HOSTEL
Chapter Twenty Five — Cruising Altitude
“In a moment you’re going to open your eyes. You’re going to stay deep in trance, as deep as you are now, but you’ll act perfectly normal. Well, as normal as you can be, at least. And… open your eyes. Open.”
She blinked twice, and shook her head slightly, sweeping the cobwebs from her brain. She looked around the room, then at him, and then at her. “You’re terrible at this,” she concluded, stretching out in the chair and placing her hands on the back of her neck. “Honestly, I didn’t feel sleepy at all, not for a second.”
“Terrible? Am I now, Lissie?” The old man could barely hide his glee. “Does Orla look like I’m terrible at this?” He gestured to the beautiful woman standing by the library window, flashing her boobs to anyone with a keen eye and a habit of walking down the back alley. “Orla, are you quite comfortable, my dear?”
“Yes, master,” she replied. Her voice was flat and emotionless, in spite of the dazed smile on her pretty face. “I’m very comfortable, master.”
Alice coughed back a snort. “I’m going to have nightmares for days imagining my own granda role-playing sexy games like this. Why can’t you garden or collect stamps like a normal old man?”
“Aren’t you feeling a little cold, Alice?” He pointed to her sweater and pants, which were scattered on the floor beneath her. “It does get cold in here. Freezing, even.”
Her hands instantly reached for her bare forearms, and she drew her arms to her chest as she shivered. “It is cold in here. I’m glad that I wore this sweater.” Her eyes drifted back to the woman in the window. “What if the neighbors see her?”
“They’ll probably accuse me of going soft on her, letting her keep half her clothes on this time.” His blue eyes sparkled as he retrieved his silver watch from his pocket. “Are you certain you’re not hypnotized, Lissie?”
“Am I half-naked and pirouetting in a window right now?”
“Perhaps you are. Perhaps Orla is sitting in that comfortable char whilst you show your knockers off to the world at large.”
“Not even you are that incorrigible, granda,” she laughed. “Not to say you didn’t mesmerize Orla, but some people have weak minds and other have—”
“I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.”
Her mouth dropped open before she could stop herself. “The reason why, I cannot tell. Wait.” Her eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. She eyed him suspiciously. “Was that supposed to hypnotize me, too? Once again, you—“
“You’re always so quiet about your private life, Lissie. Tell me, do you fancy the lads or the girls? Perhaps both? You’ll find you simply must tell me the truth.”
“Both, really.” She cupped a hand over her mouth and pressed against it, squishing her follow-up answer into a series of muffled “mmmmfs.”
“What was that?” He was all smiles now. “I missed that last part. Tell it to me again, but shout it. And stop covering your mouth.”
Her hand dropped into her lap as she twisted her face. “I… fffff…”
“You sound like you’re about to explode. Go on, tell me.”
“I said WE ALL GOT BANJAXED AT KATIE’S GAFF AND I FUCKED LIAM AND HIS GIRLFRIEND IN HER PARENT’S BEDROOM AND WHY CAN’T I MOVE MY HANDS!” She looked up at him, then down at her useless hands, and burst into laughter. “I’m going to die,” she said at last, after the waves of embarrassed laughter finally gave way to an awkward silence. “I’m going to die of embarrassment, I swear it! Did you really hypnotize me?”
The old man walked over to Orla and snapped his fingers in front of her placid, peaceful face. “Orla, listen to my voice and only to my voice. Go sit in the chair over by the fireplace, dear.”
“Yes, master.” She floated to the chair like a ghost and settled into it.
Orla’s pale skin was dotted with goosebumps, and Alice was reminded of how cold it was in the room. Her own hands went back to her arms, and after a moment of vigorous shaking, she realized that the compulsion to keep her hands in her lap had faded away. “Huh,” she said out loud, more by accident than by determination. “I can move again. That’s weird. I thought…”
“Yes, Lissie?”
“Never mind. This is crazy! And so this is how you married Orla? Swung a watch in front of her eyes and put her into a trance?”
He stepped to her and, without warning, tossed her the pocket watch. She reached for it and missed, but it bounced off of her stomach and came to rest in her lap. She held it before her like a rare artifact, her head turning from side to side as she examined every inch of it. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary at all. Just a simple watch. Old, perhaps, but…
“Now it’s your turn. If you can put Orla under quickly enough, I’ll loan you my watch so that you can practice on your friends. But not your mother or your little brother! I’m in enough trouble with the family as it is.”
Alice looked at the watch, and then at the spellbound beauty in front of her. “Okay. I can do this. I can!”
“I know. Oh, and Lissie?”
“Yes?”
He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor. “Better put your clothes back on before you catch your death of cold.”
Her embarrassed scream was loud enough to wake the dead. It was not enough to wake Orla from her trance.
“So deep, dearie. So very, very deep. Hear only my voice. You can hear me quite clearly, can’t you?”
“Yes, Alice.” Her wide, empty eyes stared back at her hypnotist. “I can hear you very well.”
“That’s so nice to hear, Amanda. For a moment you seemed a bit out of sorts! You’re quite the somnambulist for an aspiring hypnotist. Never would have thought… then again, I suppose anyone can be if I take them deep enough. Do you hear and obey, Amanda?”
“Yes, Alice.” Amanda was still sprawled in the chair, right where Edwin had left her. The tread on her boots was the only thing keeping her from sliding off the chair entirely. To Alice, she looked more than a bit like a Dali painting. “I hear and obey.”
“Excellent, dearie! And you will forget everything I’ve told you until it is time, won’t you?”
“Yes, Alice.”
“And what will you do if I give you an order?”
Alice watched as the brainwashed woman’s eyes twitched just slightly, the remains of her resistance mounting a brief, if futile, assault. It didn’t concern her. The only real difference between a strong will and a weak one was the number of mental barriers one had to build. After that, the subject would say and do whatever they were told.
On cue, Amanda’s lips parted. “I will obey.”
“Good. Now begin counting up from one while I go fetch your charming husband.”
She walked to the office door and paused, turning to admire her handiwork. Twenty sleepy girls, lined up against the far wall like unused mannequins, their chins pressed against their chests as they drifted deep in trance. In the corner, Amanda, mindless and obedient, her lips mouthing a silent twenty as she awaited her next command. And waiting for her on the mezzanine…
“Gentlemen! Please come in!” Heavy beats rushed through the door and pressed against her eardrums. The club was in full swing again, and what Alice liked to think of as her special slow dance had already faded from everyone’s memories.
Almost everyone, at least. Edwin, angry and confused, pushed in front of Ian and stormed into the office.“What did you do to her? What did you do to my Mandy?” Ian, ever protective, made sure to get between Edwin and Alice. “If you turned her into one of your sex slaves, Alice, I swear…”
“Oh, Edwin. Edwin, Edwin, Edwin.” Alice nodded to Ian and motioned for him to step aside.
She stood in front of Edwin and crossed her arms. “I really don’t know where to begin with all that! I’m not sure what kind of whores you’ve been collecting, but as you can tell by my stable, I specialize in beautiful university girls, not middle managers with one eye on their pension and the other on stealing the fruits of my labor. So no, to answer your question, I most certainly did not brainwash her into selling her body for money. Her mind is her own, and I promise you that.”
Edwin curled his fingers into loose fists and stood his ground. His voice trembled slightly as he spoke. “Except for when it’s not. What did you do to her, Alice? I’ve got a right to know.”
“You’ve got… well, dearie, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve also not programmed her to dash herself to pieces in front of a train. But what I have programmed her to do will always be a mystery, won’t it? Have at her once you get her home. I can guarantee that you won’t find it all, not with how I work. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you.”
He walked over to his wife and shook her shoulder. When she failed to respond, he shook harder, causing her to slide to the floor in a boneless heap.
“Fifty one,” she whispered. “Fifty two.”
“Wake her up, Alice. You’ve done enough. We’ve learned our lesson and we’re grateful to be leaving. This was her idea, and I just want to get out of here and take her home.”
“Do you know what the most delightful part of this is, Edwin?” Alice rubbed her hands together. “The most delicious thing, really! Who’s to say I’ve done anything to her at all? I could have been standing here making a checklist of things to do tomorrow for all you know. And you won’t. Not ever. So here is what will happen next.”
Another nod to Ian, who walked to the door and held it open. “Ian is going to escort you both out of my club. You’re going to go home and go to bed, just like you’re hoping to do. You’re to leave me, my girls, Rebecca Sanders, and her girlfriend alone for the rest of your days. It’s back to Assis for you two, I’m afraid! Oh, and Amanda, when you reach one hundred, you will awaken and remember nothing. Obey.”
“Yes, Alice.” Her face rested on her upper right arm, half-covering her mouth. The words slipped out in mumbled tones. “I will obey. Sixty eight. Sixty nine.”
“She’ll stand when she wakes up. You’ll want to check the internet as soon as you get home, dearie. Check the news to see if there have been any tragic accidents on the U-Bahn system lately.”
His face turned white. He opened his mouth to respond, but no sound emerged.
Alice’s smile vanished. “If there has been such an unfortunate event, Edwin, my advice to you is to start running.”
“Awk. Awk awk awk!”
Missy stalked the room on her long, shapely legs. Her arms were folded upwards, keeping her tits from swaying freely as she stomped and squawked. “Awk,” she said, darting her head from side to side. “Awk awk!”
Emily cackled and kicked her legs in the air with delight. “I told you that emus were the new thing, Colonel Sanders! Look at her go!”
“I could turn you into an emu, too. Maybe I should.”
“You wouldn’t dare. Besides, you promised you would never hypnotize me ever again so I… so… pretty… I can’t… you can’t hypno… tize…”
“Watch the pendant, Emily. Watch, and obey.” The gold chain rubbed against her fingers. It felt good. It felt so good. “Watch, and sleep. You will always obey me.”
The redhead’s eyes were already glazed and distant. “I will always obey you.”
“Good. Now go find Celeste and fuck her senseless. Then come back here and see me. Understood?”
Emily slipped off her stool and carefully balanced herself. She looked Rebecca in the eyes. “Yes, Rebecca. I will always obey you.”
Rebecca waited for her to leave, then snapped her fingers. Missy froze in place, mid-awk. She admired the girl’s wonderful figure before snapping her fingers again. Missy’s arms fell to her sides as she slipped into a deeper level of trance.
“Missy, did you spike the keg with Alice’s special drug?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good. Once all of the girls are drugged, you’re going to help me hypnotize them. You’re going to love it.”
Her words had their intended effect. Missy’s hands began to roam her body. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. “Yesssss… Missstressssss… sssooo hot… anything… for you…”
Rebecca thought about taking off her clothes and screwing Missy right then and there. Anyone who saw them could be hypnotized into forgetting it. Or even better, hypnotized into joining in. She looked down and, to her surprise, found that she was already naked, her clothes stacked neatly on the stool Emily had been sitting on. “Come here and fuck me, slave,” she said, her voice dripping with desire and anticipation. Do it now. Obey.”
“Yes, Rebecca. I obey.”
Something landed on Rebecca’s chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. She tried rolling over, but the weight kept her pinned in place. Something warm and soft brushed against both of her shoulders. Her nose filled with lavender.
She opened her sleepy eyes. A wave of long brown hair washed into them, blinding her as a pair of hot, wet lips pressed against her own. She resisted, then relented, groaning softly as the kiss lingered. A hand slid behind her head and pushed, and she followed suit. “Mmmmm,” she sighed, closing her eyes again as she relaxed. “Do that again,” she said in a dreamy, sing-song voice, unsure as to whether she was awake or still dreaming.
“Yes, Rebecca. I obey.”
She opened her eyes again. A pair of beautiful hazel orbs stared back at her. They were full of love, and lust, and devotion, and just the sight of them made Rebecca’s pussy ache. “You’re up early,” said, and cringed. I’m such a dork. So lame!
eleste smiled in response, and the fire nibbling at Rebecca’s insides doubled in size and intensity. She puckered her lips, begging Celeste for another deep kiss, but the brunette focused on Rebecca’s neck instead. Her gentle kisses soon migrated to Rebecca’s tits, soft puffs from her lips blowing across Rebecca’s hard nipples.
“I want to fuck you, mistress Rebecca. As… mmmmm… as you…” Her breath came in ragged gasps as Rebecca arched her back, pushing their hot, sweaty bodies together. “As you.., com…com…”
“Commanded,” Rebecca whispered. She pushed down on Celeste’s head, guiding her past her chest and stomach and down to her wet, eager cunt. Her lover went to work immediately, her tongue eagerly exploring Rebecca’s slick folds as they both moaned with pleasure. Rebecca pushed again, threatening to smother Celeste with her sex, eager to experience every last bit of pleasure she could get. Brown hair spilled across her lower body, tickling her belly as she spread her legs further apart.
Someone was yelling. Screaming the word “fuck” over and over again, louder with each iteration. Rebecca had just enough time to realize that she was the screamer, before Celeste’s tongue found a new area to explore, and her mind melted into white-hot oblivion.
“That was fun.” Rebecca wiggled her hips and butt until she was as close to Celeste’s prone form as possible. She pulled a sheet over them, until only their heads were exposed. “You’re amazing and I love you.” She planted a kiss on Celeste’s cheek and settled in, expecting to drift off to sleep again. Check out time wasn’t until noon. She wasn’t sure where they would go next. That would have to wait.
“I love you, Mistress Rebecca.” Celeste’s voice was even more sleepy than Rebecca’s. They’d both thrown everything they could into their lovemaking. “I love you so much.”
Rebecca shifted her injured leg and winced as pain, no longer hidden by wave after wave of orgasmic bliss, reared its ugly head. She bit her lip. “Nnngh. Do you remember anything about last night?”
“Mmmmmnnnn…” Celeste yawned and stretched, the back of her arm brushing against Rebecca’s nose. “Mmm. Not much. Everything’s really a blur. Even before… you know. Before I got… caught.”
“You didn’t…” Rebecca draped her arm over Celeste’s body and pulled her into a tight embrace. “You didn’t get caught. You got jumped. By some people who won’t be able to hurt us now. Or find us. Are you okay with ditching your stuff?”
A long exhale, and an even longer pause. “My phone, my clothes, my makeup, all of the photos I took, like two hundred Euros. My… oh fuck!” Her body stiffened as she jerked away from Rebecca. “My passport, Rebecca!” Her eyes widened in panic. “My passport is still at the hostel! I can’t even get home, we have to go back… we have to go back and sneak in or something!”
“It’s okay. Breathe. Deep breaths. We can just say you lost it and go to the embassy or something. I mean, people lose passports, right? So we’ll just act like that happened. I have a phone and I can wire my parents for money if we’re really desperate. We’re not ever going back to that fucking hostel. I’ll swim home before I go back there.”
“You’re right. Let’s do that. Fuck! You’re so smart, Rebecca.” Celeste relaxed and allowed herself to sink back into Rebecca’s inviting body. “Thank you for saving me. I’ll never… I know I was hypnotized, but I won’t ever let anyone do that to me again. Next time I’ll jump out a window first, I swear.”
“There’s not going to be a next time, because we’re getting the fuck out of this city and we’re going home.” She kissed the girl’s ear, and whispered into it. “We made it. We went through hell and we came out the other side. Together.”
More silence. Some shuffling of feet under covers. “Are you mad at me?”
Rebecca giggled. “Does it feel like I’m mad at you?” She ran her hand over Celeste’s stomach, cupping the underside of her boob. “Because I’m not.”
“I messed things up. I was so afraid of losing you.” Celeste’s voice drifted off, as she searched for how to put her feelings into words. “I drugged you, and then… and then those two put me under, and then…” She fell quiet again.
“I know what it’s like to screw everything up,” Rebecca said. “We can fix it. We can fix anything.”
She closed her eyes. In the darkness, she could feel Celeste relax into an exhausted sleep.
Yeah baby give me one more night.Yeah baby give me one more night.
Rebecca forced her eyes open only with tremendous effort. Her phone was dancing across the end table, flashing and blinking with an incoming call. Grabbing it meant rolling away from Celeste, but letting it go risked waking the brunette up. Rebecca decided to make the sacrifice. When did I even make Maroon 5 my ringtone? she wondered, checking the screen to see who it might be.
Alice.
That promoted another round of questions—she couldn’t recall programming Alice’s number into her phone, either. Then again, there were probably a lot of things she wouldn’t be able to recall about this trip. One of them being hidden trigger phrases that could turn her back into a mindless slave. Her thumb went straight to the screen and mashed the “ignore” button. The song ended, and she let the phone fall to the blanket. Throwing it out the window proved to be a very tempting idea.
“Who’s calling?” Celeste was up, dragging her lovely body into a sitting position. She towered above the prone Rebecca and eyed the phone next to her. “Was it… was it Alice?” Fear crept into her face. “Do you think she’s trying to—”
“I don’t care what she’s trying to do. She’s gone.” Rebecca swept the phone up with one hand and held it above her head, her fingers poking at the screen as her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to block her. That’s the end of that. Who knows what she’s put into our heads that we don’t know about?”
“You had me program you to resist her, right?” Celeste leaned against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest. “And then you did the same thing to me. So she can’t. Even the girls in the hostel are free, thanks to us. They’re not bound by her commands either.” Her voice grew in strength and confidence as she spoke. “Fuck Alice. We freed all of those girls from her and we’re free from her, too. I think we should call the police on her. Right? Anonymous call, tell them she’s got someone locked up in the basement…”
“Let’s wait until we get back to America.” Rebecca raised her head until she was looking Celeste in the eyes. “Then we can send in the Marines and burn that fucking hostel to the fucking ground.”
“Hee! That nasty-ass club, too.”
“Carpet-bomb the whole block.”
“Nuke it from orbit.”
“That might be too far.” Rebecca considered the pros and cons. “Although it would probably get rid of a lot of creeps in this town. But…”
Bzzt bzzt
Their eyes immediately went to Rebecca’s phone, which, buried under blankets, was buzzing again.
“It can’t be her,” Celeste offered. “You just blocked her.”
“It’s a text.” Rebecca closed her hand around her phone and pulled it out into the open. She avoided looking at the screen. “Okay, if I blank out or turn into a zombie, slap me in the head. Deal?”
Celeste clapped her hands over her ears and nodded. “Got it. On it. Ready!”
Rebecca sucked in a shallow breath. She could feel the blood withdrawing into her body like an outgoing tide, leaving her ears buzzing and her hands cold and numb. She began to turn the phone screen-side-up, hoping to peek at the edge of the screen to catch any potential trigger words. Anything out of the ordinary and I’m smashing this phone. She looked over at Celeste, who was leaning forward with both hands still pressed against the sides of her head. She looked ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous, the two of them terrified by a phone.
That was enough to spur Rebecca to action. She flipped the phone all the way over and definitely gazed directly at the screen. Do your worst, bitch.
Message from: Emily, it read.
Rebecca felt her heart rise into her throat, along with most of her internal organs. She’d forgotten all about Emily. Left her best friend behind in the back storeroom of a mind controller’s secret lair. My best fucking friend! Fuck! Her mind raced with the possibilities. Was it really Emily? Even if it was, could she trust the message? Emily had also been programmed to resist Alice, but that was a long time ago, and Alice could have spent the entire night putting the redhead back under her thumb. Perhaps they were just finishing up, and this was Emily’s first test of her new servitude. To call her best friend and hypnotize her. To find out where she was. To lead Alice right to them. To…
“Just check it, Rebecca. I won’t look. My eyes are on your face. I’ll protect you, I promise.”
You’re so beautiful, Rebecca mouthed. She put on a brave smile and pulled up the text.
Is Celeste all right, dearie? Hoping she is.
“She’s got Emily,” Rebecca said, forgetting that Celeste was not supposed to hear her. She repeated the same phrase silently, slowly, so that Celeste could read her lips. I wonder if I could trance her like that? Read a trigger phrase? Act out a trigger phrase? “We might have to call the cops after all, babe. She really does have someone tied up in the basement. Dammit!”
bzzt bzzt This time, the message appeared on the screen before Rebecca had time to react, and she found herself reading it before her mind even registered the action.
I have something that belongs to you, Rebecca
Come by and pick her up.
Be sure to bring Celeste!
Rebecca scanned the words over and over again. She looked at Celeste, then back at the phone. She let it drop to the bed. After a moment, she shoved it deep beneath the covers. “It’s okay,” she said. “No trancing. No spells. I’m me. You’re safe.”
Celeste removed one hand and let it hover over her ear, ready to slam back down the moment Rebecca began talking about lovely woods or feeling very sleepy. “Was it Emily?”
“No, it was Alice.” Rebecca shook her head. “She’s got Emily.”
“Oh, shit. What are we going to do?”
Be sure to bring Celeste! “I don’t know, Celeste. I really don’t.”
“Well we can plan while we get ready.” Celeste climbed off the bed and walked into the bathroom, appearing at the door and holding her sweater in the air. “Everything’s dry… ish.”
She wants me to trade one for the other. That’s why. She’s going to make me choose one or the other. A pile of damp clothes landed at her feet, and she poked at them as she tried to ignore the panic and dread that filled every cell in her body. She watched as Celeste—beautiful, sweet, adoring, somewhat-enslaved-but-happily-so Celeste—dressed and made a brief attempt to make sense of her messy hair.
One or the other. One or the other.
“Okay, I’m read—come on, Rebecca, get dressed!” Celeste sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re strong. She can’t… we have, like, the entire world against her now. Let’s just go down there and fucking get Emily back. Together. Remember what you said before? We can fix it. So let’s fix it.”
Rebecca began to pull on her socks. She said nothing, painfully aware that her silence was making Celeste more nervous.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Rebecca felt utterly powerless. Sometimes things didn’t get fixed. Not the way she wanted them to be fixed. People got hurt.
Someone always gets hurt.
She finished getting dressed.