The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I sit in my room, in my house, which is my home, quivering.

The sounds of my family comfort me, stilling, though not stifling, my urge to scream in memory driven ecstatic and orgasmic delight.

I am caught in the post assignment high. I am pre memory fade, so I know why I vibrate like the strings of violin mid concert.

I am fearing the thought of going to school while feeling this way. Yet I also know and dread the inevitable loss of this feeling.

I feel my racing heart, its futile run against the ticking of the clock of remembrance running out.

Fear and hope and prayer overlapping, I am wanting this gone, but fearing its loss in some way that defies words.

This drives me to my keyboard for relief.

Pitting hypergraphia against confused tears, in a war I cannot win, but I am hoping not to lose.

Trembling so much I have to retype this twice, I have a question for you all to ask yourselves.

Not that I expect any real answers, but I could make an informal poll out of it I guess.

“Do you remember how you used to hug before?”

No, seriously, that is my question.

I’ve never been a big hugger.

Ok, being blunt here for a moment, I didn’t hug, other than those inescapable irritating family ones.

Not that I avoided them, more that I never let them catch up.

I mostly managed to arrange to never quite be where they were going to happen.

Now I know what many of you are asking, “Why?” Why am I not a hugger?

What could I possibly have against the warmth and welcoming presence of another living, breathing human being who is expressing welcome-ness?

In part, it has to do with always being on the outside.

I have never been one of the cool ones.

Never have I felt, nor have I ever comprehended, their need to touch and be touched.

Also, the vast teeming masses have always been a little repulsive to me. Some are even disgusting.

Always being small, even for a girl, I had to be careful.

Their negligence would turn into my pain, until I learned to avoid them.

Until I learned what leads to touches and hugs and contact, and how to not be there when they are going to happen.

Then there is great aunt Myrtle. Everyone has a great aunt Myrtle.

She is a hugger, cheek kisser, forehead smoocher, and toucher extraordinaire.

Oh, she may hide behind another name.

She may not even be a blood relative in your case, but she is family, even if there are some cringes involved.

She wears perfume that went out of style in the nineteen sixties.

Though I have nightmares that it was the eighteen sixties, and she is still using the same stuff she did back then.

It was a gift she got from someone. Did I mention how old she feels, and that she has used that same bottle most of her life?

Like maybe from the seventeen sixties perhaps?

See, I told you. You just remembered who your aunt Myrtle is, didn’t you? :>(

Your great aunt Myrtle, I am sure boys have an uncle version of her, though that gets creepy.

I’m pretty sure it’s mostly aunts with boys, too, but still, ick!!!

Also, watching them with her would be fun. That is as long as I got to escape.

Either way, they both treat you like a prize toy, full of affection and wanting attention, eww!!!!!

She is another reason I didn’t hug, and you just understood why along with remembering her.

Yeah, I try to forget her too. I go entire weeks without thinking of her. It’s nice.

How does her perfume survive the laundry?

How can you smell her on your laundry, and on you, post laundry and shower?

The only things I ever found that cut her smell are swimming pools and hot tubs.

I think it’s the chlorine. The bromine hot tub didn’t cut her smell half as well.

So there I always was, being small, being shy, being asocial, finding most people boorish, and even hating doing the touch cheeks in the place of a hug thing.

I have always avoided every single hug I possibly could as long as I have been alive.

Now I have to ask, what is different? What has changed? How come? Why are hugs getting easier?

We were told that the assignment state would fade, and I am so glad it does.

I am glad that it does not leak through and change us, that we remain who we are.

{Though to be honest, no one stays who they were forever. We do all change, eventually anyway.}

I am glad that the package does not mold us outside of assignments, that our identities are safe.

They gave their words. They guaranteed it.

They showed me the what and the how. They proved it.

So why are hugs getting easier?

Why am I not cringing so hard, or sometimes even at all?

Why am I able to accept them now?

Why am I able to return them, and sometimes so easily?

Why am I sometimes feeling like offering one?

Why am I ... why is ... what is happening to me?

Oh god, listen to me.

I have sex for a living.

I spend my weekends, and some nights, as a carnal toy.

Yet here I am fretting over a simple and stupid thing that everyone else takes for granted.

I undress and am undressed. I teach young men about having sex.

I instruct them for god’s sake!

I am like all of us, good at it, and I have been told so, like I am sure we all have.

So why am I so hung up on getting and giving hugs?

Why does it bother me so much, that it is bothering me less?

Sorry, I don’t mean to ramble, but ... well, you see.

It started recently, or I noticed anyway, and it went like this.

Have you ever tried to listen when the parameters for assignments are given?

I don’t mean the ones where they say ‘here is the client’.

I mean the ones where your schedule has to be adjusted ahead of time to put you in the right place at the right time.

The ones where you receive the assignment itself days ahead of time, sometimes a lot of days.

The ones where you try desperately to remember what it is you are going to be doing.

Where you start wondering why you are doing something.

Where you question whether or not the assignment has started every five minutes, then every fifteen.

When you wonder hourly if this is it?

When you wonder daily if this is the day?

I got an assignment, everything was arranged well in advance.

Then another assignment happened in the meantime.

Then another assignment happened in the meantime, again.

Then yet another assignment happened in the meantime.

You get the idea here. You’ve been through it. You know what I mean.

After the second, I kind of lost track, but not quite forgot, that one was still pending.

I mean I knew, moments would happen where I realized, then they were gone.

I got jumpy, realizing I was losing track of knowing.

I wasn’t forgetting, it just wasn’t important enough to always remember.

Then I was out of school on Friday and suddenly I knew.

There was no dread, no fear. I simply knew that the assignment was finally beginning.

Then I could see it, how my actions were being guided, and I was in some weird way comforted.

Now I know you are wondering what this has to do with hugs, but please, be patient. I know I sound like I am rambling, but it is all connected.

Then I found myself getting on a bus, just like I had done for months while researching Virginia.

‘What bus?’ I asked myself, only then realizing it was all part of the plan.

I, me, my own actions, were putting me in place to go and do my assignment.

It was all according to plan. Not that I knew what I was doing of course, well, at least not consciously anyway.

I live at home, with two loving parents.

This assignment was out of town, so it happened on a weekend.

My cover was that I had to do research for a report that was part of my homework in Psych.

While researching Virginia during the first part of the school year, I discovered a real and somewhat puzzling oddity. The public library in the town where Virginia lives with her guardian slash keeper James, has an extra large section on psych. No clue why it has it, but it makes a good cover since I spend so much time studying psych stuff.

So I got on a bus.

It was just like I was doing research at the better library for it, seeing Virginia, and doing a shift at an out of town arcade over the weekend. It was just like normal.

Normal? Yeah right. Like normal even applies to us.

My parents knew everything, except for any of the details they would have cared about of course.

From the moment I set foot in the bus station, my handbag was my cloak of invisibility.

I eschew the big bulky things most of us carry when I can.

I like the spring tension top of my clutch that self-closes. Zippers annoy me.

I rarely need any of the equipment, and the full size handbags are really too large for someone my size to carry normally.

I like my stylish little clutch, and our handlers put up with it.

Except when I find I can’t leave ‘The bag’ behind, and then I feel like a luggage clerk.

People saw me, until they saw my clutch purse, or the logo anyway, then they hadn’t.

I don’t mean that they stopped seeing me. I mean it was as though they never had.

I found myself headed for the lockers when Jerome, that’s the name I know him by anyway, bumped into me when we both swerved.

He works for, or is with, the alliance. He is part of the security and over watch in my town.

I didn’t see, and barely felt it when his fingers popped open my clutch to drop a key in.

It went so smoothly that, afterwards, I realized that the package must have been guiding me.

I like the way it looks, really classy, but it takes effort to learn.

The grip on the bottom laying it along my arm is awkward on my own, but the package does it effortlessly, leaving me to learn it on my own if I want the skill outside assignments.

While I am glad assignments don’t leak, there are a few things I wouldn’t if they did.

His apologetic face for bumping into me, was returned with a ‘no problem’ look.

I pulled the key out as I approached the lockers.

I walked to the matching number like I had been there many times before, despite never having used one of them in my life.

It was weird, the package was there, I could feel it.

Ready to intercede if needed, but otherwise silent.

Inside the locker was a nearly backpack sized and looking thing with a shoulder strap.

Unlike some members of my gender, I don’t like lugging my life around with me everywhere I go.

This bag was even larger than normal for me, which was really annoying, but it contained the expected things.

Gee, thanks to whomever, for helping me look like I had half of my life with me.

I must have looked like a potential runaway lugging that thing around.

Lucy Schroeder, my current assignment persona, presented her ticket a few minutes later.

My handlers have this thing about the Peanuts cartoons.

Gee, I wonder what got them started on that? ;)

I am still getting used to being me when staffing meetings, but being someone else when on an actual assignment.

I am also still adjusting to the feeling of the package answering for me when I miss my cue.

Others have told me to expect my persona names to both change, and be recycled.

I don’t know why we are us in the arcades, and staffing some meetings, though not all, but always someone else on assignment.

I can see forgetting being someone else, but why when we are us?

There must be a reason, but do they tell us? Hah!

I think I need additional words here, so I will work on that, unless of course management cares to chime in with some answers. Never mind, I can already hear their laughter.

I was fortunate to have a bench seat to myself on the bus. The other person was a no show, or perhaps they bought both seats. I don’t know.

In my bag were the expected items: An ID if needed, an employee ID card, also if needed, a returning credit card I had used before, all matching my assignment name.

There was some cash, more than I expected.

They are normally quite parsimonious about cash when on assignment, not giving as much of that largess as we would like.

Quite the contrast to conditions at the ‘Fort’, which is where I at least came to expect otherwise, but we all know how that works out now don’t we.

I found a hotel reservation for a place I had never heard of, along with a receipt and confirmation code.

There were multiple changes of clothes. One loose, obviously lounging wear, complimented by a well fitting pant suit.

Another, tight fitting, designed to display my still developing curves, while de-emphasizing that I am still kind of small and under developed.

I changed into one of the outfits when I used the bus’ bathroom. If you think gymnastics is hard, try changing clothes in a moving bus without making too much noise, or taking too much time.

Showing up for an assignment in the same clothes you wore to school is just too weird.

I avoid doing it, I don’t want to think about who else might have seen me getting in or out of them while in class.

Two hours later I found myself getting off. I mean the bus you silly, get your mind out of the gutter. That came later, well, I did anyway, and the customer naturally enough.

The hotel was three blocks away. Lucy checked in.

Lucy’s ID said I was nineteen, and the clerk took it without a blink.

I think he only wanted to see the ID hoping he might be able to score later, typical guy.

They know they have no chance, yet to not make even the token effort seems to break some rule that none of them are willing to break.

Though knowing he definitely saw the logo on my bag and clutch could be a factor.

He was nice about it though, very business like. He didn’t ogle, just looked me over.

Though to be fair, checking ID like that might be some hotel chain policy, who knows why corporate anywhere does anything.

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away. I am still getting used to how nice that feels when on assignment, which is nothing like the creepy feeling I get as myself.

The room turned out to be a suite, with four bedrooms, a full bath and a kitchenette. I was stunned.

I picked the room away from the bathroom, in part because it had a patio.

Minutes later I discovered that I was simply the first to arrive.

Four more arrived, none of them UCA.

They were all older than me, and far more physically developed.

They also openly disliked me on sight. We didn’t talk much beyond hello.

I got to keep my room to myself. The others split two other rooms. This left the master bedroom for who ever had hired us.

Cindy was a short Asian looking woman, standing five feet even.

She looked just a little off since she lacked epicanthic folds on her eyes. No signs of surgery, so she must have had some very interesting ancestors.

She was not quite model quality. Her cheek bones were off and her nose was not quite right.

Her accent was by far her most interesting feature. She had a completely out of place, thick but thinning Australian twang.

Abigail is a study in contradictions.

Go look up Zulu or Bantu. Find a picture and keep that in mind.

Under average height for them, about five ten.

Normal build for the group, very athletic.

Jet black, kinky, curly hair both top and bottom; what there was anyway.

Other than a neat trim below, her body was hairless below her head.

Her eyes are so dark brown they appear black.

Unlike many of African descent, her palms and the bottoms of her feet are as dark as the rest of her.

Her skin seems to drink in the light, letting none of it escape.

The whites of her eyes and her teeth are the only white parts of her.

The rest are various shades of chocolate and fudge and yes there are differences between those.

Olive is an olive skinned half Russian, half Greek woman of five feet six inches.

Her dark brown hair reaches her waist in a shimmering wave of undulating light.

Pale green eyes and a delicate nose sit between narrow but high cheeks.

Thin lips and an even thinner chin perch atop a delicate neck that leaves her looking almost bird like, with her hair as plumage.

Pina on the other hand is both exotic, and weird. She barely speaks at all.

The half Eskimo, half Incan woman stands five four, and has a surprisingly muscular build.

To me however, she will always be malamute, because of her heterochromia.

She smiles a lot, but there is a hollowness behind it, like the person she most wants to hide her sadness from is herself.

The client arrived with room service in tow.

So did his four students. Be patient. I’m getting there. This really is about hugs.

After a light salad snack and introductions, things got weird.

I expected kinky after seeing the other women.

What I got was weird.

“Ok ladies.” The client said, actually addressing us for the first time. “These are my students. They are merely one, two, three, and four. They are auditioning for advanced studies. Until they are accepted or rejected, they are simply numbers to be referenced, not named individuals. This is to prevent bias involved in names, which is important to me. Please keep track of how they do. I will expect not just answers. I expect replies and analyzations from you as well.”

“Whatever the client wants.” Cindy laughed with Olive.

“So long as you understand. That is enough for now.” He went on with a knowing grin. “I am John. You can call me that, or Mr. Doe if you prefer.”

“Yes Mr. Doe.” Abigail said with dripping sarcasm, though she smiled warmly. I remained silent.

“For now ladies, disrobe and assume the pose referred to as parade rest.” He ordered, and we complied. I was curious because nothing made sense to me yet. “Ok, One, Two, Three, Four. What you are going to do is inspect them. Then you are going to tell me everything you can about them once you are done.”

“Yes Mr. Doe.” The four students, three male, one female, said mimicking Abigail’s tone, though not her smile.

The next hour was weird, but only the beginning.

First, we were inspected.

Though highly intimate, it turned out to be non sexual.

We were groped, felt up, fondled, and stroked just enough to see us react.

Pinched, yes there, and there, and Don’t! Ask!

Then hands were run over us, more than once.

Every muscle in our bodies got traced, most more than once.

They even cataloged mammary tissue return and reshaping response.

I thought it was just a normal guy-type game, groping and fondling some T&A that will just stand there and take it.

Then I noticed that even she, the female student, number three, was doing it. I saw that they were all taking notes, real notes.

All the while they were taking notes in little notepads, and that was the part that made sense. It was an odd feeling, having a hand on my breast, squeezing, kneading. Yet more than anything, evaluating. Not enjoying, just evaluating, and she was included. I had little idea what was happening, but it sure wasn’t an orgy. All I knew for sure was that our bodies were being reduced a set of notations in their notebooks.

After the numbers were finished inspecting us, we were asked to wait in our rooms. We all took more snacks with us. An hour passed, then another. Finally, we were called back in. I remained as confused as I had been when I arrived. From their looks, the others were just as confused as I was.

“Ok, now we hear from your test subjects about how you did in their terms.” Mr. Doe said with a look that I still can’t find the right words for. “Ladies, as I point to you. I want your opinion on my students, that includes how they made you feel, as well as anything else you find relevant about them.”

“Well to begin with.” Cindy started in when Mr. Doe pointed to her. She gave a quick concise description of feeling like a cross between a lab rat and a mannequin in one, three and four’s hands. Two she gave higher marks to for not seeing her just as a piece of meat. Abagail followed her, then Olive and finally Pina. Who spoke hesitantly while rehearsing her words in sign language. Apparently that is her personal version of muttering. Each was saying more or less the same things, about the same people.

“What is it exactly you really want to know?” I asked when the others were done.

“They have told me about you, now I want you to tell me about them.”

By that point I had been handled, groped and inspected by four total strangers. I had played piece of meat to be diagnosed, and I had had enough. I try to comport myself well most of the time, but the day was wearing on me. I was sure I would be stopped, the package is always watching after all, but I wasn’t. I was sure I would be however, since it is in part designed to manage our ‘Comportment’, or ‘Client experience’ after all.

‘Comport’ became my new favorite word of the week. I gave in and treated my hypergraphia to new word candy to shut it up because of how this assignment left me feeling. The newer and more unique of a word I give it, the longer it takes to resurface, and then I end up using it a lot for a while. So until it gets done with ‘Comport’ versus ‘Client Experience’, I have peace and quiet. I will deal with the urge to overuse the word later. Who knows, I may even find a use for it.

As Mr. Doe had instructed, “Beginning with one.” I began, and told him all about them. To say it better, more accurately and rather unexpectedly, the package or construct did it for me. I suspect it must have been part of the assignment instructions that I have no conscious memory of. I really find that unknowing stuff unnerving. According to my own reports, I have mentioned this several times. The package reported everything that could be derived based on what happened so far. This included listening to them talk, watching them take their notes, and even how they touched and felt me up. Watching the guys having their groping and fondling critiqued made me laugh inside. Package and Construct or not, I nearly laughed out loud as well.

The looks of horror and something else on the students’ faces, were topped by the looks I got from the other ladies. None of them had seen my bag, none of them had a clue who I was, or what I am. The moment I started in, they suddenly wanted to know. The fun faded minutes later with him smiling broadly, and the rest of us puzzled.

“I am, of course, taking the interesting one.” Mr. Doe announced while smiling at me. “Sort the rest.”

“At once.” The female student said, frowning and still staring at me. Despite looking the others over before choosing, everyone seemed to find cause to glance or simply stare at me several times. While they did their song and dance of choosing, Mr. Doe went to the kitchenette.

“First we open their pores.” He said returning with a stainless steel bowl of warm, green, stinky liquid that he set gently on the floor behind me. “Pay close attention. Note that when I wipe my hands off, they are unstained. However, the same can not be said for the towel. I don’t want to hear anything further about it. With the right cleaning agents, the stains will wash out of the cloth as well.”

Next, he dipped a cloth in the liquid, squeezed a portion of it out and then proceeded to wipe it up my back. The sensation as he wiped from my lumbar spine to my shoulders was cold and warm at the same time. Now, as I look back and have had time to compare, I detect: Menthol, Pine, Acetone, Apple Pitch and Essence of Rose. There were others I will lack the time to identify before this all fades.

He moved away to guide the others. When I checked my back minutes later, I was shocked to find that it was dry. I could still feel the substance on me, wet and ready to drip, yet my back lay dry. Then he returned and covered the rest of me. It was perhaps naive of me not to expect a reaction from my body. It did, however, and I was far from the only one. I could see and smell the reactions of the others as they were covered. Our nipples displayed our shared state of arousal despite nothing sexual having taken place yet.

Then an odd thing happened. After washing his hands, Mr. Doe dipped them in some soft, white, waxy stuff. He rubbed it around as though washing his hands. As it warmed, it turned clear. Just before he touched me again, I got a shock. Not static electricity, not a strike or touch. I was shocked to feel, for the first time in my life, the warmth of another person. I felt it, him, before he touched me. The feeling of that warmth without quite invading my space was haunting, and arousing, and erotic. I have never felt anything like it. Even the package and the construct seemed surprised in some way.

The closer he came, the greater his proximity, the nearer his touch, and the warmer he felt; the more aware I was of his closeness. The warmth of his nearness was relaxing, warming and welcoming. I gasped when he did touch me. Where he touched me was not the fire I had anticipated, but ice. Tingly, fiery, cold burned under his touch, rimmed by welcome warmth. As his hands glided over me, the feeling moved. There was a leading wave of warmth, then a hand-sized wedge of ice, followed by a quickly rewarming shadow of the ice. There was one last tickle of his pre-touch warmth before it too faded away. I shivered, and I was not the only one.

Talk devolved to Latin and Greek. He shifted languages back and forth as he explained muscle groups, nerve junctions, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue and cartilage. We were mannequins again for a while, and I swallowed my trembles by sheer force of will. After few minutes, I was ready for the sex part. My body was ready for, and wanting, and aching for the sex part. I was slowly starting to look forward to it. The sex part seemed to be the only thing missing from the evening. My drying body was wet for it.

Then he caressed my cheek, and it was warm. Then he grasped my breast and it was cold. Then he put his thumbs together above my nose, between my eye brows, and it was warm. Then he ran his hands down my ribs before hitting my buttocks, and it was cold. Then he kissed me, and it was welcome.

I hadn’t noticed when he shed his clothes, but the package showed me what I had missed. Later that is. I did not ask at the time. I was distracted. Ice was the touch of his hands, tropical sunlight everything else.

I can recall it all. The package replays the construct’s memories like a DVD. Thanks for that? Yet for my part, my own memories, those are hazy and indistinct, like I was drunk or high. I am still puzzling out how all that works, how can it remember so clearly, what I can barely recall at all? I recall being touched, and touching in return. I recall being kissed, and kissing in return. I don’t actually remember moving to ‘my’ room. Yet the package replays the constructs memories of it with near orgasmic clarity. I resist the urge to replay the memory at home, for I fear my parents may hear. I don’t want to have that conversation with them.

I look forward to this fading for that reason, and dread the loss. Will it affect me, change me? What will I lose when this assignment fades? Or will even its shadow cast unknowable effects upon me still. Will the memories take everything with them? How we gain when we never remember is still something I am puzzling over. I also suspect those who have figured it out believe that it is something we have to figure out on our own.

At the same time I wonder how it and I can have over lapping, yet distinct memories.

How is it that it knows, while we do not?

Great, middle of a rant, and I still can’t stop trying to distract myself with other things I do not understand.

On with it Snoopy! ;—}

Fire and Ice danced on my skin, and in my nerves. I recall the scent of him: arctic spring, the smell of breaking ice. His breath was a warm spring breeze, close enough to the ocean to still taste the salt, yet distant enough to not suffer the humidity. The mattress formed to us like sand on a river bank or a beach. I really like the way that type of foam mattress felt, I may get one.

His touch was winter. His body was summer. His taste was spring. I woke the next morning alone, and my first thought was wondering where autumn had gone. Dawn shown down, and I lay for a while enjoying how I felt, wondering if I had felt it before.

“Taragména nerá.” Olive whispered from the kitchenette. She was making coffee when I headed to the shower.

“I don’t understand.” I told her. Her words, ‘Troubled waters’, made no sense to me.

“You ... You’re UCA.” She said, pointing to my hated travel bag.

“So?” I asked. “I do not understand. Trouble? Water?”

“I understand your eyes now.” She said walking up to me.

“My eyes?” I asked.

“So dark, yet so light.” Olive said. Then she grabbed me in a hug. That moment was the most intense hug I have ever felt. For just a moment before I was in her grasp, I felt her.

Not her presence, which I feel from everyone, but her, her warmth. For that heart, a single heartbeat, I understood welcoming a hug. Then I was lost in it enveloping me. I found myself returning that hug. For the first time in my life, I felt like returning the hug of a stranger. It was unfathomable, it remains so, and it haunts me. All the more so because I know I would return it again. Some time passed like that, her holding me, hugging me close. I still do not understand why it felt like that.

Minutes later I was in the shower, feeling like I was washing emotions off. Feeling like I was leaving something behind, that I was losing something in the process. I had hopes, and I had fears, in equal measures for that shower. Hope that I really was washing the remains of the previous night off me, and fear that I was losing more than I understood. Would it wash that feeling of something foreign, the warmth and comfort of another, off of me?

It both did, and yet it didn’t. The feeling of heat and cold went away. That slight clamminess of my skin washed off of me as quickly as you shower for the pool. Its memory however, that did not wash away. It did not leave me and has not gone. That memory echoes and replays when some people are close to me. I relive some of these moments I write about. Even now, I do not know if I will miss these echoes, these memories. Will some ghost of them persist? Will some echoes stay with me, even though I will not know why, or where they came from?

Over breakfast I caught Olive signing to Pina that I am UCA. Thank you package for adding sign language to my life skills. Now I have to cover my ears and close my eyes both to get quiet since I ‘hear’ what they are saying in ‘their’ voice. When Pina signed back asking if she was sure, I asked the package and it replied for me.

‘Yes.’ The package replied in sign language. ‘I am UCA.’

‘Really?’ She signed back surprised. ‘You are so young.’

‘I am of enough age.’ I replied. I smiled, but was secretly annoyed at the holes in the package’s dictionary. It was obviously designed to be just enough to get by, but not enough to ignore needing to learn more. Who puts these things together anyway? Just wonderful, now I have more homework. I need to fill in the missing words. Having just half of something in my head is annoying. Then I signed, ‘Though that is just one measure used.’

‘One measure?’

‘It is not right for everyone. Many would lose themselves in it.’

‘Are you still in school?’ Pina asked, making an odd face.

‘Yes.’ I admitted.

‘I was when I started as well. I was in an orphanage. The priest started us at fifteen because the money it brings in is needed to care for the youngest. We pay back those who came before us, by providing for those who come after.’

“How did they get you?” Abigail asked out loud. “You do not have the look of a waif they would snatch off the street as they do. And you are no cheerleader to deserve it.”

“She still lives with her parents I would bet.” Cindy said between bites.

“How did?” I asked, astonished.

“You have a family. They love you.” Cindy replied flatly, though her look was soft. It was full of curiosity, and something I am once again at a loss for words to express. It felt lonely, however. “It shows. Do they know? Have any clue? Any real clue?”

“No.” I admitted. “They know I work the arcades and staff business meetings, but not the rest.”

“Then how?” Abigail repeated.

“I volunteered.”

“You what?” Abigail and Cindy gasped.

‘Why?’ Pina signed, looking confused.

To them it seemed that I paused for a few heartbeats to find and format words. To me, those hearts were some of the longest in my life. I asked and re-asked myself that question. Over and over in a loop. I listened to myself, making words back at me. Like I was watching my first person argue with my second person, from my third person’s point of view.

The ticking of the clock on the wall sounded like an hour bell to me. I, from each internal view, asked and lied to myself a dozen dozen times in those moments. As I watched those three instances of myself, that amalgam of pieces that is me. I had to admit that my first, second and third person selves were, one and all, both lying and evading. When I looked inside at why, I felt like crying.

“Because I needed more.” My mouth answered. It refused to keep the silence I was demanding of myself. I was off guard for a moment, and my waiting mouth pounced on the opportunity. “Because I was tired of being alone. I needed people I had something in common with. I couldn’t be the lost and lonely person I had been anymore, not once I knew there was more to the world.”

Pina rose from her chair and walked around the table to me. “I understand.” She whispered. Her nose touched mine for several seconds, then her forehead as well. After some time, seconds that felt like as many minutes, I let myself be pulled into yet another hug. I thought at first she would squeeze me in half, then I realized I was returning it. I do not know how long we spent hugging like that. Olive joined us after a while. Abigail and Cindy stepped away, leaving us alone.

I spent the next night with James and Virginia. It is haunting there. His parents know that they spend each night in bed together. They know they also sleep together, have sex. Yet, it is always when she wants it. He never pushes. Given the circumstances, he certainly has no reason to. I didn’t recognize their official escort at the time, and she didn’t really matter. Tamara was visiting. Yes, her. My physical opposite in so many ways. I still envy her, and feel sorry for her. Some day, I may even sort out what I feel about her, but that night, last night, did nothing to help me. Virginia slept on her cot. He slept between me and Tamara. I curled up, feeling oddly lonely after the previous night. I felt warmth at my back at first, then it spread.

He eased his arm under my head as he curled up against me. His other arm went over me onto my stomach. Needing more in some way I lack words for, I pulled his hand up to my chest. He resisted my attempt to place it upon my breast. Instead, he placed it flat upon my sternum, his middle finger extended upward to just between my collar bones. The rest of his hand splayed warmly between my breasts.

An echo of the night before went through me. His warmth enveloped and engulfed me. I felt safe, warm, and content, all at the same time. For the first time in my life, I, as myself in circumstances like that, relaxed. I am glad he didn’t wake me in the middle of the night wanting sex. I would have. I would have given up that one thing I have kept for myself, and thought nothing of it at the time.

For in that dark of last night, it would have been me with him, and him with me. Us being with each other as each other. The surrender of that last tiny piece of me I hold as my own. For though he has been in me, it was not him, just his body. I was running his version of a construct at the time, and he knows nothing of it. He retains nothing but knowledge that it happened, as he has no memory. Those events are mine and mine alone.

I woke at dawn with him still holding me close. I lay there enjoying this version of a hug. I nearly jumped up when I saw Virginia watching me, us, him holding and hugging me. The look on her face and in her eyes, however, stopped me. She was smiling, happy for me to have found something I needed so badly. Silently she rose. She motioned me stay and enjoy while she went for a shower, which I did.

“How are you doing?” Tamara asked me when she returned a few minutes later. I hadn’t realized she was gone. “Are you ok?”

“I don’t know.” I replied honestly, though softly so I didn’t wake James.

“Want to talk about it?” She asked, smiling at him.

“Not really, unless I have to, that is. I’m really kind of comfortable right now.” I replied, deflecting.

“Don’t worry about him. Despite other evidence, he’ll sleep another hour or two if we let him.” Tamara said smiling.

“Really?” I asked, unable to sort my own emotions about how firm he felt, or how he lay around me.

“Really. While he is of course aroused and erect as you can tell, that is just autonomic.”

“Oh.” I muttered, reddening some at how firm and erect he was, and even more at how warm and comforting it was.

“What happened?” She asked, concerned by something. While she may have been visiting a friend, she still had a job, since I am, after all, a companion. She needed to help sort out my problem, whatever it was.

“I got a hug.”

“A hug? A bad hug?”

“No, a good hug. A really good hug in fact.”

“And?”

“And it felt good, but they don’t.”

“Hugs don’t feel good to you?”

“Not really, not that they feel bad either.”

“But you’ve never really experienced one before?” She asked with a look of unexpected understanding.

“No, not like last night.”

“How did it feel?”

“Good.”

“Now you are equal parts scared the next one won’t, and terrified it may?”

“Yeah.” I admitted, surprised that she would have any clue.

“Take a moment and step back from the situation. Look at it like someone else might.”

“Ok.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Umm ...”

“Nude, in bed with a boy. He is curled around you, and you look like you like it.”

“He is warm.” I said defensively. “I’m not used to that. People are just there. I feel their temperature, but I don’t feel any warmth, not like this.”

“Or last night?”

“No.” I admitted, blushing.

“Are you planning on having sex with him?”

“No.” I denied hotly, reddening further.

“Then what has changed?”

“I can feel him. I want to lay here and enjoy being held all day, but I don’t like hugs, or being held.”

“I leave mid afternoon.” Tamara said changing the subject. “I can drop you off on my way. Unless you would rather stay and play cuddle Barbie to ...”

“No.” I nearly hissed, reddening further. “I really could use the ride. I don’t want to take the bus again right now.”

As I sit here, I am ready for bed, yet unable to relax. I thought I had myself under control. I thought I had it all together. I thought I had put the ticking clock of assignment fade from my mind. Then my mother asked if everything was ok. She said I held on harder than I normally do when we hug. That was the moment I knew I was in trouble. I showered again. I showered hard. I scrubbed. I am clean. I got it all off. Did I, however, get it all out?

I felt it when I hugged my parents. I felt, them. I don’t mean I felt it when they hugged me. My sense of touch works just fine. What I mean is, I felt something more, something I have not felt before, or in so long that my mind and thoughts are no longer the same shape that they were then. It is staying with me. The package and the construct are not supposed to change me. I was told I would remain me, myself, as I am. They promised they would not change me.

Am I who I was?

If they did not change me, am I changing myself?

Who was Julia before?

Who is Julia now?

Who was Snoopy originally?

Who is Snoopy now?

Is Julia the girl stepping back?

Is Snoopy the companion stepping up?

Is this a new me, or a bit of an old me?

Who, I have to ask myself, am I now?

I just took my carnival teddy bear out of the closet for the first time in years.

I got it when I was eight, and it was much bigger than I was then.

I put it away at eleven, and it is still as tall as I am, even now.

I wonder if it hugs like it used to when I was so small, before I put it away, silly child.

I’m sleepy now, and my words are running low.

Now friends, it is time for me to go.

Until next time. (I am hoping that there is a next time. That STFU could come at any time after all, but I hope it doesn’t. Writing all this down helps me. I hope does some good for others as well.)