The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It was a regular Sunday, for Sabina. Since the end of the weekend had come around once again, it meant a trip to stock up on groceries for the coming week. She made sure to tell Craig where she going — he was still in bed, as he liked to sleep in on the weekends; and especially Sundays. He only grunted acknowledgement, so Sabina couldn’t be sure if he’d actually been conscious enough to take in what she’d said. She figured it was enough she’d made the effort to tell him, and set off.

She stepped outside, and found it was a lovely sunny day. So lovely that she decided to put her keys back in her purse, and walk to the grocery store instead of driving.

Some of her neighbors seemed to be enjoying the sunshine too; they were out, tending to their lawns or sitting on their porches reading newspapers or drinking coffee. They called out greetings to her as she passed them by, and Sabina kept a bright and cheerful smile on her face, and returned the received greetings in kind.

Sabina had gotten very good at smiling when she didn’t feel like it, and it was days like this she really appreciated that particular skill of hers. The sunshine might have been golden, and hot enough it should have scorched the clean cement sidewalks until they faded white. But it might as well have been an overcast, thunder-storming sky, for all that it lifted Sabina’s mood internally.

She could keep up the act, though. In fact, it was crucial that she did. She had the smile to match a day like today; she had the behavior that suited the smile too. The same sunshine-y demeanor as all the rest of her neighbors. Except she knew that none of them had the kind of stormy thoughts inside that she did.

She made it to the grocery store, which was only a few blocks away, collecting further greetings as she went. The sign at the parking lot’s entrance read “Welcome to Shaded Glen’s Grocery Store” with a chipper exclamation point at the end of it. Sabina couldn’t help but think it was ironic that a place which was so often sunny and clear skied had such an ill-fitting name.

Sabina passed through the automatic doors of the store, and took a cart. She exchanged brief pleasantries with the neighbors she passed by as she did, and then set off with her cart to stock up for the week.

Shaded Glen was a very affluent housing development, and something like 20 minutes outside the nearest city, so all the residents tended to shop at the provided grocery store instead of driving into the city.

In the first two weeks Sabina and Craig had lived in the development, Sabina had made the mistake of driving into the city instead of going to the local store. It had caused a bit of a controversy.

She’d been careful not to make that mistake again. Though sometimes, when she was making the at-most 2 minute drive to the store, it seemed like a waste to her, even though she knew she had to do it. At least nice days like today eventually came around and gave her an excuse to walk. A defensible excuse, if anyone asked. Which they nearly always did.

Like most things in her life, Sabina had the routine of this particular chore down to a science; efficient like clockwork. And in that respect, she guessed she wasn’t that different than the other residents of Shaded Glen. They moved like clockwork automatons too, through the obligations of day to day life. She put her clock-like ways on as a mask, to blend in with them. But they were mechanized by nature; for them, it was not a choice.

At the end of exactly twenty minutes time, Sabina had made into the line for the cash register.

Two of her neighbors were in front; Gloria and Melody, each with their own cart. For a moment, Sabina was relieved that the two of them seemed to be engaged in a gripping conversation. It meant that they didn’t notice her, and she might be able to sneak through the rest of her grocery trip without having to make any more friendly chatter.

But when she realized what the two women were talking about, she almost wished that they would have noticed her, and dropped their conversation to pester her with friendly questions instead.

The two of them were talking about Renee.

“She’s put the most lovely rose bush in her garden,” Gloria was telling Melody.

“Well, she’s the one who authorizes landscaping changes, so that must have been an easy rubber stamp for her to apply!” Melody answered, trailing into a tittering laugh which Gloria joined her in.

Sabina kept a neutral look on her face, so no one would have known it by looking at her. But internally, she was burning. It was painful, to keep herself masked and running like a robot at all times. But she could usually manage it without getting too emotional about it on the inside.

The exception was when she had to listen to people talk about Renee— or worse, join in and talk about Renee herself. That was when it all became unbearable. Just hearing the woman’s name made her want to dig her nails into her own palms until they bled.

She had a lot of catty thoughts, as she listened to Melody and Gloria gush about Renee’s new rose bushes. Wasn’t it funny that, though technically any resident of Shaded Glen could submit an application to Renee for landscaping changes, none of them ever did? And wasn’t it funny that Renee was the only resident in the whole development whose backyard was not a perfectly mowed lawn, but beautiful, vibrantly tended garden?

Not that Renee ever had to tend that garden herself, she couldn’t help but think bitterly.

Sabina of course knew the answers to those questions. Knew why Renee was the one variation from the development’s landscaping pattern. And knew why, when Renee did it, everyone admired and praised her for it. If any other resident tried to put in a rose bush, it would be a controversy, not a delightful subject of gossip.

But it was unbearably frustrating that no other resident ever seemed to ask those questions; and that none of them knew the answers she did either.

Sabina couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t their fault. But as the last free thinking resident of the development, it was hard to keep her sanity at times. When there was such a blatant double standard in Renee’s favor and no one noticed— when all that anyone ever had to say about Renee was praise and admiration— it reminded her that she was the only one who had a mind of her own.

Well. Almost the only one.

The line moved, and Gloria advanced to the cash register to make her purchase, so thankfully the topic of Renee was dropped. And Sabina was luckier still than that, because Melody didn’t turn around and start talking to her, either. She only started loading her groceries onto the conveyor belt, leaving Sabina in peace.

Sabina was grateful. She could maintain a neutral mask, but since the topic of Renee had come up right in front of her, she couldn’t turn the chipper and friendly mood back on just yet.

She hated Renee. Really, truly despised her. She hated her with a hate she hadn’t known was possible before she’d moved to Shaded Glen with Craig several years ago. She hated her so much that she lay awake in bed at night, wondering if there was any way to kill her without getting caught.

She came to the same conclusion every time that it was not possible. It didn’t stop her from reopening the question again; even if she always knew what the answer would be.

Melody got through with making her purchases, and Sabina took her turn. She turned on the warmth again to interact with the cashier, and got back outside with her bags without having to make anymore small-talk. She made the walk back home as quickly as she could without arousing suspicion; the morning coffee drinkers and newspapers readers had all gone back inside, at least for awhile, so there was no one she needed to be friendly to on the trip back.

When at last she was back on the other side of her own door, she unloaded the groceries as quick as she wanted, with no fear of prying eyes. She checked to confirm her suspicion when she was done: Craig was still asleep.

She looked at him with indifference as he laid there. It did break her heart that she felt nothing but indifference to her own husband— but then, he wasn’t really her husband anymore. He may as well have been a stranger to her.

Renee had seen to that.

Sabina was still angry, after having to listen to more adoration of Renee in the checkout line. She went down the hall to the guest bedroom, and closed the door. She took a pillow off the bed, stepped into the closet, and shut the closet door after herself.

She sank down onto the floor, pressing the pillow to her mouth, and screamed her anger into it. She wished she and Craig had never moved to Shaded Glen. She wished they had never met Renee.

It had been Craig’s idea. He’d talked Sabina into it, though Sabina had never much liked the idea of housing developments. Craig had liked the look of the houses, and had thought the price was right. Sabina had argued, complaining about the added twenty minute commute into the city— as well as general complaints about how people in suburbs were boring, thoughtless conformists. (She hadn’t known how right she would turn out to be about the residents of Shaded Glen.)

But, the two of them had made many healthy compromises in their marriage before that point, and so Sabina had eventually relented and made her peace with the move.

Shortly after Sabina had finally relented, and agreed to move to Shaded Pines, she and Craig had gone to an open house in the development to find out their purchasing options.

At the open house, they’d met Renee, who had introduced herself as “the development co-ordinator.” She had laughingly added that she was the de-facto town mayor, even though Shaded Glen was too small to justify municipal incorporation.

‘Development co-ordinator’… that title was more apropos than Sabina had known at the time. Renee co-ordinated everything that went on in the development. Right down to the thoughts of each development resident.

Upon their first visit to Shaded Glen, there had been nothing obviously wrong. Sabina wished she had picked up on some sense of uncanniness then. Something that would have caused her to change her mind, and refuse to go through with the move. But she hadn’t. Shaded Glen had seemed like just another typical suburb; cut from the same cloth as the other housing developments whose existence irritated Sabina.

It was only after she and Craig had moved in to 336 Hummingbird Lane that Sabina realized there was something wrong with the town. (And damn the suburbs, and their stupid suburban street names). She found the residents too homogenous… found their pushback to her small individuating, non-conforming behaviors a little too bizarre.

But by then it was too late; at the end of their first week living there, she and Craig had their ‘welcome to the housing development’ orientation meeting with Renee.

Renee had orientated them alright.

She’d first invited them into her home office, and then dimmed the lights to ‘make it cozier.’ She’d laughingly said the goal of the development, and especially of her job as development co-ordinator, was to make everyone feel at home.

Sabina had rolled her eyes— back when she could still get away with outright non-conformity. She missed those days.

Renee had begun by going through the code of conduct, in a low soothing voice. Sabina had noticed with some alarm that Craig had grown drowsy as Renee did this. At the same time, Renee noticed that Sabina was not growing drowsy along with Craig— it seemed to displease her. She’d stiffened in her chair, and given Sabina a cold look.

Sabina had made the choice then and there to mirror Craig and pretend to go along with whatever Sabina was doing. Just until she had more information.

When she had mimicked Craig’s drooping eyelids, and his sagging posture, Renee had visibly relaxed. Clearly, it had been a relief to her.

But for Sabina, it was only an act.

Renee had gone on with the pretense of the code of conduct a little while longer than that. Finally, when it seemed she was confident that Craig and Sabina were sufficiently sleepy, she’d commanded the two of them to fall into a trance for her, and accept her programming.

It had been a puzzle piece sliding into place, for Sabina. Renee was a hypnotist. She’d lured Craig into a trance, and had intended to lure Sabina into a trance also. She wanted to control them… wanted to program them… but for what reason?

Sabina had felt very lucky as she’d sat there, in Renee’s home office. Her mind was perfectly clear; she was not in the least drowsy, or vulnerable to Renee’s control. She’d never been susceptible to hypnosis. She’d gone to stage shows for a lark, back in the day, but no one had ever been able to drop her.

When she’d discovered that particular quirk about herself at the time, she’d spent a phase of her life going around to see hypnotherapists. None of them had ever been able to drop her, either.

As she’d sat there, listening to Renee speaking, and feeling perfectly immune to it, she’d thought of her immunity as a gift. She’d only realized later that it was a curse.

The programming Renee was installing in them — or at least, in Craig — had seemed benign at first. Instructions to adhere to the code of conduct right down to the letter of the code. Instructions to respect Renee, and trust that she knew what was right— trust that she wanted what was best for everyone who lived at Shaded Glen. She’d finished by giving them both the same trigger word, which Sabina only learned later was the same trigger word Renee used for every resident in the development. “Meadowlark.”

She’d also told them that if they saw her inducing or programming anyone, it would seem completely ordinary to them, and they wouldn’t be bothered by it.

Then she woke them from her trance, and thanked them for the meeting.

If that was the extent of Renee’s control, Sabina figured she could make her peace with it. It was a little unorthodox— sure. But certainly an effective way to enforce compliance to a code of conduct, Sabina had to admit.

That hadn’t been the extent of Renee’s control, though. She’d stopped by for multiple visits in their first month of living there, inducing them to drop and take more programming from her.

That was when Sabina saw what Renee really was.

She was a monster. It wasn’t enough to enforce compliance to a set of rules. Renee wanted total, complete control of each person in her radius. She wanted to so entirely consume their once conscious minds that they became only clones of their former selves, with no free will remaining.

Sabina had only realized this after faking her way through various sessions in that first month. She’d watched with growing horror as her husband was eradicated before her eyes— forced to sit, and watch it happen, unable to take any action to prevent it.

By the end of that month, Craig was only a clone, with no remaining free thought, free will, or personality. And Renee thought the same was true of Sabina. She was lucky that she’d always been a better than average actress.

Sabina was grateful for her immunity, at first. But she didn’t trust it. Renee was frightening to her; she’d watched her systematically break her husband down to nothing and rebuild him in her desired shape. She realized Renee had successfully done the same thing with every single resident there.

Sabina had been lucky enough to fly under her radar. She’d convinced Renee that she had control of her. But that didn’t mean Renee wouldn’t be able to break her, too, if she found out it was only an act. She might have to go about it in a different way. But Renee had a one-track mind. It made Sabina very afraid that if Renee set her mind to breaking her, she would be able to do it; and Sabina would become just another of Renee’s wind-up toys.

That was essentially how she treated them. She had them do all her household tasks on rotation, right down to keeping her garden for her. A beautiful lush thing, which Sabina thought a monster like her did not deserve.

She didn’t stop it at that, though. As frequently as every week, Renee held a large party at her house, inviting a different rotation of residents to it. She would trance them all at the same time, and have her way with the women in the group while their husbands stood on and watched.

This was the most disgusting part of Renee’s game, as far as Sabina was concerned. Renee seemed to take particular joy in the fact that she held the power to cuckold each man in the housing development. She never let them sleep with their own wives— but they had to watch as she fucked each woman in turn, and then as she ordered all the women to fuck each other.

The men would become more and more obviously aroused as they stood helplessly by. This would go on until they reached what Sabina thought of as “the begging threshold.” The point which Renee had programmed into their minds where they all broke down and pleaded for release.

The only release Renee ever granted them was at the hands and mouths of each other. They were still forbidden to take any pleasure from the women.

Outside of Renee’s messed-up orgies, she maintained total control of the sex lives of each of her residents. No resident was allowed to relieve themselves, either with their own hand, or with their spouse, unless Renee was involved, or had otherwise granted permission.

The residents just waited for their next visit with Renee to get their next release. They all technically had the ability to file an application for intercourse with their own spouse — cruel, Sabina thought; just plain evil — but since no other resident had the ability to think for themselves any longer, no resident ever did. And they never minded Renee’s iron grip on their sex lives… because Renee had told them to enjoy it. So they did.

The only thing that was harder than hearing adoring conversation out around town while masking was keeping the mask up when Sabina happened to be one of the unlucky women invited to Renee’s weekly orgy. Because of the number of residents in the development, her group rotation only came around once every month.

Those evenings were the greatest test of her skill for camouflage. Being touched and brought to orgasm by Renee disturbed her so much that she would often spend the next morning throwing up, after Craig had gone to work and was no longer there to spy.

And she had to let her body do it — or else her cover would be blown. It was almost as hard to be pleasured and to pleasure the other women; but not quite. She did not despise the others in the way she despised Renee. Their touch did not sicken her— touching them did not sicken her.

Touching and being touched by Renee sickened her.

Apart from Renee’s weekly parties, she also had a constant rotation of one-on-one meetings with each resident, and one-on-two meetings with each couple. Those rotated much more quickly than the group meetings did, so to Sabina’s dismay, she had to see Renee, and pleasure/be pleasured by her multiple times in a month, and sometimes she had to do it with Craig also present.

Sabina couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to her that Renee had a certain fascination with her… when Sabina was present at one of Renee’s parties, she was the one who got most of Renee’s attention. And Sabina was called in for one-on-one meetings just a little more often than the others.

She didn’t know why. Frankly, she hated it. It meant more vomiting for her, when she was back safe within the walls of her own home. Or, more aptly, her own prison.

There was no clear path out for Sabina, though she hadn’t know it at first. In the early days she’d held onto the hope that someone could deprogram Craig. She’d made many a clandestine cellphone call on a burner phone; she’d called every expert she could find the name of to ask if they could deprogram him. The conclusion each expert had reached was that the damage to his mind was too permanent— there was nothing there to rebuild.

After she’d given up hope for Craig, she’d clung to hope for herself. She could leave, while her mind was still intact. She could run away in the night.

It was very important that it be at night, with no one around to notice. Sabina was terrifyingly aware that Renee’s drones could be very quickly weaponized into an army.

She’d seen it happen to a couple who’d moved in after she and Craig. During their orientation meeting, the wife had realized something was wrong, and she’d run from Renee’s house to try and get in her car.

She never made it. Renee shouted a trigger word out of her window, and the drones from the five surrounding houses immediately came out and chased the woman down. They caught her, and dragged her back into Renee.

Sabina knew she lacked the speed and the strength to fight her way free from Renee’s on-demand bodyguards.

If she tried to drive away in the night, while there were drones awake and on watch, one of them would report her to Renee. Then Renee would send out the signal. Sabina would find herself caught in the midst of a high-speed car chase through the development.

And with the nearest city twenty minutes away, Sabina didn’t think she would make it all the way there. The drones had single-minded determination when Renee told them to do something. Sabina didn’t doubt they would risk their lives in the ensuing car chase. They would either successfully drive her car off the road and drag her from the car back to Renee— or they would kill her in the attempt. And whichever outcome it was, they themselves would be willing to die in the attempt.

Sometimes when Sabina was feeling particularly despairing, she considered trying to make a getaway by car, thinking of it as a kamikaze mission. The only reason she’d never actually done it was that she couldn’t know for sure that it would result in her death. And the possibility that she might survive, and be dragged back to Renee by Renee’s army of drones, was too terrifying to risk.

Sabina had had to abandon even her hope for herself, eventually. There was no time of night or day that it would be safe for her to run. And even if she ran— where would she run to? To get help? Who would believe her insane claims? Renee could make the entire development dance like puppets on a string— it was the easiest thing in the world for her to make all her drones act normal. They mostly did, as it was. Many of them still had jobs in the city, regular contact with outside friends and family members. No one had ever suspected the truth before.

So, if not to run for help, what, then? Run for her freedom, to leave Shaded Glen behind her and start fresh in the city?

What chance did she have of succeeding at that? She was still entangled with Craig by marriage— all their finances were joined. Renee would have the ability to cut off her off completely, through him, and leave her destitute. Not to mention that she would never be able to get a divorce from Craig, as long as Renee’s control of him was total. She could make him block and stall the process at every turn.

And that was on the off-possibility that Renee would leave her be, even if she could escape. It was much more likely she’d send a group of drones to hunt Sabina down and bring her back. With Craig playing the part of the concerned husband, it wouldn’t take much for city police to co-operate with him, and help him find her and return her to him.

If Sabina was ever going to make it out of the development she had one chance and she knew it. She had to wait for Renee to get greedier. Sooner or later, she’d throw a party where the entire development attended. Sabina just knew she would — she had to.

Then, there would be no one to spy. Sabina would send Craig ahead. As long as her excuse was plausible enough to avoid raising alarm, she could get away with it. The drones only reported back to Renee if the rule violation was overt and without excuse.

Then when Craig left, she’d take the car, and drive to the city. She’d drain the bank account, get on a plane, and put an ocean between her and Renee. She would never feel safe until there was an ocean between her and Renee— and maybe not even then.

Then she’d start over somewhere else with a new name.

It was the only plan she had. The only thing that allowed her to hold on to her sanity. So all she did, every day, was try to buy herself time, waiting and praying for the opportunity to come.

So far, she’d been unlucky.

At times, Sabina had to admit that her only chance of escape was far-fetched. Renee had never thrown an all-resident orgy before. She was a woman of routine; why should she break her own routine when she was perfectly happy with the way things were, as they were? But it Sabina’s her only hope… without it, she had nothing. Without it, she’d just have to accept that she would be trapped in Shaded Glen forever, miming obedience to retain the last scrap of her sanity.

Sabina had one other cold comfort, when the fantasy escape plan failed her.

The thought of killing Renee.

She thought about it instead of sleeping sometimes. She thought about it at length. If, during one of their one-on-one meetings… when she and Renee were totally alone… when she had Renee in a compromised position… if she struck quickly enough… then Renee would not be there to order the army to chase after her.

Sometimes Sabina even let herself indulge in the childish fantasy of killing the monster. In the fairytales, when you killed the monster, all the villagers who were under the monster’s spell were set free. She liked to imagine killing Renee and finding all the residents of Shaded Glen miraculously set free— being the fairytale hero.

But Sabina knew it was only a childish fiction— and she certainly wasn’t a hero. She had failed to warn away newcomers to the development, the ones who had moved in after her, before Renee could get to them. She’d let Renee take them, to save her own skin. She wouldn’t risk blowing her cover for anyone— even innocents in the line of fire, who still had their free will, until Renee took it away from them. There was nothing heroic about that.

Sabina knew she wasn’t a hero, and this wasn’t a fairytale. It was a nightmare. And she wasn’t a little girl anymore— childish logic didn’t apply. Killing Renee would do nothing to help the other residents. They were too far gone— already lost. Killing Renee couldn’t help them. In fact, it would probably hurt them. What happened to the drones when you killed the queen?

It felt a little hyperbolic to imagine all the town residents dropping dead like bees from a hive at the moment of Renee’s death. But only a little. Without the controller who bid all their minds to run, it seemed likely to Sabina that the town would collectively descend into some kind of non-functional catatonia, and die by inches if they did not die instantly from the shock.

That was the reason she had not actually done it.

But that didn’t stop her from thinking about it— picturing it. Sometimes for the comfort of the childish fiction.

Sometimes just for the sake of it. She hated Renee enough that just the thought of killing her, even if it meant the indirect deaths of the rest of the drones, was deeply satisfying to her. It was cold comfort in the night, when all other fantasies and foolish hopes failed her.

She’d lived in hell too long. She had long since become a dark thing. There was a time when the thought of killing another person, no matter how evil, would have horrified Sabina.

No longer.

The real horror now was her aloneness. She was so painfully alone— at times she felt the unbearable truth in it. There was not a single mind in the town left that could think a thought unless it had been instructed to think that thought by Renee, first. She was the only one; no one in all of Shaded Glen could ever understand, even her husband. And if any of them knew she was still capable of original thought, they would have immediately turned her over to Renee to make sure that was rectified.

The only other mind in town capable of independent thought was Renee; her worst enemy. She’d never been so alone.

The aloneness felt bigger than Shaded Glen, sometimes. Who was there in the world that would believe Sabina’s insane story? How could she ever find them, let alone entreat them for help, without risking getting caught?

In the early days, she’d still had her burner phone. Eventually she had thrown it away out of paranoid terror that Craig would find it, and report her. In the early days, when she’d still had hope, she’d taken risks she would never have taken later. Would not take now.

But even then, when she’d called expert after expert, she had not even begun to tell them the truth of her situation. She had only disclosed the details necessary to find out if Craig’s mind was salvageable. That a hypnotist had targeted him, broken him down and rebuilt him, and all the other details which followed from that. She’d said nothing about the rest of Renee’s set-up, or Renee’s expansive and total control of everyone in the town — except for her.

Maybe those experts would have had sympathy for her; or would have tried to help her. She hadn’t been thinking big enough, back then. Now she didn’t have an unmonitored link to the outside world. She still had a cellphone— but it was on a family plan with Craig’s. Any call she made would be seen by him at end of month when he got the bill— and she would be reported for that.

So all Sabina could really do was cling to her sanity— cling to her own personality, and keep it locked behind the impermeable drone-like exterior she had managed to build for herself. Cling to it, and her false delusions of hope… hoping… waiting for an opportunity that had to come… that she just had to keep believing in, even if it wasn’t coming.

Because Sabina wasn’t going to let Renee eradicate her, too. If she had to live her whole life in the prison and the hell that was Shaded Glen— if she died there an old woman, with her own free will intact behind her carefully guarded mask— she would count even that as a victory. Because it would mean that she had refused Renee the last inch of her, when Renee had already taken everything else.

Sabina lowered the pillow from her face. At some point the screaming had given way to sobbing— then the sobbing had given way to staring. She’d been in the closet a long time; she’d let herself take out and consider all the pieces of her internal experience again. Let herself feel them; let herself feel like a human being, and not a robot, for this stolen slice of time.

But she had been in the closet a long while. Craig would be waking up soon. It was time for her to put all these things away again, and put the mask back on.

She stood, and stepped out of the closet. She put the pillow back on the guest bed, and remade it, so it looked immaculate. She checked herself in the mirror on the side of the closet door.

She had stopped crying long enough ago that there was no evidence she’d ever cried at all.

She took a deep breath, smoothing the last of her persona into place.

Then with a cheerful look in her eyes, she stepped from the guest room to see if Craig was awake yet— and if he wanted her to make him breakfast.

That following Tuesday was Sabina’s next one-on-one session with Renee. As always, that morning in advance of it, Sabina was dreading. Dreading seeing Renee, dreading having to be alone with her, dreading having to keep the mask up under the added duress that her hatred for Renee caused her. Even though she had yet to slip up, every time she was face to face with the woman, she was afraid she’d make the slip, and be caught.

Renee ran all her one-on-one sessions out of her house, so after a quick kiss to Craig’s cheek and a chipper goodbye, Sabina left the house that morning and made the walk over to Renee’s house.

Renee’s house exemplified a double standard in the same way her garden did. There were development-wide building codes, in the same way that there was a development code of conduct, but through years of renovations and additions (also done by her trusty drones), Renee had managed to flaunt each section of the building code.

It was an irritant for Sabina every time she had to walk up Renee’s front walk. A reminder that Renee did whatever she liked, considered herself above everyone else. That Renee was the type who could deliberately break the rules — even rules she’d written — and never be caught for it. That, really, no matter what it was — Renee could get away with it. There would be no justice for her.

It was also a reminder of Sabina’s aloneness. She was the only one left in town with the ability to notice that Renee had broken her own rules. For all the other residents, that same information would just slip out of her mind.

Sabina took care not to let this irritation show on her face as she reached Renee’s door. She did not have to knock; Renee programmed her session times into the minds of her drones, and each drone was entitled to let themselves in, and come straight through to her home office. Of course, in Sabina’s case, the time wasn’t actually programmed in. Sabina just had to take special care to remember it. But from the outside, the effect was the same as if she were actually programmed.

Sabina turned the knob of Renee’s front door, and passed through. Then she shut it behind her, and crossed down the front hall to the door to Renee’s home office.

The woman in question was sitting behind her desk when Sabina stepped through. She closed that door behind her, too, and when she did, she felt as if all the air had sucked out of the room. It was suffocating to be closed in with Renee.

“Ah, Sabina,” Renee acknowledged. “Have a seat.”

Typical for a session, so far. In a minute, Renee would speak Sabina’s so called trigger word... and Sabina would pretend it had worked. For now, though, she walked to the chair as gracefully as she could, with the slower, relaxed pace typical of a mindless mind. Aping the other residents for so long had served her, at least in the sense that she was very good at looking and behaving like one of them.

Sabina seated herself, and waited for the trigger to be spoken. She was ready to paint over her body with the imitation of obedience. She held the brush poised in her hand.

Renee spoke, but it was not the trigger she’d waited for. “It’s time, Sabina.”

Sabina’s stomach dropped. Time? Time for what?

Renee leaned forward in her chair, brushing the ends of her chair’s armrests with her hands.

“It’s time to drop the little masquerade you’ve been hiding behind for the past number of years.”

Sabina froze— oh god. Renee knew. Somehow, she knew. How could she know? How could she know, when Sabina had been so careful.

Sabina shifted in her chair, preparing to rise and run out of the room. It was instinctual— she hadn’t planned it. But the thought of staying in this room with Renee was unbearable to hold. She could not.

Renee gave a cluck of her tongue. “You know you’d never make it out my front door,” she chided. “You can try it if you like; but you’ve seen how fast our dear friends and neighbors can be. They’ll just drag you back into me if you go. All things considered, you really should just stay here with me. Less hassle for us both. After all, what can I really do to you? Aren’t you immune to me?”

Sabina settled back into her seat. She couldn’t run— she knew that. She would not have tried, if the decision to run had been a conscious decision. It hadn’t.

But even though the game was up, Sabina wasn’t quite willing to relent and speak honestly to Renee. The refusal to speak at all was some last piece of defiance, and while she had it, she would hold onto it with everything inside of her.

“You won’t answer me?” Renee asked. She leaned back in her chair, draping her arms more languidly along her armrests. “Well, that’s fine. Maybe you’ll feel more like talking later.”

Sabina felt the impulse to swallow, from nerves. She checked it. Her hands had gone clammy against each other, and there were chills all through her body. Though her life had long since become a nightmare, and she’d lived that nightmare for such a long time she could barely remember the time before, this, now was the nightmare within the nightmare.

From this room there was no escape. Sabina had always feared that if Renee set her mind to the task of taking her mind apart, that she would find a way to succeed. Now she had her— now she knew. The odds of Sabina coming out of this somehow unscathed were almost zero. Internally she wanted to break down, and cry for herself.

Cry for herself, because Renee was going to erase her, and reduce her to only one more of her drones. Cry for herself because she, Sabina, was the only one who knew what was going to happen to her, the only one who cared. The rest of the world would see the Sabina drone out and about, mimicking life, and think it was real. She was the only who knew she was about to fade away forever. No one else would cry for her— so she should at least cry for herself. Just so someone did.

But this was all only internal. She would never show vulnerability in front of Renee if she could help it.

“Clearly, you understand now that I know,” Renee said, with her knowing smile. “I know. I’ve always known. Did you really think you could fool me? I know each thought of each resident in this development— even before I wiped their old selves away, I knew them better than they knew themselves. That kind of intimacy is required to get the control into them as deeply as I do. I can read body language better than most experts— well enough that the mind of each person in front of me might as well be an open-book for me to leaf through. You had to know on some level you were deluding yourself with only a comforting fiction.”

Sabina was gripping the edges of the seat of her chair for an outlet. Yes— it was true. It had been too terrifying to face. As long as Renee had acted like she believed Sabina’s performance, Sabina had let herself believe that she really did. Only because the alternative — what she now knew had been the truth — was too disturbing to contemplate. To face.

“But oh, Sabina… I’ve had such a fun time playing you, all this time. You’ve been such a thrill for me.” Renee had leaned forward in her chair again— there was a glint in her eye. Here, Renee’s favoritism towards her was explained… or nearly explained. At least, it was making an appearance again. She was looking at Sabina with appreciation in a way which recalled memories of past orgies in this house. It made Sabina’s skin crawl to be under Renee’s gaze. She felt like a bug under a microscope.

But it was even worse this time, because Sabina knew Renee was really seeing everything now. That she had been all along. She gripped onto the chair’s seat harder.

“I’ve set the whole development up so well,” Renee went on. “Even you would have to agree. But it does get boring, being the only one conscious among a sea of the unconscious. You staved that boredom off for me, dear. Brought quite the splash of color back into my life.

“It has just been so fun to see you wrestle yourself into compliance for the sake of self-preservation… and to see you hating yourself and hating me… one more comforting delusion… hating yourself, and hating me even as you did exactly everything I said, and pleased me better than all the rest…”

Renee stood then, and came around to the front of the desk. She was only a few steps ahead of Sabina. She leaned back against the desk. It caused her skirt to ride up, and show part of her upper thigh.

“You trained your body and your mind alike for me, and better than I could have done. What do you think it does to your mind when you act out constant obedience for years, Sabina? At a certain point, is acting even different from being? I mean, after years of acting something with the care and attention that you have — no slip-ups — are you really still acting anymore? Or have you become the thing you pretended to be?”

Sabina found the end of her patience. “No,” she spat. “I’m not a drone. I’m still myself. I’m the only one left besides you with a mind of my own. It doesn’t matter what my behavior looks like on the outside. My thoughts are still mine.”

Renee gave a thoughtful tilt of her head. “That may be true,” she granted. “But in forcing your body through the motions of obedience, you have at least partly conditioned yourself to obey me. You’ve made all sorts of useful neural connections for me to exploit. I know you were never very susceptible to hypnosis in the past—”

Sabina started, and Renee quirked an eyebrow. “You told me everything, dear. When you were pretending to be entranced… surely you remember?”

Sabina did remember, now that Renee mentioned it. It had been so long ago, in the early days of her time living here. Renee had remembered such a small detail for this long?

She definitely had a fascination with her.

“I remember,” Sabina granted.

Renee nodded to herself, pressing her palms against the edge of the desk while she sat against it. “You were never susceptible to trance in the past, but that was before years of wiring your brain to do as I said, when I said it. I think you would be wonderfully receptive to me, now— if you let yourself.”

That gave Sabina a spark of hope— as if she still had some kind of control over this situation, some chance of survival. If she let herself— but she would never do it.

“All you would need to do is drop your guard for me,” Renee encouraged, her voice becoming husky. “Hasn’t it been so tiring keeping the act up all these years? And haven’t you ever looked at the other residents around you and felt jealous? Everything is so easy for them— they never have to think, and you have to think constantly, have to be on constant guard to protect yourself. Haven’t you ever wondered what it felt like for them?”

Sabina had to admit she had— she hated that Renee’s claim of essentially being a mind-reader was proving true. She’d never told Renee any of this before, but Renee was reading it off of her, plain as could be.

“You’ve done all the work of obedience, and faithfully, but gotten none of the rewards… none of the peace. I could give you that peace… could give you mental rest, finally, after so long… you just need to let me…”

Sabina shook her head. “It’s a trap,” she said, firmly. “You’ll give me mental peace, alright— give it to me permanently. You’ll wipe my mind the same way you did to all the others… I’ll never come back from it.”

Renee’s smile became more predatory. “Yes, just as I did to all the others… and you sat by and watched… let me do it. You sat by and let me do it to your husband. It was early days then— and I really did wonder if you would draw the line there, but you didn’t. I wondered over the years if you would draw the line for any of the newcomers, tell them to get out before I got to them. You never did… you’ve been playing accomplice for me all these years— did you ever think of that?”

“Yes,” Sabina said, shortly. “Do you think you can surprise me with any of this? I know myself.”

“I’m not trying to surprise you,” Renee countered. “I’m raising a point. You had the will to resist me all this time; to maintain your own autonomy even as you served me with complete devotion, and served me better than the rest of the development. And you let me take all the ones who came after you, even let me take your husband, because there was something you prized more: your own sense of self-preservation. You would do anything for it. The only reason you’ve resisted me all this time is out of fear of eradication.”

Sabina gave Renee an unimpressed look. “Do you have a point?”

“Yes,” Renee said. “I don’t intend to wipe you out, like I did to all the others.”

That was the first true surprise of the meeting. All the other truths Renee had spoken had been truths Sabina understood on one level or another— that she even expected. But this was new.

“What?”

“I said, I don’t intend to wipe you out,” Renee repeated. “You’ve proven yourself an equal match to me… we are a match. And you are a thrill for me in an otherwise bland existence. Why would I throw that away?”

Sabina still couldn’t understand— but her grip had loosened on the seat of her chair. “I don’t—“

“I’m making you an offer, dear,” Renee explained. “I won’t eradicate you; if you give yourself to me willingly. I’ll leave you to your autonomy, leave your mind to be your own. I’ll just… help you practice obedience internally, every now and then. Let you enjoy the gifts of it, and not only its labor. If you give yourself to me willingly.”

Sabina frowned, but Renee went on. “If you refuse my offer, then I will take you apart, and reduce you to just another Shaded Glen resident. It would be a shame— a loss. But it is your choice. It may be the last choice you ever make… or the first choice of a freer existence.”

Sabina was still frowning.

“Think of it,” Renee enticed. “You wouldn’t have to mask any longer, or live in fear of my surveillance. You’ve noticed, surely, the way all of our residents overlook any double-standards, or oddities in my behavior? The same would be extended to you… you’d be free to exactly as you liked, whenever you liked. You would be on my leash, dear— but it’s a slack leash.”

It sounded too good to be true; and even in that moment, Sabina hated herself for being tempted. To be free… to keep her mind, and be free of her own self-policing… to be completely free of the need for it…

She told herself the offer wasn’t real— that it was only a trap. But… But…

“I think you’re already understanding what my last point will be,” Renee said, with a sleek smile. “If you take my offer, you’ve preserved yourself… your highest value above all others; even prized above other people, will be upheld. You can take this action, and ensure your continued survival. Your permanent survival— can you really say no to that, when that has been your guiding directive for so long?”

Sabina allowed herself a swallow. Renee had her number— had maybe pegged her from day one, and played out a strategy all this time to reach this moment.

Sabina had a choice: to refuse, and be destroyed. Or to accept, on the off-chance that Renee was making the offer seriously. It was her only chance of survival, only chance of partial escape. Every choice, every compromise she’d ever made since moving to Shaded Glen had only been to buy herself another day. To survive one more day. And now she was possibly being given the chance to survive indefinitely, and not have to live day to day anymore…

If it turned out that this was only a trick, and Renee was going to erase her anyway… it didn’t matter. She couldn’t escape physically, and if she tried, she would be recaptured and then erased. If she refused Renee, then she would be erased. There were no other options for survival available to her, except the slight chance that Renee was making this offer in good faith. If she took the offer, and it turned out to be false, well, then at least she had the comfort of knowing she had done everything she could to survive in an impossible situation.

Renee had offered her one more piece of comfort— perhaps one more self-delusion, one more foolish hope, like all those ones she had clung to in the night. The dream of being able to remain herself… while being able to give up hiding; while being set free of the burden of constant performance.

Delusions and fantasies had sustained her sanity this long. If this was only one more delusion, at least it was a comforting one, comforting enough to stay with her until the end, if this was the end… at least, in this moment, it felt good to hope… to dream that it could be true…

And on the off chance it was…

“I accept your offer, Renee,” Sabina said, quietly.

Renee smiled again, leaning forward to stroke a hand along Sabina’s cheek.

“I knew you would,” she said. Her smile was almost proud. “You’ll drop your guard for me now, won’t you? And let me take you under, and give you the overdue rewards of obedience you’ve long deserved.”

“Yes,” Sabina said... even the decision to do it made her feel dreamy… made her feel sleepy. She was lolling back into her chair, as if she might take a nap right where she was sitting.

“It will be fast,” Renee said. “Fast, now that you’ve let yourself go… now that you’ve let go of all your shields and protections. Now that you are here, and so vulnerable for me. It will be fast.”

Sabina hoped that it would be fast. She was so tired suddenly. She didn’t want to wait.

“Drop for me, Sabina. Drop for me, just because I’ve told you to— and you always choose to do what I say. Make this choice.”

It was one more offer. Sabina’s eyes grew heavy, and fell closed. Renee’s words echoed in her mind— make this choice.

She took the offer. She made the choice. She dropped.

She dropped, and felt herself drifting peacefully, drifting at last through looping mental pleasure. And peace.

It was comforting— it was warm. She didn’t know why she’d hid from it for so long. Didn’t understand anymore why she had been trying to avoid it.

If she could just go on feeling like this… but then, maybe she would… maybe she would feel this way forever, now.

Somehow, that idea was perfectly alright with her.