The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The shrill blast cut through the cold November air, rousing the sleepers from their dreamless slumber. Even before the echoes of the last note had faded, Naomi was blindly reaching for her dosette box and dry-swallowing the tiny capsule. Almost immediately, she felt the chemical begin to wrap itself around her thoughts, smothering her talent under layers of calm assurance.

All around her, the city was stirring. Reflexively following the whistle’s imperative, each sleeper answered the morning Adhan, even if actual prayer was the last thing on their minds. Another nightcycle had ended, and all productive citizens were expected to begin work.

Unmindful of her nakedness, Naomi strode through the communal lounge, hardly registering her housemates. Her morning shower was an extravagance, but she felt as if she needed it in order to scrub the accumulated grime from her pallid flesh. As always, she found herself marvelling at the fine tracery of scars, which seemed to decorate her otherwise unremarkable body.

Some she could remember acquiring, even the ones that weren’t self-inflicted. But as for the rest, they were just another intriguing mystery. Karen hammered impatiently on the frosted glass, shocking Naomi from her introspection. With an embarrassed half-smile, she stepped from the small cubicle, and began to towel herself dry. The other woman barely acknowledged her, before taking her place under the now lukewarm water.

After the scalding pleasure of the shower, the remainder of Naomi’s morning routine was quite bland. She kidded herself that she was being rebellious by adding tiny unsanctioned adornments to her regulation uniform, as if a lapel pin and cuff links were going to bring down the system. Pausing in front of the hall mirror, the young woman checked her appearance one last time, and then stepped out onto the pedestrian walkway, joining the throng of workers on the slow march to the office.

Naomi was used to being the first person in her department to arrive, so it came as something of a surprise when she stepped out the elevator, and found that the interior lights had already been switched on. She felt somewhat reassured when she saw that the alarm panel had been deactivated, but that only lasted until the first thrill of apprehension began to gnaw at her awareness.

She wasn’t really talented, the tests had suggested that she only just nudged outside of latency and into the epsilon range. But even the prescribed dose of suppressor wasn’t enough to completely numb her prescient abilities. Her mind screamed at her to run, but stubbornly refused to reveal anything more. Naomi was on the verge of complete panic, and then the sounds began.

Ms. Matheson was her immediate superior, and perhaps the fairest and most conscientious boss for whom she had ever worked. Naomi had grown accustomed to her eccentricities and quirky sense of humour, but the noises that were coming from behind her office door were like nothing she had ever imagined.

Her voice was unmistakable, but there were no words, and even less sense to the sounds she was hearing. They seemed to switch from moment to moment, starting as a scream of terror and perhaps pain, then fading into something more throaty and laden with a kind of raw need. Naomi’s sense of danger spiked even higher as she stepped towards the door, but it wasn’t enough to check her progress.

Then, her hand closed around the handle, and another jolt of panic crashed over her. Swallowing hard, tasting Matheson’s fear as well as her own, Naomi pushed the door open. The scene that greeted her was truly nightmarish, and her mind struggled to grasp what she was seeing.

Her boss lay sprawled across her desk, clothing torn and soiled. Someone else lay on top of her, their naked body glistening wetly. Matheson squirmed and writhed, the earlier fear bleeding away into the warmth of purely sexual pleasure. Then, horribly, the other figure turned its head towards the door, and Naomi could barely stop herself from giving voice to the scream that bubbled up into her throat.

The creature’s face was entirely featureless, smooth skin covering its perfectly blank visage. Despite that, she couldn’t shake the impression that it was ‘looking’ straight at her. Naomi covered her mouth, trying desperately to stifle her voice. But then, its skin began to ripple and shift, changing before her eyes, and it all became too much.

With a sense of detachment, she found herself analysing the scene clinically, while in the background an ear-splitting scream just seemed to go on and on. The thing was mauling Matheson’s exposed breast with one slimy hand, while the other was crushed between their bodies. Naomi could see how they ground themselves against those probing fingers, and hear the character of her boss’ moans continue to change.

Each passing moment seemed to diminish the increasingly desperate woman, but the true horror was that whatever Matheson was losing, seemed to be passed directly onto her tormentor. Naomi stared, open-mouthed, as the creature’s face slowly altered, becoming steadily more like the weakening woman pinned beneath it.

The first climax left Matheson almost insubstantial, as a shock of dark hair seemed to pour from the back of the creature’s head. It mimicked her boss’ smile, and pinned her with someone else’s gaze. Then, the trapped woman came one final time, and was gone.

“Oh dear,” said the thing with Matheson’s face, “That wasn’t something you were supposed to see.”

Naomi took a step backwards, unable to look away, as the creature stood and ran well-manicured fingers over its stolen curves. It took her a moment to recognise what was nagging at her awareness. The young woman’s own fear had threatened to blank out everything else, but in another flash of detached unreality Naomi realised that she couldn’t feel anything else at all. Not even the background sense of someone else’s presence.

The creature was a psychic void, its presence as blank as its features had been before. Somehow that made it even more terrifying; everything had an impact on the world around it, and the fact that this thing didn’t, just reinforced how unnatural it was.

“Don’t look so scared,” it whispered, licking those lush lips with obvious relish, “I promise it will only hurt for a moment.”

That was more than enough for Naomi, without a second thought she simply bolted. Matheson’s derisive laughter followed her back into the corridor, but she didn’t care. Not even bothering to slow down, the terrified woman burst through the doors and hurtled down the emergency stairs, taking them three or four at a time.

She didn’t even think about halting her headlong rush, until well after she had emerged back onto the street. Only then did Naomi start to worry about what on earth she should do now.

Naomi had no idea what she was doing. The initial panic was receding, leaving her with the bitter taste of spent adrenaline. But she could still think clearly enough to recognise how insane it would all sound. Matheson had simply gone, fading into nothingness as the thing had its way with her. Who would believe that some creature had taken her boss’ place?

Even if she hadn’t been expressing such mad ideas, Naomi knew that her testimony would be suspect. She was after all suffering from a mental illness, which required regular medication to control its symptoms. No, if she went to the authorities, she would be lucky if they didn’t choose to opt for psychosurgery.

The walkways were empty, and for the first time she realised how desolate the city was. She had only seen it when the crowds were moving with a purpose, workers from the two shifts passing each other on their way to and from the office buildings. Devoid of that churning mass of people, the atmosphere was suddenly almost unbearably sad. The absence of life was palpable, and an uncomfortable echo of the unnatural thing from which she was still fleeing.

At first she just walked automatically, falling back into the habitual routine. She looked around her, really taking in her surroundings. There was no urgency, no rush. It was an awful, and yet strangely liberating sensation. Like tasting freedom, even if that flavour was marred by the cloying tang of fear.

By the time she reached the house, Naomi had calmed enough to be able to hear herself think over the relentless pounding of her pulse. But that sense of ease was destined to be short lived. As she approached, the young woman could see four people milling around outside the building. That was unusual enough in itself, but even at a distance, she could feel the same sense of emptiness that had almost radiated from the thing in Matheson’s office.

It seemed impossible that they hadn’t spotted her already, but Naomi knew that she couldn’t risk drawing more attention to herself. The tension seemed to rise with every step she took, but despite that she pressed on. As she drew level with the off-ramp, Naomi let herself wonder whether she might actually make it, but then a male voice called out her name, and she realised how premature that thought had been.

“Naomi Finch,” the voice repeated, “Civil Protection. Would you mind coming with us, Ma’am? We have some questions we’d like to ask you about an incident this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, quickly, “But you’ve got the wrong person.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” one of the women replied, “Naomi, don’t make this any harder on yourself. Come with us now, and I promise we’ll be gentle.”

But Naomi had already broken into a run, finding new reserves of strength that she hadn’t known she possessed. She was expecting another shouted challenge, but the creatures obviously knew that their quarry wasn’t going to listen. As she sprinted away, something whined angrily past her head, and Naomi flinched away.

The second bolt caught her squarely in the small of the back, lifting her bodily from her feet and then dumping her gracelessly on the hard grey concrete. Lightning coiled around the base of her spine, turning her inside into warm molten honey. She twitched, moaning gently as more sparks danced up spine. Something icy cold touched the nape of her neck, and hot breath brushed her ear.

“You shouldn’t have run,” the same woman husked, “Because, now I get to be as rough as I like.”

The stunner ignited her nervous system, cascading fire that leapt and cavorted into her brain. For an agonising instant she was almost totally aware, then merciful oblivion claimed her leaving her body to trash and spasm away the last of its strength.

Darkness swirled around her, impenetrable and malevolent. The shadows formed a maze, with pathways leading in every direction imaginable. Escher would have been proud of the resulting labyrinth. She chose path, after path, but each one led only to yet another dead end, sparking visions of her literal demise, or worse.

Finally, as the walls began to close in on her, choking and suffocating, she saw the faintest glimmer of light. Not safety, not by any means, but a chance. She squinted into the darkness, and saw hope. Lungs bursting, with the effort of holding her breath, she took that fateful step and fell, into one of her possible futures.

The world blurred around her, even the slight movement leaving after-images that seemed reluctant to remain still. Naomi’s thoughts crawled, sluggish and impotent, as she allowed her eyes to drift shut again. Cool air plucked at her body, for an instant making her aware of the beads of perspiration that clung to her skin, then that too was gone, lost in the muddle of confused perceptions.

“Awake at last,” a voice decided, “And feeling so nice and melty.”

Naomi couldn’t decide where the voice was coming from; it felt as if it was both inside and outside her head. Was it her thought, or someone else’s suggestion? It was so hard to be sure. She shivered, her body suddenly stiff and inflexible. Naomi strained a little, but remained stubbornly in place. Dimly she recognised the feel of the restraints, but only for a moment before that too was swept away.

Soft hands brushed her face, stroking her cheeks and then cupping her chin with surprising tenderness. Naomi forced her eyes to open, struggling against the weight, which pulled on the heavy lids. A face loomed in front of her, out of focus but still strangely familiar.

“I was all for eating you,” the voice announced, and Naomi thought she recognised the woman’s tone, even if the words themselves made no sense, “But you had to spoil my fun, didn’t you? Who would’ve thought that your feeble talent would be enough to protect you?”

That was all it took for her to realise what she was feeling. Naomi had never taken more than the recommended daily dosage of suppressor, but she recognised the side effects well enough. It was impossible to know just how much of the drug had been given to her, but it was more than enough to deaden even the shadow of her talent.

Very delicately, the woman began to touch, stroking down Naomi’s stomach, and lingering over the silvery lines of puckered scar tissue. Both women hissed, as the hands drifted lower and found fresh moist heat in the marks that decorated the captive’s thighs.

“Perhaps I spoke to soon,” the woman wondered, “These scars are a map, are they not? Guiding my touch to exactly where you most need it.”

Those clever fingers slid very gently along the captive woman’s slippery seam, forming another moment of crystal clarity for her drug-soaked mind to latch onto. Sharp nails bit into her trembling tender flesh, making her jerk against the tightening fetters, and her howl sang a breathless note of frustrated need.

“Oh sweetness,” her tormentor whispered, “We’ve only just started and you’re already a dripping puddle of submissive arousal. Can you imagine what two or three more hours of my attention will do to you?”

Naomi could only groan, although whether in response to those soft insidious words or the relentless pressure of the teasing touches, she no longer knew, or even cared. With no other certainties to hold onto, all that the helpless woman had were her feelings and she clung to them avidly, desperate to keep from being drowned in the rising tide of pharmaceutical acceptance.

“I’ve changed my mind,” the words shivered over her aching seam, hot breath burning against the needy flesh, “I am going to eat you after all.”

Her folds parted easily under the relentless onslaught, and suddenly there was only the woman’s clever melting tongue. Licking and lapping at her increasingly liquid centre, wrapping the tight knot of her captive clit in slippery wet bonds that seemed to seep and slide more deeply into her quivering flesh with each long, lascivious stroke.

Fire roared in the distance, a crackling cacophony of anger given form. Heat licked at her skin, adding urgency to the increasingly clumsy movements. It was hard to breathe, and not just because of the cloying smoke. Her head span, dizziness clutching at every thought and sending them whirling. Strength seemed to drain more with each moment, until even lifting her head seemed too great an effort.

Darkness encroached at the edges of her vision, lengthening shadows that threatened to consume everything she held dear. A heavy weight pressed down on her chest, catching her heart in its vice-like grip and crushing. The blade slipped unnoticed from her nerveless fingers, disappearing into the smoke and lost. She teetered on the brink, staring down into the yawning gulf, and then without another pause, she too dropped into the abyss and was gone.

Naomi’s shoulders protested as she tried to move, it felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets. She could only groan as the joints creaked and popped under the strain. The air was full of dust, and she could taste the cordite that stung the back of throat.

The pain seemed to clear her head at least a little, and somehow she was able to get her feet back under her. At least that eased the tension on the deceptively slender chain from which her wrists were suspended. Weakly she tugged at the cuffs, but they were far too tight for her to make an impression upon.

Another figure appeared without warning, and Naomi flinched away. The sudden movement only served to pull her arms painfully again and even as she let out a pained gasp, she could feel herself sliding inexorably back into that comfortable oblivion.

It’s okay, let me take away some of that pain. Then we can get you out of here.

The calm reassurance echoed through her thoughts, a surprisingly intimate touch that seemed to stroke across the surface of her mind. True to their word, Naomi could feel the discomfort slowly fading, although the confusion remained unabated.

Can you walk?

“Yes,” she managed, and then, as the cuffs were released, promptly collapsed; only to be caught and held in a surprisingly warm embrace.

The darkness beckoned again, drawing her back down into the soothing blanket of thoughtless silence. A presence skittered over her thoughts, but seemed unable to find a purchase on the glassy smoothness. More words flowed into her mind, along with an unspoken promise.

We’ve got you.

Naomi dreamed, that in itself was unusual, but the dreams themselves defied explanation. Fear and pain mingled with the eroticism of her sexual torture. Her interrogator had been one of them, she realised, a ‘blank’, just like the thing that had replaced Matheson. But that tongue, that hot, wet, probing, marvellous tongue.

Her face a blur, contradictory emotions warring with the delicious scratch of those shockingly sharp nails. Naomi felt her perspective shifting, a sickening sensation of disconnection pulling her along. Features suddenly plastic, they melted in the heat of their undisguised mutual attraction. It was more that simple lust, but so much less than love. Each wanted the other, to use and be abused. She had no idea what it meant, but as the sweet lips closed around her throbbing clit, it didn’t seem to matter.

Waking was like a rebirth, her mind abruptly clear and sharper than she could ever remember. Reflexively she groped for the dosette box, hands closing on thin air before her senses caught up enough to remind her that this wasn’t her room. The shock was enough to banish the last wisps of sleep and bring her completely back to herself.

The bed was hard and utilitarian; in fact, the room itself was so spartan that it looked for all the world like a cell of some kind. The air was stale, with a slight chemical after-taste that reminded her of hospital. Someone had seen fit to dress her while she was unconscious, and the material felt shockingly rough against her skin.

It took only a moment to realise that she had no underwear beneath the pale blue blouse and trousers. To her embarrassment, Naomi realised that the soft friction had already teased her nipples erect. Although, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder how much of a part her dreams might have played in that. There was definitely a sensation of sticky heat smouldering between her legs, and that had nothing to do with her new outfit.

She knew that she needed to distract herself from such thoughts, so Naomi turned her attention back to the small room. Without the chemical straitjacket, her senses felt hyperacute. Tiny details seemed to leap out at her, and that was when she recognised the growing sensation of wrongness. This wasn’t a powerful as her ‘danger sense’ but it was a warning none the less.

Naomi allowed herself to be led, and finally the pull brought her to a small air vent set into the skirting board. The young woman bent, and stared through the narrow grill. Something blinked at her in the darkness beyond, a single softly glowing red eye that pulsed out its steady beat. She had seen enough surveillance equipment in her time to recognise a ‘bug’ when she saw one, the question was, what did it mean?

There were a number of reasons why the microphone might have been placed there. They might not trust her and feel that she needed monitoring, which was probably fair under the circumstances. It might have nothing to do with her, but the thought that it could be a coincidence seemed unlikely. Or, if she allowed herself to become really paranoid, it must have been placed there as a test, to see whether she noticed and how she reacted.

The soft caress of another’s thoughts jerked her from such musing, and reflexively she pressed back, hiding behind her meagre defences. The presence withdrew a little, following the well-rehearsed telepath etiquette by not intruding into another’s mind without permission. Naomi breathed a sigh of relief, certain after only the briefest taste of his talent that she wouldn’t have been able to keep him out if he had chosen to force the issue.

Welcome back.

His ‘voice’ was gentle, but even that touch told her so much about him. The depths of pain and loss he had suffered, along with the triumphs and snatched moments of fleeting joy. Naomi realised that she was blushing fiercely, and tried to suppress the reaction. She had lovers with whom she had less intimacy than they now shared thanks to that feather-light connection.

“Thank you, James,” she replied after a moment, wondering if he could hear her, “What just happened?”

She sensed the amusement, even before his laughter seemed to fill the small room. There was something both unsettling and yet strangely familiar in experiencing the conversation on several levels at once. Too much was happening, too quickly, and Naomi was sure that she could feel the first signs of shock beginning to grip her.

“We can continue to converse in this manner,” James accepted, as he stepped through the now open door, “I understand that you don’t want anyone poking around in your mind right now, Naomi. But I hope that over time you will come to trust me enough to lower those shields.”

Whatever she had been expecting when they had tasted each other, he managed to confound her completely. Tall enough to carry the extra weight, he was still portly, scruffy and bespectacled. Naomi tried to fight down her amusement, knowing that she was only a small step away from hysteria. But, it seemed clear that she had been rescued by nerds.

“They’re very impressive, by the way,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to her amusement, “Who taught you?”

“Taught me?” Naomi wondered, wincing at how blonde she sounded.

“To mind shield,” he smiled, and suddenly she could see the man she had felt before, “It’s rare these days to see one so well-constructed.”

She didn’t know what to say, up until that moment, her steady diet of suppressor had numbed her talent to the point where it was good for nothing but parlour-tricks. Admittedly, sometimes it acted as her early-warning system, but even that wasn’t exactly foolproof. As far as shielding was concerned, all she had done was to want very badly that he not be able to get inside her head.

James seemed to recognise that he wasn’t going to get a response, and, rather than press the issue, he switched tacks and tried another topic.

“Okay,” he smiled, “A story for another time, perhaps? For now, why don’t we go and meet the rest of the troops, and maybe get you something to eat?”

It turned out that Naomi’s first instinct had been correct. James, and the rest of the ‘Back Room Boys’, were boffins. Researchers and innovators, who while not exactly the psychic soldiers she had been hoping for, were at least the guys and gals, (it turned out that the ‘Back Room Boys’ were an equal-opportunities resistance movement), who invented and tested the gadgets and weapons that the real warriors used.

The resistance worked on the standard small-cell principle, to minimise the risk of infiltration, as well as the impact should any of them be compromised. Of course, it meant that all information was compartmentalised, and that left frustrating gaps in James’ explanations.

After a short orientation, it was time to meet the rest of James’ cell. The briefing room had every technological aid she could imagine, (and more than a few that defied her understanding). But, it was clear from the outset that she wasn’t going to have an easy time, the hostility was painfully acute.

“What are they?” Naomi asked the collected scientists.

“We don’t know,” James admitted, almost reluctantly, “You called them ‘blanks’ and that’s as good a name as any. For the last ten years they’ve been steadily replacing key mundanes, and controlling the remainder with drugs and the broadcast.”

“Ten years,” she said in wonderment, trying to remember what it had been like before.

But there was nothing, just the daily routine, the thoughtless repetition of seemingly meaningless tasks, set to the tempo of the whistle that marked transitions between day and nightcycles. Every time she tried to reach back and even glimpse the time before, her thoughts seemed to unravel into a fractured mess of painfully chaotic shards.

Concern and suspicion poured over Naomi, stirring her from the futile attempts at recollection. There was a faint note of compassion, which she instantly recognised as James, but the others seemed far less willing to give her the benefit of any doubt. At least half of them were talented, and they were the source of the greatest distrust.

Remembering what James had said before, she concentrated on strengthening her defences. The sense of ill ease began to fade, leaving only her new associate’s disapproving expressions. It wasn’t a big improvement, but without the remorseless press of their emotions, she could at least concentrate enough to think.

“You okay?” James whispered quietly, “You just got really quiet.”

Naomi nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In fact, lack of trust seemed to be a pervasive problem. They clearly didn’t feel that she had earned their respect or acceptance. By the same token, she saw no reason to let her guard down with any of them. Someone had hidden a listening device in her cell, and until she knew what that meant, all of them were suspect.

Two of the ‘Boys’ exchanged glances. Naomi could feel the faint echoes of their unspoken conversation. It was just an impression, but even that was enough to know that they were discussing her. She searched her memory, trying to recall their names. The redhead was Katrina, she thought, or Kat, and her bleach-blonde toyboy was David or was it Darren? Both had already made their displeasure at her presence known. They were angry that the lives of valuable fighters had been risked to save her ‘worthless’ hide.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful,” Naomi began carefully, “But of the many things I don’t understand, the most pressing is, why me?”

“We heard you screaming,” Katrina answered, her tone bitter.

That didn’t seem possible, with the amount of suppressor that she had been dosed with she had hardly been able to string two thoughts together, let alone project some kind of psychic S.O.S. However, the look of hatred that Katrina shot her way was more than enough to still her tongue.

Something that the interrogator had said stuck in her mind, and she grasped at the chance to switch the conversation back onto less contentious ground. Although James seemed to be on her side, at least for the moment, Naomi chose to direct her question at the angry redhead. She hoped that the change of topic might defuse some of the other woman’s annoyance.

“Before you came,” she started, hesitantly, “She told me, the ‘blank’ told me, that it was my talent that saved me, that stopped her just ‘eating’ me.”

More glances were exchanged and the sense of veiled secrets grew more palpable. Naomi could feel her frustration building, and even though she knew that it would do no good, it was still an effort not to scream and lash out.

“They can’t subsume you,” another woman answered, “Not if you have even a spark of talent.”

Naomi ignored the not so subtle put-down, as her guilt grew more acute. She had been saved by an unhappy accident, her status as a genetic freak suddenly paying her back for the years of vilification and suspicion. But the fact remained that she had survived, at the expense of Matheson, and at that precise moment she had never felt more useless.

“At least,” James interrupted her train of thought, “not until now.”

The hiss of irritation was something that Naomi felt as well as heard. All eyes turned to James, and it was obvious that he had overstepped himself. But this was one genie that she wouldn’t let them put back in its bottle.

“What’s changed?” she asked quickly, feeling certainty slipping into her words.

“They might have found a way,” the same woman replied, but not until the silence had stretched uncomfortably.

“Okay,” Naomi sighed, “That sounds bad, but it still doesn’t explain why you’re all wound so damn tight. I’m tired of this bullshit, and I’ve only just arrived. What else aren’t you telling me?”

She could feel the weight of opinion shifting slightly, it wasn’t much, but even if they couldn’t yet accept her, at least they might be willing to tell her what the hell she had gotten herself into. The anger was still strong enough for her to taste the venom, but Katrina did finally speak, and Naomi counted that a minor victory.

“If they take you,” the woman practically snarled, “They become you. Which means they know everything that you do. And that includes any secrets that you might have locked away inside your pretty-little slutbrain. So, ask yourself this, what would happen if they got their claws into the most important freeman in the city?”

“Nimrod?” Naomi gasped, the name just popping into her mind unbidden, “But, I thought he was just another myth. Like …”

“Nox?” Katrina interrupted, voice practically dripping with sarcasm, “Or were you thinking of another martyr?”

“No,” she breathed, stunned at the other woman’s naked hostility.

“It’s all real, you stupid bitch!” the redhead screamed, “They’ve got him, and instead of doing something useful, we ended up wasting time with you. I don’t even know why we bothered; you were so obviously enjoying getting fucked by that void-whore. We all know, how could we be in any doubt? What with you screaming about how good it felt, broadcasting your fucking weakness to anyone in the city who’s even vaguely sensitive.”

Naomi had no words, and quite suddenly she found that she was unable to meet Katrina’s eyes. Flushing scarlet, she weathered the raging storm of the other woman’s scorn. James eventually led her back to the small cell, but even he was subtly more distant. She had no friends here, that much was clear, but she was a part of this now, whether any of them liked it, or not.

Another night, but a very different dream. They were coming for her, and she didn’t even have enough time to wonder how she had been found. Her legend had been perfect, meticulously prepared, and imbedded. To all intents and purposes she had become the person she purported to be. But there was no point in dwelling on that; she had to get the hell out of there.

Premonition caught her, painting a distorted vision of her possible futures. She was grasping at straws, looking for a way out that seemed to recede with each passing moment. They knew what they were doing. Worse still, they seemed to know what she was doing as well.

She realised that she just didn’t want to think about it, and yet the conclusion was unavoidable. Someone had sold her out, and even as her options continued to diminish, she swore vengeance on whoever it was. Assuming she lived through the next five minutes, someone was going to have a really bad day. Prescient intuition sparked, linking disparate ideas into a seemingly impossible whole. Was that the answer?

Nimrod, the ostensible leader of the rebellion, had been captured during what should have been a routine reconnaissance. The small team had the misfortune to run into a nanoswarm, one of the newer defences that had been arraigned against them. The ‘Boys’ had taken to calling them ‘gnats’ although that description belied the danger they represented.

So far the ‘voids’ didn’t seem to have realised who they had, but that wasn’t going to last. The hastily constructed plan was necessarily brutal in its pragmatic simplicity. They would make a strike against the research facility where he was being held, and do whatever it took to keep the information locked within Nimrod’s skull from falling into the hands of the enemy.

Given the choice, Naomi was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have brought her along, but the only way the plan could succeed was by utilising every available body. Although she was no soldier, they did need someone to infiltrate the base itself, and to alert the prisoners to the rescue attempt. James argued vociferously, and gained some unexpected support from Katrina when he pointed out how much more sensible it would be to give that role to someone who was unable to fight.

They gave her an impression of Nimrod’s mind, his flavour, so that she would know him when the time came. It wasn’t something that could be put into words, and if the ‘voids’ found a way to utilise the information then it would almost certainly be too late for them anyway. Naomi understood their continued caution, and indeed embraced it. Having any part in the unfolding events would help her to feel useful and suddenly that was very important to her.

Then it was simply a matter of getting herself caught again. Naomi tried not to think about the last time, because her thoughts invariably drifted back to her ‘torture’ and the inquisitor’s maddeningly agile tongue. Her body shivered, while the lust remained safely trapped behind layers of shielding. With the rest of the ‘Boys’ thus protected, that just left Naomi alone, forced to deal with the consequences of her increasingly heated desire.

Civil Protection picked her up for violating curfew. She had weathered the storm of conditioning triggered by the evening’s broadcast, fighting the urge to simply give in and follow the herd. But Naomi found that her strength was growing, and even the brief respite from the daily imperatives gave her enough fortitude to escape their insidious lure.

She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when they took her directly to the holding centre. The memory was so strong, pain and pleasure applied with such perfect precision that they became part and parcel of the same wonderful synergistic sensation. But she had a mission that needed her entire focus, and that served to counterbalance the distraction of her depraved imaginings, at least in part.

Porton Down had a history of infamy stretching back into the distant past. The fact that it was a centre for bioweapons research was bad enough, but then there had been the unexplained deaths, both of scientists and volunteers. Now it served as a prison, (some would say concentration camp), for what were euphemistically termed enemies of the state, (although currently that definition included anyone who stepped out of line, especially if they happened to be ‘talented’).

The site itself was small, set perilously close to the cliff edge that plunged hundred’s of feet down to the rocks and spray beneath. After processing, which consisted of an embarrassing strip-search and even more humiliating internal examination, Naomi was led through into the containment facility. The prisoners were confined behind some sort of energy field, a crackling wall of purple fire that made her skin crawl even at a distance.

There was an oppressive sense of despair that clung to the place. The presence of so many talents in such an inhospitable place created a sort of psychic miasma. Even the mundane staff must have been able to feel it, although there were enough ‘absences’ when she reached out with her talent to suggest that the majority of the guards were, in fact, ‘voids’.

She was surprised that they didn’t just dose her up with suppressor again, until she realised that they had no way of knowing that she wasn’t already medicated. It was clear from the taste of the place that the other inmates were suppressed, and Naomi was shocked at just how muted they seemed. Their talent was muffled somehow, almost completely stilled, and that was like nothing she had ever experienced.

It didn’t take long to track down Nimrod; there were barely a score of prisoners corralled behind the elaborate energy field. With the impression of him lodged firmly in her mind, it was easy to find a match. Although, when she did, Naomi found herself wishing that she hadn’t. The man she discovered was a hollow shell, the broken remnant left over after the ‘gnats’ had their way with him.

His madness was a near physical force, forming a zone of repugnance that surrounded and isolated the wild-haired mystic. The nanoswarm had clearly influenced his neural pathways, and it was only the constricting blanket of suppressor that stopped his insanity from becoming infectious. Looking at what the leader of their rebellion had become, Naomi felt her heart begin to sink. Another brave soul was lost to them, and all they in his stead, was this useless creature, worthy only of contempt.

She had no idea how to bring down the energy field and, if she couldn’t find a way before they arrived, then every doubt the ‘Boys’ had expressed about her was going to be proven true. Naomi was terrified of letting them down, but it was growing increasingly difficult to convince herself that she had any chance of success.

Without any other viable options, Naomi found that she began clutching at straws. Some instinct or half-remembered advice suggested that delving into the mind of a madman was fraught with danger, but it was the only place she could imagine finding any answers.

Stealing herself, she gathered together the flailing strands of her talent, and then plunged headlong into his fractured mindscape. There was a shock of collision, a jarring impact that set her teeth on edge and let her taste blood. Then, she was through, gazing into the abyss and hoping that somehow she would be able to pull herself back.

Chaos, the pure unadulterated essence of entropy, unravelled around her. His mind was a painfully sharp landscape of glittering shards and flickering blood-stained possibilities. Thoughts spun and collided, forming random ideas that skittered away down strange and incongruous pathways.

It was clear, however, that something wasn’t right, or more accurately it just wasn’t wrong enough. There was order in the swirling heart of this maelstrom, a pattern to the madness that was entirely paradoxical. For a moment her talent grazed the diamond hard core of his being. Their minds touched for an eternal instant, and then he simple spat her back out.

But that momentary contact had been enough, and even as the disorientation of the brutal ejection was fading, Naomi realised that she now understood what she had to do. More than that, she knew that Nimrod was still there, hiding behind a wall of insanity, almost entirely unaware of the outside world. At the last minute, as the ‘gnats’ had invaded his mind, the telepath had fled, finding refuge in the depths of his own mind.

She had no idea how to bring him back, but the very fact that he was still there was enough to give her hope. For the first time since she had embarked on this adventure, Naomi could actually believe that they might succeed.

The energy field was controlled from a small building just outside the containment facility. Nimrod’s plan had been very simple, to subvert one of the few mundanes on site, and use them to disable the barrier. Possession wasn’t something that Naomi had even thought of, but as far as she could tell, the technique seemed relatively straightforward.

She was seeking out someone appropriate, when things started to go wrong. The assault was supposed to start just before shift change, in the hope of catching the guards at their least alert, and making use of the inevitable confusion. But, as new personnel began to arrive, an hour earlier than predicted, it suddenly became clear that the shifts had been changed, and that the ‘Boys’ were going to walk right into fresh and focussed defenders.

There was nothing else for it, she just had to press on and hope that her comrades were up to the task. Stretching out with her talent, she latched onto a likely target, a soft and corpulent mind filled with sordid secrets and base desires. She steamrollered his consciousness, tasting bile for a moment before she grew used to the strange sense of disconnection.

Barney walked confidently into the security station, hand resting nonchalantly on the grip of his stunner. The two other guards barely registered his presence, right up until the point when he shot the nearest in back. The second man reacted with breathtaking speed, but it just wasn’t enough. Her man already had his weapon drawn, and it was simply a matter of adjusting his aim and squeezing the trigger. The seated man’s snapshot never even came close.

She ignored the two twitching bodies, and had her puppet all but empty his sidearm into the delicate electrical equipment. She saved the last charge for Barney, blotting away his thoughts in a torrent of artificial lightning.

Slumping back down, Naomi tried to focus on slowing her racing heart. The stale tang of fear caught in the back of her throat, but the simple calming exercises seemed to be helping. She had done what she was supposed to, now it was simply a matter of sitting tight, and waiting for the cavalry to ride in.

The sounds of combat drew closer, the whining drone of stunners mixing with stranger sounds of more exotic weaponry. The ‘Boys’ had brought every toy they could find to the party, and from the sound of it at least, that seemed to be turning the tide in their favour.

When the first of them finally arrived, Naomi was grateful to see that James was among them. He was wound so tightly that she feared he might snap, but the touch of his thoughts was still warm, and she felt at least some of his tension evaporate when he saw her.

Naomi, aren’t you are a sight for sore eyes?

Naomi’s face split into a wide grin, and she crossed the intervening space in three quick strides, before throwing her arms around him and hugging tightly. She felt his amusement, tinged with concern and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Did you find him?

She nodded towards the huddled figure, unable to keep her irritation in check. Naomi hadn’t been expecting a fanfare, but she thought that her efforts to bring down the energy field might have been worth a little encouragement, from James at least.

Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.

The stuttering whine of stunner discharges filled the air, punctuated by the heavy thud of falling bodies. When the flashing strobes finally stilled, only the two of them were still standing. Naomi stared into James’ grinning face and suddenly realised what the other emotion had been. It was triumph.

“Hello again, little one,” the deliciously familiar voice husked from the shadows, “Are you ready to pick up again from where we left off?”

It made a hideous kind of sense in the end, knowing that James was a traitor to the cause. Someone had been feeding the ‘voids’ information, but with the cell system it had taken something quite spectacular to get all the disparate groups together in one place. Something like the threat of losing the last remaining symbol of resistance, for example.

“Take them all,” the interrogator ordered, “But leave the slut, she’s mine.”

James opened his mouth to object, just before the nearest Civil Protection trooper shot him in the head. His muscles locked into spasm, a look of shock and betrayal frozen on his pasty face, before he dropped boneless to the floor.

Naomi stared at the slender, dark-haired woman, as she strode confidently towards her. The predatory expression on the witch’s face was enough to make both sets of lips drool, tensing her pussy in yearning expectation. This terrible woman wanted to take everything away from her, and all the trembling woman could think of was how badly she wanted her.

“You should thank me,” the interrogator grinned, “and once we get some privacy, that’s exactly what you are going to do.”

“Thank you?” Naomi asked quietly, “What would I want to that you for, bitch?”

“Bitch?” she wondered, the smile never leaving that perfect mouth, “Oh, Naomi, while you and I play, the rest of your friends are going to join with us. We’ve found the ‘cure’, my needy little painslut, and once one of our other tame ‘talents’ finishes the ritual, the feast can begin.”

There was nothing Naomi could think of to say, her world was sliding through her slippery fingers, and the only coherent thought she could form, was just how badly she wanted that foully controlling tongue inside her.

“Take her to building four,” the interrogator ordered, “strip her down, and string her up.”

The déjà vu was so intense that for a moment Naomi wondered if she was dreaming once again. The leather cuffs were unbearably tight, but somehow contrived to be snug and almost comforting. She pulled ineffectually on the deceptively slender chain, but there was no give in it.

She was standing, naked, in a large, dimly lit room. Her arms had been drawn up over her head, and her feet only touched the cold concrete floor if she stretched and stood on tiptoe. The thin sheen of sweat already clung to her curves, despite the chill. Memory merged with reality, and despite everything that had happened, Naomi could feel the familiar stirrings of arousal.

Somewhere on the base, the feast was starting, perhaps it had already begun, and yet here she was, hardly even bothering to fight against her imprisonment, and fantasising about the woman who had claimed her. How sick did that make her? To think only of her own pleasure, and the touch of that twisted witch. A warm fluttering twinge caught at her innards, squeezing and controlling her suddenly aching cunt.

“Did you miss me?” the soft voice asked sweetly, and Naomi had to stifle a moan.

Even without the drugs, her mind was still clouded, fogged with her building lust, and the increasingly undeniable need that burned between her rapidly weakening legs. She knew what the woman was capable of and, at least part of her longed for it. Her body trembled, anticipating that first vicious touch, and instead the woman just moved closer. Tantalisingly out of reach, forcing Naomi to squirm in an increasingly desperate attempt to press herself into her tormentor’s cruel embrace.

“Oh, I see that you did,” the woman smiled, “And, shall I let you in on a little secret?”

Naomi wanted to curse her, to spit defiance into that too perfect face. But the words simply died before they could reach her lips. Her mouth felt so dry, but even wetting them felt shockingly lewd and suggestive, under the circumstances. The woman’s whispers were gentle, and conspiratorial, a shared truth that no one but them would ever know.

“I’ve missed you as well,” she breathed, and the heat of her breath was almost enough to make the captive woman cum, “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

She moved then, closing the gap and letting her body rub seductively against her captive’s nakedness. Naomi let her eyes close, and just allowed herself revel in the delightfully lascivious contact. Her moans of desire were as heartfelt as they were instinctive. She wanted this, so very badly, and to her delight she realised that Talia needed it too.

“Talia,” she husked, enjoying the feel of that name on her tongue.

“How?” her captor gasped, pulling away with the shock of horror clear on her face.

“No,” Naomi groaned, drawing her back, “I want you, don’t go … please.”

She could clearly see the warring emotions on Talia’s face, but more than that, she could feel them. Fear and anger competed with lust and something far sweeter yet still half-denied. Very gently she reached out, strengthening their link. Then, acting purely on impulse, Naomi opened herself completely, dropping every last barrier, wanting the other woman to see into the very depths of her heart and soul.

Something snapped, as wall after wall collapsed inside her mind. She had wanted Talia to truly know her, and to understand that she was no longer any kind of threat. But in the process, she had unleashed something else entirely. The interrogator stared into the face of her captive, fear pouring off of her in waves, while time seemed to stretch and finally stop.

There was a traitor in the group, no other explanation made any sense. The ‘voids’ had been at least one step ahead of them from the start, and it was only blind luck that they hadn’t already stumbled onto the secret. She didn’t rate her chances of resisting whatever torture they decided to inflict upon her. Her neural wiring was so fucked up that even she didn’t know where pleasure ended and the pain began.

If they got to her, then she would tell them everything, the only question would be how fast they could break her. The thought of being firmly taken in hand was almost enough to make her melt, and as her imagination wandered towards whatever fiendish devices they might turn upon her weak and yielding flesh, she realised with a sense of sickening embarrassment, that she was getting off on the dark fantasy.

The solution was to stop them from taking her, and yet she wasn’t ready to give her life to the cause. In the end, despite all her posturing, it turned out that she was just another coward. But her foresight had given the clue, suggesting the impossible and leaving her with another alternative. One far more palatable than the extremes of the courses already laid out before her.

She still had to die, but only to be reborn. The deepest of deep covers, obscuring her identity so well that even she would no longer be aware of who she was. Concealed behind the most perfect mask, hiding in plain sight and with no one any the wiser.

“Nox!” Talia whimpered, still fighting the compulsion to stay.

“Look harder,” Nox urged, holding the other woman’s mind in a vice-like, yet undeniably tender grip, “Please.”

Talia tried to shrug off the other woman’s influence, but they both knew that in reality she had no chance. Inexorably, the chained woman pulled her back, forcing Talis to gaze even more deeply into her psyche.

“But,” Talia moaned, disbelieving.

“I can’t hide from you,” Nox interrupted, “No walls, no barriers. This is me, all of me, and now you know.”

“But,” the stunned woman tried again, “but, why?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “But you feel it too, and that is all that’s important.”

Nox allowed Talia’s mind to slip out of her grasp, leaving the other woman trembling with fear and arousal. It was another leap of faith, but she could already feel how Talia’s reluctance was beginning to melt. There positions were re-established, as she once more became the captive, and her tormentor took the chains in hand again.

“You’re one of us now,” Nox whispered, “The ritual changed the rules, but we weren’t the only ones who it made vulnerable. I can touch you now, we all can, and you can touch us in return. That’s why we gave it to you, to level the playing field.”

“But you’re still my prisoner,” Talia hissed, shaking her head in confusion, “I’m not going to let you go.”

“I know,” Nox grinned, “I don’t want you to.”

Talia closed one small hand around the smooth roundness of her captive’s breast, and let her nails sink cruelly into the sensitive swollen flesh. Nox thrashed in her bonds, a low whine building in the back of her throat. The interrogator moved her palm in a maddeningly slow circle, crushing Nox’s thick puckered nipple beneath her calloused skin.

“What do you want?” she demanded angrily, squeezing and mauling that imprisoned tit in emphasis.

Nox arched her back, pressing herself more firming into the wicked grasp. She could feel her body responding, the trickle of raw need dribbling in languid streams from her shivering cuntlips. Her hips rocked gently, and her shoulders screamed out as she let her wrist take her full weight.

“Eat me!” Nox begged, staring directly into Talia’s eyes and pushing outwards with her talent, “They’re coming for me, right now. It’s your only chance.”

“But,” Talia began, shaking her head in denial, “You’ll die.”

“Been there,” the psychic smiled, hooking Talia with her talent, “Done that!”

“No,” Talia moaned, as she dropped unwillingly to her knees.

“Trust me,” Nox grinned, urging her to understand.

But by then her captor wasn’t listening anymore. Almost entranced by the sight of Nox’s swollen, greasy lips, Talia thrust her face into the molten heat and let her flickering tongue dance and cavort. It burnt into the base of the trapped woman’s spine, clutching at both her mind and body, lavishing more attention on her helpless form, and retying all those wonderfully intricate, controlling knots so tightly that all she could do was to thrash and shriek.

Sharp teeth sunk hungrily into her trembling slaveflesh, and ice flowed into her veins. Talia tried to pull away, but even without Nox’s talent wrapped around her, she lacked the strength to deny that hunger. Her pleading thoughts began to fade, even as the bound woman grew steadily less solid. Nox stroked reassuringly over the surface of her lover’s mind, and Talia gave into the pitiless need.

They found Naomi, slumped naked in the centre of the old hanger, sobbing softly. Manacles dangled menacingly from the high ceiling, but there was no sign of the ‘void’ that had taken her. The young woman’s shields were back in place, impenetrable shutters that were formed of equal parts warning and protection.

It’s going to be okay.

Nox let Talia cling to the thoughts, wrapping herself around the essence of her lover’s personality. Only now did the other woman truly understand, even though she still railed against the necessity. The subsumed never really went away, the memory of them remained, even after they had been consumed. Now that the ‘voids’ could be reached, those captive personalities were being released. The only way that Nox had been able to hold onto her, was to sacrifice herself.

I’m used to being nothing but a memory, and at least this time you know that I’m here.

“I loved you,” Talia breathed.

I know, sweetness … but they would have taken you away from me, and I couldn’t let that happen. This way we both know that I’ll never leave you, and believe me, after you’ve experienced your first mindfuck you’re going to want to eat me all over again.

You once asked if I could imagine what two or three more hours of your attention would do to me. Well, now you have a lifetime to show me what it means to be your bitch!