City of Industry
Part 4
“They said she got an MBA- you sure she’ll join us?” was the first coherent noise that Polly heard as she drifted back to consciousness. Her eyes strained at the light as she stared at her reflection getting her nails done. There was another face in the mirror, one she recognized almost as quickly as she recognized her own, with long red hair tied back with a green ribbon and a freckled face that Polly knew hid a trouble-making mind.
“LeeAnne? Damn, is that you?” Polly asked, her head still floating.
“Oh, hey, Polly! Don’t worry, you haven’t gone far- we’re in Taylor’s end of the house. We just thought you’d get cold feet if Taylor took that man off you without any help, so we came to give you a little moral support! We still have the finale to really blow his mind, then you can take him out the Beehive and he’ll be done! Done by Wednesday- man, you ARE good, aren’t you? Then you can start with us! The Evil Spirits ride again!” LeeAnne said with giggles.
“How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you in ages.”
“So good! So happy working the field! So many boys, so little time!” LeeAnne’s giggling never stopped, and it awakened Polly just enough for her to get a better look at LeeAnne, who was as bouncy as a little kid on a sugar rush. She wore a green cheerleader’s outfit that matched the shade of her eyes and set off her flaming hair. Polly remembered that while LeeAnne had finished high school, she’d never had any ambition for college. Now she understood why- LeeAnne had been born to be a field worker, a seduction machine with no desire but the one between her legs and no drive to do anything except produce more men for Three Sisters.
“It’ll be just like the old days, except that instead of just ruling the high school, we’ll be the hottest girls in town. I was worried too, but this is where we belong,” someone said behind Polly. She looked in the mirror again to see that two more of her former classmates had joined them: chocolate-skinned Tania, glasses askew, and Amber, the long-legged beauty queen, both of them wearing the same green as LeeAnne- as was Polly, when she looked closer.
Taylor walked in, fresh out of the shower but still looking somewhat used as she took her robe off. As the sequined robe hit the ground, Polly’s gaze went with it, down the lush curves of Taylor’s body, and back up again as Taylor slipped on the beginnings of her cheer uniform. “Felt good, didn’t it?” Taylor asked with a devilish smile.
“Excellent, thank you,” Polly replied. The memories of the kinky threesome suddenly flooded back into her mind, making it hard for her to think of anything but getting more of it. Her heart beat faster, her mind went fuzzy, and her pussy began to pulse.
“So what next? Death by chocolate? Get him drunk off a nice tall Amber? Or a little strawberry shortcake?” Taylor asked.
“Chocolate,” Polly answered, her voice vague, and Tania led her by the hand to the living room. As she walked, her head cleared a little bit, and without Taylor to focus her she could think more clearly. “Didn’t you graduate from Robert Morris?” she asked Tania.
“Yeah, but it’s so much easier to work the field, to conquer and claim any boy I want. I use my education to my advantage. Trust me. I know marketing, and I know how to make the boys want me like they’ve never wanted anything,” Tania replied. “Now watch me work.”
One more striptease and another set of blinding undies later and Polly was out again. The next thing she remembered she was getting dolled back up, this time with Taylor flanking her instead of Tania. Back in regular makeup and in the full cheer outfit, Taylor wasn’t quite as irresistible as before. Polly checked unobtrusively and determined that she had only watched Tania and Michael, but that it had been enough to make her come.
Speaking of... Tania returned, and Polly lost focus again, staring longingly as she relived Tania’s seduction of Michael, how Tania had done everything a woman could do to a man, while Polly was helpless to do anything except give stage directions as she directed her own personal porno. The thought made her warm again, and Polly could sense that the other girls were happy about it.
“Oh, we’ll cause so much trouble together!” LeeAnne said with a smile and a clap of her hands, breaking the moment with enough of a start to jar Polly back to reality. She understood why Taylor had dropped out of college, why Amber came home on spring break and never left again, why Tania had done nothing with her degree: they gave in to temptation, or more accurately, they were given to temptation by their ‘best friends’. Jealous of their success, their so-called friends trapped them at the lowest rung of the ladder by making them surrender to the most primal of pleasures. And while the role was necessary, and the Evil Spirits were very good at what they did, to judge from the warm buzz in Polly’s slit that was still distracting her every so often from her train of thought, Polly herself had come too far to end up that low on the totem pole. For the first time, she understood why her mother had sheltered her from her “friends” in high school, why Christy had forced her to choose summer study over extra practice to make the senior cheer squad.
She had to do her month of fieldwork; there was no way around that. But it would be on her terms. She would call the shots, and under no circumstances would she do it as some giggly, bouncy cheerleader with nothing but pom-poms between her ears.
On the other hand, she did have to finish off Michael, and the Evil Spirits had some comeuppance coming to them, so she played along, picking Amber to service Michael next. “Doesn’t he get tired?” she joked as she allowed Amber to lead her to the living room. This time, however, as Amber mesmerized Michael with her long, firm legs and athletic body, Polly looked squarely at Amber’s face, letting Amber get a glance at her panties and letting her body sparkle Amber’s eyes. As Amber slid down the pole with her legs in the forefront, Polly made her move, waving her leg in front of Amber and purring her desire, letting Amber think that she was under and needed a taste of Amber’s naked body before Michael got his share. Her mouth on Amber’s, her hands on Amber’s body, the things she whispered between kisses, sent Michael to the bathroom to relieve himself even as he begged for more- but also sent Amber’s head into a tailspin that let Polly work her wiles on Amber’s unsuspecting brain.
By the time Michael came back from the bathroom, both he and Amber were Polly’s toys to play with as she chose. She sat Amber down on Michael’s lap, putting Michael’s hands on Amber’s breasts, and as he played with them, both sank deeper into pleasurable submission, watching Polly take her turn at the stripper pole. By the end of the tease, it was Polly leading a dazed Amber by the hand to the bedroom. “So who’s the JV girl now, Amber? Do what you’re paid to do and fuck his brains out,” Polly commanded, and she leaned back and watched Amber do just that, laughing as Amber screwed herself stupider with every thrust. Her panties were wet, but it had a lot more to do with turning the tables on her former friends than it did watching her man get fucked by his third gorgeous cheerleader of the afternoon.
When they were done, she assumed her dreamy, brainwashed look and went back downstairs to be pampered again. “Oh, isn’t this wonderful?” she squealed, acting like a complete vixen, purring with every breath, singing a siren song for everyone to hear. Taylor looked suspiciously at her, but Amber came back with the post-coital glow, and that was enough to distract her as Polly took LeeAnne for her shot at Michael.
LeeAnne’s body might be phenomenal, and her ability to use it well-honed, but Polly’s sharp mind was more than a match for LeeAnne’s wiles, and the redhead fell to Polly even more quickly than golden Amber had. One more domination of Michael and one more session of ordering her sex toys about followed, and Polly laughed at the attempt to have her stop at being a lowly field worker, nothing more than an overglorified whore. She returned to Taylor’s boudoir one last time to get ready for the finale, acting as giddy as she could. “Time for the big show!” she said, bouncing up and down and smiling brightly, readying herself for the show and for the jaws of her trap to snap closed around her former friends.
“Sure is! Evil Spirits forever!” Taylor replied.
“Gooooo team!” Polly yelled, and as soon as LeeAnne rejoined them, they raced downstairs to attack Michael one last time. None of them noticed that Polly reached into her purse and put on the broad silver bracelets. They lined up to begin their grand striptease, Polly in the middle, and Taylor started the techno music. As they danced, Polly focused the light from her bracelets on her erstwhile teammates, taking Taylor’s role of head cheerleader as she directed them, making them giddier and downright stupid until they were all completely compliant to her will and writhing on each other on the floor. Dolly’s frightened barking was enough of a distraction that Polly shut the bedroom door, turned up the music, and ordered everyone to ignore everything but her commands. The other four licked and sucked on each other in every possible combination, and Michael watched with wide eyes and a massive erection, and Polly watched all of them following her orders.
The sight revved her motor like nothing ever had before, and she fingered herself to a satisfying climax as she watched Taylor and LeeAnne 69 each other. She cleaned herself up, then decided that Michael had had enough and took him back to the car. “Enjoy yourself?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes,” Michael replied.
“Good boy. All that action and it’s only 4. Take a nice nap for me and be all clean and ready to be seen in public before we go to the Beehive.” Even after everything she had done, she was shocked when his head slammed back against the passenger seat as soon as she gave the command. She had to wake him once they were back at the house so she could lead him down to the basement for his nap.
“Mom. MOM!” she yelled as she charged up the stairs, and Christy looked up from her book. “Taylor and the rest of them, they tried to—”
“Turn you into another of their little cheerleader friends by having you surrender to pleasure? It happens. Some women like sex more than others. It’s perfectly normal. They just happen to think it’s normal for everyone.”
“I had to knock them out and make them completely dumb cheerleaders. I hope that’s okay?”
“Only if you at least had them do a naked pyramid before you left. Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first one they’ve failed to seduce into their ranks. They’ll recover in a day or two and be just a little more bitter at the next old friend who falls into their clutches. That little redheaded girl- LeeAnne, I seem to recall- was the first one to get that idea into her head, and she brought down Taylor, and they brought in Amber, and they brought down Tania. They’re smart enough to realize what they gave up- not quite what they were trying to take from you, but more than what they have now, and since they can’t have it now, they’ll be happy trying to recruit others to their little clique. Tania disappointed me, but she was the only one of them who did. Otherwise, they just collect and recycle the trash. Most of our field workers aren’t like that. Regina can give you the information about that, since she’ll be giving you your assignment tonight after Michael is processed at the Beehive- unless, of course, you have any second thoughts.”
She was having seventy-ninth thoughts, let alone second thoughts, but after Taylor stabbed her in the back, Polly wasn’t inclined to show weakness to anyone. “It’s a lot to think about,” she said noncommittally. “It’s been a long day, and a busy one.”
“Well, you’ll have to let me know over dinner at the latest,” Christy said. As Polly laid down on the couch to catch a nap before the trip to the Beehive, Christy added, “And dear?”
“Yeah?”
“You came out of this stronger than ever, and the glaze on Michael is perfect. Nice job.” Christy smiled proudly at her before heading upstairs with her book, and Polly closed her eyes.
She was still uneasy when she woke up, and her sleep had been haunted by dreams of becoming the JV cheerleader Taylor wanted her to be. Having the people she thought were her best friends try to drag her down even below their level was not a reassuring thought, and the qualms she thought she had put aside when she accepted her mother’s offer were back in force. What kind of company had she gotten herself involved with? Did she really want to destroy the mind of the only man she had ever loved? Was it too late to back out? Could she restore Michael to the man she had fallen in love with? Did she even want to? Why did it feel so good to destroy what she had once loved? Was she still capable of love, or was she doomed to be a cruel, heartless bitch like Taylor and her pack, willing to destroy just out of spite?
She was ready for cutthroat corporate culture, but having to watch her back 24/7 was more than she had bargained for, and she didn’t like the idea that the hand holding the knife in her back might be her best friend’s- or her mother’s.
She stretched and looked around. No one was there, so she tiptoed downstairs to see her Michael, or at least what had once been her Michael. She didn’t know what to make of him now, even though she had crafted it. Now her gentle knight in shining armor would sleep with any woman who crossed his path- and she had made him that way.
She had thought it was impossible to laugh and cry at the same time, but that was all she could do as she watched her man sleeping, unable to awaken unless she told him to.
“Don’t be getting cold feet NOW!” Polly heard behind her. She gasped, but at the words, not the voice. David’s words were cold, but the hug he offered her was warm and comforting. “If I’d known you’d run into the captain of the cheer squad, I’d have warned you to give her as wide a berth as you could without leaving town. There’s a reason a lot of them end up in the ma- er, in jail. They’re trouble with a capital T and an underline.”
“Kinda noticed. So do they lack ambition, or do they have stolen from them?” Polly asked. She was in too deep to go back, she knew that now. The best she could hope for if she ran now was a life on the run with a subservient horndog for a boyfriend. Better to stay where she could gain power and influence, and that meant finding out everything she could about every level of Three Sisters.
“If they’re anything like my boys, it’s about half and half. They’re just strong enough to get someone to give in to the... more pleasant aspects of the company, but they’re too weak to do anything more than get fucked instead of fucking the world, which makes them fucking wastes.” Polly didn’t bat an eyelash at her brother’s language; she expected it from him now, though it would have made her blush just a month ago. “Bummer your friends ended up like that, but, hey, now you know how many asses I had to kick to keep you on track.”
“Didn’t wanna know then, don’t wanna know now,” Polly teased him. But her face was serious when she continued. “So how did you not end up like...” She couldn’t even finish her sentence and pointed a trembling finger at Michael.
“Company line is that the dependents of Three Sisters staff are protected from low-level recruiting. Company line is a load of bullshit, just like in any other business. Look, sis, if mom sent you clear to Ohio to make sure you didn’t end up a cheerleader, don’t you think she would have done everything in her power to make sure I didn’t end up one of those things?”
“Thing?” Polly groaned.
“Eh, when you end up the plant boss and you have to deal with them on a daily basis, it’s hard to think of them as much else. But he won’t be like that. Call it a graduation gift,” David replied with a smile.
Polly smiled back wanly at him and regarded Michael. “My goodness, there he goes again. Aren’t you supposed to see a doctor if you’re up that long?”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you longer,” David said immediately. Polly laughed at that for a few minutes; she’d forgotten how much she missed the big brother who was always there for her whenever her mother drove her up the wall.
“I guess I better wake him up, then. Don’t need him wasting all that energy before the Beehive.” Her mind was clearer now. The guilt wasn’t even a memory. The feeling that nagged at her now was that she was running along a track someone else had laid. She hadn’t accepted that from Taylor, and she wasn’t going to put up with it now, whether it was her mother’s plan or someone else’s that she was being pressed into. She was going to be in control of things if it killed her.
“Time to get up, dear. You’re not going to want to miss this little trip!” she said, distracting herself from her concerns. Michael stirred and started to awaken, but not quickly enough for her liking.
David stepped in. “Did we mention that our favorite restaurant doubles as a titty bar?” he asked idly. That got Michael out of bed so fast that Polly checked for scorch marks.
“Thanks, bro,” she said with a smile as Michael grabbed the clothes she laid out for him and went into the bathroom to change.
“Ah, there you are,” Christy said from the stairs, sounding relieved. “I was worried that the cheerleaders had convinced you to run.”
“If I did that, it would be right back there to treat Michael again before the Beehive. I’m sure they’re still at it.” Polly kept her voice jovial but neutral, making sure to show no weakness, even to her mother.
“I’m sure they are. They’re not that strong at all. Or are you worried about facing other field workers so soon? Don’t worry. The Beehive is for processing men, not recruiting new vixens. And you do have to meet your trainer for your field assignment, since you start tomorrow.” She smiled proudly at her children and co-workers and escorted them up the stairs to wait for Michael.
When Michael did come up, he moved with the precision of someone who wasn’t thinking about what he was doing, couldn’t take his eyes off Polly, and said not a word. Christy’s smile grew even wider as the quartet went out to the car.
They pulled up in front of the Beehive, which was in the bottom of an orange brick building that had the look of a beehive itself. “What a coincidence,” Polly remarked.
“There are no coincidences in this town, sis. The Beehive is the whole building, not just the bar and grill,” David explained. Polly nodded her understanding and tried to guess what the other floors were for- maybe fieldwork offices, maybe storage and processing for the men- but stopped when she realized she was holding up their progress, and she’d find out later anyway. She led Michael into the bar, where their party was greeted by a busty brunette in a yellow-and-black t-shirt and short shorts that left nothing to the imagination.
“Table for four?” she asked, eyeing Michael and David- and then just Michael as Christy shot a glare at her that could have melted steel.
“We have a reservation, name of Mason,” Christy informed her frostily. The brunette gulped, picked up two menus from one pile and two from another, and guided them to a table right near the main stage. Michael was given the chair facing the stage, while David took the seat that faced away, with Polly and Christy completing the square.
As Polly looked around, she recognized a pattern forming: one piece of prey, one or more predators keeping them there. She approved of the efficiency, and of the roving waitresses who kept the prey too distracted to think, as she saw from Michael’s wandering eye going from one to another without stopping to consider anything.
“Won’t be long. We’ll have a nice dinner, then the show starts and we can get to work,” Christy said with a chuckle. Polly knew rationally that Michael was oblivious to anything that didn’t have cleavage like the Grand Canyon, but she still didn’t like that her mother was treating him like he wasn’t there. She knew Christy was right, and as she stared into Michael’s empty eyes, she tingled with anticipation and excitement.
The men’s menu was centered around steaks and anything that could be deep-fried, while the women’s menu was much more sophisticated, something that Polly hadn’t expected in a trashy bar with trashier women inside. She enjoyed the food and looked forward to the next step.
Then the lights dimmed and the show started. One by one, stripper after stripper did their routine down to nothing, each woman more beautiful than the last in a blinding parade of lust that was starting to draw her in. She kicked herself and remembered her mother’s warning; she didn’t want to be hooked in to set off the crowd with a girl-girl spread the way some of the field workers were being. Michael groaned his approval of the show, as did many of the men around them. As the lights came back up, Polly saw the men she had mentally tagged as prey with their zippers down and their eyes as empty as Michael’s. Some thrust their hips upwards to try and get some release against the table, while others’ hands opened and closed spasmodically as they tried to stroke their cocks for relief.
The MC, a statuesque, elegant woman in her forties, maybe even fifties, came onto stage, wearing the sparkling gold showgirl outfit like someone half her age. “Like that, boys? I know you did. Zip up and come on stage, and we may give you something to help that swelling. Maybe.” She added the last with a naughty grin. The men did what they were told and filed onto the stage, letting the MC line them up next to each other. She counted out loud, the audience getting into it more and more with each man, until there were fifty mindless men standing like statues on the stage.
A steam whistle blew with a loud shriek that made Polly wince in pain. The women around her were expecting it and had covered their ears, and while the men on stage weren’t expecting it, most of them-including Michael, Polly noticed with a craftsman’s pride- didn’t react at all. One or two flinched and seemed to wake up a little, but the MC’s skilled hands came down over the bulges in their crotches and they fell back into line. “Nice work, ladies. Not one ran this time. Keep up the good work!” she announced with an ear-to-ear grin.
“That’s Regina,” Christy said, indicating the MC, and Polly dug through her memory to recognize the name of the field workers’ boss.
“She seems very... assertive,” Polly said.
“I see David’s been talking to you about the company,” Christy remarked with a wicked grin at David.
“Sure I have, mom, but I didn’t tell her about the fights Reg’ and I have had,” David said, and while he seemed distracted by the girls all around him, he was well in charge of his faculties. There were a few others like him scattered around- they had to be other plant bosses, Polly realized, sons and brothers of Three Sisters who were protected from the fate of the men on stage. A wave of relief, or something much like it, crashed over her, because while her mother had reassured her that Three Sisters didn’t devour its own, she hadn’t been assured of anything the company said.
“Don’t worry, mom, he talked me out of a lot of second thoughts,” Polly said, watching the MC get down to business by stripping the men down to nothing, then fitting them with tight black shorts. One of the field workers came around with a cart to dispose of their worldly belongings- and to make sure that they didn’t wake up.
The field workers lined up at the edge of the stage and were ushered up on stage one by one to recite her prey’s personal data as he was weighed and measured, then escorted to the next floor. The woman first stopped at the ATM, which distributed her pay according to the quality and designation of her catch, and dispensed a card that was placed in the man’s hand before he was taken upstairs.
“Ah, the Automatic Thrall Manager. So much more efficient than having a sack of cash on stage. About the only thing those dirtbags in Philly do right,” Christy said.
“Well, technically New Jersey,” David corrected with a smile.
“Yes, you’d know, wouldn’t you? You only like them for the tight pants! See, Polly, no matter how clear-minded a boy thinks he is, he’s still a boy,” Christy said with a smirk. David rolled his eyes.
There was an undercurrent in the exchange that Polly didn’t completely get, almost as if David and the men on stage deserved ridicule because of whatever was going on in New Jersey. If whatever they were doing was in response to women being turned into sex toys... Polly couldn’t really object. Turnabout was fair play, after all.
“So is this like an auction or something?” Polly asked.
“Sort of. That little card has all the data for the men, and assigns them according to need and skill set- or, in a lot of cases, their lack of useful skills, which gets them set on to me or one of the other bosses,” David replied.
“The better the catch and the more specific and dangerous the job, the higher the pay. You’d better get in line- your man’s only a few away,” Christy continued.
Polly jumped out of her seat and joined the field workers waiting at the edge of the stage. This was the final step towards turning her back on her old life forever. Should she at least show some respect to Michael as she sold off what was left of the only man she had ever loved? She looked out at the stage, and over at David, remembering the things he had said, and her resolve firmed.
“NEXT! Ahh, Polly Mason! That’s right, we’ve got another Mason back here in the City! Welcome home, dear! Welcome home!” Regina announced, and Polly blushed. “So, ladies, should we show our trainee what we do to dispose of unwanted boyfriends and husbands?”
A huge roar of approval came back from the audience. Regina encouraged it with a hand cupped around her ear and a ‘gimme some more’ hand gesture. “All right, off to the mine with him. Hey, maybe if you get lonely, your little bro can let you drop by for a blowjob,” she went on.
Polly didn’t like the laughs that came from the audience, and David stood up and yelled, “Are you outta your fuckin’ mind?”
“Did anyone ask you? You afraid she’s gonna come in and do your job better than you ever would? Relax, boy, she won’t be doing boy’s work!” Regina snapped, baring her teeth. Polly’s lip curled, and if she’d been just a little more confident in her brawling abilities, she would have kicked Regina off the stage right then and there.
“Why waste material? This guy has an MBA!”
“And your point? So did George W. Bush, and that didn’t keep him from being a mindless little boy. Sure, not one of ours- if he had been, we would have found something a little more useful to do with him,” Regina shot back to laughter and applause.
David was unfazed. “An MBA and connections,” he went on, winking at Polly, who picked up her cue beautifully.
“Lots of family. Patriotic Republican family, sure, but rich, politically active family.”
“Oy, one of those. Look, you weren’t one of us when you brought him in, so I’ll write it off as a rookie mistake, but lay off the rich boys. They bring nothing but cops and sluts. All right, off to the Marines for him. I suppose you want to make him a major or something to keep his family off your back.”
“Captain will do- but let’s have him running a bomb disposal squad in Iraq so he can go out with a bang,” Polly said. This seemed to meet with Regina’s approval, and she punched some codes into the ATM before stepping back and letting Polly take her money. “And how much is this? Feels like a good amount.”
“Should be twenty-five thousand, unless your boy’s got some health issues we don’t know about,” Regina replied.
“Twenty-five thousand? Damn, I need to send more boys off to Uncle Sam!” Polly exclaimed as she rejoined her group, low-fiving David under the table while Christy glared at both of them. The auction continued around them, assigning men all around the world for all sorts of dangerous jobs that no self-respecting man would ever dare undertake. Polly laughed at them, because it was obvious the only thing they could think about was the bulge in their tight shorts. Fierce pride welled up in her heart as she looked at Michael- he was just the same as all the other men on the stage, a howling, barking animal there to work as hard as he could. At least he’d be in a cute little uniform dodging bullets, instead of covered in coal dust or oil, or wrangling crabs on a boat in the middle of nowhere.
As the auction drew to a close, Polly watched the field workers leave to get back to work while the night was young, and she got up to follow them, but Regina crooked her finger forward at Polly. “You haven’t been assigned yet, dear,” Christy reminded her. “And you should really know more about the processing.” Polly’s mouth twisted up, but she followed Regina upstairs anyway.
Once off the stage and out of the spotlight, Regina shrugged on a black work shirt. Away from the harsh lights, she looked younger, closer to her forties than the fifties Polly had wondered about, but she seemed harder as well, and her smile was all cruel glee now that she was away from even the faintest pretense of just being the MC for a strip show. Sorry I had to snap at you before. Had to show you your place- and theirs. Your brother might be your flesh and blood, but when that flesh and blood sticks out six inches in the wrong place, it’s just in the way,” Regina said, and the edge in her voice was like nails on a chalkboard to Polly. No one talked trash about a Mason, even a male one.
She reminded herself to show no weakness; she would have to be as cruel as her colleagues to survive. “Let me guess, rule number one is greed is good?” she asked with a sneer.
“Something like that,” Regina said. She looked Polly up and down, and her nose wrinkled. “Your mother did such a goddamn good job insulating you so you wouldn’t run with the cheap hos that you have no idea what’s out there, do you? There are bastards out there, and the things they do make this look like summer camp. My job’s not to deal with them. My job’s to keep an eye on people like you.”
Polly’s heart sank before she remembered that Regina was talking to her as if she were a field worker. She’d have to be cold if she wanted out, so she met Regina’s dark eyes without a qualm, letting all the confidence in her shine through. Regina sneered.
“Look, kid, you’ll see what I mean. You’ve never seen a Sumi, never tasted a Candy, never tried to have a conversation with a dumb blonde who used to be a genius brunette. What we do, it’s nothing compared to what they do. We use them to do rewarding work that men were made for and make our money off it. They turn women into fucktoys with nothing in their minds but sex. We’re doing our part to make the world a more efficient place.”
“Oh, please. I know about controllers, and I know we’re just as controlled as anyone- at least I am right now, but I don’t know what your excuse is. I’d rather be in the driver’s seat, and if that means being a well-paid whore for a while, then I’ll do it.”
“I see you got a visit from the Cheer Squad. Those little brats are not what fieldwork is about. They’re just a bunch of girls with too much potential and not enough guts to use it. Oh, they’re good at what they do, but they don’t take it seriously enough to be anything more than the cheapest rides we offer.” The look of disgust on Regina’s face was truly impressive; she looked like she had gotten slime smeared all over her boots and didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
Polly was about to point out that yes, the Cheer Squad was so good at what they did that they had almost dragged her down, but she remembered seeing Taylor half in her uniform, not bothering to take enough pride in her work to show herself fully dressed, and she thought about the laziness Tania had shown in not using her degree, and she remembered how LeeAnne’s lapse had been enough to awaken her. Even in the middle of what they were doing, they hadn’t kept focus on their work, and they had paid for it. Grating as Regina was, she had made a point, and she did appreciate it, even if she wouldn’t let the woman know. “Then let’s get this show on the road. What’s the next step?”
“Follow me,” Regina said, and she walked down a line of cots, where the men were sprawled out, still in nothing but the black shorts. She tagged each one with his designation, then turned on a light overhead that flashed in a pattern that made each man put a hand down his shorts, his gaze never leaving the light. “Just a simple deepening to burn their new jobs into their minds. After about six hours of this, they get split up into their new sectors for handling. If they need to go long distances, like your little jarhead, they get prepped for that. Now, as for you...”
“Oh, no you don’t. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice—”
“Swear to God, the next time one of those cheer brats comes in with her load, I’m gonna punch her in the gut,” Regina interrupted. “I’m not here to drag you down. I don’t hypnotize women. It’s degrading and sick. Strip down so I can size you up for your assignment and you can start bringing in men. The quicker you start, the quicker you can move up the way you say you want to.”
Reluctantly, Polly took everything off down to her bra and panties. Regina walked around her, assessing her with the detached interest of a critic. “C cups, nice legs, ass made for short skirts- yeah, I can see why Little Red Fucking Hood and Goldifucks tried to sign you up. I know just who to pair you with. Nothing like a little sweet, innocent cyanide to bring the boys running.”
Once again, Polly wondered what she had gotten herself into, but it was too late to turn around now, because Regina was on the phone and in front of the only door. About ten minutes later, a bouncy woman hopped into the room, her dirty blonde hair pulled up in a waterfall ponytail to show off sparkling earrings that had to be her primary weapon. She was shorter than Polly, and the cutesy impression was only enhanced by her petite frame. “Hi! I’m Chelsea! Ready to hit the town? We’ll get you all ready to go. Got a month, you know!” the blonde said with a big grin.
Polly had learned quickly that nothing in this town was what it seemed, and she could look past the sweet smile and perky attitude to the bloodlust in her voice and the edge to her smile. “I think so. It’s been a long night, so...”
“Yeah, it takes a little bit to get used to the schedule, but you’ll get used to it really soon! We’re going to have so much fun together, I just know it! I mean, your first was a Marine! I haven’t had a marine since I was 20!” Chelsea went on. Polly wondered what kind of pink marshmallow world had spawned Chelsea, and if the house that Chelsea called home was even more luridly girlish than Taylor’s.
If she didn’t like it, she could always try to remold Chelsea into a different kind of weapon. “Let’s head out, then. I’m tired of all this foreplay.”
Regina watched them go with an almost maternal smile.
That night, an unsuspecting college student slowed down for the two pink-clad hitchhikers forlornly sticking their thumbs out along the highway. “Where you headed?” he asked, rolling down his window.
The shorter one giggled. “Where you wanna go?” she asked.
The taller one held up her wrist, moving her arm back and forth, and as the moonlight glinted off the wide silver band, the man found himself unable to think of anything but the women in front of him. “Let us drive you off into your dreams and your deepest, dirtiest fantasies,” her voice purred, and it resonated down in the core of his soul. He climbed into the backseat, and Chelsea was soon on top of him, while Polly took the wheel.
“One down, twenty-nine to go,” she said, and a legend of the City of Industry was born.