Taken. Part VI: Conclusion.
“So, this woman, McCandliss. You were both her sex slaves in college?”
If the taxi driver heard the question through the window partition, he had both the good sense and taste not to act like it. Or maybe he heard people say crazy stuff like that all the time.
“Yes, uh, both of us. Um, like a harem,” said Ceri, her cheeks burned. She couldn’t wait to ask till we aren’t in the back of a cab?
Mallory’s full lips pursed, “Shocking. And seeing Wendy with me triggered the memories?” Her elegant fingers reached out and patted Ceri’s left thigh. The heat of those fingers made her pussy prickle deliciously. Breath caught, she squirmed, she thought she saw the driver glance in his mirror.
“Uh, yeah.” She desperately wanted to get out of this ridiculous pink skirt and plunging top and into a pair of jeans and a hoodie. I look like a cheap hooker. What the hell did Lin do to me? Fucking McCandliss said she’d help me and now I’m completely fuc . . . .
“Suppressed memories. How awful,” said Mallory, she shook her head, delicate eyebrows furrowing. “Lucky you didn’t just go postal or something.” A strand of raven hair fell forward, curling around her face, her clear blue eyes moistened a little behind their dark spectacle frames. “You’re free of all that now. Terrible. Taking advantage of you like that. What an awful woman!”
Ceri choked out a laugh despite herself, “Yes, she’s a bitch.” See, she’s different, Mallory understands me. She’s not all bad. She’s . . . no. Evil. Remember Wendy.
The taxi pulled up. She saw the white door of the studio loft where Mallory lived, realized with a start she’d been oblivious to the rest of the ride.
“Here we are!” said Mallory. She leaned forward and paid the driver before getting out. She didn’t look back as she walked up to the door.
Don’t get out. She’s evil.
“Miss?” The driver turned his head just a little. He had a big bushy moustache, going mostly grey, and kind brown eyes. “Is this your stop?”
No. Please help me. The words stuck in her throat.
Her stomach suddenly pitted at the thought of not following Mallory. An aching need that started deep between her thighs.
“Yes, this is my stop, thanks.” She got out and shut the cab door, watched as the battered yellow car drove away. The door to the studio had been left open. Nobody in the street.
I could run right now. How could she stop me? But I promised. And could she get Wendy back? Would it break the deal?
The sick yearning filled her again. The thought of Mallory’s fingers running across her skin made her mouth dry.
She’s not even bothering to check on me following her. She knows I’m going to do it.
She tottered awkwardly towards the door on her platform heels. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Apparently I can’t even remember how to walk in these shitty heels now.
Ripped them off, sudden rage cleansing her soul. The tar of the pavement felt good on her bare soles. She snarled, “Fuck all this!” The plunging top tore off. Next, the wretched pink skirt. “Fuck it all!” The collar round her neck wouldn’t come off, saliva flecked her mouth as the air turned blue while she struggled with it.
She paused in frustration. I’m standing naked in the street, except for a dog collar.
Ceri jumped inside the door.
She walked up the flight of stairs and took a deep breath before entering the studio.
“Oh, I approve!” laughed Mallory, her teeth flashed. Bacon sizzled on her small kitchen stove.
“Yeah,” said Ceri, walking naked across the loft studio’s wooden floor towards the table by the high windows. She tried to ignore the smell of dead pig. “I needed to get out of those clothes. They weren’t me.” The heavy brown curtains still hung across one half of the space. “I can’t get this collar off though.”
“Come here,” said Mallory. She gestured and Ceri leaned forward, so very aware of those fingertips brushing her neck. The collar came free. “There we go. Trick lock, I’ve seen them before. Take a seat, I’m making dinner for you.”
“Um, I’m vegan actually.”
“Sit.”
Ceri sat. “No, really, I don’t think I could eat that even if I wanted, I haven’t eaten meat in years.”
Mallory’s pink tongue slipped between her teeth. Ceri felt it brush lightly against her clit.
“Oh! How did you just—uhhh.”
“I’m a witch, Ceri.” Mallory paused and looked out the window. “Wow, that’s very liberating to say to a subject. I must thank Lin before I sculpt her.” Her tongue ran around her lips.
“You’re going to—omigod -,” Ceri squeezed and spread her thighs beneath the table, the tongue on her clit swirling, “please—uh—stop, I can’t-.”
The sensations ceased. Mallory flipped the bacon onto a blue plate and laid it in front of Ceri.
“One day. She’d make a terrific subject. You’re going to make a great subject too. You have a beautiful soul.”
“Um, thanks?”
“I’m going to look forward to seeing the form it takes. That’s what I do, Ceri. I’m an artist. I’m inspired by the human spirit. I love to immortalize it.”
Ceri’s eyes narrowed, “By turning me into a living statue.”
“No, Ceri. You’ll turn yourself into a beautiful sculpture. I’m just the person who’ll help you find your true form. I’ll set you free from all the things that are holding you from it.” She nudged the plate forward with a finger. “Eat.”
The black curtains had been pulled back. Figures in metal, stone or wood, some finished, some obviously works in progress or smaller clay models, dotted the space. Naked flesh bent and twisted in abject submission, empty of everything except aching lust. Bodies perverted by desire. Some of the sketches on the walls showed women encased in leather and masks, others nude and bound by elaborate knot work. Photographs were pinned up in one corner, female faces lost in orgasm, distorted in sharp monochrome.
Ceri knelt on a low plinth. Sweat trickled along the line of the wet ropes criss-crossing her body, her back painfully arched along a bamboo stick by the knots tying her hands to her ankles. Drops dribbled into her eyes making her blink. Where is she? Oh, just need . . . to submit. No, she’s evi-.
“Yes-ohhh.” A phantom tongue licked her clit, making her hips sway a little against her bondage. “Please again.” The feeling of the ropes restricting her heightened the sensations of the tongue swirling. Made them better. Everything felt better in the ropes. No, nothing there. Just imagi—ohhh, sooo goooood.
“You know,” said Mallory, her footsteps echoed off the walls of the studio as she circled, just out of Ceri’s sight. “I’m really enjoying this. Normally at these times, a subject is not quite so,” Ceri imagined, rather than saw Mallory tapping her chin, “interactive.”
She saw a glimpse of Mallory’s raven hair, her dark glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, as the sculptress picked up a sketch pad from a small wooden table. Looseleaf sketches of Ceri bound in various lewd poses already lay scattered across the surface. Her needy pussy juiced around the cruel rope parting it, the knot over her swollen clit teasing constantly.
“Pleas-uh,” whined Ceri. She bit her lip. The awful need to be touched by Mallory, to be loved by her, made her mouth taste of copper.
No, some way out of this. Some way to get to . . . feel sooo good.
Mallory’s pencil made little scritching noises as it flew across the sketch paper. “What would you like Ceri?”
“To be free.” Yes! Yes! Let me go!
“Of course, that’s something we’re working on, as I think you’re going to discover for yourself. But . . . don’t you want me to touch you?”
ohgodohgodyestouchmelovemefuckme “Yes! Please!”
Heat, liquid heat burning through her skin, making her shiver against the bondage.
“Just hold still while I sketch.”
“Eat up,” said Mallory, laying down the plate of fresh bacon and eggs on the big round window table in front of Ceri. “Need to keep your strength up for the next session.”
Ceri nodded, “Yes, Mallory.” She stuffed bacon into her mouth, the plain white bathrobe feeling a little weird against her skin after the ropes. Uncomfortable. Hope next session is soon. How long has it been? Can’t keep track any more.
Mallory gazed out of the high studio windows, looking out at a barge making its way around the bend in the river. She sipped her coffee. Looking at her blue eyes made little rivulets of pleasure run up and down Ceri’s spine.
I think I’m in love. No. She’s doing something to me. She’s so . . . beautiful.
“How do you feel, Ceri? Excited to start the next stage?”
Ceri swallowed a mouthful of bacon. “I—I’m scared.”
“Of what? It’s always so fascinating when we start to sculpt. You’re as much a part of it as I am you know.” Mallory’s half-smile made Ceri’s heart thud.
“You’re doing something to me. You did something to . . . to . . . .” Ceri’s brow creased and then relief flooded. “Wendy.”
“Ah, Wendy! You’re still thinking about her?” Mallory laughed, raven hair twisting around her shoulders. She leaned forward, one finger stroked the back of Ceri’s left hand as it poised to stab an egg with a fork.
Ceri’s jaw opened, breath frozen. Beneath the table, her legs spread.
Mallory whispered, “I’m so glad I have the opportunity to work with you instead. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mallory. Oh, yes.”
Mallory’s knife scraped, the sound cutting inside Ceri’s mind. It made her muscles jump, lifting her pelvis off the plinth, legs bent at the knees. Her arms had been twisted and tied beneath her back, so that she arched in an obscene pose.
“Unnh, yes,” she gasped. Every time she-she does that. It’s-. No, try to remember. A tongue licked around the tips of her hard nipples, sending little jagged spikes of pleasure direct to her overheated pussy. Remember. Remember? Someone?
“Remember it’s not just me working here,” said Mallory. Out of sight as usual, circling. Always circling. “You have to be responsive as I sculpt you. True art is a collaborative exercise.”
Ceri didn’t look for the witch as she circled any more. She knew better now. The stiller she became the better the feelings. Such delicious, orgasmic feelings. So hard to think-. Like this. Love this. “I-uh. Hard to talk-uh.”
The knife scraped again.
Her tongue slipped out as her mouth opened in a silent scream. Spirit fingers thrusting deep inside her welcoming cunt. Her head twisted, lifting up on her neck.
Mallory exclaimed, “Oh! Great! That’s great!”
The orgasm rippled through her, shredding what little remained of her sanity. It ran from her cunt, down her back, and over her bound arms, to puddle across the hard lacquered surface of the plinth.
Love! Mallory! Happy!
Her breath panted. Obey Mallory. She relaxed.
“No! Noooo! That’s it!” Scrape-scrape.
A feather teased across her clit. Gentle, maddening touches that ended just before they delivered on each wicked promise that they made. Breath sucked in. Hips rose.
“Yesss, c’mon. You’re so near. You’re so near.”
Her hands strained against the bonds, wrists twisting raw against the rope, desperate to reach her dripping cunt. The feather-strokes around the hood of her swollen clit made her buck.
“Why are you fighting it, Ceri? Let yourself go, your body knows what you want. So, follow it.”
Ceri moaned, “Pleassss-oh.”
“Tell me what you are, tell me what you’ve become. You’re so near, you’re so near to the form.”
Can’t-uh-must-uh-must-uh-must-must-obey-Mallory.
“Slave! I’m a slave!”
Slave’s eyes rolled white, the drops of her mind flecking the plinth as she came.
Slave’s skin crawled, the uncomfortable prickling sensation constantly with her now whenever not in the form. She climbed onto the plinth with relief, body moving fluidly without thinking into the correct shape. It felt like being wrapped in bliss, a thousand light tongues teasing across her skin, soothing away all the irritation. A long, low moan escaped from her throat.
The sculptress moved her knife. scrape, scrape.
“This is so much better for you isn’t it?”
Her mouth tried to work, but even that brought the discomfort back, magnified ten-thousand fold by the feeling of being disrupted from her true shape. Another moan died half-strangled in her throat.
“Poor thing, even talking isn’t something you want to do any more, is it? Don’t do it then. You know this is about giving yourself that freedom.”
scrape, scrape.
Even the breath stilled in her lungs. The pleasure blossomed inside her core, the feeling annihilating all her senses. She floated in the void. She never wanted to leave it. A voice came to her through the darkness.
“Embrace it. There’s nothing left. Embrace it.”
A tiny sliver of fear rose up and she hesitated. The void seemed so vast, so all-consuming. So free.
scrape, scrape.
“Embrace it. Become nothing. Embrace it.”
And she knew she wanted it.
It embraced oblivion.
Its neck arched impossibly, supporting the weight as it screamed in a silent rictus of ecstasy. Its arms splayed, frozen fingers curled in spasmic delight. Its thighs spread wide, letting the buyers see its gloriously naked, puffy pink pussy lips glistening. The feeling of each rich, luxurious wave of pleasure rolling through it from the tips of its pointed toes to the roots of its cropped hair held it still. The form felt so natural, so blissful, so orgasmic. It could hold the form forever. It wanted to hold the form forever.
Distant echoes came across space and time from another universe, a small crowd moving around it, clink of crystal glass, murmur of low voices.
“Maintenance is extremely light . . . .”
“Dah’ling! It’s fabulous! I wish I could afford your prices.”
“Bidding will start soon, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats . . . .”
A single remaining pebble of awareness flickered before another orgasmic pulse sent it back to sleep.
It felt a light warm breeze against its skin. Like being vigorously rubbed with raw sandpaper.
“Follow,” said The Voice. And it obeyed. The Sculptress had given The Voice its Keys. So it obeyed The Voice.
To the extent it had a thought of any kind, it knew that being out of the form meant an unending barrage of physical pain. To the extent it had a desire of any kind, it only wanted to slip back into its true shape as soon as humanly possible. Not that it had any conception of what being human might mean.
It felt, more than it saw, the wide-open space all around it as it walked. Hard concrete beneath its sandaled feet.
“Go look in the hangar for Freddie,” said The Voice. It heard another sound, some tiny part of it woke up and recognized it as another man’s voice. The sudden flash of sensory recognition made one eyelid blink, but nobody noticed.
It saw a big green corrugated iron roof arching into the darkness above. The stars had come out. It stared up at the lights in the sky, wondering.
“Who the fuck are you? Where’s Freddie?” Not The Voice, the other man speaking.
Its eyes had trouble focusing. The act made them sting.
A woman with phenomenally long legs and an even more phenomenally short black skirt had her feet up on a wide desk at the side of the hangar. She had a sparkly blue tank top on, strappy yellow platform heels and lashings of black eyeshadow. Her red hair spilled around her shoulders in all directions to frame enormous cleavage. The woman’s strikingly green eyes flicked across at the man and then she continued applying bright red lipstick to her full lips. She leaned forward to study herself in the mirror in her make-up case.
“Heh! I asked you a fuckin’ question, ho.” The man had broad shoulders, and a very square haircut to match. Shiny grey suit.
“Ya didn’t ask nicely did ya?” said the redhead. She snapped her make-up case shut. “Freddie’s sleeping it off in his bunk.” She sniffed and rolled her right shoulder to indicate somebody lying prone on a bed further back in the darkness of the hanger.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be-.” The man disappeared to investigate.
The redhead cast an appraising eye over it. “Whassap wit her? She high?”
“Don’t ask,” said The Voice. “Freddie’s already got you in enough trouble.”
The redhead cocked her head to one side, continuing to inventory its appearance, “Is thatta dressing gown she’s wearin’?”
“You see this?” said The Voice.
The redhead’s eyes widened.
“Right. You don’t keep your trap shut, I’ll shut it for you.”
“Fucking asshole!” The man came striding back out to the desk. “He’s out cold. Stinks of whiskey.”
“Irish whiskey,” smiled the redhead. “Tha good stuff. We partied while we wuz waitin’ for yuz guyz.”
“Yeah?” The man sat on the desk. Took a long look at the redhead’s long, muscular legs. He moved over just far enough so he could see a flash of pink thong crotch. “You showed him a pretty good party, huh?”
“Sam, keep it in your pants,” said The Voice.
Sam ignored the advice. “How’d ya like ta party, girl?”
The redhead grinned, teeth flashing white.“What ya got ta party wit?” She licked her lips and looked back at it. “Some of what she had?”
Sam placed a firm hand on top of one thigh, kneading, “You’d like some of that, huh?”
The Voice growled, “Sam, cut it. I told you to shut your mouth, bitch.”
Sam leaned all the way down to the redhead’s ear, not coincidentally helping himself to a spectacular view of her cleavage, “I can give you what she got, baby, if you wanna give it a try.”
“Sam!”
“Ignore him. You ever been hypno’ed sugar-tits?”
The redhead licked her lips. She shivered a little. Her nipples stood up hard beneath her tank top. She breathed, “She’s been hypno’ed? For realz?”
“You bet. She cums just whenever I touch her.” Some very small part of it noted that Sam lied about that. “What do you say you show me a party like you showed Freddie and then I’ll show you how good being hypno’ed feels?”
“Ya still have ta pay me too.”
“I figured.”
“Goddamit, Sam,” groaned The Voice.
The redhead pulled her legs up and off the table. Sam let them slide out beneath his hand and then stood, hooking his thumbs into his belt. He grinned at the redhead as she reached for his belt buckle.
“I’m gonna show ya somethin’ special,” said the redhead. Her fingers closed around the buckle.
“You wearing contacts?” said Sam.
The redhead paused for a moment, hands on Sam’s zipper. “No.”
“You got the weirdest green eyes I ever saw.”
“Oh?” said the redhead. “Well, fuck you.”
Sam’s nose dissolved in a red cloud of bone and pus as the towering redhead’s right forearm smashed into it. She turned him toward the desk, spinning him with the leverage on his belt buckle and then rammed his forehead off the side, a crimson arc following him backwards onto the concrete. He’d only just begun to scream.
It heard The Voice, yelling something. Not an order. Shock. It recognized that as shock.
The redhead had a little metallic device in her left hand now, her hand coming up from beneath the desktop where it had reached and pulled the device before Sam had even hit the ground. Its snub-nose flashed bright. The sound echoed off the tin walls of the hangar.
The Voice screamed. Pain. It recognized that as pain.
“FBI! FBI!” Other voices screaming all around now. “LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND! LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!”
The redhead put the little snub-nosed device that made loud noises and flashes down on the table and sauntered out to take a closer look at it.
“Did you have to shoot him!?” An exasperated female voice sounded from behind its shoulder.
“He had the gun half-out, Kira, I had no other choice but to defend myself. Give me the papers to sign.” She shrugged, “He’ll live anyway.”
“You shot him in the groin. I mean! Right in the—ugh.” The woman’s voice sighed. “You know pulling this kind of shit is why we can’t let you have nice things.”
“He’ll discover new interests. . . . Callaghan? Flashlight, please. Thanks, hon.” A giant African-American in dark blue body armor hove into the corner of its vision for a moment, handing the redhead a miniature flashlight. She switched it on.
She leaned down a little and pulled up its left eyelid, shining the light directly into its eye. It felt a sudden unaccountable surge of intense dislike for the redhead.
“Oh, yeah, she’s in there. But real deep,” said the redhead.
“So,” said the woman called Kira. “Want to test your theory?”
“No time like the present! Uh, just bear in mind that I made this up for use in an, um, entirely different context.”
“Get on with it!”
The redhead looked into its eyes. “Wendy and Ceri up a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”
A buzzing sensation filled its ears.
Ceri gasped. Her eyes swam, the world spinning, spinning.
“Whoa! Nice catch, Callaghan!”
Her heart thundered in her ears, her breath coming in sharp gasps, “Whuh? Whuh?”
“It’s okay,” said Callaghan, he gave her a friendly grin, holding her gently upright. “Your friend Rebecca is here.”
“Whuh? Rebecc-?”
Rebecca McCandliss waved at Ceri. “Hello Ceri, ready to make a statement?”
Ceri noted that dressing like a whore suited McCandliss perfectly. “I hate you, you bitch.” The world started going blessedly dark as exhaustion carried her off. She could hear Callaghan laughing.
“Oh, so she really does know you, huh?”
The row of women stood against the white wall, up against the black lines that marked their height. They each wore simple black jeans and a polo neck, had long raven hair and dark glasses.
“Take your time, Ceri,” said Agent Kira Blake. The agent, a lithe, pretty Asian in a smart blue ladysuit hung back from the one-way window to give Ceri plenty of room.
Ceri liked Agent Blake. She seemed brave and kind and ethical. Not like certain other law enforcement professionals she could think of.
Ceri’s mouth went dry. A cold tendril ran down her spine. Breath. Breath.
“She can’t see me, can she?”
“No,” said Agent Blake. “The window has also been warded.”
Ceri glanced down and saw strange little chalk marks across the walls. Nice. Just like the ones on Lin. I miss her. I hope she’s treating Wendy well. I know she is.
She swallowed. “Number five. She’s number five.”
“Thank you, Ceri. You can take a drink outside and I’ll be out in a moment.”
Rebecca met her outside in the car park, dressed in a professional-looking black suit and open-necked white blouse. She stood at the back of the little black hatchback that Ceri had rented.
“I don’t want to speak to you,” said Ceri. She pulled her hood over her head and stuffed her hands into her jean pockets. “Shouldn’t you be back in your own jurisdiction?”
“Don’t you want to see Wendy?” Rebecca raised an eyebrow.
Ceri’s mouth worked, finally she spat, “She’s with Lin, isn’t she? I can’t remember where that is.”
“You will. That’s the thing, Ceri, you have a very unique gift, you’re like a cork, no matter what somebody does to your mind, eventually you bob back up.”
Ceri slammed her right hand off the top of the car, “Thanks a lot. You couldn’t have told me that?”
“No, people have a way of divulging everything when under mind control, the less you knew the better. Believe me, I know.” Ceri’s jaw must have dropped. “Oh, yes, been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. But I wiped your memories, Ceri, I didn’t suppress them, I wiped them. Except turns out I didn’t, they came back. That’s a pretty unusual thing.”
“So, I guess I’ll wait for that to happen.” Ceri fumbled the car keys in the lock.
“Or I could just give you Lin’s address now.”
The keys hit the tarmac, Ceri scrabbled them up, “How? Uh, how?”
“Lin is a police informer. All the smart ones are. She told us when she set up the meeting with the witch. You were being watched over the whole time. Remember, I told you I knew people.”
Ceri’s eyes widened, “The security? They were the security for the meeting? You, too?”
“Yeah. Well, not me. Kira and company. They don’t let me out of my own jurisdiction to play much.” Rebecca looked almost pouty.
“Can’t imagine why,” said Ceri. “So, what you said to me, the . . . trigger phrase that . . . re-booted me?”
“The one I gave to Wendy to trigger you in college. I figured if one command in your head survived the witch it would be that one and we could haul you back out with it. You really do love her you know.”
“Yeah, I know. The address?”
Ceri did not look back as she drove away.
Ceri waited by the roadside, sitting on the curb in her hoodie and jeans, rucksack beside her, up against the coach stop signpost. She watched trucks and cars roll past on the way towards the park, deep, rolling forests covering the hills in all directions.
Beautiful place to set up a farm full of your own mind controlled sex slaves.
She glanced back at the little cafe and contemplated getting a sandwich. A black van rolled up in front of her boots.
Mike leaned out of the van window, sticking out one enormous fist clad in bike gloves. “Hiya, Ceri, how ya doing?”
“Great.” Ceri fist-bumped. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem, glad to do it. Julia can’t wait to see ya and I know Lin is looking forward to ya joining the crew.”
Ceri pursed her lips, “Are you going to insist I go femme?”
“Are you going to make time with Tina?”
Ceri held her hands up, “Tina is super-cute.” Mike’s face darkened. “But I do not. Make. Time. With. Other. People’s. Girls.” She crossed herself.
Mike stared at the black magic marker on the whiteboard menu in the cafe’s window. “Okay. I guess I could use somebody else who likes to watch football around the place.”
“Basketball.”
Mike shrugged, “I can live with that. Get in.”
Ceri picked up her rucksack and walked round the front of the van. The door had been unlocked. She threw her rucksack in behind the seat and hopped in.
“Hehe, you almost hit me with that.”
Ceri swung round, “Wendy!”