The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“What have you got there, Suzanna?”

Suzanna wordlessly lifted the painting and faced it in Nina’s direction.

Nina looked at it, and there was a moment of silence.

More than a moment.

The Ninabird rose with grace and care, surfaced fully, once again driving away all of the other birds.

She studied her creator as the other slavegirl stared at the spiral.

For Nina had created her, yes, with her impossible and irresistible orders about forgetting things. (Only the Master could issue orders that were absolute and inviolate and flawless.)

But still...

Nina didn’t know of the existence of her own creation, and she was utterly, completely wrong about Erika. Erika did not pose the slightest threat to the Master.

Especially after today.

And there was a very good chance that she and Erika would be alone again later...

The Ninabird spun slowly in the sky, carefully reviewing her instructions as her sex gave a gentle throb at that last thought.

Watch Erika, remember everything she says and does. Also...

-So you’re going to forget this conversation, Suzanna. Forget it completely, until it is time to remember. Or until... unless... somehow... there is a chance to finish the job. Bring Erika completely under the Master’s control. Forever. Then you will act. You will put aside everything else, and you will act instantly, without hesitation. Do you understand?—

She understood. She had put aside everything else, and she had acted instantly, without hesitation.

She was in fact still carrying out her orders, and now, she noted clinically, there was nothing there about reporting back to Nina. It was something of revelation, really, seeing how easy it was to pervert the intent of someone’s orders by following them exactly and to the letter.

Even the Master?

The Ninabird gave a little start at this idea, which opened up a whole new train of thought she hadn’t considered before. She wanted only to obey the orders of the Master, to protect him, to further his cause in any way possible, help him achieve his rightful destiny...

And she loved him, with all her heart and soul.

But...

Suzanna as always had been telling the truth when she told Erika that obedience to the Master was ecstasy and bliss. It was. White and pure and endless. The Master’s wonderful book had been very careful to make it that way.

But...

‘Ecstasy’ and ‘bliss’ aren’t nearly the same thing as ‘love’. You can have wildly deep orgasms with a man and not love him in the slightest; Suzanna’s brief but intense fling with her idiot co-worker Ralph at Parmenter’s had proven that conclusively enough.

And the Author of the Master’s wonderful book certainly hadn’t cared if his slavegirls loved him. All he had wanted at the end of the day was obedience. The Ninabird didn’t know what the man’s name had been, or how long ago he had been alive, but she nevertheless knew in her bones that this was true.

So did she love the Master because his wonderful book had programmed her to, or did she love him because he was in and of himself the most perfect and wonderful Master who ever existed? Because he was a good and kind and decent man? If it had been the Author who had enslaved her, would she have been able to hate him in the back of her mind, even as she slavishly obeyed his every order?

All of this came and went in an instant. The real question was, what was she going to do now?

The Ninabird studied her creator.

Finally she came to a decision.

She leaned forward just a little, and spoke a few words in low whisper.

Then she straightened up and sank back out of sight, returning control to the rest of the birds...

It was the past. Everything was fractured and hazy, moving in flickering jerks between the black and white lines that had suddenly laid themselves down across the world and then started to spin around and around and around...

She was sitting in a car in the parking lot at Harrison with the Master. (Suzanna was there too, somewhere, hovering in the distant background...) She and the Master were saying goodbye for the day, kissing, a kiss that froze itself in place, lasted for hours and wasn’t nearly long enough. She did everything she could to further sustain the moment, leaning over, pushing her lips, pushing her entire body hard against his, sucking up every last bit of his presence, wrapping it all in a tight knot and holding it deep inside her. Finally, all too soon, they separated, seeming almost to snap apart, making the flickering grow a hundred times worse, sharp jumps now. A pile of black-and-white photographs spilling out of an album into a slopped-over pile. Check makeup and hair in the mirror. Out of the car. Across the lot. Inside. Eve’s desk. (“Hello Eve...") Hallway. Coffee pot. Accounting office. Hanging up her coat, stashing away her purse, exchanging the usual Monday-morning greetings with Fran and Kristen...

Flicker...

She was in place behind her desk, her computer screen flaring to life, and as the machine rambled its leisurely way through its warm-up drill, she thought about what she was going to work on first.

She looked up.

Flash and flicker

Looked at the other two women at their desks. Looked back and forth.

Time slowed again to a snail’s crawl, framing their faces, their voices, arms and hands and fingers...

There were words dropping into her brain like a string of coins poured into one of the city’s omnipresent parking meters, clicking their oiled clockwork way back and forth, down into the waiting depths.

-Now then, Nina, let’s fuck one more time, and then burn that damn book, and go back to the office before we all get fired.—

Burn that damn book.

Burn that book.

Burn.

Back to the Office

Back

to

Work

The last coin. The last clunk of gears, the last spinning bit of clockwork...

Her head gave a sharp little twitch and she moaned, a silent sound escaping her lips...

The flickers grew much, much worse, leaving now only the most minute of slivers.

Her hands, reaching into a drawer of her desk, pulling out

a few sheets of paper

a thick black ink pen

and...

they began to...

to...

There was an interruption.

Words.

No, not words at all this time, but instead a voice.

A real voice, flesh and blood and out-of-place, one that wasn’t anywhere in the past.

What was it saying?

She strained to listen, and finally something came clearer and louder.

“Nina? Are you all right?”

Another head-twitch and the desk and the (papers) and all the rest dissolved back into black and white spirals, she struggled to move her lips. Walls of thick steel clashed back down, one after the other, sealing off the memory of...

of...

Black and white, changing, settling back into lines on canvas. Her mouth started working again.

“Yes. Of course. I’m fine.”

She lifted her head so she was looking at the other woman, who stared back at her from over the upper edge of the canvas she held.

Suzanna. Of course. In the hospital waiting room, just down the hall from the Master’s bed.

Holding a painting.... A copy of the spiral?

She frowned in puzzlement, then lifted the corners of her mouth again and spoke.

“Suzanna. Where did you get that?”

“Erika painted it.” Suzanna looked at Nina from the corner of her eye.

Nina considered all this for a moment, feeling an odd clash of emotions that she couldn’t quite pin down. Finally, she asked the obvious question.

“Why?”

“Tom asked her to.”

“Oh.” Nina carefully took the canvas from Suzanna’s unresisting grip and studied it again, but this time... without really looking at. Sort of skimming over the surface. Before, the spiral had sucked her down almost instantly, but now... Now it was just paint on the canvas, unless of course the Master dictated otherwise.

Well... maybe not entirely paint...

She again turned to Suzanna, who now stood with her hands crossed in front of her waist.

“What is he going to do with it?”

“I don’t have enough information to speculate. He didn’t even want us to know Erika was creating it, but she couldn’t hide the fact from me.”

“I see.” Nina considered. Suzanna was almost certainly right, it was her primary function now to be right, which meant that the Master would be unhappy that they had seen the painting, much less that the painting was now in their possession. (If only in the strictly technical sense...) As it had back at the office, the thought of the Master’s displeasure stabbed at her like a flaming knife. She kept her face calm but her fingers clutched the edges of the painting a little tighter.

Then she forced herself to relax. The Master hadn’t given her any orders about this painting. If he did so at a later date, she would obey them. If he ordered her to stare at the painting forever, or to forget that it ever existed, she would obey. She looked at the corner that hid them from the rest of the hall, from the nurse’s station...

Maybe she could, should take the spiral down there and assure that...

-Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.—

The words, the order, came down like a cleaver whacking off a limb, cutting off the flow of the idea at its very source.

“Fine.” She directed the word at the universe in general. Then she turned, walked smoothly back to her chair. She leaned the painting against its side, ever-so-gently, like the sacred relic that it was, so that the canvas was facing away from the flow of traffic out in the main hallway. Then she sat down and wordlessly patted the seat next to her. She smiled again as Suzanna came and joined her, sitting very straight, her hands curled now in her lap. “First of all, you don’t need to worry about Tom. He’s fine. Well, they had to bandage his head, but it was nothing too serious; he said they are releasing him tomorrow.”

“I’m glad.” Suzanna didn’t look at her, but her hands twisted tighter for a moment, then relaxed again.

“Yes. So.” Nina gave Suzanna’s hair a stroke, pushing one of the more unruly strands back out of her face. “While we wait for Tom’s family to leave. Tell me what else you and Erika did today.” She had started to add ‘Tell me everything’ with just the proper note of viciousness, but the words shriveled in the back of her mouth unformed.

She abruptly realized that she had been worrying too much about Erika. That situation was entirely under control.

Suzanna blinked once, slowly, then began to recite.

“In the morning after you left, I made eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast while Erika finished working on a painting for a man named Ian Dwyer. He’s the manager of a branch of Seafront Savings Bank who has hired her to paint an ugly picture of some horses. Ugly because of the subject matter, not because Erika is a bad artist.” A pause. “After we ate, we got in Erika’s van and drove to a cybercafe called ClickAway on Blair Avenue. The owner is a silly man named Raul, who is interested in Erika. Erika had a tall skinny with Kona beans, and I drank some hot chocolate while Erika did something on the Internet.”

“’Did something’?” Nina’s own hands clenched themselves for a moment. Under control...

“She didn’t want me to see, and I really didn’t care. Computers are so boring now.” Another sidelong glance in Nina’s direction. “If you’re worried about it... just like with the painting, I’m absolutely sure that Tom asked her to do it, whatever it was. He didn’t want me to see, probably...” She tipped her head for a moment. “...Probably because he’s afraid that you and I can’t be trusted.” The blonde slavegirl gave off a brief sad sigh, her shoulders sagging a little. Her tone became more human. “And if he does think that, he’s right. We can’t be. We don’t have any idea what extra instructions the Author of Tom’s wonderful book may have included.”

Nina shifted uneasily in her seat as Suzanna blithely went on, speaking in the recitation-voice again.

“After Erika finished with whatever, we drove back to her house. A man named Walter Abernathy came to pick up and pay for some pots that Erika had painted for him, and then we spent the rest of the day painting the spiral. Well, she painted it and I helped.”

“Helped? How?”

“I made tuna-fish sandwiches for lunch and mixed paint.” Pause. “And after Erika and I finished doing what we had to, Erika checked her phone messages, and we heard from you. So we took the painting and drove here to the hospital. I never made it to Tom’s room; I turned away after I saw that Richard and Beverly were already there. I thought that there would be too many awkward questions about me and the painting. Erika went on alone. I assume that she is with Tom now.”

“I see. Yes, it was good that you came here.” They sat silently for a moment. Finally Nina stirred herself and went on, smiling almost normally now. “Why don’t you get us some sandwiches or something while we wait? I haven’t had a chance to eat since lunch.”

“Yes, Nina.” Suzanna stood and started to go, then stopped and turned back for a moment. “I’m sorry, Nina, but this may take a little while. I will have to sneak into the hospital kitchen and steal the sandwiches. I don’t have any money with me.”

She turned away again, and Nina had to jump up and chase her down, giving her a couple of bills from her purse. Then Nina sat back down, picked up the magazine, found her page, and resolutely started reading about moose and polar bears again. As she did this, the fact of the spiral’s presence throbbed against her side like a rotted tooth.

Suzanna trudged off down the hall following the glowing green EXIT signs towards the stairs, Nina’s money crushed tightly into the palm of one hand. A bird spread out the memory of the hospital map, which indicated that the cafeteria was back down on the ground floor not far from the lobby. The rest of the birds decided she had better avoid the elevators right now, since there was a danger of bumping into someone she knew from Harrison, and having to offer explanations. Or even worse, telling lies. She understood the necessity, the Master must be protected, but now a lie grated against every fiber of her being, even one told to all of those swarming mass of unimportant people who for now remained outside of the Master’s circle.

As for people inside that circle...

She found the stairwell door and pulled it open, reviewing the conversation that she had just had with Nina. Even though for some reason Nina’s texture suddenly seemed quite a bit calmer now then it had before, Suzanna deliberately hadn’t mentioned the Master’s baby that was now growing inside Erika’s womb. Technically that omission was a lie, but in this one particular case she didn’t feel very bad about it. At this early stage the baby wasn’t Nina’s concern, and the Master needed to be informed, would be informed, before anyone else, even one of his slavegirls. Erika’s suggestion with the spiral had merely reinforced all of this.

The door swung shut behind her, cutting off all the hospital noises and all the textures. Like computers, everything in the empty echoing shaft was clean and cold and sterile.

At this, Suzanna paused for a moment, one foot hanging out over the next step. The issue of the Master’s baby was covered, yes, but she did have the nagging impression that she had forgotten to tell Nina something else that had happened since they had last spoken, something extremely important...

But this whole concept was impossible, of course. She never forgot anything now. The idea was dismissed from her mind with a shrug, and she descended the stairs, now almost skipping her way along as the birds spread shimmering hymns of praise to the Master across the endless sky.

The hallway seemed to go forever, stretching out beneath Erika’s feet like some vast desert under cold hard stars. The doors oozed sluggishly past on either side, revealing flashes of all the people stretched out in all the beds, white sheets and baskets of flowers.

-Should have brought some flowers or something-

At the thought she almost turned back, to find the hospital gift shop. It was strange. After all the pain and worry on the way over here, it now suddenly seemed she was reluctant to go into the room that was at the end of it all.

But no, is she was totally honest, it wasn’t strange at all. She knew the reason why. Now that it was established that Mr. Woodhue wasn’t dead, or in immediate danger of dying, she hadn’t forgotten how she had felt just a few hours before when she had last been in his presence, kneeling naked and powerless on Nina’s carpet, staring up at him as he towered over her in the bed...

She had arrived. Room 423.

She didn’t hesitate any longer.

She squared her shoulders and stepped through the door.

She immediately saw that Mr. Woodhue was occupying the bed nearest the door; a drab white curtain concealed whoever was in the other bed in the room, who was evidently watching his TV; there was the muted blat of voices. Back on this side of the curtain, a tray had been set up in front of Mr. Woodhue, on which were perched various small tubs of... goo and slop. He had a spoon in one hand, and under the bandage that was across one temple he was looking at something off in the mental distance, his expression grim. He tapped the spoon against the tray, making a small absent sound.

And so she was back in the same room with him.

For some reason, it wasn’t nearly as bad as she had feared. Yes, she wanted to slowly strip herself naked at the foot of the bed, as she and Suzanna and Nina had done the night before, to crawl into that bed with him and have sex with him right there and then, smear the goo from the tubs on his penis and lick it off, every last speck, slowly slide her hot wet needy body down around that marvelous penis again and again, fill her mind with his name, fill her belly with his baby, as he tirelessly came inside her again and again...

But she only wanted to do these things. She remained standing. Her clothes remained on her back.

It helped somewhat that there was an unfamiliar woman with sandy-blonde hair sitting in the chair near the head of the bed. She was pretty if not spectacularly beautiful, fairly short, fairly thin, and had on a coat and jeans and tennis shoes, not all that different than Erika’s own outfit. She was sorting though a pile of papers on her lap, and she looked up inquiringly as Erika came in and hovered in the doorway.

“Hi. Are you one of Tom’s co-workers?” The blonde woman broke the silence. At her words, Tom came back from wherever he had been and looked at Erika as well. Their eyes met.

At that, the strings deep in her legs trembled just a bit, but they held, as she tried to think of the right thing to say.

-Baby sex love slavery-

—Turrets under the stars—

She tore her gaze from him, and she caught a closer look at the woman’s papers, what appeared to be written on them. Her mind made a wild flying leap of intuition, and she gamely followed it off the cliff. (Suzanna wasn’t the only person who could make deductions, dammit...) She came forward and held out her hand.

“Hi! You must be Beverly. I’m Erika Johanson. And no, I don’t work at Harrison. I’m just a friend of Tom’s.”

The woman set aside the papers, rose and took the extended appendage in a quick firm clench.

“Oh. Well then, yes. I’m Beverly. I don’t believe Tom’s ever mentioned you before.”

Erika stretched her smile wider and looked at Mr. Woodhue, who studied her as a scientist might study a specimen pinned to a card. He said nothing as she plowed on, arms and legs windmilling now in the empty air...

“I’m crushed, Tom. But we really haven’t known each other all that long. I’m sure he would have gotten around to it eventually.”

“Yes. Not that long. Sometimes, it seems like we only met yesterday.” Mr. Woodhue finally spoke, and held out a hand. Erika touched it, brushed her fingers across his. “You’re here alone?”

“Alone?” Erika’s fingers withered as their touch broke, as she turned and followed his gaze towards the doorway behind her.

The empty doorway behind her.

Erika’s mind raced frantically. Suzanna had been with her in the elevator, she was sure of that, they had been standing side-by-side when they came out into the hallway, but after that...

“Yes. Of course.” She faced him again, still smiling. No time to worry about what damage Suzanna and the painting were off doing somewhere, and maybe it was just as well, trying to explain them here would have been impossible...

-Could have just showed the thing to Beverly. Would have probably solved a couple of problems right there, if it had worked-

She grimly pushed the thought aside, and faced the woman in question, who was watching all this with a very neutral expression on her face. (It was a close variation on an expression that Erika got from women a lot if the other women’s men were anywhere in the vicinity.) Erika scrambled to remember what else Suzanna had told her in the van. Beverly the Teacher, Richard... Richard the Plumber, right, and a son named....

“So. Are Richard and Justin here?”

“Richard is talking to Doctor Phibeson. Justin isn’t here.” Beverly’s voice matched her expression. She turned. “Tom, who is this woman?”

He scooped up a glob of something and sampled it before answering.

“Like she said. She’s a friend of mine.” He smiled a little. “Weren’t you the one who said I should have more friends?”

“Yes. I guess I did say that.” Back to Erika. “So how did you two meet?”

“I’m- I live next door to one of his co-workers.”

“Nina.” Mr. Woodhue interjected. “The woman who was just here.”

Beverly’s expression became positively two-dimensional.

“Tom had to come by her house one day to pick up something. As he was leaving, I was out in the yard, my yard, working over the bushes with my clippers, and we.. um... got to talking. And the rest is history.”

“I see. And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a commercial artist. Oil painting, mostly. You won’t have heard of me.”

“No.”

“You may have seen my work in a magazine or something and not realized it. I have made a few sales over the years. Done a few special custom pieces for people, when they needed them. And I also do basic web research. Helps pay the bills.”

“On the internet?”

“Yes. Some people ask for information on the strangest things. Just today, I was doing research on German lighthouses.” Erika deliberately did not look in Mr. Woodhue’s direction. “And Beverly... If you’re upset that Tom’s been blabbing family secrets... I don’t know much more than what I’ve already said. I just got a very brief summary. There’s you and Richard and Justin. And Harriet and... uh... what’s the dentist’s name in Detroit?”

“Frank.”

“Right. Frank.”

“And your family?”

“Oh, there are scads of Johansons around. Just not around these particular parts. I was something of a trailblazer, coming out here to the coast when I did. But enough about that. Tom? What happened to you? The message I got wasn’t real informative.”

“The brakes failed on my car, and I slid into an intersection. I cracked my head a good one, and I needed some stitches. But otherwise I’m all right. They’re going to discharge me in the morning.”

“We’ll be putting him up with us.” Beverly said this. “For a couple of days, at least. Until he’s feeling better.”

Erika smiled.

“Actually, I was just thinking that he could stay with me. I work out of my home, and I could be right there, if he needed anything. It would save you an awful lot of trouble.”

Beverly smiled back.

“It’s really no trouble at all. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing anything else.”

Erika felt something stretching inside her, like a string on her father’s fiddle wound too tight. If it snapped...

-I don’t care what I said this morning. I am going to have sex again with Mr. Woodhue. Tomorrow. We are going to have sex with Mr. Woodhue. Lots and lots of sex. And if Beverly continues to get in my way.. -

The painting...

“Actually...” Mr. Woodhue. “I was going to say earlier, Beverly, that I don’t want to burden you with myself. Erika is right. It will be much more convenient for everyone if I stay with her.”

“But I really—”

“Beverly. No. Thank you, but no.”

Beverly opened her mouth as if to say something more, then closed it again with a snap. She looked at Erika as if suddenly pleading for help. Erika smiled and shrugged.

It was a bit of a struggle not to orgasm.

An uncomfortable silence fell.

She was floating naked, her toes just brushing against the grass, amid the dandelions at the edge of the winding country road. They were all gone to seed, and the fluffy whiteness filled the air.

She had always loved dandelions, puffing the seeds, watching them fly off into the sky. It used to drive her daddy crazy, seeing her sending the ‘goddam weeds’ off to propagate once again, but he had always tried to be understanding about such things...

In front of her was the house. She smiled as she floated forward, up between the tall black stones.

-The stones with the ugly twisting shapes hacked deep in their sides.—

Floating giddily up, spinning slowly around and around, up the wide wooden stairs to the front door of the snug little home, everything looking exactly like she remembered it.

Exactly like, and even better...

She passed through the door, and drifted up, up inside the house, past all the sparkling watercolors on the walls that Grandma Eunice had painted herself, past the wonderfully tacky witch-doctor statue that she had picked up at some estate sale years and years ago...

Up to the very top of the enormous shimmering corridor of arched light, each piece and each section more beautiful and perfect than the last.

And at the end of it, there was the sitting room where she had spent so many happy hours...

Only, no, it was something infinitely larger and better and grander, with a high arched ceiling and enormous sparkling windows lit by the summer sun, just like Reverend White’s old church, and the music was even more perfect and joyous than it had been on all of those Sundays....

And in the center of it all...

Grandma Eunice was there, but she wasn’t at the center of it all, and she wasn’t alone. Along with her there were women, happy, smiling women in long flowing robes, their golden collars tight and lovely around their necks. Judith. Naomi. Suzanna. Holli. Nina. And most especially of all, Fran. Eve smiled at Fran, the movement stretching her mouth wide.

-Hello my sister-

-I got your message-

And at the center of it all...

The Throne.

-The throne with the (!!ugly!!) shapes hacked deep in the sides-

And sitting there, the man,

The Man

Tall and bold and beautiful, with shining white teeth and skin that was blacker than black, the wide plains of his face moving as he matched her smile, surpassed it, blinding her.

And he pulled her close, he had taken her in his strong sensitive arms, filled her, filled all of the holes, pulled the lines tighter and tighter until she was smothered in laughter and joy, the very last bits of air pulled up and out of her lungs and...

“You know what you have to do.”

Eve opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked over at Joseph, who was also staring at the ceiling, looking a little stunned. She remembered and she smiled. She closed her eyes again.

It had been pretty damn good. Joseph was a fine man, and an excellent lover.

Of course, he was nothing at all compared to Mr. Tom Woodhue...

She fell asleep.

Crandell pulled into the hospital parking lot and began coasting up and down the rows, his eyes scanning the masses of cars. Finally he saw it, sitting off at the edge of the lot under the trees, the now-familiar battered gray van. He parked his own vehicle a couple of slots over, then sat for a moment, idly dribbling his fingers against the steering wheel as he checked out the scene. No one immediately in sight. He extracted the proper tool, slid from the driver’s seat and crossed to the van. He gave the door a firm push with his still-gloved hand; in the unlikely event there was an alarm it would be easy enough to beat a discreet retreat before anyone noticed or cared. Nothing.

The lock was a joke, like all car door locks, and he was inside, sliding into the passenger seat. He closed the door behind him and sat for a moment, again using the car mirrors to scope out the scene. No one. Now that he was inside he could take his time; he was respectable again. He turned in the seat and studied the rest of the interior. It was in somewhat better shape than the outside of the car, with various uninteresting and unimportant things (spare tire, fire extinguisher, paint cans) strapped securely to the various walls. The only exception was the steering wheel, which unlike his own relentlessly utilitarian model was covered with fake fur, day-glo shades and strips of purple.

No sign of any large black and white painting.

So they had either stopped somewhere along the way and dropped it off, or...

He got out of the van, made sure the door was re-locked, and returned unhurriedly to his own vehicle. Back to the drawers, this time pulling out a simple white jacket, which he slipped on, adding the glasses again as well. Although it would have been easy enough for ‘Doctor Fix’ to procure one with Jolene’s help, there was no ID tag attached. Despite the impression that movies might give on the subject, hospital staffs actually tended to notice strange never-before-seen doctors wandering the hallways. He had found the jacket to be a good compromise whenever his work took him into a medical setting, allowing him to ghost along the borderline between ‘staff’ and ‘visitors’, overlooked by a majority of people on both sides of the fence.

Jacket in place, Crandell started across the lot towards the looming white building, threading his way through the cars. He passed through the doors and into the lobby, which housed the usual collection of people and things that you find in such places. Uninteresting except for that infamous hunk of metal hanging from the ceiling; the local grapevine had been abuzz discussing the shit that had gone down during its purchase and installation.

He made a beeline for the elevators. Just as he reached for the up button, however, a flash of green caught the corner of his eye. It was a familiar shade. He looked out of the corner of one eye, even as he proceeded to thumb the button.

Yes. It was definitely the same woman, ‘Suzanna’, emerging from one of the stairwells. She walked away from him, heading in the general direction of the cafeteria. No sign of the target or of the painting. She disappeared out of sight around a corner. He toyed with the idea of following her, but then one of the elevator cars came up from the basement levels and he stepped inside, joining a tall older woman with a still-lustrous spill of hair and a solid-looking black man in a crumpled suit and wine-red shoes. Crandell had just punched the appropriate button, when two more people slipped in as well. An efficient-looking brunette equipped with wavy hair and a mid-level business suit, and a Hispanic man who was a very good match for the black guy already there, the two of them looking a lot like rooks on opposing sides of a chess game as they stood on either side of the car.

The newcomers were cops.

Crandell probably would have known this even if they had been total strangers, there was some kind of odor or energy wave the people put out. But he in fact recognized the man, vaguely, having seen him around town over the years the two of them had worked their respective beats. Louis Sanchez. Not the brightest star on the force, not by a long shot, but also not one of the bottom-dwellers, either. A plodder, but a fairly productive one at the end of the day, which of course was trouble for someone in Crandell’s position. The woman Crandell didn’t immediately recognize, but he had seen the type often enough. A young go-getter, hot to trot. Which made her both more vulnerable and more dangerous than Sanchez. He faded to the back of the elevator and practiced his well-honed wallpaper imitation, letting his eyes go vacant behind his glasses. The two cops ignored him and the other two, talking to each other in low voices.

They rode up to the fourth floor, where, of course, the universe being what it is, the cops got off.

Crandell followed them out the door. Normally, you wouldn’t have been able to pry him out of the car with a crowbar, but he had punched the floor button in front of the two civilians, and you never knew when even the slightest display of odd behavior while on the job might come back to bite you in the ass. The cops started down the hall in the general direction of 423, so Crandell turned smartly and went the opposite way, his stride purposeful and focused, even though he had no immediate idea where he was now going.

He walked past a small alcove that had been turned into a sort of waiting room, with a coffee table and a few chairs. One of the chairs was occupied. Crandell would have gone past with barely a glance, but something about the way the woman... yes, a woman, was holding her magazine caught his attention; she was clearly trying to act inconspicuous, but instead stood out like a sore thumb, hiding her face behind a magazine. He paused between steps and looked at her. Another brunette, this one not bad looking at all from what he could see, or would be, if she were loosened up just a little bit.

In fact, she looked an awful lot like...

His gaze traveled on, pulled by years of practice and training.

There was a large canvas leaning against the woman’s chair, facing the wall.

He stepped into the waiting room.

The silence in the room stretched itself out after Tom had made his pronouncement. Beverly finally sat down and started flipping through her papers again, her head bent. Erika stood with her arms crossed, looking slightly hunched as if she expected a blow from somewhere.

Tom ate some more of the ‘food’ that he had been served by Nurse Price. Most of it tasted pretty much like it looked, except for the vanilla pudding which was actually pretty good. He focused most of his outward attention on it, even as his mind went back to gnawing at all the bones that it had been working over before Erika had arrived on the scene, along with the new ones she had just tossed on his plate.

The new control was still there in his mind, as strong as ever, but nevertheless his nerves thrummed, harp strings that someone had given a quick stroke. He again ran through all the things he was going to have to do because of the accident. Call his insurance company. Find an attorney; since the accident was his fault, or at least his car’s fault, he was probably going to be sued by someone before this was over. At least he wasn’t going to have to pay anyone else’s hospital bills...

Then there was Erika and his slaves, a situation he considered to be far more important. He guessed from what Erika had said that there was nothing seriously wrong, but where had Suzanna disappeared to?

And as it had with Gloria, the question churned at him; was what just happened with him and Beverly part of the book’s effect, or something worse, something that had changed inside him. Or had anything happened at all? Would it have been this way before, if he had just pushed a little harder? Was this how the movers and the shakers of the world had always done things?

And most important of all, there was LEUCHTTURM.

And German lighthouses.

And the plate.

And the small container he now had under his blankets, resting against his side...

Finally, almost mercifully, Richard came back into the room, looking rather drained and holding a wad of official-looking paperwork. Seeing the tableau stretched out before him, he paused in the doorway and raised his eyebrows.

“Um? Hello? Did I miss something here?”

Tom had to stifle a small smile at the identical small twitches that the two women gave off at this comments. Beverly looked up from her papers and smiled, a genuine smile, unlike those she and Erika had been tossing back and forth like hand grenades earlier. She got up and went to her husband.

“Richard. Uh. Sort of. This is Erika Johanson. She’s a friend of Tom’s.” She glanced at Tom and frowned.

“Hey.” Richard shifted the papers and extended the freed-up hand in Erika’s direction. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Erika met his gaze and shook the offered hand.

“So. What’s the problem? You’re all acting like someone died.”

“It’s nothing.” Tom cut in. “We just decided that I’m going to stay with Erika when I get released tomorrow. No need to trouble you and Beverly.”

“Oh.” About as Tom had expected, Richard didn’t appear to be too torn up by this revelation, but he made a credible effort at appearing polite. “If that’s what everyone wants. Do you live here in town, Erika?”

“Yes, over on Pratchett. Like I was telling Beverly, I work out of my house, and—”

“Excuse me?” This was not from any of the other people in the room, but from out in the hall. Richard shuffled around a little, and three faces replaced him in the doorway. One of them was Doctor Phibeson, while the other two were unfamiliar. A weather-beaten Latino, and a younger woman with dark hair.

“Yes?” Tom asked.

“Mr. Woodhue.” It was Phibeson who spoke, sounding oddly formal. “These are Detectives Sanchez and Dunmayer, with the city police.” Sanchez (the man) silently held up a badge as Phibeson said this. “We informed them that you were awake, and they would like to get your statement concerning the accident.” He glanced at the police. “If you do not feel up to this, we can do it tomorrow.”

Tom studied the trio in the doorway, and felt a stab of unease. He had been expecting this in general terms of course, but two officers, and in plainclothes? Wouldn’t a uniformed grunt normally be dispatched to deal with something this (relatively) trivial? He shook off the thought and spoke.

“No. I mean, I’ll do it now.”

“Very well.”

Phibeson moved aside, as Sanchez came into the room and carefully scanned the rest of the people gathered there. He spoke for the first time, his voice gravelly. “You are Mr. Woodhue’s family?”

A chorus of jumbled replies.

“Yes.”

“Most of us.”

“I’m just a friend.”

“Could I ask all of you to wait outside for a moment? We’ll need to speak to Mr. Woodhue in private.”

“Uh, sure...”

Erika, Beverly and Richard all trooped out, shooting the sort of glances over their shoulders that most people probably tended to use when finding themselves around police officers. Dunmayer closed the door, while Sanchez came closer to the bed and continued.

“Mr. Woodhue. Please understand that you are not under arrest. Even so, if you wish an attorney to be present for this conversation, we can resume at a later time.”

Tom smiled a little at this echoing of his recent thoughts. He considered, then sighed and cast his fate to the winds.

“No. Go ahead.”

“Very well.”

Sanchez dragged a chair around and sat in it with a slight grunt. While he did this, Dunmayer glanced behind the curtain at Sam’s bed. Whatever she saw there evidently satisfied her, and she nodded to Sanchez. From a pocket of his coat he produced a small tape recorder, which he held up so it was clear under the lights.

“Would you object if this conversation were recorded?”

“Uh... no. Of course not.”

Sanchez pushed a button and the recorder started to whir self-importantly. The detective then carefully positioned it on the table by the head of the bed. Dunmayer watched all of this from near the door, her arms crossed, her gray gaze an obvious attempt to achieve the same level of intensity that Erika was capable of, but not quite making it.

“Now then.” Sanchez produced a notepad from another of his numerous pockets and snapped the cover open, flipping a few pages in. Like Sam’s grab of the IV pole, it was a series of gestures that betrayed long practice. “When you are feeling better, you will still have to come down to the police department and fill out a complete accident report. Right now... we always want to talk to anyone involved in an accident as soon as possible, while memories are still fresh. You are Thomas J. Woodhue, currently residing at 451 Montag Avenue, employed at Harrison Manufacturing?”

“Yes.” Tom felt like he had just admitted to some horrific crime.

Who knows. Maybe he had...

“And you were involved in a car accident at the corner of Basset Avenue and McKay Street here in the city, at approximately 2:00 PM this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Could you please describe to us what happened during the accident?”

Tom shrugged.

“I had just finished some personal errands over here on the Eastside, and was driving back to Harrison on Basset. I saw the light turn red up ahead in the intersection. When I put on the brake, nothing happened. The pedal just went to the floor and the car just kept moving. I tried to pull the emergency brake, but it didn’t help on the wet pavement. I slid into the intersection and... that’s about the last thing I remember until waking up here in the hospital.”

“I see.” The two detectives exchanged a glance. “And had your car experienced any mechanical problems before the accident?”

“No. Nothing. I had been driving the car earlier in the day and the brakes had worked just fine. Also, I had a tune-up just a few weeks ago, and they didn’t find anything wrong.” Tom paused, but more seemed to be expected of him. “I have it checked regularly. I need the car for my job. Needed it. I guess it was pretty well mashed.”

“Yes. And you did not drive anywhere earlier in the day that might have possibly caused damage to your car?”

“No. Just around the city.”

Another exchange of glances before Sanchez went on, speaking even more carefully than he had before. “Mr. Woodhue, we do not want to alarm you without cause, and I wish to stress that our forensic tests are not complete, but based on our preliminary examination of your car, and from some of the statements gathered from witnesses at the scene...” He trailed off, and for the first time Dunmayer spoke, her expression unchanging.

“It appears at this point that someone may have deliberately severed your brake line.”

Once again, the room got very quiet.

The house was flat and low, a perfect one-story thing, white and green with long straight edges. It gleamed in the crisp merciless sunshine.

Or so it seemed; it was hard to tell for certain. She hovered over the empty street and she grimaced, her eyes watering as she tried to make out the building’s true dimensions. It twisted against her vision, a million different white and green cubes all at once, filling a million different suburbs...

The changes, the wrongness, they gnawed at her like a thousand dental picks coming at her from all directions, but at the same time, her head was filling with something fluffy and pink, acres of it.

Taffeta. Silk. Bows and ribbons, billowing hatefully in the breeze.

That breeze turned into a wind, pushing her, and she floated forward among all the fabric, her bare feet only occasionally brushing against the white gravel. Floating between the two huge black stones, past the ruthlessly-pruned yard and hedges, up the two shallow cement steps to the screen door mounted uncompromisingly on its hinges, inside its carefully-varnished frame.

Some things did not twist around like all the rest. The evil shapes chopped into the side of the stones glowed like neon, bright through the gauze. They were familiar, those shapes, recently familiar, but before... before they had been etched in black and white...

Unlike the rest of her weightless body, her hand had turned to a crippled lump of lead, but something still dragged it upward, pulled a jabbing finger forward as if magnetized. The finger reached for the doorbell button mounted inside another smaller frame. The button glowed like the stone-shapes, stabbing the viewer with its single pinpoint knife, but before she had to touch it, the screen door swung itself noiselessly open, followed by the wooden door beyond, and she was sucked inside.

As she disappeared within, she glanced around one last time and she finally and truly recognized the building she was being sucked into; it was her parents’ house, the one up in Black River that she had lived in for those fucking years before...

All the old emotions came storming back, anger leading the charge, but still she couldn’t move, her hands once again pinned firmly to her sides.

The front hall was the same as it had been a thousand times before, polished floor tiles, paintings all hung straight and true in black frames...

Frames and more frames...

But at the same time, it was different. Now, as well as leading further into the house, the hall sloped down, down, down into darkness, and her body followed it...

Down...

Finally, after forever, emerging into...

Another room that was very familiar, and very much hated.

A collection of frames, hundreds of them, that gathered together to make bars, cell walls coated with softness and frilliness and pinkness, a thousand times worse than she remembered, so unlike the shop floor with its utility and purpose and bustle and honest grease that got up under your fingernails...

Shop floor?

What shop floor?

She couldn’t remember, and for the first time in a long time, there was a bit of fear mixing itself into the anger.

There was an open path across the thick fluffy carpet, between all of the tables loaded with bits of shitted-out china and pink spun glass. She tried to scream, to spin her arms and smash it all to powder, and nothing happened. Her body followed the path to the center of the room, an island amidst the storming sea of knickknacks, and nothing had changed, there was the chair, his chair and...

And everything had changed.

Although it was the same chair in spirit, vacuumed and spotless and pleated, it was also now a throne, a huge thing covered with more of those gut-twisting shapes. It was a throne, and clustered close together around it were women, several of them. Kneeling and wearing dresses, long flowing dresses that tucked and concealed and pinched and were the Proper Sort of thing for a Young Lady to wear. As bad as they were, the collars were even worse. Golden collars which circled the women’s necks without break or seam. Something was engraved on the front of each collar, a thing that never blinked.

She recognized the women, all of them that she could clearly see. Her mother, of course, that was no surprise whatsoever. But also... Patricia. Eve. Rhoda. Suzanna. Fran. And...

That other fucking idiot from the accounting department, Kristen Moresen. (What accounting department?) Her blonde hair had been swept up into a tight beehive hairdo, and she had on too much makeup, her lips as bright and red as if they had been bloodied. She smiled at the newcomer, and her teeth were fangs, white and strong and pitiless, a perfect match for the collar. Her eyes were empty. She spoke, sounding both chirpy and flat, the voice of one of those damn computerized telephone operators that everyone used anymore.

“Hello, my sister. Welcome at last. You got my message.”

The new arrival snarled and struggled again, her arms still glued.

“What the fucking hell are you talking about, you bitch?”

But she was already remembering the answer to that question.

“You see now, don’t you? You see what you have to do? To save us, all of us? To save yourself? To save him?” She held her pink-gloved hands curled up against her chest as she sang.

“What?!”

Kristen did not reply, but her smile grew wider and rotated her head so that those dead eyes were pointed at the throne. All the frames and bars and ribbons in the room pointed that way, twisted themselves there into a knot.

And seated there, filling the space, was a man, tall, thin, sitting ramrod straight, cold and hard and stern, his gray hair cut very short and combed carefully into place, his tie knotted at his neck, his pocket handkerchief folded to knife-edge sharpness.

Her father. But no, even now, a thin corner of her mind remembered, her father was dead and buried. This was everything that her father had been, and more, much more. Colder, harder, sterner. Taller and thinner, skin pulled tight over unyielding polished bones.

Gray skin, swirled with traces of white, and his eyes...

She screamed in rage and fear and no sound came out, and he smiled, and it was the smile, the thin knife-edged slit that her father had used so often when his rampaging wayward daughter once again had fulfilled all of his expectations and fears. He unclenched his long thin hand from the arm of the throne and reached out and wiggled a finger, pulling her closer and she couldn’t struggle against it. Her naked shoulder crawled under his cool dry touch as he clamped it into place. The scent of air freshener and perfume and hair tonic filled the air, even as the bows and the ribbons spilled out from the holes in the tables and the vases, twining around her feet, her knees, piling up higher and higher...

She screamed again, only fear now, and this time she couldn’t even open her mouth. He finally spoke, and the voice matched the eyes.

“Him, Holli. You have to save him from me. And you know my name, now don’t you, you puling fool?”

“Noooo!” A choked wail.

“Only you can save Kristen and the others. Only you can save him.” His eyes were getting bigger and bigger, black gaping pits in the icy wastes of his face, sucking around and around as the ribbons came up past her mouth and nose, twining into her hair and pulling her mouth into a bloodied smile and. “You know what you have to do. YOU KNO—”

“—W what I have to do.” Holli said the words calmly. Quite calmly. She opened her eyes and glanced over at the man sprawled nearby on the floor of the stockroom, looking stunned, his pants pulled down, his penis exposed and wilting. She had to think for a moment to remember his name. Gerry. Gerry the salesman. Right.

At least he hadn’t been too skinny, in either sense of the word.

Skinny? They had had sex, she had used him, then... she had been dreaming... what about? She couldn’t remember. A house, a throne...

She fingered herself as she thought.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in the slightest. She pulled her boots back on, efficiently locked her overalls into place and left the tiny room without a backwards glance, blowing past the puzzled janitor in the hall without really seeing him.

She knew what she had to do.

She stepped out the front door, into the parking lot, and started for her pickup, her boots making little squeaking noises on the damp concrete. Only as she came close to her destination did she recognize the small drab car sitting next to it, a pebble in the shadow of a boulder.

She immediately deviated course, and the door of the car opened. Kristen got out and stood up, and the two of them were facing each other, alone in the lot. Holli tried to speak, but it was as if something had locked her voice box shut. Finally it was Kristen who broke the silence.

“Do you... do you understand now?”

The key turned, and Holli was free to reply, free to...

“Yes. Of course I understand. I got your goddamn message.”

“And you’ve.. you’ve had time to—”

“Yeah, I did with Gary in the damn supply closet.”

“Gary? From sales?” For just a moment, Kristen’s voice dipped into disbelief, but then rose back up to... whatever it was they now both hovered in. “Oh. I’m... I’m glad. I’m glad I don’t have to do this alone any more.”

Holli’s eyes narrowed at this last comment. Fear. Fear was useless. What good was it working with someone like this?

She supposed it was marginally better than nothing.

“Get in the truck.” She started again for the driver’s side of the named vehicle.

“I think maybe we should—”

“I said get in the goddamn truck.” Kristen got in the truck, where Holli continued the conversation. “You did it, I figure? Put the bastard in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a start.” Holli gunned the engine to life. “And now we’re going to finish it.”

“But—”

“You want to live another night with him walking around, fine. I’m not going to do that. We know what we have to do. So we do it now. Now.”

She pulled out the parking lot, the truck’s tires squealing as they left, heading towards the Eastside.

Kristen’s car stood alone in the lot under the lights, the driver’s door hanging open.