The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The van door slammed shut, startling a little sense into Susan. She shivered in the darkness, unable to do much but stare straight ahead. The AC blasted as the engine idled, and the windows were so darkly tinted that they barely qualified as such. It occurred to her that she didn’t remember why she was sitting here at all. A related—and very alien—question slowly took shape: had she willingly climbed into this van? Her head throbbed as she struggled with the obvious.

Shouldn’t I know that?

The driver got in. He shut the door quickly behind him, and the interior lights were out a beat before she got a look at his face. Then he squeezed past the front seat to crouch beside her and belt her in.

He’s doing that now because no one can see that I can’t do it for myself.

This relatively deft bit of thinking made her fingers twitch in her lap. If she’d been too stupid to get out of here before, what chance did she have against something as diabolically clever as a seatbelt? A plaintive little moan escaped her lips as the man connected something to her choker. He ran the back of his hand lasciviously down her arm, then fussed with her hair for a moment, toying with ideas Susan was relieved to find she couldn’t contemplate. She just sat very still, hoping he wouldn’t see her open-mouthed stare as an invitation.

Then, without a word, he flipped a switch by her elbow, and all of Susan’s troublesome thoughts effervesced in a warm dizziness.

Last ciggie... This had better go down soon.

Vicki lit up, crumbled the empty pack in her fist and sunk a three-pointer in the garbage can nearest her motorcycle. It was hard to smoke with her helmet on, but she didn’t want to be recognized. Just being across the street from Susan Graff’s apartment building was reckless enough.

The client who’d put the order in for Susan wasn’t paying by the hour, but the process was in motion now. Vicki had ridden the coattails of this business long enough to know that a botched delivery like the one on the train only upped the stakes. Who knew what Susan might remember tomorrow morning when she woke up? They’d send the specialist over to work on her in her own apartment if need be.

She’d staked out the Helicon building’s front entrance since sundown, though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. Now it was eleven and she was starting to wonder if she’d missed it. Then the black van pulled up, and Susan shuffled outside two minutes later, still wearing that yummy summertime outfit. By themselves the tube top and mini seemed risqué, but on Susan they were playful and girlish. Vicki tossed her cigarette onto the pavement, crushed the glowing cherry under the heel of her boot and smiled.

Here we go.

Her heart skipped when she got a good look at the deliveryman: it was the big bald dude from the train, who’d probably been messing with her in the park. Odd, that they should use the same guy twice. She swung her helmet visor down, hopped on the kick-starter and her bike roared to life. If there really was a contract out on her too, others might be around. Her hand jerked nervously on the throttle.

But holy damn... Susan looked so dazed and delicious with that onyx brainwave dampener around her neck. Vicki squeezed the rumbling bike between her thighs as she watched Susan climb obediently into the van, but she was letting her lust get the better of her. It could be weeks before Susan would be far enough along to be of any use. Tonight Vicki was after something with much more potential, for gain as well as disaster. When the van finally pulled onto the street she grinned like the cat that ate the canary. She was going to find out where a specialist worked tonight.

Today Mel had made several decisions that had blown up in her face, but she hadn’t questioned a one. Now she asked herself if driving to Susan Graff’s apartment was really the best thing to do, which meant... What, exactly? That she was tired? Or that she was finally pulling her head out of her ass? Or was it that she couldn’t face Susan?

No. She gripped the wheel tightly as she turned onto Raymonde Street. She’d knock on Susan’s door, even though it was eleven at night, and Susan could curse her, threaten a restraining order and slam the door in Mel’s face. If she wanted to sleep tonight she had to make sure Susan was okay.

She was about to pull into the Helicon’s garage, when she noticed (1) a black van pulling out from in front of the lobby and (2) a leather-clad biker girl whizzing by her. The van took a quick left turn onto McKellar Avenue and the girl on the bike waited a beat, then followed.

Detective Vorus knew a tail when she saw one. For whatever reason, she thought of the intense—and possibly deranged—Chinese girl from the train, snapping pictures of Susan and the man who’d hypnotized her. Maybe it was because she was exhausted. Maybe she really didn’t want to knock on Susan’s door after all. Or maybe Susan was in that van, and the crazy girl was riding the bike.

Gunning the engine, Mel decided to follow them.

Susan blinked, eyes wide like some anime girl. The van was moving and the song on the radio was talking to her. She knew that the words were important; she just couldn’t follow them. Maybe she understood just fine and didn’t need to worry about it. Still, she squirmed in her seat. Her nipples had hardened painfully in the sub-arctic conditions, and the seatbelt had turned her once-liberating top into some kind of boob prison.

Actually, she decided, it was the hum. Instead of thinking about much of anything, her head just hummed, and the hum had been humming so long that it had seeped into her chest. It felt nice enough that she just kept humming inside while the radio talked to her. Presently it reached her belly. It took her a very long time to realize that the hum was still creeping south.

It seemed to take forever, but when it got there...

Oh my...

Then the gravest injustice: the hum stopped. For the second time in the van, Susan moaned. The first time, the fear in her voice had scared her. This sounded a lot like need, and she didn’t know what to think about that at all.

Her pulse quickened in the silence. The van door slid open and the driver hopped in to unbuckle her. “It’s time to go, sleepyhead,” soothed the big patronizing asshole, and she cursed her uncooperative limbs as he pulled her up and outside.

“Get off me!” she slurred. God, if he’d just get off her jock.

Something went over her mouth. “How about a little happy gas then?” the driver suggested, and Susan tasted sickly sweet fumes that tickled the back of her throat. She coughed and complained, before losing her balance to lean hard into the mask.

“That’s right. Just a little farther,” someone said. It felt like she’d been walking down this hall all night.

“Oops! Come on, let’s get you on your feet,” someone encouraged. Her ass hurt.

“Put her over there. The envelope on the desk is yours,” said someone else.

Susan perceived that she was lying down, took it as permission to pass out. Trouble was, she couldn’t make the room stop spinning.

“I appreciate you seeing the job through.”

“I take my work seriously. Sorry about the gas. She might get sick later.”

“She’s spirited. I enjoy that. By the way, I trust she’s untouched?”

“She’s a nice piece, that’s for sure. But like I said, I take my work seriously. Have fun.”

“I always do.”

It was easy enough to hang back in traffic on the expressway without losing the van, and when it took the Lackawanna Tunnel, Vicki just drifted back farther, expecting to end up somewhere in the upscale Cardinal District, which, she imagined, was where all the fancy-schmancy specialists had their digs. But the van took the Fenton exit, and that meant the harbor, which would be close to deserted this time of night. She fumed, leaning hard to the right to make the exit. There wouldn’t be anywhere to hide down at the docks.

Traffic thinned out, forcing her to retreat farther and farther back, and when they hit the warehouse district she began counting to ten before following the van around corners. Soon they were near the waterfront, and Vicki caught glimpses of the harbor between the giant, featureless buildings. A pit formed in her stomach as she imagined getting caught. The deliveryman might just as soon shoot her as hypnotize her. Or what if he stunned her mind and put her on her knees for a quick blowjob, before suggesting that she drown herself? Smiling while she swallowed his load, she’d jump into the black water and that would be that.

She shivered, slowed to a stop. The van had rounded another corner. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... From far behind, Vicki heard an engine. She had more immediate problems than the deliveryman. Someone was following her.

Fuckety hell!

Vicki’s heart raced, but she killed her headlight and crept along toward the waterfront. If she could just see where the van stopped, then she could jet out of here and come back some other time. That is, if her tail didn’t get to her first and fit her with her very own brainwave dampener.

She finally caught up to it at Warehouse 17. The deliveryman was having a hell of a time dealing with Susan, who acted like she should be wearing a lampshade. She yelled at him, and he pulled out a gas mask. Vicki’s toes curled as she watched Susan fade, and then they disappeared into the building.

She heard that car again, creeping closer. Before Vicki knew what she was doing, she stuck out her foot and jerked the throttle, executing a spin-out turnaround, which was really dumb and really loud but she just wanted to get the hell out of there. She rounded a corner, then another, and there was the shadow car. Her blood chilled when she finally laid eyes on the little black coupe. Its high beams blazed to life and the driver jumped out and took aim at her.

The bastard had a gun. He didn’t want to hypnotize her, he wanted to fucking kill her. Vicki heard herself squeal over the bike’s engine. She was about to take her chances and just open the throttle, but now she’d gotten close enough to see that it was the lady cop from the train, and the same poor impulse control that had sent her spazzing out of here caused her to stomp hard on the rear brake. It took several yards to come to a stop, and while Vicki tried to figure out why she’d just done that, the cop pulled out her badge and ran over. “You! Get off that motorcycle! Hands in the air!”

Before complying with the last bit, Vicki swung up her helmet visor. “Evening,” she smiled, trying to draw attention away from her shaking hands. “What brings you down to the docks?”

The lady detective was twice as wound up as Vicki. “Oh, I knew it was you! Where’d that van go? Where’s Susan?”

Vicki wiggled her fingers in the air. “Yeah. Yeah yeah... Could you maybe put the gun down?”

Mel had long since lost the black van in this maze of warehouses, so the weird Chinese girl from the train—all leathered up and fixing her with a level, flirty gaze—was her only hope of finding Susan. She holstered her pistol. “Right, okay.”

Biker Girl tugged off her helmet as Mel carefully checked her out. She was a little thing, but kind of thick, and cute as a bug’s ear. Then there was the leather, and that mischievous come-on stare. Scores of men had given Mel the eye, but this kid... “What’s your name?” she asked, a little too tough and cop-like.

The stare for a little while longer. “Vicki,” she decided, and Mel sensed she was going with the truth. “So you know me?”

“My name’s Detective Vorus. Melanie...” She waved her badge, put it away. “I saw you today, watching Susan on the train. Is she in that van?”

“She was.” Vicki pointed over Mel’s shoulder. “Now she’s in a warehouse down the street.”

Mel blanched. “Did you see which one?”

Vicki clasped her hands together—as if in prayer—and put them to her lips. “Melanie, look, I’m not sure why I stopped for you. You seem like a good person. But I’m not, and the guy driving that van is extra bad news. In a few minutes he’s going to come out of that warehouse, and when he sees us...”

“All right,” Mel soothed. Now she could see the fear behind the vampy attitude. Whatever her reason for being here, Vicki was a few steps ahead of Mel, and if she was afraid, then obviously Mel should be too. They happened to be chatting in front of the garage door to what was almost certainly a chop shop, considering where they were. “What say we stash our rides and check it out?”

That naughty stare again.

There were some bolt cutters in Mel’s trunk, which they used to break in. Mel raised the garage door while Vicki walked her immaculate blue and silver Honda Hawk inside, and then Mel backed her beat-up Integra in next to a half-assembled Range Rover. Mel was lowering the garage door when they heard the van.

“Inside. Go!” Vicki hissed, and they ducked into the darkness as it crept by. Mel held her breath, wide-eyed in silent panic as it slowed to a crawl. Vicki had made it sound like this guy could easily take them both. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the long fresh stripe of rubber Vicki had left in the street. But he finally moved away, and Mel’s white-fingered grip on her pistol relaxed. She raised the door up high enough for them to walk through.

“You think he really could’ve...” she began.

Vicki hummed absently as she dug a laptop out of one of her saddlebags, then trudged off down the street. “Shall we?” she asked over her shoulder.

Susan felt much better the next time she opened her eyes. Her stomach had settled. She was pleasantly warm. And it was so nice to think clearly again.

She sat in a comfortable chair that faced the only source of light in the room: a gigantic high-def monitor. Her parents had one too, but not nearly this big. Whoever had put her here had set her a little too close. The image was sharp, hyperreal. The first thing she thought of was satellite footage of a hurricane, but weirder. The great big fluffy spiral spun lazily counter-clockwise. It seemed to watch her, daring her to understand why it was so stupidly big and why she should care.

Her nose itched, and she discovered she couldn’t move her arms. She wasn’t just sitting in this comfortable chair; she was bound to it. The thick leather headrest grabbed a little too much of her head just a little too efficiently. It also vibrated with a mild electrical hum that Susan hadn’t experienced much with furniture. She got the distinct feeling it was doing something to her mind, but she didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.

Except that she wasn’t screaming, or trying to get up, or terrified or even a little nervous. Apparently she didn’t care much about anything at all. She’d used Xanax before flying, to take the edge off, but this crushed the edge into a fine powder.

The big hurricane on the TV continued to rotate and regard her inscrutably.

“Ah, you’re awake,” someone said, right behind her. It was the man from the train who’d given her directions.

No. That obviously wasn’t right. Not anymore. “So you kidnapped me again,” Susan offered conversationally.

He laughed. “Well, the first time didn’t work out, so it doesn’t count.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.” Just a casual chat with her kidnapper about his intentions, while she watched the big TV... “Why’d you bring me here?”

He’d been moving around while they talked, like he was getting ready for something. “I’ve been hired by someone who’s very enamored of you, Susan. It’s nothing personal, just a thing I do on the side.”

That didn’t make the least bit of sense. “Someone hired you? To what?”

“Yes, someone hired me, but we don’t have to talk about the client tonight. I’ve been hired to hypnotize you, to condition your mind.”

Suddenly the huge spinning thing on the ginormous television made sense. And it made her snicker. “You told somebody you could brainwash me into being their love slave, or whatever? And they believed you? Gave you money?”

“Something like that.”

God, he was for real! “And you actually think you can do that to me?”

He laughed again, open to the absurdity of it all. “It sounds far-fetched, I know. But you’re my sixty-seventh subject. Remember how I got you to leave your apartment to come down here? And you have to admit that you’re sitting here now watching my fascinating visuals, aren’t you?”

“Okay, I don’t really remember leaving my place,” she began, pausing to concede to herself that this strengthened his case more than hers, “and you can say you’ve brainwashed a gazillion other girls, but I’ll bet you can’t prove it. And it’s not like I have a choice of whether or not to watch your TV. You’ve got my head in restraints.”

“And you’re being awfully casual about it, aren’t you?”

“Well...” He had a point there.

“Susan, we need to accomplish two things tonight, before we send you home to bed.”

“Which are?” she asked, still pretty amused about this whole brainwashing thing. The center of the hurricane thing was kind of cool, because everything in the spinning clouds ended up there eventually. It was nice to hear that she was going home.

“We’ll be meeting fairly often. I need you to enjoy this. To desire it...”

“And?” she smiled. What a nutbag, but man the center of that hurricane was neat.

He leaned in close and put his hands on her shoulders, which she felt was a little uncalled for. “Having you collected on the train or from your apartment or wherever is expensive and dangerous. After tonight, you’ll come when I call.”

How could you be stupider, Vicki? she berated herself as she stomped toward the warehouse, Detective Vorus in tow. She imagined herself sitting in the back of a classroom, sticking up her hand. Ooh! I know! I know! Bring a cop with you to the specialist’s place while you’re trying to get his subject list!

Melanie drew her piece and checked the chamber. “Stay out here, okay?” she warned.

Vicki’s mouth fell open as she turned around to get a load of Melanie, with her twinkly brown eyes, lustrous hair and buff bod. And her gun. “You’re not going in there.”

Melanie glared at her. “Why the fuck not?”

“I finally get why I pulled over for you back there,” Vicki realized. “You know, I could make a lot of money off you. After you go in, guns blazing, and get yourself distracted by some pretty lights.”

Melanie stopped walking. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you like being in control of your own cootch?”

“Excuse me?”

Vicki got the feeling she was this close to getting shot. Of course, she repeated herself.

Melanie’s voice dipped low. “Bitch, you’d better start making sense.”

Vicki rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m trying to do you a solid. Do you have any idea what you’re walking into?” She held up a hand. “No, of course not. If you did, you wouldn’t even be here.”

They reached Warehouse 17 then, and Vicki ducked down the alley, knelt on the pavement and opened her laptop. Melanie followed warily, still brandishing that pistol.

“Someone with more money than God has decided they want Susan,” Vicki explained. “And they don’t just want to fuck her. They want to own her.” She looked up at Melanie, who nodded. “Okay, you know that part. The guy in here knows how to make it happen. It’ll take a while, but when he’s done, Susan will be someone’s property. And a hot little piece of ass like you who gets in the way? He’ll hook you up to a machine and you’ll drool on yourself while he makes you forget who you are.”

Melanie stared at the brick wall like she was trying to see through it to Susan. Vicki left her alone while she brought up a Bash shell on her laptop and summoned Nmap. The sound of her typing eventually piqued Melanie’s interest. “So what’s your deal? What are you doing there?”

Trying to hack his wireless network. Vicki’s port scan revealed some promising leads. “You really don’t want to know.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to change my mind. Or if you don’t want to get arrested.”

Six open ports... Where to begin? Seconds later, Vicki was in. It took a little digging to find the Holy Grail: Dr. Richard Crabtree’s open subject list, complete with trigger words. One secure copy later and she was all set. She gazed at the lady detective, wondering what she could possibly say that would save her life. “Melanie, I’m real sorry, but Susan’s already in there learning to like having someone else think for her. I make money off of girls like her, and I can live with that. But you’re about to walk in there and join her, and I don’t know why really, but I can’t just sit here and let you.”

Melanie looked like she wanted to kick something. “How is Crabtree going to stop me?”

Vicki closed her laptop and stood up. “Dude, you’ll never see it coming. You’ll get gassed or zapped by some security system the second you walk in.” Melanie had started walking, so Vicki jumped in front of her. “But check it out! He’ll send Susan home later when he’s done. He has to work on her for weeks before she’ll be ready, and she can’t just disappear, especially after your stunt this afternoon, right? If you want, you can go see her tomorrow and try to convince her that she’s being brainwashed. Knock yourself out.”

Mel stopped. Maybe Vicki was getting through. She got real close and looked her in the eye. “But if you go in there right now, you won’t remember any of this in the morning. You’ll drive out here tomorrow night and put your own legs in the air for him.”

Melanie went pale, holstered her pistol. “If he can do that, he’ll ask me if I came alone. And I’ll tell him all about you.”

Vicki studied the ground carefully. Melanie wanted to protect her too. But she shrugged. “I’m already in some shit with these people. Let’s go, all right?”

Melanie closed her eyes like she was apologizing to Susan for leaving. Then she nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Maybe there’d be a day when Vicki needed help, and someone like Melanie would care enough to be there. Shyly, she patted her on the back. “C’mon.”

What is this... Machine?” Susan marveled, as the big, firm headrest focused all of her attention upon the eye of the spinning hurricane on the TV.

Her abductor—the poor schmuck who believed he was brainwashing her—stroked light, slow circles on her shoulders, which made her stare even harder at the screen. “It tunes your mind to certain frequencies. Beta waves... Alpha waves...” The circles slowed. “Theta waves...”

Susan smiled lazily. “What kind am I thinking now?”

“Alpha ones, actually. A relaxed and reflective state...” he intoned.

“You’re so full of shit!” she laughed. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Richard.”

“And I’m supposed to be relaxed and reflective, Richard?”

“Relaxed and reflective,” he agreed, sounding like a TV commercial.

His hands were warm. He was funny. “Relaaaaaxed...” she parroted.

“And reflective?” he prompted.

“Reflective...”

“Relaxed?”

She giggled softly at the repetition game. “Relaxed...”

“And reflective?”

“Reflective...”

“And suggestible?”

“Suggestible...” she chided. “You want me to be open to your suggestions, huh? ‘Of course you can see my boobs, Richard! I’m relaaaaaxed and reflective.’”

He chose to ignore her. “Relaxed?”

She could only see the center now of the hurricane now. The rest of the enormous pattern was just too big to keep track of. Familiar-looking objects and symbols swirled through the clouds until they were sucked into the eye, only to vanish. It felt like her thoughts were slowly draining into that hole as well. Then there were the fingers, stroking her arms in warm lazy circles. “Relaxed...” she repeated, smile fading.

“Good. Reflective?”

“Reflective...”

“Suggestible?”

“Suggestible...”

“Susan,” Richard prompted. Her attention settled easily on the center of the spiral. Her dry mouth and tired jaw gave her an idea of how long she’d been reciting the “relaxed, reflective, suggestible” thing. Something new strobed at the edge of her vision, way beyond the edge of the spiral she’d long since lost track of. A set of relentless flashing lights softened her thoughts. Her eyes widened at the powerful intrusion. She was ready to listen to Richard.

“Yes?”

“You’re going to go much deeper now. Everything we say and do will be perfectly natural and reasonable to you. Do you understand? Just watch the screen and listen to my voice.”

Susan was too stunned to really follow what he was saying. So she watched the spiral, letting the harsh light wash over her.

“Are you watching the screen, Susan?”

What else was there to watch? “Uh-huh.”

Her armpits felt tight. It took a few slow revolutions of the hurricane for her to realize that her top had gotten all scrunched up. She wasn’t sure, but Richard might’ve been playing with her boobs, and she might have been swelling against his fingers, and possibly whimpering a little. Her body seemed to know what it was doing. It was perfectly natural and reasonable. She understood.

He kissed her neck, which was also perfectly reasonable.

“Yes,” she agreed later, but she wasn’t quite sure to what. “What? Oh sorry, Richard.” She lifted her ass off the chair as her miniskirt disappeared.

He grabbed her hips in a perfectly natural and reasonable way, which she understood. Peeled off her panties and ran them back up one of her thighs, which was very reasonable, because otherwise she might lose them. All this perfect, reasonable naturalness made her wonder if she needed a towel to sit on. But she understood.

“You may begin,” Richard said in the doctor-ish tone he’d used on her induction sequence from the train. Which she sort of understood.

Begin what? Susan was about to ask, but instead she said, “I read somewhere that hypnosis is good for you. I am particularly susceptible to it. I’m secretly turned on by hypnosis. I want to get hypnotized whenever I can.” Which was perplexing. Where had she read that? Since when did she know anything about it, much less that she was easy to hypnotize? And why was she saying that it turned her on, for God’s sake?

Richard raked his hands down her torso and gripped her waist, which was perfectly natural. “I read somewhere that hypnosis is good for you!” she exclaimed, arching her back. It was more important to say the words than to think about them. Maybe she’d read that somewhere too.

“I’m particularly susceptible to it,” she groaned, as he tongued her ear.

His big hand pawed at her lady business, and her knees knocked together reflexively. “I’m secretly turned on by it. I want to get hypnotized whenever I can.”

“Very good, Susan,” Richard encouraged.

“I read somewhere that hypnosis is good for you,” she mentioned in passing, as the spiral began to turn faster and Richard located her clit. “I’m particularly susceptible to hypnosis,” she admitted, as her hips began to buck. “I’m secretly turned on by hypnosis and I want to get hypnotized whenever I can. I read somewhere that hypnosis is good for you.” Susan broke out in a sweat, which made it easier for her to grind against his fingers in the increasingly damp chair. “I’m particularly-” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “...Susceptible to hypnosis. I want to get hypnotized whenever I can. I read somewhere-”

Richard interrupted her. “When you come, remember that you’ll go into a much deeper trance. You can come now, if you like, Susan.”

Wait wait wait... Hold it there... From the neck up, she was all about the spiral and babbling on about whatever Richard told her to. The rest of her seemed more and more like some alien slut girl from space. Her ass rose off the seat as she wantonly fucked his fingers, thrilled by her boldness even as she blushed furiously. Susan writhed in her seat, sparks dancing off her clit. A powerful noise escaped her, heartbroken to leave her lungs yet ecstatic to be free.

The spiral did a complete revolution before she could inhale again, and when she noticed that Richard’s fingers were still down there she almost came again, but the strobes blazed much faster, and the spiral had apparently just been teasing her so far, because all those razor-sharp details in the clouds tumbled around wildly now, before getting sucked into the center and into nothingness. It was like all the equipment in the room was being powered by her orgasm. Paralyzed, Susan shivered in the soaked chair as her mind emptied. She listened to her ragged gasps settle into something more regular.

“Now,” said Richard in that delicious tenor. “Is your mind relaxed, open and ready for instruction?”

“Yes,” she replied, voice bright with afterglow.

“You’re doing so well, Susan.” He withdrew his hands and her body ceased to exist. There was only the voice and the spiral. “From now on, when I mention proprioception, you will enter a very deep hypnotic trance just like the one you’re experiencing at this moment. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. We’re about to share some information. You will offer what I ask for honestly and without hesitation. You will forget each detail that I give you as soon as you hear it, until such time as you need it. What do you do when I ask you a question?”

“I will offer what you ask for honestly and without hesitation,” Susan recited, unblinking.

“And what do you do with the information I give you?”

“I will forget each detail as soon as I hear it, until such time as I need it.”

“Excellent. It’s really a pleasure working with you, Susan. You’re an unusually good subject. When I’ve told you everything you need to know, I’ll give you another reward.”

She shivered and smiled and watched the spiral.

What followed was like a hazy dream of an interview. She found herself offering up very specific details about her schedule, her job, her apartment. Email addresses, phone numbers. He gave her some phone numbers in return, along with directions to different places in the city. Each detail evaporated the instant it reached her ears.

Then he removed the choker around her neck. “I don’t think we’ll need this anymore, but I always test my new subjects just to be sure.” Behind her, he fiddled with his equipment. The lights stopped strobing and the spiral vanished. Susan stayed relaxed and motionless, because the spiral was burned into her retinas, where it would probably stay all night. She heard an abrupt descending whine as Richard powered down more machines. The headrest stopped vibrating, and the pops she heard turned out to be her restraints unlocking. Finally, he brought up the ambient lights in the room, so she could see where she’d been all this time.

It was a neat little workshop with concrete floors and a high ceiling. Stiffly, she turned her head, taking in the giant black monitor, the tripods for the strobes and lots and lots of color-coded cables. In one corner of the room a big steel desk sat like massive aircraft carrier, with a bunch of generic desktop computers serving as the conning tower, and a laptop poised for takeoff on its flight deck. Beyond that was an identical chair and monitor setup, maybe for busy nights when Richard brainwashed two sleepy girls at once.

Susan was far, far from awake. Her mind was full of white sparks and static, and every time she blinked she saw the great spiral behind her eyelids. She felt a deep longing to be back in the dark in her trance. But at some point she’d leapt to her feet. Her hands frantically covered her exposed body as she raced to the big metal door. She kept her left hand at her crotch while she used her right to frantically jerk at the handle. When it wouldn’t open, she skittered to the corner behind the desk, back to the cold wall, and slowly slid to the floor.

In the very center of the room stood Richard. Susan began to hyperventilate as she gaped up at him. He was bigger than she remembered, and he wore an amused expression, like she was behaving unreasonably and he was trying his best to overlook it. Her mind did all kinds of contortions as it tried to wrap itself around whatever the almighty fuck had just happened. She just couldn’t snap out of it. And then—rather offhandedly—he said, “Susan, have I told you about my research on proprioception?”