The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“How are we doing today, sweetie?”

I startle at the odd lilt in Doctor Agnieska’s voice. Of course, any startling is in my head. My body remains motionless, subdued by the drugs.

Doctor Agnieska is almost always cheerful when she comes in for her twice-a-week visits, but today her voice is strained. Like she is hiding something, a reticence, and underneath that reticence, a fear. You get good at picking things up from voices when you can’t see, can’t move, can’t talk. Doctor Agnieska is scared. I don’t know why she’s scared, and while that ignorance should translate into a fear of my own, the bliss that envelops me ensures that all I feel is an intellectual, almost academic, apprehension.

My name is Jennifer Hansen, and I spend my days with my body knocked out but my mind free to wander. Doctor Agnieska is the one doctor who comes in and check up on me regularly.

The way she touches me now, the way she seems to not go through the motions she usually goes through, checking my body for stiffness, my muscles, my joints, surprises me. This is not the usual protocol, not even for those times when she’s prepping me up for one of that pig Gutierrez’s little sex parties. I wonder what sort of new game the Pig has found for me.

There are other people in the room. I was concentrating on what Doctor Agnieska was doing so hard that I missed it at first. But the sound of the room is different, the smell. I listen carefully. I’m still in my bliss cloud, and so this is more intellectual curiosity than anything else. It is not the Pig, but it is a man, one that I do not recognize. His voice is deep. He sounds like a doctor, and speaks with Doctor Agnieska like an equal, and in fact, she seems to defer to him. There is another woman in the room, a nurse, one that takes care of me once in a while. And then I feel it, the feeling of being observed, almost caressed. Sanderson, the nurse. The one bright spot in this place aside from the drugs.

Richard Sanderson. He’s been taking care of me lately, almost exclusively. He talks to me, washes me, keeps me company. Once in a while, he will slide me into a wheelchair and bring me out to the recreation room where I can sit and listen to life around me—the other patients, the nurses, the television. I cannot interact with any of them, but I can sit and soak it all in. Sanderson also has taken to reading to me, which I appreciate more than I can put into words. Though he reads to me from whichever book he is currently reading, and he tends to gravitate towards mainstream thriller novels. That’s fine, of course, but they are abysmally predictable.

So Sanderson is here as well. What’s going on?

As if she heard me, Doctor Agnieska leans over me—I feel her breath on my cheek—and tells me softly, “We’re going to wake you up now, sweetie.”

I want to tell her, don’t do that. I know what’s going to happen. Fuck, she knows what’s going to happen. She’s seen it. My body will take over, following Biff’s instructions to act like a complete slut. But why would she be waking me up, with others around? Is this some kind of test? Some kind of humiliation the Pig’s decided to unleash?

As she fumbles with the equipment around my bed, the male doctor’s voice rings out, strong, self-assured, demanding. “What are you doing?” he asks Agnieska.

I recognize him now. I think he’s called Dante. Doctor Dante. I’ve heard him once or twice in the recreation room when I was out there.

I can practically hear Agnieska cower at Dante’s tone of voice. Agnieska does not seem to deal well with male authority. As I said, you pick up a lot when all you do is sit back and process information. I swear I expect her to reply that’s what we usually do when we wake her up. But all she says is, “Mixing in saline with the cocktail we have her on. Standard protocol.”

Dante snorts.

Agnieska tries to justify herself. “Based on her condition, this strikes me as the best way to bring her out—slowly, so that she doesn’t hurt herself.”

“That’d be reasonable if we were waking her up completely cold turkey. But we’re not, right? Come on, let’s do this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He sounds assured.

I pick up on Agnieska’s nervousness. And also on Sanderson’s nervousness. Why would he be nervous? Is he involved in this? And what does Dante mean by not waking me up completely cold turkey?

“Sanderson,” says Dante, “give me a vial of 300 A.”

“Yes, Doctor.” There is some shuffling on my right side.

“Are you sure?” Agnieska repeats, sounding worried. “You were the one that said that what she had—”

“Her blood work is similar enough,” replies Dante in a tone that warrants no discussion.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, then on my thigh, and I can feel my body react to a man’s touch. My pussy juices up as is someone had pressed a button. Then I feel the stab of the needle, followed by a slight burning sensation. I have no idea what they are doing to me. But the drugs that are still coursing through my veins carry their bliss with them, and I do not care.

Besides, Sanderson is here. His presence… quiets me. It’s as if when he’s around, nothing bad can happen to me. It’s an odd feeling. It’s the same kind of feeling Daniel’s presence gave me, a feeling of… home. I wait for the usual onslaught of panic at the thought of my fiancé, and there it is, rising from the back of my mind, telling me to run, to run away, that dark fear of something evil but unknowable. I know it’s irrational, but I can’t escape it.

But then, by magic, the anxiety lessens. Not a lot—it’s still there, in the background, growling—but it has less bite than usual.

What did Dante inject me with? What did he do? And I don’t know if it’s because I am paying way too much attention to it, but I can feel my body’s cravings lessen. Whatever they injected me with is actually quieting my body down. I don’t know how to process that information.

Daniel. I miss him. Sanderson reminds me of him, in ways that I can’t verbalize easily. It’s nothing specific. It’s like asking what I miss about Daniel. I couldn’t answer. Poems, novels have been written trying to express the inexpressible. What is love? It’s nurture. It’s support. It’s picking up the other when he stumbles. It’s listening. It’s providing a safe harbor, a shelter.

Sanderson’s voice pipes up. “How long?”

“Shouldn’t be too long. Half an hour at the most,” Dante responds.

I suspect I’m the only one who hears the hesitation right before Agnieska’s next words. “I should stay with her.”

Sanderson moves by my side, and rearranges the covers over my body. “No need, doctor. I’ll stay with her, and I’ll page you when she’s awake.”

“Page both of us,” adds Dante.

I hear Sanderson’s nod. “Of course, doctor.”

Everyone leaves the room. I pick up on Dante speaking with the other nurse on their way out, and I can tell just by the lilt in his voice that he’s flirting with her, even though I don’t hear the words. I can also tell by her laughter that she responds to his presence. As usual, the thought of that flirting and what it might lead to—that doctor and that nurse, fucking in some remote room of the hospital, not even bothering to undress, unleashing their lust between two medical emergencies—makes me wet. But here as well, the reaction is more subdued than it should be. There’s no doubt about it, whatever they gave me lessens the drives of my body.

I summon another mental image of Daniel, paying attention to the fear that emerges, and it’s lesser than it has ever been. It’s more like an itch that needs scratching now, and not an overpowering feeling of doom.

I sigh, and gladly sink into my memories. I rerun our relationship together, our life, from our first meeting in that cafeteria back at Darnell to our moving in together. The teasing from my friends that I seemed to have settled into a marriage before even getting married, and my astonishing response that indeed, that was what it felt like, and it was surprisingly good. That deep-seated knowledge—that deep-seated certainty—that you had found your soulmate sneaks its way through every crevice in your body and cements everything together. I’ve always though of myself as an independent woman, raised as such by my mother. Daniel just made everything better. And I’d like to think I did the same for him.

I feel Sanderson take my hand, and squeeze it. He’s sitting in the chair by my bed, the chair in which he sits when he reads to me, sometimes, at night, after his shift. His hand feels good in mine. I expect him to say something, but he doesn’t. He just sits in the chair, holding my hand. I want to thank him. Thank him for being there, for taking care of me. For some reason, I feel surrounded by love, and it’s making me want to cry. But I can’t. Not just yet. There is a speckle of hope in my life now where there was none, and Sanderson is the tip of it.

Sanderson is nervous, I can sense it, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t let go. But his is a happy nervousness. I can tell he’s smiling. And I feel like grinning myself.

I have no idea how much time passes that way, with me motionless, my mind like a salmon swimming up the river, leaving the quiet bliss where even if I wanted to get upset I couldn’t, and working its way against the current to a place rife with emotions but where the cravings of my body are lessened, where I can feel the grip of the instructions—the orders—that Biff pounded into me loosen.

I’ve had bliss before, the euphoric feeling of entirely not caring what happens to me, and this is different. This is the feeling that perhaps, perhaps I can find freedom again. It is hope—pure unadulterated hope.

Perhaps the ordeal is over, maybe the pain, the humiliation, the fear, will fade away, and I can be myself again. Perhaps.

As I go through all of this, part of me is amazed at how calm and collected I can be about all of this. By all due accounts, I should be a mess—I’ve spent the last who knows how many months a sex slave unable to fight the degrading instructions of a monster of a man happy to use and abuse me however he wanted who left me to act as a wanton slut offering herself to anyone that cared to have her, a deep seated addiction that no one else can assuage, an addiction for sex, for cock, for cum. I remember talking about this with Serena back when—my God! Serena! What happened to her? She was taken and programmed by Biff’s frat too—when discussing one of her exposés about drug use on campus and telling me stories of life ruined because of addiction and psychological abuse and their repercussions. Yet here I am, thinking about events of my past without flinching, without getting upset. What’s wrong with me?

Is it just the lingering effects of the euphoric bliss, where nothing could touch me? Am I going to miss it? Did I simply trade craving a man’s touch for craving artificial bliss?

A man’s touch. Sanderson’s hand in mine. And then I realize that I’m afraid. Afraid that this is all false hope, that once the drugs that kept me knocked out stop working, whatever else they gave me is not going to be strong enough, and I’ll lose control, and I’ll revert to that beast that cares only for one thing. And Sanderson is right there next to me, and if I lose control, I’ll unleash at him—I’ll prostrate myself before him, willing, nay, happy to do whatever he wishes me to do just so that he fucks me and comes all over me.

Sanderson’s hand in mine. I feel the pressure of it—he’s squeezing my hand. No, he’s not. I am. I am squeezing his hand, and he’s responding. I can move! And I don’t feel like crawling at his feet and beg him to suck his cock like the desperate needy slut that Biff wanted me to be.

Sanderson nears my bedside, and runs a light hand through my hair, brushing it back from my face. My eyes open slowly. The light is soft, subdued—he must have turned it down. Or it’s always been like this, and I never noticed.

He’s right there beside me, looking at me, a smile on his face, but a goofy smile, like he’s nervous.

“Well hello there, sleeping beauty,” he says, his voice soft, his eyes belying the nonchalance of his words. “Don’t try to talk just yet,” he adds, caressing my cheek almost in passing. This is the first time he has touched me in a way that someone might possibly consider inappropriate. And I tense, imperceptibly. “Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod, the movement making my head spin. I don’t know how I feel. I’m happy. Scared. Relieved. Overwhelmed.

“We’ll talk later, okay? I need to call the doctors.”

Before I can summon up the wherewithal to say something, before I can muster enough focus to form words and sentences—not that I know what to say—Sanderson reaches over to a phone on the wall and keys up a number that I imagine pages Doctor Agnieska and Doctor Dante.

Agnieska shows up first, and she checks my vitals, the usual routine. She avoids my eyes the whole time, even though I am awake and getting more lucid with every passing minute. She tells me not to try talking just yet, and she examines me without asking questions. She’s nervous, even more than earlier. Sanderson is still there in the background, and wonder if she would talk to me if he were not. I wonder if she worries about what I remember about the Pig little parties, and whether I’ll say something.

I play the one who remembers nothing. That’s not too difficult, because my memory really is a sieve right now. But I know that Agnieska and many of the nurses are in on the Pig’s activities, and until I can figure out whom I can to talk to safely, I remain quiet.

Doctor Dante shows up a little while later and takes over from Agnieska, who again defer to him. Although this time I can see her, and I spy the glance she gives him. There is frustration in her eyes. And fear. I recognize fear.

Sanderson is smiling, clearly happy. He makes a sign from the door indicating that he will find me later, before leaving me with the doctors.

Doctor Dante is examining me, making sure there are no bad interactions from the new drug that, he says, he is using to “quell my urges.” Doctor Agnieska, after hanging about for maybe fifteen minutes, left, leaving us alone.

I thought that Dante’s hands on me would trigger my body’s Biff-induced responses, arouse my body and make me go insane with lust, but no. Everything feels… normal. Or as normal as I can ever recall feeling lately. His touch is arousing me, but it’s a low-level arousal, just reminding me that I’m a sexual being and that he’s a man, and an attractive one at that. If I can find a supply of this drug—maybe get a prescription?—then perhaps I can have a normal life again. Back to normal. Back to Daniel.

Dante is talking as he examines me, once in a while referring to the electroencephalogram that he had called in. He has put electrodes on my scalp, mostly on the temporal and frontal lobes. He did not have to shave me, for which I was stupidly grateful. He’s talking about the drug cocktail he has me on.

“It’s basically the same we give the others on the ward. There are some differences, because your case seems… somewhat unique.”

I want to tell him that it’s because of what Biff did to me, that he’s the reason why I’m here, that he’s the reason why I’m here, unlike the other patients, but nothing comes out. I can’t form the words. My mouth is not obeying me.

Dante misunderstands my look, and possibly the pinprick of panic that I feel rising in my gut. He thinks I’m worried about what he said. “It’s okay,” he says to reassure me. “I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, and make sure that we can make adjustments to the dosage quickly if anything goes wrong. But everything right now looks quite good.”

He says that with such confidence in his voice that it assuages my budding fears. I haven’t tried to seduce him, tried to fuck him, tried to offer myself to satisfy his most demeaning desires. I close my eyes, and sigh. I feel hopeful once again. Not that I ever completely gave up hope; that’s not how my mom raised me—Mom! I need to get in touch with her!—she must be mortified, wondering what happened to her baby girl!

I must have stiffened or moaned or something, because Dante stops what he’s doing and asks me if everything is all right. I open my eyes again, and look at him. He’s older by a long shot, but good-looking, in a rugged sort of way. A strong jaw, a good nose, and eyes that look deep into you, fully aware of their own attractiveness. I could fuck him, comes the thought, unbidden.

My mouth is still terribly dry, and I choke trying to speak. Dante takes a paper cup filled with water and helps me drink. My hand-eye coordination is still way off. His hand on my head holding it up feels good.

“Take it easy, that’s it. Drink up. Slowly. Now, you probably will be feeling some emotional spells in the coming days; it’s a common side effects of one of the antipsychotics that’s part of the cocktail.”

Emotional spells? Great. From bliss to crying fits.

When I feel ready to talk, I try again. I want to ask him to get in touch with my family, but nothing comes out again. What the fuck? Say something, anything. “Jennie… Jennie doesn’t know how to thank you.”

Fuck! Still with that Jennie crap! And Dante is surprised and confused by it. Who wouldn’t be?

“Who’s Jennie?” he asks, a frown on his face.

“Jennie’s Jennie.” Way to go, Jenn. That’s going to clear things right up. I close my eyes in frustration. He’s probably thinking that I came out of my catatonia brain-damaged or something. Maybe I have. That would make sense. I feel tears forming underneath my lids. Fuck!

My tears really make Dante nervous. And there’s nothing I can do to reassure him that I’m not crazy—especially since I don’t know myself. I just know I don’t want to screw this up. If people start thinking I’m crazy, I’m never leaving this place. I open my eyes and try to smile at him.

“Jennie likes to speak about herself in the third person. She’s always done that. She thinks it’s cute.” I feel I should giggle, for good measure. He’s probably thinking I’m a bimbo anyway.

He frowns at me. “Like Julius Caesar?”

I nod. He’s not dumb, that’s good. “Jennie’s always been a great fan.”

I’m not. Caesar’s Gallic Wars is an incredible bore: it’s all maneuvers and regiments this and centuries that. But I smile, and toss Dante a wink as well, as if this is some sort of big joke. “Veni, vidi, vici.” I add. I’m tempted to make a pun of it. Veni, vidi, infirmavi? Does that even work? I feel I’m losing it. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Both, really.

Doctor Dante looks at me carefully, but a smile is creeping on his face. He seems to relax a little bit. “It’s been a while I haven’t read Shakespeare,” he says.

Okay, not dumb, but not up on his classics either. Not Shakespeare, but Plutarch. But I’m not going to correct him. I smile again, and this time, it’s automatic—I can feel it take root in my gut but cannot fight it, interestingly—there’s an edge of flirtation in my voice. “You like literature, Doctor?”

Dante shrugs, and I detect just a hint of self-consciousness, something I doubt he experiences often. “Oh, used to. Long time ago. I did some theater. And I did play Flavius in Julius Caesar. As I said, a long time ago.”

“Jennie thinks you would have made a fine actor—you cut a very nice figure.” The flirtation was no longer a hint. Damn. The drugs might have killed off some of my impulses, but not all of them. The instructions Biff gave me to be flirtatious and sexual with men is still holding. And I can’t seem to talk about who I am, or ask for my family.

Dante is unaware of my turmoil. He’s busy straightening up and trying to look dashing. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he declaims, his voice deep, his face serious.

I grin, and that grin is not a particularly difficult one to pull off, because he’s funny, and even somewhat endearing in his eagerness. “Bravo,” I say, trying to raise my hands to clap but not quite managing.

I can see him extremely successful with women, who must really fall for his warm brown eyes and his confidence. My pussy, as if in agreement, twitches and I’m glad of the drugs that keep me from actually throwing myself at him and offering my body to his abuse—for I am sure that Doctor Dante likes his sex hard and fast.

As all of this is going on, my mind is going a hundred miles an hour, trying to figure out what I can do and what I can’t do.

“Jennie sometimes like to act too,” I say. I want to add that Biff used to make me role-play his fantasies, back when he was using me as his sex toy, but all that comes out is “Especially in bed—it’s a lot of fun.” The subtext is crystal clear, and Dante, who is clearly the flirtatious type, picks up on it without difficulty. He smiles, but does not flirt back. I figure he must get it all that time, female patients drugged out of their mind coming on to him.

“I should probably go back to my examination, okay?” he says, sitting down next to me and reaching for a tablet. “And then you can get some rest.”

I nod, and close my eyes. And I try to calm down. Emotional spells, no kidding.

I have some thinking to do. Because I’m not out of the woods just yet. Just out of a medically-induced catatonia.

Balthazar Cusker, better known as Biff, watched Jenn on the bed, shaking his head, still having some difficulty believing that it was happening, that it was real, that she was his.

He had just fucked her. More than that, he had made her fuck him, after giving him the most fantastic blow job he had ever received, and he had been on the receiving end of some pretty amazing blow jobs in his life. The difference, the big difference, is that she had been into it completely, giving herself over to him and withholding nothing.

He stared at her. She was lying down on the bed, on her stomach, clad in her black stockings and her black high heels still, and nothing else. One of her legs was bent at an angle, exposing her reddened pussy lips gaping slightly and leaking. He ogled her ass, her tight round ass, toned to within an inch of its life. He wanted to caress it, spank it, bite it. And he would. And she would let him. Fuck, she would beg him.

He fiddled with the digital camera in his hands, the one he had used to record their encounter. He knew exactly what he would do with the recording, had known since almost before he stole the girl away. It had been one of his long-time fantasies, and he intended to savor it to its utmost. He would burn a DVD with the recording and send it to her fiancé, to show him how much his girl liked fucking her new man more than she ever did him.

And it would be the first of many movies. The girl was a natural. Biff felt him get hard again, as he stared at Jenn’s quasi-naked body, dreaming of new humiliations and new scenarios he could run her through.

“Huh, Biff?”

Biff turned his head, and nodded to the young man that appeared in the doorway. Bernard Tilling Junior, better known as Bernie, was a fellow Delta Iota Kappa brother. Smart, capable, and willing to do what Biff asked him to do: a perfect trifecta. He was the one who, the previous day, had programmed Jenn using the makeshift laboratory Doctor Cargyle had created in the basement of the fraternity house, after Biff had brought him the Rohypnol-ed body of the stunning brunette.

“I… I mean, I just came in—the door was unlocked. You said we were supposed to meet here?…” Bernie stopped, his eyes catching the female form on the bed. Jenn stirred softly, a moan escaping her lips, and Biff grinned when he saw one of her hands slowly slide between her legs and her fingers start caressing her lips.

“It’s okay, man,” replied Biff. “I was waiting for you. Pretty, ain’t she? And a great fuck, lemme tell you. Tight educated pussy that knows just how to treat a man’s cock. And a mouth that’d put a whore to shame.” He let his words sink in, watching Bernie stare at Jenn with his mouth half open and his eyes trying to take in every detail. “Did you bring the stuff?” He raised his voice. “ Bernie? Did you bring the stuff?”

“Wh… What? Oh. Right. Yes. Yes, of course.” Bernie opened his backpack and pulled out a pouch that looked like an overgrown pencil case. “May I?” he asked Biff, indicating Jenn.

“What do you think?” Biff was happy, and thus could afford to be patient, but sometimes, he just wanted to slap the bespectacled nerd upside the head.

Bernie sat next to Jenn, and turned her over. He tried not to be distracted by her perfect breasts that were exposed by his actions. He tied a band high on Jenn’s left arm, and pulled out a syringe and a small vial from the pouch. He filled the syringe, knocked out the air bubbles from the needle, and injected the content in the brunette’s elbow.

Biff watched, curious. “So that’s all we gotta do? Stick’em with this and they’re puppets?” He had not wrapped his head around the details of what Bernie had done to Jenn the previous day, or in general what Cargyle did to the girls that were made into what everyone called DIK girls—really sluts that would spread their legs for the brothers in the fraternity because, frankly, they had no choice and were programmed to do so.

Bernie shook his head, as he checked Jenn’s temperature. She had stopped moaning, and was now breathing regularly, looking as though she was asleep. “Can you hear me, Jennifer?”

“Heeeaaarrr…” came the response.

Bernie turned to Biff. “No. You saw what we did yesterday? As I told you, we need to hook them up to those computers when we inject Cargyle’s drugs. The drug by themselves are not enough the first time. We need the neurocortical stimulation. That’s what took so long.”

“And you don’t need that today?”

“Today’s just a refinement. She’s still within the time period where her programming can be easily adjusted. We did it a bit too quick yesterday. I just need to put the finishing touches.”

“I thought about a few more things to program into her.”

Bernie nodded. “Huh, sure. We can do that.”

“I want her to be a stupid brainless bimbo.”

Bernie gave Biff a quick glance. “Huh, okay? I mean, if that’s what you want.” He looked uncomfortable.

“Oh yeah. Drop her IQ down there, you know. I want to see her barely able to survive on her own, barely able to take care of herself. I want her to live for one thing and one thing only, my cock. I want sex to be the most important thing for her—no, the only important thing for her—how to please a man, how to please me.”

Bernie smiled nervously. “Sure, Biff. Whatever you say.”

When Bernie started speaking to Jenn, working through a script similar to the one he had used the previous day—running through sequences of numbers, free associations—Biff tuned him out. He watched the recording he had made earlier, watched as he fucked her on the small screen, pounding between her legs as she welcomed him and encouraged him and kissed him as though he was a cherished lover, watched as he flipped her onto her stomach and grabbed her hips and pulled her up to her knees before thrusting his cock back inside her and taking her like that, like a little bitch in heat.

He was ready to do so again by the time Bernie called his name and told him it was his turn. “Just run through your instructions like yesterday. You want to reinforce them. And don’t forget the trigger sentence.”

Biff shot Bernie a glance as a reminder not to take him for an idiot, and then he sat down next to Jenn as well. “Jennie,” Jennie was a good bimbo name, he figured, “I am your DIK master.”

“Maaasssteeerrr…”

Biff loved the way she said that. He ran quickly through the instructions he had given her the previous day: that she would be devoted to him, that she could not talk about what was done to her, that she would not seek to contact people to help, would not seek to contact her family, or her friends, or her fiancé. He told her again that her role in life was to be seductive, was to think about sexual things, to think of herself as a sex doll, that she would be flirtatious and sexy with both men and women, that she would act to attract attention to herself and her body, and that all of that would turn her on and make her wet. He wanted her to be a flirt, to be a tease, but not to act upon it unless he told her to specifically. He wanted men to want her, but she would be inaccessible unless he, Biff, decided otherwise. He also reminded her that she was to do anything he told her to do, without questioning it, without hesitating. He was her master, he was the source of all wisdom.

Then he moved on to the two things he wanted to add to the previous day’s instructions. “Okay, doll,” he told her, “the only time where you will be able to talk about what is happening to you, in some way, is when you are writing. You will be able to write stories about what is happening to you—although not detailed enough that you reveal information about me or about where you are.” He wondered if his instructions were precise enough. He wanted her to be able to write down what was happening so that she could send them to her fiancé. Biff wanted the guy to suffer knowing what he, Biff, was doing to his beloved girl, how he treated her like a slut and how much she loved it.

“And now,” he added to himself, “the bimbo stuff.”

Before he could say anything, though, Bernie coughed. “Huh, Biff. I’m sorry, but…”

Biff shot Bernie a glance that almost shut the poor young man up. But Bernie swallowed hard, and continued. “I mean, if you want her to write and create stories, then you probably don’t want her IQ to drop too much. In fact,” Bernie added, when he saw that Biff was actually listening, “she’s probably much better as a lover with imagination if she’s still got her head, you know. Then she can really use her smarts to make the experience even better. It’s like those stories you like so much. It’s not just wham-bam-thank-you-mam, right? There’s stuff going on, psychological subtleties, devious plotting, etc. She can’t do that unless she’s got her head.” Bernie suddenly looked uncomfortable with what he had said. “Just sayin’, really…” he added softly.

Biff frowned at him, and then turned to look at Jenn. She was still out of it, her eyes fluttering underneath her eyelids. God she was beautiful. He wanted to fuck that pretty mouth again.

“Shut up, Bernie,” he said, not looking at him.

Bernie was right. It sucked, but he was right.

Biff grinned. Maybe he could not actually turn her into a bimbo, but he could do the next best thing. Beside, if it wasn’t enough, he could always plug her back into the computer later and turn her into a drooling giggling bimbo then. “Listen to me, doll,” he told her, “from now on, you will always refer to yourself as ‘Jennie,’ never as ‘me’, or ‘I’, or any of that. It’s always ‘Jennie,’ or ‘she,’ or ‘her.’ You got that?”

“Gooot thaaat?…”

“You will talk like a bimbo, doll. And bimbos talk about themselves like they’re talking about someone else. You got that?”

“Gooot thaaat?…”

“You’re a fuck doll, Jennie. Just a pretty little fuck doll. My fuck doll. Now, tell me what you are?”

“Jeeennniiieee is a fuuuckkk dooollllll...”

I’m alone in my room. Doctor Dante left a few hours ago, and I think I slept for a while. Dante said that he would look into moving me to another room. The one I’m in right now is meant for someone under sedation, and does not offer much either in terms of view or space.

I asked him for reading material, and he agreed to arrange for me to get my own computer tablet. He talked about the Institute’s extensive online library, trying to emphasize the classics. He told me that he wanted me to rest first, though, to recover from the shock of switching medication regimen.

A computer tablet would provide me with Internet access. I wonder if I could use it to get in touch with Daniel, or really, with anyone from my life, but I doubt it. The drugs they gave me stomps down on whatever the hell Biff did to me. But not all of it.

The fear and panic at any thought of Daniel—Daniel, where are you? Are you searching for me? Or did you put me behind you, after watching all those videos Biff sent you of me fucking him, repeatedly, enthusiastically, vocally? Did you abandon me? I couldn’t blame you really, could I?—is gone, or at least, so reduced that I can easily ignore it. Same thing with that drive to act like a wanton slut for anyone, and with that cum addiction, and that drive to get fucked over and over again that Biff cursed me with it I were to be away from him for too long.

But the rest is still there. I still talk about myself in the third person—my bimbo talk, Biff called it. I’m still driven to flirt and be sexual with any man I meet. And I still can’t tell anyone who I am and where I come from and what happened to me. I tried to talk about Biff to Doctor Dante earlier, and nothing would come out. When he asked me my name, I said Jennie, but could add no other information. I wanted to tell him to contact my mom in Maine, but nothing; Daniel, my friends, my advisor at Darnell. Nothing.

I’m sitting up on the bed, and I slowly fold myself into a Half Lotus, propping myself up with two pillows. It’s not great, and what I’m wearing is not ideal, but I need to center myself, and I don’t want to strip. I’ve spent too much time naked, or dressed up as a walking sex doll. Biff wanted to see me all the time in four-inch heels and lingerie or clothes that said little more than come fuck me hard I’m just a slut. My pussy moistens at the thought, as it is wont to do now, but I can easily ignore it.

As I take a deep breath and let my thoughts flow like a river, unimpeded, but also unexamined. I try to be, just be, for a few minutes.

The silence, the stillness, the practice does wonders. Because I think my subconscious has figured it out. There is one thought that resists being gently pushed aside and ignore, and when I do in fact look at it, it all falls into place. The drugs they have given me and that tone down my body’s cravings only affect what Biff programmed into me initially, when he was with his friend Bernie in that house back in North Alexandria, which I remember well, and presumably before that when he first got his hands on me, which I don’t remember so well. Feels like a lifetime ago. Stuff he told me later has faded away, but what he programmed into me at the beginning, well, that seems to be anchored deep, too deep for the drugs to get to.

Alone in my room with the light of the day disappearing, I let the tears that have been aching to come out pour forth. I’ve never been one for self-pity much. Grin and bare it, the way my mom did it. But not today. Not now.

I’m not even sure why I’m crying. Pent-up frustration, slamming into me full force, after the reprieve of the bliss, I floated into only just a while ago—artificial bliss, granted, but bliss nonetheless—what did Baudelaire call it, artificial paradise? I’m also realizing something: what Biff did to me might just be permanent. I may never get back to the people I love—my family, Daniel, my friends. That bastard Biff took it all away, and I’m left to deal on my own, unable to talk to anyone about what I’m going through, unable to fix it.

I’m alone.

I tell myself that over and over again, own it, my way of dealing with anything difficult, how I’ve always done things. No hiding from the pain, the difficulty. That’s what my mom taught me.

I’m alone.

I’m alone.

My tears flow freely, and I sob, grabbing a pillow and hugging it tight, wishing it was Daniel, wishing that he were there to wrap his arms around me and tell me that everything would be okay.

It takes me a while to calm back down, but eventually my tears dry up, and I’m clutching the pillow, breathing in and out, slowly.

I straighten up, and close my eyes. I resume my meditative stance. I try to deepen the stillness, try to cement my being. I try to be a rock in the middle of the stream of my thoughts, watching them slide around me. I offer no resistance. I do not fight them, do not stop them. I only watch them go, watch them slide around me and continue on their way.

Another thought refuses to flow down the river, one that I feel is important. I should be a lot more messed up than I am. I don’t understand. For the past who knows how many months—I suddenly realize I don’t even know today’s date—I’ve been a mind-controlled sex slave, programmed to be a pleasure doll. Biff got into my made head and fucked me up, and found a way to make me do whatever he wanted. And much of what Biff wanted involved sex and humiliation.

I’m a modern woman. I grew up in a world where sexual assault was understood and talked about—my mother raised me by herself, and she has always made it very clear what I should expect from the world. And there is no doubt that what I went through was sexual assault, of a particularly deep and scaring kind. Yet despite that ordeal, I don’t show any of the signs you’d expect, like some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, or some generalized crippling anxiety.

Of course, while I was with Biff, while he made me dance around like a little puppet on strings, a little slutty puppet happy to satisfy his basest urges, I felt that anxiety big time. I was trapped inside my own head, forced to witness my own debasement. Biff wanted it that way. He got off on it. And then I ran away that night, after that party at the frat house, and soon all I could think about was that crazy mind-wiping craving for male flesh that overwhelmed me, and there was no room in my head for anything but that one single thought: to fuck, and to fuck long, and to fuck hard.

When I ended up here at the Gallery, sometime, somehow—my days between running away from the frat house to waking up here I cannot conjure up but once in a while I will get a flash of an image, out of the blue, triggered by a color, by a smell—they blissed me out of my mind and there was no worry, no anxiety, nothing.

But now… what about now? I feel that anxiety, that dread, that panic, lurking underneath it all, ready to pounce. Doctor Dante said my pulse was elevated. Is it because of the drugs? Or am I going crazy? Who knows? I should ask someone. But who? And I have to be careful. Last thing I want is to seem I’m crazy. I need to get out of here, and somehow find my way home. I feel this pull inside to head… somewhere? The Midwest? But it’s muted, like everything else. I want to go home. I can’t contact anyone, or anything. But I can try.

And then I become aware of it.

There is someone behind me.

I couldn’t say how I know it, but I know it. There is someone behind me, lurking, getting ready to jump on me, subdue me, ravage me. Without thinking, and almost tearing up a calf muscle in the process, I flip around on the bed, my hands automatically, albeit slowly, lifting to a defensive position. My heart is hammering in my chest, my blood thumping at my temples. I know my eyes are wide, and I hate myself for being so fearful, but I can’t help it.

“I’m so sorry,” says the small woman in front of me, her voice so low I have to strain to hear her. She looks at me before casting her eyes down.

Her clothes tell me she’s a patient here; she sports the same blue-toned lounge wear that I’m wearing now.

“I did not mean to scare you,” she continues, her voice still low.

I breath to calm my racing heart. I’ve never had such a strong fight-or-flight response. Maybe something is wrong with me after all. As if on cue, I feel a dull pain behind my eyes. The beginning of a headache. I don’t typically get headaches. Daniel gets them—migraines, really.

I focus on the woman who just entered: short brown hair, small, thin. She looks beautiful, in a fragile porcelain doll sort of way. Her demeanor is that of one who tries to make herself appear smaller than she actually is. I have seen her before. The picture in my mind is fuzzy, broken up, but sexual, definitely sexual. As if my body had a memory of its own, I feel a lingering arousal toward her.

“Hello,” I say, carefully. “Jennie’s sorry, but…?”

“They call me Mouse,” she says, looking up quickly, a hint of a smirk on her lips. I may just have imagined it.

“Jennie,” I respond, finally relaxing. I don’t try the Jennie’s Jennie line again.

“I know. It’s good to see you awake but not so… crazed.”

The way she says the word crazed says much without saying anything. I would bet my right ass cheek that she’s seen me in the throes of mind-wiping lust at one of the Pig’s parties. That explains why I vaguely remember her, and why I feel like grabbing her pretty little head and push her down between my thighs and let her eat me out until I come. I close my eyes, and sit back on the bed.

Crazed. It’s a good word.

“Thanks,” I say. “Jennie’s feeling… okay.” There’s a hint of surprise on her face when she hears me refer to myself as Jennie, but she doesn’t comment on it.

I appreciate that. I want to smile to her, but suddenly I feel exhausted, and tears well back up in my eyes.

Mouse comes and sits next to me. She hardly makes a sound when she moves. She does not hug me, does not take my hand, but merely sits beside me.

I look up at her. She gives me a small shy smile. She sits tucked in on herself, as if expecting a blow.

“You’re different,” she says, after a long silence.

I’m surprised. “How so?” I ask. I know I’m different, of course. I want to talk about Biff, about what he did to me, but I can’t.

Mouse shrugs, and it’s a barely noticeable motion of the shoulders. “You are. Just don’t tell… Just don’t tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

Mouse shrugs again, and shakes her head. She doesn’t answer my question. When she speaks again, her voice is almost a whisper. “We all heard they were waking you up.” Another long pause. The rest of her words I almost miss. “Gutierrez is pretty upset about it.” It looks like it cost her to say that.

I finally place her voice. It has been bugging me ever since I’ve heard her talk. But I remember times when the Pig was in my room, pawing me, or fucking me, and Mouse would show up, and Gutierrez would treat her like he did me. And why not? She was so quiet, so submissive, that even a coward like him could dominate her.

“Jennie’s sorry,” I say, squeezing her hand.

Mouse shrugs again, and that shrug breaks my heart. There is something so pathetic in it, an acceptance of her lot in life. “It’s not your fault,” she says. “But we’re all excited you’re awake.”

I’m not sure who’s we, or why they would be excited that I’m awake, so I say nothing. I just hold her hand.

“Well, it’s a good thing that Doctor Dante decided to wake up Jennie, then,” I say, trying to lighten up the mood somehow.

A tiny smile responds to mine. And a memory flashes through my head. There was this cat we adopted when I was just a kid, after my dad left. I was seven at the time. It had found its way to our doorstep one cold Maine morning, mewing piteously. It took us forever to gain its trust; it sneaked around to eat the food we left it, and then it was off to hide somewhere. I was too young to understand. But my mother told me to give it time. And she was right, of course: the cat eventually warmed up to us, and would come and cuddle up to me when I watched cartoons. And slept beside me on my bed for many years. But it remained skittish around strangers, especially men.

Mouse was that cat all over again, her nickname notwithstanding.

“It wasn’t the doctor,” Mouse whispers.

“Pardon?”

She takes a breath, but never looks up. “It wasn’t the doctor that woke you up.”

“Then who?”

“The nurse. The nice one. Sanderson?” She glances at me from the corner of her eyes, as if to judge my reaction. “He talked about it to that other nurse, the pretty blonde? I overheard him. I… I sorta blend in the background and people sometimes don’t notice I’m there.”

I’ll say, I want to respond, still remembering how she frightened me a few moments ago.

Richard Sanderson. He managed to get them to wake me up. But how? And why?

“He likes you,” Mouse whispers. “A lot.”

“Who?” I’m mostly buying time.

There’s that little smile again.

I smile as well, mine larger. “Jennie knows,” is all I need to say. “He’s her hero.”

At least until Daniel comes in and sweeps me up and takes me away. And I have to help him do that, somehow.

Mouse squeezes my hand, a response to my own squeeze a moment ago. Something passes between us.

And then she stands up, and gives me a meaningful glance. She’s waiting for me to follow her.

Time to go meet the other patients, is my guess.