The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

7.

An hour later, Anita was still shaking.

She’d felt like that once when she’d turned without looking and almost stepped off a thirtieth-floor roof. Even worse than what might have happened was how close it had come to happening. Like now.

Anita curled deeper in the afghan, on Carly’s couch where she slept now. It wasn’t the TV. What made her shake while her guts turned to water was that she’d had the phone in her hand, had already started dialing. Three more touches and she’d have gotten through . . .

The commercial said they’d help her recover from mind control. They seemed so understanding. After all this time and all the running, it was like being beckoned from a dark damp cave into the healing sunlight. Then, a word from the one who’d built the Oasis Center, empowered them to help others.

Valerie Joplin.

Anita had been so horrified she couldn’t cry out, or change the channel, or even think. She’d stared at the face of the woman who’d been her friend, who’d betrayed everyone so obscenely, and couldn’t even think what she was doing on TV.

Anita had gotten away, but over time she’d faced the fact that none of the others had. Valerie owned them all now. Or someone did. Anita had almost called her.

God, did they have computers now that could tell when you only dialed part of a number?

Anita just sat. Part of her wondered how it would feel if she had connected, if Valerie hadn’t appeared. When would she learn she’d put herself back in chains? Or would she never know, just stare blissfully dazed into a monitor she no longer had the willpower to resist . . .

She shuddered. It scared her when the idea started to get her wet instead of properly frightened. Maybe there was already a trigger inside her mind that she’d learned to obey while she was brainwashed in that tranquil dreamstate before the resale, and Master. They might not need flashing lights, just a few seconds on the phone with her. Three numbers away.

No one else to call. She knew few people in this city, and no one further away that she could bring herself to reach out to. She used to have a list of people and organizations oriented to helping mind control survivors. It had come from Valerie. She’d left it on the floor of her old apartment when she fled.

She thought bleakly of the lists Carly always drew up. Too bad she wasn’t onto this.

Anita had been running for months, but each time she’d thought she’d sensed people that might be working for Valerie—or enslaved to her—she’d been able to elude them. She was a rabbit and rabbits were small, but Valerie’s wolves and weasels weren’t much larger and the woods of a city among cities were a big place to hide.

But now Valerie was clear-cutting those woods. She’d been a kitchen-table activist, but she was obviously rich now, with access to media and god knew what else. She could do what she wanted.

Anita didn’t kid herself that she’d be high on Valerie’s agenda. But she was a loose end.

Rich. Anita looked around the furnished one-and-a-half bedroom apartment she shared with a woman she barely knew and felt not envy but weariness, seeing how little she had to call on against Valerie’s resources. You could gather a lot of resources from selling out your friends. Or just selling them.

A barren sort of relief crept into her thoughts. She no longer regretted leaving in cold panic, grabbing what she’d chosen from her apartment, looking away from simple things she’d lived her life with and now would grieve for, stopping only to empty her bank account, not looking back. If she’d taken one chance, paused once, they could have taken her. For the third time.

Belatedly, she scolded herself for even sitting there and watching the thing, and spent a frantic second trying to plumb herself for strange urges to pick up the phone again. What if they’d laced the video with subliminal commands to snare women like her who’d already been conditioned to respond to them?

She smiled mirthlessly at that. If there’d been anything like that, she wouldn’t be worried about it. She wouldn’t be thinking at all by now. She’d be in robot mode already, calling the Center like a good girl and asking for further orders. What would those orders be? All untagged slaves programmed to bring themselves back to the slave collection point? That would be economical.

But she envisioned being questioned about her location, sleepily answering, then sitting blankly until the knock at the door. Opening it . . . to Sheila and Kit, their leotards hidden under tight skirts and fitted jackets, their empty, focused eyes drawing her drowsy ones.

Sheila’s soft voice, commanding her again. Sheila’s touch. Anita squirmed on the couch, wrapping herself in the afghan, trying to escape the image and its heat. Failing. They would collect her, using her to help in her own final disappearance.

They would ask about her roommate. Obediently, she would tell them about Carly: pretty, intelligent, unattached. Carly’s heterosexuality would not concern them.

They would wait for Carly. Anita might be put in front of the TV with a special tape in the VCR to deepen her enslavement, or put in a chair with the player in her lap, headphones filling her with Valerie’s truths. She might be too deep in trance when Carly came in, never see the other woman’s look of surprise soften into submissive blankness in the glare of Sheila’s strange flashlight . . .

Anita had to drag herself out of the fantasy, and realized she was shaking, all over again.

What had—? Subliminals. She grasped at something that didn’t make her visualize hypnotized women. Directly, anyway. No, they wouldn’t use them in something broadcast, where some smart no-life video nerd could pick the peculiarities out of the signal and tell his buddies on the Web about the cool new anomaly. Maybe figure out what it could do.

Shying away from that idea, Anita thought about the resale, and Sheila’s words about her Mistress’ discretion. Valerie was concerned enough about secrecy not to sell her newly-captured herd of slavewomen all at once, so having made that financial sacrifice, she’d be disciplined in other areas, too.

She realized, again, that they wouldn’t bother booby-trapping their TV ad. Valerie knew what she was doing, and runaways would be rare. Anita might be the only one, and unless Master had been able to bring himself to admit to Valerie that his naked piece of property had used Valerie’s better control to lever his own from her mind, injured him, and freed herself, they might not even know she was loose.

She was able to keep thoughts of Master at bay, but remembering the resale was sucking her in again. What had Sheila called the programming when Master had asked? “Handling controls.” Anita remembered the passive trance that had kept her and the other hapless women standing tranquil and tame while their tormentors filed in, looking at the people who owned them for pain, but too deeply under Valerie’s spell to run, or even think of it. She thought about the pair sold before her, women she hadn’t known well in the group, but had often cried for since.

Anita made herself think about the beautiful dark-skinned girl whose owners had wanted her to scream. Anita covered her face now and hunched over, ashamed again that she’d stood there and watched and done nothing, not really caring that she’d been as hypnotized as the other woman. It was too much to hope that her own luck had covered the other two, that they’d somehow escaped, too. Had those monsters punished their slave because she’d been too fucking terrified of them to cry out aloud?

Whoever you are. I hear you. Someday you won’t have to scream anymore.

8.

“Amelia?”

Anita tensed so hard that her cry was more from pain than startlement, and she looked up to see Carly struggling to keep her handful of packages, after nearly dropping them at Anita’s reaction.

Already recovering, Anita mocked herself for being clever enough to respond to her alias but too oblivious to hear her roommate come into the apartment. Carly wasn’t recovered, yet. ”Amelia! What the hell—?” Her deep blue eyes were still wide.

Anita unfurled the afghan and left the couch to help Carly steady the bags, finding her apology muted to a whisper. “Sorry,” she tried again. “Bad . . . memories.” Carly seemed to accept that, but Anita watched her shake her head as she annotated the day’s to-do list.

Great. Another emotional tangle. Anita wasn’t sure whether Carly had welcomed someone to share the rent, felt pressured by their boss Livvy Danziger to take in a borderline fugitive that Livvy had decided to adopt, or just alienated by “Amelia’s” reticence. Now she’d be worrying about her stability, too.

It didn’t help that she reminded Anita of Sheila in a vague way. Or that even though Anita remembered Sheila from before the last night as just another group member, she’d felt a deep but strangely delicate attraction for the other woman since then. She’s a brainwashed slave, Anita kept telling herself. So—was—I. It’s not real. It’s programming. She could usually convince herself that transferring that posthypnotic letch to Carly was doubly an illusion.

But it was hell, sometimes, to share a bathroom with her. Later they were sitting on the couch and the TV had found its way back on. It was past midnight and the demographic was insomniacs. Carly half-watched, going down her list, calling friends, lining out the notes as she dialed as if positive they’d answer, instead of waiting for the end of the call. Anita got up for drink of water and came out to find Carly shaking her head at the image of a woman quietly talking to someone off-camera.

A familiar woman.

Valerie’s commercial was on again.

Anita tried looking at it, telling herself it was pixels on a glass screen, unable to see her or touch her mind, and hung on until Valerie herself appeared again. Carly said “Amelia?” twice before she registered and looked down. She hadn’t even gotten back to the couch, and Carly had watched her look at the whole thing, standing frozen.

“Is that what happened to you?” Carly whispered, list hanging forgotten in her hand. Anita started to wrap her arms around herself and consciously forced them down to her sides. She suddenly felt naked in front of this woman, feeling the shame and isolation as sharply as the first days after the near-suicide in the construction site, in the hospital under the gaze and judgment of the free.

Carly had never knelt to another human being, her head echoing his voice, her pussy quivering with joy to be his chattel. Called him Master and meant it, with every cell in her body.

Now she was realizing that Anita had.

“God. Look . . . I’m sorry . . .”

Anita shook her head. “No,” she whispered, although she wasn’t sure to what.

The pause grew. Then, in a very quiet voice, Carly asked, “Could they come after you?” She tried to make it sound like concern, but Anita could hear the fear and a little anger, too.

Anita knew what was coming. How long it would take for “Amelia” to get her bullseye-painted ass out? She’d been afraid of this, spent some sleepless hours on this couch wondering if she should tell Carly. If I had, I might have been out before this, she thought. She considered begging, but couldn ‘t bring herself there, yet.

Quenching her own anger, which Carly didn’t deserve, she said quietly, “I’ ll get my things.”

“Amelia, I didn’t mean that.” Carly’s voice was quiet, too, and despite herself Anita heard sincerity in it. “For god’s sake, it’s almost one. Please.”

She sat on the couch, and shook, suddenly aware of how wobbly her legs had been. She looked Carly in the eye. “I know you didn’t mean it.” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “Not right now. Carly, I swear I would never have let Livvy plant me here if I thought I were being actively hunted. But since I wasn’t straight with you, you have no reason to trust me now.” Carly’s expression was more stricken. Anita realized her soon-to-be-ex-roommate was a decent person trying to deal with a lot of new fear, and already aware she wasn’t doing that well. Great. Now I’m sorry for her.

“I’ll take my stuff in when we go to the office tomorrow. I’ll put it where Livvy won’t see it for a while.” Anita tried not to take a thin satisfaction in seeing Carly deal with this. Another thought struck her. She reached for her wallet, not touching any of her more covert caches.

“Next month’s rent, my share of.” She laid the bills on the coffee table, trying not to think about never seeing it again.

“Oh, fuck the rent!” Carly blurted, and Anita stopped. This had been a very big thing for Carly in the two months Anita had crashed here. Top of the list, Anita thought. Carly would not say that lightly.

Anita took Carly’s hands, instinctively holding them in hers when she felt how cold they were. “Carly. You let me stay here, and now I’m bailing just before the first of the month. You deserve better. At least I can give you a month to find someone else.”

Carly looked down. “We both know you’re not bailing, Amelia. I’m sorry. I’ve just heard so many things about what mind controllers can do.

“Not just making you—obey, but making you want to.” Carly shivered, and Anita thought for a weird moment that it was excitement instead of distaste. She refused to think she could understand. “Just . . . the things you hear about.” Right. On America’s Most Inaccurate Crime Hysteria. But the fear was real, and Anita knew how much there was to be afraid of.

“I’m not going to ask what it was like, Amelia.” Carly was almost whispering.

“Carly. Speaking from experience, they’re right. Being afraid is just common sense.”

Carly looked up again. Anita felt reluctantly sorry for her. She was too honest to accept the reassurance, and the guilt was hurting her. But Anita had already decided this wasn’t going to work out. She leaned forward, hugging Carly, who hugged back tightly. “You were right about one thing: it’s almost one. We need some sleep, or Livvy won’t leave enough of us for mind controllers to bother with.”

Later she lay in the dark, wondering how self-reliant she really felt. Leaving this place wasn’t a good idea, just the only one she had right now. She’d learned to prefer pushing people away with an incidental lie, to making them run screaming with the truth. As with her alias.

Amelia. The flier. The free one. The one who’d perfectly disappeared. Anita had herself disappeared into being “Amelia,” deciding to believe the original woman would have approved. She even psyched herself, sometimes, with imaginary peptalks from the Amelia, sometimes in long imagined flights in the Lockheed Electra.

It was a sort of masturbation, Anita knew, but like the more conventional kind, you did what you had to, when you were on your own. Drawing the afghan over her again, Anita realized her dread of Valerie had, for some reason, all but displaced her last fears about Master. She needed something to hold onto, right now, and thought about him. Remembering the shout that night that had pierced her adrenaline fog as she ran, she smiled faintly to herself. Master himself or someone else might someday rehypnotize her and take that memory away, command her to forget the moment when he’d had fear and pain at her hands.

But Master was a free man. He could never let himself be erased that way.

Whether or not the fire had scarred him, Master would always have to remember what she’d done to him.

She smiled to herself, enjoying the rare feeling. Fuck you, Master.

9.

The slaves who served Mistress never rose when She entered a room. they did not turn dazedly from forgotten tasks at the sight or sound of Her, either. slave joyce trailed her Owner through the conditioning area and felt an old, odd tug of pride, watching her sisters serving Her in calm absorption. No one worked harder or better when She was here among them, because anyone whom Mistress brainwashed into obedience to Her lived to do her best for Her all the time.

If Mistress wanted abject adoration, joyce was by Her side, with no other reason to live.

slave cynthia, who was responsible for processing this shift, met them just outside the glassed-in area. she knelt, which was more than Mistress usually required, but slave joyce felt warmed by seeing the devotion others shared for Her. she knew how powerful the simple urge to do that could be, and how arousing it was when tasking left a slave free to do it.

Mistress took the chair kept for Her here, and slave joyce knelt upright beside Her left hand, which She rested lightly on the nape of joyce’s neck, causing joyce’s eyes to close for a moment. Around them, cynthia’s team worked quietly, focused on their roles: testing the electronics, making sure the correct programs were uploaded, refilling the drug receptacles and instrument trays. joyce watched the soothing motion as one girl, nude like her and the others, wiped down the processing chair, tightening a new sheet over it and taking away the last one.

As she passed joyce, joyce could smell in the bundled cloth the sweat and piss and juice, the terror and lust of the woman who’d lain there last, who was probably lying stupefied in her cell again by now. The odors made joyce ‘s head spin, and she knew they were fresh. If the woman were even fully conscious yet, the timid whispered questions from the women in the next cells wouldn’t yet be registering in her brain.

she remembered the slow drift to wakefulness through the dark marsh of surrender, the urge to slip off and go under the darkness that grew harder to ignore each time. As she knelt now, she grew weak in her awe of Mistress ’ power.

A woman entered, and moved toward the couch as slave cynthia gestured. slave joyce saw her wider collar, the standard control model that could locate or monitor her, and shock, stun, tranquilize, or kill her if she did something the slave operating security was programmed to react to. she’d come with no guard. joyce recalled what it felt like in the cells, when one of the other captives, longer there and already more deeply brainwashed, was summoned.

A woman’s cell door would open, and she would just—walk out, going obediently to let them strip the next layer of her self. Only a couple of the others would even try to speak to her. joyce said things she no longer remembered, more to her fellow prisoners watching. But few of them heard it, too riveted by seeing for the first time one of their fellow-victims obeying without guards to drag her away.

slave joyce remembered, more clearly than ever before, the day her own conditioning had controlled her that much, and when the cell door opened her mind held only the gentle tugging of the need to obey, to go where her body remembered she must, and her deadened awareness of the others and how they felt was peripheral. Someone had tried to reach her, and slave joyce could hear the desperation in the other’s voice. slave joyce remembered turning her head slowly, so wearily, not knowing then or now where she’d summoned the strength of will to do even that. she had tried to look the other woman in the eye, not quite able to remember, in her trance, why some deep part of her needed to do that so badly.

The other captive, not yet the slave that joyce had already become, looked into joyce’s eyes and cried out softly, seeing nothing there of the person she’d befriended.

It drained the rest of joyce’s resolve from her, and she faced forward again, dimly relieved to have her head cleared of anything but obedience, deaf to the sound of the other woman grieving for her.

Kneeling now beside her Owner, slave joyce watched the newly-arrived slave for signs of who she might have been, seeing nothing but sleepy compliance as cynthia put her on the couch and helped another slave attach restraints. The woman was younger than joyce, perhaps in her late twenties, pale and soft-muscled. Her eyes were nearly closed, and her not-quite-expression showed that she’d been fighting sleep but given up.

joyce could see the faint dimpling of stretch marks in the brightness of the downlight that hung over the chair, and looked again at the woman’s breasts. Her child would still be small. A strange feeling made her lean very slightly back into Mistress’ hand, which pressed back just as lightly, and joyce exhaled in relief.

She knew Mistress sometimes favored this sort of gentle domestic beauty, and She enjoyed the things She could do with one once She’d broken her. The slaves were back at attention and slave cynthia waited on Mistress, who nodded. A chime rang softly and the captive’s eyes opened, fluttering in the light from above her. For the first time her movement became slightly random, though between the bonds and the drowsiness that still claimed her, it was only by contrast with her earlier somnambulism.

“Welcome, patrice,” Mistress said quietly, and the speakers by patrice’s head poured it into her without a direction she could orient on.

her head swung seeking the voice’s source, with a quickness that might have been painful, and she panted. she wouldn’t consciously remember it from the deep-trance indoctrinations, but she’d be feeling the power Mistress’ voice had over her, written on her nerves now, without knowing why.

“Please,” she said in a strong whisper. “What’s happening?”

Mistress took her hand from joyce’s skin. “What are you aware of having happened, patrice?”

“I’m . . . someone abducted me.” Her voice was quiet but firm, as she tried to order her strangely dim thoughts. “I think . . . I’ve been drugged.”

“Are you under the drug now, patrice?”

“I don’t . . .”

“It’s very hard to think, patrice.”

Hesitation. “Yes.”

“you’re no longer drugged, patrice. While you were, you were very deeply hypnotized. you resisted a little but you’re a very trainable girl and you’ve helped us in many ways to open your mind to control.”

patrice sat quietly, her eyes trying to focus, responding to Mistress’ soothing tone before the words registered. Mistress had paused before the woman shook. “What?”

“you were abducted to be made a slave, patrice. you have a great aptitude for it, and your brainwashing has gone very well so far.”

Slowly shaking her head, patrice began breathing harder. " . . . noooo . . .”

“your programming is already very advanced. The therapists say you’re unusually receptive to domination, and your progress has pleased everyone.” slave joyce was transfixed by patrice’s response, knowing how the other slave felt. patrice’s nipples stiffened as she heard the praise, all of Mistress’ neutral descriptions touching the triggers they’d been implanting in her mind in endless hypnotic sessions, in the subliminal hiss of her cell ‘s ventilation. Touching them like skilled tonguetips across a hundred clits, so that slave patrice heard the news of her enslavement through an inexplicable fog of lust.

“This is wrong,” she whispered, but it was more wish than belief.

“Yes,” said Mistress. “It is. Why do you want it so badly, patrice? So badly that you would give anything to deepen it?”

“I don’t—” patrice’s face twisted for a moment, as her denial spiked on a tiny maddening foretaste of pleasure. she panted, trying to know when the feeling would ebb and she could try to think again. her breaths deepened, and she raised her head, peering into the brightness, trying to see the darkness beyond. slave joyce felt patrice’s unseeing gaze settle on her, and, as if the other woman struggling to save what was left of her will could see her, suddenly felt more naked than ever.

patrice sighed, finding the idea she wanted to express.

“Where,” she whispered, gently pushing each word out, “is . . . my . . . son?”

“your son?” Mistress asked politely. “What is his name?”

“He’s . . .” patrice blinked. “His name is . . .” her eyes were open now, and her head moved from side to side, as the inner search grew frantic. “His name is . . .” she already knew what was happening, but kept starting the sentence, as if sheer persistence would bring her what she’d lost. her voice trailed away, and her tears followed wider tracks as the motion of her head drew them out of true.

“Oh. Please.” patrice swallowed, and then dragged her mind away from the trap. slave joyce watched the slow, painful dance, seeing again her Owner’s exquisite sense of how to draw out a powerful mind and set it to tearing itself apart. “I don’t understand. Please. Don’t hurt him. I’ll do . . . anything. Anything you want. I don’t know what you’ve done . . . to me . . . but please don’t . . .”

“patrice.”

The voice was low, calm, stilling, and the captive subsided at once. “patrice, I have no intentions toward your son. I wish him neither ill nor well; I have no interest in him at all.”

The girl was shuddering, and with an effort she actually nodded. “Thank you . . .”

“patrice.” patrice actually sat straighter.

“you will do anything I want because I control your will, your thoughts, your beliefs. your deepest need is the same as each of the slaves around you: to be Mine and to obey Me.

“I will not threaten your little son because, soon, you will have no interest in him, either.”

slave joyce was unaware of her own ragged breathing as she watched patrice’ s face crumple.

“Forgetting his name is only the first step you will take, patrice. Without that to focus on, you will let go of his face, how he feels when you lift him, the smell of his hair.

“When you worship Me you will not have the distraction. you will not want it.”

patrice was straining in the bonds, but no longer able to speak. Mistress’ latest words had found the hypnotically-implanted clits meant for them in patrice’s psyche, and new emotions were taking hold of the young mother. slave joyce could smell her now.

10.

On her lunch break at Danziger Associates, Anita opened the alternative weekly, and wondered what she’d say if she actually found someone needing a female nonsexual roommate. She also wondered when Livvy would discover that “Amelia” had been staying late and then sleeping on the couch in the disused office at the end of the row for the last couple of days.

“Amelia.” Carly was beside her desk. Anita smiled up at her, feeling oddly warm and glad to see her despite everything.

“What can Research do for Outreach today?”

The other woman looked calmer, and her eyes no longer avoided Anita’s, as they had in the last couple of days. “I just need to talk to you.” She watched Anita’s face. “Please, Amelia. I think I can do something for you. Please let me help you this time.”

Anita nodded.

“I feel like shit for making you leave,” she said. “I always wanted to think I’d be there when someone needed help. Especially another woman who’s been kicked out of her life . . .

“Amelia, please come back.”

Anita looked at her.

Carly closed her eyes. “No. It’s not about me. I mean I guess it is, but you’re the one with the problem.” She opened them again. “Amelia, you know you may still be in trouble. Please don’t let yourself be stuck out there just—just because Livvy moved you in with a flake.”

Anita regarded her desk. Yes, she wanted refuge, and she was trying not to think about where to go when, or before, Livvy knew she was on her own again. She regretted not having told Livvy about the mind control that first day, when Livvy had looked her in the eye and accepted her patently fictional resume. So much harder now.

There was something soft, accessible about Carly today, and Anita almost gave in to thinking of what the chances might be with her, now that some things were out in the open. But even without sex, it was a very enticing prospect to feel safe and wanted again. And needed, as she helped Carly redeem herself.

It made Anita nervous to want something so much, and to find it so easy to have.

“Carly, thank you.” She saw Carly warm to that and it made her feel good to do it. “Remember I’m still potentially hot. There are people after me.”

Carly nodded. “Yes. But there are places we can go for help. We can contact that Oasis Center. They must know ways to—what?”

Anita froze as the hideous thought passed through her mind. “Carly? You haven’t gone and called them, have you?”

Shaking her head, Carly looked at her. “No. I was going to, but it’s not for me to just do that, without asking you.” She smiled unsteadily. “It’s on my list.”

“OK.” Anita smiled back, realizing she’d stopped breathing. “We’ll talk about it.”

Carly smiled more confidently, reached down and clasped Anita’s shoulder.

She sat very still, hoping her tangled emotions wouldn’t suddenly let go on her as Carly said, “Let me know when you’re ready, later.” Carly looked so relieved. Anita wondered how sleepless the last couple of her nights had been, and began to hate herself for exploiting the other woman’s conscience. “I’ll help you with your stuff.”

Anita was almost giddy as they rode the elevator back up to Carly’s apartment. Her home, once again. She decided to try to tell Carly about some of what had happened to her, not all and not the worst, but enough to ask her advice on telling Livvy.

Inside, Carly dumped her portfolio on the kitchen counter as usual and started to nuke the leftover morning coffee. Then she popped her head out of the kitchen. “Hey. Let’s just call out for something. Cardboard containers and chopsticks. Up for it?”

“Hell, yes.” Anita felt glad for an appetite. “Otherwise I think it’d be my turn to—”

“Say no more.” Carly laughed and stepped over to the phone. Anita sighed and then bestirred herself to get the plates, at least. On the kitchen counter she found Carly’s precious list, and moved it before it found any of several damp spots.

“Shit, Amelia, now I’m on hold.”

Anita looked at the list, morbidly curious about the Oasis Center’s number. Did they actually have a location here in town? Would “nest” be the right word? She found the number.

There was a line drawn through it.

Carly said she hadn’t called them. She’d believed it and made Anita believe it.

Someone had told Carly not to remember calling, and Carly had done as she was told, forgetting the list, too, in her new, larger obedience.

Had they hypnotized her right there, over the phone, the day her guilt about “Amelia” drove her to call them for help? Or had she opened the door to them when they visited after he call, ready to tell them about her friend with the mind control problem?

Had Carly’s last thought as a free woman been Why’s she pointing that flashlight at—?

Anita stared at the kitchen wall, at the hanging decorative trivet too pretty to put under hot pans, listening to the woman on the other side of the wall talking calmly, asking about extra rice.

On the phone.

Anita’s mind was already racing. If they were this quick, they might be on a cell phone, on their way. They might be talking to Carly from the lobby. From the fucking hallway.

God. She’d done it. She’d brought slavery down on someone who was becoming a friend, who’d tried to help her, and now she was going to have to leave her in Valerie’s clutches. If she couldn’t keep herself safe, how could she protect someone they’d turned into a puppet this quickly? She didn’t want to think of Carly resisting rescue . . .

The guilt was so intense she couldn’t comprehend it yet, but it was pressed back by the force of her need to get out. Now.

She made herself step back out into the living room and smile at Carly, who hung up and smiled back blissfully. Anita wondered: did Carly really remember that she’d just been talking to her controllers, or did they have her so deep that she really thought she’d just ordered sha cha beef and shrimp something?

Her mind moved from detail to trivial detail, keeping her smile on, holding down the screams that waited just below her throat.

She looked at Carly’s graceful, shifting shape under the blouse, and suddenly she knew they’d told Carly to let her breasts free today. They knew what they’d already taught Anita’s brain and pussy to want. She’d been seeing it and feeling it all day, not knowing why. It had been delicately driving her insane, like eyelashes moving under her ear.

Anita fixed on recalling the glowing word FUCKWHORE cauterizing the air in front of her.

Her pussy was still so warm but it worked, for now. Fear usually worked.

She looked down at Carly, trying to gauge if she was meant to be distracted for minutes or seconds. She wondered whether Carly had other, more violent instructions if Anita tried to leave. In just a couple of days, with time off to let Carly go to work, Valerie or her slaves couldn’t already have turned her into the . . . machines that Kit and Sheila and even Joyce had become.

Could they?

Had they given her one of those hypnotic flashlights here, to make Anita behave?

Anita thought of several excuses to step out of the apartment and rejected all of them. Some were reasonable, but Carly’s programming might not be.

“Carly?” Her own voice amazed her with its calmness. “Could I trouble you for some aspirin? MSG headache prevention?” Nodding and smiling deeply, Carly flowed up from where she sat and headed for the bathroom.

Anita went to the door, and it actually felt better to have a physical fear of being intercepted than what she’d been picturing of the inside of Carly’s head.

She forced oh god Carly I’m so so so sorry out of her own head, along with the urge to slip over and grab at least her knapsack.

The focus that had gotten her out of Master’s cabin with less than the clothes on her back drove her out and into the hallway. She smelled the scent of the carpet, heard the hum of the elevators. Shit. She made for the stairs.

She let her impulse pull her to the upward flight, to the roof, away from the obvious downward path. Out the service door, she looked at the tangle of ducts and skylights and disused chimneys, thankful this wasn’t a newer, sparer building. She kept moving.

At the roof’s edge she looked down. She was only a few meters from the fire escape, and this, like the rest of the building, was well-kept and ready.

She looked down anyway.

At the end of the ladder there’d be the alley, then the street, then another street, then . . . what? She could try the police, but they’d listen to Valerie, benefactress of humanity, and her earnestly lovely staff before they’d listen to the ravings of someone like Anita, whose documents called her “Amelia” and would melt at the first computer search. If she even made it out of here.

She stopped thinking about making it, because that was frightening enough, and just let the survival animal inside smell out the likeliest hidehole. She found a crevice under an overhang and astonished herself by pulling herself up into it, crouching in shadow and watching the service door.

She waited. She didn’t check her watch, just lay blankly with her eyes on the door.

It opened and she stilled a shudder. They had been close. She didn’t know whether to be afraid, or proud of her instincts. As morbidly as she’d looked for the phone number, she wondered if trying to take anything else with her would have cost enough seconds for them to have seen a door closing behind her.

Now she saw them. A woman in a business suit, tailored a bit tight, her skirt a bit short, her legs sheathed in white hose, stepped assertively onto the roof, looking about her with steady eyes, faintly smiling. After her was a taller, younger woman, her sweats and nylon jacket intermittently taut over sleek muscles: Kit, as expressionless as she’d been the last time Anita could remember seeing her outside of trance.

As she watched them stalk across the roof, almost as if tracking her steps to the fire escape, Anita made a small, desperate sound. She was waiting for another figure to emerge, short and soft and achingly pretty. Someone who could turn Anita to putty and make her like it. Please. Please god don’t let it be Sheila. Because if it’s Sheila . . .

She was already damp.

11.

slave joyce knelt and stared between her spread thighs. Idly she fancied the room’s cool air drifting between them, meeting and swirling with the heat from her pussy. she tried to picture the tiny eddies as they spun, losing herself in the hypnotic turning, but the fancy was too tenuous. she was not quite as eerily calm as she’d grown used to being, and tried to settle herself.

she was only aware of a discontinuity. Up to now she had been an obedient and very diligent slave, and each day was full of purposeful work for Mistress, blissful contemplation of Mistress and Her Ownership, the periodic blankness that Mistress willed.

Certain things stayed with her. slave patrice standing blankly at last, thanking Mistress for helping her forget her son.

slave valerie with her in the room where they’d undone all valerie’s damage in a night. Before that, taking valerie. joyce grew warm when she thought of the absurd little interlude when slave sheila had somehow eluded her own programming and tried to free herself and valerie.

she’d tried to rescue joyce, too.

joyce thought of sheila stiffening in her arms, and then softening as her resistance melted under what joyce did to her body and mind. she returned to obedience and gave herself back to her Mistress. Recalling it, joyce dampened.

Before that . . .

There was breathing on the bed. Mistress was there, finishing with the fucktoy she’d chosen this evening, putting her back into trance. The girl was a slim, pale redhead, and she swayed now as she backed off the sheets and slowly stood naked beside the bed, her body tracking the finger that Mistress waved lazily back and forth. slave joyce found it soothing but not mesmerizing; she was programmed, like the rest of Mistress’ nearest attendants, against accidental inductions.

But the girl could barely stand. Only a low-voiced command of Mistress kept her upright. Mistress let her sway a bit more, like a plant underwater, and then reached forward and lightly tugged the girl’s labial ring.

“Ahh.” The girl twitched awake, and her body seemed to remember slowly how to hold itself up. Her head wavered—then stopped as she fell into her Owner’s eyes again. She trembled as she stood, but it didn’t break the trance, and joyce knew what her waking dreams would be like for a while.

Pivoting, the girl went out with the stiff-legged grace of a deer.

joyce waited. she heard Mistress slide on the sheets, and then She was curled over the black iron footboard, looking down and across the hardwood floor at joyce. She smiled.

joyce waited. Beneath the thrill that always came over her when she was near the One Who owned her was more of the disquiet she’d been feeling in this room.

Mistress looked at her and smiled.

This usually blanked out joyce’s thoughts by itself, as she felt Mistress’ gaze scrape the inside of her skull, but now there was faint awareness. she remembered describing slave sheila’s attempt to resist and the need to rehypnotize her.

Mistress had laughed.

“Love conquers almost,” She’d said. “And I’d thought you were the dangerous experiment. Such an interesting girl.” Mistress had sounded pleased. slave sheila had disappeared for several days, and when she returned to duty had no memory of what Mistress had done to her.

joyce had felt, then, a hot, ardent admiration for her Owner, who could turn even an oversight into more of Her power. Not just admiration.

Worship.

Worship was in joyce now as she knelt open before Her, but there was something more.

After a long time She said, “An easy one, joyce. What did you do today?”

slave joyce knew Mistress knew that already. In fact, probably better than joyce did, at least while joyce had been under hypnosis. “Mistress, i helped train a slave team to hunt prey who hide outside the target building. i underwent indoctrination for . . . a while. Then i worked in the Oasis Center area for the afternoon.”

“Yes. I observed that. I thought you handled the interview with Ms LaCroix very well.” The praise did nothing for joyce. Doing well for Mistress was her life. “Will she be joining us?”

“i think so, Mistress. she seems to trust me.” joyce felt a strange shudder inside that she didn’t remember feeling when she’d talked with Sasha LaCroix that day.

“She had to trust you. you told her your story.”

“Yes, Mistress.” joyce was breathing harder now.

“How your husband was murdered and your daughter abducted.”

“Yes, Mistress.” It was coming back to joyce.

“By the evil bitch who’d enslaved you before.”

“Yes, Mistress.” joyce was bewildered. she barely recognized the feelings that were coming to life all over her body. she looked for help without thinking and raised her eyes unbidden to Mistress’ own, but the inhibition stopped her and she stared at the hollow of Her neck. There was a soft, lovely hiss of skin on skin and joyce felt a warm fingertip under her chin, raising it.

Mistress’ eyes, barely visible in the dimness She preferred.

joyce heard the faint sound of Mistress’ breathing, smelled Her and the girl She’d used on the hand that held her. she breathed shallowly, hoping the touch and the gaze would last forever.

Mistress released her and pulled back, then rose off the bed and stepped to the bathroom. joyce stayed on her knees but tracked Her as She went.

When She came out She stood in the middle of the floor, a short robe unbelted over Her nakedness.

“Did you tell her how all that happened, joyce?”

“No, Mistress.”

“How did it happen, joyce?”

slave joyce tried hard to answer, but her voice failed. she was remembering, as she’d remembered before, but it hurt now. she flailed away from it.

But Mistress had bidden her to tell, and she had to obey.

“ . . . i . . . did it, Mistress.”

“Did what, joyce?”

joyce shook. “i . . . killed . . . my . . . husband . . .” she took a sobbing breath. “i hypnotized my daughter.” she let it carry her: “You commanded it, Mistress. i obeyed Your will.”

Mistress stood still, a darker shape against the far wall, looking down at her.

“Now a hard one, joyce. How does that make you feel?”

slave joyce knew Mistress had no use for a collapse on her part. she might not have been able to stay up on her knees otherwise.

she saw Amanda’s eyes, heard her defy Mistress knowing it was the last free thing she’d ever do. she heard Owen on the floor, swallowing his screams as long as he could.

she remembered love. They loved her. she . . .

she remembered the hypnotizing green spirals.

she remembered using the inducer to turn off her daughter’s mind. she remembered using the taser on her husband, until the noises stopped.

she remembered the rolling orgasms as she destroyed them both.

Below her was a pit, and a deep part of her knew she belonged in it, damned to it. It was not oblivion, but shrieking eternal knowledge, and she could slip into it at any time.

But she was above it, on a terribly thin bridge, and it led to her place at Mistress’ feet.

“Please, Mistress!” It frightened her that Mistress might refuse, as She could. Or say nothing and leave slave joyce balanced over hell.

But Mistress said, “Come to Me, joyce.”

joyce leaned forward and began to crawl toward Her, and the need in her grew stronger with each length of hardwood under her hands and knees.

“Mistress . . . thank You. Thank You for accepting . . .” she felt the warmth in her loins flare as her submission surfaced, and the wild excitement rose, not replacing the grief but sheathing it in worship.

“Thank You, my Mistress.

“You let me give You my husband’s life and my daughter’s mind. they were Yours as i am Yours.

“As i will always be Yours.”

she reached Mistress’ feet, the warmth all through her now, and waited on all fours. her prayer was over: she asked nothing of her Goddess, only the chance to be Hers, and that was done forever.

she felt Her hand again, turning her head up.

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, silken with malice. “Yes, joyce. you gave Me your husband’s life. your daughter’s mind.

“you gave Me your soul, joyce.”

joyce wanted to beg, now. Wanted to beg to be put to sleep again, not to remember, not to juice whenever she thought of what she’d done to the two people she’d loved most . . .

Mistress looked at her. “So numb for so long. I almost wondered. But I’m so glad you’re back, joyce.” Her smile was full and pleased.

“Stay aware for Me, joyce. I’ll want to know how you feel from time to time.”

slave joyce gaped up at Her, feeling her world spin as the need to forget and the need to obey shared her quivering mind. There was nothing.

Nothing but, “Yes, Mistress. i must obey.”

Gracefully, Mistress stepped away to the bed, and as She slid back onto it she beckoned joyce to Her. joyce crawled and pulled herself onto the sheets, which had cooled from Mistress’ dalliance with the redhead.

Physically on a level with Mistress, joyce’s roiled feelings were thrown off-balance. she remembered her turns at being the fucktoy, and other things, before she’d been freed (Aman—) and waited to be lain back or tied. Part of her was a woman in bed with a woman, and she was responding to that, and to old triggers she’d forgotten.

But Mistress motioned her back and then just put Her hand on joyce’s shoulder and pushed her to the headboard with gentle firmness. Then She reached around and, still gently, kept joyce leaning forward until She moved pillows behind her, and settled her back. joyce relaxed against the pillows, and felt lightheaded with the terror and pleasure of Her nearness, the heat of Mistress’ body, and She leaned closer and touched joyce’s throat.

She took the medallion, with the symbol of Her talon, from slave joyce’s collar, and reached to set it on the nighttable. As She leaned, Her breast brushed joyce’s arm, and joyce sighed.

Mistress held something when She swung back up into joyce’s embrace.

A killing knife in a leather sheath.

joyce’s gaze fluttered between the weapon and her Mistress’ profile as She hung it up, within reach of a backthrown arm, from a loop in the wrought iron of the headboard. “If you have need of it in the night, joyce, remember it’s there.”

As joyce whispered her obedience, Mistress shifted Her hips, and for a moment, joyce felt Her deeper heat against her inner thigh.

Then Mistress curled up against joyce’s belly and chest, pulling the sheet up over them both. joyce felt Her skin, Her warm solidity, Her breathing on her shoulder and breast, all over her own body, and floated.

Mistress reared up slightly and put Her hand on joyce’s forehead. With Her forefinger, She touched joyce between her eyes, then lightly traced a line upward, into her hair and down her scalp.

joyce moaned quietly, and arched her back, her vision blurring as her eyes tried to roll back.

“Watch over Me, joyce,” She commanded softly. “Stay awake as long as you can. You will eventually sleep, but until you do, watch. And remember the knife.”

Mutely, helplessly, joyce nodded, thinking of the knife.

Thinking of enemies she could cut with it, if they appeared as she watched over Mistress.

Of herself, the arms that had slain her man and bound over her child, the throat that had thanked Mistress for letting her do it.

Of Mistress.

slave joyce reached down to put her arms around . . .

. . . the One who had taken . . .

. . . the One to whom she had given . . .

As she leaned down, her tears rolled warm into Her hair, where joyce rested her cheek as she prepared to watch through the night.

12.

Anita stared out across the rooftops. She was at the parapet of the roof, by the fire escape again, three frantic leaps from her little hole if the door opened. But it hadn’t so far.

She’d watched Valerie’s two huntresses before they left. They seemed almost at ease, not like a pair of automatons, but more like partners. In the midst of her dread Anita was stabbed by longing for that kind of fellowship. The door opened while they seemed to confer about where she might have fled to after climbing down the stairway. She’d tensed and almost closed her eyes.

But it had been Carly, not Sheila. The effect on Anita had been intense anyway: her roommate had stepped onto the roof and walked to the other women, stopping deferentially and waiting with her arms by her sides. The shorter woman in the business suit, who seemed to be in charge, had spoken to her, and Carly answered, too softly for Anita to hear but with a wearily apologetic tone. The woman had listened and them reached out to touch her fingertips to Carly’s temple.

Carly had gone to sleep where she stood. Anita grabbed her belt to keep her hand still, and then gripped tighter as she saw the woman leave her hand against Carly’s drooping head. It looked as though Carly had come up to apologize for letting Anita get away from her new mistresses, and they had taken pity on her earnestness and put her into a trance.

Then they left, and Anita lay there, wondering if they were waiting, just inside the door, or in the stairwell, or in the apartment, or the lobby. She realized there was no way to know if Kit and her “officer” were the only two here. She also realized that she couldn’t afford to think of Valerie’s pawns as having ordinary weaknesses, like getting bored or careless. If they were told to wait an entire day for her to emerge from hiding, they would.

She looked down from the roof. She didn’t dare go back for her things. She had the money she’d taken to caching on her person, the clothes on her back. She couldn’t stop herself comparing things to her first flight, after getting away from Master and then the sheriff’s office.

Valerie and Master had had her for only three days. When she’d stepped fearfully into her building, and then her apartment using the spare key she’ d left with the elderly neighbor across the hall, she’d found the place undisturbed. She guessed they didn’t want her disappearance to cause comment too soon by having strange women visit her place and cart things away. She’d had a miserable time choosing what she needed and could carry, and trying to stay numb to what she’d probably never see again. She’d steadfastly ignored the knowledge that she had no idea where to go now.

Just away.

She thought of her friends, never waking up, of their families. Of her own family—god, she didn’t dare involve them, let alone try running to them. Her sister . . .

Anita held out.

Tunnel vision took over, as she looked past books and things people had given her, people who’d liked her and hadn’t tried to warp her mind.

Anita tried holding out now, but she didn’t even have anything to choose from. And she didn’t have the other vital thing that had kept her going, now that she knew what it was like out here.

When she’d fled the first time, she’d had at least the unknown to look forward to.

Life on the run had been awful. She hadn’t known the first thing about surviving as a fugitive, and trying to learn had cost her nearly everything but her life and freedom. It didn’t matter, having skills and talent, if you couldn’t risk officially being anyone who could use them.

I never sold myself, she said silently into the air over the alley. But of course she remembered: the almost-cliche waitress job in the diner by the state highway. The very cliche boss who’d smelled out her vulnerability and told her, one night in the storeroom, what they were going to do about it.

Underneath him there on the floor, she’d thought, Yes. At least I’ m—free.

The next day he’d fired her anyway.

Having gained nothing, Anita didn’t count that as selling herself. Giving it away, maybe.

Free.

She’d actually forced herself to laugh at that, once, late one night.

She could just run again. She’d have to find someone to help her, and now she knew what it felt like to be the bleeding dolphin that drew the shark to the others. Before Valerie took their minds, they might never even know whom to blame.

Amelia. Who lost her way. Who might have exceeded her skills and gotten her crewman killed with her. Exiled from the sky.

She thought I can’t do this again.

She thought Carly. Oh, Carly, I never, ever . . .

She thought that it wasn’t a thirtieth-floor roof, but at ten, it would do.

Looking down, she was distantly relieved to have all that pressure on her. It was just crushing her into nothing, and she faced the prospect of leaping to her death on the concrete with the calmness of overload.

Anita looked down. Closed her eyes once, felt a breath escape her, waited for the one moment among the next few when she would lift herself onto the parapet, then find the next moment, the one where she stepped off.

She held off the thought of what would happen moments after that. It almost worked. Only two words leaked through.

Street pizza.

No.

She closed her eyes again, listening inside. No. No! I don’t deserve to die! I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t deserve to be buried and I don’t deserve—this!

Anita opened her eyes, and looked out across the rooftops again, trying not to envy the people under them who weren’t being chased by mind controllers.

I can’t do this again.

It might have been easier, she thought with deep bitterness, if Kit and her partner had found her up here. Or if she’d never seen Carly’s list, and spent the last few minutes none the wiser, enjoying a few laughs with a woman she might have slept with, and waiting for Chinese food. No decisions, just a brief moment of confusion, and a flash. Or words Valerie had already etched into her brain.

No. Not roped like a maverick mare. Not harvested like a plant. She didn ‘t deserve that, either.

She took another breath. Something has to change.

As she stood there, waiting for the sky to darken, she began to see what that could be.

13.

The overnight train had been crowded; she hadn’t expected that. But they’d been mostly a group of students coming back from something. Sleepy but excited, like a coachful of exhausted puppies. Feeling benignly older, Anita had relaxed, and gotten hit on by cute people of both genders. They seemed drawn to her odd mood, and when she turned them down they seemed to have liked just chatting her up.

Her new clothes traveled well, and she smiled at the youngsters as they struggled with the nylon tangle of their baggage, while she strolled off with the little case that held everything, now.

Well, not quite everything. The most important thing she carried elsewhere.

She felt odd, almost exalted. It was something like what she’d tried for on the roof, but failed to grasp even before street pizza. Now, even that ugly image failed to get purchase inside her. She was moving too fast for it, but she was just letting the current of events draw her on, now.

Anita didn’t feel hurried. Do nothing, and nothing will be undone, the book said.

She walked quickly to the taxi stand, recalling how bad an area the train station was in, and from the cab watched the scenery blur by as the city woke up. The directions she gave the cabbie were from a website, and her mind was clear enough that she had no need to check the folded paper with the cybercafe’s letterhead inside her blazer.

He dropped her at a coffee stand within walking distance. She was sitting down at a table a bit away from the window when she realized she had no idea what she’d ordered. Glancing once at the covered cup, she ignored it. What she wanted to do was sit, and she did. She waited for moments, one of which would be the one in which she got up and went over there.

The book said it was better to have no desires, and she had only one. She thought it might be possible that it might be granted.

She enjoyed the idleness, and then it was time. She threw away the untouched whatever-it-was, and no one saw and was hurt by her failure to drink it. She took that as a good omen. She didn’t want to leave any more hurt in her wake.

Crossing the street, the island and the diagonal street beyond, she found her way up the walk to the building’s lobby.

She smiled for any cameras, and walked in through the main doors, hearing the opulent echoes from high up in the glass vault she found herself in. Over to the side she heard, then saw, a waterfall.

She felt the urge to seek it out and dawdle, but found it easy to ignore. She listened to the click of her heels on the flagstones, and absently took in that, this early, there seemed to be hardly anyone else around.

The early worm turns, she told herself, certain the book had said nothing about that.

One or two women saw her as she neared the reception area, but she guessed that she was walking too briskly, too purposefully, to have set off their usual reaction to walk-ins.

The receptionist was an older woman, attractive in a maternal way that Anita knew she might have reacted to differently a long time ago. Last night, perhaps.

But it was today. When the woman looked up at her, Anita smiled down at her.

“Good morning. My name is Anita. I was part of Valerie’s original group. Dr Joplin’s group. I left it, but . . . I haven’t known any peace since.”

The woman smiled, and Anita almost felt sorry for her, taking Anita at face value. Then she recalled the gentle way the huntress with Kit had treated Carly. This woman wouldn’t be punished for being fooled by irony.

“And I need peace. I need it desperately. I will take it at any price. Any terms.” The receptionist was looking at her now, and Anita realized there was no question of irony. The woman knew what she meant.

She nodded, and Anita felt . . . glad. She also looked astonished, and Anita was almost proud to have surprised someone here. But she recalled the book, and forwent pride.

“I realize the price doesn’t vary. But it’s a question of giving or being taken. It’s a small question, but it’s important to me.”

The woman looked at her and nodded again, somehow making Anita think that she’d really been understood. Wishful thinking, perhaps. But it hardly mattered now.

“I’d just like to speak to a human being first,” she said. “Or . . .”

The woman was reaching for a phone.

Anita withdrew to one of the easy chairs scattered comfortably apart from each other in front of the receptionist. She thought about how nice it was, in her last few minutes of independent thought, to sit, hearing the distant sound of the indoor waterfall, and wait to see who’d come out for her.