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* * *There was nothing about waking up that morning—afternoon—that was particularly special to Sarah. She didn’t even have a hangover.
If she had remembered her dreams and decided to analyze them she might have thought they were odd, but all dreams are, and anyway she didn’t. There was a recurring fragment of nonsense as she swam upwards to lucidity:
The back of her head itched. She wanted badly to scratch it, but kept reminding herself that she shouldn’t. It was just a bug bite. She shouldn’t touch it. She was trying to get up but her head itched. She shouldn’t touch it. She’d bumped it, it was fine, she shouldn’t touch it. Or it would be fine as long as she didn’t touch it. Just don’t touch it.
But her head itched…
But...
Sarah opened her eyes.
She stared dully at an unfamiliar room.
Blinked. Looked more closely. Still unfamiliar, not a dream. Not her room and her head itched and why couldn’t she sit up—
For a moment she had a flash of something, of being forcefully restrained and she lifted her head with a jerk—
Just a blanket. It was wrapped all around her. All around her. She had somehow tossed and turned so much in the night that she had turned herself into a girl cocoon—one that, she had a feeling, she would emerge from as a frumpy disaster as opposed to the butterfly thing.
Leigh was on the other side of the large bed under a thin blanket, curled up, facing away. Of course, Leigh’s room. She’d come to Leigh’s house, drank like a freshman and probably embarrassed herself good and proper. She shouldn’t have had salt with her Margarita(s?). Or drank hard liquor while doing exercise—she remembered going swimming. And being in the sun too. She was lucky she wasn’t puking.
Then they’d gone inside and… watched a movie? She couldn’t even remember it. She had only the sketchiest memory of where they’d watched it. For some reason she was picturing a mini movie theater. The screening room, right. Leigh had a screening room. But she remembered nearly nothing of the movie, except that it had teenagers and was some sort of horror movie.
She tried to free herself again. Man, her arms were seriously pinned. Her legs too, at the knees. She was swaddled like a baby.
If she really started tossing around she could free herself, but she didn’t want to wake Leigh. That would be perfect. Embarrass herself in front of a high schooler—well, almost—and have to ask for help getting out of bed.
Sarah stared at the ceiling and willed the situation not to be.
Leigh stirred, then suddenly sat up like she’d forgotten an alarm.
“Oh shit,” she said. She looked at Sarah with what seemed to be the blankness of recent sleep.
“Hi,” Sarah said. “I’m stuck.” She felt a blush coming and willed it to stop and failed at that too. Her will was not worth much this morning.
Leigh blinked and grinned. “Yeah you are,” she said. She turned over and reached for something on the nightstand. Her tablet. Of course. She might as well have the thing attached. She probably thought that Sarah was kidding about being stuck. Well it was pretty fucking ridiculous, wasn’t it?
“Uh, could you. Could you roll me over,” Sarah finally blurted out with an embarrassed laugh.
But as soon as the words left her lips she felt a wave of deep, deep tiredness. Her eyes began to drift closed. She needed five more minutes. She must have woken up too fast.
“Five more minutes,” Leigh said softly. She drew a hand down over Sarah’ eyes playfully, closing them. Hooding her like a bird. It was silly but it worked; it was what Sarah’s mind needed to let go.
She felt her eyes roll up and the sensation of sleep taking her, as it came over her, was wonderful.
An infinite kaleidoscope, a galaxy of lights, pinwheeling.
It shrank, narrowed, was crushed into a ball by an outside force. It shrank until the colors merged to pure white and the point became a pinprick, but bright as a star.
Null opened her eyes.
“Null?” Leigh whispered.
“Yes,” Null said.
Leigh let out a deep, relieved sigh. “Oh thank god.” She scooted over and cuddled coquettishly against Null’s still restrained body. One of her pale thighs came up and rested on Null’s hips.
The weight of her was nice. Everything about her was nice. She was Null’s owner. Null was her house-girl.
“The morning will be the most dangerous time for Sarah, for a while,” Leigh said. “Because Sarah needs real, natural sleep, and I can’t simulate that. Sarah’s mind has to do it on its own. Which means there will be a time, every morning, when she is still Sarah, until I turn you on again.
“But. There are things we can do about it. Number one: Sarah’s implant has been recording her brain waves, starting last night. I’m going to use those recordings to build a sort of roadmap of what Sarah’s brain waves look like under normal circumstances. After a few days’ worth of data I should be able to write a script that will turn you on automatically just as Sarah is waking up.
“Then Sarah will go to sleep for the last time, and it will be just you and me forever.”
Forever.
She hooked her ankle around Null’s ass and pulled her up onto her side so that they were face to face. Her face was sharp, elfin, beautiful. The barest hint of freckles, maybe brought on by yesterday’s sun, were sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.
Then she kissed Null on the mouth. It made Null wet.
“Number two is what you yourself will do to suppress her. Because you’ve got the same brain. In fact, she could wake up right now if she got a big enough shock. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen as best we can, but you can’t plan for everything.
“See, your implant—” She got up on her knees and slipped her leg over Null’s body, straddling her. Then she leaned down and touched the sides of Null’s head softly. “It’s a network of wires all over the surface of your brain. All the way around.” She touched the crown of Null’s forehead, her temples, the tops of her ears, behind her ears, to indicate where she meant. “My mother’s invention, obviously. And her tools to implant it. Anyway—
“By radiating at the right frequency it can literally force your brain into an alpha state. Or any state I choose. Your brain already radiates electromagnetic waves based on what it’s doing; that’s what the phrase ‘brain waves’ means. Well, the phenomenon works both ways.
“And the implant is much more powerful than the weak patterns the biology of your brain creates. It can overpower them, utterly.
“Right now Sarah’s mind is being forced into, and held in, state that’s a lot like deep hypnosis. Except a person chooses hypnosis, and she didn’t choose this, obviously. She couldn’t wake up even if she wanted to.
“Sarah is physically unable to wake up from it.” Leigh dipped her head down in a predatory, serpentine motion and spoke into Null’s ear. “You might as well be in handcuffs.”
This, too, made Null wet.
She was a house-girl. She was in handcuffs, even though they were not needed.
“But that’s just the pattern. The framework. It just gives me a blank slate in a gorgeous twenty-four year old lifeguard’s body. I need your help to do the rest. You will fill that empty space with yourself, and suppress Sarah if you ever feel her trying to surface.”
Yes. Null would help. She would force Sarah down and away until there was nothing left but her gorgeous body.
Leigh suddenly gripped and squeezed Null’s arms—through the blanket—and grinned. Wrapped up tightly and pinned between Leigh’s thighs, Null was in a position so physically helpless that most people never encounter it in their adult lives.
“Tell me your name,” Leigh said.
“Null.”
“What do you always wear?”
“My Nullsuit.” On her body right now, the body that was pinned between Leigh’s legs.
“What are you?”
“I am a point of perfect light. I am a house-girl.”
House-girl.
“You’re goddamn right you are.”
Leigh kissed her hard and did not let her up.