The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Tarri sat in a lounge chair and looked out at the ocean.

She was wearing a t-shirt with the words “And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead”, which she had found in the closet of the room she woke up in, along with jeans and a white bra and panties, all in her size. The room had a bed with a burgundy floral spread, and a dresser, and a large television. It also had a balcony, on which was the lounge chair that Tarri now occupied.

The ocean was pretty, the weather mild and dry. To either side, low beachfront buildings stretched away; there were golden grassy hills behind them, and what looked like a freeway stretching down the coast. Down beneath her, people walked along the beach in ones and twos. Some young men in wetsuits were out in the water on surfboards. California, somewhere. Tarri had never been there.

Her head hurt, vaguely, and there was a sore spot at the top of her throat from sleeping with her mouth open. Other than that, she felt fine, rested. The breeze off the ocean was balmy on her skin. She clicked her tongue stud around the inside of her teeth. Apparently a pierced tongue appealed to Mistresses the world over; the stud had been on the bedside table when she woke, and her tongue had not healed closed.

During... however long she had been out.

Someone knocked at the door.

Tarri looked back into the room—it looked so much like a hotel room, maybe it was—and then down off the balcony. She was on the third floor, it would not be hard to climb and drop and run away.

To where?

The doorknob turned, and a woman stuck her head in. Asian, glasses, young. She saw Tarri on the balcony.

“Ah,” she said, “you are awake. Good. Mistress Snowdon is interested in speaking with you. I shall inform her.”

The woman entered the room and she was not in lingerie or naked or in a plastic bikini; she was in a robin’s egg blue shirt and faded jeans. She smiled at Tarri and sat down on the unmade bed.

“Miss Gerarde is awake,” the woman said, and Tarri saw that she had a headset on, a thin plastic tube in front of her mouth. She looked back at Tarri, smiled again.

“Is there anything I can get you? Something to eat, drink?” Then her eyes went distant for a moment, and she nodded slowly.

Self returned to the woman’s eyes. “Mistress Snowdon will be here in a moment to speak with you,” she announced. “Would you please come with me?” She bounced up off the bed.

Tarri just stared.

“Miss Gerarde?” the girl asked. “Come with me please.” She walked to the door.

She could stand there like a stringless puppet, or follow the woman out of the room. Or leap off the balcony, but that was... for cowards.

“Sure,” Tarri managed, surprised at the sound of her voice, and followed the woman out of the room.

The hallway outside was very much like a hotel corridor, lots of doors and brown carpeting. The doors even had numbers on them. At the end of the hall, however, the hall opened into a large, round, two-story room, with a marble staircase making a curving sweep downward. The woman in jeans smiled at Tarri and slid her hand along the ornate black metal banister as she descended. Tarri continued to follow her.

The floor at the bottom was marble, and Tarri saw the the Asian woman was in heels as she clicked across the floor. Tarri was in sandals; like the t-shirt, and the pants and underclothes, she had found them in the room. They fit perfectly.

She followed through an archway and into a sitting room from a Dickens novel. Large, leather-bound chairs, marble-topped end tables, bronze lamps. Walls lined with books. A globe. Incongruously, a huge oil painting on one wall depicted the construction of the pyramids.

“Please,” the woman said, “wait here. Mistress will be here very soon. Did you want a drink? Or something to eat?”

Tarri looked at the woman’s white, happy smile. “I... uh. A drink would be nice.”

“Great! Diet Coke okay?”

“Sure.”

The woman’s smile flashed wider, then she left the same way they had come in.

Tarri looked at the painting. Bronze-skinned men in white kilts brandished bronze tools, hauled on ropes. The meander of the Nile, lined with green, stretched into the distance.

“Remind you of anyplace?”

The voice was clear, commanding, and Tarri knew as she turned who it must belong to.

Mistress Snowdon was... elegant. Dark hair in an elaborate coiffure, red lips, alabaster skin. Like a black and white movie star, if such a movie star were to wear Capri pants and a halter top.

“Mistress... Snowdon?”

“I am,” she replied. She crossed from the elaborate moulding of the archway to one of the leather chairs, seating herself to face Tarri and the painting behind her. Her eyes were blue, dark ocean blue, compelling.

Slowly, Tarri approached, and sat down in the neighboring chair. Between them was a small table adorned with a lamp whose base was a bronze nymph.

“I... thank you,” Tarri said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Can I ask...?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Tarri’s thoughts were whirling around. Rather than grab the first one and blurt it out, she tried to collect them, organize them, put them in some sort of order. Snowdon just watched her, inscrutable.

Tarri leaned forward. “Why?”

Snowdon smiled. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Why... deprogram me? Rescue me?”

Snowdon looked thoughtful. “Because there is a difference between loyalty and obedience, Miss Gerarde. Obedience is mandatory, but loyalty... loyalty is ineffably valuable.”

Tarri frowned. “But... I’m not...”

“I’m not referring to your loyalty, Miss Gerarde.”

Of course. “Marion.”

“Courser Five.”

“But. Didn’t you- don’t you kidnap? Brainwash?”

“Oh yes. It would be a mistake on your part to assume that I am the good guy. I have my own residences, my own hives of mindless lingerie-clad slaves. Had I wanted you, or your friend Deborah, I would have kidnapped and brainwashed you just as she did.”

Tarri blinked. “You know about Deb?”

“I know everything that you know, Miss Gerarde. While you were being deprogrammed you told us absolutely everything about yourself and your experiences. We recorded it all.”

Tarri sagged into the chair. She looked across the room, at another pair of chairs flanking another lamp on a table. At the bookcase behind them.

“Well,” she finally said. “I guess there’s no point in asking if you have any questions for me.”

Snowdon chuckled. “Indeed. Five observed that you’re a resilient one.”

“Is she here?”

“Yes, and there will be time. But you have more questions.”

“So what—what now?”

“That’s up to you.”

“You’re not going to wipe me and put me in your hive of mindless lingerie-clad slaves?”

“I would already have done so.”

“So you don’t have a plan for me?”

“Five asked that I restore you, Miss Gerarde. I have done so, or as near as possible. If I had a plan for you, I would have embarked upon it. What we are discussing now is what you would like to do next.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Not without being immediately scooped up again.”

“Can I just leave? Walk out of here?”

“Yes.”

Tarri stopped to think. She could do what she wanted... but what did she want to do? There was nothing back home that she needed, nothing she couldn’t leave behind.

No. That was wrong. There was something she couldn’t leave behind.

“Can we rescue Deb?”

Snowdon pursed her red, red lips. “It would be... exceedingly difficult.”

“So what do you see as my options?”

“Your former Mistress’ reach is long but not exceptionally so. There are a number of places even in this country where you could live and be relatively secure from her. I could arrange a new identity easily enough. Or you could become one of my slaves, if you wish. Not necessarily assigned to a harem. You have significant other value.”

Tarri felt her body respond. She swallowed. “Aren’t you worried I might, might still be programmed to... do something?”

“Brainwashing, Miss Gerarde, though powerful, is not irreversible. My techniques are advanced enough—and I do not boast, for I would say the same for your former Mistress—that when you are in my power you have no secrets, no absolutes, and you will believe and become what I desire regardless of what may have been programmed into you before. Had you simply escaped, then months or years from now you could have been triggered and you would obey. But I have taken your mind apart, Miss Gerarde, laid it on my felt table-top and disassembled it to its most atomic pieces. There is nothing in your mind now but what I have allowed to be there.”

“Can we—could you do the same for Deb?”

Snowdon sighed. “Assuming we could acquire her. To some extent I would be able to. But she has been forgetting her former self for quite some time now. She was mindwiped, Miss Gerarde; a new personality was overlaid into her mind, a slave personality, and that person has been actively dissolving her memories. You were reprogrammed with a new identity and purpose, but even as a slave you remembered who Tarri Gerarde had been. Deborah has not remembered Deborah Stough for over a year, and has been actively destroying those memories whenever as possible.”

“A year?”

“Twenty months, actually.”

Tarri’s head suddenly whirled. She had been a slave for... twenty months?

It was next year? Past next year?

Deb. Suddenly her eyes watered.

Deb, laughing at some joke. Deb, showing her the latest crystals she had come by on her trip down to New Mexico. Deb, just sitting across the table, smiling, enjoying her silly, alternative, wonderful life.

Tarri sucked back the sob.

“I am sorry, Tarri.”

Tarri focused, stared at the beautiful, collected woman sitting opposite her. “Sorry?” she suddenly yelled. “You’re just like her! You tell me you’d do the same, you do the same, how can you tell me you’re sorry?” She realized she had leapt to her feet.

“Because I am sorry. The fact that I am Mistress and you are a former slave does not make me less empathetic.”

Tarri stared at her, sat back down. She clenched the arms of the chair, scrunched her eyes shut. Controlled her breathing.

“I want to get her,” she said, after a long pause. “Take her out of there. I don’t care that she may not remember herself. Will you help me?”

She looked up at Snowdon’s deep blue eyes. They considered her.

The Asian girl entered the room with a tray; she set two glasses down on the table between them, their outsides beaded with condensation. She bowed to Snowdon, and left the room.

Snowdon’s level gaze never wavered from Tarri.

“Yes,” she finally said. “I will help.”

She walked into the room, in a white dress with black polka-dots, and was beautiful.

Tarri sat alone. Mistress Snowdon had left half an hour ago. Tarri had sat in the stuffed chair and let her thoughts whirl. It was too complicated, with too many unknowns, for her to make any sort of calculated decision. About trusting Snowdon, about her own state of mind, about her course of action. About the rescue.

“It is unlikely to succeed,” Snowdon had said, “and will probably result in your capture and mindwipe. Or worse.”

And Tarri was afraid, but didn’t change her mind. The wise choice, the smart choice, simply had no happily ever after. She would carry too much regret.

But then she walked into the room and Tarri felt all that drop aside.

She rose from the chair as Courser/Marion came across the room, her liquid eyes fixed on Tarri. Tarri’s mouth opened—to speak?—and then they were kissing, embracing, cleaving together and Tarri could smell her smell and feel the electricity that crackled in the air above her skin.

There was a couch in the room, upholstered in red velvet, and they sat on that, fingertips touching.

“You rescued me once more,” Courser/Marion said.

Tarri shook her head. “You saved me. Carried me out of darkness... Marion, I—”

“No.” Those eyes held her, reached into her. “I am not Marion. I am Five. You must understand that now.”

She nodded. “I... yes. I do understand. But...”

“Tarri, I am happy. Purely happy. I have a purpose and a Mistress whom I obey, and She is kind to me and values my worship. I know who I was and how I became this way, but I would choose this again and again. Forget Marion, Tarri. Know me as Five.”

“Five.” Tarri swallowed. “I love you.”

“I love you, Tarri Gerarde, and always shall.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Tarri whispered, drawing close.

“It does not need to. Come, let us go upstairs to a bed.”

Five held both hands and pulled her to her feet.

“You will rescue her?”

They lay in the bed, stripped now of its burgundy cover. Five lay on her side, one arm beneath a pillow, looking at Tarri. Her breasts with their soft aerolas lopped over onto the sheet; her still-wet sex was hidden between her pale thighs.

“I have to,” Tarri said. “I don’t want to live and look back and know that I did nothing.”

“She is happy there,” Five pointed out. “You understand that.”

“I understand it but it’s not Slave 889 that I owe. It’s Deb. She deserves... she deserves my best.”

“You are a very admirable woman, Tarri Gerarde,” Five said. Tarri looked at her and her eyes blurred, then Five had pushed up from the bed and was kissing her.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Tarri said into Five’s lips. “I may not come back.”

“I do not want to lose you, either, my love. But you must go to be true to yourself.”

“I’m afraid.”

“You should be afraid. Let it make you cautious.”

“Make love to me.”

“Until the moment you leave.”

From the outside, the residence looked like a luxury hotel high on the plain, flat seas of grass stretching in all directions.

Do they all live in hotels? Tarri wondered, lowering the binoculars.

The plan was simple, foolhardily so. Tarri knew the residence layout, had an identity, knew precisely how to pass as a slave. She would ride in, behave properly, find Slave 889, drug her with the small vial of knockout gas currently tucked up in her ass, and ride the hell out.

Tarri looked over at Courser Seven. Seven, lying next to her in worn riding leathers covered in patches and with a big “Ghost Wheels” logo painted on the back, nodded at her. Beneath the leathers, Tarri knew, was the sheer rubberized skin-tight suit of Snowdon’s Coursers, and beneath that was the taut body of the Asian woman who had knocked on the door of the room back in California and offered Tarri a Diet Coke. Her dark eyes were blank, now, lightly trance-glazed. They stared at Tarri emotionlessly, waiting for her to begin the mission.

Tarri gathered herself, and stood up. The red riding leathers creaked; the plastic bikini was oddly comfortable. She didn’t have Slave 891’s bike but Snowdon had provided the right model and had it painted exactly right. The bike also had an RFID tag that should open the gates and identify itself to the electronic security measures.

At least, if they hadn’t changed in the last three months.

As far as Tarri could remember, there was no human security check beyond the watching guards in the mansion above the ramp, no one below who would detect an intruder who looked and acted like a proper slave.

If there was...

Courser Seven looked at her, and there was no smile. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Good luck then, Slave 891.”

That name... her head swirled as it accreted around her, the identity hardening into place, the shell that would disguise and protect her.

Slave 891 nodded at Seven.

They rose together, slipping back down the low slope, high grass brushing past their thighs. Slave 891 mounted the red BMW, Courser Five the much-scuffed Kawasaki. They did not look at each other as they started their bikes and rode back down the dirt road, away from their vantage point.

Four miles away, they reached the main road. Slave 891 turned right and cruised down to the ornate wrought-iron gate that marked the edge of Her property. It was unmanned, but cameras studded the tops of the stone pillars to either side.

Slave 891 rode up to the gate and stopped her bike.

The gate swung open.

So the bike was still recognized. Tarri’s blood was cold but she was safe in the protective shell of Slave 891, and she revved the engine and headed down the long, smooth driveway.

All too soon she was approaching the mansion, the overswollen hunting lodge on the high prairie. She saw blank faced guards watching as she reached the ramp, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and then she was going down, down into the hive itself.

There were two motorcycles on station in the ready room, but no one was there. Slave 891 parked hers in the far station, kicked out the kickstand, sat for a moment on the gently ticking beast. Then she flipped her heel over and put both feet on the concrete floor.

Her footsteps clicked as she walked across the garage. Slave 733 was there, working on a motorcycle, running a formerly white cloth through steel springs. Her white t-shirt declared ‘SLAVE’ in large block letters.

Who had she been, wondered Tarri. I worked with her for over a year and we never spoke, we simply obeyed...

Slave 891 kept walking.

She passed through the garage entrance, and passed the control drone stationed there, golden skin and white lingerie, dark nipples visible through the sheer white bra. She did not speak, did not notice the unscheduled slave walking past her.

Slave 891 walked down the corridor. Tarri was calming inside; her decision-making ability would soon be necessary, for Slave 891 only obeyed, had no ideas how to go about finding Slave 889 who was once Deborah.

The dressing room was empty. Very fortunate, for if any drones were likely to remember that Slave 891 no longer belonged, it would be the Hounds. They had been there when she was taken.

The fact that two bikes were on station in the garage ready room hastened Slave 891’s hands as she stripped off the red leather, slid off the cherry-red plastic bikini. Nude, she was just another drone, unmarked, unidentified.

Where to find Slave 889 who was Deborah?

There were dozens of dormitories; Slave 891 had only ever slept in one. Slave 889 might be in programming... there was, Mistress Snowdon had informed her, a centralized monitoring and oversight facility but Slave 891 had never seen it, would not know how to act even if she could find it.

But she was Slave 891 and Slave 889 who was Deborah was only two numbers lower. It seemed probable that they were assigned nearby dormitories; if not, there was little harm in looking. Control drones only arrived at waking, and untasked drones would never question Slave 891s presence.

Naked, she walked stiffly down the corridor.

None of the drones she passed questioned her.

Then she was at her own dormitory. It was in a dormitory wing, she had seen the evenly spaced line of drones leaving other rooms. Slave 891 walked past her own dormitory and opened a door. It was a dormitory, twenty small, white beds: dormancy stations, with the adjoining trays of headphones, vibrators, intravenous drug feeds. The room was quiet.

Slave 889 sat alone on one of the dormancy stations, facing her. Her face was blank, her eyes glassy.

“Welcome back, slave,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice.

Slave 891 had succeeded; but Tarri went cold.

“Hello, Slave 891,” came a familiar voice, from speakers in the ceiling. Her voice.

“Or should I call you Tarri?”

Slave 889 rose from the bed she had been sitting on. She turned to the table and lifted a syringe and a bottle, and filled the syringe.

“I’m surprised you came back,” Mistress’ voice said. “Did you really think I don’t know at all times exactly who is in my residence?”

Slave 889 held up the needle, tapped it. She turned toward where Slave 891 stood frozen in the doorway and began to approach.

Run. Slave 891 looked down the hall.

Hounds One, Two, and Four were standing at the end of it. They were not in their uniforms, neither leather nor plastic, but even nude as they were their hard, muscular bodies were those of fighting dogs. She looked at their familiar faces; they looked back, unblinking.

Slave 889 took hold of her arm.

“Don’t worry about answering any questions, Slave 891. I’ll know all that you do soon enough. Good night.”

Tarri looked into Deborah’s wide, mindless eyes, and felt the needle sting.

“Snowdon doesn’t seem so generous now, eh?”

Tarri’s vision swam. Her body was limp, liquid, motionless.

“Sends you on a fool’s errand to rescue your friend, while her specially rigged motorcycle with its satellite uplink attempts a brute force attack on my wireless network. Pretty callous, really.”

Tarri shook her head, not to disagree, but to try and swim her way out of the viscous air that held her.

“She knew that the motorcycle wasn’t the only thing with an RFID tag. I tag all of my property. You’ve got chips in both shoulders. The moment you rode through my gate I knew that you’d returned. Snowdon knew about the tags—but she never told you.”

The words were real, made sense, and they chilled Tarri into stopping her struggles. She tried to concentrate on the woman who was speaking, so familiar...

“To be honest, I think she also needed you out of her hair, Tarri. She rescued you on behalf of Courser Five, right? But after doing that she could hardly mindwipe you for her harem. A botched rescue makes a good solution vis-a-vis her valuable courser and her valuable loyalty.”

Mistress stood over her, looking down through a fishbowl lens. “Not that loyalty is something you’ll have to worry about any more. You’re gone, Miss Gerarde. I admit, I’m a little piqued that you caused me trouble again, but all’s well that ends well.”

She had no thoughts nor words to express them; Tarri just stared upward.

“Good bye then, Miss Gerarde. Be pleased that you’re still excellent material; and I’ve mindwiped more valuable minds than yours.”

Tarri thought of something to say, but her tongue caught on her lips and then there was purple light and a swirl, a swirl, and it picked her up and pulled her right out of her mind...

She stared at the blank white wall.

She was a Slave and she would obey. That was all. Her hands rested at her sides. Her mind was smooth, her thoughts flat. Her head was an empty room containing one thing only.

She was a Slave and she would obey.

There was a woman standing next to her on the left, also staring blankly forward, motionless. Footsteps clicked by behind the two of them.

She did not turn to look. When she was instructed she would obey. Until then, there was nothing, not action, not thought.

Then, a hand on her shoulder. “Turn.”

She turned in place. A woman was facing her, wearing a tight white jumpsuit. The woman looked her up and down, assessing. She stared into her eyes, and the slave stared back.

The woman turned to a small cart behind her, picked something up, and turned around with a tablet computer. She tapped at it with a stencil, then held it up before the slave.

The image of a woman looked at her from the computer’s screen. She had dirty blond hair, cut short, and was smiling. She seemed pretty.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

“No,” the slave replied.

The other woman tapped at the computer again, and the first picture was replaced with another. Now there were two women, one the same as in the first picture, the other seated at a table with her; the two of them were laughing and holding up cocktail glasses.

“Do you recognize either woman?” the woman with the computer asked in a flat voice.

“No,” the slave replied again.

Another pair of quick taps, and the computer screen filled with light and holiness.

“Do you recognize this woman?” her interlocutor asked foolishly.

“Of course,” the slave breathed. “She is my Mistress!”

The woman returned the computer to the cart. She faced the slave. “You are to report for initial programming and imprinting. Leave this room through that door. Follow the blue arrows painted on the wall. Obey anyone who gives you instruction.”

“I will obey,” the slave promised. She turned and walked barefoot to the door.

It was a short walk through white-walled corridors. She turned left once and right once and then was entering a room in which stood another blank-faced woman, this one in lacy white lingerie.

“Slave,” the woman said as the slave entered. “You are fresh from mindwipe and will be imprinted. Walk down that corridor and enter programming chamber two. Seat yourself on the chair and await the programming drone.”

“I obey,” the slave responded. She walked down the corridor. There was a door with the number two on it; the slave opened the door and walked into the tiny room beyond. It was empty save for a chair with split legs and a wall rack full of equipment.

The slave turned and seated herself in the chair.

She had no thoughts other than the one, eternal, fact.

The door opened and a woman dressed in bra and clear plastic toolbelt and choker and nothing else stood in the doorway. Her blank eyes roamed up and down the slave’s body.

Then she began to take things from the rack of equipment and attach them to the slave. Needles went into her arms, earpieces went into her ears, small plastic eggs on cords slid greasily into her ass and her cunt. The woman in the plastic toolbelt then gave the slave two shots.

The world began to blur, and then the programming drone was lowering some sort of helmet over the slave’s face. There was darkness, and then a purple light, and then unconsciousness...

Slave 1008 stood at attention, hands flat at her hips, breasts thrust forward.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“I am Slave 1008. I exist only to please Mistress, and will obey all commands.”

The other woman in the room nodded. She was tall, with skin like milk chocolate. Her designation was Slave 24. She was dressed in the white lingerie that marked her as a control drone, Mistress’ hand, and Slave 1008 would obey her in all things.

“Who is Tarri Gerarde?” Slave 24 asked.

“I do not know.”

“Are you Tarri Gerarde?”

“No. I am Slave 1008. I have no other identity.”

Slave 24 nodded, satisfied.

“Slave 1008, I have here a pistol. When I instruct you, you will raise the gun to your head. When I instruct you further, you will pull the trigger and blow out your brains. This will kill you. Will you obey?”

“I will obey,” Slave 1008 confirmed.

Slave 24 handed her the pistol. It was small and black.

“Point the pistol at your temple, Slave 1008.”

Slave 1008 obeyed.

“You have been a lot of trouble to our Mistress, Slave 1008. More trouble than any easily replaceable mindless sexdrone is worth. My primary function, my only purpose, is to serve my Mistress. Eliminating you is better for Her than allowing you to live. Are you prepared to pull the trigger?”

“I will obey,” Slave 1008 promised.

“Then do it.”

The pistol clicked.

Slave 24’s gaze had never left Slave 1008’s blank, staring eyes. Now she nodded.

“Forget this happened, Slave 1008. You are now to be a cleaning drone. Report to the central kitchen are on the lower level of the residence. The control drone there has been programmed with your tasking.”

“Slave 1008 obeys,” Slave 1008 said, and turned on her heel.

“Stop.” Slave 1008 froze. “Hand me the pistol.”

A moment later, Slave 1008 was walking down a white corridor, unaware of where she was coming from.

She had crawled on her stomach for five miles.

The tall grass around her waved in the wind; as she passed, she was careful not to disturb it in a direction contrary to which it was blowing. She was dressed in head to toe military camouflage, from her boots to her balaclava.

And it was a moonless night.

She had begun her crawl at dusk, from a dirt access road on the other side of low hills. It had taken several hours to traverse from there to here, but she was fairly confident that none of the security measures, either mechanical or human, had spotted her.

Now she lay on a low rise, not worthy of the appellation “hill”. The mansion was less than a mile away, spots of light in the darkness, framed by a great swirl of stars. The Milky Way was a luminous band across the sky.

She pulled the transmitter out of the pack. It was small and square, with only a single toggle to turn it on. It broadcast on one band only, and had enough battery power for perhaps six hours.

Deftly, she unfolded the little tripod that gave the transmitter that extra bit of altitude, placed it atop the tripod, and flipped the toggle to on. There was no LED or other sign to tell her that it was working.

She let her body relax to keep from cramping. An hour before dawn, she would begin the crawl back.

Slave 1008’s eyes slid open.

The waking tone had not sounded. Around her in the dormitory, her sister slaves still slumbered, their soft breathing filling the room with quiet presence.

Between her legs Slave 1008 felt the twinned vibrators, still now. In her ears there was soft speech, barely audible; she had been instructed not to think about what it was telling her. She was a slave and she would obey.

Her arms were by her sides, held lightly by felt straps, to keep her from accidentally dislodging the IV drip that kept her nocturnal mind extra pliable.

All was as it should be. Why had she awakened?

Wake up, a tiny voice said.

Ah. She had been instructed to wake up. She was a slave and she would obey. Slave 1008 lay still and waited for further instruction.

Wake up, the voice repeated. Slave 1008 remained awake and waited.

Stick out your tongue,it said. Place the lower ball of your tongue stud behind your lower teeth; push the upper ball out of your mouth.

Strange, but Slave 1008 was a slave and she obeyed. A moment later and her mouth was just slightly open, the silver top ball of her stud resting against her upper lip.

Stick out your tongue, the voice repeated, only much louder now. Slave 1008 listened as the instructions repeated themselves and realized that she was not hearing the voice with her ears, she was hearing it inside her head.

Take out the headphones, the voice instructed her.

Another odd request; the waking drone usually disengaged the slaves from their dormitory beds. But Slave 1008 was a slave and she would obey. With some difficulty she removed her right arm from the felt strap that held it, and slid the thin earbuds out of her ears. The whispering woman’s voice that she had been programmed to hear, believe, and never think about, went away.

Slave 1008 lay still as the other voice instructed her to remove the headphones a few more times.

Then it told her something familiar.

Slave, the voice said, you will listen and believe. You will listen and believe. Your conscious mind will sleep now. Your subconscious will listen to this voice and know it to be true. Your subconscious mind will believe all that it is told, and will obey. At the sound of the tone, slave, your conscious mind will sleep. You are already feeling sleepy. You feel very sleepy. At the sound of the tone, your conscious mind will melt away into sleep.

And then came the tone.

The man in the cowboy hat gave her an appraising look.

Slave 1008 stood stiffly at attention, breasts thrust forward for inspection. She was dressed in a sensual maid’s outfit, frilly black skirt, high black heels with straps. The corset-like top lifted her breasts but left her nipples uncovered. She had on long black lace gloves, a black choker with a black silk rose, and on her head she wore a maid’s tiara of black and white ruffle.

“So this is the one that Snowdon sent back at you,” he asked, his vowels running long.

“That’s her,” said Mistress.

Mistress and her guest were in a sitting room. One wall was windows, looking out through a covered porch at the prairie. The room was appointed in a light wood, exposed beams for the ceiling, well-finished wood for the walls. The furnishings, too, were expensive rustic, wooden chairs with leather seats and backs, a dark wooden bar on which sat an open bottle of liquor.

The Texan sipped at his glass. “Well, she certainly looks a treat. A bit long in the tooth I suppose. Still, plenty purty.” He looked away from Slave 1008 and at Mistress. “Give her to me. I’d be interested in breeding for some of those traits.”

Mistress laughed. “Which one—causing trouble?”

He smiled and returned his gaze to Slave 1008. “Heh. No, that lip, there. And the nipples, those are good too. Not a bad nose, either. The eye color is nothing to write home about... and of course you know I like once-feisty breeding stock. The tongue stud is original?”

“That it is. She knows how to use it, too.”

“Give her to me, Sandra. I’ll give you a couple in return. If she stays here, Snowdon knows where she is and that bitch is always for making trouble. Pass her on to me, you can be sure there won’t be any hanky-panky. I’ll have her in the preggo pen fast as lightning.”

Mistress looked thoughtful. “That’s not a bad idea.” She looked at Slave 1008, who tightened ever so infinitesimally under her beloved Mistress’ direct attention. “I’ll think about it. I’m still rather enjoying using her at the moment. But yes, I’ll definitely consider sending her down to you. In a month or two.”

Mistress laughed.

“What?” the man asked.

“Oh, I’m just picturing her pregnant. She came in lesbian, you know, she’s probably never had a cock in her life.”

“Well I’ll sure fix that,” he replied, leaning back in his chair. “Now, you said you had some sisters to show me.”

Mistress waved the dismissal sign, so Slave 1008 pivoted and walked briskly from the room.

In the dark of the dormitory, Slave 1008 did not even fully awaken. Gingerly, her hand slipped free of the felt strap, and plucked the earbuds from her ears. Softly, her tongue pushed forward until the little silver ball rested on her upper lip.

She had been tasked as a cleaning drone. Slave 1008 wore white heels, a white apron, white kneepads, white rubber gloves. And nothing else.

She was on her knees, leaning underneath a glass-fronted cabinet full of white crockery, clearing out the fine layer of dust that had gathered since the last drone cleaned beneath the cabinet a few weeks ago.

There were steps at the door, and Slave 1008 turned her head to look.

Mistress!

Quickly, she stood up, and assumed attention; the hand at her right side still held the damp cloth she had been wiping the floor with.

Mistress was reading something, paying no attention to the cleaning drone servicing the room. She walked in, and turned to sit in a wicker chair. Almost absently, She looked up and saw Slave 1008.

A smile crept across Her face, and She laid the folded pink newspaper aside.

“Slave thousand-eight,” She said. “Does the name Tarri Gerarde mean anything to you?”

“No, Mistress,” Slave 1008 replied.

“Of course it doesn’t. Are you happy here?”

“Yes, Mistress,” she said, aware of the pure joy that suffused her entire being. It was bliss to obey!

“Good. I’m selling you to Carruthers next week. And that slave with the overstuffed tits, the friend of yours, she’s headed to Japan. What do you think of that?”

Slave 1008 searched for an answer. She did not know who Mistress was talking about; Mistress was a slave’s only friend. “I am a slave and will obey,” she stammered. “Fulfilling your will is my only desire. If it makes you happy, I am happy.”

Mistress’ smile crooked higher at the ends. “Indeed. Well, good then. I bet you never thought you’d know what it was to bear a child. Now you’re going to pop out lots of them.”

“As you wish, Mistress.”

Mistress stretched, and sighed. “Come over here. Get on your hands and knees here, in front of my chair. Yes, good.”

Mistress leaned back into Her chair and put Her feet up on Slave 1008’s naked back. Her newspaper rustled as She picked it back up.

Slave 1008 came aware to the sound of the waking tone.

She pulled in the dry tip of her tongue, and her hand slipped briefly from the restraint to push the earbuds and their quiet hissing back into her ears. The waking drone began with slave 770, on the far side of the room. For all of the days that Slave 1008 had been reinserting her earphones, the waking drone had not noticed.

Why should she?

The waking drone moved to the bed that Slave 1008 lay on and uncoupled her, sliding the buzzing orbs from her body, slipping out the IV needle. Then she moved on to the next bed and Slave 1014.

The waking drone finished and sounded the rising tone. Slave 1008 rose from the bed and stood at attention. The control drone was already entering the room, stopping before each slave and initializing her days obedience. Slave 1008 waited, her mind quietly reminding itself that she was a slave and she would obey.

Then the control drone stepped to her. “Slave 1008, you are to work in the food preparation area. Report to the control drone stationed at food preparation to receive instruction.”

“Slave 1008 obeys,” she replied. Three heartbeats, and the control drone had stepped past to initialize Slave 1014. Slave 1008 turned neatly and left the room.

In the corridor, she made a clean pivot and walked off to the left.

The food preparation area was to the right.

Slave 1008 was a slave and she would obey. There were instructions unspooling in her head; she would obey those instructions. She would behave as she was programmed. She would report to the food preparation area only after she had obeyed her programming.

Her programming instructed her to report to the control drone dressing room. Slave 1008 knew where it was.

She opened the door to the dressing room and entered. Another slave was there, donning the lacy white uniform of a control drone. Slave 1008 followed suit, clasping on the sheer white bra and garter belt, sliding into the long white stockings. Slipping on long white gloves, clipping the stockings to the garter belt. And lastly, finding a thin white choker and wrapping it around her neck.

The other slave had already left the room. Slave 1008 looked at herself in the full-length mirror, was satisfied with her appearance. She had never yet been tasked as a control drone and was not certain that she was one now, but she was a slave and she would obey, and her programming told her to wear this.

Her programming directed her to her next task.

Heels clicking on the floor, she walked through the residence to one of the spiral stairwells connecting the lower residence with the upper. She mounted the stairs and then was topside; the floor no longer white concrete but real wood, the walls hung with paintings, the ceiling adorned with elaborate moulding. Down one hallway, there were windows beyond which the outside world was crisp and clear.

Slave 1008 ignored the handsome surroundings. She was a slave and would obey. Down the hall she walked, passing a cleaning drone, turning right, then left, then entering a doorway.

The mail room.

Two drones were processing mail, one of them sorting, the other opening those items which were sorted to her. Slave 1008 had never been a mail processing drone and did not know the exact routine that separated those items for Mistress to read from the junk that reached all mailboxes, but she did not have to.

“Slave, direct me to the most recent mail waiting to be discarded,” she demanded of one of the seated drones.

“That bin contains the most recent mail waiting to be discarded,” the drone replied, pointing to a plastic box on the floor.

Slave 1008 turned away and picked up the box. She placed it on the edge of the desk and rifled through it. She was looking for... this.

Slave 1008 held up the garish envelope. “Try American Patriot Internet!” it demanded. “891 hours free!”

She replaced the box on the floor and left the room, shrink-wrapped envelope in hand. Her programming continued to unspool and she would obey.

A monitoring room was just ahead. Slave 1008 had never been a monitoring drone, never used the computer system that controlled the residence, but again it was not necessary. She only needed to obey.

The door to the room was unlocked. The room itself was small, and dark; Slave 1008 turned the overhead light on. Three computer workstations sat on an L-shaped table that ran along two of the walls.

She seated herself at one of the stools, and turned on the computer monitor. The screen waxed into glowing life, revealing only a dark background and a green login box.

Slave 1008 tore open the envelope. She removed the CD-ROM and slipped out a piece of paper, the size of a fortune from a cookie. On it were two words.

The first word was a login name, the second a password. She typed them in.

Now the computer displayed a prompt, “root#". Slave 1008 chewed on the piece of paper as she placed the CD-ROM into the drive. Letters came into her thoughts and she typed them, and the prompt changed. More letters, and the CD-ROM began to hum.

Slave 1008 waited as text flashed past on the screen, symbols and phrases which had no meaning for her. Then the earlier prompt returned. She typed in ‘logout’, and pushed the eject button on the CD-ROM drive.

Slave 1008 turned out the lights and closed the door behind herself. She returned to the mail room and deposited the envelope, CD-ROM inside it, into the bin of mail to be destroyed.

In the hall, she stopped.

Her programming—which she would obey—presented her with a challenge.

There was a clicking noise. Slave 1008 turned to see a control drone—an actual control drone—approaching her. The control drone was watching her, dark eyes blank yet... suspicious?. Suddenly, Slave 1008 felt... fear? But she was obeying?

The control drone faced forward, and walked past.

What was that? Why had Slave 1008 felt as though she were doing wrong? She was a slave, obeying as programmed, she could not intentionally do wrong. Would never disobey.

And yet she had felt... guilt.

Slave 1008 blinked off the strange encounter. No matter. The programming hummed in her head and she would obey. Her white-stockinged legs carried her toward a stairwell.

Down in the understory, Slave 1008 walked aimlessly, and thought. She was to find Slave 889. But how? She had never been tasked as a control drone before, had no idea how to locate a single slave in the busy corridors of the residence.

There was a control chamber near the programming center. Perhaps the direct approach would work.

Slave 1008 walked through the corridors to the control chamber. She passed Hound Two, walking the other way, but the Hound was extraneous to her obedience and so she ignored her.

The control chamber was dimly lit; various slaves of a drone-type Slave 1008 did not know sat around at computer monitors. They wore lingerie like control drones, but it was black. Satin bras and silken black hose connected to garter belts, black chokers with little black roses on them.

Slave 1008 approached one. “Tell me where Slave 889 is.”

The drone looked up at her, and for a moment Slave 1008 worried that her approach might not work. But then the drone looked at the monitor and tapped at he keyboard.

“She is in the laundering facility. In room 5209.”

Slave 1008 did not know which room 5209 was, but she knew the location of the laundering facility, so she nodded, rotated in place, and left the room.

She entered the laundering facility and was immediately observed by the control drone stationed there. Slave 1008 walked to her directly. “I am to control Slave 889,” she said. “Where is she?”

“She is in the hanging room,” the control drone replied, and pointed with a finger.

Slave 889 was hanging up stockings to dry. She stood in a forest, a cave thick with silk stalactites. She removed a stocking from a full basket at her feet and clipped it to an overhead line. The floor was damp; another slave was pushing a sponge-headed mop around, gathering up the water that fell from the stockings.

Slave 1008 walked in front of Slave 889 and stopped. “Slave 889,” she said.

Slave 889 stood to attention, her massive breasts wobbling slightly.

“You are to cease this task and accompany me, Slave 889.”

“Slave 889 obeys,” she replied. She clipped the stocking in her hand to the line above her, then let her hands fall to her sides and waited at attention.

More instructions revealed themselves in Slave 1008’s mind.

They left the laundering facility and walked through the residence to the garage. Slave 889 followed obediently, three steps behind.

In the garage, Slave 1008 ignored the control drone and went to garage four. She took the keys to a dark blue Pontiac Grand Prix from the wall and walked through the dozen or so cars to where the Grand Prix was parked. Slave 889 continued to follow.

“Get into the passenger side of this car,” she instructed Slave 889.

“Slave 889 obeys.”

Slave 1008 slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. She backed up and turned for the exit. They passed a car on a raised lift, four maintenance drones busy removing the tires. She drove past and into the ready room.

The metal door was closed. For a moment, Slave 1008 felt the unfamiliar discomfort in her stomach, the fear, but then she located a door opener clipped to the sun visor. She pushed it and the door began to slide upward.

A moment later she drove up the ramp, and out into the sun. Slave 889 sat placidly next to her, staring blankly ahead.

At the end of the driveway, the gate opened at the car’s approach. As they drove through, further directions appeared in Slave 1008’s mind.

She followed them.

The Hounds roared out of the driveway, leaning into the corner as they flew through the open gate. Mistress had been agitated and that agitation resonated in Her pets, each of them unhappy and eager to rectify that which displeased Mistress.

The car and the missing slaves had been gone perhaps fifteen minutes. It had taken that long for the security drones to report the activity to a security control drone and for the security control drone to decide that the departure was questionable and to ask Mistress if She had authorized it, and Mistress had been busy...

Fifteen minutes, so the Hounds flew like the wind in a tight diamond formation. They would recover these slaves and Mistress would know what wrongness had led them to leave the residence without instruction.

The Grand Prix was easily tracked, containing not one nor two but a half-dozen forms of locator devices. The hounds blew through a remote intersection at a hundred and forty miles an hour, passing a state trooper.

The trooper recoiled in shock, reached for his radio, recognized the motorcycles, and sat back and sighed happily as he forgot about them. A few minutes later and he was driving the other way, whistling.

They were nearing their quarry, closer, closer—there, pulled over beneath a lone tree at the side of the road. They slowed in unison and swarmed in to surround the vehicle.

It was empty.

Hound One scanned the horizon, agitated. They had passed no one. She sent Hounds Two and Three blasting off down the road to look for suspicious vehicles, to scan passengers. Hound Four she sent back to the residence to report to Mistress and fetch a driver for the Grand Prix. And she herself got down on hands and knees and began to search for clues.

Slave 1008 was falling asleep in the back of the van.

Slave 889 already slept next to her. They lay on gryoscopically mounted beds, ambulance beds, on clean white sheets. A woman in a white blouse and white slacks was tending to them, had given them each some pills to take, had given them glasses of water.

Now Slave 1008 was utterly sleepy, the world fuzzing in her vision. She relaxed on the bed and stared up at the interior ceiling, which had little adhesive stars decorating it. She suspected they glowed in the dark.

A face appeared in the dwindling tunnel of her vision, a beautiful face with waxy white skin and deep dark eyes. Slave 1008 smiled to see it, and then fell asleep.