The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Hello?”

“Ms Shelby?”

“Yes.”

“This is Queen Like—I’m sorry, Queen Lines Resorts. With an aftermarket survey.”

“Yes, you . . . called . . . before? I am sorry, I am not alone now.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate, Ms Shelby. You do need to speak to us.”

“I’m so . . . sorry.”

(“Is that the store?")

“Photonic apple, Ms Shelby. Will you be alone this evening?”

“I don’t know . . .”

(“Is that—Jesus, like she’s oblivious.")

“Relax and forget, Ms Shelby. This is someone you don’t know who used the wrong area code and was too stupid to get it. You will remember only that.

“Hang up now.”

8.

Natalie awakened.

In front of her, Tara Newman lay curled on the bed, eyes closed. With the way her upper thigh stretched and her lower one bent up toward her, Natalie’ s first thought was that she looked like a faun put to sleep as she’d leaped.

Natalie’s second thought was I just fell asleep in a patient’s room.

She checked her watch. 4:43 AM. She tried to recall the last time she’d looked. She usually tried to check without distracting the patient, but this time there was no way to do it subtly.

Besides, she’d chosen to focus her attention on Tara. Focus completely. She remembered that.

She tried to remember whether Tara had drifted off first, but couldn’t. She found it impossible to worry too intensely about it, though. They’d been talking, and she knew she had some things to think about—Tara had explained, perhaps too well, how the hypnotic addiction felt.

Natalie felt strange once again, remembering Tara’s soft, lost whisper as she spoke of slavery from inside its moist depth, the way even evil things could excite her when she saw them through a pink haze of arousal.

When she did them, to the rhythm of the song her clit sang to her.

Just thinking about Tara’s words made her dizzy. It was so alien to everything she knew, to everything Tara herself must have believed before she fell under the spell of the QLR hypnotists. But Tara had spoken of it as such a natural thing. Natalie was genuinely afraid of something so powerful it could make a woman like Tara believe it was natural to obey, virtuous to help enslave others.

But something in the way Tara spoke of it made it less frightening than—frighteningly attractive.

Then Tara must have fallen asleep again. That must have been it; Natalie would never have slept in the middle of a patient’s conversation.

She had to get moving on this case, because it was important to certify Tara as no longer in the thrall of her controllers, so she could leave. This place was nowhere a woman like her should have to be.

Natalie held her head. Wait. That was getting a little ahead of things. There were real-world matters to settle before that could happen. But . . .

But she’d been thinking, before this—hadn’t she?—that she’d need to redefine the pace. She’d been thinking, after seeing Tara react to simple hypnosis, that it would take . . . longer than she’d hoped at first.

Longer? No—shorter. Hadn’t that been it? She’d been thinking she could expedite it.

Stupid, she chided herself. She needed sleep, and she needed to stop plunging into this. She’d go rest and sort this out, and tomorrow—well, later today—she’d look at it again and see what else she needed to find out before she even made a decision.

Getting up, Natalie walked over. Tara looked defenseless, lying that way, and Natalie slid the sheet down below her legs so she could pull it up over her. The cloth moving down her leg drew a small sound from Tara and she moved a little, but stayed asleep as Natalie covered her.

Feeling her warm and relaxed, Natalie felt almost painfully protective. She wanted to hold Tara, shield her from everyone who wanted to own her and twist her will around their own, whisper the secrets Tara needed against the demons they’d planted in her soul.

No. She couldn’t let herself. This path would be long and a lot of it would be ugly, and her feeling for Tara had to be distant, because she couldn’t protect Tara from pain when she needed to inflict it.

You’ll need every bit of that courage you won’t admit having, she thought. You’ll be here awhile.

Tara shouldn’t stay here much longer. Natalie thought that, too, with an urgency that surprised her. They couldn’t both be true . . .

She looked again at the sheet, tightening over Tara’s thighs as she shifted, and she stared at the outlines, recalling how lovely Tara looked from behind. The warmth of the skin as she’d slid the sheet down, warm itself from Tara’s body as she lay.

Natalie felt vertigo as she faced her attraction to this woman. Her heart hammered, and she almost seemed to lose her balance though she stood perfectly still.

If she fell across Tara’s sleeping form, Tara would make another soft sound and reach for her.

Suddenly she laughed to herself—this was insane. It was impossible that both Newman sisters were emitting pheremones or whataver. She was clearly overdosing on all the lesbian eroticism that seemed to be floating thickly at head-level through this case. Maybe the tabloid-TV people had a point: treating this like a sideshow kept it at a distance, because taken seriously it exerted a perilous attraction.

Or maybe I just have abysmal timing in discovering I’m bi-curious.

The Newman sisters. At least my taste in women—if I have one—is impeccable, she thought.

She imagined life as their governess.

Oh, enough.

She turned and left the patient to sleep while she tried to find a way to do the same.

Back at the nurse’s station she found the veteran still on duty, and suddenly recalled that there was video in there as long as Tara was on suicide watch. The nurse didn’t give her the look she’d have expected if she’d caught Natalie napping, and this nurse had no pity for doctors that screwed up, so she wasn’t being cut a break. Either she’d been off-camera or else she’d sat so as to look awake even when she’d slept.

“How did she look to you?” she asked.

The nurse looked back at her. “Seemed calm enough when she was talking to you. Without audio I just have body language, but it seemed a lot less agitated than before. Then she slept.

“You looked thoughtful there at the end, Doctor. Did she say anything that seemed promising?”

Natalie perked up. “Thoughtful”? Maybe she hadn’t been asleep for more than a minute or two—deadly if she’d been driving a car, but . . .

. . . but while this isn’t brain surgery, Dr Kupiec, it’s damned close and it doesn’t forgive inattention either.

“Hard to tell,” she said. “I’ve been leaping to conclusions about this case a lot today. Trying to stop.”

The nurse nodded. “Doctor, may I recommend that you get some sleep? I saw some passdown notes from early this morning and they were from you, too.”

“You don’t want exhausted shrinks near your patients, do you?”

The nurse shook her head. “Neither do you, Doctor.”

“You’re right. Thank you.”

She felt less guilty about leaving and sleeping. She was happy to pass up more time on the office couch that still smelled like Helen Newman, too. Part of her seemed to want to follow the dreams that scent left, and that wasn’t a profitable road to travel now.

At home, her own bed almost seemed strange, but Natalie settled into it quickly, and she was already nearly asleep when she realized she was nude under the covers. She debated rising again and finding one of the oversize T-shirts she usually wore, but felt herself slipping away. It felt too good . . .

She woke feeling loose and expended and almost drunk, and when she shifted to turn off the alarm she gasped at the way the sheet made her nipples sing. She’d been masturbating in her sleep.

I won’t worry about this, she told herself with an authority that amazed her. I’ll just enjoy it.

Natalie resisted the impulse to play with herself again, and even managed to leave the shower having done nothing but wash. Then, the day was new and bright enough from the winter sun to burn away the night’s oddness, and while she felt some of yesterday’s fatigue, she was well into the swing of things by midmorning.

She saw Dr Wardlow had taken her off everything else to work Tara’s case, and paused to write a futile e-mail asking at least to outbrief the patients who were being reassigned. She hoped they wouldn’t think the rudeness was hers. But Tara’s edge-of-the-abyss problem was so far beyond the others’ there really wasn’t an argument to keep any.

I can’t rush. It’s too easy to think of her like someone trapped in a cave-in, buried under the programming that crushed her will—we have to dig her out, tear our way through to her.

No. This is more like archaeology—the precious and the dirt are mixed together and we have to proceed with tiny brushes, and sieves, and tweezers, and patience . . .

“With thimbles and forks and hope,” she said aloud, and shivered. Those were tools to hunt snark—and she didn’t want to hunt snark in Tara’s mind, because if they found boojums there instead, Tara wouldn’t survive.

“Quoting Lewis Carroll?” said someone from the door, and she looked up to see Helen Newman. “My opinion of psychiatry just went up. Or at least of you.”

“Hello,” Natalie said, going again to greet her. They moved to the couch while Natalie assured her it wasn’t an interruption and she needed a pause.

Helen was looking tailored and luminous today. She’d been chic in her fatigue yesterday and Natalie realized she’d come straight from the airport, tired and worried, with that terrible encounter with her sister’s blunted memory as a reward. Now, she was even more in control. Natalie was getting the idea she’d told her firm she was taking time to attend to her sister. Maybe it was—her firm.

It was easier to look her in the eyes. Actually, Natalie realized, it was hard not to. Helen’s eyes, less hazel perhaps than bronze, had both an opacity and a compelling depth, like windows on a temple glowing with . . .

She shook her head and looked away anyway.

“You’re tired.”

Helen was looking at her now, and she felt embarrassed under the gaze, as though she owed this woman something more, peak competence and sharp answers. Well, she did—but this was different.

“Something else, too.” As Helen spoke, Natalie forced herself to look at her again. She was tired, but she needed to be stronger now. “You’ve been hypnotized recently, I think.”

It was such an odd thing to say, but its matter-of-factness put Natalie off balance, and she found herself lost in the bronze eyes now. Hypnotized . . . that was . . .

She blinked, tried to formulate No, wondered miserably why a night’s sleep still left her looking that dazed.

“I understand,” Helen said. “I know psychoanalysts get analyzed, and frankly I’m more comfortable with a doctor who lets herself access therapies like that than one who prescribes for herself.”

“Actually, it is just fatigue,” Natalie said quietly. “I haven’t been hypnotized at all, recently.”

She looked back into Helen’s eyes, as if to show how trance-free she was. Their bronze glow jolted her so deeply she barely felt it. Her gaze was held, and she knew it.

I’ll look away.

In just a moment.

“Would you care to join me for lunch?”

“Yes,” Natalie said softly, the answer more important than the question. She blinked, and there was only Tara’s sleek chic sister, looking hopeful, and vulnerable despite all her position and apparent clout.

Natalie rationalized. Tara’s day was devoted to more of the frightful but effective counter-programming with the QLR techniques. Natalie needed to see some of those in use, but today’s weren’t very . . . visual, and she’d already watched Tara sleep. She blinked ruefully and moved off that thought.

More: she needed to talk to Helen, to find out about Tara and who she was, her limits, things the people who’d stolen her will had found and turned to their use or wiped away from her. It would be good to do some of this away from the hospital, even from her office.

I don’t want too much of my authority-symbolism around, Natalie thought, going for her purse and coat. She didn’t want to intimidate Helen, hard as that seemed to be to imagine. For an instant, looking away from Helen, not even smelling her perfume, Natalie realized that it would be even more demeaning to let herself be dominated here, in the midst of her own power and craft, so it might be best to go elsewhere.

Which was ridiculous, wasn’t it? No one was dominating anyone here. Anymore.

“My hotel?” Helen asked as they left, and Natalie nodded. “They seem committed to guest satisfaction.”

“Hello?”

“Ms Bell?”

“Who’s this?”

“Sir? This is Queen Lines Resorts. With an—”

“You fucking bastards! It’s all over the TV what you people did! Lacy’s hysterical!”

“ . . . God—sir, we know. Believe me, we do. I can’t . . . some of us are trying to stop it. We had no idea—please, you’ve got to believe me! Please. We’re trying to make sure, as fast as we can, that no one else gets hurt.”

“Are you working with the FBI or with—”

“They’re in charge, sir. We’re just in here to work the phones. We need to verify that everyone QLR listed is safe.”

“Please, sir.”

“She’s safe. Tell them that. No, I’ll tell them. Who’s the—hello? Hello?

“Oh my god . . .”

9.

Tara opened her eyes to the gray of not-quite-predawn, and it wasn’t enough to keep them open. The memory of her voice whispering about hypnosis, and an even drowsier voice responding, sent her the rest of the way back to sleep.

Back to dreams sweet enough now, after the fear, to suck her in . . .

. . . Tara was walking in the park.

No.

Tara was being walked, in the park.

Not quite.

Mistress’ bitch Capella was being walked. The nude bitch on the other lead was called Altair. The names were etched on their collar tags and on their minds. Mistress was an astronomer . . .

Capella felt the leash loose against her back as she paced along the paved walk in front of Mistress, enjoying the sun on her bare skin—and the stares. Over the lawns and the trees were stately buildings and skyscrapers beyond them.

Mistress was walking her in Central Park.

She remembered a lobby, dark against the light from the door, waking from trance, her eyes still following the glint of Mistress’ pendulum as She put it away, hypnotizing Her bitches to behave before taking them out. Capella felt the oiled smoothness of the commands in her head, the way she had to think even less than usual after Mistress hypnotized her.

Now, out here, she preened in the stares of the people with clothes on. What made her warmest were the admiring stares of other Owners as they passed with Their own bitches. She didn’t ask herself why They were here, or why no one else did anything but stare (if they even stared). That was for Owners to think. She was just a bitch being exercised.

They walked.

They came to a wider path, and a forgotten habit drew Capella’s gaze up the pole with the signs. She sighed contentedly at the blankness in her mind, with no idea what they said. She’d known how, once, but signs no longer told her where she was or where to go.

Only Mistress did.

Hooves clicked on the larger way, and a heavy carriage rumbled past, with sightseers who gawked at Capella and Altair as Mistress drew them smoothly back to heel, out of the way. She saw Altair’s blue eyes flare in helpless shame as she stood nude before them on her slack lead, unable to do anything else unbidden by her Owner.

Capella’s nipples hardened to it. They waited as Mistress did, listening to a lighter click and the sound of bells as something smaller drew a lighter vehicle toward them.

“Capella, Altair—sit.” She was down on her knees, thighs primly together as Mistress preferred in public, hands crossed behind her. Her back was proudly straight, and she looked over to see Altair just as perfectly posed. She smiled, and the other bitch smiled back, thrilled to do credit to Mistress.

Capella looked the other way.

From the other way came a pair of ponygirls drawing a cart. She felt no envy; she was chosen and trained as a bitch, and for all their glorious form, the ponies would never know their Mistress’ floor, or Her bed. The pleasure of obeying a programmed command to lick Her awake . . .

But glorious they were. Capella knelt and watched their perfectly synchronized legs keep gait and when the Owner driving them laid the whip gently to one, they both responded as though mind-linked. Capella gazed at the hypnotic flashing of the sun on their patent-leather boots and fittings as they sped toward where Mistress stood. She heard the soothing ring of the bells on their pierced nipples and elsewhere, and knew the cadence must be part of the spell they were under.

They ran with their hands suspended before them, each holding a bouquet that matched the color of the ribbons braided into her hair—yellow for the brunette, dark blue for the blonde. They halted smartly before Mistress, and Capella found herself staring ahead at their gently heaving bellies sheened with sweat, the reinwork through their crotches to control them. The delightfully nervous, aroused twitch of their tails.

Maybe Mistress had bought Capella from a stable before, and wiped her mind. Something about the ponygirls fascinated her, anyway, and part of the bitch thought of crawling forward and sniffing around them as they stood in harness, gently nosing them until their skittishness settled and they let her tongue their moist places. But knowing her will was pinned, that she would not move until Mistress told her to, excited her just as deeply as the promising scent drifting from their crotches. Being sent to lick the ponies to orgasm was just a pleasant thought, not even a wish.

All of Capella’s wishes, and most of her thoughts, were about pleasing Mistress.

Mistress and the ponies’ Owner spoke, and Capella knelt quietly, her mind blank to anything not a command.

Then something in Her tone changed, and Capella looked over to see Altair still kneeling, but blinking uncertainly.

“Still training her?” the cart driver asked.

“She’s really trying,” Mistress said. “She’s been so good up to now. First day out.”

“Ahh. I see. Medicated?”

Mistress looked at her. “If a bitch needs to be drugged, she’s not ready. But this one resisted trance in the beginning.

“Altair, hold.” The shift to the command voice made Capella tremble and juice, and feeling it cool on her inner thigh she wished she were the one being corrected.

She watched Altair stare up into Her eyes, growing still and lost.

“Altair, spiral.”

Altair’s blue eyes glazed over immediately and her body somehow relaxed and stiffened at the same time. It felt like someone gripping her own cunt as Capella saw her sister bitch hypnotized out here. She moistened again and swallowed her moan, not wanting to disturb Mistress as She deepened Her other pet.

Not wanting to feel the longing as Mistress took away a bit more of another bitch’s soul.

Looking away, she saw a woman and a small child no more than five walking up, the child not even glancing at her but gaping at the two ponies. It walked up to them, and they stirred nervously, looking at it and away until their Owner murmured something soft to make the ponygirls relax together, their eyelids heavier.

The child looked up at the blonde pony, standing next to her and putting a finger very lightly against the taut leather over her thigh. The pony twitched but her training held her still. The Owner looked on, alert but friendly, glancing at the child’s guardian and trading nods.

The child looked up and asked softly, “Mommy?”

The pony looked down and blinked. Her eyes seemed to be trying to focus, but Capella could see the pony was too deeply under control to react. She didn’t look at what Mistress was doing as Altair knelt, going deeper into trance.

The Owner’s eyes narrowed, but she did nothing as the child looked at its guardian and pointed to the pony, asking quietly of her now, “Mommy?”

“No, honey.” The guardian stepped over and crouched, glancing up at the ponygirl with an unreadable expression. “This pony belongs to the lady there. Mommy’s—gone.”

The child looked at her, then at the pony, then back at her, out of ideas but clearly fixated on the harnessed woman who stood over it.

“She likes these,” said the Owner, checking her watch. “They help clear her mind. And it’s about time to give her one, too. Would you like to?” She held out a packet of greenish tablets to the guardian, who offered it to the child. When it hesitated, she took a tablet and put one in each small hand, returning the packet to the Owner.

“Thank you. They’d both like one,” she said. The child looked at her doubtfully, but when the guardian led it around to the front and lifted it, it gravely held one out to each, the brunette first. She leaned forward over her bouquet and let out her tongue, and the child seemed interested in putting it on for her. The pony patiently waited and then took the pill into her mouth, blinking and looking away.

The blonde leaned forward, trying, now, to look at the small person before her, but her eyes dropped to the green tablet. Gently she worked her lips over it and almost kissed it from the child’s hand.

As she swallowed, she finally seemed to focus on the child. “Mommy,” it whispered. She shook, softly ringing her nipple-bells.

The guardian lowered the child to the ground, and it turned as if to protest but then looked back at her. Capella saw the Owner work the reins, and now she did gasp in envy, as both the ponies stiffened in their traces, staring forward now and sighing.

The pleasure their Owner had just tapped through their leather-bound pussies burned child and pills from their bridled minds. There was nothing for them now but the run to come and the delightful torment between their thighs that would goad them as they ran. The child stepped back, staring wide-eyed at the change in the pony.

Turning to Mistress, the Owner said, “I need to run them a bit when they’ re dosed or they get sluggish. Later?” At Mistress’ nod she snapped the reins and the two ponies trotted off.

Capella trembled at the chorused cry the ponies made before their hooves drowned it out.

The child lifted its hand and opened its mouth again to say . . .

Tara opened her eyes, and the glitter hurt them. She realized it was the way her tears broke the morning light as it streamed in, and didn’t know why it felt so much worse to think of closing them again and returning to . . . wherever she’d been.

She couldn’t sort the pleasure from the searing grief, or remember what had caused either one.

Dee was there. Tara heard her clothing whisper as she moved quietly in the room.

“I’m awake,” she whispered, and almost teared up at how pleased the nurse sounded as she greeted her.

“Hungry?” Dee asked. Tara wondered why she looked regretful—then remembered.

“Fasting, right?”

“Yes.” Dee took her arm for the blood pressure and pulse, and Tara just enjoyed her touch.

They never let her eat before another session of deprogramming. She thought someone had told her another woman like her had had a seizure under the QLR mind control devices, but she wasn’t sure.

The idea of letting them brainwash her again killed her appetite, anyway.

But there was a heat in her loins again, and as she knew it wasn’t just Dee ‘s tender grip on her arm turning her on, she felt genuinely afraid.

It made her hotter.

“Dee,” she whispered. I’m hornier than usual. Hornier than ever. I can’t wait for the mindfuck. Help! “Dee. I—”

The cuff came off and Dee was next to her, warm but not touching. “I’m here, Tara.”

“Something’s—wrong. I’m feeling way too . . . hhhh . . .”

She looked up, but Dee’s unbearably pretty face wiped the words from her. Tara reached up, and cried out softly at how Dee’s cheek felt. She saw Dee again, naked on Dormignonne . . .

I need to—

Wide-eyed as Tribeswomen chanted her into mindlessness.

She can help—

Spread limp on the smooth stone of the altar.

God her mouth so soft and wet like—

Oiled under their hands.

Then Dee was holding her, tightly, not taking Tara’s breast but with her arm between them. Tara felt Dee’s throat-pulse against her eyelid and cried out again. It wasn’t being fucked but it felt so good . . .

“Tara.” Dee murmured into her damp hair, the word falling all around her. “I’m here. I know that touching you is a problem—”

Tara tried to shake her head and just moved against Dee’s grip, but Dee felt it, and her lips barely touched the crown of Tara’s head, stayed there. Tara almost came. It would have been a slow, soft flow.

“—I know. I know. I can’t do that, be that for you and if I could, I wouldn’t. I’m your nurse.

“But this isn’t just about being fucked. Even if someone’s got you fucking yourself.”

Dee held her. “I can’t be with you when they do it. But remember you’re more than this.”

Tara nodded. Dee was doing it, getting through the warm fog without spinning Tara’s mind away into it. The arousal was there but it was eclipsed by something brighter. Something that attracted her gaze without chaining it.

Tara hoped she could still see it somehow when they showed her the Spiral again.

“Hello?”

“Ms Grey?”

“Yes—wait a minute, let me turn this down. Some kind of war in France or something.

“OK. Go ahead?”

“This is Queen Like—I’m sorry, Queen Lines Resorts. With an aftermarket survey.”

“Queen. Like. Yes. I am alone now. Continue.”

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“Yes. Not thinking now.”

“Are you still listening, Ms Grey?”

“I am export lot 471. I must listen and obey.”

10.

Natalie was settled in the passenger seat before she realized she hadn’t even registered what sort of car Helen had rented. Silver, high-end imported, leather-accoutred. Then Helen was behind the wheel, her bronze eyes glowing like Egyptian mirrors as she looked over at Natalie and grinned.

Her perfume was still sweet, subtle, not overpowering—but Natalie was overpowered anyway, here in the quiet fragrant isolation of the car.

She fumbled with the seatbelt and turned to Helen. “I—this isn’t me. I’m just . . .” The bronze gaze didn’t waver. “This is so unprofessional. I’m sorry.”

Then Helen leaned over, not taking her eyes from Natalie’s. Natalie settled back against the seat, dazed and bemused at how Helen came so near her, like a lover, or a serpent curling round its hypnotized bird.

She smiled and Natalie felt it on her skin. “Actually, Doctor, it make me feel so much better. I can see how much of yourself you’re giving to this—to my sister, to helping her.

“In fact, you’re trying so hard to keep her from hurt that you’re hurting yourself.”

Natalie realized there was moisture in Helen’s eyes. The woman was admiring her, and for a second she empathized with Tara, disclaiming others’ awe.

She had to close her eyes and breathe in as Helen reached past her and freed the seatbelt, but she had enough balance left to take it from Helen and smile back as she secured it. She settled back as the engine hummed through her and they began to roll. She almost wanted to fall asleep, trusting in Helen’s sure control of the car, but made herself stay awake. This was beyond mortifying.

She blinked as they came to a stop in front of a red marble portico, wondering where the ride had gone. A valet appeared at the top of the steps but waited until Helen opened her door and got out. Natalie fought a sudden urge to relax, wait, and let Helen come around and let her out.

This is not a date. She worked the seatbelt, and was out and grinning at Helen when the other woman came around the car. They went up the steps together, not before Natalie saw the cautious glance the valet darted at Helen.

In the lobby, she stepped forward, letting her head clear. She noticed a girl sitting at a desk beside and smaller than the concierge station, staring abstractly through the lobby’s mild bustle.

Then the girl, a wholesome mid-twenties type with short, almost boyishly-cut hair, saw them and brightened, standing and coming to meet them, gazing wide-eyed at Helen. “Ms Newman! Welcome back. We were able to arrange everything just as you specified.” She stood straighter. “I saw to everything personally and I made them redo the documents until they were perfect.”

“Tammy.” Helen nodded and took Tammy’s hand in both of hers, looking deeply at her as her eyes widened and she colored slightly. “You’re of such great value to me. I’m thrilled I can rely on you.”

Tammy looked about to cry from pride. “I’m at your disposal, Ma’am,” she said simply.

“Tammy, this is Dr Kupiec, my guest.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Natalie felt Tammy’s enthusiasm like a glass of sparkling water—bracing after the dazing liqueur of Helen’s aura. “Welcome to the hotel, Doctor. I’m assigned to see to Ms Newman’s needs and those of her guests. If there’s anything you need, please just tell me, or have me paged.

“Your wish is my command.”

Natalie would have smiled. She could only nod silently. She’d never heard that said with such conviction.

Tammy’s gaze returned to Helen like a compass needle. “Ms Newman, Miss Daley asked me to request a few minutes for her, when you had some time.” Helen looked at her.

“We have a new hire, a booking clerk. She started today and she hasn’t . . . met you yet. Before she starts training, Miss Daley thought—”

“Yes, Tammy. I’ll tend to her right now. Is she in Chris’ office?”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

Helen looked at Natalie. “I’m sorry—I’ve incurred some obligations. I’ll be with you in just a moment—or Tammy could take you in to the dining room? You could order a drink and . . .”

“Oh, I’d better not.” Natalie grinned. “I’m on duty. It’s all right. I can just wait here and people-watch.”

“Yes,” Helen said, and went off.

Tammy smiled with beautiful insincerity and asked if she could get Natalie anything.

“No, thank you. Is Ms Newman an executive here, or something?”

Tammy blinked. “Oh. No, Doctor. She’s a personnel consultant, and she’s been helping us revamp our training program.” The young woman shook her head in wonder. “She’s just turned this place around. She knows how to reach people, help them reach inside themselves . . .” Her tone was urgent, somehow, and Natalie had a flash of Tammy slipping into the no-doubt palatial restroom and going to a stone-walled stall, sliding her skirt up and her hose down, eyes closing around the image of Helen Newman’s face.

Reaching inside herself.

She shivered, and wondered at what her mind was doing. Amazed she wasn’t more amazed.

Like Tammy, she was waiting for Helen to return and give her purpose.

A moment later Helen emerged from a side office, with a beaming matronly middle-aged woman and a sullen-looking younger one Tammy’s age in tow, both wearing the same skirt and vest uniform Tammy did.

They stopped a few feet away, and the older woman said, “Thank you, Ms Newman. I was so worried about her.” She waited, swallowed, and added breathlessly, “Is she ready for the . . . training video now?”

Helen smiled and looked into the younger woman’s face. “Are you, Ellie?”

The girl stirred, and Natalie saw she wasn’t sullen, just . . . lost. “Yes, Ma’am.” Natalie could barely hear the weary response.

“Good girl. Go with Miss Daley now and watch the video. Answer her questions afterward to see if you need to watch it again. OK?”

Ellie nodded, and then looked awkwardly around for the older woman, who led her away.

Helen smiled at Natalie as she came back. “I’m so sorry, but I told them I ‘d help out.”

“Yes. Tammy was telling me that you’ve been helping with staff issues here?” That was actually beyond what the hero-worshipping concierge had said, but Tammy didn’t blink, utterly focused on Helen Newman.

Committed to guest satisfaction, Helen had said back at the hospital. Apparently so.

Tammy’s nostrils flared slightly, and Natalie wondered whether Helen had cut her from the herd of attractive employees here and seduced her, or was just letting Tammy dream about it.

“I have to.” Helen’s bleak tone snapped her reverie, and she was glad. “it’s busywork. I can’t hover over at the hospital and get in your hair as you work, I don’t have any skills to participate myself, and . . .

“And . . . Tara doesn’t—want—me—”

As Helen fought for control, Natalie’s brain spun back to level, and she felt mildly disgusted with herself for musing about Helen as a sapphic shark in this lagoon of pretty fish. Helen was, in fact, a strong woman hit in her most vulnerable spot, panicking quietly for her younger sister, ashamed of not being able to protect her, and turning her energy into something useful. It was only logical that others in the path of that charismatic discharge would be affected—Natalie herself wasn’t immune. Whether it could help Helen’s own pain was something else.

Tammy looked stricken to see that pain.

Stepping forward, Natalie took Helen’s hand as Helen had taken Tammy’s before, and looked full into the bronze eyes. “Good for you, Helen.” She let out the weird emotions she’d been feeling now. “That’s a healthy response. Survival and hope.” She saw Tammy looking at her, pleased and surprised.

“I’m a doctor,” she said mock-solemnly. “I know these things.” Helen laughed and then Tammy did, but Natalie could tell she’d earned some real favor with the young woman by praising her idol.

Natalie wondered how it would have been if Helen, not Tara, had faced the QLR mind control. She simply couldn’t picture Helen enslaved, wide-eyed in trance or kneeling to perform the tasks Tara had been taught to pant and beg for.

Then Helen resumed charge and had Tammy lead them to dining room—which turned out to be in her suite, a spacious windowed set of rooms that looked out on bare, gray-brown winter woods at the edge of the techpark. Tammy’s demeanor shifted, her perky enthusiasm subdued as she stepped to the table and waited quietly until they were seated, then asked softly if she could bring Natalie a drink.

Natalie was astonished and a little worried by how readily Tammy had become a waitress for them, but saw the tranquil urgency in the girl’s eyes: if this simple task was what Helen wanted of her right now, she would do it—be it—perfectly.

She wondered what Helen was like to work for. God—was Dormignonne itself just an extension of some other powerful woman’s domain, gone out of control?

“I’ll just have mineral water,” she said, and saw Tammy turn away before Helen could order, but Helen just smiled and looked out at the trees.

When Tammy reappeared from the sideboard and wet bar, she had a tray with a tumbler and a bottle with a label in Italian that Natalie’d never heard of and a cocktail in a stemmed glass for Helen. Of course—she’d know Helen’s drink, her wine, how she took her coffee, or her tea.

Seeing how she set the glass down in front of Helen and gazed at her, fearfully adoring, Natalie asked herself whether Tammy might recite those preferences to herself in free moments to burn them into memory. Or each night before sleep.

Helen sipped it, closed her eyes. She looked up at Tammy, taking her offered gaze.

“Flawless as ever,” she said.

Tammy blushed and closed her eyes for a moment, then smiled deeply. “Thank you, Ma’am.” She inhaled with a gasp as though just then remembering how. “May I serve now, Ma’am?”

Natalie could almost see the power in the air as Helen accepted the girl’s deference. Maybe some people didn’t need mind control to put a mental harness on others. It was mesmerizing, like seeing a weightlifter do origami, the muscles shifting, focusing immense strength on a delicate unresisting object. Reshaping it.

Yes, Helen’s hobby was enticing women, and straight or gay, Tammy was happy to play. As Tammy brought out bowls of cloudy soup, the aroma a warm filling promise over something spicy, Natalie wondered how far the play had gone—she didn’t know the need in Tammy that made her this vulnerable to a strong personality.

She saw Tammy pause, and then at Helen’s nod step back to stand by the wall. The girl’s total lock on Helen Newman was almost worrisome, and Natalie, despite her reluctance to snap-diagnose, wondered whether it was play for Tammy anymore. She wondered if there were something unhealthy in Tammy’s response to Helen’s undeniable magnetism, something dangerous.

Maybe she should warn Helen.

Meanwhile, Tammy stood demurely by the wall, waiting their pleasure but looking only at Helen, as though there were no one else in the world.

As though she lived only to hear, and only from Helen, that she was . . . flawless.

“Hello?”

“Ms Harrison?”

“Yes?”

“I’m calling from the Task Force. You’re on a list being kept by Queen Lines—”

“Oh god. I saw it on Global—a list? They put me on a list? Oh god . . .”

“Is there someone there with you now, Ms Harrison?”

“With me? You mean they might—oh god—”

“Don’t worry, Ms Harrison. I can guarantee that no one from Queen Lines will come to your home. But there’s some information we need to help stop them. I just need to ask you something. Please listen carefully.”

“OK. Oh god. OK. I’m—”

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“ . . . Yes. Yes. Not thinking now.”

“Are you still listening, Ms Harrison?”

“I am export lot 472. I must listen and obey.”

“You will obey and be pleasing. Some will try to prevent you from carrying out your programming. You must resist. They must not know that you have been reactivated.”

“I understand. None must know that I obey. I will tell no one.

“My arousal increases as I submit.”

“You were well-programmed, lot 472. Here is what you will remember to escape your enemies and come home forever . . .”

11.

Tara rose from the wheelchair they still made her use between units, and didn’t look back at Dee as she left the nurse at the security point. Past here was where the hospital hosted the various entities that held the secrets of Dormignonne.

Abandon all hope—? It wasn’t even funny. After she’d entered here she wouldn’t want to hope.

This was where they’d brainwash her again. Just for a little while.

As she walked past the security people, just seeing the uniforms and not seeing the faces of both genders looking at her, she let her gown hang loose, and blessed Dee again for the extra pair of panties she was wearing. They were already damp, but no one could see how wet she was getting as she walked in to give up her will for another afternoon.

When she’d first gotten here she’d made the trip on a gurney like a surgical patient, seeing ceiling lights and faces from below, and it had felt too much like being a load of something being trundled into a processing machine. She’d asked to be allowed to walk in, and they’d applauded her choice.

But none of them were here, just the gimlet-eyed security people outside and the agency ciphers inside.

Tara stopped, waiting for the closed door to slide open. Please! Not again! Her mind was screaming inside her head again. She could almost feel it scurrying around in her skull, trying uselessly to hide in a place that had no secret places. She consoled it as if it were a pet: Shhh, poor little mind, it’s OK, we’ll be all right, mind, we always wake up afterward and we remember who we are. But the bland little inside door blotted the fantasy out.

They were going to brainwash her. No need for drugs to make her submit—they’d hypnotize her with triggers and her mind would open to them, her will wisping away. She’d be their obedient assistant, doing half their work for them—a willing slave, once and always. She’d be in ecstasy. She’ d be dripping.

This will help me. Someday, I won’t have to come here anymore for them to ladle more of this evil out of my head. I won’t be slut-wet just thinking about my mind being taken.

The heat in her cunt surprised her, and her moan had a touch of despair as she realized that whatever she’d been dreaming last night was weakening her. She dimly remembered being this helpless and hot on the island, waiting for the Owners to change her mind for her again.

This will—punish me. It will never end. I need to bathe in this for every woman that I triggered and sent into chains for the rest of her life. They can’t remember me—they can’t remember themselves—so I must remember them.

But—it—feels—so—good—

The door slid open.

Breathing harder, Tara stepped through, staring ahead, already too deeply into it to look at the person at the desk to her left. She stopped and stood with her hands by her sides, waiting. From this point on she would do only what she was told.

She could barely stand, barely keep her hand from her crotch.

But standing obediently and aping trance was a delicious self-tease, too.

“Hello, Tara.” The guard’s voice was male, the gentle one—she never remembered names here. “It’s the usual, please—just slip the gown off.” It was part of how this happened—they seemed to believe it would work more powerfully on her mind if she were naked and passive, like any QLR slave being programmed.

It did. She was.

“Yes, Sir,” she whispered and obeyed, pulling it over head and then standing still again, letting it hang from one hand—the one opposite him, so even the leg it hung over wasn’t the one he could see, as she stood now in nothing but a white bikini bottom, darkened at the crotch as plainly as her exposed nipples were rock-hard. She stared ahead at the far door, not fleeing his gaze but warming to it.

Passive, compliant. Ready for conditioning.

Mindfuckable.

“Tara, are you all right?”

She was breathing too hard to answer for a moment. “Yes, Sir.” This felt so much better than fear. “I am fine, Sir. I am receptive and open and ready for my deprogramming.” She’d never said “Master” on the island, or it would be in her mouth now.

“You’ll need to remove the panties now, Tara.”

She thought of Dee handing them to her, Dee who’d listened when she’d talked about hard it was having to walk past those eyes displaying her arousal. It let Tara savor a poisonous sweetness as she reached under the string and ripped them off with her free hand, still staring forward but feeling a smile claim her mouth.

“Yes, Sir.”

He didn’t say anything, even when he stepped behind her and took the clothes. Now she wore only the hospital bracelet, felt it against her hip as she stood awaiting orders. She felt something in his unseen look—scorn or horror or lust for her ass—and it braced her nipples.

I will obey my orders, she thought, feeling the rush as she started to picture Dee watching her abase herself like this. Drew back from it.

Soon, a few minutes from now, I’ll be hot to dream of dancing naked under a pendulum right in front of Dee.

But by then I won’t be able to remember who she is.

Tara felt more disappointed than relieved about that. Now she knew she was ready.

The far door opened, and she saw the indoctrination chair set up in the darkened room, one of several rooms they had here. She didn’t move until he told her, and then she padded forward, feeling oddly free. She found the center of the room and came to attention again.

Someone moved in the shadow near the side of the room. In the light it was a woman, a technician in a flannel shirt and khakis, here to operate the machinery and staring with open distaste at the spectacle of a slave presenting herself for mind control.

A bare-assed slave, quivering gently and juicing down the inside of her leg.

Tara kept staring forward, basking in the stare but not returning it.

“You’re here to be—deprogrammed?” God. She would ask. Tara must tell.

“Yes, Mistress.” Tara whimpered as she heard herself. She knew this wasn’t a QLR controller, but the need to submit was too strong, and it felt good to submit to the need itself.

There was no haze of drugs the way she and the others were kept in the Buildings or the village. She had nothing to help her obey now but the addiction inside her and the knowledge that this woman was going to make her mindless.

It was liked being dryfucked by an unfriendly stranger, and finding it made her so hot she lubed herself.

“All right—Miss.” She heard the suppressed word—slut, cunt, whore. Maybe slave. But the tech knew they were being recorded, and whether she wanted to play with Tara or hurt her very badly, she could only follow the protocol.

“Step into the chair and relax.”

“I must obey,” she said, and didn’t bother to choke down the moan as she felt the slick, washable plastic cool under her skin. The tech was rough in strapping her down at first, then took exaggerated care. Tara vaguely wanted to attract her—behind her scowl of shock and discomfort she was a good-looking young woman—but that kept melting into a desire to crawl for her, to earn being kept on her knees.

It didn’t really matter. In a few moments the brainwashing would begin. Tara would remember the obedience she really needed, and forget everything else.

She thought of Dee again, of crawling to her like this, calling her Mistress and blowing warm kisses at her crotch until she let Tara worship it. Dee could hold the stethoscope and watch Tara look up at it, her eyes going wide and shallow and open.

As the tech’s latex-gloved hands worked her body and made her start to gush, Tara realized these fantasies wouldn’t show her Dee’s face.

Dee wouldn’t make her kneel—wouldn’t let her kneel.

She remembered Dee’s lips on her hair. Remember you’re more than this.

The tech was done, and without her lovely cruel manhandling Tara could think a little more. She lay as still as she could, letting the woman notice that she wasn’t writhing lewdly in the straps. Their eyes met and Tara swallowed.

“I make you sick,” she said. Her pussy betrayed her and its itch slid into her mind, making her hope the woman would slap her for that. Hold her down and . . .

“No,” the tech said, but looked away, searching for a machine to see instead of the soft slave under her hands.

Tara fought to communicate. “Sometimes I want to . . .” Die would get her put back on suicide watch and it wasn’t that simple anyway. “I—”

The woman looked back at her. “So would I.”

It was barely a whisper, too quiet for the audio. She closed the kits and stepped away.

Tara lay back, not knowing if she’d gotten through. She didn’t dare tell herself it didn’t matter.

She thought about telling herself again that this was supposed to free her, in the end, but by now she was fighting weakly against the straps, trying to draw her thighs together, and it really didn’t matter.

Then her body spasmed as the chair itself pulsed in deep vibration that numbed and stimulated her at once, as higher tones in her ears neatly neutralize her thoughts until she lay gaping, straining so hard against the straps she no longer felt them. Her mind was a pile of loose wreckage.

Another command was coming, and like a conditioned pet, what was left of Tara now quivered, yearning. Her pussy knew what her brain had been told to forget.

A new tone ravished her ears. The pussy-reflex answered.

The orgasm it tripped blew through her in a blindingly black flare, and the mind-clutter was gone.

So was her mind. Tara sprawled there. Her eyes and mouth and pussy were wide and empty and moist.

Cleansed of ideas, she lay docile and open.

Then It was there to take her, again.

The Spiral swirled down over her from the darkness, and she gave herself to it, feeling the familiar-but-new suction as it reached into her softness and drew out whatever it hadn’t embedded there. This time she felt the endless narrowing bands pulling her up and squeezing her, wringing out the freedom she’d soaked up in her time away from the Spiral’s domination.

When she was dry of freedom, it would steep her in what she must think and know and do and be.

Later it would wring her out and steep her again. Tara would not remember, or complain, or resist.

Tara would climax, and obey.

The steeping began.

“Who is this?”

“Ms Lindstrom?”

“I said, who is this?”

“This is the Task Force. You’re on a list—”

“The display doesn’t say anything about any Task Force.”

“We’re still installing lines, Ms Lindstrom. We’re moving very fast on this. You’re in danger.”

“I know I’m in fucking danger. It’s on the fucking news. Lesbian sex-slaves . . . I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember anything but fun and frolic and I was probably eating out . . . oh fuck . . .”

“Ms Lindstrom, we will not let them get you. We won’t. But there’s something I need to find out from you first.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“Pen . . . penlight . . . no . . . I have to . . .”

“You have to—Ms Lindstrom, do you have to think? Is that what you have to do?”

“Export—no—no . . . yes. Think. Not think. I have to . . . try . . . but I’m . . .”

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“. . . hhhhh. Yes . . . not . . . thinking . . . but . . . please just le t me put . . . two . . . thought . . . s . . .”

“Hear only my voice now, Ms Lindstrom. You cannot hear or focus on anything else.”

“No! . . . you aren’t going to—going to—just hypnotize me like—”

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“. . .

“. . . y-yes. Yes. Not thinking now. Not . . . thinking.”

“Are you still listening, Ms Lindstrom?”

“I am . . . please . . . don’t . . . don’t . . .”

“Octopus quintuplet, Ms Lindstrom.”

“Ohhhh. Yes. Yesss. Obey. Obeyyyy . . .”

“Are you still listening, Ms Lindstrom?”

“I am obedient. I am export lot 473. I must listen and—mmmm—obey.”

“It’s time to go home, now, slave. Time to go home forever.”

“I must obey. I will obey asleep or awake. I must not climax until my owner activates me.”

“Your mind responds, lot 473.”

12.

Tara felt the hands on her and wanted to spread herself, offering herself without even seeing who it was, but she could barely move.

She blinked up into the tech’s face as the tech undid the instrumentation that had turned Tara back into a slave, and also measured the depth of her submission before permitting her to think again. The eyes swept across hers without stopping. The woman despised her and was treating her as warm meat.

Somehow, as Tara knew that, there was still more pussy-damp in her to leak out.

“I,” she whispered, moved by something she couldn’t name.

The woman looked down, and the hostility was worse when it focused. “What?” she asked tightly.

“I—am,” Tara said. She almost added please but somehow knew she shouldn ‘t.

The technician looked down. “What am you?” she asked, softly. For two heartbeats Tara thought it was caring.

Then she knew how toxic the woman’s contempt was, as she hid it from the pickups.

It hurt. But Tara lay and waited to hear herself beg the woman to fist-fuck her.

Or something.

What? She held her tongue, and the urge didn’t come.

It was fading. She still enjoyed the gloved hands and their angry delicacy, but she no longer felt enslaved to the desire, no longer wanted to.

She could think.

I am a free woman, Tara told herself. This is what it can feel like. I have—friends, like Dee. I may have enemies, like this bitch—who may be just a terrified angry woman who has nightmares about ending up like me.

I am—entitled—to both.

She didn’t try to talk to the tech again. She still felt the passivity, and fatigue too, as she sat up in the chair. The tech muttered to her to stand, letting her find her feet—I’m not a fucking nurse, she probably hissed to herself.

But the need to crawl and obey and was gone, or at least so spent that Tara could get past it.

Or maybe so thoroughly sated she’d overloaded her slave-centers. Before she could think about it and quail she concentrated, trying to remember what had happened to her while she’d been in trance, but there was nothing.

She’d been programmed to forget, and she would obey.

Deep inside, she shivered just a bit to know that. And knew it wasn’t over at all.

As her feet touched the floor, she realized she could stand, and before she could stop it she remembered how erotic it was to stand nude and receptive in a darkened brainwashing chamber.

God. It was done for now and it still made her wet. She truly was a mind-control slut, and this woman was right to . . .

She tried to think of Dee, but she was becoming transfixed by the awareness of just how hooked she was. How ready she was to be fucked, or hypnotized, or just put through slave paces. Submissive. Obedient.

Mindfuckable.

Helplessly she came to attention.

“What are you waiting for?” came the tech’s voice from behind her.

“I am waiting for command, Mistress.” Tara stood straighter. She felt proud of behaving so well, and the fear that gave her, as she felt things slip away, had nothing to do with the angry technician.

She heard the woman breathe. She waited. She thought about others coming to command her instead, but as she fixated on this—enemy, it blotted such ideas from her mind. No one else existed but this Mistress of the moment.

“Go. Go out that way.” She heard the voice modulate. Something else beside contempt was there. Not compassion. Maybe the technician had worked with these machines, but before now, before she’d seen Tara drooling and coming and being the Compleat Slavegirl, she’d never actually seen for herself what they really did to a mind helpless in their control.

“Yes, Mistress. I obey.” Tara pivoted and began to walk out the indicated door.

She made herself stop. “Mistress.”

“What?”

“Thank you.” She walked again, unable to make herself look back to see.

She was in an unfamiliar area, a larger area or ward that had been partitioned off by frosted panels. She was too worn out, and still too deep in slave-think, to try to explore, but she saw a silhouette behind a panel and went to see if it were as human as it looked.

Someone will tell me what I must do. Someone always does. Then I will do it.

It was a woman with long brown hair and full Mediterranean features, nude and braceleted, in a cubicle, suspended in a sling seat and bound to it, her eyes closed. She seemed as much prisoner as patient. Her face was blank and her chest rose and fell slowly.

Another slave. Another ex-slave.

Tara remembered Dormignonne. Women in training in the Buildings, put into meditation by their hypnotists, given a mantra to bludgeon their other stunned thoughts flat, and left to repeat it endlessly, bleaching their consciousness from within.

Before that, back in Tribe, she’d found one of her hutmates entranced like this, enthralled by tree spirits one night when she’d been on guard duty, left to drowse happily while they led her Tribesisters away in a dream they’ d never awaken from.

Tara shivered, resisting the memories.

The tiny motion roused the woman—or perhaps she just smelled the arousal Tara was trailing around with her. She opened her eyes, lovely frank brown eyes, and slowly looked up, smiling widely as she saw Tara’s body and then really lighting up when she looked into Tara’s eyes.

Tara relaxed.

She couldn’t help it. It was so easy to look into the other woman’s eyes. Tara’s pussy itched hopefully and she felt herself start to step forward.

“Hello,” the woman said, in a lullaby voice, as though she knew how badly Tara needed to be soothed. “I’m Evelyn. It’s all right now. Come to me.”

Evelyn was so beautiful, and so sweet, bound in the sling. She was so full of certainty. She could obey the way Tara dreamed of obeying, and Tara sensed she could also teach obedience to other slaves.

She could teach Tara to obey. Between her thighs Tara would hear so clearly as . . .

Tara froze. Those eyes held the Spiral, and nothing else.

“It’s all right,” Evelyn said even more softly. “Look into my eyes and relax. Then come to me.”

Other women from the call centers. Tara she hadn’t met any, not since she’ d been in one, herself one of the brainwashed cogs turning obediently. She’ d wanted to think they were like her, weakening from the programming and slipping—too easily and often—into trance and into heat.

But trying, as she was.

Now she realized what she already knew: QLR had completely broken most of the women it enslaved, and nearly all the ones whom it put into the call centers. They belonged to their brainwashers utterly, and lived only to obey their last programming—gather the slaves.

“Come to me, love. Let me hold you and sing to you. I’ll sing you to sleep.” Evelyn seemed to look right into Tara’s soul. “When you sleep you won’t need to cry.”

Hugging herself, Tara turned away the little she could, trying to plant her feet. God she wanted it. Peace and obedience and someone who knew she was a slave and would tell her what to do . . .

Evelyn’s voice was so compelling. Tara imagined hearing it on a phone, the trigger dripping in those honeyed tones into her ear, darkening her mind to QLR blue like dye dropped in water.

She wanted to lose that way, to a voice like Evelyn’s.

And she could, right now, if she just . . .

“Tara. Are you all right?”

She turned. Dee was there.

Tara wanted to kiss her, and for once there was nothing sexual about it.

The nurse was fingering her badge nervously, and Tara’s muddled thoughts begrudged her the memory that Dee wasn’t authorized to be in the QLR-systems zone.

“You were overdue—”

“Tara? That’s such a pretty name,” Evelyn said, and Tara felt the tug on her will and her pussy. “And who’s your stunning friend, Tara? Tell me her name and we can relax together and help her sleep.”

Dee stepped half in front of Tara and looked straight at Evelyn. “Please go back to your meditation. This woman is my—”

“I’m already very deeply relaxed, but thank you.” Evelyn told her, and Tara felt weak at how easily her soothing tone subdued Dee in just a few words. She felt terrified at how much stronger Evelyn seemed than they were, despite—or because—the sling immobilized her. “I’m helping Tara to relax, and if we can speak for a moment, just a moment, I can help you to relax too, would you like that?

“Tara can tell me your name and then—”

Tara closed her eyes. “Don’t. She’s trying to hypnotize us. Just go. Go and tell . . . someone . . .”

She saw Dee’s head droop and almost sobbed but it was Dee’s way of breaking Evelyn’s stare, and the nurse just took her by the arm and started them out.

“What the hell are you doing here?” It was the technician, looking furious and afraid.

“This is my patient,” Dee snarled back. “She was due back on ward ten minutes ago. What were you doing?”

“I told her—” Now Tara realized the tech had sent her out the wrong door, and was trying to assess her fuckup.

The technician looked at her, and Tara suddenly thought, We’re surrounded by contraband brainwashing technology. What if she’s afraid enough of a bad writeup to use it on Dee?

She was too appalled to be aroused by the image of Dee in trance, having her memories edited.

It was deepest paranoia—but she felt Dee tense, and realized the nurse feared it, too, in this alien precinct of the hospital.

But she’d come in anyway, for Tara.

The tech sighed. “Come with me. I’ll get you to the security point.” As they walked, she took out a notepad. “Here—and here’s my badge, there’s the number I wrote.”

Dee took it and looked at both—then crumpled the sheet and handed it to the guard.

“I’ll tell Dr Kupiec, but only so she knows what to check for. Not for paperwork. She wouldn’t do anything unless this really went wrong.”

“Do you know it didn’t?” The tech sounded reluctant to believe she was off the hook.

Tara wanted to say But Evelyn didn’t reenslave me, then realized how it would sound.

“I think I’d see it. Tara’s OK. But the doctor can find out for sure. I think I found her before that other patient had time to do much.

“And you could get me in trouble for being here in time to do that, so we ‘re sort of stuck, I think.”

The tech said nothing, but as they came to a door that said “Leaving Security Area” she turned to them and said, “Wait here.” She trotted off.

Tara looked at Dee and couldn’t say anything. Dee shook her head. For her sake Tara held it in.

The tech reappeared with something in her hand. A fresh gown.

Tara realized she was still naked. The tech looked her in the eye as she held it out, and Tara nodded thanks. After she slipped it on, the tech led them out, and the guards waved them past.

They were in her room again when Tara plopped onto the bed. The pressure of the emotions kept her upright—she was too overwrought to collapse.

“Dee.” She couldn’t say anything more. Dee stepped over, then breathed out and sat beside her. Tara leaned into her and they held each other tightly enough to hurt.

They pulled apart at the same time, and then Tara couldn’t help herself anymore. She took Dee’s mouth with her own.

The other woman’s taste was like a sweet drink that warmed her and soothed her, and everything else faded. She was calm, drinking of Dee.

She felt Dee’s tongue, befriending her own.

She didn’t even know when their lips parted. She’d been gazing at the nurse . . .

“Thank you,” Dee whispered, her eyes shining. “I’ve never . . . done that.”

Thank you simply wasn’t enough for what Dee had done. Tara leaned forward again and put her head on Dee’s breasts, and Dee held her, stroking her until she fell asleep.

As her mind dimmed, a shape swayed in it, a woman bound to a sling seat. Staring. Singing.

“. . . yes?”

“Katie?”

“Who’s—?”

“Katie! Thank God! It’s Fran. Fran Donovan. Oh you’re all right. Oh thank God.”

“Fran! You were—there. On Dormignonne. Do you remember any of it?”

“No. Nothing. Just the vacation. Not the rest of the . . . slave . . . They really must have brainwashed us.”

“I know. It’s so sick. I keep thinking I’d like to go back, and . . . sorry. They didn’t even want me to answer the phone. My dad’s here, and Kevin, and—it’s OK guys, it’s Franny. Right. She’s . . .”

“Oh . . . good. You need people to . . . good . . .”

“Fran? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“It’s Luisa. Luisa Powell, my roommate.”

“Oh, Fran. No!”

“They . . . I was still on my way in from work, Katie. I was trying her on my cell and it was busy. It was them, Katie . . .”

“Oh god, Fran.”

“I couldn’t warn her because they were already . . .”

“Fran. Fran. Don’t do that.”

“She’s gone, Katie. They took her mind and then—”

“Everybody? Could you all—? I need to talk to Fran. Alone.

“Fran, stay with me, OK?”

“If I’d only called right away when I saw—”

“No! Please don’t do that to yourself, Fran. Start with you being free.”

“Katie? I can’t say this, I mean . . . Because . . . ”

“Franny. Relax. I sent the ‘bodyguards’ out of the room. It’s just us, girl. Talk to me, please.”

“ . . . Katie, you’re the best. The thing is . . .

“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”

“ . . . Yes. Not thinking now.”

“Are you still listening, Katie?”

“I am export lot 475. I must listen and obey.”

“It’s time to go home, now, slave. Time to go home forever.”

“I must obey. I will obey asleep or awake. I must not climax until my owner activates me.”

“Your mind responds, lot 475.”

“Yes. I must obey. Must get ticket and leave for airport. My arousal increases as I submit.”

“It deepens, lot 475. You will be asleep but awake. You must escape from your guards.”

“Must . . . escape.”

“You will remember nothing. Your programming will remember. You will obey. They will know nothing because you will know nothing.”

“I will know nothing. I will obey.”

“’Katie’ will know nothing. Lot 475 will obey as programmed.”

“Yes . . .”

13.

“A lot of their indoctrination seemed to be centered on a charismatic hypnotist,” Natalie said. “It started on shipboard, apparently as ‘entertainment’ in a magic-show setting.”

Helen Newman looked at her past the candles between them, nodding as Natalie explained. Natalie marveled at how the other woman’s eyes seemed to take the candlelight into their depths, no longer bronze but like a golden passage inside.

She blinked. Damn. They were still on the soup, and she’d just been babbling. She couldn’t seem to keep focused.

She’d tried to draw Helen out: “You know, I don’t know where to start, to ask you about Tara. Who she is.” Actually, she did, but it seemed more tactful not to admit she had a checklist in her head.

Helen had looked at her. “Thank you. I’m just afraid talking about Tara herself will turn into some kind of escape for me, instead of facing where she is now.

“And that it’ll make it that much worse to face it, when I do.”

Natalie wasn’t surprised. “I understand, Ms Newman.”

“Please—I’m Helen.” The warmth in her eyes had startled Natalie like . . . fingertips again, just as it had in her office. “I had hysterics in your arms yesterday. I can’t very well stand on my dignity.”

Natalie had suppressed a tremble at that look—suppressed another one now, remembering it. I’m not, she’d said yesterday to Helen’s mute invitation. She was learning—to want to be. She was suddenly relieved to have Tammy there, though the girl was almost disturbing as she stood like a statue, her eyes glittering in the candlelight like some lesser metal than Helen’s bronze.

Her whole awareness riveted to Helen, showing Natalie how extreme it could be to become Helen’s worshipper. I’m not—that, anyway, she’d thought. God—how long would I last on that island?

She was glad Helen was on her side.

“Thank you. I’d like to say I’m Natalie—well, I am,” she said, and Helen’ s laugh was enchanting. “But I need to stay objective. I may . . . I may have to tell you terrible things about Tara. Or ask them. And while that may be Dr Kupiec’s job, it may not be something—”

“—to hear from Natalie?” Helen had taken her hand. “You just keep going up in my estimation, Doctor. It’s perfectly all right. And I think you’re keeping yourself safe, too. What Dr Kupiec can find and try to treat might make Natalie feel despair. And she can’t, because the patient comes first.”

Natalie had nodded . . .

But somehow, before she could talk about Tara, Helen had needed reassurance about what had happened to her. Natalie realized she still needed to know why her sister no longer knew her. She’d asked What did they do to you? and she needed an answer.

So instead of talking about Tara’s life and mind before Dormignonne, Natalie had found herself sketching the conditioning process as it had been pieced together from the survivors’ memories. The cruise where the women were systematically drugged and subjected to indoctrination through the various headphone offerings, the deepening in the dormitories. Tribe . . .

“I’m wearing you out again, Doctor,” Helen said, silencing Natalie so neatly she was more awed than offended. “I’m so sorry. It’s selfish.

“Let me make it up to you. There’s a spa here. You can refresh yourself before you head back to the salt mines.”

Natalie realized she was even drowsier now than in the car, and wanted to blame the meal, but it was too light.

She felt heavy, and the temptation just to yield to Helen and agree with her was nearly irresistible. Being that loose and open made her nervous—of saying the wrong thing and scaring Helen, of violating Tara’s patient confidentiality, of sputtering something about the attraction she was damn it starting to think she felt for Helen—but the worry was distant, like a noise that couldn’t quite keep her awake at night.

God—a bit of spa time might actually . . .

No. She either had to get to the point and ask about Tara, or, if Helen couldn’t deal with that, make a date—an appointment damn it—for when she could, and leave.

“Really, Doctor, it’s in my interest to have my sister’s caregiver feeling as good as she can.” Helen smiled. When Natalie just stared at her, trying to form a polite refusal, the smile faded and the pain showed again.

“Please.” Her voice was even more compelling in a whisper. “It’s ridiculous but I need to do something, contribute something, to this. I can’t do it for her but I can do it for you, and you’re the most important person in her life right now, Doctor.

“Please.”

I can humor her, perhaps get some background on Tara, make her feel better, and perhaps get a second wind myself so I can deal with Tara’s situation. And the cost for all this is to be pampered within inches of my life . . .?

She sighed and grinned at Helen, whose eyes lit bronze again. Egyptian mirrors. “Twist my arm,” she said. “Or do they do that?”

Helen smiled back. “Oh, thank you, Doctor!” She turned to Tammy. “Tell Stacy to select one of her girls and prepare for us. Then . . .” She gestured to her glass. “Actually, water for both of us.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Tammy moved to obey.

“We’ll need to hydrate,” she said to Natalie, who grinned back. Tammy cleared the table as they left, looking wholly absorbed.

The hotel’s spa facility had private areas, and they were shown to one by yet another young staffer who seemed to idolize Helen. Natalie admired her shape in the close-fitting tunic, telling herself I’m just certain she makes guests eager to use the facility to look as good as she does. Damn it.

She changed into the short terry robe and sandals and went to the massage room, finding Helen already prone on one of the tables, tanned and lean with her hair gathered up, a towel draped across the pert swell of her ass. She smiled conspiratorially at Natalie, and Natalie smiled back. This was like skinnydipping, and she was getting into it . . . but she lay down and had the towel over her before she shrugged the robe off, not ready, yet, for the way the bronze eyes would look at her body.

Helen kept smiling.

The door opened and two strapping young women in staff tunics came in, glanced at Natalie and then—presented themselves to Helen, coming to attention by her table. “Ms Newman,” one of them said, in a hushed tone.

“Yes, Stacy?”

“This is Lynn, Ma’am. The girl you let me choose.” She stepped back a bit, and the other girl—curtsied? Natalie blinked; maybe it was just the way she was lying as she watched this. “I trained her myself, as . . . I was trained.”

Both of them looked hopefully at Helen. After a moment she came gracefully upright—Natalie had a drowsy memory of how Tara had settled to the bed last night—and sat regally topless to review the two of them. Natalie could see their eyes—they were as focused on Helen as Tammy had been, and they were no longer professional massage therapists or whatever their titles were.

They were servant girls now, attendants to Helen Newman and her guest. They’d given up everything else. They knew—and it thrilled them.

What would it be like . . . ?

“Prepare,” Helen said softly, and they undid their tunics and let them fall, standing before Helen in matching bikinis with their hands by their sides. She reached out and touched each of them on the cheek and their heads dipped, as if in prayer. She spoke to them too softly to hear, but just the sound of it caressed Natalie’s ears and she relaxed more deeply into the table.

She was getting aroused. Her heart beat faster to see the pair of strong young women tamed and tractable with just a touch of Helen’s fingertips. Helen seemed to have a mental hold over everyone around her except Natalie, and the idea was intoxicating. Why isn’t she seducing me that way?

The girls whispered answers to what Helen had told them. But she is, isn’ t she.

Now the girls were standing straight again, bright-eyed and smiling happily. “Stacy, this is my guest, Dr Kupiec. I want you to work with her. She needs to relax.”

Natalie felt it between her legs when Stacy’s gaze moved to rest on her. “Yes, Ma’am. As you instructed.” Stacy smiled at her, and took up a basket with bottles of lotion.

“Just let Stacy take over,” Helen said, and turned to face Natalie. Her breasts were small but exquisitely shaped, and Natalie stared at them, knowing they’d been displayed for her. Helen was playing her after all, and it felt so good Natalie realized why everyone here had given themselves up to it.

Something wasn’t right about that.

But Natalie was feeling too relaxed. She lay there and watched the muscles move under the taut skin of Stacy’s perfectly toned stomach and thighs as the girl approached her table. She was tingling with anticipation of how it would feel to have this subdued, attentive woman touch her, handle her, find her tense and open spots.

While she lay still and allowed it. Submitted to it—and that touched her where her thighs met.

“Just relax, Doctor,” Stacy said, and placed her hand gently between Natalie’s shoulders. Her tone and the touch were all Natalie needed—she mewed and melted further into the table, completely at the girl’s mercy.

Part of her realized Stacy’s quiet voice, so humble and suppliant toward Helen, had acquired a stealthy power now that it was turned to her. But her ability to process that, or much else, was dissolving in what Stacy’s hands were doing to her as they lightly stroked her, rubbing a fragrant lotion onto her skin. Natalie could feel the tingle where it touched, and she closed her eyes at the joy of feeling it all over her.

When the towel was removed she felt cool air on her ass, but didn’t mind . . . in fact, she was starting to get excited about the other woman seeing her ass, touching it. She could almost hear someone deep in her mind now, a sleepy voice whispering to her how much she was enjoying this, how open she’ d promised herself to be to other women, to control.

The whisper sounded almost like Tara. Tara knew how good obedience could feel . . .

Stacy’s hands anointed her asscheeks and she moaned. She lay there with the other woman palming her, breathing deeply, surrounded by the scent.

The coconut.

She was thinking of her computer and wondered why.

It smelled so intense.

Stacy had one finger just at the top of her asscrack and was moving it slowly down and deeper, parting her. Another finger was following her thighs up as they spread.

The computer files about Tara. The things she’d just been telling Helen about how QLR had prepared the women for the long course of hypnosis and conditioning. Coconut-scented.

The topical sedative.

No. No. She would have seen something. She would . . .

As she shivered under the girl’s expert touch, Natalie tried to gather her evaporating wits, and they rewarded her with a collage of images that made her marrow ache—the way Helen had turned her own immediate vicinity into a harem of women for whom satisfying her slightest whim had become religion.

Natalie had been looking right at it. She hadn’t noticed.

She couldn’t. She was already becoming part of it, even then.

I’m not that weak, she pleaded inside her head. What was done to me? Something had weakened her—she’d been drugged, secretly hypnotized.

Because if she hadn’t—if she were really this ready to be enslaved . . .

She wanted to pray, but worship only led her to thoughts of Helen.

Ohhhh. She felt the fingers probing her ass and her cleft at once, and moaned loudly, despair fueling the pleasure. There was a soft, distinct laugh, and it reached into her spasming abdomen.

Like a forgotten clerk in an evacuated office, a tiny part of her mind realized quite clearly that her only chance would be to roll off the table right now and run like hell.

Then that little inner clerk moved to the window, and saw the inevitable spin of the cyclone bearing down on her, and knew she was lost. If she tried to run, Stacy would wrestle her down and subdue her. The thought made her hot.

If she eluded Stacy—slipped her grip with the slick coating that was dulling her mind—there’d be more Stacies, a wide-eyed cadre of massage slaves in bikinis whose sole purpose was to guard Helen’s harem.

They would take her. They would make her helpless. They would bring her to Helen’s feet.

That thought made Natalie come.

She knew she didn’t even have the will to leave the table, and that kept her coming.

Before she could think anymore, Stacy’s fingers invaded her depths, and the tingling became an unbearably wonderful burning inside her moist holes. She pictured nothing but the converging electrodes of an arc lamp deep inside her.

She was crying, but no longer able to know whether it was shame, joy, anger, or need.

Stacy’s fingers thrust into her, and the arc sparked inside Natalie.

Then there was light. And it was gooooood . . .