The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

1.

Darcy ignored the screaming, at first.

Stepping into her panties, she thought about all the pretty women playing basketball or doing something out there in the gym. She thought wistfully of staying a bit longer, to watch. The aerobics class Janice taught would start in about fifteen, and even now that they’d stopped seeing each other she loved to watch Janice move, and loved to watch how even less supple women in Janice’s class seemed to be snakecharmed into moving more sinuously when she showed them how.

Dancers . . . but she remembered the chapter she’d promised herself she’d finish this evening, and still get half a night’s sleep. She sighed, letting the voices out there fade to noise, slipping the bra on, hoping to make it out before she heard the pulse of Janice’s music.

She summoned up a vision of men to short-circuit the lust, and thought about baseball.

The screaming went on too long.

Something bad was happening for real out there. Darcy slipped the other bra strap on and glanced at her locker. She’d thought it was just more horseplay out in the gym, maybe Gin who always carried out more loudly than she had to, but the note in this voice was wrong.

Thinking about arterial bleeders and seconds counting, hoping someone else was dealing with it, Darcy turned away from her clothes and started to run out of the locker room. She heard other cries, and they came from both of the entrances. The shapeless emergency in her head became a bit clearer and much worse. Not something small like one of the women she worked out with being injured, but all over the fitness center.

Fire that was spreading fast enough to kill. Or the worst thing of all . . .

People.

Maybe some kind of gang initiation. Fuck the bitches. Make ‘em hos.

Darcy thought for a moment of heading back, grabbing her sweats and purse, and then going out a window. Best to get help, she’d be telling herself.

But even if she called from somewhere else (damn damn this is why smart people do carry cell phones why couldn’t I be trendier?) she’d need to tell them what was going on, and she didn’t know yet.

She hugged a wall near the door that led, through a couple of turnings, to the freeweight room. She heard running footsteps inside the room itself and then someone tripped. As she eeled her way along the corners to peek in, she saw one end of the room just as two women came into view.

It was—Janice, and someone she didn’t know, the second woman still with eyeguards on and her racquetball racquet trailing her hand on its lanyard. She was struggling to her feet and panting something to Janice, who was helping her regain her balance and looking fearfully back.

There was a flash, even as Darcy was deciding whether to dart out and help. She thought insanely, We’re being attacked by paparazzi? but the idea vanished as she saw Janice’s face go blank and her body go slack. Her grip on the other woman weakened. The woman stumbled forward and fell to her knees again, and Darcy could see the guilt on her face before the fear washed over it.

“No,” the woman said in a small voice. “Oh god.” She was trying to look away from whoever had been chasing them.

“Come here.” Another woman’s voice, cool and businesslike. The fallen one closed her eyes and shook her head.

Janice, staring ahead, obediently began walking toward the speaker.

Oh, shit. Darcy tried to become part of the wall. Mind control? Wasn’ t that supposed to be some kind of media hype? Wasn’t it?

The fallen woman tried to run for the door, moving behind Janice. She looked up and saw Darcy, and looked away instantly. Darcy could almost read her mind: she wasn’t going to get someone else caught, too. But she looked the wrong way, toward her pursuers.

The next flash left her staring blankly too, slowly rising to stand upright. Another command drew her away.

Darcy almost slid to the floor, reeling from it all. Someone she didn’t even know had just gotten herself caught trying to save Darcy from capture and slavery, the building might be crawling with slavers, she was in nothing but a bra and panties if she tried to make a run for it, and visions of what awaited them all were already salmoning up the adrenaline flow into her brain. Robotically happy whores, mindlessly devoted harem sluts sold overseas—what did this crew want to do with her and her friends?

She remembered her sister Annalee they day she’d come out to her, saying Maybe you just need therapy, Darce. Or maybe some stud brainwasher’ll see you strutting down the avenue and decide to—straighten you out! She’d apologized, but she’d laughed.

Now it was about to fucking happen.

Darcy fought the panic down. She knew she was carrying that woman’s gift now, even if it was just a few minutes’ grace, and she could not waste what had cost so much.

OK. She breathed through a moment of mental static, trying to orient herself and think about entrances, hiding places. Dead ends.

She suddenly thought of playing Photon with her young cousin Ken last vacation, and ruthlessly pushed am I ever going to see him again aside for the way Ken had helped her get into the tactical mindset, stalking through the smoky dark halls.

It reminded her that the others, the ones that wanted her, were probably thinking the same way.

She eased away from the door, hearing only the receding footsteps of Janice, her nameless savior, and their captor. She padded back toward her locker. It was on the way to any possible way out, and she debated frantically whether to keep going or stop and grab what she needed. She thought of people dying in housefires who went back for their wallets or . . .

Footsteps.

Between her and escape. She felt frustrated, then angry, and cherished the anger, knowing she might need it later. She stepped more carefully, trying to figure out where the person was. She also wondered whether it was one of the bad guys or someone who’d somehow managed to come in and miss it all. Not likely—she grimly put away her hope of having an ally in this.

She listened. The shoes were hard-soled, not gym wear, and could be someone’s street shoes.

She thought about shoes, and the guy in Die Hard, and wondered how she’d do out there, barefoot. She knew what to tell the cops now, anyway.

Her mind helpfully observed otherwise. What if when she got the police here, herself wrapped in a blanket, they found nothing but smiling happy women at their exercise, not at all brainwashed?

When they came for her later at home, would anyone bother to answer the 911, if she even reached the phone?

Darcy almost hit herself for that loser-think, and tried to think of nothing but moving soundlessly along this row of lockers. She saw nothing when she peeked around the corner, realized she was sniffing gently, through the scents of shampoo and liniment and sweat, trying to pick out something alien, to see where the intruder had passed. She tried to see herself as a predator, but all she could picture was her nose twitching like a rabbit or a mouse.

There was her locker. She glanced up, seeing the mirror that covered the wall at the end of this row as it did the others. There was nothing to see but her, one frightened-looking brunette in her underwear. She listened . . . nothing, bar the suddenly thunderous drip from one of the showerheads, the hum of the vents. Resolving to grab now and dress later, telling herself that she might need the wallet for its IDs and money and keys, she tiptoed over, wincing as her leg hissed against the varnished bench in the middle.

Just as her mind said this is a dead-end you’re in she saw movement from the corner of her eye.

She followed it to the mirror saw a face she didn’t know frightening strange something like a gun

felt the adrenaline surge twist her inside winced shut her eyes and spun heard the faint buzzing

Found herself bent double, her face inches from the woodgrain of the bench, thinking Is that the last thing I’ll ever see as—me? and Whoever you are I’m sorry I wasted the chance you gave me.

That one hurt most.

2.

It brought the anger back, and she straightened, trying to find a way to be heroic wearing nothing but a few grams of baby-blue stretch cotton, wishing she could come up with better last words than Fuck you.

The woman held the weapon on her without moving, and Darcy saw the emptiness in her eyes. Not a mind controller, but one of their slaves, and Darcy felt a chill. She’d heard about that. Maybe soon some of us will be doing this.

The slave/captor did nothing, and Darcy wanted to scream at her, wondering what jollies she was getting from just . . .

Standing there?

She looked more closely. The woman’s eyes were glazed, her eyelids fluttering slightly, and she was trembling as she stood. Darcy saw the gun or flashlight or whatever it was wavering now, and knew she was standing with her head between it and the . . .

Mirror.

The woman had hypnotized herself with her own weapon.

Darcy covered her mouth to keep the laugh inside, not entirely certain she could keep it a laugh, or stop once she started. As she did she saw the woman’s eyelids droop, as though part of her stunned awareness was trying to respond to Darcy’s movement.

This is fucked up. But—

This many chances were making Darcy giddy. She took a deep breath and walked closer to the woman, who went on staring helplessly at the mirror. Through it. Into nothing.

She realized she could hit the woman very hard and she’d do nothing about it. She could probably even kill her. But the thought made Darcy sick, and she felt irrationally sorry for the bitch, mind-controlled all over the place and left defenseless by her own weapon through her own bad luck.

It nerved her to put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. It was warm, firm, vibrating with her vague struggle. She felt power over the woman, and on top of her fear it was like a stiff drink on an empty stomach.

Careful, she told herself.

“You must do as I—you must obey me,” she said softly.

“i must obey,” the woman whispered back, and the sound of it sent a strange rush through Darcy.

“You obey the sound of my voice.”

“i obey the sound of your voice.” The woman declared her obedience, still staring wide-eyed at herself in the mirror.

“Tell me your name.”

“i am slave patrice,” the woman whispered. Darcy could hear the lower-case letters, the woman’s absolute belief that she was something less than whoever commanded her. Her head spun with the knowledge.

“Good. Lower the—what is this?”

“It is an inducer.”

Great. “Lower the inducer and just stand there.”

Darcy stared at her for a moment, seeing her come slowly to attention. She was wearing an odd getup, a dark-gray bodysuit, long-sleeved and high-hipped, and it showed off a compact, nicely-shaped body, more voluptuous than Darcy’s. She wore boots that came up to the knee. And a collar, with some kind of dark metal medallion.

It came back to Darcy that this was about slavery.

patrice was someone’s brainwashed property, someone fairly kinky by the looks of it but together enough to build or buy inducers to zap new slaves with. New slaves like Darcy, if she didn’t get her ass in gear.

She thought of how pretty patrice looked, and was suddenly sad.

Having this kind of unquestioning help was better than any ally she’d hoped for—no worries about either sudden hysterics or some kamikaze attempt to free the others. Her mind jammed as she tried to think of how to use this new asset, and she turned to start pulling on clothes, to use the time as she thought.

Better than another free woman, in some ways: “patrice. Which ways out aren’t covered by the—the rest of you?”

“None.”

Halfway into her sweatpants, Darcy winced. She thought of asking for specifics, but realized she didn’t know the fitness center as well as patrice’s . . . owners probably did by now. The giddiness was giving way to dread, as she started to realize what she was up against.

In an odd way that made her next thought almost less frightening.

She looked at patrice, standing blankly, not impatient. “How long will the inducer keep you in trance, patrice?”

patrice blinked, and Darcy wondered if she was already coming out of it, reverting to her original programming. But she answered promptly, “A few minutes at this setting.”

Darcy breathed, and thought about what she was about to do. “How long will it keep you in trance at the next two settings?”

She heard the woman—the slave—breathe. “About half an hour, and then about two hours. Longer if . . .”

Narrowing her eyes, Darcy said, “Complete that thought, please.”

patrice sighed, from weariness or the vague beginning of resistance. “Longer if the subject has already been obedience-conditioned.”

The way patrice was. Darcy suddenly felt remorse—realized she’d been feeling it since her first words. I’ve been using a slave. She closed her eyes.

I’m getting her out too. That has to be enough.

“patrice, raise the inducer to the second setting. On my command, fire into the mirror. You must obey.”

“i must obey.” Darcy heard clicking as patrice spoke. “On your command.” She stepped hurriedly to stand beside her, out of the line of fire—then realized she was staring at the mirror in the opposite dead end of lockers, perfectly in line for a faceful of hypnosis. She bent and covered her eyes.

“Now, patrice.”

The inducer hummed, and Darcy heard the other woman sigh as the machine hypnotized her again. She shivered, mostly with guilt.

What was it like to be forcibly entranced, long after someone had already taken over your mind?

Practicalities overrode that. More to the point, had she prolonged her control of patrice, or just reset her obedience to zero?

“Whose voice do you obey now, patrice?”

“i obey your voice.” The slave’s response was calm and firm.

Darcy realized she was running out of time—anyone could come in to see what was keeping patrice.

“Listen to me, patrice. This is what you will do.”

3.

patrice held her arm, and Darcy tried to look hypnotized. The plan was simple: only mindless captives would be leaving, so Darcy must leave as patrice’s mindless captive. patrice really was leading her, because patrice knew where the best exit was, what route to take so as not to meet the senior slave she called the Controller.

The fitness center was quiet and calm, and for a moment Darcy felt disoriented, wondering if it had all been a practical joke. Everything was so normal, so . . .

No.

It wasn’t normal for women to be lined up along the row of stationary bikes, stripping and then standing at attention, staring into space. Or following around the empty-eyed, frighteningly graceful women in matching leotards as though on strings behind them. Or like the two just standing ignored by a drinking fountain, asleep on their feet, waiting for orders.

No one saying a word.

patrice pulled her gently but firmly toward the juice bar, with its separate street entrance. Darcy didn’t hear the TV on in there, in fact heard only the sound system that played soft rock through the whole center, and suddenly was wrenched by hearing the music playing so blithely over so many people unable to hear it. She might be the only person really awake in the whole place—and almost every sleepwalker here either wanted to bring her into their sleep, or no longer cared.

She tried to think about something else, about walking steadily, about how blank her mind was supposed to be. About the advantage of secretly having her very own mind-slave literally at her elbow.

Darcy had considered having patrice use the inducer on her, to make her daze more convincing by making it real, but had just been too frightened to risk her will that way, no matter how deeply patrice seemed to be obeying her. Besides—as easy it was to shift patrice’s submission, now that patrice’s mind had been softened to obey almost anyone who commanded her, it might be easy for Darcy to get lost in the relaxation. It was tempting not to be afraid, but . . .

Part of her knew she could fail, and if she were in a trance when she was caught she’d never know. She’d never know. That part of her wanted to stay awake and free to the last second, to look someone in the eye.

The hand on her upper arm gripped her and she halted, remembering to keep looking forward without seeing anything. patrice had halted her to let a group of women march out of the juice bar in a docile line with a bodysuited slave at each end. As they waited, Darcy saw what was in front of her.

From here she could see the front desk, and saw the assistant manager, Mindy, at attention beside her own chair as another woman in a leotard like patrice’s ran practiced hands over her workstation. Mindy was bare between her blue-and-black jogbra and the low socks, and Darcy saw her dark-blonde bush glistening, but her hair was still twisted atop her head in the elegant knot she used.

The slavewoman leaned back from the computer and spoke without looking away from it. Mindy stepped forward, still agile and a joy to watch even with her mind suspended, and knelt by the chair looking up, like an especially solicitous flight attendant. She stared raptly at the slavewoman’s profile, then spoke. After a moment she uncoiled from beside the chair and stepped back to stand by the partition again, returning to whatever dream she was trapped in.

A tug, and Darcy turned to precede patrice into the empty bar. The echo of the bright music suddenly depressed her so much it made her afraid. Shock reaction, she told herself urgently. You only feel that sad . . . it didn ‘t just get worse. It’s still just as bad as it was.

patrice walked them up to a slave standing by the door with an inducer, and on top of the music trip Darcy had to ride out the shiver of being close to another of these robotic women—one she didn’t control, one who might on the next few seconds take control of her.

“This captive is to be taken for immediate disposition,” patrice said without preamble.

The other slave barely glanced at Darcy. “Has she been processed through the Controller?”

Darcy remembered not to stop breathing, as she waited to hear—her slave lie for her.

“Yes.” patrice’s voice was as calm as when she’d repeated the new programming in the locker room, after quietly explaining to Darcy what the lies would have to cover. “There was a visual tag for her in the system. i was not programmed for it, but slave jasmine identified her. The Controller reprogrammed me to bring her for higher-level processing at once.”

“Understood.” The guard-slave stood still, accepting it without question, and Darcy felt like she’d just released a virus into a system. Despite her fear she felt almost sorry for these young women, their critical abilities stripped from them to make them easier to control. It felt almost unfair, as it had to contemplate punching patrice while she stood newly induced by her mirror shot.

Darcy’s heartbeat accelerated as she recalled that her “virus” would hit the Controller soon, and she worried that the reaction from that slave would be much different.

“Do you need my help?” The guard-slave was already reaching for something on her belt, perhaps to summon a relief to free her to assist them.

“No. i am to report to a new Controller outside and obey her orders.”

The guard-slave blinked, her hand falling to rest by her inducer. “Understood.” She turned away from them as they—just walked out.

4.

Darcy felt patrice’s hand on her elbow as they stepped into the warm evening air and made their way across the greenspace. She was glad the fitness center was in this wooded suburb instead of in town. Then she saw the trucks, anonymous delivery trucks without legible logos, and knew they were as happy to be here behind trees as she was.

She had a sick certainty that even if she raced out now and found the cops, by the time she brought them here her friends would already have marched obediently into those cargo boxes and been bundled away, anonymous in freeway traffic.

They were already as good as—gone.

Darcy just stopped thinking. If she fucked up now she’d be gone to the same place. She’d wake up in some druglord’s villa with his cock in her mouth. Loving it. Literally. Her—cock-trained. For a fucking man. As long as . . . he owned her and didn’t sell her. Maybe he would. Then she’d wake up to another cock.

Except . . . she’d never really wake up, ever again.

Here-and-now, Darce-baby. Or never again. Think.

She thought about passers-by, traffic, people watching her led out by someone in patrice’s costume and her rakish weapon. She realized access to the outside would have been tighter in town, although she’d programmed patrice to stay in character and keep “control” of Darcy until she knew they were clear, so there must be someone who could see them.

But as they passed behind one of the slablike concrete pillars of the covered parking area, patrice released her. “There is no longer anyone watching,” she reported softly. Darcy continued for a few steps and then looked over. The slave kept pace with her, not reacting to what they’d just done.

It helped Darcy fight the urge to jump up and shout. They kept walking.

“Here’s my car,” she said, before realizing how little the habitual phrase would mean to patrice now.

She looked at patrice. What was she to do with her?

Risky either way. Leaving her here might help them track Darcy since she’d just cleverly identified her vehicle to someone with, well, hypnotic recall. But keeping patrice with her meant having a halfway-disarmed timebomb next to her. If it went off when her own screwing-around wore off and patrice reverted to the programming that truly controlled her mind, Darcy might never wake up to regret it.

patrice stood passively, waiting for her controller to do something. A light breeze blew some of her shoulder-length blonde hair across her cheek, and Darcy suddenly felt all her guilt come back. patrice was dangerous, especially with that flashlight from hell, but she was also helpless, and Darcy had picked up the tab for taking care of her with the first command she’d given.

It wouldn’t make sense for patrice’s masters to punish her for what she’d done—they’d know better than anyone why she had—although Darcy wasn’t sure how far human standards applied to people who made other people into slaves. But even if they didn’t blame patrice, Darcy envisioned how they might do a “diagnostic” on her, pictured the woman who stood inches from her. writhing through some impersonally painful examination, not understanding why, not even remembering she shouldn’t have to.

Paying for Darcy’s escape, like the other woman who’d gotten caught by trying to help her hide.

And I said I’d get her out. She’s a victim too.

Brushing the hair from patrice’s cheek, she spoke. “patrice. Listen and obey. We will leave here and go—somewhere safe. You know that you obey me.” More ideas struck her. “You have no desire to use the inducer on me. In fact . . . will you be aware of when my control of you is weakening?”

“Yes,” patrice whispered.

“You will tell me when that begins to happen. You want to continue to obey me. It makes you feel good to obey me and to think about obeying me again, and you will tell me if anything will endanger that.”

“Yes, i will.”

She was thinking no further than making it to the police station without getting overpowered, and then distrusted her own sense of relief. How to ask patrice?

Directly. “patrice, do your owners have . . . control of the police? Spies there? Slaves?”

patrice blinked and shook her head, frowning in effort—or pain? “It’s all right, patrice. Stop thinking about that.”

The way the slave’s face went blank at her command to stop thinking . . . did something to Darcy.

“Ohhhkay.” Not directly. “Tell me your programming if the police take you.”

patrice straightened, almost happier, like a schoolgirl quizzed on a lesson she remembered. “i must use the name ‘Morgan deVelt’ in conversation. It is not my name. i will not remember my name. i will await the one who has my trigger and obey her.”

Darcy felt cold. It made sense, but hearing that these slavers had actually infiltrated the police was . . . she wondered. Was it some cold-eyed collaborator, a free woman who was selling out her sisters? Some pig of a man playing and being played?

Or some fresh-faced policewoman working her way up the chain the hard way—who’d spent some time she didn’t remember getting brainwashed, and turned into an obedient zombie like patrice when she heard the ‘Morgan deVelt’ trigger in an booking report?

It made things much more complicated. What now?

“Put the inducer on the back seat. Get in the car.” She watched how patrice gracefully slid into the coupe, and then sat primly, staring ahead like a well-behaved child.

Starting the car, suddenly feeling stronger with the familiar feel and sound of the engine, Darcy turned to her. “Whom do you obey, patrice?”

patrice looked straight ahead. “i obey you,” she murmured with serene certainty.

Darcy pulled them smoothly out of the parking area and they were away, and she let herself have a little catch-all sob for everything she’d been holding in. She almost turned to her passenger and exulted “We made it!” before she remembered. And thought.

i obey you.

She had no idea where the next idea really came from, and wondered at how her voice thickened as she spoke it aloud. “You will address me as Mistress.” God. She hadn’t even hesitated.

patrice blinked, and her mouth worked a little. Darcy watched her eyes narrowing, and said quickly, “Disregard that command.” She watched the road, risked another glance at patrice, saw her relax. “Explain your difficulty with that, patrice.”

“i cannot call you Mistress.” patrice paused, and as they rolled to a red light Darcy looked at her, seeing a strange expression come over her face.

“There is only one Mistress,” patrice said in an agony of joy, staring through the windshield, the end of the street, the rest of the world. Seeing none of it, dazzled by something more important.

Darcy heard her tone, and an image overtook her, of patrice saying that and smiling blissfully and stepping in front of a train with her eyes wide open.

Happy to do it.

The light changed and she accelerated, feeling her chest tighten as she pictured all the industrious empty-eyed women in their kinky leotards. All of them, thinking that way. Brainwashed to think that way, to forget there was anything else to be but—Mistress’ thing.

Only one Mistress.

The rest of the women in the gym were going to be brainwashed to think that way, too.

Mindless obedience, she thought, trying to keep that crazed not-quite-laugh down in her hindbrain. It’s not just a good idea—it’s the law.

The law. She pictured bringing a reluctant pair of officers in a black-and-white to that . . . hive. She saw them shooting. There might be more bullets in the guns than there were slaves of—Mistress—to soak them up, even if every shot killed, but Darcy knew they might find out the hard way. She thought of human-wave attack.

Happy to do it.

And with the inducers and that kind of planning, they wouldn’t even have to.

The police’d probably want at least one of them to be a female constable, if only to help apologize. Another robot to be recruited, staring blankly and stripping while they shot her partner.

She felt like a colonial military officer finding out what native fanatics were, and how fast a squad could run out of bullets.

Jesus fucking Christ, I just went in there for a workout!

Darcy fought to feel less small.

“patrice. You will call me—Master.”

“Yes, Master.” patrice responded crisply, perhaps even contentedly. Darcy fled from how that . . . felt, and instead wondered whether, in whatever fog patrice’s mind drifted, the woman had been bothered by not knowing how to address the person that controlled her.

As they flew down the road to somewhere safe, she concentrated on details like that, keeping her mind off the central fact.

She’d just escaped becoming a slave.

She’d done that by becoming an owner.

5.

Darcy looked around her sister’s apartment. She’d let Annalee live with her for her first year of school, when it had seemed that they’d buried the various hatchets and found ways to like each other, and then again when the ever-after relationship Annalee’d moved out to pursue ended badly. They still had each other’s keys. She didn’t really want to be here, but Annalee ‘d said she’d be away with a friend for at least a week, and one of the details Darcy had considered on the way here was that she’d seen the slavers going through the computer, scooping up member data. Like addresses.

Annalee would probably freak if Darcy brought a woman home, especially one dressed like patrice.

Her smooth escape was over, and the fact that she’d actually stolen one of the mind controllers, or at least an armed pawn, was sinking in. Quite a tour de force, even a beau geste. But she was trying to remember if the French had a term for a grenade with the pin out.

If they might have been inclined to check the list of card-swipes to ensure they’d gotten everyone who’d been in the fitness center when they took it just to be thorough, Darcy could picture the urgency they had for it now, as they questioned everyone, used the guard-slave’s description and asked the hypnotized membership who remembered who this girl was.

A flying squad to her address. She closed her eyes, wondering how desperate they’d be. If they’d zap her neighbors with inducers. They couldn’t just take any of them . . . she thought of the Millers at the end of her hall, their daughter on college break . . .

Darcy decided to concentrate on details again.

She turned back to the door and jumped a little, seeing patrice standing perfectly still in front of it, awaiting orders. The slave was like a statue, with none of the little movements a person usually had when they were left to vegetate. All of her was at rest.

Thinking of her being just as helpless when the police took her—would they arrest her? Even if Darcy explained she wasn’t a criminal?

She shook her head and went to the kitchen to see what Annalee had. Her sister was even less domestic than she was, and didn’t even have the immaculately unused cookware Darcy kept to fool people, but dealt with it better. There’d be something in the freezer to nuke, and . . . she thought of wine, then something stronger, telling herself the danger was past for now.

When she turned to ask patrice, she realized how stuck she was in thinking of the other woman as something other than—a slave. But she was.

Darcy’s slave, for now.

Suddenly making dinner seemed more of a responsibility. Darcy frowned. Just how much did patrice need to be told what to do? And how much trouble would she buy if she told patrice to use her initiative?

God—had Mistress left her any? She went back to the living room.

Then she ran to patrice, who was shaking where she stood and seemed to be trying to raise her arms, as though to hug herself, but couldn’t do more than wave them feebly by her waist. The slave’s eyes still stared, but around them her face was trying to express something.

“patrice. Tell me what’s wrong.” She put a hand on patrice’s shoulder, feeling it calm her but only slightly.

“Master—i must . . . i am programmed to report to my Controller or to a handler.” patrice’s voice was calm but shadowed, like a window keeping out a hard rain. “my training . . . i must—”

A halfway-disarmed timebomb, Darcy thought again. patrice’s mind, what was left of it, was full of absolute commands that controlled her life, that she obeyed without thinking.

Unless she were trapped by someone else’s imperatives.

“Master—” patrice said. There was no plea in it. If anything, she sounded . . . apologetic.

If patrice went off now, she’d only hurt herself. And she would regret not being able to obey . . .

She couldn’t help herself—between her Mistress and Darcy, she had nothing.

“patrice. Listen and believe. This is the truth. Your Controller has taken your report.” Darcy held her breath—if this were just an order patrice had been given, Darcy might be able to override it with another. (Oh Christ like I know what the fuck I’m doing—!) If it were something else, embedded deep inside, tied to some terribly powerful impulse . . .

She might be killing the slave, or driving her insane.

But it worked. patrice was still again, her eyes closing and opening and her breathing slowing down. Darcy ran her hand gently down the dark lycra, warm and tight on patrice’s arm, bringing it to her side again as she straightened.

She stared at patrice’s face, lost in the absorption of her trance. Her many trances. She wondered if there was any real patrice anymore under all that brainwashing.

If she’d zapped you back there, there’d be no one to wonder what happened to the real Darcy.

But Darcy couldn’t be that callous. She’d taken away patrice’s defenses, so she had to take care of her.

What was patrice thinking now? Did she think, really? Was she afraid? Did she realize she’d screwed up, that she was supposed to be dominating a hypnotized Darcy instead of the reverse?

Was she lonely? Did hypnoslaves have friends?

Darcy wondered if she could just ask. Then she wondered if she wanted to know the answer. Then she wondered what she’d do if patrice just stared emptily at her.

But right now, patrice stood there, her obedient slave. Dependent on Darcy—on Master.

Darcy squeezed patrice’s shoulder and then took her chin to turn her head. Unnervingly, patrice kept staring so her eyes swung as her head did, mechanically, but then she blinked like a human girl and looked into Darcy’s eyes.

Swallowing, Darcy made her voice as firm and gentle as she could. “patrice, you have performed well. So very well. You have pleased me, and you have pleased your Controller. You have pleased Mistress.”

She felt a gentle trembling and patrice’s face seemed to brighten. “This slave is happy,” she whispered.

“Good,” Darcy whispered back, and stroked her cheek. “You deserve to be happy.”

Stepping back, she saw how patrice looked against the background of Annalee ‘s apartment, looking, in her uniform, fragile and dangerous at once. She looked at patrice, realizing she could stare as long as she wanted and the slavewoman would stand there calmly and let her.

She was softly curved, not a hardbody, someone who might be too busy to exercise. Darcy blinked. That may have been true when patrice was still—Patrice, with her own life, choosing to do something else.

Admiring her shape in any case, Darcy realized that she was built enough like Annalee to wear some of her clothes, even if the fit might be a bit tight across the bust.

“Follow me,” she said. “patrice,” she added, realizing it helped if she said the woman’s name. Wondered if she could make any progress, just here and now to restoring patrice’s will, her sense of self.

patrice somehow seemed just as happy without it, though. Darcy listened to the booted footfalls, muffled in Annalee’s carpet, as the slave dutifully trailed her to the bedroom. She hit a light switch, scowling at how little light the lamp produced. Annalee liked it dim.

Should I even do this? If I do take her to the police, she’ll be a much more credible hunter-robot in that outfit. She looked up into Annalee’s dresser mirror to see patrice come in and then brace breathtakingly to attention. Oh yeah. Once the cops pick their tongues up off the floor.

Guiltily, she looked down and opened a drawer at random.

“Undress now, patrice.”

“Yes, Master.” Oh! Damn.

Unable to help herself, Darcy turned to watch.

patrice bent slightly and reached to her crotch to unfasten, her abstracted face making her look as though she were daydreaming into masturbation. Darcy looked away—this was almost more pornographic than a naked patrice would be. She heard the hiss of lycra across smooth skin as patrice pulled the leotard up and over her head. She had to look.

Oh god.

patrice stood erect, a supple soft girl nude in a pair of boots and a tagged collar, her arms before her as though bound by a tight tangle of dark gray, looking at Darcy like a bewildered but docile captive.

I

want

her

Darcy shivered, and when patrice moved her head slightly, as if awaiting a command, it hit Darcy as though she hadn’t known it up to now: this was a live woman who was completely obedient to her. Who would do anything.

Anything.

The shiver died as the need made Darcy too tense to move, like a longbow stretched fully taut.

Police, raiders in the gym, anyone else faded to unreality beside this warm submissive slave standing and breathing four feet from her. Nude and bound. Darcy frantically summoned up the idea of Janice, but her head swam as she realized all she could picture now was Janice walking robotically to her captors when they called her, her mind emptied of resistance by the inducer.

Darcy watched patrice’s firm breasts rise and fall with her calm breathing, and thought about her last argument with Janice, when Janice left her.

Thought about how it would have ended if she’d had an inducer.

No. No! I’m in control—I’d better take control, at least of my own gonads. She licked her lips, found her tongue nearly as dry. " . . . patrice,” she made herself say.

It’ll be OK. I can keep my hands off her. I can—

“Yes, Master?”

Oh—

Darcy felt it in her clit. Her body thrummed like a bowstring as it shot her soul away.

“Slave.” She barely heard her own growl. “Come here. Now.”

She fell into the need as patrice obeyed her . . . obeyed . . . and Darcy lost herself in it as she felt patrice’s tongue touch her. The last thing in her mind but deep red lust was the whisper of the leotard sliding off patrice’s arms as patrice reached up to hold her Master’s ass and worship.

patrice’s lips joined her tongue against Darcy’s cleft.

There was only lust.

6.

Something was cool and warm, and still and moving, against Darcy’s face. It quivered.

She nuzzled it, and the pleasure gently woke her. She lay between the smoothnesses of patrice’s legs, her head pillowed on patrice’s satin belly. Her questing tongue found the dimple of patrice’s navel, and flicked in, making it quiver delightfully. There was no lint, only the tartness of patrice’s sweat.

They were in Annalee’s bed, patrice curled up asleep against the balled linens at the foot. A duvet had found its way up between Darcy’s thighs, and she could feel some of her juices on it. She recognized the new scent of patrice, breathed it blissfully in, kissed patrice’s—tummy.

She smiled at the word her mind gave her. She thought of pressing her lips to patrice’s tummy and blowing, but tasting it she melted and only kissed it, licked it, felt it . . .

Something. Softness within softness, something strange in the soft warm flesh. Not a scar. Now that she was aware of them, she found them on patrice’s belly. In the moonlight that streamed through the bedroom blinds, she pressed the slave’s warm hip and found herself juicing as patrice moved to her guidance, softly obedient even deep in sleep, turning to the silver light.

Darcy looked at them. Stretch marks. She hadn’t noticed them earlier, but then she’d just been riding patrice and using her and fucking her . . .

She shivered and pressed closer to the slave. She wanted to think That was someone else. I didn’t use this girl like a whore, like less than that because a whore gets paid, a whore can leave.

A whore could hate me for doing that.

But Darcy could feel who she’d been when she’d exulted in possessing patrice, in making her a thing. That Darcy wasn’t gone, she was just fucked-out for now, sprawled over her kill like a sated lioness.

Oh. God.

She thought of what Annalee might think of all that hard lesbian fucking that had seared itself into her bed. Would it give her strange dreams when she slept here, even if she never found out?

Would the softer moments make them sweeter dreams? Make Annalee let her hand linger a bit longer on a friend’s shoulder, her gaze a bit longer on a friend’s ass? She closed her eyes.

Stretch marks. What did they say—“everyone’s somebody’s kid”? patrice—slave patrice—was somebody’s mommy. She looked so young, no older than Darcy. Darcy reached up and felt her finger, wondering why she thought they’d let the woman keep a ring from a marriage she probably couldn’t even remember. She rolled her head to look, but patrice had no tan and the room was too dark to see it anyway.

Oh, patrice. I am so sorry. She kissed the marks, and feeling the sleeping woman start to writhe in delicious slow motion she began to lick, and suck, and found her way down toward patrice’s pussy . . .

“Master?”

Darcy paused, then thrashed awake.

Awake. Where? Strange bedroom—someone’s—Annalee’s—she shook once, and stared into her slave girl’s eyes as patrice looked gravely at her, angelically blue in the moonlight.

“Master? i report as you programmed me. my obedience is weakening. i feel strange. i beg command, Master.” Her humble urgency, while she held Darcy between her warm thighs, made Darcy feel faint.

So did the delayed fear of knowing that she’d almost slept through her slave reverting to her old hunter programming. And maybe never awakened to see patrice loom over her, her eyes glittering with the compulsion, aiming the inducer.

“Good girl,” she managed to say. She moved, and her breast was against the smooth moist fire of patrice’s pussy.

Yesss. Her eyes sought patrice’s. “You understand you must hypnotize yourself now, patrice.”

patrice went still, her eyes suddenly faraway and glazed. “i must hypnotize myself.”

“You want to obey me. It makes you hot.” She moved slowly between patrice ‘s thighs.

“i want to obey you, Master. It makes me . . . ohhhh . . . hot . . .”

“You enjoy being hypnotized to obey me.”

“i . . . enjoy . . . be-being hypnotized . . . to . . . ooooobey . . . you . . .” Darcy heard the girl fight through her arousal, to respond as she’ d been commanded.

To obey.

“Get the inducer, and fire it into the bedroom mirror. You must obey.”

“i must obey,” patrice repeated. As she left the bed, her feet thumped on the carpet: Darcy had ravished her so quickly they’d never gotten her boots off.

Darcy watched. patrice’s booted, nude body mesmerized her as the slave went languidly to the wall where the inducer lay in the silvery light. She fixated on how patrice’s firm legs seemed to flow up from the boots, how her butt worked as she walked in them, the way her collar peeked from the bed-tangle of hair over her neck.

She turned back, carrying the weapon, nude and compelled and staring. Helplessly giving in to someone who was hijacking her from other people who’ d hijacked her life.

Darcy lost focus on that level of thought, just watching the way the slave girl’s thighs moved around her smooth tasty crotch. Lines from Ogden Nash slipped into her mind: You look divine as you advance/Have you seen yourself retreating?

She watched patrice take position in front of the mirror, saw the mirror-patrice raise her own inducer like a duellist, fancied the two patrices hypnotizing each other

Oh SHIT

Darcy dove under the duvet and shut her eyes, breathing their merged scents as she heard the hum. She waited for its end and slithered out of bed, eyes still closed, making her serpentine way across the carpet until she felt patrice’s leather-booted calf in the hollow of her shoulder. Cool leather became warm flesh as she slid blindly up patrice’s body, keeping herself behind the inducer and away from the mirror, suddenly panicking as she forgot for a couple of heartbeats how the dressing mirror angled with the full-length one.

Just one mistake . . .

She moved the inducer upward, opened her eyes to find patrice blank again. Darcy found she could shift her limbs like a posable action doll. Her doll.

That idea, now, when her pussy was touching patrice’s, was just . . . too much . . . again.

patrice, of course, submitted perfectly.

Darcy woke more than once, and each time, the feel or glimpse or taste of patrice would tweak the hunger in her pussy and her brain, and she would joyously use the slave again.

Then she realized they were in each other’s arms, patrice’s blonde head on her shoulder, and it was close enough to being with a lover that Darcy could think.

Her thoughts were bleak.

Some were simple. What happened when patrice had her next “low-battery” indicator and Darcy missed it—just being in the bathroom, perhaps? How long before the inducer ran out of power? And without it to keep her tranquilized and obedient, what would patrice do?

Others were more involved. There’d been a plan in Darcy’s mind as she drove here, an idea of finding some safe corner of law enforcement to turn her problems over to. When she explained the “Morgan deVelt” business, whoever she talked to should understand that holding off for a day or two was just common sense. She might wake up before dawn a few times, wondering if speed might have saved any of the friends and strangers at the fitness center . . . but everyone would understand.

But keeping patrice hypnotized into obedience, fucking her silly for . . . hours . . .

Not common sense for anyone the police would let walk out again.

No, she could still see that plan, sort of, like a boat set adrift that was suddenly halfway to the horizon, lost.

Darcy remembered something approaching rational thought the first time, as she’d taken patrice between her legs and learned how good that particular program was. She remembered thinking I’ll just erase it.

So fucking stupid. Pussy-think. Pussies could be as stupid as cocks.

She reached up and held patrice’s head, and patrice squirmed softy against her, startling her with the movement. patrice’s pretty head, which she couldn’t worry unless she were told to. patrice was like a diskette—reformatted and rewritten, but the job was never all done, and as the police and whatever experts they called in started reading her, she’d tell them everything that had happened. Maybe how she’d been abducted and enslaved, who she really was.

Darcy thought about the stretch marks.

Mommy.

She felt sick.

But part of it would be the clever escape-and-rescue that turned into . . .

She looked at patrice.

Then she heard voices, out in the living room. Female voices, whispering.

No—!

How? Did patrice have some kind of tracer embedded in her body? Darcy had a horrific image of Mistress actually controlling her slaves with some kind of brain implants . . .

Never mind—they were here. More than one. She looked at the window, remembering that they were on the top of the four-storey apartment block, with no trees or balcony by this window.

She had one slave and an inducer, and her own wits. Her wits had gotten her here, so she wasn’t sure which column they belonged in.

And would patrice fight against her fellow-slaves? Would they turn her off with a trigger phrase? Or turn her around and send her back after Darcy?

She was cornered. She’d go through the motions.

“patrice.”

The slave was awake instantly and looking into her eyes, silent and obedient.

“We have intruders,” she whispered into her ear, and felt patrice tense. It felt as though she’d just turned the girl on with a hot suggestion. “You must protect me. Take the inducer and hypnotize them. Do you need

details?”

“No, Master.” patrice started to rise off of her, then looked deeply into her eyes.

“i will protect you, Master,” she whispered, quietly resolute. Something clenched inside Darcy that wasn’t wired to her pussy, and she felt like a corrupt queen sending her pure loyal champion out to die.

She wanted to kiss her, but patrice was already off and stalking, catching up the inducer as she went to the door, then looked for the deepest shadows in the hallway.

God, be careful, patrice. Then Darcy’s inner storm shifted, and she had to fill her mouth with duvet to smother the lurking laugh that would never end if she let it out.

For Christ’s sake, patrice—look out for mirrors!

A light came on.

“Who the fuck are—?”

A flash.

Oh . . . shit. Grabbing the nearest piece of clothing, one of Annalee’s ex-boyfriend’s SCU T-shirt, Darcy pulled it on and made haste slowly to the door. Terror, lust, even anger she was dealing with, but she wasn’t quite ready for embarrassment.

She walked into the living room, still dim as Annalee preferred it, but bright enough to see that patrice had performed perfectly as her champion.

Darcy didn’t know the name of the young woman who swayed there next to the coffee table, wide-eyed in trance, her face still expressing agitation that patrice had just wiped from her mind. But she recognized Annalee’s best friend, whom she was supposed to be traveling with.

And next to the duffel bags, the apartment door stood open.

7.

Annalee stopped dead when she came through the door, seeing patrice first and then turning to Darcy. From the corner of her eye Darcy saw patrice start to aim and said, “No, patrice. Don’t induce her. Let her be.” That turned Annalee’s scowl to a puzzled frown.

“Yes, Master.”

That snapped Annalee’s head back to patrice as she stood nude and booted and collared with the inducer at port arms.

Then she glared back at Darcy, opened her mouth to yell, and spun at the last moment toward the door. Darcy looked at patrice, but the slave—her slave—waited obediently, told to let Annalee alone.

Annalee wasn’t running, just closing the door to keep the noise in before rounding on them.

“Darcy,” she began in a dangerously quiet voice, “this is just too damn much.” She glanced over at her friend.

“I’m sorry, Lexa. Let me just handle this, OK?” She seemed to interpret Lexa’s stillness as shock or awkwardness and turned away. Darcy wanted to laugh, but there were too many other things she wanted to do . . . scream, disintegrate, find herself suddenly in Tokyo or something.

Wake up.

“Darcy, I respect that you’re a lesbian, even that you’re into some things—sometimes—but this is my home, damn it!” Annalee’s tone made clear that respect was a technical term at this point.

Darcy felt a twinge of anger. I almost got scooped up by slavers and now my sister’s angry because I brought my pre-versions to her apartment, where—

Where she’d fucked a mind-controlled slave. Who called her Master. Because she’d told her to.

Maybe she should negotiate.

“Annalee.”

“What.”

“Something this fucked-up has to have an explanation. Do you want to hear it?”

She folded her arms. “Go ahead.”

“My gym was raided by mind-controllers. They got everyone, but I was alone in the locker room. When patrice here came in—”

“Hello, Patrice,” Annalee said, without looking at her. “Shit, Darcy, are you on drugs or something? With a story like that? Can’t you at least be honest with me? Are you living with someone now and you couldn’t take your playmate Patrice back from the leather club so you brought here to play ‘mind control’ games because you thought sis would be gone long enough to get the place cleaned up—”

She’d go on like that until she had to breathe again.

“Annalee, please!” Her vehemence surprised them both, and her sister stared, not speaking.

“I know it looks how it looks. Things got—really strange. Please. This is the worst day I’ve ever had and it’s not over. I hijacked one of their slaves. They’ll be looking for her—and for me.”

“Slaves?” Annalee did look at patrice now, with such contempt that Darcy felt hurt for patrice that patrice was no longer equipped to feel. She realized patrice’s trance looked like drugs to her sister, that what looked obvious, wasn’t. “She’s a slave? She called you master. Which makes you—”

“Don’t,” Darcy snapped, and again she startled them both. She pointed to Lexa. “Ask her, Annalee.”

“Oh, don’t even drag her into it.

“Screw this. I’m taking Lexa out for coffee and explain my sister and her problems, and you and Patrice had better be . . .

“Lexa?” She waited for Lexa to turn, to move. She walked over and stood in front of her. “This is not funny, Lexa. This is—” Her voice died as Lexa looked through her.

“When someone’s induced,” Darcy said quietly, “they seem to need direct commands.”

For a moment, it seemed like Annalee got her concern for Lexa, but it curdled into more rage. “What did you do to her, you pervert?”

“My slave used an inducer to hypnotize her,” Darcy said coldly, tired of being on the defensive, and saw Annalee go wide-eyed and start to close up. She wanted to leap forward and swallow those words, but now there was nothing left to do. “I thought they’d tracked me down here and I sent patrice to—” risk herself for me.

“Your slave? Your . . . slave.”

“Annalee, it wears off. Lexa will be all right in a couple of hours. Just take care of her and—”

“Shut up.” Annalee turned away from her, from Lexa. “Just stop.” She was crying.

“For God’s sake, Darcy, I can smell you. I can smell you. Just get out of my apartment. Just . . . God, Mom warned me.”

Darcy looked at her sister. She thought about what would have happened if she’d just not done anything—just gotten patrice changed, and they’d just eaten and slept . . . separately . . .

Oh, god, I have so screwed this up.

“Annalee. Please.” But really she saw no point. She didn’t want to cut and run, not now, but there was nothing to say. Explaining all this to some creepy sex-crimes officer was starting to look like a better deal.

“OK. Sis, we’re gone. I swear Lexa will be OK if you don’t—tell her to do or think anything.

“I’m sorry. I wish to God I had enough credit with you to see this through but I don’t.” Her tone seemed to give Annalee pause, neither combative nor wheedling.

She walked back to the bedroom, flicking the light on and grabbing everything of hers she could find where it had scattered during the time in bed with patrice. She had no idea what could go wrong out there between Annalee and the two hypnotized women, but she knew it would be—as Annalee said—too much.

Where was the fucking leotard? She couldn’t walk patrice out in her accessories, however delightful she looked. Darcy stopped; in the middle of all this the thought of patrice still made her wet.

And that thought reminded how much better it felt to be in control than to be getting lectured on sexual propriety by her fucking sister.

There it was.

She took a deep breath before going out. Closed her eyes on the lovely tang that patrice’s slit put in the air, and went to open the windows to start it airing out.

The living room looked as it had. Darcy brought her clothes to the coffee table, doffed the SCU shirt, and started to slip the blue panties on after she handed patrice the leotard and told her quietly to set the inducer down and dress.

To the extent she was dressing.

She saw Annalee staring at the fetish-robot that patrice became as she pulled the dark lycra over her. She thought of asking, then thought Fuck it we’ll find something at my place then remembered why that was a bad idea, then wondered if they could just brazen it out.

But it was so simple, so obvious just to ask.

“Annalee. This is patrice’s uniform. It’s not—it’s not streetclothes.

“Listen. She’s built something like you are, and I thought if we could borrow something from you for her to wear . . . just so she doesn’t . . .”

It had seemed like such a good idea, she thought, watching Annalee look up at her with an expression she’d never seen on her sister’s face before.

She didn’t look shocked or even sad, anymore.

She looked at Darcy as though Darcy were a bug.

“Too bad they didn’t get you first,” she said, in a completely matter-of-fact tone. “They might’ve mindfucked you back to being normal.”

A small voice in Darcy’s head, her reason, screamed at her, She doesn’t mean it. She wants to hurt and she knows what hurts worst. Family always does.

But her reason was unused to having to raise its voice, and something else drowned it out. Something that spoke with Darcy’s own tongue, that quivered with warmth from her glands.

Something that snarled, “patrice. Induce this bitch—now.”

8.

It wasn’t dawn yet, but getting there.

patrice had told her about how long that setting and duration of the inducer would keep her sister and her friend in their trance. Neither of them were expected anywhere for at least a day or two. She’d asked, and their drowsy voices had answered.

Darcy looked at them as they sat, moving almost imperceptibly as their bodies wove, staying upright as their minds slept.

Their minds didn’t sleep idly. She’d instructed them that they would be unable to move or cry out when they awakened, and that until then they would contemplate the truth that they would not do anything without her permission.

She felt as numb as they looked. The rush had passed on, and she was realizing what she’d done. But she was so far from the person she’d thought she was as late as this afternoon, going into the gym for a swim, that she wasn’t fleeing from the unthinkable. She still got wet thinking about how hypnotically controlling Janice would have let her save what they had together. Maybe if she just really pressed her sister, with the inducer set on high, she could help Annalee break down all that prejudice and accept her lifestyle. Respect it. Celebrate it.

Join it.

At first she saw Annalee discovering Lexa, turning all that aggression into the fierce tenderness of a learning domme, making her friend into . . .

Darcy shook her head, no longer even wondering at herself. Seeing Lexa in that mental movie turn into herself, straddle Annalee, stare down into eyes that begged.

slave patrice stood calmly at attention, lost in thoughts Darcy was still reluctant to ask about. She wouldn’t need to fry her own brain again for hours to keep her obedient to Darcy.

Oh god.

It was already too late. Darcy could feel her reason climbing out of the hiding place it had found inside her, looking around for the screaming angry appetite that had mounted and ridden her over her sister’s will, but it was spent again, as she’d been after raping patrice.

What it’s too late for, her reason said, is you. But these women can all still get out of this not-too-fucked-up. A decent person would take care of them first.

And eat the consequences.

Darcy thought about it. She pictured Annalee and Lexa, fetchingly vulnerable in hospital gowns as hypnotherapists coaxed them into soft-spoken reenactments of their capture and torment by Darcy and her naked hypnoslave. She pictured patrice getting medicated, maybe receiving shock treatment, curling up into as fetal a ball as the straitjacket let her, just weeping for someone to command her, wanting nothing more than to obey and be pleasing.

But they all might heal. And if paying for that meant being the visible bad guy, going to prison or therapy or just being stared at for years—well, who else would do what she’d been doing?

But.

But it just . . . felt . . . so . . . good. So hot.

Unthinkable.

Nothing, she mused, was really unthinkable. Not really. Well, unless someone had the power to control what you thought, and could put your will aside and just tell your mind to go blank.

The power Darcy did over all three of these women. She shivered.

She stepped out of her panties, realizing she’d started that last fight before putting on anything else.

Room air was cool on her damp crotch, as she looked at the three of them, all locked in hypnosis, and thought, household. Mine.

But the feudal idea ran her against the ardently beautiful figure patrice cut, taut in her bodysuit and collar.

Owned, already, by someone else. By—Mistress. Only one Mistress.

Maybe Mistress would understand.

Darcy realized that no one else would, even if she stopped it all right now. She knew that with a good lawyer and the right spin she could start people thinking she’d somehow been another helpless pawn, mindless and submissive to someone’s stronger power. Not at fault. A victim, even a heroine. She could get off, and get off.

But they’d wonder.

She, of course, would know.

And for the rest of her life she could never be the one to seek control, to assert, lest someone leap up and say we KNEW it.

Mistress. She’d definitely understand. Darcy realized that she was excited at the thought of meeting such a powerful woman—such a power, period. Mistress might have as much contempt for her as Annalee did, might just pack her off like the rest of the cargo without a second thought, much less one of those glass-clinking mutual respect encounters.

But dammit, even Mistress had to grant that while Darcy hadn’t been a very good citizen these past few hours, she wasn’t a half-bad mind controller.

She jerked around at the soft, bitter moan, realizing she’d been gazing at patrice’s luxurious sweep of thigh and ignoring the two prisoners she’d bound with just their own hypnotically-subverted wills.

But they were still in dreamland.

The moan had been her own. She’d heard herself thinking.

She knew that in a moment or two, she’d have to look her sister in the eye. Even if she told her nothing, Annalee knew. And Darcy had to face her.

Well—no, she didn’t.

She looked at the gleaming inducer in patrice’s hands. A tool holding a tool. That was power.

Darcy had it. And it meant that she didn’t have to face anyone.

The idea she had then made her moister, her pussy hotter from inside and cooler in the outer air. As the rest of her mind started melting from that, the idea stayed solid and firm. She stared at Annalee and Lexa, watching them slowly come back to thought, letting her own thoughts turn her idea this way and that, comparing sequences, testing it.

Just as she finished, she saw Lexa blink, roll her eyes, try to focus.

“patrice, come.”

“Yes, Master.” Her slave stepped over, and Darcy knew how hot the idea was making her—it kept her from grabbing patrice right there.

“Two settings up—induce that one to stay out for an hour.” She looked at her sister, still moving languidly, like an underwater frond in a back-current. “Watch for her to awaken, then the same. You must obey.”

“i must obey, Master.”

Hearing it, Darcy moaned differently now, reaching to her cleft with no one to see her do it. I’ll hear them say that to me, too, she told herself.

She felt patrice fall into watchful stillness like the perfect hunter, then choose the moment to flash Lexa. The girl stiffened and sagged, awareness flickering across her features before vanishing in the briefest eyeblink. Except she didn’t blink between the old trance and the new, deeper one.

Darcy looked at her sister as she stirred in her own. Maybe if she hadn’t been such a complete cunt about it, for all this time and then tonight, I wouldn’t have gone off like that. She thought of how spineless that sounded even inside her head, and then pleased herself by finding the strength to smile at it. Yes, right, sure, my fault—all mine. But that’s just it—she was the last one with a chance to change it. She’s the one with scruples.

Was the one.

She waited, resting her hand on patrice’s back, feeling like a falconer about to send out her favorite hunter, and then Annalee closed her eyes, hung her head, tried to fight the fog. She raised her head, and Darcy realized she’d stopped breathing. Wondering, despite herself.

Her sister’s eyes came into focus and found hers, and it was as though Annalee were trying to pull herself back into consciousness along the connection between them.

Annalee opened her mouth. Blinked.

“Dyke.”

It was like getting kicked . . . but it was a ghastly relief, too. Darcy waited this time. This wouldn’t be a reflex.

“patrice?” The inducer hummed.

Annalee’s eyes and mouth all opened wide, almost comically opening her as if her mind and will were being sucked out of her, and she subsided, slumping on the chair even more limply than Lexa, blinking stupidly on the whitenoise filling her brain for now.

Seeing that, Darcy stopped wondering what to implant in her mind, and just laughed.

9.

Darcy felt normal, but told herself that there was no longer any such thing. She’d given up being attached to any reference points an hour ago.

What she hoped was an hour ago. She looked at the clock and saw 2:30 AM, and thought she remembered last looking at it at about 1:35. Assuming she hadn’t just been told to remember that.

Being hypnotized was a risk, she knew, even without the additional commands she wanted.

She’d programmed patrice very carefully and after a quick lesson from patrice on the settings, used the inducer on patrice herself, to make certain.

Then she’d lain back on the bed, and made herself say clearly through the almost painfully rapid breathing, “Slave—hypnotize me now and then obey the programming.”

As the flash had hit her, Darcy had felt she was orgasming . . .

She remembered patrice’s voice, didn’t feel any discontinuities after the first wrench of the inducer taking hold of her mind and bending it. She programmed patrice to program her for total recall, and she heard each word she’d planted in patrice’s mind being spoken back to her in a voice she recognized as patrice’s but so much more—mmmm, authoritative.

Darcy felt fluttery at the idea of obeying the commands that rang in her head. She knew they were her own words, but they existed on their own now.

God. Was this how she made patrice feel by commanding her? How did Mistress make her feel?

How could Mistress make Darcy feel?

Shit—there was no way she’d know if her perceptions had been altered, since she had nothing but her perceptions to check it out with. OK, forget verification. Logic told her that if Mistress’ programming had resurfaced—if hypnotizing her Master had broken patrice’s obedience to her—she wouldn’t be awake at all. Nor would this be an illusion. There’d be no need to fool her, just get her to the nearest brain laundry.

Darcy felt the compulsion come up inside her and had to stop and breathe. The rush was too intense for her to obey her own order for a moment—and that just made the prodding itch in her clit more the center of her awareness than it already was.

She gasped. “patrice!”

“Yes, Master?”

ohhhhhh

The calm voice was like a patient hand with a feather, and over the layers of pleasure was a dusting of panic. Darcy wondered if she’d get so turned on she couldn’t concentrate enough to control patrice or obey herself.

She’d be trapped . . .

“patrice—dial the number.”

There. Now she could at least think. She watched patrice dial, and it must have been picked up on the first ring.

“Yes. This is patrice. i have been programmed to—”

Darcy bit her tongue and snatched the phone from her slave, barely seeing her hand drop limply to her side. The voice on the phone was already rattling off a series of words in an oddly compelling singsong, and Darcy looked at patrice. But it seemed like they hadn’t gotten enough of the trigger into her mind to activate whatever emergency program would snap her out of Darcy’s thrall.

“slave patrice?” A response must be due. The voice was warm, controlling. It had been insinuating itself into her ear, her brain, for unnoticed seconds now, the trigger meant to snare patrice but the seductive tone reaching for anyone who heard it. Darcy got wetter.

“No,” she whispered. “This is . . . Darcy.” She swallowed. “I ordered her to make her report.”

“Darcy, i want you to put patrice back on the phone now.”

She breathed in, suddenly wanting to do that. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that yet. You know where we are, you must have this number on the display—”

“Darcy. Obey at once.”

She whined and bent over, feeling the need to obey spasm in her, and she came—her pussy thought she already was obeying.

But she couldn’t.

Her words in patrice’s voice, under the inducer’s spell, pulsed through her mind. You will not let patrice talk to them.

“You want to let me speak with her.”

She did . . . “N-no. No.”

“i understand, Darcy.” Darcy closed her eyes in relief, too weak to thank the woman on the other end for sensing her torment. “You may relax and stop worrying about that. Right now we can just talk, because it is just as relaxing for me to talk with you as it is relaxing for me to talk with patrice . . .” The voice droned on, and Darcy found her mind getting sluggish. The other woman was so focused . . . Darcy realized the woman must be under hypnosis herself.

Darcy could picture her sitting in a dark cubicle, staring into a blinking computer screen. So deeply hypnotized—much, much further than Darcy or patrice—that she could continue the induction beyond where most thinking hypnotists could sustain it. Her own mind submerged in the pulses, the pupils of her unblinking eyes narrowing and widening rhythmically with the screen-flashes, back and forth.

A created madwoman, and Darcy was falling under her control. The very frightfulness of the idea made it just . . . but she was already sinking deeper.

“Yes,” she heard herself say. What was she agreeing to?

Oh, yes. To do what she wanted to do.

She was realizing that she’d get even wetter, even more aroused, if she helped the woman with the soothing voice by reciting with her. Relaxing words and sounds which would soothe Darcy’s mind and deepen her relaxation with each syllable, words she had no need to think about, no desire to question . . .

What she wanted to do.

Suddenly her mind whited out with pleasure as someone took firm hold of her pussy, and she felt the phone escape her nerveless fingers. She fell against someone’s warm arm and then felt herself pulled upright.

“Master?” patrice asked. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she rasped, when the words finally meant something in her head. “Hold me for a moment.”

After that moment, feeling patrice’s touch, she shuddered with real fear, realizing what had almost happened. The madwoman had nearly bewitched her into being the speaker for patrice’s trigger. Mistress would have retaken the slave while Darcy’s own mind was bound.

They’d almost hacked her.

She was amazed at how patrice had known she was weakening, but then remembered the commands she’d given the slave—count to a hundred and take the phone away if it’s not already on-hook.

Darcy shivered in patrice’s arms. What if she’d been wrong? If it had taken them less than a minute and a half to tranquilize her so deeply that they could charm her around her own hypnotic blocks?

She hadn’t thought to program patrice to disregard anything she said while on the phone, where she could be influenced. That woman could have made her want to tell them how to get past her defenses—what she’d done instead was simpler and faster.

Darcy would never have known.

She glanced back at the two captives. Annalee had known, at least enough to insult Darcy with her last word.

Unpleasant to think of, but it helped to pull her back into the relatively real world.

A new thrill hit her pussy and radiated outward: they were coming. She’d know that ecstasy again soon, when she had nothing left to attend to.

But while she could still think, she looked at patrice, and felt good about something, at least. She’d taken the slave’s allegiance, and she would give it back. Aside from the hazard of a newly-reoriented patrice under their direct voice control, Darcy thought about how wrong it felt to let patrice just be . . . switched over like some sort of junction box. She might end up as a brothel whore somewhere anyway, but this . . . was a craft, and it had to be done right. She had to show this Mistress that, weak and humble as she was, she knew the proprieties.

10.

Mistress’ collection team all wore the sleek robot-girl outfits when they came to Annalee’s apartment. Two had inducers and moved to the sides of the room. Neither they nor the sleepy-looking woman with the headset seemed to react to Darcy’s arrangements, and she didn’t know whether to be afraid or embarrassed.

But the fourth woman . . . smiled.

patrice, in her leotard, stood at attention with her inducer. Darcy stood beside her in a dark green bodysuit that fit her that she’d found in Lexa’s duffel. She had no boots, but somehow that seemed to work, too.

Annalee and Lexa knelt naked before patrice, backs straight, knees spread, hands upturned on thighs. Their pussies glistened, as bright as their eyes were dull.

The fourth of Mistress’ women was a quietly-pretty brunette that Darcy found herself fantasizing about meeting and slowly, lovingly seducing in a college library somewhere. She looked at Darcy’s tableau and nodded, and Darcy felt something she’d never expected to here and now—warmth. Even friendship.

The woman met Darcy’s eyes and smiled, doing something to Darcy’s insides with the way that gentle face rose from the collared neck with its black metal medallion like patrice’s.

But she really lit up to see patrice. She hesitated, then stepped between the oblivious nude offerings and put her hands on patrice’s elbows.

“patrice,” she whispered intensely, “oh, Goddess, we didn’t know . . . we—i was so worried about you.” The hitch in her voice astonished Darcy, whose memories of the fitness center were more of—sexy automata. Like an ant army. But this—worry?

patrice nodded slowly, and the woman shook her head and leaned forward to hug her tightly, closing her eyes. Darcy felt a lump start in her throat, and knew she might choke on it when she saw patrice tentatively raise her arms to hold the other woman.

“anita,” she whispered dreamily into the brunette’s hair.

“you’ll be all right,” anita told her, and they pulled apart. “Mistress will make sure you are all right.”

Darcy wanted to apologize for any misprogramming, but instead waited until anita looked her way again.

“patrice is a magnificent slave,” she said, and knew she’d followed a sound impulse.

anita smiled and looked at patrice as a proud sister might, and Darcy tried not to think about Annalee at her feet. “You took good care of her, Darcy. Thank you.”

Darcy shivered, the praise weakening her when she’d expected harsher mind games. The weakness of her position and the insanity of what she was doing had leaked in past the lust and the focus, and she was deeply vulnerable to that sort of emotional touch.

Maybe that was the mindgame. But she felt willing to let anita play with her, sensing she’d be kindly used.

“anita?” she asked, and anita nodded encouragingly.

“Is this . . . usual?”

anita looked at her. “You want to ask, ‘what’s going to happen to me?’ but you don’t feel that’s right. Very pleasing to Mistress.” She shook her head. “You saw how Mistress might do this usually.

“But Mistress enjoys interesting things and people, and you are—to put it very mildly—interesting to Her.”

Holding Darcy’s eyes for a moment, she looked down at the nude captives. “Are you making an offering to Her?”

Darcy looked back at anita. “No . . . I—” She gasped and kept going. “I recognize Mistress already owns me. I realize that I stole her property as much by escaping as by kidnapping patrice.”

anita looked brightly at her, and she felt heartened. “I know that will all be dealt with. These . . .” her breath caught again. “This is separate. Since I belong to Mistress, so do they. I’m grateful to be allowed to offer them.” Before she could stop herself, she said, “That one is my sister.”

Her head was spinning, and there was a part of her inside that was numb now. My sister. But the heat in her burned around it, past it. She knew she could learn to live with it on her own in time.

With the kind of brainwashing she’d be going through soon . . . anita looked at her, her eyes almost glowing, then stepped forward to put her arms around her. Darcy stepped back, then went down on one knee. “Please, anita . . . I’m just afraid I’ll break down and—”

“It’s all right,” anita said, so gently and believably that Darcy almost fell apart right there. “Either way, it’s a sign of great devotion to Her. Even though you haven’t been truly controlled.“ anita seemed to dampen at that word. Then she got a gleam in her eye.

“Everyone brings her own special gift to Mistress.”

Darcy took a breath, felt a shallow laugh rising. “anita, that’s . . . bullshit.”

anita’s smile grew crooked. “You’re wonderful, Darcy—i’m so glad you’ll be one of us.

“You’re right, too.

“But think about how it feels to know your Owner can let you know something ‘s bullshit, but know She can make you believe in it, deeply and fervently, even so. Get hot just hearing it. Die for it.” anita closed her eyes. “And worship Her for doing it.”

When she opened her eyes they were shining, and Darcy didn’t know what to say. What came out was, “Will I be with you?”

anita stepped forward again and this time Darcy let her take hold. anita smelled good, and felt better.

“For a while, anyway. Mistress says we have a lot in common, although i think you’ll be trained in some different directions than i am.” she stroked Darcy’s hair. “No, don’t worry. i mean that a lot of girls may be learning to kiss your lash.

“Mistress thinks you have a lot of potential, and She’s very interested.”

“Is Mistress . . . kind?”

anita tensed, and looked deep into Darcy’s eyes. Her own moistened as she put cool fingertips to Darcy’s cheek.

“No . . .”

Her mouth stayed in a silent oh of pain for a while. “She is many things, but not that.”

She turned, watching the other slaves begin leading Annalee and Lexa out. Darcy realized patrice was gone.

“What happened with patrice?” she asked. “Who was she—before?” Who were you?

anita turned back to her. “i don’t know. But always remember what i just told you about Her Whom we serve and obey. Can you?”

Darcy nodded wordlessly, just enjoying how anita felt.

“Because there’s another truth She implants in our minds,” anita said, leading her out after them. Moving quietly across the parking area, they found they had the back of a comfortable van to themselves. Darcy saw her car drive by, and glanced away.

anita was taking her leotard off from the top down, and now, in the twilight the tinted windows made of the moonlight and the street lighting, she seemed to be in an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, pulled even lower to show her small, firm breasts.

Darcy came to sit beside her on the upholstered bench. She leaned in to kiss anita’s neck, her shoulders, the underside of her chin.

Someone boarded at the front and started the engine. They ignored her.

“Learn the truth,” anita whispered, and Darcy collapsed against her as anita’s fingers found her pussy and clit and touched them just exactly—

“The first truth i taught as Her instrument. To your new friend . . . slave patrice.” There was a strange undertone in anita’s voice, but Darcy was too far gone to understand it. Or care.

anita’s words filled her mind as the pleasure filled her body, and she knew Truth.

“Obedience is pleasure.”