The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“You’re both feeling very sleepy, aren’t you?”

Two pairs of eyes drifted back and forth. Beautiful, pale green eyes, one pair a shade more emerald than the other. Eyes that had hypnotized plenty of young men in the county, and more than a few of their fathers as well. Back and forth. Eyes that dutifully tracked the old pocket watch as it passed before their blank, empty faces. Back and forth. Don’t stop.

“Girls?” Alice gently prodded her sleepy friends. “You’re so, so tired, but you can speak. You’re quite tired, though. Are you tired?”

“Yeah.” Mary, headstrong and boisterous, looking more like a wilted flower as her head sank with every swing of the watch. “Tired. So… tired…”

The other girl, much deeper than Mary, tried to form a response. Her mouth opened and closed several times without success. Alice reached out and pressed a finger against the girl’s forehead.

“Sleep, Katie. Sleep. Deep sleep.”

The redhead crumpled as an exhausted sigh escaped her lips. She turned her head sideways and snuggled up against pages 122 and 123 of her chemistry textbook, the formulas within now completely emptied from her sleepy mind. “Mmm,” she mumbled, and then fell still.

“And you, Mary? Isn’t it time to sleep? Hear only my voice and sleep. Pulling you down. Deeper. Sleepier. Close your eyes and rest now. It’ll feel so much better when you do. Sleep. Deep sleep.”

“Tired…” Her eyes closed for a moment, but she fought to open them again. Her lips curled, followed by her nose. “But…”

“Some of them will fight you.” Granda waved a proud hand in front of Orla’s glazed eyes. “You’ll win in the end, of course. But they won’t know that. The trick is to let them think that they’re getting what they want, when it’s really what you want.”

Mary continued to swim upstream against the trance. “You’re doing… something… I can’t think. Alice…”

“Oh, Mary. It’s been a long day and you two have been up all night studying,” Alice said, eyeing the clock on the far side of the room. It was just about three in the afternoon. “So late, and so tired. Watching the watch makes you so, so tired. Just call it a night and sleep. The library is a good place to sleep, Mary. It’s open all night, and locked, and safe. So safe and warm and cozy. Just close your eyes and sleep.”

“Jussssst…” Her eyes gave up on chasing the watch and settled on a random spot somewhere off to Alice’s left. “Sleep?”

She was leaning heavily on one arm; the other had slipped from the table and now hung uselessly by her side. Alice gently grasped the propped arm and gave it a gentle tug. “Yes, sleep. Sleep now.”

That did the trick. The arm gave way and with it, Mary’s conscious mind. She spilled forward, her long red hair washing over books and papers and pens. “Uhhhn,” she groaned. Unlike Katie, her fall into trance was grim, a battle lost rather than a victory earned. Alice made a mental note of each. It would make the girls easier to program when she got them back home.

“You’re both going to stay very sleepy and very deep for me. In fact, you’ll think of nothing and hear nothing until I touch your hands.” She reached out and took each girl by the hand. “Just like this. And not until then. Sleep.”

Neither girl responded. “All that rubbish about them calling you ‘master’ and such is just that, Lissie. You want to get them good and deep right away, so that you can really get into their heads. There’ll be time enough for them to worship you later on. Be quick about things, dearie!”

Satisfied, she dropped the watch into her bag and winced as it collided hard against the other shiny toy tucked away inside. She leaned down and fished around inside with one hand. Oh, I hope I didn’t scratch it! Mam’ll kill me for it!

The two tranced girls sitting across from her suddenly became the least of her worries. She turned the phone over in her hands, certain that she would find an enormous scratch in the finish, or on the tiny little screen, but there was nothing. Whether it was due to luck, or because the horror stories her workmates filled her head with were all bollocks… well, it doesn’t matter. If everything went to plan, she’d soon have enough money for a dozen phones.

Still shaking a bit from the near miss, she clumsily tapped in a familiar number, and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.

“Well? Smashing success, or do I need to come post your bail?”

“Smashing success, granda.” She beamed with pride, a gesture lost on Katie and Mary.

“That’s my Lissie. Now take them as deep as you can, and give them a suggestion to come straight away to my house after their classes tomorrow. You’ll want to make them believe that they want to come here, rather than that they have to. Trust me.”

She thought about it. “They’ve got exams tomorrow. I’ll have them imagine they’re coming over to celebrate?”

“Delightful, Lissie. You’re quite good at this. I dare say if I had your talent at your age…”

“Please, granda! I’ve heard far too many randy stories about your youth as it is!” The sound of her own voice, though happy and excited, reminded her of where she was, and she clapped a hand over her face. “I’m at the library with them. Can I call you when I get home?“

“Not if your mother wants to yell at me again.”

She bit her lip, the air from a stifled laugh crashing against her cheek. “Stop! You’ll… never mind. Programmed and delivered to your doorstep at noon tomorrow. You’ll take it from there?”

“As we agreed, Lissie. Your friends are about to become very popular girls. And you’re going to be richer than you’d ever imagined.”

I am an instrument of my mistress’s perfect will.

Celeste had to fight the urge to skip and dance her way down the stairs. It was a losing battle, and before she was halfway to the lobby she was holding the cold metal railing with both hands and shaking her body with every step. Her boobs bounced with every leap, hard nipples rubbing through her t-shirt and against her sweater in a way that made her want to spend the rest of her life doing exactly this, and nothing but this.

Carrying out my mistress’s commands. So delicious to think. So much more exciting to do.

And she was nearly finished. All of the girls on the bottom floor, all of the girls in the half-full dorms on the top floor, plus the kitchen… she ran down the checklist in her mind. Mistress had left it to Celeste to come up with a plan of action, the means to carry out Her perfect orders. She knew that Celeste was smart enough and dedicated enough to cover everything twice, methodically, logically. A slave, and not a slave.

“Hi, Julie!” Her inner princess was now fully in the driver’s seat, and she twirled her way into the lobby, taking care to scan the room and the hallways that branched from it for any stray guests. Finding none, she circled her way to the desk and landed against it with a dull thud, Hurricane Celeste storming ashore. “You will obey Alice without question, right?“

The girl looked up at her. She was sorting passports, and had them spread out around her like a blackjack dealer. “Yes, Celeste,” she said, in a voice that might have passed for annoyed were she not thoroughly subdued and brainwashed. “I must always obey Alice without question.”

“Good!” Celeste pushed away from the desk and let the momentum carry her into the far hallway, where the shower rooms waited. Most of the girls were still sleeping or barely awake, and she’d caught all of the early birds hovering around the kitchen’s irresistible coffee maker. But there was always…

A steady hiss from behind the door confirmed her suspicions, and she eased her way into the room. This was the smaller of the two shower blocks; the plume of steam rising from stall #2 marked her target. Celeste’s twirling princess gave way to the predatory hypnotist, and she hovered outside the stall door until the pitter-patter sprinkle of shower water came to an end.

Celeste turned and, in the same motion, yanked open the flimsy shower door, spinning around it as it opened so that she was blocking the exit. Inside, a pretty brunette covered her small, perky breast with one dripping arm and glared.

“Hey!” She had a shampoo bottle in her other hand, and raised it until it was level with her head. “Get out! I’m using this!”

“Summer turns suddenly to winter. Sleep.”

The bottle tumbled to the floor with a heavy thud. Bits of purple gloop erupted from its spout and came to rest on the girl’s long, tanned legs. Her arms fell to her sides. “Uhh…”

“Don’t think. You can’t think. You can only listen to my voice, so hypnotic, taking you into a trance again. Just like before, hearing my voice. What’s your name?”

“Cal… Callie…”

“Callie, you’re deep in trance. You’re completely hypnotized.”

“I’m completely hypnotized.”

Celeste tried to picture Callie from before, in the hours and days before Mistress had given her this wonderful assignment. Was she one of the girls who’d been marched down to Club Trabant in search of Rebecca? One of the lucky thralls Mistress had gathered in Alice’s basement to be reprogrammed? Or just a girl with a love of shopping and soft, cozy beds? Whatever the case, Callie was a natural subject; the trigger had taken her completely and totally.

You will obey Mistress Rebecca. Easy enough to say, and Callie would easily accept it as the Truth. There was something in those glassy, almond eyes that called out for something more than simple obedience to Alice. Something more than being a hostel girl. Something deeper, perhaps darker. Total slavery to Mistress. Just a few words, and a few triggers. That’s all it really took to deliver a slave to a new owner.

But those were not her orders, as much as she wanted them to be.

“Good. Now. Repeat after me. You will obey… Alice… without question.” Saying it once made it easier to say it again. “You will always obey Alice without question. When she commands you, you will obey.”

“I will obey.”

“When I leave the room, you will wake up, and remember only that you finished your shower. Go to your room and take a nice, long nap.”

Callie yawned as the suggestion rooted itself deep inside her mind. “Nice, long nap.”

“Good. Now I can go back to my Mistress and tell her the good news! You’re the last one on my list. Thanks, Callie.”

“Thank… Callie.”

She thought about correcting the girl, but decided to let that one slide. Maybe she’d end up thanking herself, and what was wrong with that? Happy slaves are good slaves. Good slaves are happy slaves. Celeste was living proof of both, and she let that thought carry her all the way down the hallway. She barely acknowledged glum Julie before moving on to the back stairs and the-

“Oh. Oh shit. Fuck me. Fuck… ME.”

She was two steps from the bottom of the stairs. The cellar—and Rebecca, and Alice, and the promised end to all of this—beckoned, but as the memories flooded back into her mind, her legs turned to jelly and she sank until her butt collided with cold, hard stone. She placed her hands on her head and cradled it with her knees, fighting a sudden urge to vomit. I did it. I really did it. No going back now, is there? Holy fuck.

“What did I just do?” She curled her lower lip against her teeth. She’d asked the question out loud, too overwhelmed to really care about who might be listening. Besides, they all knew what she’d done. Every woman in the hostel knew, even if most of them couldn’t remember it now.

Rebecca knew. Rebecca, sweet and kind and determined to free everyone in the hostel. Celeste had ruined those plans, not once but twice. The thrill of doing so, even though it felt so damned hot in the moment, felt anything like that in the present.

Rebecca was her Mistress.

Rebecca wanted to free the girls.

Celeste forced her to brainwash them into slaves all over again.

A good slave does what she is told, Celeste. You did what you were told.

But that explanation only made perfect sense when Celeste was deep in trance and obeying her commands. Sitting on the dusty basement stairs, the reality became more painfully obvious. She did what I told her to do. Not the other way round. I pulled the strings for Alice and she went along with it because she loves me and she wants to keep me safe I’m so so sorry Rebecca I really am!

She looked to the door. Strained to hear anything beyond it, words or shouting, anything to reassure her that Rebecca had everything under control. But there was only silence, and she easily pictured the two women sitting in silence, waiting for her return, their eyes full of disappointment. Why did you give in so easily to my demands, dearie? You’re so weak and spineless! No wonder you’re a perfect slave!

“No.” That brought strength back to her legs, and she wrapped her arm around the bannister to pull herself to her feet. “It’s because I love Rebecca. Because I’ll do anything to keep her safe.”

You’ll do anything to keep her with you, is what you really mean.

She tried to ignore that nagging little voice as she forced the door open with a loud screech.

Rebecca was sinking.

She was sitting down, in the same chair someone had pushed her into when she first started to feel tired. So, so drowsy. So sleepy. Sleep, Rebecca. Close your eyes. The memory of nearly toppling sideways to the floor, helpless to arrest her fall, remained fresh in her mind, even if it was getting harder and harder to think about it. She’d already given up on moving. Nothing worked, not even her eyelids, which slammed shut before she could even get them half-open.

And then there was the voice, which wasn’t making things any easier. Deep into trance, it whispered from a place that seemed more inside her head than outside. Deeply hypnotized. Totally hypnotized. Sink deeper. Was it the person who placed her in the chair? Was it a machine? Was she being hypnotized? Was she already hypnotized? The questions exhausted her, and she took a deep breath, letting the air out slowly. Her body sagged in the chair. Deeper and deeper.

Hours passed. Days, maybe, suspended between awareness and sleep, between succumbing to trance and the sweet mindlessness that came with trance itself. A mental purgatory with no escape.

Deep into trance.

“Please,” she croaked. Her mouth was full of dry sand. “I’m trying to go deeper. I can’t. I just can’t.”

Deep into trance, it told her, and nothing more.

“Rebecca! REBECCA!” Another voice, more real, definitely not in her head. It was getting louder, or closer, or maybe both. “What the fuck did you do to her? Rebecca!”

I’m being hypnotized. It made sense. People got hypnotized all the time. Eventually she would crack and become someone else’s mindless slave. It was inevitable.

Deep into trance, said the voice, right on time. She agreed. “Deep into trance,” she mumbled, hoping that the loud voice could hear her over itself. If they knew she was ready to go deeper, maybe they would help her to do so. “Dee…” She was too tired to finish the sentence.

“You hypnotized her! Alice, no! We had a deal!”

“Not… hypnotized…” Rebecca tried to turn her head, but it was impossible. She was a drifting raft in the middle of a wide, muddy river. Please hypnotize me. Take me deeper.

“I did no such thing, dearie, I assure you.” Yet another voice. Calmer. Quieter. More confident and far less shaky. “Just something to help her stay calm and relaxed, while we talk.”

Calm and relaxed. The words swept over Rebecca like a wave of warm water, and she closed her eyes. The voices retreated.

Rebecca looked hypnotized. Celeste walked into the basement to find her girlfriend slumped in one of the chairs Alice reserved for her brainwashing victims, head resting on her chest and eyes closed. One arm was folded in her lap; the other had come loose and now dangled against the chair’s legs. The gentle rise and fall of her chest let Celeste know that she was alive, at least, and the black screen on the monitor assured her that Rebecca wasn’t being brainwashed at the moment.

“I assure you,” said Alice, whose words did anything but that. “Just something to help her stay calm and relaxed, while we talk.” Alice stood behind her two newest brainwashed minions, who were definitely very much hypnotized. They glared at her in a way that reminded Celeste of Edwin’s fanatical soldiers, and she shuddered. She knew exactly what it was like to be one of those.

She found her voice. “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to take my girlfriend home. Please, Alice. You promised.” She winced at the last words; they made her sound like a child begging for ice cream. She winced again when she realized that Alice had seen her do it the first time. She tried again, this time with more force. “Wake her up. Now.”

“I can’t wake her up, because as I’ve told you, she’s drugged. Just a little something from upstairs to keep her quiet. Two hypnotists against one, in a basement? I don’t like those odds, and neither would you. Now stop making a fuss about it and listen to me.”

“Wake her up.” Celeste made a beeline for her girlfriend, but the two Indian girls stepped forward in lockstep to block her path. She came to a reluctant halt, peering over their shoulders at Alice. She felt the anger build, and she curled her hands into fists. “I will fucking kill you myself if you don’t wake her up right the fuck NOW!”

“If you do, Elizabeth here will snap your neck. Or at least give it a good try. And it’ll all… listen to me, dearie. It’ll all be for nothing because Rebecca is not brainwashed. In an hour she’ll be back up and about. You have my word.”

“You drugged her. You gave her the drug you used on us before. So that you can turn her back into your slave.” She pointed at the monitor. “So you can turn me back into your slave too, right?”

Alice laughed, the sound of it echoing off of the heavy stone walls. “This may surprise you, but it seems that someone in this room used up nearly my whole supply recently.” Alice circled around Elizabeth and Reeva until she was standing in front of them, within arm’s reach of Celeste. “Apparently Rebecca was reluctant to do something, and this certain person wanted to change her outlook on things. Sound familiar to you, Celeste?”

Celeste snorted. She took a step back and let her hands uncurl. The Irish woman was clearly unfazed by her posturing and her anger. There was no point in making threatening gestures. “I thought that I was doing the right thing.”

Alice’s eyes widened.

“But you’re not! You never have, Alice! This whole time, it’s been one betrayal after another, one mind control scheme after another! So, fine.” Her voice began to crack. “You win, okay? Just get it over quickly.”

Alice looked wounded. She retreated until she was standing next to Rebecca, one hand resting on the back of the chair. “I gave you my word, Celeste. I’m not going to control your mind, unless you ask me to do it.”

“Like you asked Rebecca?” Celeste choked back a teary cough. Just seeing Rebecca like this broke her heart, brainwashing or no brainwashing. “You know what I think, Alice? I think that you don’t know how to interact with normal people. You can only handle hypnotized little robots that don’t ask questions and don’t question you.”

She took a step forward, and the two girls pivoted to keep her in their line of vision. Alice remained where she was. “You don’t want to talk to me. Not really. You’re just killing time until you can get me into a chair.” She crossed her arms and glared, enjoying the sound of her own voice, grateful to have a chance to let Alice really have it before whatever was coming actually happened. “That’s your life, Alice. A toymaker surrounded by wind-up dolls. Congratu-fucking-lations.”

A plan began to form in her mind.

“Now, my little wind-up doll, are you all wound up? You look like you’re all wound up.”

Rebecca arched her back as far as the table restraining her would allow. Her body tingled with arousal, and the constant sex—the machines knew how to probe her body in a way that no man or woman ever could—was positively mind-blowing. She whimpered as Mistress helped her into a sitting position, her feet dangling aimlessly over the edge of the table. “More? I want… Mistress? Please?”

“Remind me to dial down your sex drive when we’re finished here. I don’t want you going around town like a cat in heat. Not with the work I have planned for you. Here. Look here. Look at me. Listen to my voice.”

Rebecca did as she was told, making a mental note to remind Mistress to dial down her sex drive when they were finished. When she could get back to letting the machines fuck her senseless again. Mistress was so wonderful that she allowed Rebecca all day to tinker with the machines, adjusting them, seeing how they affected her body and her mind, making her into a more perfect slave with each passing day.

“Did you ever sell knives door-to-door, or do any of those other direct sales things?” Mistress wandered over to the edge of the room and dumped the contents of a cardboard box onto a nearby table. Bits and pieces of Old Rebecca’s possessions spilled across its metal surface. “I did. Before they trust you to go out and sell to total strangers, they first have you start by selling knives to your friends and family. People who know you.” She picked up Rebecca’s phone and examined it, making sure that it still had power. “More importantly, people who trust you.”

She returned to Rebecca’s side and placed the phone by her side. “You’re going to call your friends one by one and hypnotize them over the phone. Use their triggers if you have them. You will tell them to come to the address that’s now appearing in your mind. Then we can have some fun enslaving them to my will. Isn’t that nice?”

“I…” Of course that’s nice. Mistress is so nice! Try as she might, she couldn’t get the obvious words to form. “I… but…”

“There’s still a little of you left in there, isn’t there?” Mistress returned to the other side of the room, and to the laptop that controlled Rebecca’s pussy. “You will hypnotize your friends. You will obey, Rebecca.”

“I can’t. They’re… they’re my friends. I can’t just…”

“You can, and you will. Remember that I’m also your friend, Rebecca.” She entered something into her laptop and nodded to herself. “The only friend that really matters. Now, try again.”

The silver dildo between her legs buzzed, and Rebecca’s eyes rolled into her head. She squeezed her breasts and moaned. “Nnnn… yyyessss…”

Mistress allowed her to writhe like that for a minute or two. “Open your eyes, Rebecca.”

She did. In front of her was Mistress’s gold pocket watch. She dutifully tracked it until the dildo buzzed again, forcing her head and her eyes to roll towards the ceiling.

“Listen to me and believe every word that I say. If I’m your friend, then all of your friends are my friends, too.”

“Your… yes. They’re your friends.” Rebecca has many friends. Beautiful, kind, trusting friends. Mistress would love them. They would love Mistress.

Mistress pressed Rebecca’s phone into her sticky hands. “Then call them, one by one, and invite them over to play.”

“Okay.” Rebecca pulled up her contacts. Did Missy still use her old number? She tapped the screen again and waited for Missy’s phone to pick up.

Mistress ran a hand through Rebecca’s tangled hair, gently pulling it straight. “You’re going to hypnotize them, and then you’re going to betray them. And you’re going to love it.”

The dildo buzzed again.

“Are you quite done? Yes? Good. Because we are going to get down to business and it’s going to be on my terms, Celeste.”

Celeste weighed her options. Attacking Alice was out of the question. Running away and summoning help wasn’t an option, either, not after so much time programming everyone in the hostel to hang on Alice’s every word. They’d walked right into her trap without even realizing it.

But Alice had been hypnotized, just the night before, and Celeste had been the last person to put her under. Unless Alice had managed to deprogram herself while they were away, the trigger was still in her head, waiting for someone to utter it. It was worth a shot. “Remember the pretty pendant, Alice. Sleep and remember.”

Alice, to her disappointment, did not respond by dropping into a mindless trance. Instead, she responded with incredulous laughter. “That’s not going to work, dearie. Though I appreciate the effort! You’ve always been good at thinking on your feet, haven’t you? That’s exactly what I was looking for when I sought you out, Celeste. That cleverness. That ruthlessness! You’re the sort of girl who gets what she wants. Rebecca might have hesitated just now, but you didn’t. Rebecca would never have gone upstairs to hypnotize all of my girls. You did.”

“I don’t understand. I’m not you, if that’s what you’re implying. I’ll never be as cruel and cold as you.”

“No, no you won’t. And it’s a shame, Celeste. Because what applied to Rebecca also applied to you. This was a job interview of sorts, and you… well, I can’t say you passed, what with your attitude and your loyalty to Rebecca, but you’ve shown a great deal of promise.”

Her smile faded. “Too much promise, in fact.”

“Rebecca? Rebecca Sanders?”

“The one and only,” said Rebecca. She smiled. A finger slowly stroked her sex. It might have been hers. It might have been Mistress’s. It didn’t really matter. “How have you been, Missy? Do you have a second?”

“To catch up? Hell yeah!” Missy was her usual boisterous, bouncy, chirpy self. “Hang on, I just gotta…”

Rebecca waited. The finger plunged between her labia, and she closed her eyes. I must obey.

“I’m looking after… hold up…” The phone crackled as Missy placed her on speakerphone. “We’re looking after Doug’s little cousin this week and he’s a wild child. Jesus Christ, I’m never having kids. AUSTIN! Time to start getting ready for bed!”

A few shouts. Crying. Missy explaining more about Austin. Rebecca ignored most of it. Mistress kissed her ear, then licked the side of her neck. You’re doing so well, slave.

The volume dropped abruptly as Missy returned to Rebecca. “Whew! Okay, the little monster’s under control. For now. Gonna go up into the bedroom so I can have some privacy for five minutes.”

“Who’s Doug?” Through the phone, Rebecca grinned. She was interested in Doug, but not for any reason Missy would suspect. Doug was in the way. Doug needed to be out of the way.

“See? This is what happens when you drop out of college! You miss all of the good news! Doug is my fiancé. We’re getting married in May. Did you not get the wedding invite? Where have you been, anyway?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah.” The sound of a door closing. “Doug’s out at a work thing, the kid’s going to bed, and I’m—“

“Brown and down, Missy.”

“I… did you jusssssst… uhnnnn…” There was a muffled thump on the other end of the line.

“Missy?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft and far away. Too far.

“Missy, did you drop your phone?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Pick it up and hold it to your ear. When you do, you will go a hundred times deeper into trance, and hear only my voice.”

“Yes.”

A finger brushed her clit. Everything below her waist was a full-fledged inferno. It was all she could do to keep her voice calm and even, the way Mistress needed her to be.

On cue, Mistress whispered into her ear. “You won’t be able to come until you’ve finished your call, Rebecca.”

“Missy.” Rebecca closed her eyes and licked her lips. “Listen very carefully to me.”

“I don’t know what you’re even talking about anymore.” Celeste placed her hands on her head and pressed hard, her face scrunching in exasperation. “Why can’t we just go? Huh? Do you even know? Or are you just greedy for a couple more girls for your hostel?”

“Because Rebecca is more powerful than she thinks, that’s why. And so are you.” Alice settled into the other brainwashing chair with a weary sigh. “The thought of having the two of you together, running around planning who knows what beyond my reach here in Berlin… well, it simply terrifies me, and not much does! Those two louts from last night were nothing compared to you and Rebecca. If I can’t have you working for me, I certainly won’t stand for you working against me!”

“We’re not…” Celeste looked Alice in the eyes. Really in the eyes, a deep into the soul sort of look. What she found was unsettling. “You’re actually scared of me, aren’t you? Scared of us. Scared of Rebecca, because she can hypnotize all of us just as well as you can.”

Alice nodded. “Oh, I’m so glad Rebecca can’t hear me right now!” She gave the sleeping girl a slight shake, and got a sleepy nnnnnn in response. “She put me under, that fucking wagon! Right in my own club, she did! Without drugs! Just that bloody pendant of hers and nothing more! If it hadn’t been for Fei’s clumsiness I’d have never snapped out of it, and where would I be then, Celeste? Folding your sheets and kissing your feet, that’s where!”

“I’m sorry,” Fei looked down at the floor in shame. “I was trying to grab a mug from the sink and it slipped out of my hands.” She held up a broken shard for emphasis. “I’ll clean it up,” she concluded. “I promise.”

“That’s okay, Fei.” Rebecca’s eyes were focused entirely on the sleeping Alice and Penelope, both still resting comfortably in their respective chairs. “Have they moved at all since I left? Did they… say anything? Move?”

“No, they’re still out like a light.” Fei opened a random cabinet door and peered inside. “Do you think she has, like, a broom or something? I feel really bad about the mug.”

“Blind, dumb luck is what saved me, Celeste. I don’t have to explain to you how terrifying that is to think about! Relying on luck to survive when there’s an Edwin or an Arthur lurking around every corner in this city?”

“We’re not going to be in this city! How are you not getting that? We want to go home, Alice! And never come within a hundred miles of this fucking place ever again!”

“You say that now, dearie. But what’s to stop you and Rebecca from building your own little army?”

“Imagine it. All of them fully trained and utterly obedient. They’ll follow any command you can think of, and believe me, I’ve given them plenty.”

Rebecca was naked. She was standing in front of a group of strangers. Just the thought of it would normally have terrified her, a recurring nightmare from her high school days come to life, but Mistress washed away her fears with a simple wave of her hand. Her breathing was calm and even, and she ignored the little drops of sweat that rolled off her forehead and into her eyes.

Mistress strutted from one side of the room and back again, her elegant white dress hovering an inch from the floor. Old Rebecca might have seen her as a ghost, but New Rebecca knew better. She was hovering because she could. Because Mistress could do anything.

A man spoke up, daring to defy Mistress. Rebecca would have yelled at him to shut up and let Mistress continue, had she the free will to do so. “There’s a lot of people in this mind control business. I’ve ordered thralls from Edwin and Amanda before, and they’re good enough for what they are. Why should I pay more for yours?”

All of the men and women in the room were born without faces, Mistress had explained to Rebecca, and now she could see that it was very much true. Each and every one of them wore a fuzzy blur where their eyes, noses, and mouths should have been. How they made sounds was a mystery she didn’t need to think about, and she didn’t. The one asking questions circled her as he spoke. He placed a hand on her ass and squeezed, causing her to moan happily until he took his hand away.

“Because these girls are all highly trained hypnotists. Utterly loyal and obedient to me, unable to resist my will, but perfectly capable of enslaving any thralls they encounter. Or anyone else, for that matter.” She pushed between Rebecca and the faceless questioner, bullying him back to his starting point. “But I can see you’re not convinced. So perhaps this will do more to convince you of my power over them.”

“Rebecca!” The word wrapped around Rebecca’s mind and held it in place. “Turn to your left.”

She did so. There were more blank-faced men and women in this direction, along with a white glow that she couldn’t quite make out. “Yes, Mistress.”

“You can see Missy now, and Missy, you can see Rebecca. Do you both understand?”

The white blur shrank and twisted until it became Missy, naked and beautiful, her soft eyes focused on Rebecca. Her hair was drenched with sweat. “Yes, Mistress,” she said. “I see Rebecca.”

“Yes, Mistress. I see Missy.” It felt so good to do as she was told. Missy knew that now. Would always know that from now on. Rebecca had seen to that.

“Rebecca, you will strangle Missy to death with your bare hands. Do it now.”

Rebecca nodded. “Yes, Mistress.”

Something inside her turned upside down, and she hesitated, fully aware that Mistress was staring her down.

But it’s Missy!

No, she told herself. Missy is a slave.

She raised her hands, then let them fall to her sides. Missy has a family! Her fiancé! I can’t…

“Rebecca.” Mistress did not sound angry at her, even as she stood in the middle of a crowded room openly fighting her commands. Mistress was wonderfully understanding at all times. “You will always obey the sound of my voice,” she added, her voice as soft as flowers. “Do as I command. Kill her.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Slaves must obey. You are a slave. You must obey. You will obey.

Missy waited patiently as Rebecca lunged forward, hands outstretched.

“Are you going to kill us?”

Alice’s answer landed hard. “Most mind controllers would.”

The brunette bit her inner cheek, hoping the pain would chase off the tears she wanted to shed. She was mostly successful. “I… I didn’t ask about them. I asked about you.”

“I am a woman of my word, Celeste Marie Sherwood. And I intend to keep that word. You’ll be leaving my hostel soon, under your own power, and under your own free will. You have choices, dearie. Rebecca here is too emotional and too undisciplined to fully understand them, but you! You’re the sort of girl who knows how to make decisions. Just as you did an hour ago, when you volunteered to go upstairs for me. No hesitation, no dithering, just a can-do attitude!”

“But you haven’t let us go. So cut the shit, Alice, and your explanations, and your excuses, and tell me why.”

Alice feigned surprise. “After all of that, after I’ve promised not to kill you, or hold you here forever? I dare say I don’t know whether to be cross or impressed by that!”

“Alice…”

“Now! You can stay here in Berlin and work for me, dearie, and I can already tell by the shape of your mouth that you don’t much fancy the idea, so I won’t spend much time on it. Suffice to say, you can work for me, and I’ll only hypnotize you just enough to keep your loyalties in line. Rebecca and Emily will go back to America with memories of castles and schnitzels and a wild night in bed with the most beautiful creature, a college student whom they unfortunately cannot quite recall.”

“Or?”

“I send you both back to America, but separately. Back to your lives, back to your schools, back to your futures, only now you’ll have the same memory of that wild night with a beautiful girl whose name will always escape you. But no memory of me, or what took place here. No desire to visit Rebecca’s hometown, and of course she’ll share the same disdain for yours. A bit of the ‘never the two shall meet’ business, more or less. And of course Emily as well, as I promised.”

Celeste looked at Rebecca. “You know what, Alice? You’re right. I am better than you.”

“Really, now? Better than me? That’s all well and good for you to feel that way, Celeste, but you’ve only got the two options. I simply need you to choose which best suits you.”

Celeste crossed her arms. She felt powerful, and even if it was an illusion, she was going to run with it for as long as she could. “The only thing that suits me is my girlfriend, sitting right here in that chair. And I will tear this fucking hostel down before I let you get in the way of that.”

She paused to take a deep breath, and looked Alice in the eye. “So this is what we’re going to do.”