The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

She was speeding down Route 86, not worrying about being pulled over by the Highway Patrol. Evidently she had lost everything in court, her mind included. Perhaps not literally, but she did seem to be suffering from some sort of mental breakdown...and enjoying every minute of it! If her mind had lost that sharp lawyer’s edge, it was of little concern since she no longer had to deal with all the pressing concerns and crises of her former life. Working the nightshift as a waitress in the Hot Biscuit Eatery in Brandworton was precisely the kind of low paid, low stress position which Ayleen would once have considered beneath contempt, but which she was now learning to savor as both a penance for and a refuge from her past. It left her the daylight hours to sleep, lounge around her trailer, go to the beach, or just cruise up and down Route 86 with the manual windows of her old Ford sedan rolled down and blowing through the tangled locks of her long blond hair. The hair, and her trim, nearly perfect body were the only assets of which she had not been forcibly divested by the state, and even these, now that Bill was gone, she was disinclined to use to their full advantage. Teasing yes, and serving the truck drivers who pulled into the Hot Biscuit Eatery provided plenty of opportunity for that, but somehow they knew that she was not their kind, just an attractive but unpredictable werdo. They were right, Ayleen had resigned herself to the fact that she was never going to have another relationship, at least a serious relationship, with a man again.

National Route 86 was a blast, both in the sense of the warm air which was being sucked into Ayleen’s unairconditioned sedan, and also a blast from the past. In its heyday it had been one of the state’s major trunk roads, a four laner with a grass median built before the advent of limited access routes. Even now that it was bypassed by the Interstate, and drained of all but local traffic, it was kept in perfect condition as a pork barrel project by the district’s representatives. From the suburbs of the metropolis, the full sixty miles down to Brandworton there wasn’t a town in sight. The names on the map were just unincorporated hamlets, intersections in the middle of nowhere, their blinking caution lights proudly proclaiming that Route 86 was for local use and that people who wanted to get through the region hassle free should use the Interstate. Ayleen’s trailer was in one such hamlet, who’s name she couldn’t remember off hand, any more than she could remember the zip code. That was the glory of not being an up an coming lawyer, you didn’t have to sweat the details...just phase out and enjoy life. When Ayleen had given up her home in the suburbs she also gave up worries...without even a bank account, she sublet the trailer from her neighbor on a cash basis.

At the rate she was going she would be back home in ten minutes, but unaccountably Ayleen found herself slowing the Ford down. There were rollers glistening ahead, above the mirage of the hot asphalt baking in the summer heat. Police? No, if anything these days Ayleen had an impulse to speed up when she saw a patrol cars, just to see if they would give chase. No, she was slowing down because she sensed that there was something interesting to see up there, something far more interesting than policemen. Yes, there were men in the median, swinging their mattocks to the slow rhythm of life in penal servitude. It was a road crew. Ayleen slowed the Ford down to a crawl (possible to do on a road like 86 with more lanes than vehicles to use them) and gave the prisoners a good inspection. She saw no guards, evidently they were on their own recognizance, weeding the median and the shoulders of the road, yard by measured yard, stretching to the horizon without promise of an end in sight. They were naked to the waist, tattooed, and glistening with sweat and they were...Alyeen tried to think of a better way to describe them, but there wasn’t...they were happy. Perhaps it had something to do with the reform. The reform was the sort of thing which Ayleen would have been cognizant of when she had been a lawyer but it was no longer her concern. Evidently it was working, she thought to herself, she thought to herself as she passed the last clump of prisoners and reluctantly began to speed up.

Her excitement continued until she burst through the door of the trailer and headed for the full length mirror and asked herself: “What kind of woman did those prisoners see?” She smoothed down the long blond hair over her denim shirt. That was all she wore any more, denims. All the fancy dresses and the smart business suits she had carted off to the charity stores. The jewelry too, every last pendant, broach, ear ring, and bracelet...even her wristwatch had to go. It didn’t matter to the people at the Hot Biscuit Eatery, denims went well with the territory, and anyone could find out the time by listening to the radio. Moreover she was still attractive, perhaps more attractive than when she had been a lawyer strutting around in heels that were slightly too high an makeup which was slightly too thick. Yes, she figured, if they had been lucky enough to get a good look at her they probably liked what they saw. Even the blue denims looked like an old style prison uniform, and although that too had been swept aside by the reform, it gave her a sort of ‘classic’ look which probably helped give them ideas as well.

All this came courtesy of the fact that, even after loosing Bill along with the rest of her life, she kept her body in tone, working out with the calisthenics and the simple weights in the trailer. If only she had paid as much attention to her mind. “Dammit Ayleen!” she scolded herself, “You’re losing it!” There was something important that she needed to do this week. The supervision board? She was disgusted with her casual forgetfulness...it might be OK to let the rest of her life go to seed but there were a few non-negotiable “musts” such as showing up to work on time and knowing when she had an interview with her sentence supervision board, which had to be rigorously adhered to. She would go and check her calendar (where hopefully she had scrawled in the appointment date), and she would do it...immediately.

Or would she? Ayleen was still transfixed by her own image in the full length mirror. As good as she looked in denims there was one way that made her look even better. She unbuckled her belt and unzipped the fly of her jeans, letting them fall down about her ankles. Heart pounding and sweating on the inside of her thighs, Ayleen didn’t even have the patience to to pull down her bikini briefs, but thrust her hands down inside them while she toppled backward onto the bed, turning out the reading light with her other hand. In the darkness she could see the road crew mowing the median and the gullies of Route 86 slowly towards the horizon....relentlessly stripping, stripping, stripping.

The next day’s, or rather night’s, work at the Hot Biscuit Eatery was in no way unusual except for Ayleen’s inability, even more than usual, to concentrate on what the customers were ordering. She was confusing scrambled with fried, and (the ultimate heresy!) grits with potatoes, mistakes which called in some cases for profuse apologies and the forfeiture of tips. Not that Ayleen really minded making apologies any more, a change for the better which she attributed to the rehabilitation process. The old Ayleen, snappy and militantly sure about all her opinions, was gone for good. If anything the new Ayleen relished the opportunity of being in the wrong an having to come clean. She actually had to watch herself, being careful not to make deliberate mistakes so that she would have to eat crow later for it. Among the four possible permutations of self and other, love and hate, self-hatred was a powerful source of motivation and always available in a pinch. However, like everything else, it was important not to overdo it, and Ayleen wasn’t quite sure she had recognized the limitations of the principle...which was scary.

On the other hand the people around her, from “Pops” Briggs who owned the franchise down to the most infrequent customer, seemed (with the few inevitable exceptions) to be much more tolerant and compassionate than the sort who populated the legal and political worlds in which she had previously dwelt. Whatever her image of “truckers” had been formerly, underwent a complete revision after she had made better, admittedly Platonic, acquaintance with some of them. Most of them were deeply passionate about something, not necessarily trucks, but had enough common sense not to let that passion wreck their lives. As their job title indicated, they were the drivers, not the driven. Ayleen couldn’t help but wonder, if she had been so prejudiced even towards truckers, how much greater her misunderstanding of convicts must have been, and probably still was.

All through the shift she dreamed about the road crew, dropping dishes and forgetting orders. Shortly after dawn “Pops” Briggs told her she could quit early, but Ayleen begged him to let her stay to the end of her shift. She didn’t want to start down the road until after midmorning when the sun would be climbing high into the sky, making the road crew tired, sweaty, and ready for some distraction. When it was time to punch out she bolted out of the cafe, and over to her dilapidated Ford. Sitting down and turning on the ignition, her mind was less on her driving that on how many buttons of her denim blouse she ought to undo. “What the hell!” she thought, unbuttoning completely, striping off the shirt and tossing it into th back seat. Now there was nothing covering her ample breasts but the low cut foundation bra. Apart from that she was, like the prisoners themselves, naked to the waist. Having made it out of the vicinity of Brandworton without getting pulled over, Ayleen stepped on the pedal and headed down Route 86, her heart speeding as fast as he car.

The road crew turned out to be pretty much where she had expected them to be. As previously, they didn’t seem to be under the supervision of a guard. She slowed down in order to inspect them, and so they might do the same of her. As far as she could determine they were all cute, as muscular and as smooth skinned as professional body builders, muscles rippling and skin sweating. They were black, white, and every shade in between, but Ayleen wanted to make it clear she was color blind, and picked out a gigantic black guy.

She leaned out of the window into the scorching heat of summer, no longer mitigated by the rapid velocity of the car and the blowing wind. Ayleen wanted to make sure that he could see down her cleavage, and that the only thing cupping her breasts was the bra. “Hi mister. Would you like to take a break? My place is down the road a ways...how about some lemonade?”

He gave an ivory grin from his handsome hairless head and intoned appreciatively. “Thank’s for the thought ma’am. But we ain’t hardly got enough hours in the day to get the shoulders of this highway clean. I mean, we want’s to get it good and clean ma’am. Ma’am, you ever seen a golf green...I mean not the fairway, the putting green? Damn it ma’am, but them green’s about as smooth as the top o’ you tities...and that’s how good look’n we’re gonna make these shoulders and that median. An not just here either...all up and down this here road, till its spank’n clean. I mean spank’n clean ma’am, spank’n clean!” He reiterated the last phrase with an almost violent mirth, then leaned his statuesque head back and gave forth a loud bellow of laughter before resuming his labors.

Ayleen mused his response with considerable perplexity. Perhaps, she reasoned, he was gay, or perhaps he just had some kind of bizarre lawn mowing fetish. Never mind, there were plenty of fish in this sea. There was a white man laboring next to him, some sort of skinhead with interesting tattoos. She made him the same proposition. He too smiled pleasantly and explained that they were too busy to take a break. Odd, she thought. She reasoned that prison tended to breed homosexuality...but exclusively? Even if a woman offered herself on a silver platter?

She cruised a little further down the conga line until she spotted an attractive brown skinned man. Hair, no tattoos, your standard variety. He looked promising. Again she leaned out the window provocatively and made the same proposition. He smiled pleasantly and with utter sincerity responded, “No entiendo.”

Ayleen was flummoxed. No entiendo? How could anybody ‘no entiendo’ a friendly female pushing her nearly naked breasts up into his face? Wern’t some things transcultural? Although the new Ayleen might be humble and thrive on rejection, she felt the palpable return of her old judgmental self. Refused three times by horny men toiling in what used to be called a ‘chain gang’...and now, thanks to the reform, without any chains to impede them? “Three strikes and I’m out of here!” she muttered audibly and pressed the accelerator to the floor. She would be feeding herself her own spiked lemonade this afternoon and dragging herself off to the bedroom. Besides, after Bill she had sworn off men, right?

Ayleen arrived at work that evening still kicking herself in the head for being a total idiot. What had gotten into her? This morning she had driven up to a bunch of prisoners and tried to turn a work gang into a gang bang. Was it self-hatred? Was she still flipped out over the loss of Bill? Was she thinking, now that she was no longer a top-flight lawyer she would keep score in the department of general sexual solicitations rather than the solicitor-general’s office? Or was she thinking, now was the time to grab her chances while she was still young? Nonsense, she had been a kind of enfant terrible in the profession, and was barely pushing thirty when she was expelled from the state bar. The correct answer, like so many on the on the law school exams was, none of the above. It had something to do, specifically, with the prisoners themselves. If she had wanted to make a nymphomaniac out of herself there were plenty of safer opportunities around. After all, she worked the night shift in a cafe frequented by males of all types. Moreover she was popular and, excluding today, generally self-confident. After all she was a good sport, a crowd pleaser, and attractive.

With one major exception. It had only happened two or three times since she had started working at the Hot Biscuit Eatery but each time it made a strong impression on her. A person or a couple whom she had known in her previous life would walk in the Eatery. Ayleen didn’t feel at all awkward about this but evidently the feelings weren’t mutual. They never shouted out, “Hey, there’s Ayleen Cotrelle! Ayleen, how are you doing?” Instead, and even if she was waiting on their table and trying to be friendly, they just stared at her with a kind of embarrassed horror, making only the most superficial acknowledgement of their acquaintance. Of course Ayleen never was able to remember their names. It was the most she could do to remember her own name. But she could recall faces, and these faces were both uniformly familiar and uniformly appalled. It was unfortunate. Ayleen wasn’t at all adverse to talking to old friends, people who could help her remember what had happened at the trial, and in her life previous to that. But it was no use, they just shunned her until it was time to pay their bill and leave. She would simply have to pump her sentence supervision board out of as many details as she could handle on those subjects.

Her board interview! She hadn’t checked to see if she had one this week. Antother thing to kick myself in the head about, thought Ayleen. From that depressing thought she gladly turned back to the prisoners...their half naked bodies undulating with their labors in the light of the midmoring sun. Time for a little self-forgiveness, she reasoned. Who wouldn’t be attracted by them, working out like penitent body builders? She slipped easily into a vivid fantasy, and almost dropped a tray piled with plates in the process. “Stow that!” she almost shouted to herself. That is...until.

Ayleen, normally oblivious to time, watched the clock avidly until her shift was over. Once again she bolted to her old Ford at the back of the parking lot and hurriedly turned on the ignition. She had hit on the problem. The old stuck-up Ayleen and the new humble, but sexier Ayleen were working at cross purposes. While propositioning the prisoners with sweet words her body had been keeping them at arm’s distance. She had stayed in her car, as if lording it over them and saying “look, I have wheels and you don’t.” Not only was that sort of attitude unlikely to get her to square one with the studs, it was probably a subtle way of inflicting humiliation on them. This time, in stead of leaning out of the window, she would just park the car on the shoulder of the highway and walk over to talk with them like any normal human being would. She looked down at her denims. “This is ridiculous!” she shouted out loud, even though there was nobody else in the rear parking lot, “I was covering up half of my body. No wonder they sensed I wasn’t sincere!” The engine running, she stepped out of the car again, tore off her shirt, dropped her jeans to the pavement, and extracted them, together with her socks and sneakers from her feet. Then, throwing the lot onto the back seat of the sedan she got back in and drove off. There was no reason to feel embarrassed about driving out of Brandworton in her underwear. If she got pulled over she would just say that she was heading for the beach.

Once she was out on Route 86, Ayleen opened up the old Ford as far as it would go, which was pretty good since the car was a vintage model, designed for speed rather than fuel economy. She quickly reached, and passed, the stretch of highway where the road crew had been working the previous day. Evidently they, too, were making good speed. At that point another blockbuster insight erupted in Ayleen’s brain. The whole, “lemonade at my house” bit had been totally out of place and offensive. You could take the old Ayleen out of her post suburban home and throw her in a trashy trailer, but that in itself didn’t break her of the whole snotty “hostess” mindset. She looked around the deserted landscape which surrounded Route 86 on both sides. It was beautiful country, mostly scrub forest and abandoned overgrown orchards, left to fallow since most of the state’s agrobusiness had relocated to Central America. It provided ample privacy for anyone who chose to disappear within for the purposes of a tryst. This time there would be no mistake! She wouldn’t try to drag the men off to her enchanted castle. What sane person, prisoner or otherwise, would be willing to hazard that kind of risk? She would make love on their own terms, in an environment where they felt comfortable and unthreatened, on the shoulder of the road if need be.

Unfortunately, for all her best set plans, the crew refused to show up anywhere along the route. Ayleen drove mile after mile, until at last she could see the spires of the city poking up from the horizon. A remaining fragment of her lawyer’s mind told her that she had long since passed the boundary where the metropolitan road crews took over responsibility for maintainance from the state prison authority, and she sadly turned the car around. Somehow they had eluded her! Of course, that’s how things were organized. A crew would work on one road for a few days and then be reassigned somewhere else. Her mind told her that it was quite reasonable, but her body was on fire and inconsolable. As soon as she reached the trailer she rushed in, pulled off her remaining clothes, and dived into the bottom drawer of her cabinet to extract her largest, most wicked toy. It was going to see a lot of use this afternoon, and it was unlikely that Ayleen was going to get even one precious wink of sleep before she had to report for work in the evening. Probably another night of misplaced orders and broken dishes she thought feverishly as she plopped down on the bed and shoved the rod into her vagina. But she was beyond caring about such matters. If she didn’t find that road crew soon she was going to go crazier than she already was.

Ayleen arrived at the Hot Biscuit that evening tired and bleary eyed. Having managed to rub herself raw, she thought it the better part of wisdom to forego her underwear and even her socks, so she punched in with nothing in her possession apart from her sneakers, keys, wallet, and denim top worn with the shirttails outside her beltless jeans. It was comfortable, but it had one drawback, as it gave Ayleen too easy access to herself, and she still hadn’t quenched her desire for the road crew. If anything her afternoon’s respite in the trailer had only fired her imagination, with the thought of the convicts sweating away, mowing the tangled shoulders of the highway down to a beautiful smooth surface. But there was no point in evading duty, and Ayleen went through the motions of filling orders, serving food and coffee, and being as pleasant as she could. Fortunately Ayleen shared the tables with Sharon, a part time college student who like to work nights. She kept a civil tong and was willing to humor Ayleen’s eccentricities up to a point.

Ayleen, for her part, always felt guilty after using the toys. It made her feel like a lesbian. Not that Ayleen, even the old Ayleen, had ever wanted to be anything less than perfectly correct in her support of gay and lesbian aspirations. But she saw her personal renunciation of males more in terms of being a kind of secular nun or a female eunuch. Suddenly she realized that, in addition to everything else, she had forgotten to take a shower before coming to work. Her raw body was still smeared with vaginal lubricants, afterevidences of her own sex. Not that the male customers in the Eatery, an olfactorily challenged crowd to begin with, were likely to notice in a room charged with the bracing smell of coffee. However her young co-worker was another consideration entirely. Sharon was polite to people’s faces, but acutely observant and judgmental...a crucifix studded with tiny diamonds always adorned her bodice, at once drawing attention to her assets and warding off evil. Whenever Sharon’s boyfriend or room mates would come ito the Eatery for a chat a torrent of pent up information would start to escape from her lips in hushed tones as her eyes darted around the cafe.

Realizing that the younger woman had the ability to sleuth out her mental and physical state, Ayleen was overcome with a feeling of acute embarrassment and shame. She resolved to keep her distance from her co-worker, keep her mind on her work, and out of the gutter. The gutter was where she had been all day...almost literally. She had been imagining herself being rolled, if not exactly in the hay, in the closely cropped ditch and shoulders of Route 86. Suddenly another explosive thought wracked her body: The prisoners would like it if she shaved off her pubic hair. They would like her clean. Spanking clean!

Ayleen realized that the situation was beyond help. Her heart was pounding with desire and she knew that if she didn’t find an escape rout quickly, she was going to unzip her jeans and start fingering herself in public. Throwing caution to the winds she boldly approached her co-worker. “Sharon, do you think you could watch my tables for a while. I have to go to the bathroom. I think it’s...diarrhea.”

Ayleen started droping her pants and rubbing her crotch even before she had shut the stall door. Then she let out an enormous moan. It was funny, all the time with Bill she had never been much on making sounds during sex. Bill had even noted the fact. It was, of course, the old stuck-up, emotionally constipated Ayleen. Constipation! Why hadn’t she told Sharon it was constipation? Now that little prude would be timing her, making her pay for every minute of pleasure. Even through her shattered mind Ayleen could remember vignettes of her former life, her days at law school. There had been people like Sharon there, people who thought thay could measure out pleasure in units of time. They called themselves utilitarians and they thought they could calculate whether anyone else was having more pleasure than they were. To hell with that, thought Ayleen. Far from being a utilitarian, Ayleen fancied herself a rights theorist, and she would exercise her right to bathroom visitation, if it took up the whole shift.

When, at long last, Ayleen was able to report back to her work station, Sharon was tapping her pencil on her order pad and giving her co-worker an irritated look. “Mr. Briggs want’s to see you Ayleen. I’ll keep watching your tables while you talk.”

So, the gig was finally up! A wave of embarrassment, followed, oddly, by relief, swept over Ayleen while Pops (as most people called Mr.Briggs) turned over the kitchen to the assistant cook, and gestured for her to take a seat in the small cubicle which served as the Hot Biscuit’s managerial and accounting office.

“Ayleen, first I’ve gotta say that I like you, and so does everybody else around here, even Sharon. Also we know that you’re...gosh, what’s that polite word they always tell you to use...yeah...we know that you’re a challenged person in many respects, and that you’re giving more than one hundred percent just to do a good job. But recently I’ve been wondering if this is really the right place for you. It has nothing to do with Sharon or what she imagines you’re doing in the bathroom. Hell, we all know that Sharon’s the kind of person who would only take a walk in the woods if she thought she could catch couples in the act. People’s sex life isn’t my business, making a profit on this franchise is. What bothers me is that recently, when I look at your face, the lights are out and nobody’s home. Then things start happening...dishes start tumbling to the floor, orders start being misplaced. What is it Ayleen? Is it drugs? Is it a man? Hell, is it a woman? I don’t give a damn Ayleen, all I want is for you to be a good, effective, well adjusted employee...or else to find some other place where you can be.”

“Thanks Mr.Briggs.”

“Cut the ‘Mr. Briggs’ crap. I like young good looking women like you to call me Pops. Makes me feel like Daddy Warbucks in Lil’ Orphan Annie.”

“Sure Pops. I’ll come clean. I have a problem...I don’t know what to call it...actually, there’s a word...but I really hate it and I don’t like to use it.”

“Well, if it’s the b-word forget it. I’ve never met anyone less bitchy than you are.”

Ayleen smiled, “Well, thanks, but you never knew me before I went into rehab. But no, it’s not that word, something worse. Do you know what a nymphomaniac is?”

“Sure, doesn’t everybody? But you arn’t that either. If you were I would have caught it the first week you started working here. It’s been known to happen from time to time. Some girls...excuse me, some women, think that working the night shift in a highwayside cafe is a good step on the way to starting their own franchise in the back parking lot. I have zero tolerance for that sort of thing. That’s why I appreciate real ladies like you and Sharon, not frigid or insulting, but who know how to fend off unwanted attention with humor or mild put downs. That’s one reason why I’d hate to loose you.”

“Well, thanks for the commendation Pops, but it’s not the sort of thing that would get triggered in a place like the Hot Biscuit, even though it’s getting so bad that it’s cutting into my efficiency here. They wouldn’t show up in a place like this...in fact they’re even legally bared from doing so. But I can’t get them out of my mind. I’m afraid...I’m going crazy.”

“Ayleen. Do you mind if I give you a bit of unsolicited advice? I think you need a man. Don’t worry, it’s not a come on...I have enough problems as it is. I mean some nice young guy your age. He doesn’t need to be rich or handsome...he just needs to be there for you when you need him.”

“I’ve given up men.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I explained to you when I first started work here that I was...what did you just call it...uh, challenged. I don’t know why I do the things I do and think what I think. My mind is like an empty corridor with doors on both sides. Most of the doors are locked, and I don’t have the key. It even seems like every day fewer and fewer of the doors open. And you know what Pops? I don’t even mind any more. It’s cool. In fact, I have a suspicion that whatever is behind those doors wouldn’t be very pretty to look at any way.”

For a while Pops didn’t say anything, he just fumbled with a package of chewing tobacco, then decided not to use it and put it away. “Ayleen, if you aren’t seeing a psychiatrist already, I think it would be a good idea to make an appointment with one. In fact, I think making that appointment is going to be a prerequisite for your continued employment here.”

“Pops, you know better than anyone else that I don’t have money to spend on a shrink. Besides, I already have some shrinks who are working on me for free.”

“What do you mean, that rehab stuff you were talking to me about? Are they doctors or something?”

“Yeah. Actually it’s my sentence review board. I know it sounds like some sort of legal thing, but actually it’s more like psychotherapy. In fact, I’d bet my pay check that’s why I’ve been having such a bad week. I think I missed my last appointment.”

“You think? You’d better know! Just what does this board do?”

“I’m not entirely sure myself. It’s sort of hard to remember...which I’m grateful for. There are all those doors with the scary stuff behind them, and they don’t want to push me too fast. It’s a very gradual process, based on the reformed criminal justice system. That’s what the reform is all about, compassion.”

“Compassion? Really?” Pops scratched his wizened chin. “That wasn’t the way it was reported in the papers. I thought the basic idea was ‘lock’em up and throw away the key’...which is how they got the voters of this state to accept the whole bizarre notion. Either way, why don’t you take the rest of the night off, go back home, check on that sentence review board appointment, and get some shut eye. Then come back here any time, you know we’re open all twenty-four, and tell either me or the assistant manager whether you are staying on, under the conditions I mentioned, or leaving.”

It felt strange driving along Route 86 in the dark of the early morning. Ever since Ayleen had started working at night in the Hot Biscuit Eatery her cruises up and down the highway had been restricted to the daylight hours. The old Ayleen, living in the frenzied world of law and politics, had never known the pleasures of Route 86, nocturnal or otherwise. If her work itinerary had necessitated a foray from the city to Brandworton, she would have taken the Interstate, economizing on time, whatever the sacrifices in terms of gas and general sensibilities. She would never have been able to feel what Ayleen was feeling now, the balmy seductive air of a summer night blowing through an open window. Best of all, between the infrequent pillars of road lights, was the pitch blackness of the tangled forests and abandoned groves, the desolate, depopulated no man’s land which seemed, at least to Ayleen, to invite the motorist to stop the car, get out, and cast themselves into the oblivion of the scrubland. These were the same wastelands which, in the days before the reform, would have been traversed by escaped convicts, pursued by packs of merciless hounds.

Somehow she found the thought arousing, and soon discovered that she was driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other kneading the inside of her thighs. All thoughts of psychotherapy and employment had now been vanquished from her mind, and she resumed her speculations about how best to locate the road crew. Obviously they were no longer working any part of Route 86, which left only a couple of possibilities. Either they were clearing the Interstate or they were doing maintenance on one of the small regional feeder roads. Tomorrow Ayleen would start a systematic search of the regional road network. In the meantime there was nothing to be done but get back to the trailer and force herself to get enough rest that she could wake up refreshed the next morning and resume pursuit.

Then she noticed something off to her left, a half mile or so distant from the road. It was white with brilliant lighting, something that she had never noticed during her many travels up and down Route 86. It appeared to be a small municipal airport, but Ayleen was still coherent enough on her geography to realize that there were no airports between the city and Brandworton. Then, as she neared the point of closest approach to the structure, she began to notice the towers and the mesh fences which enveloped its surrounding fields.

A prison! Ayleen found herself overcome with joy. All her feverish calculations for the pursuit of the work gang had been rendered irrelevant. “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain!” she shouted into the midnight air. Then she did a jacknife turn onto a dirt access road, and from there into a tarmack trail leading into the dark interior of the abandoned orchards. For safety she found it necessary to slow the car down, but her heart was now pounding faster than ever.

Yes, this was by far the best. It wasn’t her place to be the prisoner’s hostess, but rather their guest. She would have a sleepover in the prison. That was only fair, as there were probably many inmates, some of them week and infirm, who wouldn’t be able to join the work crews. She would make it easy for all of them to have casual relations with her. All she had to do was drive up to the guard house, ask for a one night pass, and she was in. Already she could see the shining lights of the perimeter sparkling through the tangle of the groves.

She stepped on the break. “Stop!” she shouted violently. “Stop Ayleen and give yourself a chance!” She was babbling to herself like an idiot but there was nothing else to do if she was to get a handle on herself. She was out in the middle of nowhere, without a psychiatrist, without Pops, without her sentencing review board. There was nobody to talk her down, or out of the situation, except Ayleen. “Do you realize what you are trying to do? You are trying to break into a prison! Not out, in! And the only reason you want to get in there is because you want to pull the train for every man in the joint! You’re a damn nympho...and it isn’t funny because before you’re satisfied, which appears to be never, you’re going to have your throat slit from ear to ear by the inevitable psychopath who prefers killing to screwing!”

Screaming at herself seemed to work because her pulse returned to normal as she broke a sweat. “And besides,” she added for good measure, “no guard is going to let some horny girl into prison anyway unless she has plenty of money for a bribe and that rules you out!”

The storm had broken, but she kept staring at the dazzling white lights shining through the trees. She shut off the ignition and a perfect silence, uninterupted even by the sawing of crickets, reigned. She wondered, “Am I really that bad?” Pops was right, there was something about the whole “nympho” alibi that rang false. She didn’t have a desire to screw every man she met...in fact, after Bill, she had deliberately and painlessly renounced sexual relationships with all of them. Even the road crew guys weren’t particularly attractive as individuals, it was something generic that they represented, something that, try as hard as she could, Ayleen couldn’t quite identify.

“Oh fuck,” she continued to give herself verbal counsel, “As usual I’ll just have to be content with not knowing what’s going on with me. That’s what makes me better than the old Ayleen, she had to get to the bottom of everything or it was a major crisis, but I can happily flow along with my feelings, wherever they may be coming from. At any rate I’m alone in my car two-hundred meters away from several hundred horny men, and Sharon isn’t around to check to see if I’m masturbating or not.”

She thougth of laying down in the back but the prospect of darkness depressed her. Instead, she just remained in the driver’s seat, staring at the dazzling white light ahead as she pulled down her jeans and squirmed her fingers into her vulva. She found herself slipping into a peculiar sort of meditative state. Yes, perhaps it wasn’t men at all, perhaps it was the prison itself. There were no words to describe its beauty, the closest Ayleen could come to the present feeling were snatches of memory from her childhood, of her parents taking her to an amusement park. It was a kind of princesses’ castle and she had cried when they had to drag her away at closing time. She wondered if there was some kind of amusement park where one didn’t have to leave, or better, where one was not permitted to leave because a ravishing beast was stationed at the gate with strict orders to devote his cruelest attentions to any princess who might dare attempt to escape.

Ayleen woke up with a start, not knowing how much time had elapsed. The sky was already beginning to brighten. For the first time in what seemed like ages she felt satisfied. Suddenly she realized in panic that the road crew vehicles would soon be lumbering down the trail towards the highway. Everything was damp with dew and sweat but she forced herself to endure the chill of her jeans and denim top for modesty’s sake. Fortunately the ignition didn’t fail and she was able to do a Y turn on the narrow trail without getting sunk in the sand of the surrounding scrub. When she had reoriented the car towards the highway she noticed a public signboard which had been invisible the previous night. Something about it caught her eye, and for several minutes she shifted back into park and allowed its message to slowly penetrate her groggy brain. Then she began to laugh hysterically, feeling the illusory chains of the road crew fall from her mental arms and legs. They had disappeared with the night, the men, their work crew, and their prison as well. They had utterly disappeared, taking with them, once and for all, the unlamented Ayleen the Nymphomaniac. She shifted back into gear taking one more ironic glance as she past the sign saying:

BRANDWARTON DISTRICT WOMANS CORRECTION FACILITY

Evidently she had spent her time fingering herself in front of a nunnery rather than a den of male predators. It was a joke, a good joke, on herself and by herself, and now she could rein in her fantasy life and get back to her world, as normal as that might be.

Twelve hours, twenty-four hours, fourty-eight hours. Ayleen, having lost a clear sense of duration couldn’t estimate the time with any sense of accuracy. She had returned directly to the trailer after having spent that early morning parked in the orchard, and proceeded to sink into a deep, long overdue sleep. Most of the time it was a refreshing, dreamless sleep, but when she surfaced to the level of dreams she no longer ardently chased images of men working on the highway. Now she was the pursued, an escaped convict chased by enraged hounds. Somehow Ayleen found that being the quarry of the hunt rather than the hunter ut her at peace with herself. She could see herself hobbling along in antiquated chains, the hounds snapping at her rear, stumbling and being overtaken by the canines, her clothes ripped off by their fangs, then waiting for their final, fatal attentions...and she would wake up.

Now when she woke up she was no longer feverish or sweaty, but found herself possessed by a glow of contentment and self-sufficiency, even as she lay naked on her bed. This cycle repeated several times, and each time she woke up she resolved to put on her clothes, get in the car, and report to work. Occasionally she got so far as to discover herself wandering about, outside the trailer. However she always found herself crawling back into bed, falling rapidly into a delicious state of unconsciousness. By her best calculations, since all she had was an unreliable clock radio which didn’t show the date, she had lost at least one, and perhaps two days of work, not counting the shift that Pops had released her from. Since she didn’t even own a telephone there was no way of contacting the Hot Biscuit and explaining her absence. What was there to explain anyway? So thought Ayleen as she drifted off one more time into the amnesiac world of sleep.

Her next awakening wasn’t gentle. The trailer was being jolted by something like an earthquake. In fright, Ayleen sat up in the bed, trying to reason through her clouded mind why she was being rocked by an earthquake in a region which was reputedly earthquake free. Another jolt cleared her mind further and made her realize that she had to evacuate the trailer before it collapsed in on her. There was no time to rescue any of her meager possessions, or even to don her clothes. Instead she snatched a white tank top from the top of her dresser, picked up a bath towel which was laying on the floor, and tied it around her waist. Not a moment too soon she flung open the screen door of the home and jumped out just as the trailer seemed to take on a life of its own and started lumbering down the access road and into the highway. It was being hauled by the cab of a diesel semi rig, a broad yellow, WIDE LOAD banner affixed to its rear.

Ayleen watched, stunned, as her home began to slowly pick up speed on the highway, receding towards the vanishing point of Route 86 in the direction of the city. Everything that she had left was in it, her wallet, the furniture, her clothes, the weights, and Bill’s picture. She tried to get angry or sad, but somehow found that it didn’t work. She still felt good, jsut as good as she had felt when she had woken up without the aid of a diesel truck. She thought that some parting comment was called for as she watched her life vanish into the horizon, but all she could think of was, “Good riddance!”

Belatedly Ayleen realized that she was standing next to the access road with her breasts exposed. Slipping on the tank top rendered her decent enough to walk the fifty yards down to her landlady’s ranch-style home, and ring the door bell.

“What do you want now?” The landlady was old, and for some reason had never been too keen even on the new, easygoing Ayleen.

“My house just got trucked off! What’s going on?”

“You said you were moving out. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to rent that thing to anyone else...it’s an eyesore. Except for prowling around at all hours of the day and night you’ve never made much trouble. But it got me to thinking, its dangerous renting to people you don’t know. I sold it to a trailer park for more than it would rent in a year.”

“I don’t remember ever having said I was going to move out.”

“Are you calling me a liar honey? ‘Cause I’ll tell you something, Ayleen Cotrelle. I don’t know much about you but I know enough. You were some sort of high-powered lawyer in the city before you had that mental breakdown or whatever it was that sent you running down here. You may be a good liar, after all that’s how they train you when you become a lawyer, but I bet that way down you don’t much take to living in a trailer next to Route 86 do you? Well, now you got your wish!”

Ayleen looked downcast, “I didn’t mean you were lying. I just said I didn’t remember saying that I was going to move. I do and say a lot of things...and then I don’t remember them later.”

“Sorry hun. I suppose I was just letting off some steam. I understand that, whatever you were in the past, you have a lot of challenges now. What is it? Did you leave some of your stuff in the trailer? I can give the trailer park your forwarding address.”

“No, it won’t be necessary. I don’t have a forwarding address for one thing. Perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve had to undergo a thorough housecleaning...or house ridding you might say. Yeah, I vaguely remember something about telling you that I intended to leave. Was I paid up on my rent?”

It was a sore temptation for the woman, realizing that Ayleen was clueless as to what had really transpired and had lost all her records, but pity won out. “Yeah hun, you’re all paid up. Best of luck.”

Ayleen walked back to where here Ford was parked. Fortunately she had recently gotten into the habit of leaving the doors unlocked and her keys in the ignition, so she was still mobile. Well Ayleen, she thought to herself, you’ve still got wheels and something to cover your tits and ass, which is enough to get yourself down to the Hot Biscuit. She wondered whether in her somnambulistic journeys she had driven anywhere, or at least deposited anything in the car. Glancing into he back seat she discovered one remaining item of property which had been rescued from the trailer. She laughed, put the car in gear, and turned onto the highway.

By the time she got down to Brandworton it was late afternoon, about the time for her shift to start. Sharon had come in early with her boyfriend and they were chatting in a booth.

“Are you going to the beach?” Sharon looked over the barefoot, towel-wrapt tank-toped Ayleen with a critical eye.

“No, I’m coming to work.”

“You’d better see Mr. Briggs.”

Pops was in his back office, and seemed both surprised and happy to see Ayleen. “Well, I understand that you won’t be staying with us at the Hot Biscuit. I’ll miss you, but I assume you have something else lined up.”

“Wait a minute? What’s going on around here? Did I really tell you that I was quitting? If so, I must have been unconcious, or sleep walking.”

“No. I havn’t seen you for three days, and you never contacted me to explain your absence. Also Sharon said that you weren’t happy working here, so she introduced one of her friends to help her on the night shift. Sharon is new head server.”

Ayleen felt dizzy and had to put her head down. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be a good sport and not mind being dumped on. Yet she could feel the old Ayleen making a comeback, calculating her prerogatives and injuries. It was the most that she could do to suppress it with a violent shaking of her head.

“Ayleen are you OK?”

“Yeah Pops. I’m fine. Do you think that I could have a glass of water?”

Pops went to the water dispenser and poured a drink for Ayleen into a paper cup. After she drank it she felt better.

“Thanks, it was the right thing to do.”

“It was just a cup of water.” Pops waived his hand depreciatively.

“No. I mean firing me. I’m unreliable. Sharon will be a much better head server.”

“Then I assume you have something lined up.”

“No. I think I’m pretty much unemployable. But don’t feel guilty pops, you’ve bent over backwards for me. And don’t worry about my future. As crazy as I am, I think that there’s something or someone watching over me this is going to wind up taking responsibility for my life. I’m turning myself over to whoever that may be.”

“That’s wonderful Ayleen,” said Pops in a soft voice, a hint of tear in his eyes, “its even better than my psychiatrist suggestion. I’ve seen faith work wonders in people’s lives...and I’m so glad that you’ve come around to that point of view.” They stood up and she reached out to hug him, then she slid out of the office. As she left Pops called out, “I don’t think you have any pay in arrears but go ahead and have whatever you want, I’ll charge it to inventory.”

On her way through the cafe Ayleen noticed that Sharon and her boyfriend were still sitting in one of the booths at the back of the Eatery, the plushly upolstered ones under Pops’ sepia pictures of baseball stars. Suddenly Ayleen thought of something wicked that she had to do to appease her former self. Just enough to let her out for a brief moment and releave the pressure, after which she could return to being her nice new self.

“You were right, I’m quiting. Mind if I join you guys? I just want to relax and be a customer for a while.”

Sharon looked nervously at her boyfiend. Neither of them were too keen on having a newly fired loose cannon sit down at their booth, but Sharon could never say anything which detracted from her image of graciousness. “Of course Ayleen. Do you want something from the kitchen.”

“Yeah, I’m starved. I think I’ve forgotten to eat for the last few days. Could you order me a New York Strip dinner?”

Ayleen spent the next half hour eating in front of them and flirting with Sharon’s boyfriend. The boyfriend did nothing to dissuade the scantily clad blond woman, even if she were five years older than he, and rumored to be a mentally unstable nymphomaniac. After dinner Ayleen ordered a chocolate cake and excused herself to get something out of the car. She returned with an object concealed behind her back, as Sharon arrived with the cake.

Sharon had been observing her ex-coworker with increasing alarm, hoping that Ayleen would not still be hanging around making small talk with her boyfriend after she was obliged to go on shift. She resolved that her best option was to make a conciliatory gesture and then get everything out in the open.

After watching her ex-senior finish the cake Sharon ventured, “Listen Ayleen, I’d like to pick up the tab on your food. Just for old times sake. I mean, I hope there’s no hard feelings.”

“Why should there be? You know me...Ayleen the good sport. But I appreciate the meal. And I have a present for you too, something for you to remember me by.”

Sharon looked relieved, “Oh you don’t need to do that.”

“But I do. I want to thank you.”

“For what?” Sharon responded graciously.

“For screwing me, that’s what.”

“What are you talking about?” Shanon did an emotional double take while her boyfriend perked up at the obcene implications of the Ayleen’s remarks.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. But don’t let it bother you. That’s the difference between you and me Sharon. I enjoy being screwed and you don’t. You’ve done me a big favor...a bigger favor than you could ever guess. The only one I feel sorry for is this poor bastard here, your boyfriend. But if you want to hold out on him, it’s your perfect right. I used to be a lawyer once and I know that rights come before everything, even love. So don’t let him screw you, and in the mean time if you get so horny that you think you’re going to give in, you can use this...” she threw the enormous dildo down on the plastic table of the booth, “...to screw yourself.”

Ayleen walked out of the cafe, every set of eyes glued to her after her performance, while Sharon broke down in tears. What a great act, thought Ayleen, marveling at her own strength. What a powerful woman the old Ayleen must have been! She would have been able to repeat that performance many, many, times in courtrooms and in legislative hearings. What had become of her? Had she just vanished from the world like some transitory form of life, like a sea animal which dies and leaves behind only its rotting shell? That was all the new Ayleen was, the rotting shell of somebody real who had passed on before. What force could have possibly vanquished that somebody, so strong and seemingly impregnable?

She headed out of the parking lot of the Hot Biscuit for the last time, trying to draw up a balance sheet in her head of pro and con, old and new. Yet, it had been fun for a moment, in the flush of victory, seeing Sharon break down in tears. But only for a moment. It was nothing compared to the limitless delights in store for someone who had learned to savor the pleasure of being a looser. She hadn’t been selling Sharon any alibi, Ayleen really loved being screwed. Now she was totally screwed. No home, no job. At least she had the car. Or did she? How would she pay for gas? And even before the gas ran out she would be illegal, since her driver’s license had been hauled away with everything else in her wallet together with the trailer.

Ayleen saw a billboard down the street: “Nolan’s Fords and Resale.” Without giving it a second thought she pulled into the lot. It was the only logical thing to do. Get rid of her wheels or get pulled over. Besides, she needed the cash. In a moment it was over, she handed the quick talking lot salesman her keys and received somewhat under two-hundred dollars for the sedan. Without pockets, she stuffed the cash into the cleavage of her tank top and headed down the side of the highway on foot.

It was a tremendous sense of liberation, owning nothing, being beholden to nobody, casting her fate to the winds. She had no place to stay and no particular destination in mind. By instinct, she started walking up Route 86 out of Brandworton, the same way she had always driven home to her trailer. She knew that there was no longer a trailer waiting for her but the scenery was comfortably familiar. Soon the malls and shops thinned out and she was able to pad her bare feet on the welcome turf of the newly mown shoulder. For that, as well as for many other things she could thank the road crew. Spanking clean! It was like walking on a golf green in bare soles rather than spikes. Somehow the association jogged her memory and she recalled her intent to shave off her pubic hairs. “Damn!” she cursed aloud ruing her failure to follow up on her intent.

Again she laughed at herself. Yes, Ayleen, you’re a bona fide, one hundred percent mental case! Here you are, she mused, a homeless vagabond wandering out of town and the topmost thing on your mind is that you need your pubic hairs shaved off. She was about to make a strenuous effort not to turn it into her latest obsession but found herself defeated in that effort by the increasing proximity of the last strip mall before Brandworton faded into the wilderness stretching away on both sides of Route 86. There was a beauty parlor at the end of the small row of shops. It would be a strange and rather embarrassing request, but she was determined to go through with it. Perhaps they would buy the idea if it was part of a total makeover. Two hundred dollars would probably cover it.

Suddenly the idea of a total makeover caught on to her imagination like fire. The long blond tresses, a trademark of the old Ayleen, deserved to go. They were the last things left to remind her of her old life. She would have something radical done to her hair, a whole new look. With excitement she dashed for the door of the beauty salon, only to realize that it was locked tight. Furiously she pounded on the door, hoping that someone would still be working inside. Then she realized that the sun was already below the line of the trees to the west, opposite the shop. It was long past business hours.

She started to become enraged, a symptom of the return of the old Ayleen, but then used her secret weapon, humor, to disarm herself, “Damn it girl, you’re just going to have to keep walking, bushy cunt and all, up that highway!” It was a rich thought, even if, aside from her thoughts she was indigent, and it kept her laughing for at least another half a mile of barefoot trekking along the neatly mown shoulder. It was wonderful, watching the scenery of the forests and groves slip by in slow motion as the now cool grass crunched under her feet. People who drove through this country in the sealed cocoons of their airconditioned vehicles didn’t know what they were missing, and walking was even better than driving in her old open sedan. There were many details to observe. A snake slithered past in the grass, and even though she was barefoot Ayleen was not afraid, everything seemed enchanted, making her immune to either harm or want.

Or so she thought. A small moving van suddenly pulled up in the shoulder ahead of her. As soon as Ayleen was abreast of the driver’s cab a man leaned out the window. “Hey, want a lift?”

A lift? She wondered where she needed a lift to, and why he was even offering. Suddenly she took stock of how she must have appeared to him. The long blond tresses, the tank top, and the towel were the only things concealing her trim body, and worst of all she had nearly two hundred dollars stuffed ostentatiously in her cleavage. He was trying to do the same thing to her that she had tried, shamefully, with the road crew! If there was one thing that both the old and the new Ayleen agreed upon it was that what goes around comes back around. It was time for her to make a stand once and for all.

“Look, I’m not a whore, and I’m not a nympho. So you can just keep driving up the highway, see?”

He gave a perplexed look. “I was just trying to be helpful. Have it your way.” He shifted back into gear and spun back onto the highway, kicking dust in Ayleen’s face.

It had been a close call, she reasoned. Now it was getting dark, the shadows of the trees were starting to stretch all the way across both shoulders and the median, as the sun prepared to extinguish itself. To Ayleen’s imagination they looked like the stripes on an old-fashioned prisoner’s uniform. Ahead she saw two boys on bicycles pedalling laboriously towards her. No doubt they were returning to their homes in Brandworton after spending too much time in the forest’s fishing holes. Ayleen was tired of looking like a whore with a wad of bills stuck between her boobs, and she had an idea for remedying the situation.

“Hey guys, would you like some money?”

The bicycles ground to a halt and the boys looked in fear and wonder at the apparition of an older, sexy woman, extracting folded currency from between her breasts.

The larger of the two got up the courage to speak. “Our folks say we’re not supposed to take money from strangers.”

Ayleen smiled, “Your folks are smart. It’s because of child molesters. But I’m smart too, or at least I used to be...I was a lawyer. Most of them are males, it rarely happens that an older woman bribes young boys. I just want you to have the money, no favors asked in return. I’ll just keep walking up this road...you’ll never see me again.”

She divided the money, handed it over and walked away as they shouted their thanks, mounted their bikes and resumed their journey home. Now twilight had fallen and Ayleen began to wonder where she would spend the night, with no home and no money. Ahead on her left she saw a glistening white complex of buildings. It was the prison. She was still only about a third of the way back to where her now empty trailer lot was. There was no use in asking her ex-landlady to put her up in a room. Furthermore she had either lost or enmitized all her friends, family, and relatives who lived in the region, or for that matter outside of it. Even if that had not been the case, there was no means of contacting them.

There was something overpowering and compelling about the prison. As she approached it, the amusement park like brilliance of its lighted grounds seared into her eyes, making them water. She was crying, not from sadness but from joy at seeing something so indescribably beautiful. It was an enchanted realm that she was forbidden to enter. Indeed, it would have been worth while committing some crime just to be permitted to pass through its well lighted portals. Suddenly the thought of another missed opportunity intruded into her consciousness, something far worse than forgetting to shave her mon venus. Why, instead of selling her soul for less than two hundred dollars, hadn’t she just wrecked the car? That would have at least guaranteed her a room in a jail or a hospital. But even that would have been temporary, nothing like the generous abode for convicts.

Then she had an idea. She would sleep in the orchards between the highway and the prison, curling up on the very spot where she had parked in her now surrendered car a few nights before. It would be so much better under the stars without any protection what so ever. She would be able to gaze at the white walls and grounds, gradually drifting off into that delicious dream-filled sleep which she had experienced first in the front seat of her car.

Now she could see the lights glistening through the trees and she searched for a place to lie down. There was something triangular and white on the ground. She picked it up and smiled. It was a pair of discarded panty briefs. Somebody had passed this way before, somebody had dreamed the same dreams! For the first time Ayleen had a small ray of hope that she had not gone completely insane after the trial, that there was some rhyme and reason in her eccentric behavior, that perhaps it was all part of some imperceptible plan.

Emboldened to imitation Ayleen stripped off the tanktop and undid the towel, letting it fall to her ankles, as she proceeded on toward the glittering lights. At last she had attained total divestiture, owning nothing more than her body. She continued to approach the prison, still looking for a place to bed down in the orchard for the night, but no spot looked particularly choice. The balmy summer night didn’t make her regret the loss of her clothes, her only concern now was winding a place where she could lay down and begin to pleasure herself. Her hypothesis was proving itself correct: It wasn’t the convicts at all, it was the prison itself which was the source of her arousal. Every step she took towards the brilliant edifice her heart pounded more rapidly. It was drawing her onward, but she had to find a place which was still protected by the arbors of the grove, where she could lay down and enjoy herself without being observed by the guards.

She started to panic, realizing that she was reaching the border of the trees and approaching the well lit clearing around the walls. A few more steps and she would be within the observation of the guards, a naked intruder. What could she do to talk herself out of it, to remain within the safety of the grove?

“Ayleen!” she addressed herself, “You’re like a moth being drawn to a light!”

Evidently that wasn’t the right thing to say, or her unconscious mind simply wasn’t listening, for her feet continued to plod relentlessly along, past the last line of trees and into the glare of the cleared perimeter. Now her body, white and glistening with the sweat of her excitement, was on view to anybody who might be on duty in the guard towers. Ayleen expected that at any moment there would be a wailing of sirens and the barking of hounds, but nothing happened, a silence reigned at the prison’s perimeter as deep and profound as that within the orchard.

Ayleen was sure that if such pandemonium had broken out she would have turned and run back for the cover of the trees, but the silence gave her courage, and she continued her steady progress towards the barbed wire fence which demarcated the prison’s limits. She found herself being glad for the barrier, because she no longer had the will to arrest her movement toward the brilliant edifice. Nothing like a little barbed wire, she thought, to bring me back to reality! Then she noticed a small rectangle at the bottom of the fence. It was a small gate, no doubt intended for the passage of guard dogs, and it was shut.

As Ayleen walked up to the fence she veered off in the direction of the small gate. It would be locked, she reasoned, but it would be interesting just to test it and make sure. As she came closer Ayleen was surprised to see that it had no lock, just a U shaped fastener as on a playground gate. Now she started to panic in earnest. If it was possible to squeeze through that gate she would probably try to attempt it, and then she would actually be inside the prison. True enough, the fastener lifted, and the gate, built for a large dog was ample enough for a fit naked woman of average build to squeeze through.

Having contorted herself and managed to pass under the wire fence she stood up. She was hot, directly underneath the floodlights which doted the perimeter at regular intervals, so hot that it was starting to evaporate the sweat which had slickened every inch of her nude body. Or was it just the spotlights? Her heart was pounding feverishly, overcome by feelings of mingled fear and excitement unleashed by finding herself on the inside of the fence. What brave new world was this, she wondered, realizing that her rational mind could supply no answer. It would only be discovered by weaving her way deeper into the labyrinth which she had now breached, to satisfy the curiosity of an instinct which she was no longer capable of restraining.