The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Somewhere in Middle America, early Thursday morning

The sun was still a good half-hour below the horizon when Paul slipped out of his dorm room, only half-convinced that he’d gotten the timing just right. It was early enough that most of campus was asleep, allowing him the privacy he desired. It was also late enough that there would almost certainly be someone within shouting distance if the aliens returned with their rayguns.

He nudged open the main door of the Men’s Dorm and kicked away the crushed plastic bottle being used to prop it open. Cold air rushed in, and he imagined himself back in his own bed, warm under the covers, hiding there until all of this went away.

But it wasn’t going to go away, and he had an entire planet to save. He stepped out into the twilight and let the door close behind him with a soft thump.

Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep.

Paul couldn’t recall the artist or the song. He couldn’t recall the rest of the lyrics, either, so the two lines bounced back and forth between his ears as he took the shortcut route up to Hebron Hall. As expected, he encountered only a handful of students, mostly joggers, the steam from their labored breaths trailing behind them like locomotive smoke. It had only gotten colder since the previous evening.

Pahhhrahhhnoia strikes deeeeep. But it wasn’t paranoia when there were actual fucking aliens with guns and spaceships lurking in the nearby woods. Everything in Paul’s current situation depended on those aliens being asleep for the day, or at least in hiding, but it was still dark out. They could be lurking anywhere, along the paths, on the back side of Whitman Hall, disguised as one of the joggers circling the quad.

He reached the crest of the hill, huffing and puffing himself, the cold air stinging his lungs. Into your life it will creep. Even the sunrise didn’t guarantee safety. The aliens could send the two hypnotized girls from the spaceship after him. The redhead knew who he was. He’d stupidly signed his own name right in front of her. A pretty redhead assassin, following him around campus until she could stab him, or shoot him with that raygun, or lure him to a place where she could easily do either.

“Which,” he puffed, “is why I’m here.”

Hebron Hall, third floor, room 321. That’s where she was. That’s where he hoped she was.

Phone? It was in his pocket, thank God.

He reached the front doors and, as expected, found them closed and locked.

Just outside of Fallon Admin Center, the previous evening

“Nicole!”

The brunette ignored him. Of course she was ignoring him. He raised his voice and tried again.

“NICOLE!”

The two women continued on autopilot, their boots clacking against the sidewalk in matching rhythm. Clack clonk clack clonk. From a distance, they looked like power-walkers, arms swinging, feet sure and steady, heads held high and straight. Power-walkers dressed in tall boots and short, tight dresses. Clack clonk clack.

“Wait! Nicole!” Paul sprinted ahead, ignoring the pain from his tired legs and the toe he’d already managed to stub twice in the dark. Catching up with the brunette, he looped his arm around hers in the hope that he could at least slow her down. Instead, she shrugged free and continued marching. Clack clonk clack clonk. He cursed and regrouped, this time running past her and then turning to face her, his legs trying to carry him backwards as fast as possible without landing him on his ass.

“Nicole… hey, look at me! You’re hypnotized, right? When you’re hypnotized, who do you obey?”

She said nothing. Her eyes pivoted to her right, and the rest of her followed. A quick backwards glance confirmed that Paul was about to back right off the sidewalk and into a light pole. He adjusted accordingly, his feet now just a few inches away from Nicole’s.

“When… when you’re in a trance, you must obey me. You have to listen to me. Only me, Nicole. Only… c’mon, snap out of it!”

He thought of the iridescent phone that controlled Nicole, stashed under his pillow, ‘safe’ from being lost in the woods or recaptured by the Bad Guys but completely useless now from stopping Nicole from going… wherever the hell she’d been told to go.

Impulsively, he crossed in front of Nicole and deliberately let himself crash into Jenny, doing his best to tangle his arms and legs with hers. She stumbled to her right, Paul following her, using his weight to knock her off-balance. Her boot caught on the edge of the concrete and she fell, her right knee striking the grass hard enough to plow up chunks of sod. She freed her arms from Paul and lowered them, mechanically, like a plane coming in for a landing, allowing her to catch herself before she smashed face-first into the Earth.

Clack, clomp, clack, clonk. Nicole continued ahead as if nothing had happened. Behind Paul, Jenny quickly pushed herself to her knees, then to her feet. Bits of dry grass and earth tumbled from her knees as she returned to the sidewalk and resumed her pre-programmed journey. She’d hurt herself in the tumble, now favoring her left leg over her right with each clack clonk, but the blank expression gave away nothing. Paul found himself wincing for her.

Nicole, now a good fifteen feet in the lead, made a sharp right turn and began climbing the hill to Old Campus. Jenny, upon limping to the same spot, angled left instead.

Two drones, two missions? He allowed himself some hope. Nicole was headed in the direction of her dorm. If her programming for the evening was simply to go home, go to sleep, and forget everything, she was safe enough for now. The aliens only come for her at night. Paul was pretty certain of that. She’d gone to the field with Charlie at night, took Jenny there at night, and now here they were again. If the aliens had wanted to take her with them, they would have, and they didn’t.

She crested the hill and vanished from Paul’s view, still on track to reach her dorm. He willed himself to stop pursuing her, only succeeding on his third try, finally coming to a stop at the top of the stairs. Old Campus was not well-lit, and he could only make out a Nicole-shaped shadow drifting from one orange circle of light to another. If he ran, he could probably catch her before she reached Hebron, but it was clearly pointless.

“I love you,” he said to the stairs, the railing, the nearest lamp post. “I’m so sorry, Nicole. I’m so fucking sorry I’m gonna do this, but you’ll be okay if I go, so… I’m gonna go, okay?”

His surroundings, as dead to the world as his girlfriend, responded the same.

The speech was more for his benefit than for hers, and he knew it. He repeated it several times as he walked, feeling utterly crushed, back to his own room.

In front of Hebron Hall, early Thursday morning

Paul considered yelling loud enough to wake the entire dorm. He’d wake Nicole along with everyone else, and tell them all to run for the hills, that aliens were lurking in the nearby woods, that they were set on hypnotizing every woman in Kenneyville and flying them back to Mars. But that would just end with him in a psych ward and Nicole on a spaceship. He held his breath and waited for the moment to pass. It did, after a short eternity.

Some of the older dorms still had keypad locks, and although the codes were supposed to be switched out every year and students were forbidden to share them with others, in practice neither was true, and everyone above sophomore year generally knew the four-digit codes for each dorm by heart. That, in turn, led to the college replacing them with keycard swipes, one building at a time. Much to Paul’s disappointment, Hebron Hall now sported one of the latter. Without Nicole’s ID, he was stuck, unless someone exited and was kind enough to hold the door open for him, or…

Or if he summoned her.

He closed his hand around the alien phone.

“Nicole, what are you doing? Where are you taking us?”

For Nicole, the answer was obvious. She eyed Katya with suspicion. For a head cheerleader and half-vampire, Katya sure asked a lot of dumb questions.

“I told you all, I forgot to take all of my high school classes and I have to go back to Virgin Falls to pass them or I’ll have to drop out of college!”

“You guys… I can’t… whew! I can’t believe we walked all the way from, uh, from Wisconsin to Oregon,” Laura huffed. She was wearing heels that were much too big for her and, conversely, a skirt that was much too narrow. She was continually falling behind the group and then rallying to keep up, a human yo-yo who was getting increasingly exhausted. “Why did we walk? Why didn’t we take a plane?”

Nicole nodded. Good old sensible Laura, always dropping truth bombs. How did they walk all that way in such a short time? Hadn’t they just been shopping at the mall with Jenny? It didn’t matter. She’d somehow forgotten to go to high school her entire senior year and now she had to take those exams, or else, even though she hadn’t studied for them. It was what it was. They passed a road sign, and she stopped to point it out to the group.

“Fifteen miles to go.”

“Why don’t we take the farm road up through the fields instead?” Katya hopped from foot to foot, looking very bored and annoyed.

Nicole rolled her eyes. This girl was dumb. No wonder Elias Dumont broke up with her at the end of Season Two. Everyone knew that “there’s vampires in the woods. You know that.”

“There’s vampires here,” Katya countered. She looked to her right, where the state highway ended and the rough road up the hill through the farm fields began. “See? Clay Colton’s right there. When you look into his eyes… deep into his eyes, it’s like you can’t say no, like you have to do what he says.”

“You have to obey,” Laura added. She kicked off her heels and began to walk, barefoot, towards the vampire.

“Laura, NO!”

But it was too late. The vampire was looking at Laura. It was also, somehow, looking at Nicole, its pink eyes flashing and spinning and washing over her. She sank to her knees, feeling the mud seep into her jeans. It felt good. It felt right. To be kneeling and serving and obeying. This is where she was meant to be.

The vampire spoke. “You will serve and obey.”

Katya was in Nicole’s ear. “Serve and obey the Kayzerd Empire.”

“Yes.” Pretty, so pretty, spinning and pink… look into his eyes, deep into his eyes… She knew vampires were dangerous. But Katya was a half-vampire, the costar of Vampire City, and even she didn’t seem to fear the thing in front of them. It drew closer, revealing its face in the moonlight. It had the chiseled body of Clay Colton but the face of… Pete? Paul? The guy from the quad? The cute weird guy from the quad. He had beautiful brown eyes, eyes that bored into her own.

Hypnotic eyes.

Irresistible eyes.

“Come to me, Nicole,” he said. He stretched out his hand. His beautiful, perfect hand. The moonlight made it glow. “Come to me, and obey.”

God, she was wet down there. Her thighs, too. Her clit twitched. He was just so fucking hot. Looking at him was even better than looking at Clay Colton, because he was here, and he was real, and he wanted to fuck her. She could feel him inside of her, even standing twenty feet away, his cock filling her, her fingernails digging into his back as she moaned…

“Yes. Come to you.” The words oozed out of her mouth like syrup. Slow, sticky, sweet, just like her pussy, demanding that he fuck her right then and there.

“You hear, and obey.”

“I hear, and obey.”

She climbed out of her bed, her toes scrunching as they touched the freezing tile floor. Wait, wasn’t just walking to Oregon? She took a step forward. Towards it. Towards him. He was all that mattered. He was… what was the word? Smart. Commanding. Perfect. She could feel him touching her, kissing her, his chin resting on her shoulder, his lips whispering into her ear, telling her to serve, to obey, to come to me.

You are being summoned.

She slipped out of her room and padded down the hallway, numb to the chilling cold that always seemed to fill every corner of Hebron Hall, even after the renovations. Past the bathrooms, past the shower room, past the two lacrosse girls from 304, past their disapproving looks and lingering stares, until she was at the elevator. A single, enormous button presented itself, taking her in the only direction that mattered. Down to him. Down to…

Master, she whispered, as the elevator doors slid open.

It was the longest seven minutes and eighteen seconds of Paul’s young life, but seeing Nicole approach through the glass sidelights of Hebron’s front entrance made up for all of it. She was wearing a t-shirt and nothing else, her hair disheveled and wild, bare feet making deliberate and purposeful strides across the lobby tiles. In a moment she was at the door itself, grunting as she forced it open. Warm air spilled out from inside, pressing against him, briefly warming his gloveless hands. He reached for her, then thought better of it, choosing to hold the door open instead.

“I was summoned,” she droned. “I hear, and obey.”

“C’mon, let’s go upstairs.” He pushed against her, nudging her until they were both inside the lobby, resting his butt against the door so that it wouldn’t slam shut behind them. “Can we take the stairs?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s take them, then, and skip the elevator.”

“I hear, and obey.”

Soon

Paul pushed past her into the room. “Nicole, you will get dressed, and then you will listen to me carefully.”

“I hear, and obey.”

He waited for her to go through the motions of getting dressed. It took less time than he would have guessed. His girlfriend, taking a strict interpretation of his command, reached into her dresser and put on the first outfit she could get her hands on. It matched, more or less—dark jeans and a brown top

“We need…” he stopped mid-sentence, unsure of what to do next. The whole point of his visit was to entrance Nicole and get her out of town, but it also felt wrong. Wasn’t she supposed to be a free-willed individual?

Bullshit. She could be free-willed later. Right now, he needed her to be as pliant and obedient as he could get her. “Listen. We’re going to go get Jenny and then head back to my dorm room. Then we’re going to head to Canada.” Shit, you need passports for that, Paul! “Do you have a passport?”

“No.”

He cringed. They needed to get as far away from the aliens as possible. Winnipeg sounded a lot safer than Michigan.

“Fine,” he lied. “It’s okay. Where does Jenny live?”

“The Women’s Dorm.”

More bad news. It was the worst possible answer. Like Paul’s dorm, it was offered as a single-sex alternative and doubled as a throwback to the 1950s. You needed an invitation to visit if you were a guy. Nicole had carte blanche permission to enter, but in her current state, someone would almost certainly intervene. Are you okay, honey? You seem a little out of it. Here, sit down and let me call the cops…

“Dammit. Fucking fuck! What do we do now?”

“We will listen to you carefully,” she responded. “We hear, and obey.”

Ugh. “We’ll have to take our chances, I guess. You will answer me honestly. Do you think that you could go down to the Women’s Dorm and get Jenny? Get her to come to my room?”

“No. Jen doesn’t know you. She wouldn’t go to your room for no reason, even if I asked her to do it.”

Even though it made perfect sense, it still stung. Of course a hot girl like Jenny wouldn’t be caught dead at the Men’s Dorm with Paul and the other losers. There were leagues, and hers was well above his. Still… “isn’t she the same as you? Doesn’t she obey your orders?”

“No. I will do as Jenny commands.”

That left only one option. It wasn’t great. “Here’s what we’re going to do, then. You’re going to come with me to my dorm room. If anyone asks, you’re my girlfriend, and we’re just coming back from a trip to, um, Michigan. Okay?”

“I hear, and obey.”

“I’m going to get you out of this mess, Nicole. If it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be your usual… no, wait. That won’t work. Um, you’ll snap out of your trance when you get to my room, and you’ll be back to being my girlfriend.”

“I hear, and obey.”

“I hate that I have to do this. But it’s the only way to keep you safe.”

Nicole said nothing in return, having nothing to say, or do, or think. Slightly annoyed, and feeling rushed, Paul brushed past her and began opening her drawers and closets, pulling out clothes and underwear at random. He threw open a new drawer to find sweaters. He reached for however many his hand could grab at once, then stopped in mid-grab. Would Nicole wear these? Would she be warm enough in them? Which ones were her favorites? Only she would know.

“I guess I should let you pick out your own clothes, huh?”

“Yes. You should let me pick out my own clothes.”

“Lemons, lemonade, I guess… okay, I command you to go get your favorite backpack or suitcase that you have here in your room, something you use to carry lots of clothes. And then you’ll pick out, um… five outfits? And then you’ll put those in the backpack or whatever.”

“I hear, and obey,” She stepped around Paul and walked to her bed, briefly disappearing behind it until she popped up again, holding a light blue duffel bag. She made her way to the mess Paul had made and began picking items from it.

“Grab an extra pair of shoes,” he added.

“I hear, and obey.”

“When you’re done, put the bag on the floor and sit on the bed while I figure out where we can hide out.”

“I hear, and obey.”

Nicole cast aside the top two sweaters in the drawer, adding the third and fourth ones to the duffel bag. He nodded, more to himself than to her. If it came down to huddling in a cave while aliens scoured the planet looking for them, at least she’d be comfortably dressed.

“Where do we run to, though?”

Nicole said nothing. She filled a side pocket with socks.

Later

“Paul, this is crazy. We can’t just run. What about Jenny? Paul… Paul, will you listen to me?” Nicole sucked in her breath. “PAUL, STOP!!”

He stopped, and turned to face her. “What else can we do? They’re aliens! There’s no telling when they’re going to call you back to their ship for good, and when they do that, I’m not gonna be able to stop them! Or you!” He resumed his frantic pace, trying to decide what he would need on the road/cave, and what he could leave behind. “If that means hiding out, then we’re gonna hide out.”

“Yeah, and you’ve been saying that for over an hour. Look, just stop panicking for one second and listen to your girlfriend, okay? Please!”

“Girlfriend? You’re brainwashed, Nicole! Programmed, mind-controlled, hypnotized, whatever, you’re not you! You’re whatever they want you to think! Whatever I want you to think! You do whatever we tell you to do. I saw what they did to you and Jenny in that field!”

She tore the half-full backpack from his hands. “Oh really? Did anyone tell me to do this?”

She threw her hands around the back of his head and pulled him in for a passionate kiss, holding it until he ran out of breath and began to sputter. Just as he regained some oxygen in his lungs, she pulled him in again. Longer and more passionate than the first one, and a little less angry. She pulled away, gazing into his eyes, as if she were trying to hypnotize him.

“I. Love. You. I don’t care what anyone put in my head, what… whatever is in my head, whether any of it is real… I don’t know Paul! My brain is so scrambled I can’t even say the fucking words about whatever’s happening to me! So yeah, I’m brainwashed. I’m hypnotized. I’m programmed to do things and forget things and ignore things. Something happened to me and I’m really fucking scared! But I haven’t been heartwashed, Paul! I haven’t been soulwashed! Down there it’s all you and it’s real and you know damn well that it’s real and that you feel it too. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here packing a bag and trying to save me—not yourself Paul, but to save me.” Her eyes began to tear up. “I love you, okay?”

Paul took her in his arms. He pressed his lips to hers and pulled her in close. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you, too. And I’m scared, too. But we have to get out of here! If you’re a hundred miles away, there’s no point in them summoning you. If we get far enough away… maybe their tech has a limit? We’ll get out of range, we’ll try to hide until they go away. Maybe send the cops or the army to that field, make an anonymous call, they—”

“Okay, role-play with me.” She wiped the tears from her face.

“What?”

“Mental blocks, post-hypnotic suggestions? Let’s work around them. Remember when we were role-playing, and you told me that I was a brainwashed spy? I kinda am, right? But I bet I can talk about things if I don’t… call things by what they are. Pretend I’m brainwashed by secret agents. What do the secret agents do to me?”

“Nicole, we…”

“Baby please, please do this with me. What do they do to me?”

He sat down on the bed, defeated. “Okay, they hypnotize you. You’re a secret agent, so they brainwash you and give you a trigger phrase that puts you into a trance. Every once in a while they activate the trigger and you go to them, to report to them or get new orders.”

“In the field.”

“Yes, they… Nicole?”

“It’s working. Paul, it’s working! I can remember the field! I can tell you about the field! Holy shit… there’s no brain freezes or anything. Keep going! I’m a mindless slave, I’ve been triggered, now what?”

“They… um, there’s another secret agent in your agency. So you bring her there and they brainwash her. Her name… um, she’s called Agent J. And so now she’s under their control, too. You both start betraying your fellow spies so they get captured. Now they’re all in the enemy base. But there’s more.”

“They have a bigger plan.”

“Yeah. The bad secret agents have a bigger plan, and you’re part of it. They program you with a new mission, erase your memory, send you back as if nothing happened. Sometime soon, they will trigger you and you will carry out that mission. Maybe as soon as tonight. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

“I… I want to say that’s kind of hot but… whew, hold on,” she stammered, looking flustered. “Jesus, I have issues. How, hmm. How do they hypnotize me?”

“They use a special raygun. James Bond stuff.”

“How do they take control of me? They trigger me, okay, but how? Do they call me on my phone? Do they send me a red rose? Show me a card?”

“I think… it’s your bracelet. They control you through your bracelet. With a phone like this. It takes over your mind and then you’re under their control.”

“My bracelet? No, that’s not possible, because I’ve had this bracelet for way longer than I’ve even been at Southern Wisconsin, I… what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“What if the secret agents made you remember it that way? What if the bracelet is their bracelet and you only think that it’s yours? What else do you remember about it?”

“I’ve had it for years,” she said. “I just found it recently and I decided to start wearing it again.”

“When did you find it? Where did you find it? It’s not like you drove all the way back to Rhode Island to get it, right?”

“I…” She down at her forearm. Pretty, shiny… “I’ve had it for years, though. I just recently found it and I decided to start wearing it again.”

She sat next to him on the bed. “I found it in a box? And then I decided to start wearing it again? It’s really pretty.”

Paul held up three fingers. “That’s three times in a row that you’ve told me you decided to start wearing it again. Where did you find that bracelet?”

“I f-found… in a box of old stuff and I… I decided… I… oh fucking dammit! I swear to God, I have the box it came in and everything! I can see it in my mind as clear as fucking day!”

“How much do you wanna bet that if we went looking for that box right now, you wouldn’t find it?”

“So it’s the bracelet, then. I found it in a box of…” She closed her eyes, shaking her head violently. “No. NO! Paul, they control me through… through a ring. A mind-control ring. Do you have anything ring-shaped? Ooh! Grab me that rubber band on the desk.”

“Here.” He pressed it into her eager hands.

She twisted it a few times until it was snug against her finger. “This is what controls me,” she said. “This mind-control ring. If someone takes it off me, I’m freed from their control for good. Paul. I’m freed from their control for good.”

I am going to fucking marry this girl. “So all I have to do is…” he reached for her arm, but she recoiled instantly.

“NO! Get the fuck away from… from… whoa, that was weird. That was crazy weird.”

“What happened just now?”

“It felt like you were about to chop my arm off! And I knew that was ridiculous and yet… that’s all I could think of. I swear, I was this close to screaming my guts out. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“That makes sense. Remember when I told you that I was going to drop the phone at Lost and Found and you freaked out?”

“Don’t you fucking DARE… oh. Oh!” Nicole dropped her head, ashamed. “What the fuck is wrong with me? That wasn’t me talking. You know that, right?”

“I know. It’s those secret agents again. They programmed you to stop anyone from interfering.”

“Dammit. I wish you could, like, drug me or something. If I’m out cold, you could take the ring off of me, and I wouldn’t be able to scream or fight you.”

Paul jumped from the bed and crossed the room. He opened a dresser drawer and began digging through it. “I have… where is it? I can do this, Nicole.”

“You don’t actually have real knockout drugs in there, do you? I mean yay, but also…”

“No, this.” He walked back to the bed and opened his palm, letting the crystal from the mall fall free. It dangled in front of her surprised face. “Sleep, Nicole.”

“Thaassssuhhhnnnn…” Her head fell to her chest. With his free arm, Paul caught her as she slowly collapsed. He laid her on the bed at an awkward angle.

“Nicole, you will stay in a deep sleep until I snap my fingers.”

“Mmm.”

Good enough. The bracelet was snug and tight against her wrist. Paul held up her limp arm and pulled the bracelet to his face. He tugged at it, ran his fingers around it, looking for a clasp or a catch or anything of the sort, but it was perfectly smooth and continuous, as if it had always been there. He considered deepening her trance until she couldn’t feel pain, to break the bones in her hand so he could slip the bracelet off like handcuffs, but it somehow seemed to get tighter if he even touched it. As if it were a machine. Which it probably is, come to think of it.

With no other ideas at hand, he rolled Nicole’s rubber band ‘ring’ off her finger. “Wake, Nicole,” he said, snapping his fingers.

She blinked twice and looked around, confused. “Am I…”

“Maybe not?” He held the rubber band between two fingers. “I have removed the mind control ring. You are no longer under its control.”

Their eyes fell to the bracelet, expecting it to fall off, or disappear, or something. To their mutual disappointment, it did nothing at all.

“Um…” Paul crossed his fingers. “Where did you get that bracelet from?”

“I found it in a box at my… oh, god dammit!” Nicole punched the pillows. “Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit! So that didn’t work.”

“It was worth a try. And that bracelet’s not physically coming off unless we take your whole arm off with it.”

“What about the phone? It controls the… ring, right? Maybe we make the phone turn me off?”

Paul held up the phone. “I’ve been trying to fuck around with this for days, Nicole. It was only sheer luck that I got it to do anything, much less something that actually helped you. It’s alien technology. Even Erik would be baffled, and he’s a fucking electronics… HEY! Nicole!”

She snatched the phone from his hands and stomped to the door. “This Erik?” she asked. “Down the hall guy?”

Before he could answer her, she was already out the door.

“Oh, hi, I’m so glad you’re home!” She pushed Erik aside and swept into the room like a whirlwind. “Oooh, nice place!”

“Can I help you?” Erik looked at her, clearly annoyed with the bubbly bimbo with no regard for personal space, but too flabbergasted to do much about it.

“Ohmygodohmygod I’m so ruuuude! I’m Nicole.” She grabbed his hand and gave it a vigorous shake. “I’m Paul’s girlfriend, annnd, okay, like, I picked up this phone in Japan.” She thrust the iridescent phone into Erik’s hands. “And, like, somehow? I made it all foreign-language-y? And I can’t turn it back. Can you help? Paul said you’re, like, the best at this. Cuz you’re the smartest guy in school.”

Erik eyed the weird phone, then the weird girl holding it. “Look, I would love to, but there are classes, and midterms are a week away. I’m sorry.”

Nicole gave him a smoldering wink. She leaned in close and placed her lips on his ear. “I’ll make it very, very worth your while, hottie.” She moved his hand to her right breast. “Paul is understanding about this stuff. And I’d be so grateful. Pretty please? Even if you can’t fix it… I bet a boy like you knows all about a girl’s… inner gears.” She pulled away, blowing him a kiss.

From the door, Paul rolled his eyes.

Meanwhile

“Humanoid female. You will identify yourself to us.”

“My name is Becky Killian. I am a junior at the college. I am twenty years old. I am from Manchester, New Hampshire.”

“That is sufficient, humanoid female. You will remain still until I tell you to move.”

“Yes.”

Q’nan reached up to place the helmet in his hands over the humanoid female’s head, then realized that she was far too tall for that. “Humanoid female, bend yourself until your head is closer to me.”

“Yes.”

She did as commanded. The helmet was silver in color, made of a metal unfamiliar to either of the two aliens, and it was surprisingly lightweight for its size. It locked itself in place as soon as it was fully over the humanoid female’s head. A little plasma screen emerged from a hidden pocket to cover her eyes and nose, leaving only her mouth and the front of her neck exposed.

“Good. Now, unbend yourself. And remain still!”

“Yes.”

He held up a wand-shaped probe. “B’nak? I’m guessing that this part goes down here? Or maybe in the other hole in the back? It seems like it would fit into either one. Did we lose a piece?”

B’nak studied the computer screen. “I hope not. It… hmm. It looks like that one goes… in the front?”

“Okay, but there’s actually more than… never mind, I’m just going to put it in here. It fits.”

“Head piece, probe piece… next, the two rounded ones go… yep, right there, one over each. Hand me those leads.”

“I feel like we’re missing something, B’nak. Where’s the piece for its zarhis?”

“I don’t think humanoid females have a zarhis.”

“Then how do they… you know? When it’s time?”

“It’s not in the manual,” B’nak shrugged. “And I didn’t see anything like one on the map plate.”

Q’nan handed over the cables. “I don’t understand these humanoids at all. I wish I’d paid more attention in the academy.”

“You and me both. The program is loaded… cables are… thank you, cables are in, and in, and in… okay! Translator… on! That should do it, Q’nan! Our very first brain smooth! This is so exciting!”

“For you, maybe. I’m just glad that we’re finally brain-smoothing at least one of them. The sooner they’re groveling at our feet and not getting ready to get loose and run around our ship, the better!” He eyed the bulkhead door. “In fact… I’m going to go check on the other one. She’s clearly stronger-willed than the others.”

“She’s fine! I just used the mind ray on her again. Do you want… hey, come back! Q’nan! Do you really want to miss this? From what I’ve read, it’s exquisite to watch!”

“I’ll watch the next one!”

B’nak tapped at the brain smoother’s control panel, and it began to glow. Green lights enveloped Becky’s nude body. “Fine, it’s your loss. Here we go!”

She was floating in the void. Green lights swirled before her eyes, mesmerizing, dazzling, beautiful, like the pretty pink spiral but a thousand times… a million times more mesmerizing. They danced and spun over her placid face.

A voice began to whisper to her. Becky… Becky… listen to me. Listen and forget. Listen and forget. Forget. Forget.

The green swirls parted like a mist. Behind them was another Becky, dressed for high school prom, smiling. It slowly dissolved into the mists.

Forget, Becky. Forget. There is nothing now. Forget.

Another picture, another memory. Her first day at college. Her proud parents, fading into the beautiful green mists.

Forget, Becky. There is nothing. There is nothing to remember. Forget. Empty your mind, and forget.

More memories appeared, dimmed, vanished. Birthday parties. Vacations. Pets. Places. Relatives. Her first car. Her first boyfriend. Her most recent boyfriend. Friends. Strangers. Forget. Forget. There is nothing to remember. You are nothing. You are nothing. What are you?

Her lips parted. “I am… I’m… I’m…”

You are nothing. What are you?

“I am nothing.”

“There is no ‘I,’ there is only nothing. You are nothing. What are you?”

“Nothing.”

It feels good to be nothing. Feel it. You are nothing. You are pleasure. The silver wand slid back and forth, in and out, in perfect rhythm. Her hips bucked and she moaned. Nothing. There is nothing to remember. You are nothing to remember.

The swirling mists turned a deep blue color, dancing and spinning over her face. She moaned again, louder this time. She was wet everywhere, covered in sweat and other things. The fucking never stopped. She climaxed over and over again, thrashing against the restraints before going still and motionless.

Yes. With pleasure comes blankness. With pleasure comes obedience. With blankness and obedience comes pleasure. You are blank and obedient. Blank and obedient.

“Nothing. Blank and obedient.”

Your body obeys. There is only your body. Your body responds to obedience. Your body responds, and your mind is blank. Your body responds, and your mind is blank. Your body responds…

B’nak smiled. Q’nan was missing out.

Later

“Humanoid female. Identify yourself to us.”

“This humanoid female is nothing.” She stood before them, an empty shell, her red hair damp and tangled, her body straight and unmoving.

“What is your purpose, humanoid female?”

“This humanoid female has no purpose but to obey. This humanoid female is nothing.”

Q’nan eyed her beautiful body. “Okay B’nak, I admit that I am impressed! I’ve never seen a full-on humanoid slave before.”

“Well, now you have, Q’nan. And now you’ll get to see more! Humanoid female! You will pleasure Q’nan here. He will tell you what to do.”

The blank-eyed shell that used to be Becky wrapped its arms around Q’nan, kissing him and feeling around his body in search of what to do next. She made no sounds, as she had not been told to do so.

“Don’t worry about the other one, Q’nan!” B’nak shouted as the taller alien dragged the redhead to his quarters. “You’ve earned this!”

He grinned, in a way that only the Kzzrks themselves would recognize as a grin.