, and used the first-floor bathroom, first sitting on the toilet, groaning and twitching while her body flushed itself of everything that wasn’t sweet and clean, then showering and washing her hair before ‘dressing’ and starting breakfast.

One of his few virtues was that he at least understood her dietary quirks, so she was allowed to add her nutritional requirements to his shopping lists. This morning, she had prepared his obligatory fried breakfast while nibbling on fruit and a carton of yoghurt, including the aluminium lid. That wasn’t the weirdest dietary supplement her body occasionally compelled her to eat, and she often thought Geoffrey’s need for fried bread and black pudding no less bizarre.

She assembled his breakfast tray with growing trepidation: it was when he first awoke that he was at his most capricious.

He stirred and ordered the lights on while she manoeuvred the tinkling, overloaded tray into his bedroom, sitting up and grinning at her. Lecherous eyes took in her costume and quivering flesh as she tottered the length of the room, and her heart fluttered in anticipation as she tried to guess what evil he was conjuring up. She was compelled to surprise and delight him, so most of the costumes she owned had been of her choosing, usually from online sex shops. Today’s collection of scraps was her latest purchase and among the most humiliating. Elasticated pink frilly bands decorated each ankle, matching her towering Ted Baker strappy heels. Two matching garter belts decorated her thighs, and more bands adorned each wrist and upper arm. Another circle of elasticated cloth decorated her waist, and she wore one as a collar. The most humiliating of the bands were the two that ringed her breasts. She wore twelve little elasticated pieces of cloth, their combined effect hiding absolutely nothing and emphasising her status as a sexual object.

Here it comes, she thought as she approached his bed. This was the moment he usually started the day’s humiliation. Perhaps today, he would have her dance for him or use her breast milk to flavour his coffee. Maybe he would have her balance the tray on her back while she blew him.

He watched with an indulgent grin as she placed the tray on his bedside, waited for the moment her fingers broke contact with the handles, and said, “Anna Ragdoll.”

The words were a trigger, one of a number that Dom had programmed. The triggers were not fun for her, and sometimes Geoffrey was happy for the not-fun to go on for days—usually until he wanted some housework or some shopping done.

She folded gracelessly to the floor. The trigger gave just enough fading motor control to stop her from cracking her head open or breaking an arm as she fell, then left her utterly helpless. She had been kneeling over the cabinet beside his bed. She had landed on her rear with her torso folded forward, so she now waited folded double, both legs and one arm beneath her, the other arm randomly laid up the side of his bed, allowing him to play idly with her fingers while he enjoyed his breakfast.

Some days, he might leave her helpless under a trigger and decide to go for a shower, or a walk, or jump on a train and stay away for a day or two. Oddly—or maybe magically—her bodily functions automatically handled the stoppages. Her breathing and heart rate slowed way down, her kidneys seemed to stop working, because she never needed to pee, and her bowel just went to sleep. Only her mind remained fully active: active and bored, most of the time, and just a little afraid. She feared him being unable to return and her being like this forever. Doctors would see this state as classic ‘locked-in syndrome’. Even more frightening was that while she was under a trigger, her sex—and her anus—became soaking wet with her own unique brand of sweet-scented lubricant. She gushed, and she genuinely feared that dehydration might kill her.

Today she was lucky. Today, Geoffrey took his time over breakfast, leaving her nothing but the disgusting sounds of his chewing and the chinking of crockery. Then, with a sigh, he climbed from the bed, pulled her along the carpet by her ankles until she was lying on her back, lifted her legs so that her frozen viewpoint was filled with pink patent heels and mounted her there on the floor.

She didn’t think he had any idea just how incredible sex was to her, and she wasn’t about to let on for fear that he might decide to return her to Dom for another tweak. If the hand that touched her wasn’t hers, the slightest brush of skin sent a shiver through her, the squeeze of a breast or a buttock had her gasping with pleasure, and a pinch of an ever-erect nipple sent her into an ecstasy that had her throwing her head back and pleading for sex whatever the situation—and that was how Geoffrey usually chose to end any argument she might have with him.

Actual sex, though, was on another level. Anna’s body, and the sensations she experienced, were the result of magical reshaping. Dom had transformed her into the perfect sex slave, and the sex was incredible!

Helpless as a stringless puppet, she felt his penis bouncing down her belly and zeroing in on her sex. He brushed her clit in passing and triggered an impossibly short on-off climax whose echoes rang on as he slid himself down the folds of her labia. The flesh of her cunt kissed his hot glans, and with a grunt, he gave his first thrust!

In her magically programmed ragdoll mode, she probably didn’t even flutter an eyelid as she came, but visible or not, her climax was monumental, vast, earth-shattering. Time had little meaning in that place she went to, but from that first penetration to his eventual withdrawal, she existed in a state of pure, perfect ecstasy.

“Anna Move Again.” His lust-slurred voice grated out as he withdrew from her. Her eyes recovered first, long before her mind fully returned. Nevertheless, she valiantly struggled to regain control of her limbs and breathing, her pleasure-saturated brain transfixed by his glistening, throbbing erection as he towered over her. She decided that his weapon had definitely grown over the months, as had his stamina—and his libido, if that was possible. This must be the enlargement Dom had promised her, and maybe her juices imparted a touch of the madness Yasamin had given her attackers.

He grabbed her arm and commanded, “Get on the bed.”

She flailed in the aftermath of paralysis and rapture, and muttered, “Jesus! What’s a poor sex slave supposed to do?”

“She’s supposed to get a move on!” He slapped her buttock as she stood, sending her sprawling on hands and knees across the bed.“Anna Sex Doll.”

Oh God, she thought as the trigger took hold, not this!

* * *

Anna the sex doll had little sense of the world around her.

Like this, her vision and hearing were reduced to meaningless blurs, and her skin seemed to thicken until she felt almost no sensation. She could feel the contact when she was lifted or manoeuvred from one position to another, and she could feel the pressure on her rear if she was seated, or on her knees and paralysed fingers if she was positioned for a doggy-style encounter, but little else made it through.

She knew that it amused him to have her sitting around the house like this, frozen and (she guessed) looking not quite real, and she was sure that he used this mode as a disguise for her because he would often utter those two words when particular people came visiting. She supposed he must find explaining away a perverted mannequin sitting around the house easier than having to justify the presence of a barely-dressed apparent late-teenager.

Sex was a weirdly disembodied experience, too. She would feel a little pressure at her sex or anus, as if muffled through layers of plastic, and then the endless orgasm would kick in as if a switch had been flicked. The timeless periods between the fucking, when he just left her that way, were the hardest to bear—so much so that she missed the dreams.

At first, she had amused herself by fuming at Geoffrey and Dom, the architects of her torment. More and more, though, she was putting to good use the practical lessons in her books on eastern religions, finding solace in meditation.

But with her senses dulled to almost nothing, sleep often chased her down. Then, naturally, she dreamed, but the violent collar nightmares had ended, just as Dom said they would. Neither did she dream of raging plastic dolls rampaging through their master’s houses, though she sometimes succumbed to fantasies.

At least the ages of sensory deprivation spared her a little of the infuriating reality of Geoffrey. Even better, after long hours of daytime sleep and meditation, she often found herself wide awake through the night, and these were the times she loved the most: when she could secretly lose herself in her studies.

She was low maintenance. Her apparent gaudy makeup was pigment just below her skin, the colour of her lips, nails, nipples and labia changing over a minute or two to match anything she wore. In extreme cases, such as when Geoffrey dressed her in black leather, her makeup changed too, the skin around her eyelids darkening and even sometimes sprouting glitter. Her perfectly straight blonde hair was quick-drying, brush-clean and non-tangle. Her mane had been born at the moment of her transformation, so it was only a few months old, but it was tough like the nylon hair of a doll, and the tips showed no sign at all of splitting.

Sex-wise, her cunt was dripping wet from the moment he even looked at her—and constantly when she was under a trigger. From his boringly graphic descriptions, her vaginal and anal muscles seemed to go into some kind of spasm during sex, massaging him and sucking at him even when he wasn’t thrusting, and all entirely out of her conscious control, because all she knew was the endless orgasm. As for oral sex, her gag reflex had wholly gone, and somehow, impossibly, she found that she could breathe through her nose while performing the act.

She was self-flushing from all three orifices, with a floral-scented soapy liquid—and she spent a lot of time trying to forget that daily horror—and drinking gallons of water to replenish lost fluids. And she didn’t have periods any more, which saved him the annoyance of dealing with any monthly mess, and probably meant that all these changes had rendered her sterile. Of all the reasons she had for hating Geoffrey, that was the ultimate—the robbing her of the chance ever to have a child.

She no longer felt hunger. Instead, her nutritional needs came in the form of compulsions, satisfied only by consuming the exact food her body demanded—most often protein in the form of beef or pork and vile green vegetables like kale, but occasionally weird things like coal or plastic. Her one permitted indulgence, it seemed, was coffee. That beverage she could drink in all its forms without any limits.

She had had her status neatly clarified for her one day.

“May I buy some more sensible, grown-up clothes, Geoffrey? Then maybe you can think about something other than fucking me, and we can chat on a human level—have a conversation or two?”

“Aw, you think this is a relationship,” he had laughed. “Wrong! You aren’t my wife, lover, guest, or friend. You’re my slave. Now get down here and blow me.”

And that would be their ‘relationship’ most nights. He watching something on the TV or some porn site; she kneeling before him with his cock deep down her throat.

She was his sex doll, modified to please him in every possible way, and she had no choice whatsoever in the matter.

And yet.

And yet, she still had reasons to be optimistic. She had a few freedoms, even if they were often granted her in pursuit of Geoffrey’s selfish gratification.

She was in charge of both of their menus. Early in their ‘relationship’, she discovered that an excellent way to ‘surprise and delight’ him was in the kitchen. So she experimented with the culinary arts, taught herself the techniques, and soon the menus she presented to him (breakfast excepted) were of the most fantastic cuisine.

For the same reason, she was in charge of grocery shopping and, because he was utterly lazy and enjoyed surprises, most of the rest of the online shopping. Also, he took delight in having her receive deliveries at the door in whatever state of dress she happened to be in, which was usually naked. She suspected that she was becoming delivery-driver famous.

And surprising often, she was allowed out into the real world. Her horrific first experience in her sex-slave body was never repeated, partly because her handover from Dom to Geoffrey had returned to her the full force of her personality—and her sass!—but also because Dom seemed to have turned off her sexual response to everyone but the two of them. Now, to her relief, an uninvited grope from a stranger wouldn’t result in her being willingly led off for a fuck in the nearest broom closet. Geoffrey trusted (quite correctly, it seemed) in her magical programming. He knew that she was sexually bound only to him and her programmer, and was utterly incapable of disobeying him or even deliberately upsetting him. And so she could roam the city’s boutiques to buy the best quality clothes—as long as they were revealing—could visit coffee shops and the occasional cafe, and—most importantly to her—could indulge in her taste for art galleries, libraries and bookshops.

As for sex, he was the only option. When he was nearby, she was wet and ready for him. Because of her magically altered body, the sex itself was simply incredible, and it was better day by day. Her juices definitely had the promised magical properties, akin to Yasamin’s in her dream, because the pathetic little male member she had blown back when she was Dom’s nameless slave was showing distinct improvement. Her benchmark was Dom’s fleshy baseball bat, an easy ten inches of endless stamina, and her measure was her throat. Geoffrey wasn’t there yet, but he had grown from back-of-mouth to top-of-oesophagus. And he was filling out: more gherkin than carrot these days. His stamina was improving, too, although the only workouts he carried out were sexual. She wondered, with plenty of malice, whether all of his sexual acrobatics would end in her waking up next to a well-endowed corpse. She could hope.

* * *

‘Anna Real Girl.’ The words were indistinct, as though from a far-off room.

She blinked away what felt like rough scales, and her hearing returned to normal with a pair of pops.

Her arms and legs were raised in a welcoming embrace, like a friendly upturned turtle. One by one, each of her joints freed with a painful ‘crack’, starting at her fingers and toes, then spreading rapidly up her arms and legs and along her spine.

“Ugh,” she groaned, working her jaw.

She was still on his huge bed. The remains of his breakfast were centred on the tray, but debris had spread to a blast radius of a couple of feet. “Get dressed. Make me coffee, and tidy that room,” his voice commanded from the shower.

Her body responded without her brain needing to engage. “Dressed for what?”

“Going out. I’m meeting someone, and we can do some shopping.”

“Oh goody,” she said, and meant it.

* * *

Geoffrey’s definition of Anna’s “Going out” clothes was significantly less revealing than her indoor costumes, but even her most conservative outfit would get her arrested in most countries.

She browsed her wardrobe and felt her programming guiding her hands. As a top, she chose a brand new orange tube top, elasticated above and below her boobs, with a broad open panel displaying her cavernous cleavage. Then she pulled on skin-tight denim hotpants, with open flies plunging deep into the territory that for most girls would be thatched but on her body was pale, hairless flesh. Finally, she completed her usual four-item costume with a pair of blue and orange cowboy-heel boots from Irregular Choice and chose a tiny shoulder bag just large enough for her phone and credit card.

Keeping him waiting would piss him off, which she couldn’t care less about, but which her programming would not allow, so she went with her first choice, pulled on the boots, brushed her teeth and headed down the stairs.

She was clopping up and down the hallway long before he was ready. In the mirror, her eye makeup was denim blue; her glossy lips, the orange of the top. As a candid observer, with only slight control over the image reflected there, she thought she looked genuinely spectacular, if slutty. She even managed a “wow” from Geoffrey. Surprise and delight: tick!

London in high summer was a wondrous place to be. Today, Anna’s wasn’t even the skimpiest costume. Hips rolling seductively, flesh quivering as her heels impacted the pavement, she strutted beside her master through the buzz and the heat of the city. Even in relatively liberal London, there were disapproving whispers as she bounced by—but the haters were in the minority. Mostly, she strode the streets in the eye of a hurricane of double-takes, gasps and whispered scolds from envious girlfriends. Geoffrey, striding beside her, basked in her reflected glory and, much as it annoyed her to be the source of his glee, she secretly enjoyed the attention, too. The original Anna had been tall and lithe. She had loved to dress her slim curves in sexy designer wear, but a few loose-fitting garments would allow her to blend in with the crowd. This body, though—and the clothes Geoffrey forced her to squeeze it into—shouted, “Look at me!” So, transformed against her will into this sex goddess, and then given no choice but put herself on display, she felt no responsibility for her appearance. Free of guilt, she allowed herself to enjoy the simple pleasure of being an object of desire.

“This is where we part company,” Geoff said. “I have a meeting. And why do I suspect you’re off to the bookshop?”

She shrugged. “I’m just predictable, I guess. Shall I wait for you there?” She had somehow convinced him that her reason for populating his library was to improve his mind, and she was always careful not to reveal that hers was the mind she had in mind. “...and is there anything you’d like?”

To her amazement, he was beginning to read a little. His section of their library was mainly graphic novels, but it was a start. “Surprise me.”

“I always do my best. So...” Anna hesitated. This civil conversation with her enslaver and tormenter felt surreal. Maybe she should research ‘Stockholm syndrome’. “With your permission, master?”

“Yeah, sure. Laters, Anna.”

She rolled her eyes at him and snorted a laugh. “Yeah, Christian Grey you ain’t. Bye.”

She could feel his eyes tracing her curves as she strutted down the street, so, unbidden, she gave her hips an extra inch of swing. “Good Girl,” he called, just within earshot.

“Oh shit!” she muttered and grabbed for a railing.

After her hilarious accident with the glass of water, Dom had modified her reaction to those two words. Now, the onset of her reward was like a slow wave, giving her time to steady herself before the climax hit.

It was as though he had lit a fuse at the tip of every finger and toe, a searing, fizzing pressure that burned up her limbs and down her torso, finally meeting at her sex, and Bang!

This reward climax was nothing like the orgasm that gripped her during fucking. This was more like a magically induced nirvana. For a moment, or maybe for eternity, she was transported far, far from her body, from the London street it stood on, beyond this world. Beyond thoughts, beyond her cares, beyond time...

When she flipped back into the real world, her fingers still gripped the railing with white-knuckled force. She took in a deep lungful of warm summer air, gathered her scattered wits and eventually found the coordination to stand unsupported. The crotch of her cut-offs was soaking, and the still, hot air was heavy with the salted caramel scent of her arousal. Had it been seconds or minutes? She couldn’t guess, but when she turned around to look, Geoffrey had gone.

* * *

.

Geoff backed into the carved stone of the vast plinth, stone lion staring down impassionately. A forest of selfie sticks flailed back and forth before him like the dancing necks of flamingos, and the air cringed with inane chatter and the screams of excited children. He was besieged.

One figure strode alone, unconcerned and undiverted by the milling throng, clad in unforgiving black that denied their riot of colour and chaos. Dom seemed to home in on him without ever looking in his direction, only stopping when he was finally close enough to shout over the clamour.

“We can’t talk here!” Geoff exclaimed. A hundred tourists crowded within eavesdropping distance.

“But it’s an easy spot to meet.” Dom’s composure was absolute, his calm gaze holding Geoff’s attention as a trio of children danced their way between them. “Let’s walk.”

Dom led him along the side of the square and over a road, then east along The Strand. The crowds faded away like a dream of a riot.

“So,” Dom’s voice cut through the sounds of traffic. “How’s Anna?”

“Good! She’s, umm, everything I wanted her to be.” His voice sounded piping and nervous. It felt strange to talk in public about this kidnapping and enslavement they had performed together. Every eye that glanced in their direction seemed to accuse.

“She’s at home? Enjoying some torture you’ve devised for her?”

“Errr... No!” he gave a nervous laugh. “She’s, er, shopping. For, er, books.”

Dom stopped and stared at him. “Really? She’s in there?” He gestured towards the Waterstones they had passed a minute ago.

“No, no. She has this favourite place. Hatchards, in Picadilly. She has this big plan to improve my mind.”

“Good for you!” Dom exclaimed. “Good for her!”

They crossed a side road and negotiated the crowds that milled around the entrance to Charing Cross Underground station.

“So, what was it you wanted to see me about?” Dom asked presently. “More mods to Anna?”

“No,” Geoffrey shook his head, feeling foolish and petulant. “It’s someone else. My old boss, a bitch called Carla. She sacked me!”

“Revenge again. And you want to expand your harem. I can’t say it’s the first time I’ve had repeat business. Or for just those two reasons. Or the last time, I expect. Shall we find somewhere a little more private to discuss details?”

“Yes. I’ve produced this file of what I know about her, what I can remember.”

“There’s a park,” Dom pointed over the road, down a quiet street, “where we can escape these prying crowds and hatch our evil plan.”

* * *

“Oop,” said Mike, “Here we go!”

Sadie glanced up from her monitor and broke into a grin. A curvaceous figure was marching across the sales floor towards the enquiries desk, turning every head, a generous pile of new books wedged between bare arm and almost bare left boob.

“Hey, Miss Saccharo! How’s it going?”

Anna smiled back. “Hey, Sadie! It’s going to the coffee shop for a good read if its boyfriend doesn’t put a spanner in its works.”

“You got a boyfriend?” Mike blurted

“Are you disappointed or amazed,” Anna peered at his label, “Mike?”

“Erm, both, neither, it’s,” he said, spilling half his coffee in an attempt at a nonchalant gesture.

Sadie exchanged a grimace with Anna. “I’ll swear, the male IQ drops by 50 points in the presence of a pretty girl. Take a break if you like, Mike. You don’t want to be eaten alive.”

“Actually, I’d be fine with that,” he grinned and clattered the mug onto the service desk.

Anna gave him a long look, then visibly dismissed him from her mind. “Sadie, I’ll buy these, and I was wondering how your investigations were going, about...” she raised her eyebrows conspiratorially.

She processed Anna’s shopping—a secondhand copy of Jung’s ‘Archetypes and the collective unconscious’, some Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky’s ‘Devils’, and a first edition of Shirow Masamune’s ‘Appleseed Volume II’ in its original dust cover. After a dozen or so chats, Sadie was becoming used to Anna’s crazy makeup and ridiculously skimpy clothes. After all, she thought, England was a free country, and the girl could dress however she liked. Yet, despite her looks, the young woman’s whole persona screamed fierce intelligence, and she was devouring Hatchard’s collections of classics and philosophy. The research she had requested of the enquiries assistant, though, was much more esoteric than the shop’s standard stock.

“I’m making some progress.” Sadie fished under the desk and retrieved a file, spinning the paperwork around for Anna to bend forward and see. Mike’s eyes goggled.

“That script is a bitch,” Anna muttered, leafing backwards and forwards through emails, screenprints and photographs. She frowned, zeroing in on a hi-res image of an ancient book cover. “But do I read the author here correctly? Joachim Riess?” She was still for long seconds, as if reliving some almost-forgotten dream. Then, finally, she looked up and met Sadie’s eyes. “I’d be interested in knowing more about this volume: its whereabouts and availability for study, for instance. And what other items exist in the collection of which it is part.” She gave Mike a withering glance, then locked eyes with Sadie again. “Very, very interested. Do you have a card? Some way I can keep in touch?”

“Sure,” Sadie smiled conspiratorially and delved beneath the desk again, “I’ll put my number on the back.”

“Perfect,” the diminutive bombshell grinned.

“You can have mine too, just in case,” Mike piped in. Anna’s glance was crushing.

* * *

Anna sipped her cappuccino and dove again into the dark and fascinating world of Jung’s ‘Archetypes’.

“Ah! There you are!” Geoffrey’s distant voice called across the open seating of the bookshop’s cafe, drawing her back to reality with a mild shock. She sighed, carefully bookmarked her place and set the hardback down.

“Hi, Geoffrey. How was your meeting?”

“Successful. How was your shopping?”

“All shoppy.” She slid his comic, which she had wrapped in a cherry-blossom-themed gift paper, across the table to him.

“For me?” He opened the package with surprising care, and his face lit with enchantment as he uncovered the classic graphic novel. “Oh, man! This is fantastic!”

Anna glowed. Surprise and delight: tick!

“Today’s a good day,” he murmured, leafing reverently through the pages of her gift, but an evil glint had entered his eye when he looked up at her. “I can’t let this go unrewarded, can I?”

She knew that look. “Oh no!” she hissed. “Not here, in public, in my favourite shop!” She looked around in a panic, at the customers and employees scattered around the cafe and the surrounding displays of books; at her potential new friend Sadie, taking a coffee break a few sofas away.

He grinned maliciously. “Stand up and come over here,” he whispered, and Anna was compelled to obey, barely managing to gather up her new purchases as she went to him. “Anna Dumdum.”

“OhhhhFuuucccckkk!” she said, as pillows of stupidity settled about her mind. Pillows! Yes. Pillows were nice. Squashy. She liked squashy things. Squishy squashy things.

“Daddy, let’s buy squishy things next?”

He laughed and reached up to squeeze a titty. “These are all the squishy I need, Anna.”

She giggled back, loving the slippy, gooey way she felt when he did that.

“What else did you buy?”

“Books.” He still had left his hand on her titty, making her more fuzzy and gooey every second. “Russian Brainy things. Boring. No pictures.” She giggled again, and gasped when he squeezed. “Is it home time, Daddy? Fucky time?”

He rose and stood behind her, snaking his arms around her midriff. She wiggled her bum into his bumpy trousers.

One hand found her booby again, and his other snaked down inside her shorts. “Yeah, fucky time. I like you like this, but it’s not exactly punishment, is it?” His finger found the top of her crack and pressed down on her clitty.

It was as if he had pressed a cum button. She climaxed, on and off, with a breathy squeal, and dropped the pile of books.

“Oops! Silly Anna,” she giggled as she bent to pick them up, wiggling her denim-covered bum at him and giving him a lewd look over her shoulder.

“Forget them. Let’s just get out of here.”

Why was she messing with these stupid books? She shrugged and pulled a face, then stood again and snuggled into him as he took her home.