The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

For a man who claimed to be in his early fifties, Fritz Becker looked and acted like a pensioner well on his way to the nursing home. His movements were slow and painfully careful, and he scanned each and every piece of paper from top to bottom with squinting eyes. Every now and then he would nod and mumble inaudible words to himself before reshuffling the stack of documents and holding up another sheet for a closer look.

To Alice, a woman not yet slowed by time or advancing age, it was positively insufferable.

She fidgeted in her overstuffed leather chair, trying to find the correct balance between impatient and too impatient, before deciding that Herr Becker was too engrossed with whatever he was reading to even notice her. Whenever his eyes darted away from the page, which was fairly often, it was only to glance at the pale-skinned beauty to Alice’s right. Alice herself was nothing more to him than another piece of furniture in a room already stuffed full of chairs, desks, and side tables.

“Ah! Ya, this.” He passed a new sheet to her. “This is the brandversicherungsurkunde, yes?”

“Brandver… I… um… to tell the truth, I have absolutely no idea what you’ve just said to me, Herr Becker. There were about thirty syllables in that term.” She scanned the sheet. “Feuer? Is it something about fire?”

“Yes.” Now it was Fritz’s turn to look impatient. “Insurance against the fire risks. You will need that for the bank.” He dove into another stack, producing a thin report bound with plastic clips. “And this is the Wirtschaftsplan. My income and expenses.” He laughed as he handed it to Alice. “Good luck with that! This old place is a drain!”

Alice tucked the report into her own growing collection of paperwork. She made a point not to look at it. “I’ve certainly got plans for the place! And don’t look quite so sour, dearie! You’re getting quite a good deal out of selling the place to me. I’ll wager my new hostel that girls like Katie rarely call here, much less call upon you!”

His eyes left hers and returned to the young woman standing next to her. “Yes, yes.” He drifted off, entranced by the sight of his new acquisition. “To be honest, young Alice, I believe I am getting the better end of the deal.” He handed over another stack of papers. “She’ll wake up when the deal is signed?”

“She’ll become your loving wife the moment the ink is dry, Herr Becker. You have my word. Yours and yours only, forever in marriage amen. Isn’t that right, Katie?”

“Yes, Alice.” The redhead’s voice was as empty as her emerald eyes.

Alice smiled. “See? And while the two of you spend your happily-ever-afters in Croatia, I quite intend to turn this hostel completely around. There’s nothing here that a bit of hard work and effort can’t freshen up. Did you know that there are eight million visitors to this city each year? And the average hotel room is eighty-four euros a night! Imagine what sort of business I could do with a rate a third of that! A quarter, even!”

Fritz laughed again. It was a knowing laugh meant to rattle the young entrepreneur seated before him, but Alice’s face remained unchanged, and the laugh soon petered out. “This place is very old, Alice,” he pressed. “The electrical system, the heating system, even the telephones… they are all out of date and expensive to run. That is why the hostel failed. Twenty euros a night is not enough to keep the heat on.”

Alice looked up at her former neighbor and friend, the pretty lass from down the lane that all of the local boys lusted after. “Katie, dearie?”

“Yes, Alice.”

“Why don’t you give Herr Becker a lovely shoulder massage? Just like the ones you used to give to your boyfriend back in Ireland. Your new husband looks a bit stressed, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, Alice.” She drifted to his chair like a graceful ghost. Her hands slipped over his shoulders and began to squeeze and release. The impromptu massage had its intended effect, and any and all of Fritz Becker’s criticisms concerning Alice came to a sudden and permanent end.

“There’s quite a bit more of that in store for you once we’re finished here. Katie’s first and only priority is you, Herr… oh, heavens, why am I being so formal? Fritz? May I call you Fritz?”

“Yes, of course.”

“The important thing to remember, Fritz, is that selling beds for the night is not the only way to make money in this town.” She snapped her fingers, and Katie froze. “I believe your new husband would rather you were between his legs, dearie.”

“Yes, Alice.” She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled around the chair as Fritz pushed back from the desk. Her glassy emerald eyes never left his, even as she unzipped his pants and took his cock into her hands.

“So you will… nnnn. You will hypnotize… ah. The guests? She is so good at this! You will make them like her?”

“Not like her,” said Alice. “Katie’s always been a bit special. She’s got a whole new life ahead of her. It took quite a lot of persuading to convince her of that. You’re not quite her type, I’m afraid! But I do have a few ideas on how my guests might volunteer to help pay my bills.”

Fritz closed his eyes. “Mmm. You will sell them?”

“Herr Becker!” Alice opened her mouth in faux shock. “Selling women like that would be a crime, dearie! In my hostel, we’ll only be selling introductions.”

Rebecca held the shot glass to her eye, staring through it towards a very blurry Alice. She gave the liquid inside a nudge and watched it swirl around, catching the lights of the club and sending them spinning across the table. Such a tiny glass, she thought, to be the catalyst of such enormous change. Then again, little things often were. A single bullet here, a flapping butterfly there.

Hypnosis. Drugs. Brainwashing rooms and videos. Slaves. Sex. So much sex! Attempted murder! Two attempted murders! Mistresses and mind control, and all because of some stupid little glass with a spiral set in its base!

It’s cool. Be cool. We can do this, Rebecca. She’s already off her game.

Mistress’s thoughts… her thoughts, their thoughts… served their intended purpose. Rebecca stepped off the runaway what-the-holy-fuck train and snapped back to what, against all odds, seemed to be her new reality. She gave the glass another moment and then placed it on the table, making sure to keep it within easy reach. They had plans for it.

“Still drugging college girls, Alice?” Rebecca asked. “When is enough going to be enough? A hundred of them? Two hundred? A thousand?”

She expected Alice to respond with scorn, but instead the woman looked pensive, as if she’d never thought about it before. Given how busy her days and nights were, did she ever have time for self-reflection? Was she even capable of it?

Don’t let your guard down Mistress warned. Remember how she tricked us the last time and then drugged the fuck out of us?

“I know, I know,” Rebecca said, before catching herself. Alice wasn’t supposed to know about the us. She forged ahead, eyes peeled for any sign that the Irish woman was growing suspicious. Well, more suspicious.

But Alice wasn’t interested in little details. “You know? You know very little, Rebecca.” The pensive look was gone, replaced by the hard gaze Rebecca had been expecting all along. “You never have, as much as I tried to teach it to you! What I do these days, in my club and in my hostel, is no longer any of your business. The interview is finished, Rebecca. You weren’t hired.”

I’ll take this, said Mistress, and Rebecca let her. As odd as being two personalities in one head was—and she planned to have a very, very long discussion with her girlfriend about how that happened—it was also oddly comforting. Two against one. That was how Alice lost the first time. This time the victory would taste all the more sweet.

Mistress flew out of the starting gate with a fury. “You know what is my business, Alice? My best friend, for starters. Emily is my business. Mine. And she’s none of yours. Ahp ahp ahp!” She pointed an accusing finger in Alice’s direction, cutting off the woman before she could respond. “You can stop right there. I know about Emily. I know about everything. Me, Celeste, Emily, your little hooker ring, and you breaking your promise to leave us alone. I can forgive a lot of it—“

Can we really? She tried to brainwash us, Miss!

Mistress pressed on. “—but your promise, Alice. Your so-called word. You’re being a snake, and trust me, none of us are pleased about it.”

Do the thing with the glass! Do it now do it now, Rebecca urged.

Mistress turned the shot glass with her wrist, spilling the contents onto the floor. Stray drops of raspberry Himbeergeist soaked into her jeans, possibly ruining them, but neither she nor Rebecca gave it much thought. She set the empty shot glass on the table with a satisfying clunk. “So I flew all the way out here to make sure that it gets fixed. Now fix it.”

Fuck yeah!, Rebecca cheered.

“Some might argue, Rebecca, that you’re as much of a deal-breaker as I am. I seem to recall someone here agreeing quite convincingly to having her memory erased before being sent home.” Alice reached for the shot glass and walked it back to her in a series of short hops. “And yet, that someone flew all…” clunk “the way…” clunk “out…” clunk “here… to tell someone she’s not even supposed to remember to fix something she’s not supposed to know about! Is that about right, Rebecca? Have I missed anything?”

“Hypnotizing Emily over the phone?” Rebecca curled her hands into fists. “Making her into your spy without telling us? Brainwashing her into using her Australia money to fly here instead? So that she could go back to being your little fuck puppet for hire?”

Keep cool, Rebecca. The angrier we get, the better she’ll feel.

As if to confirm Mistress’s worst suspicions, Alice responded with a laugh that drowned out the DJ and the boisterous Russians at the bar. “Oh, Rebecca! Oh, now that’s rich, dearie! Cast me as the villain if you wish, but it wasn’t me who put that idea in Emily’s pretty little head. Can you guess who it was? Your favorite duo here in town, aside from yourself and Celeste?”

“Edwin and Amanda.”

“Right you are.” Alice spread her arms wide and laughed again. “I should have Peter bring us over some drinks! Now, before you continue to assail me, Rebecca, I want you to think a bit more carefully about what I’ve done. Your friend has been brainwashed, and the programming’s quite deep. Rather than rewire the poor girl’s head to undo it, I simply redirected her. She’ll carry out her orders to fly to Berlin, only she’ll be visiting me. Better than being Edwin’s little fuck puppet!”

She looked into Rebecca’s eyes. “Oh, dearie, you didn’t try to hypnotize her, did you? I thought I’d brainwashed that out of your mind. You can’t simply erase a command like that!”

Is she lying? She’s-

“You’re lying,” said Mistress. “You didn’t do this for Emily. You did this for yourself. Edwin’s just an excuse to get your hands on Emily. And maybe us, too, huh? You never thought we’d find out because we didn’t remember this place. Well, you were wrong.”

“This whole thing is wrong,” Rebecca added. “Our deal was that you could go brainwash half of Germany if you wanted to, but our own minds remain ours. No triggers, no commands, no back doors. Even if we remember what happened, we haven’t told anyone, and we haven’t stopped you from, well…” she looked around the club. “From any of this.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “Excluding Hannah.”

“Except for Hannah, yeah.”

“Well then.” Alice held up her hand and, before Rebecca could react, snapped her fingers.

“Sleep, Rebecca.”

“WHAT?”

Emily handed Celeste a cold bottle. “I SAID IT’S REALLY LOUD TONIGHT.” She giggled, the noise pounded flat by the non-stop bass that wub wub wubbed its way through the entire bar. “WE SHOULD GO OUTSIDE.”

Roger appeared next to Emily, and slipped his arm through hers. She clinked her beer bottle against his. “They have a patio out back,” he said, glancing towards the rear of the building. “They have heat lamps and a big outdoor fireplace.”

Celeste shook her head. “WHAT?”

Emily laughed again, the same silent wub wub wub giggle as before. Her brown eyes sparkled. She unhooked herself from Roger and offered her free hand to Celeste. “WE’RE GOING OUTSIDE.”

Celeste would have preferred an offer to drive her to the airport, and a few thousand dollars for a nonstop to Berlin. But a cold beer and two friends in an otherwise lonely city were the best she could hope for at the moment. She took Emily’s hand and hoisted herself up from her chair.

“I miss Rebecca. I hope she’s okay,” she muttered, letting the music hide the fear in her voice.

Emily smiled and pointed to her ear. “WHAT?”

I want to be controlled. I want the music to hypnotize me. I want Mistress to show me one of Alice’s spiral shot glasses and hypnotize me in front of you.

Instead, she took a deep breath and yelled back. “I SAID OKAY, OUTSIDE SOUNDS GOOD.”

She let the beautiful redhead lead her by the hand to the back door. It wasn’t quite mind control, but it was also the best she could hope for at the moment.

“Sleep, Rebecca.”

Rebecca sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes opening wide with fear. It wasn’t possible. Alice had erased their triggers. She’d watched her do it to Celeste. Celeste had watched Alice do it to her. She couldn’t…

Then she realized that her eyes were still wide open, and that she was still thinking freely. And that Alice was looking at her with a shit-eating grin on her deceptively angelic face. She’d just gotten played.

A real fucking comedienne, Mistress grumbled.

“Hilarious,” said Rebecca.

“A little inside joke that Celeste would appreciate, dearie.” Alice chuckled to herself. “One can always hope for a residual trigger, can’t they? How is the lovely Miss Sherwood, Rebecca? Still worshipping your dripping cunt every night? I never should have made her so damn submissive.”

“That’s enough, Alice.”

“To think, if I’d made her the mind controller and you the mindless, eager thrall… where would we be right now?”

“I guess we all make mistakes, don’t we?” Rebecca rarely sneered, but this seemed like the perfect time for one. “We all have our little regrets.”

Mistress pushed her way to the front. “Let me introduce you to someone.”

It was cold out on the patio, but Celeste was from upstate New York, and she was determined not to show any winter weakness in front of her new friends. She steered clear of the enormous fire pit and the crowd of college students ringing it, seeking out a more isolated patch of open ground by the rear gate. Someone had kindly cleared all of the metal tables and chairs of snow, saving her the trouble of doing it herself. She set down her beer—nothing like an ice cold beer on a freezing night!—and chose the chair that faced the fire pit. From this distance, the students looked like pagans dancing around a sacrifice.

She missed Rebecca.

She focused on the chattering figures on the other side of the patio and tried to ignore the chattering voice in her own head that urged her to check her phone again, for the millionth time, in case Rebecca had sent a text. Mission accomplished. No, it was too soon for that. I’m in big trouble baby come rescue me please come quickly. She cursed herself. “Dammit, Celeste, that’s not…” Mistress was still in control of things. She remembered everything that happened to them in Berlin, and she knew everything Rebecca used to know about hypnosis. If anything, she was better at it than Rebecca. Alice was no match for that.

Alice was always ten steps ahead, though.

“She’s going to be fine. She’s going to come home soon. It’s going to be okay.”

“What’s going to be okay?”

A cascade of flame-red hair fell in front of her eyes as two tiny hands pressed against her upper arms. Warm air trickled down from Emily’s lips and mingled with her perfume, turning her into a field of roses on a warm spring day. Celeste breathed deeply and forced a smile. “How the hell did you sneak up on me?”

“I’m a ninja-cat, that’s how.” Emily pulled the chair next to her away from the table and settled into it. “Also, you were lost in thought and talking to yourself. What are you worried about? Can I help?”

“It’s okay.” Emily was so sweet. If anyone deserved to be free of Alice’s mind control, it was her. “I was just thinking about Rebecca, that’s all.”

Emily set down her drink—some kind of whiskey, good for warming the guts—and laughed. “Her mom’s not that bad, Celeste! And her dad is pretty cool, if you can stand all of his dad jokes. You’re right, she’s gonna be fine. And you are, too. Anything you need, we’re here for.”

Celeste smiled, and let an “awww, thanks” slip through her teeth. Anything I need, indeed. If only Emily knew how good of a mindless slave she used to be. She deserved to be free of that nasty Alice, sure, but what about from Mistress? Mistress was kind, and beautiful, and loved the redhead almost as much as she loved Celeste. Their threesome back in the hostel was something for the ages. Celeste could still taste Emily’s cunt on her tongue, if she thought about it hard enough.

She tried not to.

“Thanks,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

“Always! You’re one of us now.” Emily drummed her tiny hands on the table, making their drinks dance. “One of us. One of us. One of us.”

One of us. Deep. Mindless. Obedient. “All shall obey Mistress Rebecca,” she said. It felt good to sneak that into the conversation, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back. Also, Celeste, calm the fuck down. Mistress will be back here before you know it.

“Oh, if anyone’s going to be bossy around here, it’s me. I drag Rebecca all over the world. No one can resist my charms. Or yours. We’re a good team!” She leaned in, drink clutched in one hand. “She’s madly in love with you. It’s the sweetest thing in the world. When I met Roger, I was afraid she’d feel bad being a third wheel, but now we’re four-wheeling wherever we go!”

“You love Roger, don’t you?”

Emily’s pretty brown eyes dimmed just a fraction of a lumen, too fast for anyone not fairly obsessed with mind control—and currently hot and horny for being controlled herself—to notice. Celeste saw in those eyes her girlfriend’s influence, a light touch meant to guide Emily towards her perfect man, and nothing more. Very much like Rebecca to do so.

“I love him so much,” said Emily. “I mean, I had the hots for him for a long while, but once we started dating… it’s become so much more than that. The sex is still wild and hot, but we’re a real couple! I never saw that coming, to be honest.”

“I’m glad,” said Celeste. She was. Emily deserved to be happy, and if she couldn’t be happy as a mindless, devoted thrall to Mistress, this would have to do. Roger was a sweet boy, that much was true. She doubted that Rebecca had to do much at all to send Emily his way. “It’s crazy how quickly things fall into place sometimes.”

“Most guys make it all about themselves. I don’t know if it’s the same way with girls, but guys? Even when they tell you they love you, they’re thinking about how saying that is gonna get them laid. Because they’re really just in it to fill their own needs. I dated some guys like that, and Roger’s not that at all. He wants what I want, and you know what? He gets everything he wants, anyway! It’s so simple and yet so many people don’t understand that. That’s what I like about you and Rebecca. You both get that.”

“I guess.”

It wasn’t a guess, though. Emily was absolutely right about Rebecca. She really did want what Celeste wanted. A life together, full of all of the things that a young couple desired and deserved. She probably didn’t want to make Celeste a mindless thrall—check that, she absolutely didn’t want to make Celeste a mindless thrall—but that was where Mistress came in.

Rebecca wouldn’t have gone all the way to Berlin to take on Alice, either. That’s where you and Mistress came in. They hadn’t given Rebecca any choice in the matter. And if something bad happened? If Mistress somehow fell under Alice’s control again? She’d take Rebecca with her. She was risking her girlfriend’s life without her permission. Yeah, but Mistress knows what she’s doing. And my duty is to obey her and hold down the fort until she comes back. She’s coming back soon.

Emily was still talking. “Trust me, Celeste. Colonel Sanders is the sweetest and most caring creature on the face of the fucking Earth. Even more than Roger! And I…” She trailed off, her eyes landing on something in the distance. “Oh, yuck.”

“What?” Celeste was equal parts curious and afraid. She’d already had way too many ‘oh shit’ and ‘oh yuck’ moments for a woman her age.

“You see the blonde over there?” Emily pointed at a tall, skinny girl in black boots standing near the fire pit. She was surrounded by a ring of slightly shorter girls, all giving her their full attention. “That’s Zoe Peterson. She’s in my chem class and we’re supposed to be lab partners, except she’s never EVER around because she’s in lacrosse. I have some notes on a thumb drive that I promised to give her.”

“You could probably slip it under her dorm room door instead.”

“Nah.” Emily kicked her fancy boots together, sending bits of snow sprinkling to the ground below. “I’m going to suck it up and do the right thing. Rebecca would be proud of me. Stay here and I’ll be back. If not, avenge my death!”

Emily was up and out of her chair, purse tucked under her arm, before Celeste could say anything. She watched the redhead make her way over to the fire pit.

She’s right. Rebecca would do the right thing.

Did we do the right thing? Of course. Mistress always does the right thing. Mistress is wonderful and powerful and beautiful. She’s my everything.

But did I do the right thing?

She promised to give that some thought.

Alice’s eyebrow seemed to reach the ceiling. “I’m really not interested in meeting anyone at the moment, Rebecca. Have you hypnotized some lovely local girl? What would dear Celeste think of you, dearie! Perhaps we should call and ask her?”

Mistress half-stood, easing her way out of the booth while keeping her eyes locked on Alice. “Just stay here for a second. I want to bring her over to meet you.”

Alice said nothing. She folded her hands in front of her and leaned back in the booth, content to wait.

I hate her so fucking much, Miss.

Me too, Rebecca. Mistress angled around a pair of German boys, ignoring their requests for her to join them on the dance floor, and pivoted to her target. Blonde, bubbly, a bit like Celeste but with half the boobs and even less of the brain. She was staring at the rows of bottles behind Peter, her mind stuck on an endless loop of wait, sip, wait until her new Mistress came to collect her.

“Megan!” Mistress sidled up to her. “Are you still having fun?”

The girl turned to face her, her blue eyes widening with excitement. “Oh, hey Rebecca! Absolutely! This place is pretty cool! I’m so glad we came here. The bartender is really cute!”

“Yeah, Peter’s a nice guy. I don’t know why he works here, tell you the truth. He’s better than this place.”

Her eyes widened even more. “You know him? Can you get his number for me? I’ve been too nervous to ask him. My German isn’t all that great.”

“I bet I could.” Mistress shot her a knowing wink. “But first, I need you to come with me to talk to someone, okay?”

Megan bobbed her head. “Of course, Rebecca! Lead the way!”

“Megan? This is Alice. Alice? This is Megan.”

Alice looked the girl over like a farmer examining a prize steer. “Fair play, Rebecca. You’ve found yourself a new travel companion. This one’s a bit light upstairs, isn’t she? Not really your type.”

“Megan’s just fine, thank you.” Mistress pushed the sluggish girl into the booth and took a seat beside her. “She’s also… well, Megan? Tell Alice the very important thing you must always remember.”

Megan leaned forward, a goofy grin on her face. “I’m very deeply hypnotized,” she giggled. “I won’t remember any of this when I wake up.”

Mistress brushed the girl’s dark brown hair. “But you’ll still remember to obey me, won’t you Megan?”

Another goofy smile. “Of course, Rebecca. Always. I must always obey the sound of your voice.”

“Lovely,” Alice deadpanned. “I still wonder though, dearie, how Celeste would feel if she knew you were running about, hypnotizing other girls? Have you still got her programmed to be your slave? Or did you free her, as you promised so so many times to do? Hmm, I wonder?”

“Megan,” Mistress ignored Alice completely. “If I asked you to kill everyone in this club, what would you do?”

“Oh. I would totally do it, Rebecca! I’d start with her,” she said, looking straight at Alice. “And then I’d kill those two guys over there.” She looked over the German boys Mistress had dodged earlier. “They look weak. They’d never suspect me until it was too late. And then… I guess, the dance floor? They might try to run away, though.”

“How about Peter? Would you kill Peter? You like him so much, would you kill him?”

“If you told me to, Rebecca. I’d kill him.” Her voice was cold and hard, a complete contrast to the dreamy look in her eyes. “I am deeply hypnotized. I must always obey the sound of your voice.”

“Perfect. But no killing for now. In the meantime, you’ll hear and see nothing until I touch the back of your hand. Understood?”

Megan fell silent, a half-smile still hanging from her blank face. She didn’t reply.

Mistress turned her attention back to Alice. “I met Megan last night. Less than twenty-four hours ago. That’s all the time I needed to completely rewire her head. No drugs, no brainwashing chairs, no videos, no tablets like Edwin, just the sound of my voice. Take a look at her. You’ve seen more than enough brainwashed girls in your life to know what she’s capable of doing for me. Or to you. Or to anyone else.”

Alice, she noticed, hadn’t moved an inch since Megan joined them at the table, if not before then. Her hands remained folded in front of her. Behind them, underneath the swirling club lights, the DJ switched to a techno cover of Rolling in the Deep. Next to her, Megan stared off into space. Her thrall was, for all practical purposes, in outer space herself. Drifting, weightless, surrounded by eternal blackness, completely at peace… Mistress couldn’t help but envy her a tiny bit at that moment. Sometimes, having a fully functioning mind was the burden that people like herself and Alice had to carry around.

Never mind that, Rebecca thought. What do we do, Miss? We just played our best card and she’s just sitting there looking at… I don’t even know what?

Give her a second. We’re still ahead here.

She knows we’re lying. She knows that it really took us a long time to break Megan. We shouldn’t have made the timetable sound so short.

If she thought we were lying should would have laughed in our face by now, Rebecca. We’re cool. We’re cool with whatever she says next… although she’s starting to creep me out.

Yeah, I know. C’mon Alice, speak up.

Just then Alice spoke, as if she’d been reading their minds, a talent that would have come as a surprise to neither of them. “I take back what I said earlier, Rebecca. It seems you’ve learned more than I gave you credit for. I see it now. So you’ve come to threaten me, then?” She finally unfolded her hands, and rested them on the edge of the table. “Do you really want to kill her, Rebecca? Are you prepared for that? Because the Megan you send after me is the Megan who is never, ever going to see her friends or family ever again.”

“That’s if you see her coming,” said Rebecca. “What if you don’t? What if it was Hannah, and not Megan? What if it was a girl you thought was easy prey, someone just like me?”

“That’s not what I asked.” Alice had that glint in her eye, the one that let the whole world know that she was not about to buy into any of this. “I asked you if you were willing to send her to her death. Can you do that, Rebecca? Are you prepared to take things that far? Have you got it in you?”

Rebecca smiled. She could feel Mistress smile, too. They knew exactly how to respond to that. “You’ll never know, will you? You didn’t think I’d ever come back here. You didn’t think that I’d even remember you. So tell me, Alice. Are you really going to gamble on whether I’ve got the guts?”

“I actually used to be afraid that you’d do this to me,” said Mistress. “That if I escaped somehow you’d send Emily or Celeste or some other girl to my door to murder me. And yeah, you still could. But so can I. We’re even, Alice. Like nuclear war. Everyone loses.”

“But only if we press the button,” added Rebecca. “So let’s not.”

There was another long pause while Rebecca and Mistress waited for Alice’s response. Alice seemed set on making them wait for it. The DJ abandoned Adele in favor of the Black Eyed Peas, much to the delight of at least one overly loud and overly excited clubber. At the bar, the crowd of Russians drifted away, only to be replaced by an even larger and noisier group of revelers who descended upon poor Peter like locusts.

She doing the stalling thing again. We should say something.

You’re the one who wanted to keep cool, Miss. Let her keep dragging it out. We have all night.

No, I’m gonna say something this time.

“Well?” Mistress tapped her hand for emphasis. “Anything?”

“I’ll give you credit, Rebecca.” Alice’s words dribbled out in a careful stream. “When we mutually agreed to wipe your memories and send you home, I never imagined you’d pull a fast one on me and come skulking about months later like you have.” Her eyes narrowed. “But here you are. With a sound plan, no less. Mutually assured destruction! And I thought I’d seen it all in this city.”

Mistress matched her cold stare. “You’ve got to be ruthless in this business.”

Alice curled her lips in, as if holding in an angry outburst. But instead, the puckered lips gave way to a broad grin. “Deadly, Rebecca! You are simply deadly! Now where on Earth was this Rebecca when I needed her? This is the girl I saw when I first saw you, dearie. Now! I accept your opening bid, but before we discuss more—ah, excellent timing!”

Mistress sensed the figure behind her before the hand fell on her shoulder. She sucked in her breath and turned her head, expecting to find the tough-looking bouncer by her side, ready to haul them out of Club Trabant. Instead…

“Your hair is a lot longer,” said Rebecca.

“Thanks! It’s starting to grow on me. Literally!” The girl shook her head, covering her face with a curtain of electric blue hair. She brushed it away. “Rebecca, right? You’re back in town already?”

“Just for a little bit.”

“Well shit, come by the bar later and I’ll buy you a drink. Anything for the boss’s buddies!” She turned to Alice. “Speaking of, boss, can I get you a drink? You’re dry.”

“I’m fine, Grace. Rebecca and I are just catching up. Do me a favor, dearie? The poem I taught you?”

“Oh.” Grace rolled her eyes. “You’re not gonna ask me to say it, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I expect. Boss’s orders. Now go on, tell Rebecca what I taught you.”

She sighed, a weary exhale from someone preparing herself to look very foolish. “Roses are red, violets are in France, when I finish this poem, I will go deep into trance.” The last syllable dangled from her tongue as her face slackened and her eyes glazed over. Her hand fell from Rebecca’s shoulder.

“Grace,” Alice began, before Rebecca could say a word. “Sit down next to me and await my orders.”

“Yes, Alice. I await your commands.” The bartender dropped into the booth and carefully positioned herself at the end of the bench seat, a perfect counterpart to the mesmerized Megan.

Two mistresses, two pawns.

Two mistresses and me. She’s still outnumbered, Miss.

“Now,” said Alice. “You’ve got your assassin, I’ve got mine. You’ve got your girl, or girls, and I’ve got mine. Before we get down to details—and we will deal, and I promise that I will be quite fair and accommodating—but before all that, I’d like to discuss our other mutual problem.”

Roger. Why not Roger?

The thought came to Celeste as she watched the lanky boy make his way over to her isolated corner of the back patio, two beer bottles dangling from his long, thin hands. I could hypnotize Roger again. He went under so easily!

She just needed to get him alone. Their isolated corner of the patio was nearly good enough, but Emily would come by eventually. No, she needed to wait until she could catch him alone in his apartment. Show him Rebecca’s old pendant, drop her voice into a slow, even cadence as she swung the pretty bauble in front of his sagging eyes. Then she’d teach him how to hypnotize Emily, and how to sell it to the redhead—it’ll be fun, Em! We’ll role-play! Just watch the watch, back and forth…

They’d both have new triggers that only Celeste would know about. She could drop them at her leisure. Or, maybe she’d teach Roger to hypnotize her and Emily at the same time, giving him the keys to their minds, letting him have his way with two beautiful women instead of one. A threesome, maybe. Just like that sexy tryst on the floor of the hostel kitchen, only with a guy in the mix.

And when Mistress came back, they could make it a foursome.

And if Mistress didn’t like the idea, she could always free them.

You know which of those she’s going to choose, dummy. No fucking with Emily! No matter how much you want it!

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Roger took Emily’s chair overlooking the main bar, and set the bottles on the table. “Here, have some brain juice. It helps with the thinking.”

I’m thinking about brainwashing you into letting me fuck your girlfriend. “I dunno, Roger. A lot of stuff. Just thinking about how crazy all of this is, I guess. Six months ago I was in upstate New York living a boring suburban girl life and now… it’s just that everything in my life is so different.”

“Tell you what,” he said. “Six… well, seven months ago, I was living a boring college boy life. And then she came into my universe.” He raised his bottle in the direction of Emily, who was now nearly surrounded by the sorority girls. “And then everything changed. My whole life changed. So much for the better! You and Rebecca are so great together, Celeste. I totally get that.”

His earnestness made her feel warm and fuzzy, and she let her Big Plan settle to the back of her mind. “And it was love at first sight, huh? With you and Emily?”

“Oh hell no!” He cackled and knocked his heavy work boots together, a trait he’d clearly picked up from Emily. “Oh my God, Celeste! We chatted in class a lot. Every week. Then we made plans to go to this big dance, and she stood me up!”

“Whaaaaa?” Celeste feigned ignorance. She knew this story well.

“Yeah! But then she came to class and apologized, and asked me out on a date. We went and saw Groundhog Day at the student union, and at the end of the night we walked back home holding hands… you know how that first kiss feels?”

She could taste Rebecca on her lips. “Yeah.”

“You never forget it. Once you feel it, you know you’re never going to be with another lover for the rest of your life. Game over, you found the one! There’s a hundred hot girls in this bar, and I couldn’t care less. I only see the hottest one in the world, you know?”

They both watched as the hottest one in the world began jabbing her finger at the tall blonde girl. “Uh oh,” said Roger, his voice tinged with concern. “You know what they say about redheads and temper, right?”

“I figured there was a volcano under all of that sweetness.”

“Yep. Mount Emily’s about to blow. I should go rescue her.” He set his beer on the table and began to rise to his feet.

“No, wait!” Celeste tugged at his coat jacket. “Bad move, tiger. Take it from me. Girls argue, you don’t wanna be in there.” She followed his lead and put down her beer. “Em needs a wing girl right now and since Rebecca’s not here…”

“You’ll save me from getting my head torn off? You’re a saint, Celeste. You really are.”

Marching straight from her table to the scene of the throwdown was a bad idea—everyone would see her coming, and her mission would be obvious from the start—so Celeste decided on a more leisurely route around the edge of the patio space, keeping groups of people between her and Emily. She had time; things hadn’t escalated to the point of shouting, or worse. She’d heard stories of Emily’s temper from Rebecca, but the perpetually sweet and sunny redhead had a way of disarming you.

But the Emily that went after Rebecca that night hadn’t been sweet or sunny. Rebecca could have died that night. Her Rebecca.

And you helped create that Emily. You helped them to turn her into a killer.

She jammed a hand into her pocket, and curled it around the cool, smooth object she habitually carried with her at all times.

“I can fix this,” she said out loud, to nobody in particular. “I’m going to fix this. I owe you one, Emily.”

She turned to her left and, bracing herself, began her approach.