The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The tall woman stood on the balcony under the arched silvery canopy, slowly sipping her coffee, breathing in the liquid’s dark flavor. Outside the canopy, it was finally spring again; the sky was blue and the sun was coming up yellow and bright. The trees were touched with the first tinges of green. Birds twittered overhead.

The balding man came out of the house, out of the bedroom, to stand beside and behind her, placing a meaty hand on her shoulder. She turned to him in a smooth spiral of long blonde hair and smiled, setting the bone-white cup down on the nearby iron table. He looked into her smile. His black eyes narrowed and he spoke with a genuine concern that did not match his hard, craggy features.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, of course not, darling.” She leaned into him and kissed him, gently swirling her tongue inside his mouth. He finally pulled away with equal gentleness.

“You’re sure? If you’re not feeling well...”

“I feel fine.” There was a new sound, and they both turned their heads, her hands still resting lightly on his broad chest. A streamlined shape was buzzing through the sky towards them, racing along above both the trees and the scattered roofs and antennas which poked up among them. “Here comes your ride. You don’t want to be late.” She straightened his narrow black tie, smoothed what was left of his hair, made sure his suit hung properly, the actions of a million wives down through history. “You have your briefcase?”

“It’s downstairs. I’ll see you later.”

“Of course.”

He moved to go, paused to give her one last glance, and finally departed, his polished black shoes clicking on the wooden floorboards.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“I... I don’t like to bother you with my problems, Doctor.”

“Don’t be silly, Nadine. That is why I am here. To help you with your problems. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ve been having dreams, Doctor. They... distract me.”

“Disturbing dreams?”

“No... Just strange... Well... maybe a little disturbing...”

“Come here, Nadine. Come here, and tell me about your dreams. In order.”

She remained on the balcony, finishing her coffee, down to the last drop. As she did this the sleek helicopter came in over the last row of trees and then the house fence, low now, casting its twirling shadow across the wide swath of meticulously-tended grounds. Dipping down, the machine came to rest on the helipad, a black armored dragonfly gracefully lighting for a moment on a concrete lily-pad in the middle of a smooth green pond. A bulky figure in equally black bodyarmor hopped out with cybernetic grace, the visor of his (or her) helmet glittering harshly in the morning light. The only spot of color, in fact the only adornment of any kind, on the armor was a small patch mounted on one shoulder, something vaguely triangular, tinted red, white and blue. In one hand, s/he held a large rifle, an overtly wicked thing that was somehow simultaneously smooth and spiky. In the other gauntlet was clutched a long pointed silver object. toting these two burdens, the soldier double-timed up the white stone path, crossing the knife-edge into the house’s long morning shadow.

Her husband and his metal briefcase appeared beneath her, emerging from the first-floor door. The soldier snapped off a salute (earning a distracted nod) and then flicked the wrist which was attached to the silver object. The thing uncrumpled and expanded in a complex fashion above the two of them, the support struts clicking into place with surgical precision. The resulting object appeared ready to withstand a direct meteorite strike, as opposed to mere rain and wind. They marched back to the helicopter in the umbrella’s shade. Behind her raised cup, the woman on the balcony flashed a small resigned smile, seeing the chop from the machine’s black spinning blades scramble her husband’s tie and hair again. Ah well... he had people at the other end of his trip to help him with such things. Or so she supposed.

They reached the helicopter, where he turned and waved up to her. She waved back, and then he and the soldier and the umbrella were gone, up into the sky, off to the west and the city. Out of her life for another eight, ten, twelve hours.

She remained in her place and watched the helicopter until it had dwindled away to a dot, to nothing. Only then did she again put down the empty cup and drift back inside the bedroom, the tall glass doors silently sliding themselves shut behind her and white-frosting to opaqueness. The radio was droning beside the wide bed and she listened to its smoothly synthetic voice for a moment.

“...were taken into protective custody. In other news, the Administration announced today that government troops have scored a resounding victory against the terrorist rebel forces on the Minneapolis front. At this hour, the rebels are in full retreat, and a major breakthrough across the entire front is expected within...”

“Radio, shutdown.” The device obediently clicked to silence at her words.

The maid, a pretty dark-skinned woman with kinky black hair, stood beside the bed, her slender form at attention. The wife spoke, absently slipping out of her long silken robe and letting it fall carelessly to the floor as she did so.

“Amelia. I’ll be going out shortly. Have George bring the car around at once.”

The maid gave a silent curtsy and vanished, seeming to dematerialize from the room. The wife turned and walked to the wide clothes closet, the doors of which opened and unfolded themselves as she approached.

“In my first dream... I’m giving a speech.”

“To whom?”

“I... I’m not sure, Doctor. Nobody I know... but in the dream, they are familiar to me, some of them. Many of them. I recognize their faces.”

“What is the subject of your speech, Nadine?”

“It’s strange. While I’m giving it in the dream... it all seems so clear. So critical and life-consuming. But after I wake up... it’s like I’ve been talking about... I don’t know... ducks or something.”

“Ducks?”

“Not literally ducks. Just... something. Something real, yes, something true, but still ultimately utterly unimportant in the scheme of things. So unimportant, the moment I open my eyes, I’ve already forgotten what it was. And I lay there in my bed under the covers and I wonder why, in the dream, it all seemed to be so different.”

“What kind of room are you giving the speech in?”

“A meeting room. An assembly hall. But there’s something wrong with the lights, and it’s mostly dark. And cold. And sort of rundown and shabby. We’re all bundled up, me and the audience.”

“And that’s all there is? To the first dream?”

“Mostly. Except it always ends the same way. I’m standing up there speaking, and suddenly, there’s this disturbance at the back of crowd. A man comes forward, pushing his way through to the front. He’s one of the ones I recognize. I feel something towards him. And he says... something... and it surprises me. Terrifies me. It terrifies everyone, and we start to scatter. There’s a loud noise and bright light, and I wake up. Or maybe just start the next dream...”

The limousine was long, low and sleek, crouching on the weedless white stones of the curved driveway, a silver-gray bulletproof panther waiting to spring. She came down the steps from the towering front doors, the bottom edges of her long tan overcoat swirling a tasteful counterpoint to her smooth silky hair. Amelia scurried alongside, holding a somewhat more genteel version to the soldier’s umbrella over them. The chauffeur was waiting by the car, holding the door open for her, his face expressionless beneath his black cap and behind his matching wrap-around glasses. The wife disappeared into the blue leather-lined interior without a word and he closed the heavy door, which sealed shut with the hissing grace of an airlock. Amelia loped back up the steps like a two-legged gazelle while the chauffeur got into the front seat, closing his own door. The sounds of the outside world cut off.

The intercom button clicked under the blonde’s gloved finger.

“The clinic, George.”

She clicked off, not waiting for a reply.

The car pulled away with a satisfied purr, the crunch of the solid wheels on the gravel much louder than the sound made by the engine. The upper floors of the sprawling house reluctantly sank out of sight behind the half-bare trees, the last thing to vanish from view being the complex array of silvery antennas and atmospheric sifters mounted on the roof.

“Describe your next dream, Nadine.”

“There’s a woman, Doctor.”

“Describe her.”

“She’s Japanese. Rather petite, with small breasts. Very pretty, with a short helmet of shiny black hair. Her name is Melinda.”

“What is Melinda doing?”

“She’s sitting in a big chair. In a large white room.”

“Tell me why this is disturbing.”

“She’s... she’s just sitting there. She’s sitting there naked in the big metal chair. The chair has wide arms, but she’s sitting with both her hands lying loose in her lap. And they are doing things to her.”

“’They’? Who are doing things to her?”

“The others. The ones in the white uniforms and the masks.”

“Tell me about them.”

The driveway passed through the house fence via a spiky wrought-iron gate and opened out onto a two-lane roadway, a crisp black and white strip which curved its leisurely unmarked way through the tall trees, past the other large houses with their own gates and driveways. All of the gates were closed, a series of snarling black mouths. Once another gray limousine went by in the opposite direction, its occupant or occupants invisible behind heavily tinted windows. Other than that, there was no traffic on the road. Occasionally, another black helicopter was visible up in the sky, at this hour most of them heading west into the city like the first.

They passed around a final bend and new buildings came into view, a collection of small tasteful shops and discrete offices and soaring churches all nestled among more trees and clumps of surveillance cameras and genteelly-sprinkling fountains. One of the largest of these structures stood off by itself on a low hill overlooking the rest, a multistoried white building featuring very few windows. More of the helicopters came and went from the staggered levels of the roof. Like her home, like many of the buildings, its roof also featured silvery antennas, some of which were visibly moving, tasting the morning air. From a pole on the top of the tallest roof, a large flag flapped fitfully in the breeze, red, white, blue in a triangle. The entire structure was surrounded by a double set of tall chain-link fences, both topped with elaborately twining coils of razorwire. Large black dogs roamed between the fences and bristling guard towers spouted along the perimeter at regular intervals. In front of the outer fence and to one side of the gate stood a white stone rectangle carefully mounted on one of its longer sides. Normally, of course, such a stone would be labeled with the name of whatever corporation or agency owned the building. This one, however, was smooth and quite blank, its color actually more-than-white, the multi-color of sparkling sunlit snow.

In the back of the limo, the tall woman smiled, feeling the delicious warm dampness begin to form between her legs.

“There are three of them. They all wear long gowns and masks. They never talk to her, just to each other. Like Melinda isn’t even there, or like she’s just part of the machinery.”

“What machinery is that, Nadine?”

“They have... something... attached to her neck, to the side of her skull, and it has several cables leading off it, back to a bank of computers and other devices which I don’t recognize.”

“Describe them. The machines.”

“They make me sick to my stomach when I look at them; they are covered with narrow tubes full of ugly bubbling liquids. The thing attached to Melinda is made of fiber optics and soft sticky pads and shining... shining wires. And somehow I know that it’s doing something to her. It’s rooting around inside of her, taking things out of her mind. Putting new things in. One piece at a time. When its done, she’ll be dead. No. Not dead. Gone. Melinda will be gone, and someone different, using her name, will have taken her place inside her head, someone who represents everything she loathes and despises. And she knows this. All of this. And she’s just sitting there, staring straight ahead without hardly blinking. Because they’ve already gotten to her. She can’t do anything but just sit there and watch herself be changed...”

“Hmm. I see. But I have a feeling, Nadine, if you look inside your own mind, deep inside, you’ll see that’s not what really disturbing about this particular dream. Am I right?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Tell me.”

“The disturbing thing is... I’m in the dream, too.”

The matched black spiky gates rolled themselves back for the limo, the resemblance to a mouth continuing, even though the ‘teeth’ were moving sideways. The limo went down the throat between the gates and onto the grounds of the white building. It pulled to a halt in the wide circular drive in front, under the narrow silver awning which stuck out from over the glass double doors. Off to one side a low-slung robot mower could be seen trundling along the already ruthlessly-clipped grass between the colored bends of the flower beds. Back out in the driveway, the tall driver hopped out of the limo and briskly marched around to open the car door. From all sides, numerous ugly-snouted cameras mounted high on thin silver poles pivoted to watch him, following his every move.

The wife emerged as the door opened, and the cameras switched their gaze to her. She wordlessly entered the building, the glass doors opening themselves for her. The driver whisked the car away around the side of the building to the waiting garage and the ministrations of its blandly smiling attendants, disappearing from the scene like the maid before him. The gray mower swung around and started back across the lawn. Having nothing else to watch, some of the cameras tacked after it.

“And what are you doing in the dream, Nadine?”

“I’m standing there in the white room, naked. And I know Melinda, we are close friends. That’s how I know her name. I even remember for a moment that she was one of the people listening to my speech. And we’d both rather die than let this happen to us. We swore to each other that we would never let this happen. And... and...”

“Go on.”

“I just stand there. I just stand there, my naked pussy shaved and dripping, and I watch them change my friend into a monster. I just stand there quietly, knowing that when they’re done working on her, they’re going to put me in the chair. No. I’m going to walk over there and put myself in the chair, feel Melinda’s warmth, her juice staining the chair’s cover. Feel those... things touching the side of my face. Touching the inside of my face. Because they’ve gotten to me, too. They’ll put me the chair, and my friend Melinda will just stand where I am standing and watch them change me.”

“But do you have any dreams about actually being in the chair?”

“No, Doctor. None at all. All I ever do is stand there and watch Melinda and get hotter and wetter. Then there’s nothing more. It’s the last dream.”

Beyond the doors was a wide white lobby, with elegant arching walls. A wide black marble desk stood in the center of the space, but it was unmanned. Large plants flourished in various corners, illuminated by the heavily polarized sunlight which streamed in from somewhere high overhead. More cameras swiveled and pointed, accompanied now by tracking autoguns. Two more anonymous black-armored figures stood at attention on either side of the bank of elevators which lined the far wall. The elevator doors all stood open, and without breaking stride she breezed into one of the cars. She said nothing, touched nothing, but the doors swished closed and the elevator began to move. There was a keypad and a fingerprint scanner mounted on one bare wall, but no indication which floors were going by, whether the car was going up or down.

The car stopped and opened to reveal a seemingly endless corridor, whose length was methodically lined with windowless metal doors, each marked with a short set of terse black numbers. As she stepped out onto the spotless white carpet, the only sound was efficient twin hums of the air conditioning and the biostrainers. No one else was visible, but there was a subdued sense of purposeful movement all around her, behind the doors and walls. And there were eyes everywhere, eyes that never blinked, watching her as she strode down the hall.

She arrived at a particular door. Slashed across it at eye level was the black number ‘4223’. Like all the other doors and gates before it, it tasted her shape and essence, approved and opened itself for her. She passed through.

Beyond was a single white room, the floor lined with more of the carpet. Most of the walls were covered with unpleasant machinery, tubes filled with gurgling toxic green and yellow and blue sludge. In the exact middle of the room, next to a large bank of monitors and under a golden heatlamp, sat a large metal chair. Something was mounted on the chair back, hanging from a swiveling arm and trailing wires, resembling a gutted corpse swinging on a gallows.

“Are you sure that’s the last dream, Nadine?”

“I... Now that you... Maybe there is one more, Doctor. It’s very vague. I just see... a series of images. I’m not there. Nothing is there. It’s just these things, with nothing to connect them to, holes waiting for... Someone has to...”

“List the images.”

“I see... a bottomless rose. I see... a dancing flame. I see... black water flowing. I see... a burning eye on a pyramid... and... and...”

“There’s one more image, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“You see... a shining silver wire.”

“...yes... wire...” A pause. “Doctor?”

“Yes, Nadine?”

“ ...how... how did you know?”

“Because I’ve seen cases exactly like yours, Nadine. Many times. Other women with afflictions like yourself, who came here to be cured. To learn their place in the grand scheme of things. And sometimes, even after treatment, there are lingering subconscious doubts. But those doubts can be erased. Erased forever. And that is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Doctor. More than anything. Please tell me my place.”

Apart from herself, the chair and the machinery, the room was empty. Another of the black cameras lurked high up in one corner, staring at the chair with the red unwinking eye of an idiot. The blonde woman walked across to a row of tall narrow cabinets which methodically lined one wall. One of these swished open, and she stashed her coat inside. The long formfitting robe under the coat matched the color of the room.

She had put on the thin slick white gloves before leaving the house, and they fit against her like a second skin. She carefully adjusted them again, smoothing away the wrinkles, smoothing them to perfection.

From a shelf in the cabinet came the curving mask, very white, the sparkling white of sunlit snow. It molded itself against her forehead and high cheekbones, and she brushed it, brushed away the even the slightest of wrinkles.

“Very well, Nadine. I will help you now. Help you to find your place. Just listen to my voice. Relax, and insert the key of the bottomless rose.”

“Ohhh...”

“Do you see the bottomless rose, Nadine?”

“Yes, Doctor. I see it fully. The door is open wide.”

“Do you understand its significance now?”

“Yesss... Doctor...”

“Good. Very good. Go through the door. Down into the rose. Feel it touch you, brush against you. Touch your skin. Touch your mind.”

“uuuhh...”

“Yes. That’s right. Let the rose spin against you, washing away your fears, your concerns, you worries and cares. Watch it wash away the dreams. Watch the dreams float and spin away into the darkness, never to return.”

“Never... to...”

“Yes. Soon you will go back to your room, back to your bed and you will sleep, sleep forever without dreams. All of the doors will once again be locked. locked to you, locked to everyone. You will sleep until you are awakened.”

“yes... Doctor...”

“Deeper... deeper into the rose...”

“...”

“And when you are awakened, you will know your purpose. You will know your place. You will be in your place.”

The mask clicked into place, covering all of her face except for her mouth and proud flawless chin, she turned on one pointed heel and glided to the chair, moving as if gliding on razor-sharp skates across a flawless sheet of ice. She sat down in the chair, not settling back into its inviting padded warmth, but remaining sternly upright, her long white-booted legs crossed in a regal fashion. She casually draped her arms over the arms of the chair, and she waited, smiling slightly behind the mask.

Snap.

“Wake up, Nadine.”

“Oh! Oh, I’m very sorry, Doctor! I must have dozed off there for a moment. I’m...” A wide yawn. “I’m suddenly very sleepy. What were we just talking about?”

“Nothing important. We are through here for now. Run along back to your room. Maybe take a little nap.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

A departure.

“Oh... Nadine?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

A turning back.

“Perhaps there is one more thing, before you go...”

Time passed, unmeasured by clocks, and then the door to the room opened itself again and another woman stepped inside. She was shorter than the woman in the chair, with healthy brown skin and a spill of curly chestnut hair which reached down to between her shoulder blades. She walked like a young fawn entering an unfamiliar forest clearing for the first time, nervous placing her bare feet one before the other, her brown eyes wide and slightly darting. Seeing the other woman, she came to a abrupt halt, aligned her legs and dropped her gaze to the carpet, fiddling with the bottom edge of her unadorned one-piece gray gown. She spoke softly.

“Good morning, Doctor.”

The blonde woman’s smile grew wider and she rose to her feet.

“Good morning, Nadine.” Her smile faded a little, and she continued, her eyes narrowed now to blue slits behind the mask. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Nadine’s head dropped a little lower. “I... I don’t like to bother you with my problems, Doctor.” The words were almost a whisper.

“Don’t be silly, Nadine. That is why I am here. To help you with your problems. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ve been having dreams, Doctor. They... distract me.” More twisting of her gown.

“Disturbing dreams?”

“No... Just strange... Well...” A small swallow... “...maybe a little disturbing...”

“Come here, Nadine. Come here, and tell me about your dreams. In order.”

Nadine made a small noise, somewhere between a gasp and a moan. In one quick motion she pulled off her gown and discarded it to the floor, her pointed breasts bouncing free. She padded to the chair, and sank back into it, surrendering completely to the encircling warmth.

Another door slid open and two new mask-clad figures appeared, but the Doctor absently waved them back out of the room with a flick of a gloved hand. With her other hand, she deftly swung the swivel-arm device into place against the side of Nadine’s skull. The numerous suckers kissed her tan skin wetly, a rapist’s kiss. The silver wires gleamed as they clicked down, squirming into position. The woman in the chair twitched, and began to speak, staring straight ahead, seeing something that existed only inside her head. The Doctor began stroking her hair, soothingly.

“In my first dream... I’m giving a speech...”

“Look here, Nadine.”

The Doctor pointed with a slim white remote and pushed a button on its side. The room darkened a little, a wide screen lighting up across one of the walls. The scene which was thus displayed was rather jumpy and shot at an odd angle, as if the cameraman had been covertly shooting from his or her hip. In the center of the shot was a slender, brown-haired woman standing at a podium in a semi-darkened room. A battered-looking but obviously functional rifle leaned against the podium, within easy grasping range. The woman was bundled up in rather scruffy clothes, and her breath showed white as she spoke. And she spoke with passion, punctuating her words with her gloved hands’ emphatic gestures. Under her gray woolen hat, her brown eyes burned. The Doctor spoke.

“Does this scene seem at all familiar to you, Nadine?”

Nadine stepped a little closer and stared, tentatively reaching up a little with one bare hand as if to touch the screen. Finally she dropped the hand and shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. It doesn’t.” She turned, her eyes wide and a little more fearful. “Should it? Have I been lax in my training?”

“No, Nadine. You have been doing very well. Now listen to what that woman is saying.”

Another button pushed. Sound swelled and Nadine’s head pivoted back towards the screen.

“...we must show the Administration that we are no longer a nation of sheep to be herded and corralled! We must show it that we are not a nation of numbers, to be sorted and catalogued and filed away in some dusty vault! The Administration is a cancer, a disease, on the face of this world, a vicious tyrannical slap against everything this country once stood for. None of us in this room, in this city, in this land, must rest until its corruption and rot is brought crashing down, expunged from the face of the planet like the virus that it is! Like those Out West before us, we must go forth from this place and—”

Push. The sound dropped away.

“What is your opinion of what she is saying, Nadine?”

“She’s telling lies. Vicious, treasonous lies.” Nadine’s voice was cold, filled with ice. No fear now. She still stared at the gesticulating figure on the screen as she spoke, her hands suddenly clenched. “She should be taken by the Administration and punished. Punished severely.”

“Yes. Thank you, Nadine. That will be all. You may return to your room.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Nadine turned to go, stopped, turned back with eyes once again wide with a new sort of fear, a child seeking reassurance from a parent. “Doctor?”

“Yes, Nadine?” Tolerant.

“She will be punished, won’t she, Doctor? For saying those things?”

“Yes, Nadine. She will be punished in the most perfect and profound way possible. She will be put firmly in her place. Now run along.”

Nadine smiled widely and left, automatically scooping up her gown and wiggling back into it as she did so. The Doctor studied the woman on the screen for a moment, then turned her off, put her back in the datavault from which she had been pulled. The lights came back up. She frowned, drumming the fingers of her free hand on the back of the chair. Time passed.

Then the screen abruptly lit up again, and she turned to face it with surprise.

“Hello, Vivian.” The balding man frowned out of the screen at her as he spoke. Behind him stretched a drab tan wall, featuring the symbol of the Administration writ large, the circle filled with the unblinking eye atop the pyramid. Red, white and blue.

“Darling! Hello!” She smiled and stepped around the chair, slotting the remote into a waiting hole. “Is something—”

“You were lying to me at the house, weren’t you, Vivian? Something is wrong.”

“No, Edgar, really...”

“Don’t lie to me, Vivian. Tell me everything.”

At the words, she crumpled back into the chair, her strings cut. Her own words came pouring out. “I... I hate so much to bother you with my petty little problems. You and the others in the Administration... you already have so much to worry about. Those filthy rebels. Everything that’s happening Out West...”

His head tilted slightly to one side.

“Don’t be silly. That’s why I called you as soon as I got in. That’s why people get married. To help each other with their problems. To share their burdens together. Now then. Tell me what’s wrong.”

She sagged further back into the chair, surrendering to the warmth.

“I... I’ve been having dreams.”

“Tell me about them.”

“It’s actually just a single dream, but it’s all tangled up... In it... I’m a scientist... a doctor...”

A slight quirk of a smile.

“That’s what you are now, dearest.”

“Yes... but this is different. Somehow. I’m working in a lab, at a bench. Doing something with tools and probes. I wear these stupid fussy little glasses, and have my hair all tied up in a tight ugly bun. Then I look down at my bench. And it’s suddenly just... there. Like it assembled itself and I had nothing at all to do with it.”

“What is there?”

“It’s this thing. Ugly. Squat. Crude. A sort of box, sitting on the bench. Filled with circuit boards and fiber optics and thousands of shining silver wires, looking like a smile made out of live maggots. And before I can do anything...” She ripped off the mask and discarded it.

“Yes?”

“It’s been attached to my head, like a giant leech.” Her hand rose up of its own accord, swinging the device into place against her own skull. Pads. Wires. Squirming kisses deep under the skin. “It’s inside my head, sticking in its wires, making my pussy dampen and burn, making my breasts hot and... swollen.” She arched a little in the chair, stroking the pieces of anatomy that she had just named. She settled down, both of her gloved hands still resting on her fine breasts. “It’s rewriting my thoughts. Even though I somehow created it... helped to create it... I can’t stop it from changing me. Changing me into exactly what it wants me to be.”

“I see.”

“But you don’t see!” Her hands started caressing, kneeding, again. “That’s not the worst part of the dream! Once the device is done with me, once the black-suited phantoms who now own the device are done with me, I start doing it to other people! Other women are brought to me, and I... I stick the shining wires inside their heads, and change them into monsters! And I love doing it. It’s... it’s a total perversion of everything I’ve ever believed in, everything I’ve ever done! In real life, I help other women! I help them see the truth about the Administration! About their place in it, and their place in its future... So why do I have these dreams?” Pleading. “That’s what’s been worrying me. Could... could the terrorists, or someone Out West, be beaming them into my brain somehow? Trying to turn me against my country? Against you, against my own husband?” Her hands roamed frantically.

“Vivian. Listen to me.” His image leaned forward, staring with black-eyed intensity.

“Y-yes, Edgar?” Her hands froze again.

“You’re worrying over nothing. Tell me, some of your patients, they have similar dreams, don’t they, before you and the others there at the Clinic cure them?”

“Yes. Many of them. Are... are you saying I need to be cured?” One hand reached up again, made an automatic adjustment to the device. Lights flashed in a new pattern.

“No, Vivian. You’re cured. Completely cured. You’ve been cured for years and years. You know that.”

“Yes.” Flash flash flash. Kiss. Twist. Jab. “I have been cured for years. I know that.”

“You’re just being a conscientious doctor, projecting your patients’ problems onto yourself. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s nothing to worry about.” One of her hands dipped between her legs, pressing against the fabric of her robe, and they both continued to kneed and caress and probe, but slowly now, gentle and languorous.

“That’s right, Vivian. And further, I’m going to promise you something. When you get home tonight, and go to sleep, you will sleep without dreams. And when you wake in the morning, safe and warm in our bed, with me at your side, all of those dreams will be gone again. And this time, gone forever.”

“Forever.” She reached out to him with both hands, the tears running down her face. The shining silver wires shifted and coiled around her brain.

“And this time, you will be forever put in your place.”

“My place. My... place!” She screamed the words, screamed them in ecstasy. “MY PLACE!”

And then the screen was dark once again, and Doctor Vivian Henderson pushed back the device, recovered her mask from the floor and got back to work. There were so many more women, and so many more places.