The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Wraps N Ribs was chaos. Celeste, being new to town, had no idea that weekends were best spent patronizing a different establishment, and that only the very dedicated and the not very hungry tried their luck at the popular eatery on weekend mornings. Kayla, thoroughly dedicated to carrying out her orders, circled the lot endlessly until she found a parking space in the farthest corner of the property. Celeste comforted herself with the knowledge that this was good slave training, forcing Kayla to complete an unpleasant and tedious task without fail. Privately, she regretted not pulling out her phone and finding a different diner.

The inside of the restaurant was as bad as the lot. Families with restless children piled into booths as soon as they were vacated, an endless cycle of order-serve-clear-order that threatened to run into the afternoon hours. Their table—fortunately, they arrived just as one was opening up—was surrounded by an unceasing cacophony of utensils clanking against plates, plates clanking against tables, and half-heard conversations spoken by fifty different tongues.

And yet, in spite of the crowds—or, perhaps, because of them—not a single person took notice of the two pretty, glassy-eyed college coeds tucked away in the corner, an accomplishment that made their new handler very happy.

“Thanks again for breakfast, Zoe,” said Celeste as she chased down and speared the last remaining sausage on her plate. The urge to eat something hot and unhealthy for breakfast was almost as firmly lodged in her own head as the command to pay for it was in Zoe’s. At least she was being generous, she reasoned. No fancy five-star breakfasts with caviar and bottomless mimosas. No, if Wraps N Ribs was good enough for Rebecca and Emily, it was good enough for her. Judging by the ever-present crowds, it was good enough for everyone in town.

Of course, when Mistress got back home, Zoe was going to buy her dinner at the finest restaurant in town.

The blonde, who by now was more than happy to spend all of her money on Mistress, responded to Celeste with the kind of midwestern aw-shucks-ness that the New York native had come to appreciate. “Aw,” she said, turning slightly red, “it was the least I could do. You saved me from freezing to death last night. I should really be thanking you!”

The blonde’s voice, light and vaguely sing-song in tone, made Celeste press her legs together, her thighs rubbing against each other in a vain attempt to keep pace with the very naughty thoughts her brain was churning out. She imagined the same happy, submissive voice coming from her own lips, spoken in front of Mistress while they were both naked, limbs hopelessly intertwined. Thank you, Mistress. Thank you for everything. You saved me.

“Seriously, breakfast was the least we could do for you,” added Kayla. She’d finished her meal and, with no other programming to follow, set herself to admiring Celeste with a faraway, dreamy gaze. Like Zoe, her voice was light as smoke.

“You’re both too much!”

“Yes, Miss-eleste.” The blonde blushed again, like a naughty girl caught with her hand where it didn’t belong. “We just love you and want you to be happy, that’s all.”

Celeste pretended to scold her, although the smile on her face indicated otherwise. “I heard that.”

“Yes, Celeste. “

“We should get out of here.” She pushed her dish away from her, hoping the motion would catch the attention of their waitress. Zoe’s day was completely free, but Kayla led a busy life and had a packed schedule that generally didn’t allow for long breakfasts at the local diner. Both girls, she knew, would cook up whatever excuses they could think of to explain away any missing time, and believe those excuses without hesitation, but it was all a flimsy facade. Anyone trying to poke holes in Kayla’s you won’t believe why I missed practice when I never do story would find it an easy task, at least until Celeste had more time to brainwash her.

Eventually, Kayla would find herself quitting the team. She played for Mistress, now.

“Hey, girls,” she began, enjoying the devoted attention she was receiving in return. “Who is the most important person in your life right now?”

The blonde stared at her as if she’d just let out an enormous fart. “Are you kidding? Why would you even ask something like that?”

“Just curious. I mean, is there like a guy in your life? Parents, maybe? Got a sister or a brother?”

“Ugh.” Zoe followed Celeste’s lead and pushed her plate forward. “The only important person in my life is Mistress Rebecca, obviously!”

“Kayla?”

The brunette seemed to ponder it for a second, her brows furrowing even as her eyes grew unfocused and empty. “I’d have to say Mistress Rebecca is the most important person in my life right now, Celeste. The only thing I care about is serving her, and obeying her every command. It’s… nothing else matters. Not really, anyway.” She looked to Zoe for confirmation, and got exactly that. “After all, she’s the most important person in the whole world.”

“That’s true.” It really was. “But you know what’s crazy? People still think that brainwashing is weird, for some reason.”

“People are weird,” Zoe countered. “For a lot of reasons. Brainwashing’s fine! You brainwashed me, and I’m perfectly normal. It’s not like I’m about to run off and join a commune! Unless… unless Mistress Rebecca wanted that, I guess.”

“I know, I know. People suck! But like I was saying, Zoe… you too, Kayla… you can’t tell anyone about Mistress Rebecca unless she or I tell you that it’s okay to do so, understood? Specifically because people are weird and won’t accept that.”

Zoe and Kayla shared a knowing look. “Of course, Celeste,” said Kayla. She took the blonde’s hand into her own and raised it above the table, like a little victory salute. “We will always obey you without question.”

Their waitress chose exactly that moment to arrive, pen and pad one hand, the other sweeping their plates into a single, wobbly stack. Thankfully, she seemed to ignore their hypno-girl-bonding moment entirely, choosing instead to make a few final notations on her pad before tearing off their bill and placing it at the center of their table.

“You can pay up front,” she offered, in a voice that sounded even more tired than she looked. “It’s probably faster. We’re pretty slammed today.”

Celeste glanced down at the bill. As expected, Zoe palmed it almost immediately. The blonde broke into a wide grin. “Thanks so much… um, Judy, right?

A sigh. “Yeah. Look, don’t feel like you have to clear out if you don’t want to. I’d rather keep serving you than get stuck with a table of hungover Tau Epsilon frat boys. Do you want more coffee, or…”

I’d rather keep serving you. Judy was probably very beautiful when she wasn’t so beaten down by her job, her soft hair pulled into a tight, demanding ponytail and her curves hidden beneath unflattering polo shirts and khakis. Perhaps they would run into her outside of work one day, catching her unaware at a desk in the library, or in the back corner of a dance club. They’d have time to talk, then, about how her job was so tiring and how she desperately needed some time to relax, to stop thinking…

Kayla broke Celeste’s daydream with a polite but firm “we’d love to, but we gotta go.” She pushed her chair back, and Celeste marveled at her independence. This was a girl who was used to making things happen on her own. That made her a very useful tool in Mistress’s capable, loving hands.

Celeste rose and motioned for Zoe to do the same, their chairs squawking loud enough to draw the eagle-eyed attention of more than one group waiting for an open table. Even from across the room, Celeste could feel their silent pleas. Oh good, leave! Leave! For fuck’s sake, hurry up! We’ve been waiting for hoooooours!

“Come on, slaves,” she would have said, if only people weren’t so weird about brainwashing. Instead, she smiled and mumbled something about how it was time to go, and thank you for everything, Judy! Then she was headed for the door. Ahead of her, Zoe was already inserting herself into the line at the register.

She felt a body press against her side and turned to find Kayla’s face just inches from hers.

“Judy’s got a cute ass,” said Kayla, in a tone just low enough to be out of earshot of anyone else. She leaned in closer, eyes narrowing. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could find a way to hypnotize her for Mistress Rebecca?”

“You’re in a very deep hypnotic trance.”

Leslie made an attempt at nodding, but because she was in a deep hypnotic trance, the nod became little more than a bob. Her eyes looked straight through Rebecca’s. “I’m in a very deep hypnotic trance.”

All of Alice’s thralls, Rebecca noticed, had the same look when they were under. Glazed eyes, perpetually focused on something about ten feet away. She wondered what the pretty redhead was looking at now, as they rocked back and forth on their way back to the hostel. What did I look at when I was under Alice’s control?

Stairs. A lot of stairs, Mistress responded. Emily’s hot ass. And that one time we thought it was Emily’s hot ass, but it was actually Alice’s butt.

Ha! Alice was probably hot when she was our age. Their Irish host did have those spectacular blue eyes. She probably had her share of fun moments, or would have, if she wasn’t obsessed with creating new slavegirls for her stupid hostel. Rebecca saw the two of them enjoying a beer at a pub in Ireland, just two regular twenty-somethings knocking glasses and getting shitfaced together.

She realized that, once again, they’d left the redhead hanging on the edge of their last command. Not that Leslie had the power to complain, or even notice. “Leslie,” she began, “you will listen to us very carefully. Listen and obey.”

“Lisssssten… to us?” A piece of Real Leslie broke free from her submerged mind and floated to the surface, rippling the smooth glass pond of her trance state. Her head, previously too sleepy to even nod, now tilted to her left in confusion. “I…”

“Shh.” Mistress placed a handle under Leslie’s chin and gently guided it back to a level state. “You will sink deeper and deeper for me. Sleep, Leslie. Too deep to think. You can only listen, and let my words flow through your mind. As you sink, you will sleep and obey. Remember the pretty colors, and sink deeper.”

The redhead sighed and sank back against the hard plastic bench, smiling as she let the memories of her initial brainwashing bring her back down into that same open, suggestible state. There was no point in even calling her Leslie anymore, but for the sake of convenience. If her trance was a lake, her feet were now firmly buried in the bottom mud.

“We’re going to give you some commands now,” said Mistress. “You must obey them without question. Alice programmed you to obey Rebecca without question. So you’re going to do that now. You will listen and obey.”

“Yes.” The back of Leslie’s head tapped the glass window behind it as their U-Bahn bounced over a rough section of track. “Obey.”

“When you get home, when you get back to your home in America, you’re going to see yourself in a whole new light. A revelation, Leslie. You can’t keep living that same old boring life anymore.”

“No.” Her pretty mouth curled into a frown, suddenly horrified by the memory of that same old boring life back home. “I can’t.”

“This trip was so refreshing. It was just what you needed. Think about all of the wonderful, relaxing hours of sleep you got at Alice’s beautiful hostel. It allowed you to relax completely.”

“Relax… the beds were some comfortable… so relaxing…”

Alice should go into the mattress business. The thought popped into their head before Rebecca could stop it. If they ever managed to put Alice’s hostel out of business, she’d have to move to a new town, inviting would-be mattress buyers to check out the very special setup in the store’s back room. “Trust me dearie, you’ll love it!”

Hypnotizing middle-aged couples instead of hot college girls! Someday, when we’re forty, we’ll have to start doing that…

Mistress shrugged off her jacket, ignoring the chill that permeated even the U-Bahn, and placed it in Leslie’s lap. She fussed with it until it covered everything that needed to be covered, then scooted herself to her left until she was practically sitting in the redhead’s lap herself. “I bet all of the boys like you, Leslie. You’re so pretty.”

Her voice, deep and throaty, pulled the redhead out of her stupor. “They do…” she sighed, smiling. “All the boys.”

“And the girls, too. Hot girls like us.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Mistress placed one arm behind Leslie and slid her free hand beneath the jacket, her fingers quickly finding and closing around a zipper. “And when you’re very deep in trance, like now, you’ll do whatever you’re told. You’ll have sex with anyone who says your special words, won’t you?” She pressed against the small of Leslie’s back as she yanked the zipper down. “Remember how good it feels to obey, Leslie.”

“Feels so good… must obey…” Her eyes fluttered as she recalled Alice’s programming. “Fancy a cup of hot coffee? Fffancy… nnnn… obey…”

Her trigger phrase. Rebecca filed it away for future reference, even if the plan was to never see Leslie ever again.

“Alice is sloppy, letting your magic words spill out like that. But our words won’t be like that, Leslie. You won’t remember them at all, not even when you are this deep in trance.”

She guided the girl’s hand beneath the jacket and into her pants. “Ooh,” she cooed, sweet and soft. “You’re not wearing any panties today, Leslie… I bet your finger feels so very good when it touches… you… right… here…”

“Nnnghhh…” Leslie jerked in her seat, her head knocking against the window as her hips bucked. “Feeelssss…. sssssoogoood…”

“That’s right, Leslie. It feels so good to forget. To listen and obey. To hear my voice.” She released the redhead’s hand and let it continue on its own, a windup doll now fully wound and full of energy. She was nearly in Leslie’s lap, one hand on her breasts and the other posing back strands of hair, her lips finding and kissing the helpless girl’s ear. Mistress let her tongue linger on the earlobe, her voice drifting into a sexy, hypnotic rhythm. “Only my voice. Obey.”

“Mmm. Yessss…” Leslie shifted in her seat, lowering her shoulder to that she could fit more of her hand inside her pants. Her breathing picked up. “Obey, Rebecca. Fffforget…”

Now it was Rebecca’s turn to plant her carefully-worded instructions.“When you get home, you’ll realize that you want to be as successful and driven and active as you can possibly be. You needto be these things, Leslie. You must succeed, no matter what it takes. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Leslie responded, as if agreeing to a lunch date and not to the total restructuring of her entire life and future. “Must obey and forget. Must obey and forget. Obey and forget… obey and… nnnn… fuck…”

“You had a wonderful time in Berlin.”

“I had a wonderfffffulllll… timein… timeinber…” Her hand brushed Rebecca’s aside and cupped her right breast, squeezing it as her other hand picked up speed. “It was wonderffffful.”

“But you don’t need to travel much in the future. That trip was so amazing and wonderful, you’ll never be able to top it.”

“Won’t be able to… top it…”

“You don’t really have time for travel. The more you think about it, Leslie, now and in the future… you’re too busy to make big travel plans. You’ll let all of your friends know.”

“I’ll let… let… mmmm… all of my friends know.”

“Don’t come just yet, Leslie. Not until I tell you. Not until I command you. How do you feel about being successful?”

“I want to be as successful and driven and active as I can be. I don’t have time for travel. I’m too busy becoming… become… come… want to… need to… please…”

“Just thinking about your success makes you hot and horny. Just like now. Sexy and gorgeous and powerful Leslie. You’re going to be that.”

“I’m… I’m going to be… oh God… I’ll obey, I’ll obey… obey…”

“You won’t remember this conversation, only that it feels good to obey. It feels even better to be successful and driven. What are you?”

“I’m successful!” She swept the jacket from her lap and reached for her belt, undoing it before Rebecca and Mistress could stop her. Luckily, no one else in the car seemed to be paying much attention to anything other than their own books and phones. The fact that Leslie was yelling things in English while sitting in a German subway car probably helped.

“That’s right. You’re almost ready to come, Leslie. But you can’t, not until you do one last thing for me. Okay? One little thing?”

“Yyyyessss….” Leslie had her pants undone and her hand shoved into her panties. Rebecca placed her coat over the tableau. She had to press down on it to keep it from sliding to the floor again, pressure that only seemed to ramp up the redhead’s arousal. “Yesssss…. one… one little! One little… thing…”

“You have to promise me that you will be successful.”

“I p-p-promise!” The words bubbled out of her, followed by a low moan that filled the entire subway car. That drew some attention from the others, but by the time they located the general source of the commotion, Leslie’s orgasm had passed. They found only a strikingly pretty young woman sitting with a friend and staring off into space, a look of perfect contentment on her face.

“Do you think that will work?”

“It might.” Rebecca wanted it to work. Alice was cautious as all hell, and always ten steps ahead of everyone else, but… “I wanted to try it, anyway. I mean, it worked when we hypnotized Kelly on the plane.”

“I meant more of a ‘will Alice pry it out of her head the second we leave them alone together’ kind of question, really. She’s going to be suspicious of us, even if we were total Girl Scouts and did exactly what we were told. And she knows we’re not Girl Scouts.”

“If she does pry it out of her? Fuck it, Mistress. We tried. We did something.” Rebecca suddenly felt very proud of herself. Of themselves. “And we did it without breaking any of Alice’s rules, or undoing a single line of programming. Leslie here is still perfectly happy to fuck anyone who invites her up for coffee, just as Alice intended.”

She smiled. The smile made her feel even more proud of what she’d just done, no matter how risky or futile. “It’s just going to be too bad, so sad that Leslie’s got way too many commitments and activities and jobs to ever have a spare moment to jet off to Berlin, even if she really, really misses those comfy beds. By the time Alice figures that out, if she ever does, it’ll be too late and Leslie will be stranded in America.”

“And if she’s lost interest in vacations…”

“Right? She’ll remember the hostel being awesome, but how can you ever top that? Best not to try. Which will make it really hard for her to explain to everyone why she’s suddenly dropping everything to go look at castles for a couple of weeks.”

“Alice is probably just going to put Leslie back under and tell her to ignore any orders we gave to her.”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s only a little tiny rock.” Rebecca kicked a bottle cap and watched it skitter across the floor of the car. “But it’s our little rock.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t bounce back.”

Before.

Edwin watched them leave.

Rebecca Sanders. Rebecca Sanders, of all people! Still doing Alice’s dirty work for her, which probably meant that Alice had something she wanted, or someone. Something important enough to risk coming to his apartment with her hot piece of slavegirl ass in tow. Whatever or whoever it was, Rebecca wasn’t getting anything now. To her credit, she did accept her defeat with some dignity. She didn’t bother to look behind her as she dragged Leslie to the elevator, and she didn’t voice a word of protest. As they waited for the elevator to arrive, she spoke only to Leslie, and to herself. There were no pathetic cries of ‘oh come on Edwin pleeeeeeease Alice maaaaaade me’ to be heard.

In a way, he really wished that she’d given that a try as well.

Pathetic bitch. So desperate that she was willing to take Alice’s bait and show up with an offer so obviously poisoned that even she had to know it was doomed to fail. Was she trying to protect Emily? Did she really think that she was going to give her little ‘come to the light side’ speech and it was going to work? Was that, ultimately, the reason why she decided to come?

“Oh, mind control is terrible, Edwin.” He matched Rebecca’s sad little voice as best he could. “You’re so nasty and awful for being a mean ol’ mind controller! Why can’t we all just get along and sing Kumbaya and let all of the girls go free, wah wah wah? You’re stupid and you’ll diiiiiieeee waaaaahhh…”

“Edwin?” Mandy must have heard his little monologue. Her voice grew louder as she moved towards the living room. “Was there someone at the door?”

God, what a fucking rush! Alice had bested him. No, it was worse than that. Alice had played him for a fool, pretending to be hypnotized by Rebecca and her bimbo girlfriend, letting him get distracted and then pulling the rug out from under his feet. And now here he was, only a few months later, on the rise again while Alice sunk to new lows. She was clearly afraid of him. Afraid of what he was capable of. And yet, she didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was about to unleash. None of them did.

“Mandy, you’re not going to believe who just stopped by and—oh. She’s up?” He stopped short, stumbling forward as his body struggled to keep up with his feet. Mandy was waiting for him in the living room with Sandra.

Amanda looked at him. “I woke her,” she said, in a tone that suggested that she wasn’t going to entertain any questions as to why.

He tried anyway. “What did you get her up for? She’s supposed to be in bed getting in a full day’s worth of programming for her next test.”

“The stranger test?”

“The stranger test. Mandy, I can’t have you playing around with her today. We need to burn all of the data on this Hans Becker into her brain so that she’ll be compelled to hunt him down and eliminate him. I want her to be totally focused on the task when she’s activated.”

Amanda was unimpressed. “We both know that she’ll focus on any task that you give her, Edwin. You’re just being obstinate. That’s why we need to talk. I have… there’s something I have to tell you. Need to tell you.”

He had a strong urge to brush past Mandy and march the helpless blonde back to her room, where his collection of drugs and tapes and videos were waiting. “It took me a week to pick this guy out and get enough data on him to feed to Sandra,” he explained, not for the first time. Obstinate? You’re one to talk, Mandy! “Our investors want to see progress. If I can’t—”

“It’s fine, Edwin. It’s not important right now.”

“Imp—important? You know better.” He tried to keep his emotions in check, unwilling to let Amanda push his buttons yet again. “Every time you have a fight with those goddamn Russians you take it out on me, or you use Sandra, or both.” He wrapped a hand around the blonde’s forearm. “She’s busy today. I’m not going to argue this with you. Not today.”

“I’m not arguing, Edwin.” God, she was so fucking calm about things sometimes. I’m not mad, you’re mad. It’s not my fault you’re mad, it’s your fault. “I just came out here to ask you who stopped by just now, that’s all. And to tell you something very important.“

Something’s not right. The part of Edwin that thrived on being a mind controller in a big, dangerous city full of predators noticed the odd lilt in Amanda’s voice, the weird change in tone and topic, and her still unexplained reasons for rousting Sandra. Be careful, it whispered to him.

But that was nonsense, he told himself. He’d watched Mandy like a hawk for months, without her knowledge, going so far as to install a hidden tracking app on her phone. In spite of his fears, she’d never once reported to Alice’s hostel or club for any further programming. She hadn’t fallen into the clutches of Arthur or Grozdan or anyone else on their ‘enemies list.’ Stop distrusting your own wife, idiot.

As with his annoyance at Amanda, this was something he wasn’t going to let ruin his moment in the sun. He snuffed out Cautious Edwin and began to recap his encounter in the hall.

“Do you remember that American bitch from last fall? Rebecca Sanders? The one Alice tried to recruit and failed?” And failed. Jesus, the look on her face just now! “She stopped by the apartment with some hot redhead. Apparently she expected me to just take the girl in like a stray puppy. I gave her what for.”

Amanda frowned. “You didn’t like Leslie?”

“What? No, Amanda! I’m not stupid! You and I both know that Alice had that girl filled to the brim with post-hypnotic triggers and commands. It’d be like sending Sandra over to Alice’s hostel to ask for a room for the night. There’s no fucking way I was going to let her step one centimeter into this apartment.”

“I don’t know.” Amanda cocked her head, as if listening for something. “Alice sending us gifts could be a good sign. You should have taken her offer. She’s very generous. And she’s always ten steps ahead.”

Something’s not right. This doesn’t feel right.

Shut up shut up shut up! “I’m not going to… are you seriously taking her side, Mandy? After what she did to y—us? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” His pulse quickened as he pictured his next steps. “I’m going to go back to the U.S. and I’m going to brainwash the shit out of Rebecca, Emily, and that brunette. Everything we did to Sandra, I’m going to do to them. And when they’re nice and deep and fully programmed, I’m going to have them kill Alice. Slowly and painfully.”

“But you have a deal with her,” she said, as if that was a perfectly valid reason not to kill Alice.

“To hell with her, Mandy. We’re bigger than Alice and her two-bit hostel. You know what?” He was on fire now, his fantasies barely keeping ahead of his mouth. “After she’s dead, I’m going to sell Rebecca Sanders to the shittiest country I can think of, someplace where they’ll make her sleep in a dungeon and lick food off of the floor. And that brunette? Cerise or Cherise or whatever? You can make her jump in front of a train. We’ll keep Emily for now, and then one day I’ll send her to that shitty third world dungeon to strangle Rebecca with her bare fucking hands.”

“That’s a shame, Edwin. Alice won’t be happy to hear that.”

“She’ll be dead by… wait, what the hell are you saying, Mandy?”

The color drained from Amanda’s face. She took a step forward, then a second. “You have a deal with her.”

All at once, and much too late, Edwin finally put the pieces together. “Amanda. Stop. Get a hold of yourself!” He released his grip on Sandra and stepped back, mentally counting the distance between his current position and the front door. “F-focus on my voice, Mandy. Only the sound of my voice.”

Amanda closed her eyes and shuddered, a computer rebooting itself. When she opened them again, words that were not her own began to spill from her mouth. “I’m terribly sorry, dearie, but Amanda has gone to sleep for a bit. I programmed her to deliver a very important message, and the time has come for her to deliver it.”

“You let her go,” he growled, knowing that it was pointless. The phone. She was on the phone and… fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!

“If you’re hearing this, Edwin, it means that you have crossed me, in violation of our agreement. Furthermore, it means that I’ve found out about it. You’re going to hear me out now, because you have no choice. Now say something, so that Amanda knows to continue.”

“You bitch,” he sputtered, wishing that Alice were standing in front of him for real. The truth was, he’d be able to deal with her soon enough. With Mandy, all he needed to do was strike her hard enough to knock her out. Two steps forward and a haymaker to shut the Alicebot up for the time being, followed by a few rounds of intense deprogramming. That being followed, of course, by replacing the blanks in Sandra’s gun with something more lethal.

“Oh, lovely! I’m so glad that you’re playing along, Edwin. I know how tempting it must be to simply try snapping your wife out of trance. Mind you, should you try to do so, she’s programmed to kill herself by any means possible. I recall you have a balcony, dearie? Oh, and do answer quickly. Amanda won’t respond well to long pauses, I assure you.”

He’d be damned if someone dared to just steal his wife’s mind and just get away with it, but for now, there was nothing to do but let the tape run until the end. “Say your piece, then.”

“Now! Back to your breaking of our agreement. Did you think I would never learn of it? Did you imagine that even if I did, that I’d be powerless to stop it? Perhaps more relevant, dearie, did you really think that I wouldn’t find all sorts of creative ways to program Amanda right in front of your nose? Because I assure you, I have. This message is only one of a very long list of things in her empty little mind.”

“Mandy,” he said, lowering his voice. “Listen only to me. Empty your mind. I want you to tune out the words you’re hearing in your head.”

But Amanda was too far gone to resist. A smile drifted across her face as she crossed her arms, and Edwin, in spite of himself, took a moment to admire his adversary’s dedication. She’d even gone so far as to force Mandy to mimic her own body language and expressions.

“Your dear wife, always on her mobile. I assume you’ve just realized that not all of those calls were international, dearie? Some of them were quite local, you see. And now, Amanda is under strict orders to deal with your rather blatant insouciance.”

He thought about running. Even if Amanda tackled him, he could easily kick her off and keep going. If the police intervened… they’d had enough fights over the years to craft a believable story about a quarrel turned violent. The police would believe it. The neighbors, too. But, he reasoned, there was no need to run.

“You’re bluffing.” Instead of turning and running, he took his wife by the shoulders and held her, looking directly into her glassy eyes. “You picked the wrong man to threaten, Alice. I know what it takes to create a brainwashed assassin. How fucking hard it is.” He shook Amanda, briefly forgetting that she even was Amanda, and not the jolly sociopathic Irishwoman whose words now taunted him. “And when Mandy wakes up, you bitch, she’s going to be pissed.”

Amanda faced him, her blank and calm face a total contrast to his own. She opened her mouth. “Now, dearie…”

“NO!” Before he could stop himself, Edwin curled his right hand into a fist and slammed it home against Mandy’s left temple. His fingers exploded in pain, and his wife fell to her knees with a groan.

Bitch bitch bitch! “You shut the fuck up, Alice! You bitch!” He bent over, following Mandy down, hands grabbing her and pushing her rudely into the carpet. She rolled onto her back, exposing her reddened face, and he punched her again. Once, twice… he lost count quickly, stopping only when Amanda’s eyes rolled into her head and she blacked out. Only then did he make another sound, a long and anguished combination of yells and sobs that lasted for as long as his lungs had air to feed it.

“I’m sorry, Mandy,” he said, his voice trembling and raw. He brushed the hair out of her face. “I had to. I had to. Mandy, I had to.”

Fucking Alice. He crawled away from Mandy’s unconscious body, finding himself face-to-foot with Sandra. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. There weren’t going to be any tests in Sandra’s near future. All of his equipment was going to have to go towards fixing Amanda, which meant no investors and no money. “Back to square one,” he said to himself, realizing as he said it that Alice’s plan had been exactly that from the beginning. Slow him down, throw sand in his machine.

“If my Mistress fails, I must obey.”

Sandra’s voice, spoken at barely a whisper, drew Edwin’s attention upward. He found himself staring into the barrel of his own gun, which Sandra held in her elegant, manicured hands.

“If my Mistress fails,” Sandrabot droned, “I must deliver my message.”

“Sandra?“

She lashed out at him with her foot, connecting just below his jaw with enough force to flip him onto his back. It was also strong enough to snap at least one of her toes, and she hobbled awkwardly to her right, her gaze and the gun never leaving Edwin’s face.

“My… mmm… mmmesss…” she panted, struggling to stay upright. “I musssst… obey.”

Edwin watched in horror as his perfect little robot recovered, the pain washing away from her face as she put her full weight on her mangled foot, completely oblivious to the pain it was causing or the ugly cracking sounds it made. The gun held blanks, or at least it had when he’d last touched it. There was no telling what was chambered now.

“You’re probably thinking to yourself that your wife couldn’t possibly harm you, dearie. And you’re quite right at that!” Sandra, as German as they came, spoke as if she’d just spent a lifetime in the rolling hills of Ireland. “Heaven knows I’ve tried it myself. But I don’t need to make my own assassins these days, Edwin.

“Make her stay. Make her ours, Edwin. Our toy. You’ve been fucking her, haven’t you?”

“It’s… you know how it is, Mandy. Part of their training.”

“You wanted to fuck her. And if you want her that bad, I want her too. Make her stay. Order her to stay. Put her under our control. I have some ideas about what she can do for us.”

Sandra’s thin lips curled into a wicked smile. “I just need to have access to someone who does.

“Wai, San—”

She fired once, finding her mark in the center of his forehead before crumpling into a boneless heap. Her blue eyes rolled into her head even as Amanda began to stir and the neighbors shook the walls with their pounding.

The Kripo would eventually file the case under “Streit der Liebenden: Selbstverteidigung.”