The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

16.

“Lick. Harder.”

As Yvette tried to obey, Judy leaned back and clenched her teeth, letting her thighs tighten against Yvette’s hair. She’d been riding Yvette’s mouth for a while and her friend was tired, but Judy enjoyed Yvette’s obedience even more than what her tongue was trying to do.

Yvette panted against her pussy, hot sharp breaths, and that felt amazing, too.

There had been some resistance at first, even as Yvette had writhed under her kiss. But the vampire bites on Yvette’s neck were the key to her mind, and she didn’t, after all, try very hard to keep Judy from worrying at them until her will dissolved.

Then she really had been ready to do whatever Judy told her to.

Waiting until Yvette’s fatigue caught up with her, Judy loosened her legs. “Stop. Ease back.”

She looked at Yvette as they slid apart. Her neighbor knelt before the couch, her face gleaming faintly with juices. Her chest moved rhythmically and her breathing hissed in the room. Her nipples were stiff.

Judy searched her face, but Yvette was blank, submissive and yearning. She trembled now and then but didn’t look away from Judy, and Judy felt a little guilty. “Come here,” she whispered, and Yvette pulled herself off the floor and into Judy’s lap with an awkwardness that made Judy hold her very tenderly.

She nuzzled Yvette, tasting both of them on her friend’s skin. It hadn ‘t been all one-sided. She’d paralyzed Yvette before with another hard suck at the wounds, and when Yvette went limp it made her thighs easier to part. She’d lost herself in pleasuring Yvette’s pussy, almost sadistic in the way she let Yvette’s broken little cries and squeals drive her mouth further. When she’d looked up at last, Yvette was smiling like an angel.

She earned it. She held Yvette and felt that same breath, cooler and slower, against her shoulder.

Judy remembered the sex with Jane, but dimly, as though it had been ages ago and not this afternoon. She didn’t know how she’d explain this orgy with her friend to Jane, but she knew she’d try.

I’ve only known I was into women for a day and I’ve been having so much sex that . . . The thought trailed off. Warm, dazed Yvette in her arms and across her body was bringing Judy gently but inexorably out of the frenzy.

She tasted Yvette’s eyebrow and felt the other woman move to it. She knew that if she pushed Yvette down to service her again, Yvette’s eyes would glaze over and she’d submit. Judy wouldn’t even need another dominant peck at her throat.

For a second, Judy was in her pussy’s thrall. Do her. She wants it as much as you do.

She thought about the wounds. Something infinitely more powerful than she was had snatched her mind as effortlessly as it had seized Yvette’s. That undead thing had invaded Yvette and slaved her to its kind, drained not only her blood but a lot of her selfhood. It had trussed her mind with wetdreams of being taken again, just to make her easier for the next one to summon and feast on.

Judy had felt like a predator, turning her pretty neighbor into a toy. But Yvette’s free will was already a kill. Judy was a scavenger, eating the leavings of something that could drop her next to Yvette and make her even more eager to please.

It was what Jonathan and his friends would have done to Judy, if Laney hadn’t stayed with her and kept her safe. No one had protected Yvette.

Judy held Yvette to her, too appalled at herself even to weep.

Yvette stirred, looked up at her. Judy held her gaze, seeing awareness slowly flow back into it. She didn’t even presume to apologize. She just held her friend.

“Judy?” The whisper was uncertain.

Judy nodded, unable to say anything.

“I’m sorry, Judy. I couldn’t help myself.”

Judy shook her head. “I should have,” she said.

“No.” Yvette leaned back against the couch. She was too weak to draw Judy back with her but Judy moved that way herself. “Something happened to you. You’re different.”

“I met a vampire last night. At work. It was going to take Alexis—”

Yvette’s eyes widened. She’d met Alexis and liked her.

“No, she’s OK. In fact I think she and her husband got out of the city. But they wanted her, and so I. Went. Instead.”

Yvette reached up and touched her hair. “You survived.”

Judy thought about why, and wondered if she’d have done it if Alexis had been bitten first. Or if she’d just pounce on her and use her, until Alexis’ real owner called her to heel.

“Maybe it’s allergic to you,” Yvette whispered, grinning very faintly. The grin faded. “Maybe it was so looking forward to taking someone against her will—”

She glanced up into Judy’s eyes. “It knew. What you were doing.”

Judy looked down, feeling even worse about just now. “I thought it would kill me. But apparently it liked that.” Her throat filled.

“Damn it, Yvette, this was wrong! I love you as much as I do Alexis and I should have fought it.”

“Hey.” The whisper made her look up. “Don’t hog the guilt, Judy. I let you do it. I begged you to.” Yvette closed her eyes and writhed a little, and Judy only felt a tiny urge to devour her again.

“And I feel saner than I have in a couple of days. Not what I’d expect, but nastyfun sex with a friend is worlds different than with a stranger.”

“So—delivery girls need not walk in fear?”

“Not of me.” Yvette’s face clouded. “But I can’t answer for myself too long.” She put a hand to the bites. “Of course, sooner or later, I ‘ll be something’s carryout, and then I won’t be a threat to anyone.”

Judy noticed, then, that the low light in the room was mostly from lamps, and the sky was darkening. She didn’t know what to say to Yvette.

Yvette took her hand. “I’ll need some help in the shower.” They looked at each other. “I mean standing up. But if anything else comes up . . .”

She flowed up into a kiss and they stood. She really did need help, Judy saw, taking her weight and looking around, seeing where her clothes ended up. Yvette got her legs under her as they got to the stairs, and being naked against her was more comfortable than arousing.

The shower was slow and gentle, and even when they kissed it was to feel each other. They dried off together and went into Yvette’s bedroom, feeling warm and companionably nude, and a little drowsy.

Yvette turned to her and started to motion her toward the bed when her shy smile flattened and her eyes were glassy. She closed them and they were a little more focused when she opened them.

“They’re coming back.” She was breathing faster.

Judy felt it too, a tingling and a slow heat in her womb as its first tendrils crept into her mind. After that eternity in the thrall of Laney’s Mistress, she could recognize even a much lighter probe, as it started to bend her to its control. It was terrifyingly addictive, and the memory of how delicious it would be when she surrendered was making resistance seem almost painful.

She watched Yvette fall under the spell again. Her friend’s smile was dopier now as she raised her face as though back in the warm shower. Yvette’s hips rolled slowly as some dream hand explored her crotch, and she nodded as though someone were already putting her under command.

Last time they’d come, they’d made a pussy of Judy’s mind, and she watched them do it to her friend this time. She felt it happening to her, too. It made Yvette’s plight so hot.

Even now she half-wanted it, to be taken the way Yvette had been.

“Are they . . .?” she made herself ask, more to keep their minds functioning than to know. “The same ones?”

“Different. I . . . think . . .”

She glanced at Yvette, whose arms had settled to her sides. “They’re calling to us,” her friend whispered, elated and horrified. Judy realized “us” meant all of them, their neighbors, the ones who’d responded before and were keyed to obey.

Probably stripping dreamily even now. The idea of putting clothes on, herself, was still recognizable, but growing . . . pointless.

The wanting grew between her legs and between her ears. She realized her neck was bare, and for a moment she thought of leaving it that way, open to be tasted. But she was already reaching for where she’d left the pendant before they’d showered, and slipped it on.

The nosferatu whisper continued to penetrate her. The vampire’s gage was just a sign, with no power of its own. Judy shivered. There was no immunity. She was going to sleepwalk out there with Yvette in a little while, and it would be up to the creatures pulling them out to read and heed the symbol.

“Judy.” When she looked, Yvette’s eyes had cleared a little. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

Yvette swallowed. “For being here. I can’t resist, but at least I want to. If you weren’t here I wouldn’t even remember to try.”

Judy’s eyes blurred for a second. She glanced at the closet but it was just a louvered sliding door. She tried to remember what Yvette’s house was like. What room she could use to keep Yvette locked in safe, that she couldn’t zombie-walk out of.

Just Yvette. Because she might not be able to find a way to lock them both in, before she forgot why.

17.

She looked at Yvette’s body, fit and healthy if not athletic. Enthralled by the summons, Yvette might hurt herself badly breaking out of a locked door to obey it, and crawl painfully to the vampires anyway.

God. Would the things punish Yvette, for bleeding part of their dinner onto the driveway?

Then she saw the bed. “Lie down,” she said, but Yvette just blinked—and started to smile. She was already feeling fangs on her throat and losing herself in wanting it.

God, she looked so sexy, standing there helplessly, without even the will to try to save herself. Judy thought of fucking her, no longer even paying attention to the danger they were in, feeling pliant Yvette buck and writhe against her.

But Yvette belonged to something else out there. It had leashed her mind and her desires, and it claimed her favors now. Judy felt a servile thrill as she yielded to its greater right to make Yvette its whore.

She was just an unclaimed whore, herself. While she waited, she was free to play with herself and watch Yvette sink further into its thrall. Judy fought that insidious hunger to relax. She could let any chance of safety they had drip through her fingers and down her thighs.

It would feel so horridly sweet.

She watched Yvette dancing slowly and erotically in the dream they were sending her. It was enough to remind her of Yvette mindless in her own thrall, before, between her legs with nothing but pleasing Judy in her head.

She couldn’t. She had to stop it.

It was perilously easy to pretend to be just as seduced by their arrival. As Judy went to Yvette she wasn’t even sure her friend was fully aware of her anymore. Still, she smiled, moving to kiss her. Yvette sighed and let her, open to anything anyone wanted to do to her.

Judy leaned to Yvette’s throat and sucked at the wounds.

She kept them upright when Yvette spasmed and collapsed, and got Yvette to the bed and onto it. Yvette moved weakly, but was too stimulated to start resisting. Judy shivered again as she went to the dresser: that would subdue Yvette only until her true controllers sent a specific command to come to them. Then she’d remember what really owned her throat, and they might even be able to use her to fight whatever Judy was trying to do.

Turning back with a handful of stockings and a belt, Judy thought about Jane. What she’d wear on her legs to please Jane. If I survive this. An odd thought came and went, that Jane might be able to do something about vampires, but faded as though pushed out of her mind.

Yvette was thrashing in slow, erotic motion on the bed, and the lust the nosferatu were soaking into Judy’s mind almost made her stop and ravish her friend again. But fear cleared her thoughts.

They’d fed from Yvette and she was deeper under the spell, but soon they’d be here and Judy would have to obey them too. She tried not to rush, binding Yvette’s hands and securing them to the wrought-iron bedstead. As she moved down to Yvette’s ankles the tang of Yvette’s arousal almost drew her in to lick, but she gritted her teeth and got one, and then the other vaguely-waving foot bound down. She checked to make sure there was circulation.

It was hard. Yvette squirming in abandon on a bed was one thing, but Yvette writhing helplessly in bondage was almost too much to resist.

But I might not make it back to untie Yvette all that soon. She touched the vampire’s pendant. I’m not even a slave. If they kill me it’s an offense, but—maybe they’d just owe her a replacement girl. or a sword, or something.

. . . I just called it her.

Judy just kept going.

She thought of trying to knock Yvette out, but she had no idea how. It looked so easy on TV. There was no time for pills, if Yvette even had any—she wasn’t the medicating type.

She looked down at the stockings and belt she hadn’t used to bind Yvette. She didn’t want to count on the pendant’s safeconduct. What was going to keep her in, when the command to go to them overcame her? Anything she tied herself to, she’d happily untie herself from as soon as the other, stronger will snuffed hers out.

It made her wet before she realized it. She was panicking before she realized it, too.

No. I can survive it like last time. I just have to slow myself down until they leave. She tried not to think of their bringing a van or even a flatbed truck and taking everyone they could get.

Until they leave. Judy saw what she was doing. She was going to pray her neighbors were enough to sate the vampires before they got to her. And to Yvette, which didn’t absolve her in the least from using the rest of her friends like that.

She looked around the room, but she felt so awful that she forgot what she was even looking for.

Come to us.

Hose and belt dropped from her nerveless fingers. Judy didn’t hear them hit the floor or even feel them stroke her thighs as they fell. Her senses were suddenly vaguer and less compelling than that warm not-quite-voice in her head.

She was aware of scents. She smelled two very aroused women, but she was unable to do anything with that awareness. Or to care.

They were here, and she had to go to Them. She was almost grateful for the docility, which felt so much nicer than the guilt she was already forgetting. She felt herself walking out, excited to submit.

Come.

She opened the door and pivoted to go down the driveway. The vampires had parked up the street but she sensed where they were and homed on them. She saw others again, and felt a distant pleasure. So many human suppliants, asleep on their feet, asking silently to be drained or imprinted.

There were two vampires tonight, each beside its own car. Judy was too deep in their power this time even to notice if they’d brought slaves with them. Her last dimming thought was a wish that the pendant on her neck did mean she was claimed and belonged to the blonde Mistress who owned Laney.

Wishing she were a slave had nothing to do with being protected.

There was an arousing little twinge in her mind and then she was aware of only one vampire. She’d been chosen. Her captrix was elegant, its pallor brilliant in the streetlights, in an ensemble of lace and silk that would have looked like sleepwear on a human woman, as if it mockingly pretended to be prey. It was the most beautiful thing Judy had ever seen. She floated to it, loving it more with every step. Judy reached it just after another woman, whose naked back she admired but didn’t recognize. But the first arrival moved obediently aside and out of Judy’s thoughts, as the vampire looked at Judy. She knew it saw the pendant, and let her eyes rise, waiting for—

She forgot ever being taken before. She forgot being born free. Her mind was virgin and soft and she belonged only to this perfect being. It dazzled her with cold glory and with promises she cherished because she knew they were lies.

It wanted her close to it, and then she was. She stopped when it willed, feeling empty and good.

Its hand was light on her chest, lifting the pendant as though it needed to read it carefully.

Already someone’s pet? But no.

Judy tried to moan, as it ransacked her thoughts and memories. She wanted to open them for it.

Not owned. Not even mindbound. She let you go.

Amusement. For keeping Her prey from Her. And tonight.

It knew about Yvette. Judy nearly climaxed.

I could make you take that trinket off and give yourself to me. If you decline Her protection, it’s gone.

That must be done freely. The vampire set the pendant back against Judy’s chest, then stroked a nipple and smiled at her tiny sound. It reached forward and her mind whited out as it drew a fingertip up her cleft.

It waited. When her eyes focused, It raised her juice in front of them as though to hypnotize.

But if you had your free will back for a moment, that’s what you’d want most to do. Judy shivered with the rush. She’d sell herself for her own dew, and this vampire knew it.

I will respect Her, and you will tell Her that. Judy felt the command become part of her. I will not feed on you, or bind your will to Mine beyond this time and place.

It reached deeper, took more. Judy felt sad that it would not make her its tool now. There was more amusement.

You are an intriguing human, Judy Latimer. In many senses. I may buy you from Her.

But now you will fetch Me what you thought to deny Me, while you could still think. The sweet one My friends spoke of. Fetch her to My feet to feed Me.

Judy pivoted and marched back to the house to obey, past the other women. They stood emptily, with nothing to think or do but wait until they were used or sent away. The nearest raised her head and lost herself in the vampire’s gaze, but Judy was gone.

She walked into the house tingling, wanting to writhe with the ecstasy of her obedience but rigid instead. She was an invader now, and she grinned tightly. The prey here was bound nicely. It had no will to escape, but her mind was too smooth now to worry about the contradiction.

In the living room, she had to squeeze her thighs together as she stooped for the knife, but her new devotion and the vampire’s power over her let her continue.

She stalked into the bedroom and met Yvette’s mad gaze, as the other prey-girl strained at the bonds, trying to obey the summons. Yvette didn’t even try to speak to her, but Judy sat on the bed and put a hand on her belly.

“She wants you. She will have you.” She smiled as Yvette understood and subsided, twitching a little. She moved her hand gently, feeling the tension and the need.

“I obey Her and I am to fetch you to Her.”

Leering down at Yvette, she reached with the knife and slashed the hose holding each ankle. Yvette drew her bare legs up into a sinuous ball, purring with the release and smiling languidly from between her upraised arms at Judy.

When the bindings to the bedstead were cut, Yvette lowered her hands. Judy saw she’d tied them first, and Yvette still made a lovely captive, holding them before her. The hose binding Yvette’s wrists was the only thing on her body.

Tossing the knife away, Judy took the binding and pulled Yvette up with it. When they were face to face, she said deliberately, “You will be Hers now.”

Again she wanted, more than life itself, to fuck Yvette.

But more even than that, she was wet to give her friend to the vampire.

18.

Pulling Yvette after her, she stalked back out of the house. Something made her reluctant to let Yvette fall. Something about bleeding. The vampire controlling her must have all of Yvette’s blood.

Across the street, she heard a soft clattering of locks. Jessie Alberti’s front door opened and their gardening neighbor walked stiffly out of her house. Jessie must have thought of outwaiting the vampires. She’d made her house so hard to get out of that, even helplessly obedient to the call, she wouldn’t make it out in time.

But she was obedient, and she’d found a way to obey.

Judy could only dream of masturbating, but she wanted to, at the thought of foiling her plan. If she hadn’t kept Yvette from her rightful takers, they might have gone before Jessie surrendered. Now she went to them, stripped of will.

Jessie had also obeyed the command to undress her muscular body. Against her tanned skin there was a gleam from her neck. Judy wondered faintly if Jessie wore another vampire’s gage, keeping herself in to guard her Owner’s property.

They were before the vampire again, as another woman walked dazedly away to wilt onto the nearest lawn, still oozing from her bite.

“Stop.” The voice was soft, high. It echoed across the street of silent, hypnotized women like a gunshot. Judy became aware again that there was another vampire besides the one that controlled her now, and with her controller’s attention diverted she was able to hold on to the knowledge.

Part of her hesitated, feeling a special need to obey a vampire’s spoken voice, and it blunted her simple obedience to her captrix. It confused her enough to slow down, though she turned to ensure that Yvette was still balanced and all right.

Yvette blinked drowsily but she stood still, her hands relaxed before the bound wrists Judy held. She looked fresh and ready to serve.

Judy turned away.

Jessie had come to attention a few steps away, staring forward. The jewelry she wore was a silver crucifix. The other vampire looked into her eyes, and Jessie’s hands rose slowly but unhesitatingly to her neck. She undid the clasp and kept the cross in her left hand as she lowered her arms, her eyes never leaving the vampire’s.

Their lids drooped and she seemed to be asleep as her left arm twisted and shot out. The crucifix was a silver blur that clinked on the edge of the storm drain, but it was just the chain trailing. The vampire had impelled her to throw it accurately, and the silver was gone. With her protection thrown away, Jessie seemed to soften, and now she walked calmly up to the vampire and leaned her head back to be drained. There was a short, audible laugh from her own captrix. It snapped Judy out of the distraction.

She must obey.

She pressed against Yvette’s warm softness, knowing that the vampire would drink of that warmth when it made Yvette offer it. She brought her unresisting friend forward, sliding behind her. She felt Yvette stiffen as the vampire took her mind and drew her closer, away from Judy. Yvette was panting again, quiet anxious sounds against the night.

The vampire saw her bound hands and laughed aloud again.

Its will seized Judy again and she scampered to wrap herself against Yvette from behind, gasping as she slid her pussy against Yvette’s trembling buttock. The vampire was going to allow her to hold Yvette upright while it fed.

Judy knew that if it chose to suck Yvette dry she would die in Judy’s arms without ever awakening. She pressed tighter against her friend, feeling the pendant bite into her skin.

Yvette spasmed again and gave a low, hoarse cry when it bit her. She went limp, sagging against Judy. Then she moved again, undulating between it and Judy.

It was letting Yvette struggle. Judy didn’t know if there were anything left in Yvette that tried to resist being drained, or if she were blindly pressing against its teeth, trying to give more of herself.

Judy’s mind stopped as she climaxed, riding Yvette’s hip as it ground against her slick cleft.

She awoke to dreamier thrashing as Yvette bucked weakly, her head still upturned to let the vampire drink. Her lips were moving silently, her eyes half-closed.

Then she was holding Yvette with strength and balance she didn’t know she had, as the vampire licked the wounds and used Judy to hold its victim erect.

Yvette sighed and straightened, and moved away from Judy to kneel erect at the vampire’s feet as it stepped back. Her bound hands moved up slowly and her palms joined as though praying, and she looked up into the face that had nearly killed her.

Judy’s eyes were drawn to the vampire’s again.

You have pleased Me, not-quite-slave. Your friend tasted even sweeter for the wait.

I have things to place in her thoughts now. She will stay here with Me. You will go and sleep.

Judy felt the drowsiness hit her again, and made herself keep her eyes open so she could keep falling into the vampire’s.

When you see your Mistress again you will bear my greetings to Her.

Judy blinked, aware enough to remember she was not owned, but too subservient to try to say so.

She was already turning for home, unable even to look one last time at Yvette, who knelt oblivious to anything but the vampire.

Judy’s mind was blank, and she clung to that as she padded up the pavement, brushing the cool metal of her car with her thigh and putting her hand to her doorknob before realizing dully that she hadn’t been back in her house.

She turned and made her robotic way across to Yvette’s, through the door she’d left ajar in her haste to drag her friend out to them. She crawled across the living room, gathering clothes she made no attempt to put on and her other things, and carried them back to her own door. She had to dump them on the porch and fish out her keys.

Judy recalled randomly that she should always have her keys ready when going to a car or building door. But she was too dazed right now to be afraid of being assaulted. She was barely mindful that no sane criminal would be haunting the same neighborhood as two feeding vampires.

She got inside after tossing everything across the threshold, and locked the door behind her. The need to sink into deep sleep was blunting every other thought, and knowing that an undead hypnotist had imposed it on her just made it harder to resist. But Judy did resist falling to her knees. Her body remembered sleeping on this floor and awakening to Yvette, and thinking of Yvette now was hurting her enough to break through the hypnotic fog.

Judy made it upstairs, and to her bed, and she could feel the pendant in her hand when she finally surrendered to it and slept.

19.

She opened her eyes to sunlight, and felt rested for the first time in a while. There was enough time to think everything had been a perversely arousing nightmare. Then she felt the comforter she was sprawled on, the air on her bare skin. The vampire’s pet-tag on her neck.

She’d been parading around out there like this. But so had every other woman in the neighborhood. She wondered if they remembered anything.

If they were still alive. Or here. Or had minds to think with, wherever they were.

God. God. Yvette.

The doorbell rang.

Judy reached blindly for something to put on, and was drawing it across her shoulders when she realized it was Don’s pajama top. She glanced back and didn’t see the bottoms. She went to the door anyway. She checked the peephole.

Yvette and Jessie Alberti stood outside, smiling pleasantly but staring fixedly at the door. Judy looked, and she thought they blinked, but wasn’t sure.

If I keep trying to see if they do, I’ll just hypnotize myself.

And they know I’m here.

It felt safe, and it also felt erotic, to let her neighbors in. Judy was suddenly, excitingly aware of how high the pajama top rode on her thighs. She nearly let it slip off her, but instead she opened the door.

Yvette and Jessie were dressed alike, in tiny running shorts and jogbras. They even had headbands.

The fangmarks were neat on their throats. Judy remembered Yvette bucking against her as she’d died that much, pulsing warm into the vampire’s cold mouth.

“Good morning,” she told them.

“Good morning, Judy,” they said in unison, and then looked at each other, laughing softly.

“Sorry,” Yvette said. “May we come in?”

“Sure.” Judy stepped back and watched them pace carefully in. They were beautiful, like star pupils at an aerobics class.

“we wanted to see if you were all right,” Yvette told her. Her gaze was open and concerned.

“our Mistresses told us to.” Jessie stopped beside Yvette. Yvette nodded.

Judy looked at them. “Mistresses?” She wanted to sound blase but it came out too soft, too awed. She hoped it didn’t sound envious.

Yvette nodded again. “Yes, Judy. After She dismissed you to go and sleep, She reached back into my mind and changed it into what pleases Her.” She blushed proudly. “i’m Hers now.”

She reached for Jessie’s hand. “While She was enthralling me, jessie’s Mistress was already bending her mind into slavery.”

Jessie beamed back at her. “we will belong to Them forever now. Unless They make a gift of us to Others.”

Judy should be feeling something now. She’d wanted to scream when she’ d heard Sylvia proclaim this, but . . .

. . . this time she’d helped.

On autopilot she heard herself say, “Oh. That’s really amazing. Would you like some coffee?” Distantly she admired how sane she sounded.

Yvette looked genuinely grateful. “Oh, no, thanks, Judy. we no longer drink coffee.”

Judy stared at her. Yvette usually couldn’t function without her morning fix and several boosters through the day.

“we must begin our fitness run anyway,” Jessie said. “our Mistresses have programmed us to become fit and nutritious for Them and for Those whom They invite to feed on us.”

“we awoke with the instruction to look in on you.” Yvette spoke earnestly. “Now we have obeyed. When They wake in Their turn They will take this from our minds and be pleased.”

They moved toward her and the door. Then Jessie stopped and stood still, going into a trance. Yvette stepped closer to Judy and took the pendant reverently, letting her hand rest on Judy’s breast.

She looked tranquilly up at Judy, and Judy saw that Yvette was free from doubt now. When the vampire had taken her free will it had given her complete belief in whatever it put into her mind, and she might be happier now.

She almost envied Yvette for real, but there was something missing, a spark she remembered seeing in the other slave, Laney.

Yvette spoke, softly. “This One is not your owner, Judy.

“You should ask Her to be. Go to Her and surrender. You will be as happy and obedient as we are, not just when They come here, but all the time.” She searched Judy’s eyes, not trying to mesmerize her but hoping she was getting through.

“It’s what humans are taught to fear—but it’s what we’re for, Judy. To submit and obey Them. And They don’t just demand that we obey. When we give in to Them, They take away all that trouble of thinking for ourselves. It feels so good, Judy. i can’t even remember what it feels like not to be owned.”

Yvette rested the pendant back against Judy’s skin, almost as the vampire had. It was warm this time, from another human’s touch. Yvette ran her finger down Judy’s breast, easing the pajama open, and Judy let her, half-closing her eyes as Yvette stroked her nipple.

“If you choose not to offer yourself to the One Who gave you this, then please give yourself to Her Who owns me. She enjoys you and She will help you to sleep and obey forever.”

Judy stared into Yvette’s blunted gaze and listened as her enslaved friend tried to seduce her. Her lovely, fetchingly-dressed, submissive friend, who palmed her breast now so lightly, so skillfully.

Yvette ran her eyes down Judy’s body and back up again. “She truly prizes you, Judy. She says i am just tasty food, and that makes me feel worthwhile. i am less than you are, but i am just happy that She covets you.” Yvette smiled, and Judy felt it in her stomach. Yvette really wasn’t jealous.

“She may not even drink from you, Judy. She may want you as one of Her special slaves, an instrument of Her will, bent to it but able to use your own mind in Her service.

“With some women, They prefer the taste of your soul to that of your lifeblood. When She tames you, you will know how to render it to Her.”

Judy breathed slowly, feeling her nipple against Yvette’s palm.

The taste of her soul.

It would no longer be hers, then.

Just something her owner left in her. She would belong to it completely.

Judy thought about walking in the daylight, doing the bidding of something that shunned it, wanting nothing else. Maybe it would let her walk naked, with nothing on her but whatever sign it chose to show it owned her.

It would be so easy.

She could let the flannel top drop away from her, as she had the first night she’d been drawn by the undead. She could reach up and lift the chain from her neck and put it aside, even drop it to fall quietly on the discarded top. She might speak aloud, formally renouncing the protection of Laney’s Mistress. She suspected that even the witness of a pair of slavewomen like Yvette and Jessie would suffice between nosferatu.

Then she might tempt the two of them into fucking her, here on the floor, until the sun went down and she could crawl to her true Mistress and stop being free forever.

But her two friends, the two brainsmoothed food animals that her friends had been turned into, were locked into keeping fit. She might be programmed to join them, even if it wanted her for her submissive soul and not her nutritious blood. Judy’s charms and sexual submission would not be enough to tempt Yvette and Jessie from their higher compulsion.

They might fuck her for a little while, enough to turn what little was currently left of her mind into dark custard. To keep her docile until the sun set, they might just leave her masturbating, like Yvette yesterday.

Or the vampires who’d hypnotized them might have implanted some enslaving sequence in their minds. Something to recognize other potential slaves and trance them. Something they were not even permitted to sense within themselves, until meeting a willing or susceptible girl triggered it. She might discover that slave-Yvette was a scarily competent hypnotist herself.

When they trotted out on their fitness run, they might leave behind a kneeling Judy staring blank-eyed at an unlit candle. It would hold her mind captive with an imaginary flame, and whatever thought-destroying mantra they chose to program her with. By the time they were ready to give her to the vampire, she’d be horny and mindless and completely without regret.

Judy wanted it.

But she thought about the pendant.

She didn’t know if she felt she owed that mysteriously merciful vampire something better than this collapse. Maybe some part of her was trying to fool her into delaying this so she’d have time to remember being human, the woman who cried for her lost Life Guard and felt her heart beat faster when she drove past the ruin of Sector.

Or she really was hot for this, and just wanted to be selective about the creature whose slave-whore she would become.

What she chose might be for the rest of her life. Or longer.

There was something else in her mind, blinking quietly like a signal light. She had to go back and meet that other vampire again. Someone wanted her to, someone she must obey and never disappoint. Someone she thought she loved.

Almost on autopilot again, Judy reached up and gently moved Yvette’s hand back.

“Thank you,” she said, hearing the gratitude before she knew she was feeling it. “I will think about it all.” She smiled, realizing the pajama top was open, and Yvette could see she was dripping.

“Not just think.”

She pulled Yvette closer to her, and kissed her. For a moment she wanted to cry, even to wail for the friend she’d lost, but that Yvette was gone.

The Yvette that held her now kissed her just as tenderly, and whispered her name with as much caring. “Have fun running,” she whispered to Yvette.

Yvette stepped back and Jessie woke from her trance. “we will,” Yvette said.

Her grin was mischievous. “Our Mistresses told us that when we are fit enough to please Them, Jessie may order another shrub.”

Jessie smiled more deliberately. “Not until then. They will not allow us to waylay that yummy delivery girl until They know we can hold her down.”

Yvette nodded, and squirmed. “She’s very strong. They will really enjoy feeding on her.”

Judy was holding the pendant, and felt a little stronger.

“Maybe when she belongs and obeys them,” she said, “they’ll make her their trainer. And you’ll be told to obey her to keep yourselves fit.”

As they left, Jessie gave Judy a moist look that almost made her regret she wasn’t detaining them.

Yvette laughed and kissed her, and it was close enough to the Yvette she’d been before slavery that Judy lost the regret.

After they were gone she stared at the door for a while.

20.

Judy had been walking differently ever since she’d bought the hose, and she enjoyed the looks it drew as she went slinking into the restaurant where Jane had told her to come.

Jane’s eyes shone, and even though it drew more stares, Judy posed a little when she got to the table and, at a gesture, pirouetted to show off her legs before Jane stood and held her chair.

Before she could sit, Jane slid close and took a kiss which Judy happily softened to. Then Jane’s hand was on her ass, sliding under the miniskirt and palming it. Jane’s fingers splayed across the smooth skin, touching the stocking top. She groped unsuccessfully for the thong. Judy tried to help by shifting, silently inviting those fingertips deeper between her cheeks, but Jane was already letting her down, and the chair was cool after the heat of Jane’s palm.

People were turned away by the time Judy could blush and look around. It had felt endless but Jane hadn’t had her lost for very long.

Jane had resumed her own seat. “I’m betting they’re new,” she said softly.

Judy took a moment to respond. The restaurant had skylights and just now the sunlight was falling on Jane too wonderfully for her to speak, or think. Jane’s soft laugh woke her.

“What? Oh. I’m sorry.

“Yes. I wanted to do something sexy.”

Jane took a sip of wine. “You were sexy yesterday.”

Judy smiled, but her breath hitched. “Um. I don’t remember a lot about yesterday.

“Anyway, I stopped at this place a few blocks from here. Reves. The staff are excellent models.” She blushed a little, and it deepened as she saw Jane’s small smile. The girls who worked there had been prancing around in their merchandise, looking so comfortable as they served and praised that it had almost seduced Judy into lingering. Some of the other customers let it happen, and after they were led into the changing rooms they didn’t emerge for a while.

“It belongs to one of the nosferatu,” Jane said quietly. “It dresses a number of the women who belong to the more refined sort of vampire. The ones who want their slaves to look like concubines.

“Naturally, the ones who like their girls in leather, or chains, go elsewhere.”

Judy gaped at her. She moved her thighs together, and was shocked that it felt better for knowing that.

“It’s all right, Judy.” Jane’s smile was friendlier. “It’s one of the less open secrets.” She leered a little. “And the creature does have good taste.”

Judy took a drink from her own glass. She liked Jane’s choice of wine. “What about the staff?”

Jane raised an eyebrow. “Did you see any marks?”

“Some of them had chokers. None of the ones who didn’t, looked bitten.”

“They’re all willing to be,” Jane said. “After someone starts there she’s kept after dark and presented to the owner, which then becomes her owner.”

Judy guiltily considered how hot that sounded. “I don’t imagine it has a loyalty problem.”

“No. Every employee stays until she’s sold.”

“Could we talk about something else?” Judy hoped she sounded disturbed, and not aroused.

“Of course.” Jane’s tenderness went straight to her heart again.

“It’s just that it’s scary, sometimes.” Judy chose her words carefully, trying not to be swayed by how near Jane was. “Realizing what you can be made to do for someone, or something, that has that kind of hold on you. That you want to serve.”

She made herself look up into Jane’s eyes. “I always knew that was what vampires could do. Everyone knows it. I felt it, before—when they came to my street, and when I met that . . .” For a moment, she’d been about to call it that Goddess.

“It’s different now, Jane.” She was whispering across the table, but Jane nodded. “I’m starting to feel something for you that I haven’t felt since I was with Don.

“I’m realizing that’s how they can make you feel. Make me feel. About them, about obeying their commands.” She closed her eyes, but opened them when she realized she was dreaming about after-hours at Reves, the pretty saleswomen in teddies now openly entranced. Waiting to see who’d be chosen for the owner’s use, to wear a choker the next day, or who’d never come back at all.

“They’re so controlled,” she sighed.

“You’re not,” Jane said. “You’re so free even one of them didn’t mess with it. You’re a smart, responsible manager, not some mind-controlled party doll.”

Judy put her hand up her skirt, hoping the tablecloth made it less obvious. She rested her fingertips on the smooth, tight bands that held her hose up. They were high, in the crease where her thighs met her crotch, and she let the novel sensation delay her from touching herself in the thong.

“For a second just now, Jane, I felt pretty dollish.” She grinned to take the edge off, but the feeling was too urgent. “I liked it. I was your doll. Your miniskirted doll.

“Or . . . something else.” She swallowed, too turned-on to stop. “Walking along the sidewalk. You slowing and pulling over.” She closed her eyes again, at the force of imagining Jane asking her price.

“And you do control me, Jane.” She was astonished at Jane’s look. “No—I mean the way I feel about you, I’d—”

It was easy and tempting. She succumbed. “I’d work streetcorners if you asked, Jane.”

Jane took her hand. She realized she was shaking.

“Judy. I know I have that power over you. I hope you know—” Jane’s hand was tight on hers. Judy didn’t mind. “I hope you know I’d never use it to make you do anything wrong.”

She sighed reluctantly. “Judy? Make I make a suggestion?”

Calmer, Judy sat a little straighter. “Please. Do.” She whispered it.

Jane moved the bud vase on the table toward the center until she saw its polished side throw a sunbeam into Judy’s face. Judy blinked.

“The light relaxes you,” Jane said. Her voice crept up Judy’s nerves, and Judy felt the relaxation happen. It put a brake on her ardent desire to submit to Jane, to let Jane know how submissive she was. She remembered sitting somewhere, under Jane’s control, looking into something bright, but that had been flashing.

“Stop thinking for a while, Judy. Thinking will be uncomfortable for you until I awaken you. Nothing you hear will concern or interest you. As you hear it, you forget it.

“Drift now.”

Judy sighed and stared at the unfocused glow from the polished brass vase. It dimmed after a moment, as Jane moved it to shift the glare out of Judy’s eyes.

She heard and disregarded Jane taking out her cellphone. “Yes. I’m with her now.

“Something’s happened to her. I haven’t asked—yes. I think she’s been fascinated again.

“I don’t know if they used a posthypnotic block. We just started. I’ ve got her hypnotized now—should I bring her out and see if she remembers it consciously?

“Hold on.”

There was someone next to the table, and Jane was speaking to her, ordering. She was brusque, and Judy sensed the waiter looking at them, at her, oddly, but he went away. She forgot about him.

Jane waited a moment. She might be looking at Judy, but Judy continued to sit as she was told.

“She looks peaceful . . . sorry. No, it was the waiter. I think he thinks she’s on drugs.

“Whatever. It’s like before, but her reactions are even more sexualized now.

“Yes, exactly. I don’t think they’re trying to control her directly, but if she keeps this up they’ll want to.” Jane listened, and then said very quietly, with feeling, “You’re a complete asshole.”

There was more silence. “No. Not even as a joke.

“Anyway—she’s more at risk every day. Every night. We have to move now. Set it up for tonight.” The phone beeped off.

“Judy, your mind is more awake now but still completely relaxed and obeying my voice. Look up, please.”

Judy blinked and felt her gaze released from the empty curve of brass. She looked up into Jane’s eyes, and saw them soften.

“It’s all right, Judy. You’re doing wonderfully.

“Listen carefully. When I ask you to, you will tell me what’s happened to you since we met. It will be easy and calming, like talking about someone else. If some part of it upset you, you’ll mention that, but you won’t feel it or express it in any other way. Do you understand?”

Judy said quietly, “Yes, Jane. I understand.”

Jane spoke, and Judy heard herself start to talk evenly about Yvette and the vampires. Jane stopped her to ask questions a few times, but each time it just relaxed Judy to stop and answer.

Then Jane said, “I have some deeper instructions to give you, Judy. When you awaken here, you will remember only that we will have a pleasant lunch and that I received a cellphone call too disjointed for you even to remember.

“You will remember confiding in me about what happened to you and your friends last night. You feel calmer about it, and you’re happy that you were able to talk about it, but you will feel no need to confide in anyone else.

“When I invite you to come home with me before you go in to work, you will accept, and from that moment until we arrive, you will find yourself becoming more and more open to whatever I propose to you. That will make you much more receptive to my deeper instructions.

“All set?”

Judy started. “Sorry. I . . . I keep zoning out like this.” She frowned. “I don’t want to, Jane. I don’t want to waste our time together just woolgathering. I don’t want to wish I’d paid more attention—”

“Shh.” Jane took her hand. “I never worry about having your undivided attention.

“I’d notice otherwise, Judy. You have very pretty eyes and I love the way they always seem to be looking at me.”

“I like looking at you,” Judy said, just as the waiter arrived. She blushed but she was glad that he’d heard it. Jane didn’t let go her hand, either.

They ate that way, too. Fortunately, Jane ate left-handed.

When they reached Jane’s apartment, Judy was nearly floating. She’d let Jane talk her into dessert, and yielding to her had been sweeter than the eclair itself. She was simmering, utterly ready for whatever Jane wanted to do to her. It reminded her of how helpless Yvette had been yesterday, so willing to be done to, but the memory didn’t sting.

When they were inside, Jane told her to get more comfortable, and when Jane came back from another room with a white box, Judy was standing in her new hose and heels and nothing else. She brushed her fingertips nervously along the unfamiliarly high stocking tops, conscious of them at her crotch, picturing them soaking in her essence as she moistened in Jane’s gaze.

Jane set the box down and came to her, touching her breast and her hip and kissing her. She held Judy close as she guided her to a chair, and Judy folded into it. Jane left her head by Judy’s for a moment, kissing her again.

“I wish we had more time,” she said, her voice going rough.

“Pick me up later,” Judy whispered. “For dinner. You can do me in a stall somewhere.”

Jane smiled at her. “Insatiable. But first things first.”

She stepped away and set the box on a table on front of Judy. Judy was going to ask her something but then the box started to blink. Judy stared for a moment, catching its rhythm.

When she felt her mind shut off, she relaxed and let it.

21.

When Jane dropped her off at her car to go to work, Judy fought the urge to sit luxuriously while Jane stepped around and opened the door. She slipped out, smiling at the surprise on Jane’s face.

Then she walked around the front and stood beside Jane’s door, putting her feet together as Jane lowered the window. She bent at the waist, hoping for a breeze under the miniskirt as she leaned in and kissed Jane deeply. It was enough like her fantasy of being the streetwalker that Jane beckoned to her car that Judy nearly wanted to start coming on to her. I can be your party doll, sugar. All day, all night.

But she didn’t want to create an actual problem. Right then she wasn’t sure how much she looked like a junior executive making her girlfriend want her, and how much she really did look like a prostitute trying the corporate-slut look. She didn’t want a cop to show her which.

“I’m sorry we can’t do dinner,” she said, looking in at Jane.

“So am I,” said Jane with quiet sincerity. “But you have so many things to do.”

“Yes.” Judy let her face go blank and stared past Jane. “Miles to go before I sleep,” she recited in a monotone.

She laughed, but Jane just touched her cheek and stared at her. It almost scared Judy to see that much throttled emotion in her girlfriend. But it didn’t, because something in Judy kept her tranquil. “I do love you,” Jane told her.

“I hope so,” she murmured, leaning in and drinking another kiss.

She turned and headed for her own car, tasting Jane’s mouth, remembering Jane’s pussy. She got in, belted in, and then rested her head on the wheel for a moment. She remembered how Jane’s pillow had tasted, when she’d bitten it as Jane had stroked her to a screaming orgasm.

Then she made herself start the car and drive further downtown. The afternoon light felt oddly normal, as if the last couple of days had been a dream, but even that feeling was familiar.

Walking to the office from the garage, she still felt a little aggressive, but there was still no sign of the voodoo twins. With a pang, she wondered if that meant they’d finished their quest for honey, and brought a few wide-eyed victims back for their Queen to taste, and keep for itself. She wondered how many women they’d stung into obedience, and how many their lithe bodies had seduced.

She jumped a little in the lobby as heels echoed, but it was just her own.

The elevator tone sounded, and she realized she’d been imagining herself out there, stalking victims for a Mistress who’d taken her mind. Stepping into the elevator, she touched the vampire’s pendant. Did Laney’s Mistress ever mark its toys with M in glitterpaint?

Dawncoast Transit was as it had been before. No one was at reception, activity was about usual, and the party girls were starting to filter in. She found files stacked on Alexis’ desk, and checked her own, but no one had tampered with it. Apparently, someone had been detailed to try to sort out Alexis’ accounts. The files were laid out with finality, as though the lucky someone had set them aside for the day and left—an obstinate dayworker given a cleanup assignment.

Judy sat and logged onto her own system. She didn’t bother with Alexis ’ material, not wanting to create confusion, and the fact that they’d left it for someone on the early shift to take care of told her there was nothing vital involved.

She accessed the directory for the new accounts, the ones that Alexis would have been given after she was converted. She tried getting in and the system let her, and she realized that they weren’t requiring her to give up her will to serve them that way.

Judy swallowed. After the last couple of days, the fact that she was working for a vampire, only one brainwashed manager removed from it, was almost anticlimactic. But there were these little aftershocks . . .

Until now, she hadn’t really focused on it, but she’d suspected that they’d wanted to enslave Alexis when they “promoted” her because the task they had for her was something no human being would perform unless she were under mind control. If Dawncoast now had a share of the eastern seaboard traffic in abducted babies—she shook her head.

But whatever it was, they were letting Judy understudy for her. So it couldn’t be that bad.

Unless they thought her loyalty was universal, that persevering for Alexis would become persevering for them. She considered Laney’s Mistress again. Maybe it had valued Judy after all.

As a fine, loyal, trainable dog.

She tapped the side of her keyboard, not ready to commit to opening the files and exploring. The frustrating thing was, the vampire would be right. She did feel obliged. It wasn’t as simple or abject as gratitude that she’d been left alone. The vampire had learned something while it was in her mind, and it seemed to like what it found.

Judy hoped that she wasn’t just wishing that it thought more of her than her potential as its bitch.

She shook her head again, slowly. Bitch. Oh, brilliant. Now I’m going to daydream about being kept kneeling on a leash.

Laney won’t be jealous if I am. She smiled to herself. She still felt there was something about the slave that seemed real, not Mistress-imposed, and Judy liked her. It was dangerous, and maybe the nosferatu kept Laney by its side not just to please it but to lull people into finding it less frightful.

She sighed. None of this was getting any work done. She looked at the screen.

The phone rang.

Judy felt a rush and sat up straight.

It rang again and she looked at it. There was a faint, pleasurable feeling in her breasts but she couldn’t make herself pay attention to it. She reached for the handset. The pleasure was stronger as it glowed between her thighs now.

She lifted the phone to her ear.

“Accounts desk!” she said. “Ms Latimer. May I help you?”

“Ms Latimer?”

“Yes, this is—she.” She inhaled, trying to calm her breathing as the joy built between her thighs.

“Listen carefully, Judy.

“Ragdoll gymnastics.”

Judy froze.

Now the joy was in her head. There was no thought there anymore. Just quiveringly eager obedience.

“I await command.” She said it very softly, as she would ask a lover to hurt her. No one around her heard it, she saw and did not see. She awaited command.

“You are controlled. You will remain controlled. You will forget control until you hear and obey your trigger again. Each time will send you deeper.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand.” She needed to say she would obey, but she had to let the hot, tight whisper say it for her.

Something opened in her head and left through her mouth as “Yes, and we can discuss that a little later, if it’s OK!”

Her eyes swiveled to the phone again, locking onto the flickering green light for this line.

“OK, b’bye!” she heard herself chirp to the dialtone. She stared at the light as her hand put the phone back down.

The green light went dark.

Judy’s mind lit up again. The brief phone conversation was at the tip of her tongue, but she relaxed, knowing she’d deal with it when she needed to. She didn’t question why it felt as though someone really friendly had been playing with her pussy for a while.

There was something she had to do.

22.

Judy sat still for a moment. She felt paralyzed by that feeling of I must but waited until what she must do entered her mind. She imagined being some sort of coin-operated clockwork, immobilized until someone’s penny dropped, then carrying out only what she’d been built for. She didn’t question why that excited her.

She must see Sylvia. She had to ask Sylvia something. It would please both of them.

Judy headed to her office. Before she’d been enslaved, Sylvia had spent a lot of her time at one of the outer desks, or even just walking around, but she’d been in her office today. Judy thought again of her staring at the things she’d liked and posted when she was free, but somehow that didn’t bother her as much. There were more crucial things to consider.

She must see Sylvia.

The senior manager was dressed almost as Judy was, and it was both startling and sexy. Sylvia was attractive, but she was a bit older and a lot more conservative—not as far as Ms Eldridge’s end of things, but no one would have mistaken her for one of the half-tranced party girls, either.

No one would now, of course. Sylvia wore the minidress like plumage, and she didn’t look like a fortysomething trying pitifully to steal her daughter’s date. She looked as though she’d have date and daughter alike wrapped around whatever fingers she chose.

Her eyes said that it would be her daughter she took to bed.

Recalling that Sylvia had no family, Judy shivered anyway.

Sylvia looked up at her. “Mistress hopes that you feel better.” She seemed more animated now, not quite as . . . brainwashed as she had that first day, still reeling from what had been done to make her obedient.

“She’s kind.” Judy thought she’d be ingratiating herself, but it was feeling dizzyingly real. And I called her “she.” Called it. Oh.

“Will I be seeing her again soon?” Judy felt almost guilty, squirming on the compulsion the other vampire had imprinted on her. Bear my greetings to Her.

“Perhaps. She may wish to ask you about the new accounts. You have Her favor, Judy, and you may beg audience with Her when you need to. Do you?”

“Sylvia?” The slave—her friend—nodded. “I hope I didn’t cause you any problems. About Alexis, or what I was doing.”

Sylvia smiled, and shifted in her seat, unconsciously seductive. “Mistress didn’t enable me to read minds. She took what i knew and saw what you did. Mistress teaches error, and only punishes malice.”

Judy looked at her. “And you aren’t capable of malice.”

“Not toward Her.” Sylvia grinned. “i’ve been fixed that way. But i will hate anything that displeases or threatens Her, so much more thoroughly than when i could think for myself.

“slave Laney explained your questions before. i don’t know what She intends for you. She may be taming you.”

Judy’s breath caught.

“She knows many ways to make someone Hers. i was a mare it pleased Her to ride and break. She ravished me and crushed my pathetic will, and i’ ll worship Her forever in thanks.

“But i think it pleases Her to see you run free. She doesn’t need me to remember much of what happened when She was in your mind, but i think She will speak to you softly, win your trust. She’s given you Hers. Soon, as She teaches you, soothes you, you will accept Her bridle.”

Judy held her legs tightly together. If Sylvia beckoned her to that now, she would go. She mustn’t, but she had to.

“You will let Her lead you to Her stable, and keep you there, tame, to bear Her or any burden She willed.”

It was so close to what Yvette had crooned to her that morning that it was melting her into a desire to do it. She could already see the joy in Sylvia’s eyes, if she knelt and begged to be presented again tonight.

Something stopped her. It flashed rhythmically inside her head, and then she forgot it.

There was something she had to do.

“Was there anything else, Judy?”

She blinked. Words formed. “Yes. I wanted to volunteer to cover reception tonight.”

It seemed so banal after what they’d been saying, but Judy knew she’d been a heartbeat from surrender, and there was a dread of that in her, much greater than just losing herself.

Her head was clearing, more or less. “I saw there was a VIP on the schedule. I didn’t know if you had anyone.”

She wondered if Sylvia had been fully aware of seducing her. Maybe it was something each victim carried, embedded in her by the undead who conquered her, helping her draw more women into the trap.

“Just so we didn’t look—”

“Yes.” Sylvia stood and walked around the desk. Her skirt was pleated and her hose were finely striped. Judy smiled and wondered if Sylvia would let her see what kept them up. She didn’t ask.

“We still need someone.

“Why, Judy? You’ll be quite becoming there, but as a receptionist . . .”

“I need to serve,” Judy said. “I don’t think I’m ready to give myself to someone. To your Mistress. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. But I owe—her—something.”

She looked into the enslaved eyes she’d trusted for years. “And frankly, after she did that to me, it’s a turn-on to do things like this.”

Sylvia smiled. “For Her?” For Sylvia, living to serve that vampire, life itself was a turn-on.

Sylvia unzipped the top of the dress, and drew it down. Her small breasts stood out.

Judy stared at her left breast. The tattoo was small but very visible against Sylvia’s skin. Her owner’s mark, the tastefully flowing M.

Judy looked at it and then at Sylvia, smiling before her, topless and claimed and permanently mindfucked into loving it.

“For—?”

“For Her, Judy. Always. i am Hers.” She stood there. Offering it.

23.

Judy went to her, and the urge to kiss the mark of Sylvia’s owner was strong. But when she leaned down she kissed Sylvia’s stiff nipple instead, and she heard Sylvia sigh.

“You’re not ready,” Sylvia whispered, pulling her dress back up. “She will take you, Judy, when you are.

“But for now—yes. i was going to hypnotize one of the girls and prepare her as a greeter. A seduced free woman, though, would be even more pleasing. Serving, but not for the usual reasons.” A shadow of disgust passed Sylvia’s face, and Judy thought of Ms Eldridge and her hatred of collaborators.

“Does it matter why someone serves—her?” Judy was getting used to the pronoun.

“Yes.” Sylvia looked at her. “You don’t belong to Her, but you respect Her. i really wish you were doing it because you were Her helpless slave, as i am. But that still suits Her more than if you were just doing it to advance yourself.”

She blinked and then she was almost a colder version of her old self. She smiled once more, seeing Judy try to follow her down from the dreamy arousal they’d lured each other into. “Another advantage of slavery, Judy. my lust serves Her, and i forget it when that ends.”

Judy thought of Yvette dissolving in her need, before another vampire quelled it and gave her direction. Yvette’s lust served, now, even as it still dominated her.

She smiled wordlessly at Sylvia, not daring to say anything.

“So. we expect our Guest sometime after eight, so you may report by seven-thirty.”

“Yes, Sylvia.” She slipped easily into the submission. It wasn’t at all how Lucy had behaved—Lucy had been about as submissive as a Siamese cat—but right now Judy was tripping on being a receptionist and she sensed Sylvia found the stereotype she was channeling to be appropriate. Judy got an idea what the Guest would be like.

“Until then, Judy.”

“Yes, Sylvia.” She left the office and went back to her desk. A few of the others glanced at her, and a couple stared at the pendant. Only one of those two met her eyes afterward.

That felt bad, but now Judy felt the dangerous rush of not caring. She thought of belonging to the Mistress who ruled this place, being one of the favorites of that ruthless but oddly gracious blonde khan. She’d serve her owner’s whims, but in her pussy they’d feel like her own. And she wouldn’t abuse that, to hurt the others or make them fear her.

Would she?

She sat at her desk and tried to get interested in the accounts, but she couldn’t concentrate. It wasn’t like last night—she felt much less alone, for some reason, and much more as though she had a goal in all this.

She clicked over to e-mail, and sighed. At least she’d been too wound up last night to send any messages to anyone. No one had grieved for her prematurely. It . . .

Judy stared at the computer. Why was she thinking of hospital beds and incubators? What about life support? And why was it making her horny?

The phone rang.

Judy felt a rush and sat up straight.

It rang again and she looked at it. She squirmed where she sat, in pleasure she couldn’t be aware of. She reached for the handset, not reaching between her thighs.

She lifted the phone to her ear.

“Accounts desk!” she said. “Ms Latimer. May I help you?”

“Ragdoll gymnastics.”

Judy froze.

The joy was automatic, and so was Judy now. There was no thought. Just obedience.

“I await command.” She said it urgently, as she would beg a stranger to let her climax.

“Go deeper now, Judy. Deeper to obey.”

. . . Judy stared at the green light. When had it stopped blinking?

No matter.

There was something she had to do.

She stood and slipped her jacket off, then unzipped the miniskirt and stepped out of it. No one seemed to notice until she shrugged out of the blouse. Then someone said “Oh!” but it was soft and astonished. Conversation ebbed as they watched her strip, but some of them envied her and others just remembered who ran things now, and what they could make people do.

She set her bra atop the other clothes on her chair and smiled to herself, rubbing her small aureoles while she considered. As if there were a choice, she thought, peeling the thong down and gasping at the feeling as she freed it from her crotch. It was soaked, and she thought of tying it to her wrist as a corsage.

No. Soon enough her scent would be fresh.

She looked up, smiled at the others without really seeing them, and set off for Sylvia’s office in her shoes and stockings with a catwalk strut, feeling the vampire’s pendant tap her chest in counterpoint to her racing heart.

Sylvia looked up, and was actually surprised.

Judy came to attention. “Will I be suitable to greet our Guest?” she asked softly.

Sylvia came to stand next to her, resting a cool hand on Judy’s ribs. She stroked a breast from beneath with a fingertip, searching her eyes. She reached down and rested her fingers astride Judy’s cleft, and Judy’s legs twitched but held. Sylvia stroked lazily up, her eyes narrowing slightly at Judy’s strangled whine. She put her hand to her lips and tasted.

“Very suitable,” she said. “i think you’ll know what to do when She comes.

“What you don’t know, you may find yourself doing anyway.”

Reaching down, she squeezed Judy’s ass gently. “Go now.”

“Yes, Sylvia,” Judy breathed, and pivoted to obey. They made way for her as she paced out to the front desk. She trembled but then she sat, hissing with the pleasure of the cool leather. She sat erect, moistening her lips, hoping someone would come by. Someone to serve.

A delivery person, astonished to find a nude submissive there, receptive and ready.

They wouldn’t be the Guest. She might not even be able to think, she suspected, once the Guest saw her. It would be—

The phone rang.

Judy felt a rush and sat up straight.

It rang again and she looked at it. She glanced down at her body, saw her nipples erect and her cunt gleaming wetly. She reached for the handset, sliding her thighs together slowly on the slick of arousal that had seeped from her.

She lifted the phone to her ear.

“Dawncoast Transit,” she purred. “Reception. This is Judy. How may I help you?”

“Ragdoll gymnastics.”

Judy froze.

“I await command.” She said it with quiet passion, as she would pledge a suicide pact.

Command entered her mind.

It sent her deeper. Her mind opened. She listened.