HOSTEL
Chapter Twenty Nine — Heading Home
“Spill it. All of it. That’s an order!”
Emily fell backwards onto her bed and sighed, her boobs jiggling appreciably as she bounced. She inched herself forward under her head reached her pillow, then sighed again. “I’m sore in so many places, Rebecca. All of the right places.”
“That’s so wholesome of you.” Rebecca giggled as she dodged the slow-moving pillow that came at her. “Was it perfect? Was he the perfect guy?”
Emily rolled over and propped her head with her hands. “Well. Nobody’s perfect. I mean, I’ve had… you know. Bigger guys. But he was so sweet and so gentle with me! He whispered a poem to me while I sucked him off. Oh my God, and then! Then! He was like ‘What can I do to really make you happy?’ Eeeeee! I nearly jizzed right then and there!”
I know what I’d do to make you really happy, Em.
Rebecca chased the offending thought from her head. She wasn’t about to screw everything up again. “I still can’t believe that you’re fucking Roger Thorpe.”
“Ahem. Making sweet, passionate, romantic love to Roger Thorpe, you heathen.” Emily raised her legs and kicked the air. “And I LOVE it! We’re gonna go to the movies on Friday. Hey, you wanna come with us? I know a girl in my European Studies class who’s look…ing… for… a … girrrrrlllllfrieeeeennnd….”
“Maybe.”
Emily’s brown eyes narrowed. “Colonel. Sanders. You are coming with me and Roger and Alison if I have to tie you up and lock you in the trunk. Oh! Better idea! Do you still have that pendant? I’m gonna hypnotize you with it and make you fall madly in love with Alison Strumack.”
Rebecca’s eyes darted to her desk. “Yeah, no, I gave that up, Em. I always screw things up somehow, and then I get into trouble, or people hate me. Remember Svetlana? The girl at Chad’s party?
“Uh, you mean Svetlana the Chicken?” Emily rolled onto her side and curled her arm into a flapping chicken wing. “Bok bok!”
“Yes, Svetlana the Chicken. Which was your idea, by the way. She literally goes out of her way to avoid me now.”
“That’s because she’s still a chicken,” Emily snorted. “Bok bok bok! And also, you’re full of shit. I saw you look at your desk just now, you liar! You still have it. Don’t lie, I see and know everything.”
Rebecca threw her hands up in defeat. “Okay, fine. Fine! I still have it. And it’s staying in the drawer!” She took a deep breath, and let it bring her pulse rate back to something approaching normal. “If I go to the mo vies, will you stop asking me to turn people into chickens?”
Emily’s face softened. “Okay. No more chickens. But you have to keep practicing on people, Rebecca. You’re really really good at it, and it’s what you want to do with your life. So promise me you won’t throw that pendant away, okay?”
Rebecca nodded. Emily was right, as usual. “Yeah, I promise.”
“And promise me you’ll hypnotize Alison into being your love slave on Friday.”
Rebecca scrunched her face as she laughed. She held Emily’s pillow over her head and took aim.
“Alison? Alison Strumack?”
“Yes?” The woman’s hand went immediately to her purse. She came to a slow, uncertain halt. “Do I know you? I’m… look, I’m kind of in a hurry.” She looked around, frowning when she realized that there were no crowds to protect her on this block. “I’m sorry… you look familiar, but…”
Rebecca smiled. Street crime was rare enough in this city; muggings conducted by beautiful twenty somethings in heels and black dresses was almost certainly much rarer. Whatever Alison had in her purse, it wasn’t going to end up being sprayed in Rebecca’s face. “It’s… wow, this is so weird! Alison Strumack! Do you remember me? Rebecca Sanders?” She gave the other woman a second to process her words, then continued. “We went to college together? We were both friends with Emily?”
“Rebecca?” Recognition, or at least a hint of it, flowed into her face. Her hand fell from her purse. “Oh my God, that IS so weird! How… how are you? You look great! Jesus!”
The correct answer was of course, I must always look good for my Mistress, but Alison wouldn’t understand that. Not yet. Instead, Rebecca smiled again and pretended to give Alison a quick once-over. “You look great, too!” No one behind her. No cars on the street.. “I’m so sorry I didn’t keep in touch!”
It was the perfect line. Busy, frazzled, career women were always losing touch with someone. An old college girlfriend, a best friend from high school, an old neighbor from two cities ago. Even if they’d never met Rebecca at all, a part of their brain would always convince them that they somehow had. It encouraged them to drop their guard, just as the beautiful woman in the tailored blazer and skirt was doing now.
“I… uh… hey, I’m so sorry, I’m kinda in a rush.” Alison took a step forward to emphasize the point. “Can I get your number? I’d love to catch up sometime! Maybe we could do lunch, or… do you live here in town?” As she spoke, her smile brightened into something more genuine. “God, where have you been? I feel like such an ass, running out on you, but there’s this thing…” She pulled out her phone and held her thumb over the screen, ready to enter Rebecca’s number.
Ready to program it.
Rebecca reached a hand into her bag, the backs of her fingers brushing up her Mistress’s everything belongs to Mistress new phone. Her hand curled around something else. “Yeah, sure.” The rummaging gave her an excuse to quickly scan the block one last time. “I can’t wait to tell you everything that’s happened since college! I… oh, here it is! Ugh, I can never find anything in this bag!”
“I know how you feel. That’s why I bought a tiny one. I was always losing… hey, did you color your hair? I remember it being… more…” Her voice fell to a murmur. “More… more…”
“Watch the pendant, Alison. Back and forth.” It glittered beneath the streetlights, the colors dancing across Alison’s glassy green eyes. “The pendant will always send you into a deep hypnotic trance.”
“Pen… dant. So… pretty…” Her phone slipped from her fingers and clattered to the sidewalk. They both ignored it.
“You’re under my control again, Alison. You remember all of it now. How my words will always take you into deep trance. How my pendant will always send you into a deep hypnotic trance.”
“Trance…” Alison pursed her lips and shuddered. “Yesss… under control…”
“You’re going to be so happy, Alison. Mistress is going to change your life.”
A goofy, dreamy grin. “That’s nice.”
Just for the weekend, though. Just enough to get a few hooks into Alison’s sleepy mind, before sending her back to begin erasing herself from her old life. Everyone had their own little frustrations with life. Mistress knew just how to coax them out of women like Alison, how to use them to make a sudden argument with a close friend or a sudden decision to leave a job seem perfectly reasonable. And, of course, when the shit began to hit the fan, her old college girlfriend would be there for her.
“So sleepy, Alison. Just listen to my voice…”
A car pulled to the curb further down the block, unloading two very drunk and very loud women from the back seat.
“…and only my voice.”
The new arrivals stumbled halfway up the stairs of the nearest brownstone before turning around, laughing as they skidded back to the sidewalk. The taller of the two waved her oversized purse at her friend. “Two nine six one! This is two six nine one, you dummy!” They both laughed at their error, then turned towards Rebecca and her newest slave.
Rebecca sized them up. Drunk. Very drunk. Too drunk to stay focused on her pendant. Too drunk to accept commands. Possibly too drunk to notice the hypnotized woman swaying in the middle of the sidewalk, but not likely. Women looked out for each other in cities like this. They’d have questions for them, questions that Alison was now hopelessly incapable of answering.
“Alison,” she said, feeing a wave of calm wash over her mind and body. Slaves never had to worry about panic. “Do you have a car? Are you parked nearby?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca slid her arm around Alison’s and pulled her close. She still wears the same perfume. “Take me to your car. When we get there, you’ll ask me to drive. You’re too tired and sleepy. So sleepy, Alison. So very sleepy.”
Her eyes fluttered. “So sleepy. You should drive.”
Rebecca gave a slight tug, just enough to set Alison in motion. The drunks were knee-deep into an argument about which direction to go, and they never noticed the two fashionably-dressed women walking arm-in-arm towards Van Buren Avenue.
“What’s she mumbling about?”
Alice leaned in close. “Someone named Alison. A friend of hers?” She shrugged, in a way that suggested she knew more than she was letting on. “She’s still a bit out of it. I’m not as familiar with these knockout drugs… a real shame that someone pilfered all of the good stuff, isn’t it?”
It was a tease, and Celeste knew it. Even so, she couldn’t resist a counterpunch. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to brainwash everyone.”
“Oh?” Alice resumed what Celeste had come to think of as ‘her stance’—arms folded across her chest, head slightly tilted, her striking blue eyes burning twin holes into her opponent’s face. “You’re the one with the plans, dearie. You were just about to tell me your latest, remember? I’m all ears.”
I bet you are. “You gave me two options.”
“Indeed I did. That was my plan, Celeste. I’m more interested in hearing yours at the moment.”
“And they both suck. They’re terrible plans. You brought me and Rebecca together, and now you want to make us live apart forever?”
“I never claimed they were happy endings, Celeste. But compared to what others have gotten from me? I’m bloody Father Christmas today! But do go on!”
“I love Rebecca.” It felt good to say, even now, and she smiled as she placed a gentle hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “I love her, and you know that. She loves me, and you know that, too. So why break us apart? Because you’re scared?”
Alice said nothing.
Her silence threw Celeste off for a moment; she had expected the Irish woman to put up more of a fight. Perhaps the fight was still to come. “You know what you’re really afraid of, though? It’s not me. It’s not Rebecca, either. It’s what we know. It’s what we can do.”
“Fair point, dearie. But what you’re asking is a risk for me.” She uncrossed her arms and crossed them again as she spoke. “You’d like me to brainwash the hypnosis out of you, but to leave everything else intact? It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Liar. “Why is it harder? You literally just said that you were going to erase our memories of our time here, but nothing else. So, erase our memories of knowing how to hypnotize people instead and then send us home. Together. With our memories of each other intact. That’s my plan. That’s what I want, Alice.”
She ran her hand through Rebecca’s messy, tussled hair, taking care not to snag any knots or pull too hard. “I want Rebecca. Nothing else matters.”
“And what makes you think you can take her from me, Celeste?” Mistress paced back and forth in front of a kneeling Rebecca. “I’m assuming that’s not your real name.”
The beautiful brunette placed her hands on her hips, hooking her thumbs into the belt-less belt loops of her painted-on jeans. She was calm and confident. “That’s Agent Celeste to you, Samantha. I’m Agent Celeste of Action Force. And I’m walking out of here with Rebecca, whether you like it or not.”
“She belongs to me, body and soul.” Mistress stepped between Rebecca and Celeste. “And if you look deep into my eyes, Agent Celeste, you’ll soon see why. The answers are in my eyes. Do you remember that? How you looked deep into my eyes?”
“Y… your eyes?”
“Yes, Celeste. Look into them now.”
Rebecca watched as the brunette began to slip into trance. She had beautiful hazel eyes, eyes that were now wide open and helpless, unable to look away from the irresistible force dragging them down.
“Huh,” Celeste said, as if being hypnotized by Mistress was just something that happened to a person, like stepping in poop or spilling coffee. “I… eyes…”
Beautiful hazel eyes. Soft and warm and full of genuine love. Rebecca could stare into them all day. Had stared into them all day, in fact, on the day that Mistress sat the two of them on her enormous bed and had them trance each other over and over until they were both as deep as they could go.
She found herself falling into them again, even as they began to glaze over.
“Yes, Celeste. Even you can’t resist my eyes. Just like when you first came to me, so alone and lost. You weren’t undercover then, were you? You were lost. You needed me. Needed to look into my eyes. Look into them now.”
“Need to look…” She was wilting, her earlier bossy confidence replaced with sleepy confusion as Mistress approached her.
“Sleep in my eyes, Agent Celeste.”
Agent Celeste. Memories began to slip into Rebecca’s mind, memories that had been recently and hastily erased. The afternoon at the pool, their wet bodies wrapped together, Celeste whispering new truths into Rebecca’s happy ears. “I’m here to rescue you, Rebecca. You’re under her spell. But I can save you.”
But no one could save Celeste now. Rebecca could just make out the edge of her blank, empty face behind Mistress. Whatever training she’d been given to resist Mistress was rapidly failing her. In a few minutes, she would be Slave Celeste again. Again and forever, just like the others.
“Here, let me clean that up.” Celeste bent down, dish towel in hand, and began to blot the carpet where Rebecca had dropped her glass. Her boobs spilled out of her dress as she worked. “You shouldn’t let her treat you this way, Rebecca. Like a slave.”
“But I am a slave.”
Celeste looked up at her. “But you weren’t always a slave. Think about that. If you had free will, would you want to put up with this?”
“Stop.” Rebecca pulled herself to her feet, resisting the urge to let gravity take her back to kneeling again. Even gravity wants you to be a slave, Rebecca. “Stop doing that to her. Stop it!”
Mistress spun around. “How dare you question me,” she hissed. “Get on your knees. I command you.”
Rebecca felt her body turn into wet cement, heavy and desperate to fall to the floor. She locked her knees together and did her best to return the stare. “No. You… let… her go.”
The next word surprised them both. “NOW!”
“Rebecca? Baby?” Celeste’s hand curled around Rebecca’s shoulder. She knew it was probably useless to try shaking the girl awake. She tried anyway. “Hey, Rebecca! Wake up! I’m right here with you.”
“I… love Celessssste…” Rebecca raised her hand and made a fist, aiming it at something only she could see. “You can’t…. take away from… me…”
“Ah! She’s starting to come back around!” Alice could barely contain her glee. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she began fiddling with something beneath the large monitor, casting a glance back at the two girls after every adjustment. “That will speed things up a bit. Not that I don’t mind our lovely conversation, mind you!”
“If I didn’t need you to fix her,” Celeste scowled, “I would beat the shit out of you right now for what you’ve put her through. You and your two dolls over there.”
“I’m sure that you would, dearie! Unfortunately, we all must do things we don’t like.” Alice made a few more adjustments before switching on the monitor. She shook her head and, frowning, switched it off again. “Take myself. I am about to give away three of my girls, lovely ones at that, and for what? Certainly nothing in return!”
“Nothing? What did I just do upstairs? A whole lot of nothing?”
“You simply returned my property to me.” Alice dropped to her knees and adjusted more dials. “I’d hardly call that a Nobel Prize effort! Now, Rebecca is coming around, which means we’ll have a short window to lead her into a trance state. That’s what all of this is for. After that, we can start working on her memories.”
“We?” Celeste nearly choked on the word. “Can I be honest, Alice?”
“You’ve not been holding back so far, have you?”
“I don’t even trust you. What’s to stop you from brainwashing us into coming back here, year after year, like the others?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Alice rose to her feet and snapped the monitor on. This time, she left it running. “I really must be getting soft in my old age, Celeste! Because were this any other night, I’d have you strapped to that chair instead of letting you carry on like this. Feeding you drugs until your mind was as empty as a scut’s wallet. And the brainwashing? You haven’t the slightest idea what I can do. What I’ve done to girls just like you.”
The monitor, and the collection of black boxes that fed into it, struck up a humming noise that forced Alice to raise her voice. She was bathed in the blue glow of the screen, a backlit devil about to make a deal, one that Celeste would inevitably come to regret.
“Imagine that you’ve crossed me, dearie. For doing less than what you’ve done over the past week, mind you! I’d have you catching the next train to Amsterdam, suitcase in hand, walking straight for the nearest canal. Ready and willing to throw yourself into it without hesitation. They’d likely tell your parents that it was a tragic accident. A young girl taking a selfie and slipping, nothing more.”
“Jesus. You didn’t. Alice, that’s…”
“Murder? Not in the slightest. I’ve never killed anyone, Celeste. I’ve only given them certain suggestions. And if you’d like it to stay that way, you’ll be a cooperative little church mouse and help me with Rebecca here. I’ll get one shoulder, and you take the other.”
Celeste frowned, even as she found herself ducking under Rebecca’s right arm and waiting for Alice to do the same to Rebecca’s left. “You didn’t really kill anyone, did you? The people from last night… Rebecca said they tried to kill me. I can’t see you doing the same thing.”
“Does it really matter?” Alice grunted as they pulled Rebecca to her feet. “Oof! You really should lift with your knees, dearie! Back pain is nothing to snort at!”
It was only after they’d lowered Rebecca into the chair closest to the monitor that Celeste remembered that the entire brainwashing apparatus was on wheels. There was no need to move Rebecca at all. Alice had only asked her to do it so that she’d become an active part of the brainwashing process, an eager helper instead of a helpless bystander.
“I just need to know, I guess,” she shrugged.
Alice lifted one of Rebecca’s eyelids, mumbled something to herself, then returned to making adjustments to her equipment. “I do what I need to do to survive in this city, Celeste. That, and nothing more. I think you’ve seen by now what being careless gets you here.” The humming noise increased in intensity. “I’m glad that you think of me as being soft at heart, but I’ll never apologize for looking after myself. And I’ll never apologize for making money by doing what I’ve learned to do best. And neither should you.”
Celeste settled into the other chair. There was nothing left to do but wait for her turn.
“I like you, dearie. You know what you want, and you’re not afraid to demand it. When you wanted Rebecca to take over from me, you were willing to hypnotize her into wanting it. When you wanted to keep her by your side, you looked me in the eye and said so. I’m not going to brainwash that out of you, Celeste. You’re going to need it in this life.”
The monitor switched from blue to black. Colors began to snake across the screen, twisting and turning in headache-inducing patterns. Celeste turned away and placed a hand to her head.
“Elizabeth? Please go upstairs and retrieve another dose of what we gave Rebecca, please.”
“Yes, Alice.” Purpose filled the girl’s otherwise empty eyes. She left her sister’s side and marched to the door.
Celeste watched her leave, wishing that she could do the same. Alice was still talking, but Celeste ignored her and focused her attention on the squeaky basement door. Beyond it was freedom. From Alice, from the hostel, from danger. You and Rebecca. Just focus on the prize. You and Rebecca, walking through that door, walking up the stairs… She traced their planned path from hostel to home, step-by-step, as Alice continued to lecture her.
“…and that’s why I do what I do, Celeste. You have to be ruthless, much as I hate to be! If you’re not, you lose. Just like you. Just like Rebecca.”
“You lose, and then you’re at someone else’s mercy. If they have any.”
“You WILL obey me, Rebecca. You MUST.”
Swirling, magical eyes. Mistress’s eyes weren’t human. They couldn’t be; they didn’t function like human eyes, and at full power, they looked like something from other world. Something ancient. Something black and slimy and evil.
Rebecca looked, and wished that she hadn’t. There was no escape from them.
“On. Your. Knees. My eyes command you.”
“You’re…. you’re a person,” Rebecca managed. She could barely breathe. She could feel the wind rush past her ears, even if the room looked calm. “You’re not a Mistress… just a person. Just a woman.”
“When I’m done with you, you’ll wish that I was just a person.”
Mistress towered over her, a vampire about to sink its teeth into Rebecca’s neck. About to go for the kill. She braced herself for what was about to happen. “Kill me, then.” She closed her eyes.
“Urk.”
Mistress enveloped her. But instead of tearing at her neck, or forcing her eyes open, Mistress continued to fall, landing on the tile floor with a painful thump. A mixture of blood and spit oozed from her open mouth as she lay motionless, groaning and mumbling words too soft for Rebecca to hear.
An arm wrapped around Rebecca’s waist. “Don’t fall. Here, I got you.”
“She’s just a person. She’s…”
“Yep. Her name is Samantha Tabor. She’s been running this operation for years. We found out about it months ago, but it took that long to… hey! Stay with me, Rebecca! You’re… here, sit down.”
Rebecca let Agent Celeste guide her to a nearby chaise. She fell into it, grateful to be off her feet again. “You came here on purpose. I remember that. You came here to rescue us.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry that I got you caught and brainwashed again. I wasn’t exactly myself at the moment.” She pulled her long hair back into a makeshift ponytail that quickly came undone. “I knew I could trust you, Rebecca. I knew it from that first night we spent together on the yacht. I knew that I had to save you. I never thought that you’d be the one saving me!”
Rebecca gasped. She gripped the edge of the chaise with both hands as she looked back at Mistress. The woman only a woman was still where they’d left her, out cold.
“It’s okay. I hit her really hard.” Celeste winked at her, and grinned. She patted the chaise and then sat down. “It’s over. We’re free. We can go home now.”
“Home?” Rebecca tried to picture one. The only memories that came to mind were those of the room they were sitting in. “I don’t think I have a home.”
The brunette leaned in close, her forehead touching Rebecca’s. “You’ll always have a home with me.” Her warm breath tickled Rebecca’s lips. “Always.”
Their lips met, and Rebecca closed her eyes.
The screen filled with pictures of a long, low-slung modern building. Two empty eyes dutifully took them all in. A man’s voice, cold and clinical, crackled through her headset.
“The Gemäldegalerie. Repeat.”
Her lips parted. “The Gemäldegalerie.” She stumbled over the unfamiliar word.
More pictures. A long, narrow room filled with art. A row of Renaissance paintings, dark with age, looming over a crowd of tourists. “Such beautiful art. Stayed here for hours. Repeat.”
“Such beautiful art. Stayed here for hours.” They were so beautiful. It was no wonder she’d stayed at the Gemäldegalerie for hours.
A baggage claim, filled with suitcases and duffel bags. “It took forever to find those suitcases. Repeat.”
“It took forever to find those suitcases,” she mumbled as she filed the memory away for future use. Those suitcases had taken forever to find!
An older building, tucked away on a back street. Two smokers loitered beneath a blurry neon sign. “Forget,” the man’s voice pressed. “Forget. Forget.”
“Forget.”
Something dimmed. The monitor in front of her, for one, but also the room around it, plunging her into darkness. She kept her eyes on the screen. It was bound to show her something new, and she needed to pay very close attention to it.
“You’re doing so well, dearie.” A woman’s voice, sweet and lyrical. She felt herself relax, dimly aware that this voice would always make her feel this way. That it she could listen to it all day long. “Now, let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention to my slide show.”