The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Security Chief Truc fumed at herself as the robots marched her into the depths of... whatever ship or installation this might be. Concealing the breaker bar as a potential future weapon had seemed clever when she initially did it, but, upon reflection, any power able to disable an Alliance cruiser nearly instantaneously was almost certainly smart enough to screen its surrendering crew for weapons.

Now, she was cut off from the rest of her crewmates, and headed goodness knows where. While she was not well informed on Imperium counter-intelligence practices, she didn’t anticipate them involving lollipops and rainbows. She briefly reflected on what she’d have done with an Imperium crew member feigning surrender on her ship, and shuddered. The nakedness was one extra humiliation, reminding her forcibly who was in charge.

Finally, her robot escort marched her through a door marked “COMPLIANCE”. She shivered, then tried to rally herself and stiffen her backbone.

The room was dark, with a very few dim lights scattered in the ceiling, and it was impossible to make out its limits. She vaguely sensed they were passing waist-high objects occasionally, but was unable to make out anything beyond broad shapes.

Finally, the robots brought her to a halt by a table that was spotlighted from above. Without warning, they scooped her up, and placed her firmly on the surface. Quicker than she could react to, her cuffs came off but every limb and her torso was pulled tight against the table by restraints that rotated out of its surface.

The robots marched off into the darkness, quickly vanishing from sight and sound. Truc tried to look around her, but the spotlight ruined any attempt to pierce the veil of darkness.

She hissed behind her gag as something sharp dug into the back of her left hand. It was clearly targeting the veins there, and she felt something cool start to trickle in.

So, it was going to be a drug-based interrogation. She marshalled her thoughts, while she still had control of her mind. She was just a dumb chief. She didn’t have any useful information. Heck, they’d taken her ship without a struggle—what could they possibly learn from her?

“Hello, Truc, my dear.”

She blinked, realizing that someone was standing over her. A smiling face, dark hair, red lips, wearing a black cap and apron.

“I’m Lucinda. How are you feeling?”

The question jolted Truc into the realization that she’d been day-dreaming. Lucinda’s face was slightly blurred, indicating that whatever medication had been administered, it was already affecting Truc’s body—and, presumably her mind. Her gag had vanished, but when?

“Truc Nguyen, Security Chief. Alliance number... 576... ummm...” She struggled to recall the rest of the number. How could she have forgotten it?

“My darling Truc! We really don’t worry ourselves about what you know. Just relax, my dear. We’re much more interested in what we want you to know.“

Lucinda cupped Truc’s cheeks in her warm palms, and lightly kissed her nose.

“Compliance is all about learning new things, you see. You and I, we are going to connect in a way that you can’t even understand right now.”

Truc’s visual perception was doing loops, making it hard to concentrate on Lucinda’s face. At the edge of her awareness, there seemed to be shadowy figures around her lower body, and she could feel items being stuck and clipped onto her skin in increasingly intimate places.

“It’s so nice to find Alliance crew with some defiance. You see, we don’t want to squash that, or change who you are—rather, just redirect it. With the right education, you can be such a useful asset to the Imperium. We just have to get you to desire that direction.“

Truc gasped as something slick but bulbous slid past her clit and into her sex.

“Now, sometimes people get distracted by their memories during this process,” Lucinda mused, “so we had to do something about that.” She stroked Truc’s temples. “We started off using ECT to wipe the brain, but that was very crude.” She lightly tickled the back of Truc’s hand, where the drug line entered. “Instead, it’s much better to simply suppress memory recall for a while. Do you know where you are, darling Truc? Do you recall how you got here?”

Truc stared at her, racking her brain to remember. There was something about walking down a long dark corridor... feeling cold... but nothing more.

“Of course not. The only thing you need to think about is ‘now’. And isn’t it lovely to be here with me?” She leaned forward again, this time locking lips with the confused Truc, and taking time to deliver a thorough, sensual kiss.

Truc was panting as Lucinda disengaged, partly from so long without air, but also in an instinctive reaction to the confusion that filled her mind. Lucinda noticed, and stroked her cheek again.

“It’s okay to feel a little bit confused, my darling. Hold my hand.”

Reflexively, Truc grasped Lucinda’s fingers, seeking some kind of anchor within her current sea of doubt and confusion. She shivered, her nervous system firing almost at random in the unfamiliar environment.

“What might it be like to be one of my friends, darling Truc? What could we do together? How would it make you feel?”

A shiver ran through Truc’s lower body, apparently from nowhere. It was accompanied by the very faintest slow pulsing from within her sex.

“My friends have such interesting dreams, you know.” Lucinda lightly ran her hand, now encased in a fluffy glove, across Truc’s breasts, causing the woman to squirm from the confusing sensations. “I wonder what you’ll dream about, dear Truc, now that you know me?”

It was getting harder and harder to focus on Lucinda’s face. Deep down inside, Truc realized she had been dosed with a psychoactive medicine—and quite a powerful one—but the realization was similar to that when one had tripped over a stone and fallen over a cliff. No matter how you had arrived here, the ground was rushing up at you, and you’d impact the same way no matter what you did.

“The last, and first, face that you see,” Lucinda murmured, now so close to Truc that they could touch noses. “In your deepest dreams.”

The faint trembling in her body doubled, and doubled again, and the pleasure in her sex along with it. Truc cried out, oblivious of her environment, and her legs strained uselessly against her bondage.

“Hours in a dream of infinite pleasure,” Lucinda laughed softly. “My darling Truc. When I awaken you, I will be the only face you know or care about.”

She slid something over Truc’s head, and Truc felt a soft blindfold cover her eyes.

“No sense but pleasure...” The sensations redoubled in strength. “Not sight, not hearing...” Something pressed hard against both of Truc’s ears, cutting off all sound.

Truc quickly lost track of time and her remaining sense of place. With no real memory, the natural fallback of her scrambled mind was Lucinda’s face , and that quickly floated in front of her as her body twitched and sighed with the slow oscillations of electricity across her most sensitive nerves. She was rapt in attention, seeing Lucinda smiling gently at her, straining but unable to make out what she was saying. Behind Lucinda, dark shapes flitted across the background, and it was as if a very distant choir was chanting something...

Her mind was still doing pirouettes when warm hands gently slid the blindfold off, and Lucinda’s real face returned—still smiling. Had she changed? Were her lips a brighter red? Was there a subtle sparkle across the soft skin of her face? Truc didn’t know, and her lips trembled as she tried to marshall a question.

“Sshh, my darling...” Lucinda kissed the tip of her own finger, then touched it to Truc’s lips. “You don’t need to say anything. Just let me love you.”

The sensations across Truc’s body changed subtly, with a more determined rhythm apparent. She moaned as a particularly strong sensation of sexuality surged out of her sex and across her lower body, pulling against the restraints that held her tight to the table.

“Everyone wonders how my friends are so... attached to me,” Lucinda murmured. “Though, how could they be otherwise? I am their beginning and end, fountain of all pleasure and desire.“

She daubed a small amount of glistening moisture on the tip of her ring finger, and held it up between Truc and her own face. The moisture refracted the bright lights from the ceiling, rays of color playing across Truc’s bleary eyes.

“My devices have their place, but for a truly human connection, there is only one real way.” She bent over Truc’s completely exposed sex, and slowly let the finger descend.

Truc had never known a feeling like it. The delicate, barely discernable touch caused a reaction of her whole body that completely overwhelmed her. All inhibitions gone, she screamed—a loud, long scream that was of uninhibited pleasure, rather than unbearable agony. The haze briefly cleared from her eyes, and she saw Lucinda as she really was—connected into Truc’s inner feelings and soul in a way that Truc would never have thought possible.

“Nothing but you and me, darling Truc,” Lucinda purred. “I’ve even stopped Time for you. No ‘then’, no, ‘soon’, just ‘now’...”

She altered her touch slightly, and this time Truc mewled loudly, just like a cat. Lucinda was correct; Time was standing still for Truc. All she cared about was the sensual pleasure of Lucinda’s touches, playing over the sexual stimulation of her body.

Finally, Lucinda withdrew and cleaned her hands of lubricant. “Well, darling, I’m sure you’ll have very pleasant dreams of me now.”

Truc’s eyes were glazed, less from her drugging than from the exhaustion of near-continual sexual stimulation. She barely noticed as Lucinda slid the blindfold back on, quickly dropping deep into a series of hallucinations of Lucinda continuing her work.

Muller had woken to find a tray of food in her small room—unexciting, but acceptable—and devoured it before sitting up on her futon and trying to gather her thoughts. With her brain clear of Em’s medicine, she wondered what Em was trying to do. Clearly, she had been able to bring Amelie completely under her spell, which was unsettling; suddenly, Muller was no longer as confident in the anti-conditioning preparation that the Alliance gave its officers. And the prospect of her own officers being easily switched into a daydreaming do-anything mode was separately of great concern. So, why was she, the Captain, different?

Em’s robots appeared without warning, fastening wrist cuffs on her once more. They marched her down to the lab space, but took a turn and brought her in to Em’s living room. Em was there on the sofa, reading an old-style book with her spectacles on, and sipping at a cup of tea.

“Katie! How lovely to see you again. Do have a seat.” She patted the loveseat opposite.

Muller sat, carefully, noting silently that Em was leaving her cuffed this time.

Em put her book down, and removed her spectacles. “Now, I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions for me.” She beamed. “Where would you like to start? I won’t lie to you, Katie. Though, I would like you to reciprocate that trust.”

Muller thought for a moment. “What is your end game here, Em? Is this how you expand the Imperium—drugging and brainwashing Alliance prisoners?”

“Straight to the point, I see.” Em stroked her chin. “I can’t tell you the whole thing yet, Katie dearest, but I can tell you that you’re misunderstanding something. As I informed you yesterday, I don’t want my guests to be forced to be in the Imperium. I need them to want to be in the Imperium. It’s really quite simple.“

“Even me?”

“Especially you, darling Katie.”

“So, after a while, if I don’t want to be in the Imperium, I just go back to the Alliance?”

“We’ll even give you a ship,” Em confirmed.

Muller had considerable doubts, but she was good at reading people, and Em indeed seemed to believe that she was telling the truth. Or, she was a much more skilled dissembler than she appeared.

“Why go to all this trouble?” She gestured around the room. “I’m sure that it would be a lot more efficient, given the capabilities you’ve demonstrated, to impose your will on your captives. Simply, why take so much time and effort?”

Em sighed. “Oh, Katie. You’re so smart, but you understand so little.”

She stood, and offered a helping hand to Muller to do likewise. “Come with me, darling. Let me help you understand better.”

Em led Muller into the lab, and—after a winding path past way too many devices shaped for sexual manipulation of the human form—into a small room off the side of the main space.

It was unremarkable, except for the naked woman secured by her wrists and ankles to a padded bench. The woman, with an Alliance tattoo on her neck, twisted around to view the new arrivals. She made an inexpressible noise that combined relief and frustration.

“Finally! I don’t know who you are, but fuck me!”

Muller was understandably taken aback, and looked at Em for guidance.

Em beamed. “Katie, let me introduce you to Jodie, a raider pilot. Apparently, she wants to get to know you better. Jodie, here is my guest, Captain Katie.”

Jodie twisted her head around as far as she could, and locked her gaze on Muller. “Captain, I need you to fuck me. Now. As soon as possible, and as hard as you can. Keep going until I tap out.”

Muller inadvertently recoiled, and turned to Em. “What the hell?”

Em smiled beatifically. “She’s told you what she wants, Katie. Just say the word, and we’ll release you to have your way with her. " She gestured towards a cabinet full of toys. “Use your imagination!”

Muller took another, harder, look at the secured woman. She seemed to have the right body shape for a raider pilot—and she certainly didn’t beat around the bush with her demand. Still...

“This is a trick, isn’t it?” She stepped back.

Jodie growled, pulling at her restraints. “It’s not a trick, Captain. I am fully aware of myself and what I’m asking. Fuck me! Please! Don’t just stand around!”

Muller shook her head. “No. Whatever this game is, I’m not playing.”

“Are you sure, Katie?” Em pouted. “I don’t want this refusal to have to interrupt our work together. Please consider it very carefully.”

“I’m very sure.” Muller shook her head. “Sorry, Jodie, or whoever you really are, but I’m not walking into this trap.”

Em sighed. “Ah, well. I’m sorry Jodie, we’ll have to wait for someone more trusting.”

Jodie screamed in frustration, glaring at Muller.

Em beckoned to her robots. “Take Katie to Correction, please.” She made a sad face. “Katie, my darling, it’s out of my hands now. Please remember, I did try to help you make the right choice.”

The robots gripped Muller’s arms, and marched her out of the lab.

Truc’s final awakening was to a different image of Lucinda. This time, her face was nearly totally concealed by a rubber mask, and—if Truc’s patchy memory was to be trusted—her eyes were now made up to be much darker and more ominous.

“And now, dear Truc, it’s time for the last part of your education. I’m going to show you how I give my friends more pleasure than they have ever experienced elsewhere.”

Lucinda’s shadows were already at work between Truc’s legs. Truc felt cool, moist fingers working around her bottom; the unfamiliar sensation made her inadvertently whimper.

“You may feel a little strange right now,” Lucinda admitted. “We had to give you some relaxant medicine for this to go smoothly.”

Sure enough, when Truc tried to move her right hand, it felt as heavy as lead. Lifting her head was also completely out of the question.

“Why...” She tried to form more of a question, but it was still too difficult.

“You’ll see soon. Are we ready, ladies?” Lucinda peered down at the work that was going on further down Truc’s body. “Yes, I think so.”

She held Truc’s right hand. “Enjoy, my darling.”

Truc wondered what she meant. Then, she felt something hard and bulbous start to push her bottom cheeks apart. With the relaxant in full effect, she had no ability to push back.

“What... oh no...”

Lucinda squeezed her fingers. “It’s all right, darling. It won’t take long.”

Now the invader was pushing directly on her freshly-lubed starfish. Truc whined in discomfort as it started to spread her, afraid that something would give way and tear.

“It feels strange, doesn’t it?” Lucinda sympathized. “Don’t worry.”

She was joined by her two shadows, who now stood either side of her. Truc realized that they were all wearing the same masks and outfit, and all three had their eyes focused on her.

The invader had spread her wider than she thought possible, and she felt her feet twitching involuntarily as her nerves were over-stimulated. “Going to burst...” she managed, as the pain increased.

“No, you won’t darling. We’re nearly there.” Lucinda bent down to kiss her.

The second that their lips touched, Truc’s bottom finally gave way, and pulled the invader in. Truc screamed in confusion as a bolt of lightning seemed to go through her whole body.

Lucinda drew back, laughing. “You see, darling? I told you that you could do it. Look at my friends.”

The two shadows turned around, and Truc was shocked to see a large silvered ball between each of their cheeks, clearly tight up against their bottoms.

“With one of my toys in you, there’s pleasure beyond your understanding just waiting. You can feel it now, can’t you?”

Truc shivered as an electrical pulse ran all the way through her bottom. Starting at a tiny tickle, it quickly grew until Truc wanted to throw her body off the table in response, then faded away.

“And now...” The object started to rotate, slowly, inside Truc. It was clearly asymmetrical, with small bumps and grooves that tickled Truc’s sensitive insides. She groaned, and her hands flexed as she tried to grasp the table.

“I think she’s ready, don’t you, ladies?” Lucinda stood back as her shadows shook out a long rubber sheet, and draped it over Truc’s naked body. Truc felt cold metal press against the sides of her head as something was fastened around it.

Lucinda leaned back over. “Learn to be mine, darling Truc. Learn to be one of my friends. You can feel the hypnotic medicine inside you, can’t you?”

She was correct. Truc was getting dizzy, and her vision was starting to sparkle. The pulses of pleasure from her bottom were confusing her even more.

Lucinda held up a rubber mask like her own, and carefully draped it over Truc’s mouth and nose. “All the sensations, darling Truc. You are one of mine.”

Truc’s vision cut out, replaced by a scene where a naked woman hung in straps in the middle of a chamber that was draped in sheets of dark rubber. Two figures, both dressed like Lucinda, slowly approached her. One knelt either side, and each started to nuzzle at her breasts.

Deep in a dream state, Truc could only watch as the subliminal words were whispered into her mind...

Muller felt as if they had marched nearly a mile across the ship. She had to admire the planning that had clearly gone into the positioning; the long walk gave her plenty of time to reflect on her choices, and anticipate what might be waiting for her.

Finally brought through a red door marked CORRECTION, she found herself face-to-face with a sharp-featured woman dressed in a red smock.

“Captain Muller. I am the Corrector. Robots, undress her and place her on the bench.” She indicated a slab in the center of the room, angled at forty-five degrees. The robots had no problem removing Muller’s robe and securing Muller to the bench. It had obviously been carefully designed to prevent any but the tiniest movement from the subject.

Muller tried to lock eyes with her antagonist. “What’s going on here?”

The Corrector consulted a data pad. “I really don’t know what it is about you Alliance senior officers. You almost invariably balk at that test.” She looked at Muller. “You had a fellow officer, clearly coherent, demand you do something to help them, and you refused. I truly don’t understand it.” She put down the pad. “Still, I’m sure we can help you see the situation more clearly.”

“Do you work for Em?” Muller didn’t know why she was being allowed to speak, but was determined to make the most of it.

The Corrector shook her head. “Em and I both work for the Imperium. There is an agreement that if Em’s efforts stall, I can take over. We have plenty of questions we would like you to answer, and I have a very good record in getting those answers. Once I have a satisfactory response, I return you to Em, and we’re both happy.”

She pressed an injector to Muller’s neck. “This stings a bit.”

She was correct, and Muller gave an involuntary yelp.

“It takes a while to have an effect.” The Corrector gathered up her things. “I’ll be back when it’s working. In the meantime, I have to attend a lieutenant who, I think, will be quite ready now to tell me what I want to know. I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

Muller was left alone in the room. She tried to look around, but there was little to see. The room was an ominous shade of red, but few items were displayed outside the cupboards that lined one wall. She managed to identify a couple of medical sensors, and a data pad, but there was otherwise little clue to how the Corrector expected to persuade her to talk.

She sighed, and tried to enter a meditative state. Her opportunities for contemplation had been few in the past years, so she figured that she might as well make use of the time she had with no distractions.

Except...

Except, there was a twitching in her lower body.

Since her hands were secured well out of reach, Muller tried to shift the position of her middle; however, the designer of the table had apparently anticipated this, and left no avenue open to her to gain leverage over her groin.

Beads of perspiration broke out across her forehead. They were an almost welcome distraction for a minute or so, as they slid across her face, but the throbbing from her sex was starting to drown out all other sensations.

Muller closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and tried to grind herself into the bench. Her body was sending an unmistakable signal, and that was that it needed release. It needed release now. NOW!

Muller was almost in delirium by the time that the Corrector stood in front of her again.

“How are you doing, Captain Muller?” The amusement in the Corrector’s voice indicated how well she knew what was happening.

By now, perspiration had given way to frank sweat, and Muller was quite prepared to shed dignity.

“What are you doing to me, you... bitch!”

The Corrector laughed, stroking just above Muller’s mound. “Why, I’m just setting you free. These are your normal desires, but until now they have been squashed by convention and expectations. All that the injection did was to remove the haze that usually sits in front of them.”

Muller bit her lip and pulled as hard as she could against the restraints, not so such to gain her freedom as to distract from the urgent signals coming from her sex.

“It won’t work, I’m afraid.” A smile was definitely playing around the Corrector’s lips. “There’s only one release; I can give it to you, of course. Just a few questions first. What is the approach protocol for Deep Space Station Omicron Theta?”

Muller closed her eyes. “Not... going... to...” The sensations finally overwhelmed the dam which she’d built internally, and she gave a long, angry scream. “All right! All right! Signal Beta Chi at 10,000km range....”

The Corrector quickly and efficiently extracted all the relevant information on access to the station, then stepped forward and used her fingers—now coated with lube—to penetrate Muller. The Captain gave a loud sigh of relief, doing her best to push her sex against the probing fingers.

“You like that, hmm?” The Corrector withdrew her fingers and wiped them clean. “Let me give you something better.”

She pressed a buzzer, and a woman in a white silk gown entered the room, looking confused. “Captain, I’m sure that you recognize my friend and your ensign, Vor.”

Muller, despite the urgent requirements of her body, took the time to assess Ensign Vor. The young officer looked confused, but alert. She had a small patch on her temple, which presumably covered the neural cut-out, but she did seem to be fully aware of what was going on.

Muller briefly closed her eyes, gathering her strength. “Ensign Vor!”

Vor jumped. “Yes, Captain!”

“Please listen carefully. I need you to fuck me as hard as you can. Ensign, do you understand my order?”

The Corrector had helpfully opened a cupboard, showing Vor a wide range of sex toys.

“Yes... but...” Vor stammered, eyes darting back and forth between the cupboard and her naked Captain.

“No ‘buts’, Ensign. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. Mmmmm!” Muller squeezed her eyes shut as a particularly powerful spasm shot through her. “Grab something and get it into my pussy. Now!”

Vor looked through the cupboard nervously, finally picking out something floppy and relatively innocuous-looking in pink. She timidly approached the bench upon which her Captain had been secured.

“Don’t just stand there, Ensign. Fuck me with it! Or I’ll throw you out of the nearest airlock!”

Vor didn’t ask how her Captain might fulfill such a threat in her current situation, but knelt in front of the bench and hesitantly pushed the dildo into Muller’s now-lubricated sex.

Muller gave a grunt of satisfaction, tightening her muscles and trying to grip the toy. “Push it in and out, Ensign! Surely you know how to use these things on yourself!”

“Ummm... not really, Captain...” Vor nevertheless started to slide the toy in and out, uncertain of how hard or fast to push.

“Deeper! Harder!” Muller could feel her sex reacting to the toy, and the familiar feeling of a climax was starting to emerge. “Come on, Ensign, put some effort into it, dammit!”

Vor did her best, and Muller strained mightily, but after ten minutes Muller could tell she was still a way off from release.

“Argh! It’s just not enough. I need a proper fucking.” Muller’s face was dripping sweat, which a smiling Corrector wiped off with a soft cloth. “Is there anything there to do it?”

“Allow me...” The Corrector reached into the bottom of the cupboard and retrieved a couple of harnesses. She lifted Vor’s gown and judiciously examined the young woman’s hips before discarding one and holding the other open in front of her. “Why don’t you step into this, Vor?”

Vor did as she was told, bemused, and the Corrector lifted the harness up to tighten it around Vor’s waist. She lifted Vor’s gown off, and as Vor gazed down she realized that the Corrector had inserted a toy into the front.

“There you are, Vor. Now you can satisfy the Captain as she has asked you.” The Corrector’s smile had turned into a definite smirk, but Muller didn’t care. All she could focus on was the substantial tool now sprouting from Ensign Vor’s mound, and the strident demands from her sex.

“Come on, Ensign, fuck me!” She shivered involuntarily as Vor took a couple of tentative steps towards her, anticipating what would happen.

The Corrector, clearly anticipating, lowered the bench so that it was nearly horizontal. Vor climbed on top of her Captain, then hesitated for a moment.

“In! Get in there, dammit!”

Finally, Vor worked out the angles and gave a tentative push of her new organ into her Captain. Muller gave a cry of relief, pushing hard back against her.

“Faster, Ensign! Keep going until I tap out!” Unconsciously, she remembered Jodie’s phrasing.

Vor was not experienced in this activity, but as an Alliance junior officer she was inevitably in excellent physical shape. She quickly settled into a rhythm, sliding her hips back and forth to fuck her commanding officer. Muller’s eyes started to roll back as the long-sought climax started to announce its arrival. She couldn’t help but smell the sweet perspiration from Vor as the young woman bucked to and fro above her.

“That’s it, that’s it... now, Vor! Push as hard as you can!”

Vor obliged, and cringed as her Captain made a noise that was wholly animal. Her back arched as much as the bench allowed, and her whole body shook as the long-denied, long-demanded orgasm arrived.

Vor tentatively pulled back as the Captain’s head lolled to one side, her whole body flushed with the effort. As the toy disengaged from Muller, the Captain gave a brief moan, but otherwise showed no awareness.

The Corrector helped Vor out of the harness, returned her gown, then turned to the waiting robots. “Take Vor back to the harem.” She gently slapped Vor on the bottom. “Well done, Vor. I’m sure you enjoyed it.”

The robots removed the confused Vor, and the Corrector busied herself cleaning up the barely conscious Muller. As Muller’s awareness started to return, the Corrector released the restraints on the bench and tilted it up, allowing Muller to stagger to her feet, still quite dazed.

“Here’s your robe, Captain.” The Corrector tied the sash and stood back, admiring her work. “The robots will take you back to Em. It was lovely to make your acquaintance, Captain—I look forward to us meeting again.”

Muller stumbled down the corridor in a daze, the robots silently guiding her.

It seemed like no time at all before she was in her previous seat in Em’s living room, sinking into the soft cushions while Em busied herself making some more tea.

Finally, Em resumed her seat, and took Muller’s hand, gazing with apparent concern into Muller’s bleary eyes.

“Oh, my darling. I do so wish that you’d listened to me.”

She cleared a lock of Muller’s damp hair from her eyes. “My dear, I really don’t want to say ‘I told you so’, but I did try my best to help you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Muller, exhausted, managed a faint nod.

“Just think of poor Jodie. I told you that there was no trick, but—oh, my darling—you didn’t believe me, or her. Do you understand now what I was trying to do? I wanted the best for the both of you.”

Muller recalled Jodie’s desperate face, and teeth-gritted demands, and could not conjure a reply.

Em sighed. “I don’t know how long she had to wait for relief. I can only hope the next guest was more willing.” She looked hard at Muller. “How long did you have to wait, my darling Katie?“

Muller recalled, with considerable guilt, her demands on Ensign Vor. “A bit,” she mumbled, defensively.

“Thank goodness for the privileges of command, hmmm?” Em adjusted her spectacles. “Tell me, Katie darling, do you think those were lawful orders that you gave to little Vor?”

Muller blushed, the same thought having occupied her mind every since her release from the Corrector.

Em shook her head. “Katie, all I’m trying to show you is that you’re hiding from yourself—your true self, the self you want to be. You can layer all these regulations, principles and mores on top, but the same Katie will be underneath, squashed by the burden.”

She gestured towards the door. “Jodie, you see, now understands that. She realized that what she was seeing underneath is the real Jodie, and all she has to do is set her free.” Em beamed. “And the Imperium is all about setting you free!”

Thoughts were whirling in Muller’s head, and she was unable to make any reply.

Em stood, and clapped her hands. “Enough of the lessons for today. Robots, please take Katie to the harem.” She gave Muller a kiss as the robots lifted the exhausted Captain to her feet. “Have a lovely time, my dear. I’ll see you later.”