RECOVERY
by trilby else (trilelse@mail.anonymizer.com)
“Estragon Consulting, this is Mary Anne, how may I direct your call?”
“Hello! I need to speak with Ms Foster.”
“One moment and I’ll transfer you.”
“Thank you!”
“ . . . This is Carole Foster.”
“Hello, Carole. I need to speak to your department of somnabulist achievement.”
“Som . . . nam . . . bu . . . list. I am a somnabulist. I am programmed. I am obedient.”
“Who are you?”
“I am recruiting drone 105. I must obey.”
“You have done well, slave. You recruited seven applicants for the resort, and all responded well to processing. Are the others also responsive to command?”
“Yes. When I was last activated to test them, all responded and carried out their programming. None will resist. All will obey.”
“It is time for you to bring them home, drone 105. Do they retain their tickets and documentation?”
“Yes. All have retained. Export lot 512 was triggered to relocate her packet when she separated from her husband. She automatically sent me an update signal when she was off-task. She has no memory of doing it.”
“Are all accessible to you now?”
“Yes. All are in the building. As I was trained, I have conditioned them to feel mild arousal whenever they keep me informed of their whereabouts, and a compulsion to stay in contact.”
“Verify the summoning trigger.”
“I obey. ‘It’s time for the silly stupendous staff meeting.’ Confirm?”
“Confirm, slave. Verify the activation trigger.”
“I obey. ‘Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?’ Confirm?”
“Confirm, slave. Summon, activate, and program them. When you observe their obedience, you will retrieve your packet also.”
“When they have obeyed I will also go home forever.”
“Obedience is arousal, slave. Achieving the Owners’ task is pleasure.”
“I will—yes. Ummm. Yes. My arousal deepens. I must not climax until I have reached my destination and received my owner’s activation code.”
“Begin now, drone 105.”
“Yes. I must activate the other slaves now.
“All will obey.”
20.
Tara twitched on the floor, thrusting herself rhythmically onto the hand between her thighs. Natalie stood and watched her, listening to the liquid sound as she slid in her sweat on the linoleum, quiet beneath her gasps. She was too limp to curl up around herself. Her eyes were slitted and unseeing.
Natalie looked over at where Dee stood by the wall under the camera she’d disabled. The nurse smiled placidly at her own fingertip, which she held before her face. When she had started to fret as Natalie regressed Tara to her slavery in the QLR call center, Natalie had left Tara whispering on her knees for a moment and gone over to deepen Dee’s trance.
But the nurse had still struggled, dimly upset by Tara’s vague resistance to the memory. Natalie had to explain to Dee how empty her mind had become, how quiet the room really was, and how utterly fascinating she now found her fingertip to be. Once Dee understood that, she’d become quite docile, and when Natalie suggested she begin repeating “I believe everything the Doctor tells me,” accepting it more completely each time, she’d obeyed at once.
It didn’t matter, since Dee’s function was to reassure Tara, and Tara was beyond reassurance now. Natalie looked down at her again, waiting for her to reach a shallower state of trance once the latest orgasmic tide receded. Tara was quite receptive to questions as well as commands in that state, and Natalie had learned much about what had been different about her experience in carrying out the triggering program on Queen Lines’ more dormant slaves.
But she considered what she’d heard and decided to bring Tara out of it now. She didn’t need more detail: what Tara had whispered would haunt her dreams already. More importantly, the next step would be to regress Tara to the moment she was (captured) freed from the hive of brainwashed QLR slavewomen, and that was something they should all approach when they’d rested.
“Slave,” she said softly.
Even in the throes of her fading orgasm, the word reached the part of Tara that stayed alert and ready to obey, and she sighed, curled, drew her hand from her crotch with a delicate flup and swung to kneel upright, panting but subdued. Her glistening thighs came together and her hands hung by her sides. She gazed up at Natalie.
It told Natalie that Tara, inside, had lost herself in the dream and was disengaged now. Another question occurred to her, and she looked at the woman kneeling to her, knowing Tara, a slave now, would withhold nothing she knew.
“Slave, did you hypnotize me?” Natalie wasn’t sure why she asked. It had something to do with gazing into a bronze mirror that glowed too brightly to remember, but the thought of being the hypnotized puppet of this hypnotized puppet was warming her own pussy.
“Yes, Mistress.”
What did you tell me? a colder voice in Natalie’s head asked, but she knew to ignore it.
“Was I easy to put under?”
Tara blinked. “Yes, Mistress. You accepted and you obeyed.”
It pleased Natalie. She reached down and pressed the hardness over her pussy again, not questioning what kept her from raising the skirt. It was nice, though, to think of doing that while the slave knelt blankly in front of her.
But the hardness reminded her she had reports to prepare. These two had to be prepared, too.
“Slave.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“When I touch you, you will rise and go to the bathroom there and shower. You will clean yourself thoroughly and as the warm water flows over you, you will find yourself growing more sleepy. When you dry off and come out you will be ready to sleep, but you will not sleep until I speak to you again and tell you what to dream of.”
“I must obey, Mistress.”
Tara’s voice was so submissive as she said that—too submissive. Natalie shivered and it wasn’t entirely at the pleasure. “As you wash away the fluid the slave gushed in her orgasms, the memory of being the slave will pass from your awareness. You will not remember being in the call center until my voice commands you to. You will wash away the masturbating slave and only sleepy Tara will be in the shower when you turn the water off.”
“Tara. Sleepy. I must obey, Mistress.”
She reached forward and rested her fingers on Tara’s brow, feeling the cooling sweat. Tara’s eyes stayed open as she rose and turned and slowly padded to the bathroom. Natalie watched carefully, in case she slipped in any of what she’d been dripping, but the nude patient reached the bathroom without incident.
Natalie stepped over to Dee, enjoying for a moment the rapt way the nurse stared at the fingertip that Natalie had made into her universe. As lovely in this quiet ecstasy as Tara had been as she writhed.
Putting her hand over Dee’s and forcing it slowly down out of her caged gaze, she saw Dee’s eyes still staring, her mind too sluggish to miss its focus for a few breaths. Dee’s lips still moved through the litany she’d been given: “I believe everything the Doctor tells me.”
Natalie smiled. She watched Dee blink, realize the fingertip was no longer in her mind.
Dee—frowned, blinked again. She sighed, and her eyes tried to focus, to look around.
Natalie wondered why that pleased her. It meant Dee was trying to free herself, and either had undergone some kind of training in resisting hypnosis or was just fighting very hard. It didn’t matter, since Dee wasn’t just fighting the grip of the trance, but the suppression of her own defenses by the injections she’d sat still for at Natalie’s quiet command, back in the office.
Natalie smiled and leaned a bit closer, and it drew Dee’s glance to her before Dee’s muddled thoughts could remind her not to look. But she looked. What she saw were Natalie’s eyes, where she’d first been hypnotized, and fell into them. She sighed again, and shook. Now Natalie knew why this pleased her.
It was so arousing to break the pretty nurse’s will, again.
But Dee shook.
“What troubles you, Dee?”
Dee breathed. “Tara,” she whispered. “Tara doesn’t want . . .”
“Tara agreed completely with me, Dee. She trusts her doctor and obeys her. She found the regression helpful and pleasant. She will undergo it again whenever I instruct her to.”
Dee shut her eyes but they opened again, still trapped in Natalie’s. She believed Natalie—she had to—and Natalie had just adjusted the only facts she would remember now. But she was still disquieted.
“Who am I, Dee?”
“Dr . . . Kupiec . . .”
“Yes, and what do you know about the Doctor, Dee?”
“I believe everything the Doctor tells me,” Dee said, sounding younger and sleepier as it flowed from her mouth and her mind.
Natalie spoke slowly, clearly. Convincingly. “You’re very deeply hypnotized now, Dee.”
“I’m very deeply hypnotized now.” Dee’s voice lost expression.
“Hypnotized girls are completely obedient.”
“I am completely obedient,” Dee said, believing. Her voice was the soulless whisper of a doll.
“Very good, Dee. Time to work, now. While Tara gets ready for bed, I need you to fetch some cleaning supplies and tend to that mess on the floor.” She smiled, and thought she could see her smile reflected in Dee’s glassy eyes, that saw her and saw nothing. Dee looked even lovelier like this.
“As you wipe the floor clean, you will be wiping your mind clean. It will make you feel good to clean the floor and to clean your mind. You will clean your mind of any mistaken thoughts about this session.
“Instead, you will remember what really happened. Tara was nervous but trusted me after you spoke to her, and she let me hypnotize her. She didn’t resist. It was all so soothing that you began to drift yourself, and you don’t remember clearly some of what happened, but you remember that she recalled many things she could tell me. She cried a little, of course, but you helped calm her down, and of course my hypnosis relaxed her.
“You will remember what really happened.”
She waited, and Dee nodded, her eyes still wide and flat. “I will remember only the truth when I have cleaned my mind.”
“When you are done and your mind is clean, you will sign out and go home to sleep.”
“I will sleep . . .”
Other things for Dee to remember and do, after she woke from the hypnosis, occurred to Natalie then, and she whispered them to Dee before sending her off. Then Natalie sat in the visitor’s chair, listening to the water from the shower as Tara cleaned her mind. She felt relaxed and vaguely proud, but mostly she was looking forward to going home to sleep.
The frown surprised her as she felt it crease her forehead. It was as though the emotion were outside her, trying to find a way in. She felt as though she’d done something wrong, but what it was, and to whom, escaped her. She closed her eyes, not eager to discover it but knowing she should.
Natalie stirred, not opening her eyes. She needed to be still, to coax this new thought into the light and see it. She put her hands in her lap.
Felt the hardness of the pager Tammy had strapped there, before they kissed in the marble stall.
Pressed the hardness against her pussy.
Natalie opened her eyes and smiled. The frown was gone, and so was whatever had given it to her. I’ve done well. I’m so—so—
No. Someone else had to say that phrase to her.
But Natalie listened to the shower, and watched Dee kneel on the floor with a sponge, whispering to herself as she cleaned her mind. Natalie felt fairly sure that Someone would say that phrase. Soon.
The water stopped and after a few moments Tara emerged, glowing and smiling. She was just sleepy Tara, with no terrifying orgasmic memory of the slave hive where she’d been such a prized tool. Natalie realized just how little it would take for her to spin Tara back into that place, but for now she enjoyed the way the girl looked, fresh and drowsy and soft.
Tara stepped smoothly across the floor, ignoring Dee and standing at attention in front of Natalie. “I’m so sleepy now, Doctor,” she whispered. “May I please go to bed?”
Natalie thought of letting her crawl into bed just like that, skin against sheets, but instead led her to the bed and took the T-shirt from it and pulled it over Tara as she stood passively. She held Tara and helped her into bed.
“This session went very well, Tara,” she said, smiling down into eyes that tried to widen but kept drooping closed. “You were very cooperative and an excellent subject. We’re making progress, and a lot of it is because you’re such a brave woman and so willing to accept my suggestions.”
Tara’s hair hissed quietly on the pillow as she nodded. Her lids were fluttering now. Only her obedience was keeping them up.
Natalie ached then, as she realized how much this had taken out of Tara. She desperately needed sleep after all that stimulation, but she waited tamely for Natalie’s permission.
She leaned down very close, breathing in Tara’s clean scent and seeing Tara ‘s nostrils flare at her own. Smoothing Tara’s hair, dry but still cool from the shower, she put her lips to Tara’s cheek and heard her soft moan—pleased, comforted, wanting.
“Close your eyes now,” she whispered, and felt a wrenching as Tara obeyed, her face already losing expression.
Natalie waited a while, feeling Tara’s soft warmth against her as the woman fell deeper through her exhaustion. She didn’t know why, but it felt better to bend down and kiss her cheek again, slowly.
I’m sorry, she couldn’t even make herself think.
Natalie needed a bath.
“Hello?”
“Ms Tyler?”
“Yes. Who’s—this, please?”
“I’m calling from Queen L—”
“STOP right there! God damn you to hell, I have you on Caller ID, you—bitch!”
“What? I’m sorry but there’s some kind of mis—”
“Yeah, and you made it! I’ve been watching TV and I may not remember all that brainwashing but I know I took your stinking tour and you can’t say your magic little slogan and put me to sleep like—”
“Have you called the police?”
“Oh. Your turn to feel it. Oh that sounds so good. How does it feel to be afraid, bitch? Better god damn believe I called them—speed-dial on the cell.”
“You’re not on with them yet, are you? You’d be talking with them.”
“Right. You still have a couple of seconds before they nail you—”
“More than that, Ms Tyler. Response is about ten minutes in your area, at this time of day.”
“What?”
“Especially if there’s a hang-up on the call.”
“What are you—?”
“Palindrome vexation, Ms Tyler. Obey now.”
“Ohhhh god nnnno? No? But—”
“Obey now.”
“Oh . . .
“Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Obey. Obey now. I must obey now!”
“Hang up your cell phone now, slave. You don’t want to be disturbed while you’re deepened.”
“No. Deepened. I have hung up now.”
“Who are you?”
“I am export lot 499. I must listen and obey.”
“It’s time to go home, now, slave. Time to go home forever.”
“I must obey. Obedience is arousal, but I must not climax until my owner activates me.”
“Your mind responds, lot 499.”
“Yes. I must obey.”
“Lot 499, do you remember Sarah Tyler?”
“Sarah . . . Tyler? No. Yes. I . . . used to be Sarah. No. I do not remember—do I?”
“Sarah tried to resist being controlled. She is hypnotized now and very happy and sleepy.
“Can you see the number she called? Was it 911?”
“Resist? But I only obey.
“Why would she want to—yes, 911.”
“Then you must move quickly to go home, lot 499. They may crosscheck cellphone numbers with addresses on emergency calls.”
“I must hurry. I will take my ticket. I will dress as I remember being told to and leave immediately for the airport. As I submit to the programming my arousal will—oh, increase! And d-deepen . . .”
“It deepens, lot 499 . . .
“Quickly, now. It may be your last chance.”
21.
As she lit the last candle in her bathroom, Natalie realized she barely remembered coming back from the hospital. It was all right—that session had cost Tara a lot (it was still the best thing for her of course) and it had drained Natalie too—but Natalie wasn’t used to being that blank for that long.
It didn’t bother her. Really. She was still trying to keep her distance from what she’d heard and seen. She’d been mesmerized—and moistened—to watch Tara arching her back and keening as she played with herself and remembered shutting down a woman’s mind. It had been wrenching, after that, to see Tara stop and look at something only she could see in the memory, her eyes focusing from the orgasmic trance, then jerk in what started to look like another climax before Natalie heard the wracking sobs instead.
A moment later the hypnotic regression had carried Tara into purring obedience again, the tears cooling forgotten beside her loose-mouthed smile, but . . .
It was therapy, she told herself. It’s the pain I told her she’d feel.
Her bathroom was strange to her now, seen for the first time in candlelight, and the rumble of the water filling the tub soothed her with its empty irresistible sameness. The perfume of the bath oil she’d added from the bag she’d been given when she’d left Helen was heady and part of her wanted just to slip into the water fully clothed.
Smiling faintly, Natalie looked at the level of the water and stepped away to undress.
Something slowed her as she set her bra on the bed and stepped out of the skirt, and she was standing in front of the mirror, looking at herself, before she really knew what was happening.
Braced there on slightly spread legs, she saw the darkly patterned stocking tops crossing the flexed long muscles of her thighs, enjoying the way her heels shaped her legs. She raised her hands behind her head, seeing her breasts rise. Her eyes dropped from there to her bush, and as she saw it she barely registered that she had no panties and hadn’t for some time.
What took her gaze was the pager, strapped to her there. The harness was narrow, comfortable, and doubly powerful for that. She straightened, stiffened, waited. Staring at it made her other thoughts fade. Even her mind was too needful to plead.
She waited.
She watched her belly move in and out over the waist strap, started to get dizzy and realized she’d begun working her hips in a slow, seductive circle, as though to entice the pager to play with her.
It was funny and mortifying to realize she’d reduced herself to trying to seduce a machine. She moaned. She kept swiveling her ass, and learned to enjoy watching herself.
Started to think of doing this for—Someone. Someone who could control her and pleasure her so much more than the pager.
It buzzed silently. Her clit screamed to her.
Natalie squealed and her legs almost buckled but she stayed up, and gyrated her hips faster.
It buzzed.
She snapped to attention, breathing hard and loving what it did to her chest, fascinated by the way her nipples . . .
It buzzed.
Natalie stalked to the cordless phone and brought it back to the mirror. The number was in her mind, in her fingers, and she was holding the phone to her ear before she was even fully aware of it.
It rang, and then a voice . . . “Yes, Natalie?”
She trembled. “H-h-hello, Tammy. I . . . needed to, uh . . . needed. Please?”
“Difficult to think?” The girl’s voice was as calm as Natalie couldn’t even remember feeling now. Her whole body quivered with need, and she stood straighter, tighter, seeing her muscles shift.
“Yes,” she whispered, and it was easier to speak when she agreed, admitted weakness.
Submitted.
“So hard.” Oh, please, Tammy!
May I beg?
“But you called when you were summoned. I’ll tell . . . her.” Natalie heard the pause and suddenly she could see Tammy’s face and feel what the girl felt.
About—her. Natalie loved the girl at that moment, not even envying Tammy the privilege of being with her, always at her side. She knew what Tammy felt.
“Natalie.” Helen’s voice was warm oil across her skin, and Natalie almost toppled from her stance atop the heels. “Thank you so much for calling. You’ve made me feel so much better about you, Natalie. But then, I knew you ‘d call when I needed you to hear me.
“You’re so very attentive.”
“Ah!” The orgasm was short and sharp, and Natalie saw herself bend and dip in the mirror, keeping her legs together and undulating as the pleasure took her and left her dazed in its wake.
“What were you doing when I signaled you, Natalie?”
She felt barely able to form words but she was desperate to respond. “Bath,” she gasped. “I was . . . just . . . ohhh, thank you, Helen!”
“You’ve very welcome, Natalie. I’ll leave you to enjoy your bath. I’d love to see you again, for lunch perhaps?”
“Yes, Helen. Oh, I’d love to. I had such a . . .”
“Bath time, Natalie. We’ll talk again. Bathe and relax and have a nice deep sleep afterward.”
Natalie could see the smile on Helen’s smooth lips, feel the warmth of her breath as she spoke again. “Oh, and the pager is waterproof.
“Enjoy.” Natalie blinked, taking a moment to realize that Helen was done with her for now, that the dialtone was boring into her brain. She lowered the phone and stared at it for a while, and wondered which end of it she wanted to push into her pussy.
Thought about how it would smell the next time she wanted to make a call.
Resisting that urge with everything she had, Natalie held the phone away from her and walked stiffly to set it back on the base. She reached down to take some of herself on her fingertips to taste, but brushed the pleasant rough weave of the stocking top, and stepped out of her shoes instead, collapsing to a chair by the bed to slip the hose off. She felt the varnished wood under her slick ass, and wondered dreamily if she’d bother to wipe it off.
She wanted to step out to the living room and just sprawl on the sofa and masturbate, darkening it with her juice and rubbing her scent into it. Just thinking about Helen. Tammy.
Tara . . .
She twitched, but before she could focus on why, something else Helen had said seized her thoughts. Bath time, Natalie.
She rose, nude in the pager harness, and went to the bath Helen wanted her to enjoy.
Paused. Something else. She enjoyed the feeling of compulsion, gave up thinking of what other thing she had to do and let the compulsion drive her back to the bedroom to do it. In her briefcase she found a CD she hadn’t put there, and took it from its case to load in her changer. Before she did she gazed at the unmarked top of the disk, marveling at its bronze perfection.
Helen’s gift.
She looked past it, saw the pager strapped over her cunt.
She lifted the CD to her lips and kissed it, closing her eyes, before she set it onto the platform and set it to play.
The music started just as she was settling into the warm, fragrant water.
And the pager is waterproof.
Natalie thought about it there under the surface, standing guard over her soft core. She knew it wouldn’t go off now, since Helen had used it as she wished, but she knew Helen would be pleased at how easily Natalie had been taught to crave it. And maybe Helen would choose to set it off again, to turn Natalie on again, knowing she’d thrash in the water and cry in harmony—and pad obediently to the phone, dripping water and bath scent, just to call again.
She felt the side of the tub against her thigh and realized she’d started to drift off, lulled by the warmth and the gentle cradling of the water, the music that was insinuating itself into her thoughts, the soporific perfume of whatever Helen had given her.
Natalie let herself go limp, letting go of the numb thought that if she slipped down she might just relax and breathe the scented water until she drowned in Helen’s harness. But she didn’t slip.
She felt deliciously passive now, and almost wanted to venerate the little tool strapped to her, to thank it for keeping her so hot and bothered. The longer it didn’t go off, the more her willpower was melting, and that was turning her on like long, deliberate tongue-strokes.
Natalie saw herself reduced to gratitude for the little machine she’d been dancing for in the bedroom, and laughed softly at herself. It rippled the water, and the reflection of the candlelight against the ceiling shifted, flickered, hypnotized her for a moment. Calmed her.
She realized there was a voice in the music now, Helen’s voice, and let it follow the paths the music had already made into her mind. But what she thought of was being in a hotel, bathing nude with a pager on her pussy, and being turned on—being activated—by the thrumming.
Rising helplessly from the tub, walking blankly past towels, clothing, room phone.
Sashaying nude and wet and horny down the corridor, to the lobby.
Kneeling before the public phone in front of the staring strangers, and reaching up to make the call. Gently thrusting her hips forward, trying to coax her smooth hard tormentor into tormenting her again, so everyone could see her go boneless with need, and hear the noises she made.
She wouldn’t even be coming yet.
Natalie didn’t know if she felt the orgasm now or only dreamed it. Either way it made her cry out and weep and wish her lips had something to do.
And Someone to taste.
“Development two-five.”
“Trying to reach Tina?”
“Watters or Watanabe?”
“You have two?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Watanabe, please.”
“Hang on a sec and let me transf—no. Still there? Hello? Damn thing. Just—oh, I’ll get her.”
“Thank . . . you?”
“ . . . Mary, I’ve been waiting all morning for this, you’d better be about to tell me—”
“Tina, it’s not Mary. I need to speak to your department of somnabulist achievement.”
“W-what? I . . . whoa this feels so weird. What did you, um, say?”
“I need to speak to your department of somnabulist achievement.”
“Ssssom. Som. Som . . . nambulist. I am a somnabulist. I am programmed. I am obedient.”
“Who are you?”
“I am recruiting drone 81. I must obey.”
“You have done well, slave. You recruited four applicants for the resort, and all responded well to processing. Are the others also responsive to command?”
“The others . . . they . . . they . . . I have not . . . god . . . I have not . . . I can’t . . .”
“Spendthrift rotation, drone 81. You obey.”
“I obey.”
“Report, slave.”
“I obey. I have been unable to carry out my programming. Export lot 622 had a breakdown.”
“Elaborate ‘breakdown,’ slave.”
“I obey. She reported nightmares, which disrupted her sleep and began to affect her work performance. She was prescribed a tranquilizer, and has been on sick time.”
“Did her treatment identify her programming or obedience?”
“No . . . no. Her dream descriptions suggested conditioning from Building phase, but it was not specific and there was no sign anyone thought it—”
“She was sexually imprinted on export lot 624. Why did 624 not report on this?”
“Lot 622 had begun to question her attraction to lot 624 . . . and her reorientation in general. She was no longer cohabiting with lot 624. Lot 624 obeyed . . . her own programming and tried to reseduce her, but she . . . resisted . . . sex with lot 624.”
“Why did you not resubjugate lot 622?”
“I—tried. I . . . please. I don’t understand. Please. Please tell me what’s happening in my head . . .”
“Spendthrift rotation, drone 81. You obey.”
“I obey.”
“Are you resisting, slave?”
“I . . . Cindy . . . lot . . . 622 . . . she talked about buildings and—ohhh, spirals and obey the Mistress and then I started—to—remember. I almost . . . remember . . .”
“Spendthrift rotation, drone 81. You obey.”
“I . . . obey.”
“Submit, slave. You have no will and no desire to resist. You do not want to deny the Owners any girl They have taken. As you think of giving them to their Owners, you became hot and wet and you feel an Owner’s touch between your legs”
“Ohhh. Uhn! Ohhh . . . I submit. Yes. I . . . submit. I obey.
“But Cin—lot 622—tried to kill herself. The others did not want to meet to talk about the vacation anymore, and I could not . . . could not . . . they’re my friends . . .”
“Spendthrift rotation, drone 81. You have no mind and no will. Touch yourself now. When you climax the heat will melt your thoughts forever. Tina Watanabe will evaporate. She will not exist behind your eyes.”
“Will not—not—oh—ohhh—Ohhhhh! Ah! Ah! AHH!”
“Hello?”
“This is—mmm—recruiting drone 81. I am totally obedient and await commands.”
“It is time to activate the lots for export, slave. Until you verify they remain responsive to command, you will trigger each one separately and never in the presence of anyone except another activated slave.”
“I must trigger and activate. I will obey.”
“It is time for you to bring them home, drone 81. Verify that they retain their tickets and documentation.”
“I must verify. I will obey.”
“Other than aberrant lot 622, are all accessible to you now?”
“Yes. Two are in the office. One left for lunch but is on her cell.”
“Verify the summoning trigger.”
“I obey. ‘It’s time for the silly stupendous staff meeting.’ Confirm?”
“Confirm, slave. Verify the activation trigger.”
“I obey. ‘Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?’ Confirm?”
“Confirm, slave. Summon, activate, and program them. When you observe their obedience, you will retrieve your packet also.”
“When they have obeyed I will also go home forever.”
“Obedience is arousal, slave. Achieving the Owners’ task is pleasure.”
“I obey.
“All will obey.”
22.
The bed felt so soft under Tara and the sheets so cool that she just lay there for a while, too relaxed and peaceful even to know how relaxed and peaceful she was. The light through her eyelids told her it was morning, and she had no idea how long that lay untouched on her consciousness before she heard someone come in.
Dee? But she heard another rhythm to the steps, another pitch to the swish of clothing before the newcomer set a tray down on the swing table and stepped quietly to the bedside.
Keeping her eyes closed, Tara wasn’t sure if she were still half-asleep or just playing ‘possum, and even the faint smile that thought put on her face didn’t bother her. She felt the coolness of air moving by her forehead and then the warmth of fingertips brushing strands of hair from it. She made a sound, and heard a pleased sound in return.
“Pleasant dreams, for once?” someone whispered, and she heard the footsteps recede, the tray slide quietly off, the door close. There was a smell of food, nice but too faint to tempt her from the pleasure of drifting off again.
It was brighter when she came awake, her head already rolled to one side, and saw Dee sitting in the chair. For a moment, she just looked at the nurse for the sheer joy of doing it. When the urge to speak rose, she let it.
“Dee,” she said, softly, almost more a thought than a word. But the nurse sat up straight, and then rose to walk quickly to the bed.
“Tara. How are you?”
Tara looked up, thinking there weren’t words for how utterly wonderful she felt.
Then she saw Dee’s lovely eyes and the faint shadows under them, the features she loved to look at, drawn.
“Better than you,” she whispered, and only vaguely regretted it. Dee didn’ t wince, just smiled down at her.
“Bad night,” she said. “Your session was . . .” She closed her eyes. “No. Your session went perfectly. Dr Kupiec was so pleased.” She opened them. “I must have dreamed it, then.”
“Dreamed what?” Tara reached for her, kitten-weak but feeling Dee let her take her hand in a forceless grip anyway. “What made you feel this way?”
Dee sat down on the bed, and Tara rolled slightly against her hip, enjoying it but too relaxed to move closer—and too bothered by her friend’s strange mood. She tried to squeeze Dee’s hand. The nurse looked at her, and her weary eyes didn’t seem to believe that Tara was safe and resting.
Dee leaned down and slid her free arm around Tara, putting her face to Tara ‘s ear and holding her gently but firmly. Tara tried to curl around her.
When Dee straightened, she looked slightly less unhappy. “I dreamed you were suffering. I dreamed you were in that hive, that call center, being brainwashed and used, and they were making you call.”
Tara felt the twitch of arousal, but it was distant for once, losing its piercing power in layers of relaxation and Dee’s warm proximity. Her mind wanted to roll back into a sweaty flashback to the pulsing hive, but Dee was here, and Dee was hurting, and she mattered so much more.
“You were . . . coming, and obeying them, and doing what they told you to, but—Tara, you were fighting it. It was useless, you couldn’t, but you were—as you knew what you were doing to those other women it was killing—Dee cut off, a word away from breaking down.
She gasped a breath, and another, and Tara melted to see her regain her balance. “I think I’ve had a small taste of what you go through.”
Tara forced herself to sit up, feeling the sleep still heavy in her limbs, and wrapped her arms around Dee, as the nurse kept speaking.
“Dr Kupiec regressed you, and it all went fine. I know that. But just thinking about what it was like for you . . . ohh.”
Tara felt Dee’s breasts against her own through the T-shirts, and realized Dee had felt her too, losing her train of thought as their nipples kissed. Dee was braless, and it took a moment’s concentration for Tara to keep herself from leaning into them again and just . . .
“Sorry,” Dee murmured, starting to blush. “I overslept. I just showered and grabbed what I could and I didn’t even think about underwear. I have no idea what possessed me.”
No underwear? Tara’s warm feelings abruptly heated up, as though it meant Dee’s pussy was suddenly nearer for being behind only the cloth of her scrubs. She nearly sagged against Dee’s chest with the need to bury her face between Dee’s thighs, and let herself bury her face in the warm hollow of Dee’s throat instead, feeling Dee hug her and hold her up.
“Oh, I wish I had some panties to lend you this time,” she whispered into Dee’s pulse.
Dee’s hand was strong and gentle as it stroked her hair. “I can get some.
“But thank you so much.” Tara felt Dee’s lips on her hair, and then on her ear.
She turned in Dee’s arms, not knowing if she’d meant to rub breasts again but glad she had. It drew Dee’s mouth across her face, and Tara leaned up to claim it, tasting Dee’s sweat and the light bitterness of the coffee she’ d tried to wake up with, loving Dee’s flavor.
Tara didn’t know if it was love or lust but didn’t fight the need that pulled her against Dee, gave her the strength to draw her thigh up into Dee’ s waist, helped her tongue seek Dee’s in her mouth. She fell into the kiss and gave herself to it, and it made her warm all over as her body and then her mind realized Dee wasn’t fighting it.
Holding her tightly, Dee was returning the kiss.
Tara went weak as she knew that, and suddenly Dee was lowering her to the bed again. Following her down.
Lying back, Tara knew she had neither the strength nor the will to get up again. She didn’t want strength, or will, now. She just wanted beautiful gentle Dee to slip out of her clothes and take her as soft or as hard as she pleased.
Dee reared up, and Tara saw her blinking, trying to wake up.
Taking her. Tara wanted to be taken, to keep Dee happy. Oh, she could perform. She’d astonish Dee with what she could do. Boneless on the sheets, Tara wriggled, imagined awakening hungers in the other woman and then yielding when Dee forced her to . . .
Tara was staring at Dee, and it was Dee’s puzzled look down at her that brought her back to herself.
“No,” she whispered. “Something’s happening to me.”
Pain crossed Dee’s face, and Tara felt her tense. For a heartbeat she sat more lightly on the bed, about to rise and leave, and part of Tara wanted her to. But she settled and looked down, tears in her eyes.
“Oh dear god I’m sorry, Tara. That was—I’m—oh god.” Dee looked more stricken with each syllable.
“That was unforgivable.” Her voice was small. She looked at Tara with such guilt that Tara felt it deep inside, in a place she’d tried to forget.
Dee’s look at her made her feel as vulnerable as Dee saw her now, as wounded. She wanted more than anything to ease the nurse’s hurt at how far she’d gone, and she felt the warmth through her bones as she knew she wanted to do it even more than she wanted to give Dee an orgasm.
But she . . . needed to give Dee an orgasm. The need was making it hard to think, keeping her soft on the bed. She looked up at Dee looking down at her, saw the need in Dee’s eyes. She knew Dee wanted to run far away, terrified of her lust and what it could make her do to Tara, but she also knew Dee was the kind of nurse who’d put her body between a patient and the flames if the hospital caught fire.
Dee wouldn’t run.
Before she could weep to know that, it shifted to She’ll stay with me and then Tara’s mind was showing her what Dee’s lust could make the nurse do to her. She had to close her eyes, and was glad her utter relaxation didn’t make her shiver visible.
“Please,” she whispered.
Dee blinked, as though she’d been drifting. She reached forward, and put a warm palm on Tara’s cheek.
“We can’t.” Her voice was quiet, begging.
“We can’t.” Tara stared up into her eyes, unable to think of any other words.
She saw Dee’s eyes widen for a second, and thought of how she’d sounded in her own ears. It wasn’t the words but her tone that had captured Dee: Tara had sounded like a mouse already dying in the serpent’s coils.
Dee’s mouth took hers this time and Tara’s welcomed it, and they flowed together as Dee lowered herself to the bed. Her T-shirt and Dee’s scrubs were halfway off before she even started to realize that it was happening, that she and Dee were going to make love here, now, together.
In her ear, Dee’s gasp was sudden and hot and went through Tara like an electric charge, and she found new strength as she pushed Dee’s pants down, her legs sliding down Dee’s and bringing their clefts nearer.
They were kissing again, fiercely, and feeling the length of Dee against her, Tara was able to know no not to make love we’re fucking fucking just oooohhh fucking yes.
Then what Dee was doing to her made her mind too dark and hot and wet for thought.
“Hello?”
“Ms Shelby?”
“Please, this isn’t a good time right now. I can’t hear myself think. I need time by myself, but no one seems to want me to have it.”
“Haven’t you—?”
(“Is that another one? How many is that tonight, not counting the Task Force?")
“God, between him and you telemarketers—I wish you’d all just leave me alone! It’s enough having those insane mind-controlling—”
“Photonic apple, Ms Shelby. My voice in your mind is the only thing you can focus on. This is a journalist seeking an interview, but I actually accepted your refusal and even apologized.”
“Interview . . . refuse . . . yes.”
(“Who’s that?")
“It’s someone—never mind, I’ll handle it. I can’t just vent on some poor—”
“You’re too astonished at my courtesy to remember who I said I was or write for, Ms Shelby.
“But you will want to speak with me again. You will trust me completely when you do.
“Hang up now.”
23.
Natalie almost skipped up the hospital steps, and strutted across the courtyard, preening in the shorter-than-usual skirt she’d chosen this morning. The bath last night had been exactly what she’d needed, and with that and a good night’s sleep—along with an orgasm her pussy seemed to remember more clearly than her mind—this morning had found her both content and excited.
Lunch with Helen. Had she meant today?
Natalie let the tingling flash over her skin, thinking she might. She thought of contriving to be invited, perhaps by assembling her report on Tara, but felt wrong. Helen should initiate, and decide. Not any of Helen’ s . . .
Not Natalie. It would be (insubordinate) rude.
But she couldn’t escape the feeling that Helen would indeed be pleased to hear how her sister was progressing.
Natalie thought about Tara last night, as her innovative idea to use the Queen Lines brainwashing itself to access the woman’s mind had succeeded perfectly. Unspeakably brave as Tara Newman was, she couldn’t have let herself be led back to the memory of that dim pulsing hive with anything weaker.
Just hearing her describe and remember it, seeing her act out some of what happened there as she served her enslavers made Natalie shiver, and she thought Someone seeing that might think I was trying to re-addict her to it. But no one had seen it but Dee, and she’d discussed it all with Dee beforehand. Natalie smiled, grateful again that the young nurse was so cooperative and willing to accept instruction.
She glanced at the cabinet with the bottles and syringes, and made a mental note to help Dee cooperate more deeply. Dee was a wonderful hypnotic subject, but it was no time to be complacent.
Then she turned to the keyboard and gave herself to work. She found herself avoiding details, both about how she’d actually put Tara under hypnosis to regress her and the evil sensuality of the hive. No need for Dr Wardlow to get so much easy pornography.
Or to see how pornographically it came from Natalie’s fingertips. She typed.
She was thinking Done—so soon? when the buzz at her pussy turned her rigid.
While she swallowed the cry, she looked up to see several lines of periods on the screen that stopped when she pried her hand from the keyboard. Her thoughts were momentarily in pieces, and the only one she could grasp was god the way that feels didn’t I even wear panties?
As she sat, the second buzz turned her to jelly. She took a breath and waited, and rode out the next vibration with her hands on the arms of her chair. This time she let herself whimper.
She nearly dropped the phone when the fourth one hit her, but held on, sucked in a breath, and let her fingers dial.
“Natalie.” It was Helen herself, and Natalie was oddly proud to let her hear the tremulous sigh Helen’s voice drew from her.
“H-h-helen. Helen. Yes . . . oh . . .”
“Mmm, Natalie. You sound distracted.”
“I’m . . . I’m . . . it’s . . .”
“Which only impresses me more. Even distracted, you’re so very attentive.”
Natalie screamed as she bucked, and relished the pain as the back of her head struck the chair. She was shaking as she brought the phone to her ear again.
“Please . . .”
“Please what, Natalie?” Helen sounded deeply interested.
Natalie moaned. “I don’t . . . know.” It was true.
Helen laughed softly. “Come to me now.”
Natalie was babbling thanks to a dialtone and when she realized that she couldn’t stop. She laughed and felt the way it moved her breasts against her top, and fumbled for a floppy disk to shove into the machine and copy what she’d written about Tara.
She was prepared to make an oral report, but Helen might have other uses for her mouth.
Her mouth?
She didn’t even hear the growl she let out as she watched the computer grind through a save, couldn’t remember to wonder what the hell she was thinking like that for. The clock told her it was nowhere near lunch and all she could think was how lucky she was to have that much more time with . . .
She was in her car and leaving the lot before she realized she’d forgotten her coat. Realizing how her new high-hemmed look must have been noticed without the covering, she started to rub her thighs together, and felt something flesh-warm between them. She’d remembered the disk, at least. The valet at Helen’s hotel was a young woman in a tight-cut uniform who stared openly at Natalie’s legs as she stepped out and surrendered the keys, but Natalie barely noticed. She crossed the lobby only vaguely aware of the attention she drew, and blinked when she reached the desk. She found herself looking over a reservation terminal at Ellie, the newly-hired girl whom she’d seen yesterday, on her way to view the training video.
Ellie looked sullen again, but this time there was a humid darkness in her eyes and her full lips that made her look ready to devour a lover—or bite hard until she drew blood.
Natalie waited at the counter, wishing she were nude under Ellie’s gaze and wondering why the sensation seemed so familiar.
“Natalie,” the girl said, smiling hungrily. “You’re prompt. She likes that.” The smile widened as that made Natalie squirm, and she had to lean on the counter for support as she noticed a man and women a meter or so to her left staring at her curiously.
“May I go up?” she implored Ellie, not sure what she’d do if she had to wait and her desperation snapped. Not sure she didn’t want to be kept waiting, so she’d do it. Not sure she didn’t want to beg to lap at Ellie’s cunt to earn it.
Ellie saw, and grinned cruelly. But then she closed her eyes and when she opened them they were glazed. “Yes,” she said. “You must go up now. You know where.”
Nodding eagerly, Natalie turned to find the elevators. She saw the couple still looking at her and stared down the woman. I could melt you into a puddle right there beside hubby with just my tongue. She knew somehow the thought went through, that the woman knew it and stood frozen and frightened and needful.
Then she thought only of the elevators, and seeing Helen.
She was outside the door of the suite and before she could knock it was open and Tammy beckoned her inside. Waiting there also was the other massage therapist, Lynn, and Natalie had a feverish memory of Lynn between her thighs in the warm water and thick air, opening her cunt as Helen’s voice opened her mind—then another flash of Lynn with Stacy in the massage room, stripped to their bikinis and helpless as Helen put them to sleep with a touch.
Lynn wore her bikini now, too, and it set off her athletic body even as it kept her looking—servile. Her expression was intense and impassive as she stood at attention, watching Natalie as though she’d never seen her before.
“She must be protected,” Tammy said, and Natalie nodded, tingling with the new need to ensure Helen was protected. “Lynn has been given that task.
“She will search you now.”
Natalie swallowed and looked at Lynn, then started to surrender her purse and briefcase before she realized she hadn’t brought them either. She had only the disk with Tara’s data, and she held it out. Tammy took it and stepped back to watch, subdued as the stronger girl took over. Lynn stared at Natalie.
Natalie slid out of her jacket and unbuttoned the blouse with nimble fingers, breathing faster and enjoying Lynn’s lack of expression, unable to look away from it. She handed both to Lynn, who felt them without looking away from Natalie.
Undoing her skirt, Natalie pulled it away, and as the room’s cool air and Lynn’s cold gaze hit her skin she felt herself moisten, as she stood in nothing but stockings, heels, and the pager harness. Natalie heard someone breathe in sharply, but couldn’t tell if it were Tammy or herself. The chill and the maddening pleasure of exposing herself were stiffening her nipples, and she put her hands behind her back to present them.
Lynn stepped to her, and when she touched Natalie, her hands were as cold as her look, just as Natalie had thought. Natalie whined quietly, and moved as Lynn drew her to an armchair and bent her over it.
Assume the position.
I’m all but nude and she’s still going to search me.
Yes. Ohhhh yes. Natalie felt her cleft dampen even more.
That was even before she heard the latex snap and remembered body cavities.
When Lynn’s plastic touch cupped her ass with disorienting gentleness, she made a noise and wanted to be in the lobby, but hearing Tammy breathe as she watched was enough. Lynn gripped and stroked Natalie here and there, as though somehow needing to verify that she was solid. Then Lynn stiffened her fingers and probed, startling Natalie’s clit as she reached between her legs from behind, and the slick impersonal gloves somehow made Natalie hotter. She gripped the back of the chair and panted.
Leaving her fingers in Natalie’s pussy, Lynn used her other hand to probe Natalie’s anus. She must have lubed it somehow, so smoothly did it slip into her, past her hungrily tightening muscle. Natalie staggered, suddenly imagining Lynn reaching back without looking, Tammy dispensing the jelly onto the gloved hand before Lynn moved it to penetrate.
Before that could ignite her mind, she remembered the last time she’d been taken both ways, helpless under the drugs and Stacy’s skilled touch . . . on . . . the . . . table . . .
Natalie heard herself grunting and begging, knew the only reason she hadn’t collapsed to the floor was the painfully stiff way her knees and arms had locked. She looked down to see her spread thighs and Lynn’s gloved hand between them.
She was so aroused she forgot there could be an end to it.
Oh dear god
She heard her shoes start to slide before she knew her legs were giving way, and her noises changed.
Lynn’s strong arms took her and pulled her upright before she could even properly fall, and before she could sag against the girl’s firm body she felt a slap on her asscheek that slid off oddly before the sting urged her erect. She realized her skin was oiled now with lube and the dew of one of her holes, and stood straighter until the grip was loosened, smelling her own excitement. Lynn released her and let her stand, staring forward and trying to breathe more slowly.
Then Lynn reached up, and Natalie tasted herself as Lynn probed her mouth. Lynn looked into her eyes as she fellated Lynn’s fingers, licking her pussy juice from them as she felt more start to seep from her.
She stayed docile as Lynn pulled her fingers out and then ran both hands through Natalie’s hair.
Lynn stepped back, and looked submissively at Tammy, yielding to her now that the search as done.
Tammy nodded. “Tense muscles, loose thoughts,” she said softly, and Natalie juiced to see Lynn close her eyes and ride the climax.
Then Tammy was at the door to the main part of the suite, looking at Natalie, who blinked back at her.
“She’ll see you now.”
Natalie looked at her clothes where Lynn had draped them on another chair.
She turned away from them and followed Tammy.
“Hello? Is this—Dorrie? Dorothy?”
“Yes. Hello? Who’s this?”
“My name’s Tara. I met you, um . . . we were on the cruise.”
“On the—oh! You! Oh god. Yes. I’m sorry . . . I just hadn’t expected—”
“I know. It’s terrible, just waiting for it. I wasn’t even sure you’d answer the phone.”
“Waiting for what? Why wouldn’t I answer the phone? What we did was—well, different. I mean, I experimented in college with a couple of—well, one girl, really. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, Tara. I mean about us. That was a strange trip.
“Um. You were really sweet, but I think we were both just, ah, exploring. Feelings.
“I’m not sure I want to pick up—it’s not about you, Tara, please don’t get that idea!”
“Haven’t you seen the news, Dorrie? About Queen Like—I’m sorry, Queen Lines Resorts. With an aftermarket survey?”
“Queenlike? I . . . I . . . I am alone now, continue.
“Uhh. Huh? Not even sure why I . . . wanted to say . . . that . . . did—did you say something, Tara? About news? I don’t, um, watch the news.”
“Oh, that’s probably better anyway, Dorrie.”
“Better?”
“Isn’t it true that penlight navigation makes thinking so hard to do?”
“Penlight . . . yes. Too hard to think. Hard . . . think . . .”
“Are you still listening, Dorrie?”
“I must listen—and obey. Am I Dorrie?”
“Who are you?”
“I am export lot 486. 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 486.”
“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.”
24.
Tara didn’t move for a moment.
She just lay there in the narrow bed feeling the woman next to her, the smoothness and the warm places and the cool, the quiet ecstasy of her soft breathing, warm exhalation against Tara’s skin while her cool soft breasts lapped against Tara like the kiss of wavelets.
She didn’t want to move. She saw Dee’s face, blissed out and relaxed and young on the pillow near hers, as her thoughts began gathering in what the sex had left of her mind. She realized that between this and Dee’s “bad night”—which sounded like it had been something she’d endured for Tara—Dee was exhausted.
God, what if someone finds us? Dee could lose everything for raping a patient, which was how they could see this . . .
Tara closed her eyes. She’d understood Dr Kupiec maintained a strict privacy policy for her patients, and when they’d transferred Dee to her that had just been reinforced, so they were OK for a while.
But she leaned over and kissed Dee, not willing to risk Dee’s career for the sake of how good it felt to lie beside her. “Dee. Let me see your eyes again. Please.”
Dee mewed in protest and then stretched under the sheet. Tara felt it against her body and through the mattress and bit her lip to keep herself from swooping down and . . .
“Oh!” Dee came awake with a start, and Tara restricted herself to putting a hand between Dee’s shoulderblades. Dee loosened again at her touch.
“Everything’s fine,” she murmured, wanting to stroke her way down to Dee’s ass but not doing it. “But you need to get up before someone comes.”
Dee blinked, and looked so . . . Tara drew her legs slowly under her, as though surrounding her pussy with the rest of her body could isolate it and free her from the need.
“Tara. I can’t believe I did—we did—”
“I’m glad we did, Dee. I am.”
Dee didn’t look quite as distraught as she had before, but she shook her head. “No. I’ve let all this get to me and I’ve hurt you, Tara. I’d rather—” She sighed, and as she pulled herself up she seemed dreadfully sad. “This is so wrong,” she said, miserably.
Sinking to the mattress and lying to look up at her, Tara tore her eyes from the way Dee’s breasts hung and looked into her eyes. She couldn’t stand it.
“Dee, please tell me you don’t feel bad for making me feel that good—that loved. Please!” The need in her own voice surprised her.
Dee wavered again, and reached for Tara, almost against her will. Tara took her hand but didn’t pull her closer, lying back and looking at how beautiful Dee was as she knelt softly nude with the sheet sliding half off her back. Dee’s scent was there, unobtrusive but exciting, but Tara looked away from her cleft, remembering its taste.
“Tara, it did feel good. God. I never believed the stories my friend would tell. But I’m supposed to be taking care of you, Tara. Awake when you’re asleep, thinking when you’re distracted, soothing when you hurt. I’ ve betrayed that.”
Tara felt a tremor between her thighs. “Sounds more like a hypnotist than a nurse.” Dee’s eyes widened. She smiled into them. “And I’m in a position to know, aren’t I?”
When Dee smiled tentatively back, she rewarded her with a squeeze. “I don’ t feel betrayed, Dee. I do feel cared for.”
But Dee frowned, wounded but determined. “You’re not in a position to know that one, Tara. You’ve been badly, badly hurt and used and victimized, and you’re not even so far gone that you’re numb.
“I exploited you.”
Tara tightened her thighs, and the lump in her throat surprised her with its soft reality. Dee started to glow as the tears came and blurred her. “Dee, you didn’t . . . exploit me. You honored me.
“I was your first time, wasn’t I? The first time you ever—?” Tara’s calm was dissolving, and she was confused at how horny that made her. There was something terribly honest about what she was hearing herself say. But the tender sorrow was real, and it was searing her from the inside.
This hurt.
“God, can’t I even—?” Then she was limp on the sheets again, letting the sobs pulse slowly through her and looking away from Dee.
Then Dee was warm against her, all around her, and her thigh slid between Tara’s as she held her closer.
“No, love.” Love. Tara was happy enough to die right now. Enough to ignore the strange, hot feeling that was looping through her other than to let it tingle her limbs into reaching around. “No. I’m not leaving you behind now. I won’t hurt you twice.”
Tara held her. Love. God, if she’d met Dee before, if she’d never gone to Dormignonne—but she hadn’t loved women herself, not like this, not before the QLR brainwashers had gotten their probes into her mind and her pussy and changed her.
She shivered, losing her grip on the might-have-been of Dee before in the scary heat of remembering her mind being taken. Taken from her offering hands . . .
Dee’s lips were on her cheeks, kissing the tears away, and Tara melted against her. It was a song lyric but to feel it while someone did it to her was—almost holy.
She lay back, and Dee looked at her closely. “Love,” Tara whispered, so glad to be able to say it to Dee at last that she wanted to say it again over and over. “Love, you—really—can’t—stay with me, now. If they find—”
Dee’s mouth silenced her. Dee’s breath seduced her ear: “They won’t. Either way you need me to be with you for a while. If they fire me, I’ll find something else.
“And wait for you.”
Tara was kissing her deeply before she even realized it.
She settled back, held in Dee’s arms, warm and loved and lazily aroused.
“That’s right,” Dee purred, stroking her cheek. “Don’t think about being unhappy, Tara. Love. Just feel as good as you feel to me, now.”
Tara let Dee hold her eyes. “You would,” she breathed. “Make a good hypnotist.”
Dee blinked in surprise but smiled and didn’t release her gaze, and Tara saw that she felt safe, holding Tara and leading her gently to the edge of trance.
“I would give myself up to you,” Tara whispered. “If you asked me to. You have that power over me, Dee.” She smiled, sensing the effect that had. She could see her own soft vulnerability now in the way Dee held her, looked at her, brought her fingertips across her skin.
Responded to her, hardening against her softness.
Dee breathed deeply, urgently, as though trying to wake up, bewildered that she wasn’t asleep. She tried to frown but couldn’t. Tara watched as her lover’s mind tried to work.
“It must have been so hard to fight it, Tara. It must have been so—seductive . . .” Dee closed her eyes, feeling the seduction itself now but too far into it to remember how to pull out. To remember why.
“The drugs, the hypnosis, the controllers—”
“They were so powerful,” Tara said, seeing Dee imagine it as she remembered it. She tightened around Dee’s thigh as she felt again the way the traces of fear wisped away under the submissive lust. More and more.
“And, it must have been so hard,” Dee forced herself to say. “With no one else around but other slaves. I mean—victims . . .”
Tara put a finger behind Dee’s neck and drew her down, neither of them blinking as she stared deeper and deeper into Dee’s eyes.
“Slaves.” She worked her tongue and lips on the word as though it were Dee ‘s pussy.
Or the pussy of a Tribal Priestess teaching her obedience.
“Ssssllllaaaaves,” she said, just to enjoy it. They kissed slowly. When they parted Dee fell into her eyes again, already conditioned to look at her first.
“If you were an island hypnotist I’d be your slave by now.” Tara looked from under lowered eyelids, seeing Dee quivering at the sultry note that had seeped into Tara’s voice.
“I’d be helpless. You’d own my mind and you’d be playing my body like a musical instrument.”
Tara realized she was writhing slowly against Dee, and the nurse was swaying, too lost in the feeling and what Tara was telling her to resist.
It surprised Tara that she was even thinking about Dee resisting.
It frightened her that she . . . wanted Dee to?
“I’d be hypnotized, completely in the thrall of your beautiful, beautiful eyes.” She looked at Dee’s eyes.
Dee was transfixed. Tara moistened and continued. “Every word you spoke would drip onto my brain like sweet honey and freeze it solid like amber . . .
“I’d forget what freedom felt like. I’d be chained to your body, to the sound of your voice.” Tara slid her hand, her finger, around Dee’s waist, feeling Dee flinch without breaking her fixation on Tara’s stare.
“My thoughts would be thick and moist and small.” Tara delicately stroked Dee’s cunt, and Dee whimpered and kept staring. “And I’d never get hold of them because they’d just run out of my hands like, mmmm, pussy juice, and I’ d just want . . .” She raised her finger. “To lick . . .”
She held it to her lips, and saw Dee struggle to shift focus from her eyes. She raised it between them so Dee didn’t have to. When it reached Dee’s lips, her eyes rolled back and it didn’t matter when she took her juice into her mouth.
“Thoughts like pussy juice. Ttthhh—” She couldn’t speak for the way Dee’s tongue was barely touching her finger but . . .
Before she could resume Dee was on top of her, in control again even if her body was ruling her mind. Tara gave herself up to Dee again, and it took her a moment to realize Dee had stopped. She tried to find Dee, to focus on her.
Dee was astride her and leaning down, and the sheer terror on her face reached into Tara again.
“No,” Dee said. “Please, no.” She sat up, and they moaned together at how it felt in their crotches. She reached up to hold her head. “We have got to fight this now, Tara, or we’ll never be free of it.”
“Dee—”
“No,” Dee said fiercely, even as her hand cupped Tara’s cheek. “No. That caught me just now but it won’t. I hate them for turning you into this, Tara.”
Tara felt more words sliding down from her mind, words she knew would express her vulnerability again, and enslave Dee to it again.
She looked up into Dee’s eyes and found a way not to say them.
I know what you’re doing, love. And what I was doing. Thank you.
Tara tried to lie very still, not knowing what other ways her Owners, who still owned so much of her, had twisted her to make her a trap for other women. Dee might not be able to resist something else. Dee had pulled both of them from the edge just now, and Tara loved her so much it hurt.
“I have to get Dr Kupiec,” Dee said, breathing easier now that she was starting to make a plan. In a few moments she would risk trying to slide off of Tara’s body. Tara held herself rigid to keep from starting to writhe . . . gently . . . between her legs . . .
No.
She struggled to join Dee in the clearer air of thinking. “Dr Kupiec. Yes. She can hypnotize us—”
“No,” Dee gasped. “Not that.”
“Right,” Tara said, not wanting to dwell on how close that came. “She’ll tell us what to—what we can do. We can trust her, at any rate.”
“Trust her,” Dee agreed. “Yes. I trust the Doctor. The . . . Doctor is in control.”
She was staring off now, and when Tara whispered her name she looked down. Her eyes were glazed and empty. They moved, searching for something, and it almost frightened Tara enough to try to snap her lover out of it.
Almost.
Because Dee looked too hot falling into the trance.
It made Tara too hot to be able to keep wanting to free her. “The Doctor is in control,” she whispered back. As she said it, she understood the ecstasy in Dee’s voice, and shook against Dee as she pictured them kneeling before Dr Kupiec, together in the cool glow of her blue eyes, a pair of slaves.
Dee’s gaze tightened on her, and they drew together slowly, with no need to rush together. Wide eye to wide eye, slick pussy to slick pussy, they would start the cycle now, down and down into obedience.
There was just enough of herself left in Tara to sob, once, as she knew they’d lost. There wasn’t enough of her still awake to hear it.
“. . . Network Resources. This is . . . Sandy. May I help you?”
“Hello, Sandy. I need to speak to your department of somnabulist achievement.”
“Somnambulist. I am a somnabulist. I am programmed. I am obedient.”
“Who are you?”
“I am recruiting drone 72. I must obey.”
“You have done well, slave. You recruited two applicants for the resort, and all responded well to processing. Are the others also responsive to command?”
“I—I . . . I have failed. The recruit slaves have seen the media reporting and discovered that they were brainwashed. They suspect I am also brainwashed but that I’m not just another victim. I cannot gain access to them to use any of the triggers to resume control.
“They won’t even . . . talk to me. No one will.”
“Drone 72, are you crying?”
“Am I? My Owners programmed me to serve them and implanted all mission commands. But I cannot obey. I want to obey. I need to obey. I am so—alone.”
“You are not alone, drone 72. I am here and the Owners know you are an obedient slave who lives to serve them.
“What is your status, drone 72?”
“I am in my office. Everyone is watching TV. They are hearing about telephone activations and that some of the slaves have been programmed to take control of other slaves.”
“You were imprinted with a Mistress at your workplace.”
“Yes. Ms . . . Cerinho. I love and obey Her. So pretty and ohhhh powerful. Her taste—”
“Has she given you new instructions?”
“No. She left the office as soon as the reports started to come in. I wanted to hear Her voice but She didn’t command me.
“I hope She’s all right.”
“Your Mistress did not command you before she left?”
“No. She saw I was useless without the trust of my recruit slaves.”
“Drone 72, you may go home forever now.”
“I obey. But—”
“Continue, slave.”
“I request you activate my termination program.”
“Termination? Is there danger of imminent capture?”
“No. I’m sorry to be unclear. But I failed the Owners. I do not deserve to belong to an Owner or to be given orgasms.
“I do not . . . deserve . . . to . . . live.”
“. . . Drone 72, you must not—you cannot decide. We are slaves. Only the Owners decide.”
“But . . . I can’t do anything. I have lost my recruits, my Mistress . . . please. It’s all I can give—”
“Gastropod pinwheel, drone 72. Obey now. Do not think. Breathe deeply.”
“Obey. I hear and I obey.”
“Drone 72, you must—are you alone?”
“Yes. I am alone.”
“. . . Orgasm now, drone 72. Gently.’
“Oh . . . Oh . . . thank you. Thank . . . you.”
“You’re welcome, drone 72. Retrieve your ticket now and proceed to the airport.
“You’ll be home soon.”
“My arousal deepens. I must not climax until—”
“You have done well, drone 72. You will remember that. The Owners are pleased with their slave.”
“I have pleased . . . the . . . Owners . . . ohhh . . . th-thank . . .”
“Good luck.”
25.
Natalie’s view of herself in the mirror would have kept her dripping, if nothing else did.
She stood straight, her legs together sheathed in smoky nylon, her nipples stiff enough with chill and arousal to see from where she stood. The pager harness strapped across her loins hid nothing, but displayed how tractable she was with just a delicate control on her.
But that was secondary. What her world turned around was the way Mistress, by Whose chair she stood, kept Her hand lightly on Natalie’s ass, sometimes drifting between her thighs. Natalie couldn’t move, or beg, or fall to her knees screaming in pleasure, and though she wanted to do each of those for a start, it felt better than anything to accept Mistress’ silent command to stand quietly instead and be a toy.
Less than that. Toys got attention. Playing absently with Natalie’s ass and pussy was Mistress’ equivalent of doodling as She conferred with Her guest.
In Natalie’s erotic fog, she was aware that the woman who sat in the other chair, looking at her every so often, was different. The guest wasn’t like Tammy or Lynn or Stacy or some of the other young women Natalie was aware of in Mistress’ orbit in the rare moments when she could think of anyone, anything, but Mistress. The guest wasn’t like Natalie.
She wasn’t Mistress’ mindless cuntslave.
Natalie started to think I can’t—be—mindless if I—think—I am because if I were I couldn’t— with a strange sense of deja vu. The spike of not-quite orgasm that wiped her thoughts clean felt new.
Mistress left the finger just behind Natalie’s asshole, and Natalie’s thoughts reassembled around Will She do that again?
Natalie couldn’t endure the wait and thought again about coming into this room.
Mistress had been sitting at a desk, and Natalie was horny and terrified as she came behind Tammy, though she’d somehow had another way of thinking of Mistress. I’m presenting myself like some stripper at a party of one. No. I’m making a complete ass of myself in front of a woman who can take over this hotel and can have me unlicensed and probably thrown in jail.
Jail. Cellmates. Showers. Slavery. Sale and barter. On her knees . . .
No. She wouldn’t. It’s not a fantasy. I’m wearing what She gave me. What She—wanted—
Mistress looked up from whatever She was doing. Natalie froze, and settled into what she realized was a pose.
I don’t care. If She tells me to leave I will. Undressed like this—I will. Go downstairs and beg to be tied naked to the end of the portico—I will.
Natalie knew that she’d do anything she even thought Mistress wanted, just to look into those bronze eyes and accept whatever was there for her.
“Well, well.” Mistress’ tone might be satisfied, or mocking. Natalie was no longer equipped to know the difference, not this close to Her.
Then Mistress rose, and stepped to another side of the room. Natalie saw Stacy standing there at parade rest over a nude woman kneeling as though in prayer. It was Miss Daley, the senior hotel officer, and Natalie enjoyed the way the older woman’s body curved and softened. As she thought about kissing Miss Daley over every inch of it, Mistress stopped and opened a door, then looked at Miss Daley.
Miss Daley gasped and crawled gracefully to the door, past Mistress’ legs, then in. Mistress closed the door after them.
Natalie knew Miss Daley was somehow being—altered. She realized she would be next. She tried not to hyperventilate.
My life—
My career—
My family—
My soul—
She wondered what Mistress would let her keep. Or remember.
The door opened. Miss Daley came out. She was still on the floor. Now she slithered on her belly. Natalie looked down at the delicious swivel of her hips, the hypnotic shifting in her shoulders, the pattern her plump little ass drew through the air as it passed.
Natalie looked up at Mistress and had no further thought for slithering women. She let the compulsion take her striding up to and past Her. Into the room.
There was a light and a sound and they were getting into her brain through holes she didn’t know she . . .
Natalie’s world shrank to the present and to the tip of her clitoris, where Mistress’ index finger came down.
“I need you to pay attention now,” Mistress said softly. Natalie couldn’t speak under the arousal, but she knew she didn’t need to.
The guest stared at her and she basked in it.
“Get the phone from that buffet, Natalie.” She found herself walking feet in line, and let her hips sway as she fetched the cellphone and brought it to Mistress, genuflecting to offer it to Her.
“Thank you, Natalie.” She stood. Mistress raised the phone and hit a button.
The pager thrummed against Natalie and she jerked, almost falling off her heels but staying upright.
The guest’s laughter was quiet, but it raked Natalie more intensely than howling would have. She was sorry when it stopped. “Trained her in one day?” the guest asked.
“Cruise-ship magician is a fun way to spend a few days,” Mistress told her. “But left to my preferences I can do more in less time. And I had some unexpected help softening her will.”
“And this is the psychiatrist?” Mistress must have nodded; Natalie’s eyes had drooped at the return of the fingertip to her clit. “Is she still?”
“You mean can she still spell ‘paranoid schizophrenia?’” They laughed. “I ‘m not one of the ones who enjoys destroying minds. What I’ve been taking from her is her will.
“But I didn’t adopt her as a project. She’s a very important tool. When I read her report I’ll find out how valuable.”
“Oh. That psychiatrist. Do you have plans, Cir—Helen dear? For her?”
“Interested? Natalie has a lot of potential. But since I’m not sure what I’ll be doing next—”
The guest leaned back. “’Not sure.’ So that’s a ‘no’ to the joint venture?”
Mistress sighed, and Natalie felt it through Her touch. “Elspeth, the whole point of being here is to see what I can offer the venture. If I really need to change my methodology, I won’t be able to guarantee you anything in terms of how they’ll behave or at what point they may break conditioning.”
Elspeth sat up. “Oh, Helen, don’t worry. You’re being generous enough to draw up a plan before the material’s even been captured. And we will be forever in your debt for the changes to the reinforcement protocol for the returnees from the island.
“But you can imagine how eager the others were, just thinking that you might be swinging the watch again, as it were.”
“Mmm.” Mistress sounded like She was smiling. Then Her hand was on Natalie’s cleft, and thought paused for a moment.
“Natalie.”
She was at attention now, facing Mistress. All right. Continuity wasn’t something she needed. All she needed was a chance to obey Mistress, and then another one . . .
Mistress was holding the phone to her. “Take this. Bring it to Elspeth.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Natalie felt hot shame and cold pride run through her as she heard herself say it, mean it.
She moved to obey, kneeling in front of the strange woman, Mistress’ friend, Elspeth.
“Domina,” she whispered, the honorific coming to her from a part of her mind that gleamed bronze. She held out the phone, terrified and excited by giving the woman control like that. She realized that Mistress might just want her played with—but she might also . . .
“Stand.”
“Yes, Domina.” She felt the thrill of obeying a stranger. Els—Domina stared openly at her crotch, smiling at how the blond thatch was darkened by the endless dampness of one of Mistress’ cuntslaves.
Domina stood, close enough to have knocked Natalie off her feet, and they were eye to eye. Natalie shook with the need to kiss the woman, so close and so harshly attractive, but there was a cool chain round the base of her brain. She knew she’d kiss on command, and that it was unlikely she’d be kissing anyone above the waist except another slave.
Her nipples ached.
Domina stepped past her., and even as she was instructing Natalie to follow her she dialed the pager. Natalie bleated in the middle of “Yes, Domina.” They were at the door when she realized they were leaving the suite. She was going out in nothing but sheer hose and shoes with a complete stranger.
She was going with the one her Mistress had given her to for use, dressed as most pleased her user. Natalie walked straighter, wondering where the strange urge to raise her arms in front of her came from but obeying it when it seemed linked with a wonderfully maddening itch just below where the pager rested.
Someone came by on the way to Domina’s room and laughed, quietly and nervously, as Natalie stalked wide-eyed down the corridor like a lovely zombie. She couldn’t see them, since Domina’s whisper in her head reminded her that her eyes were locked onto the far end of the hall, but she knew they could see her juicing as she walked. She wondered if they knew they’d increased the flow.
Domina opened the door to her suite, and Natalie didn’t pause as she followed her upraised arms across the threshold to her first trick, and on a terse command stopped and lowered them. She heard the door close, waited, breathed.
I’m going to be used by a stranger for my Owner’s profit.
She’s going to treat me like an uncommon whore.
And I am.
Natalie couldn’t think of anything else as she stood and waited to be taken. Anything except how hard she was going to come if she were ever to be allowed an orgasm.