The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Chameleon Band

Part 4

INTRODUCTION:

Once a sleek, efficient executive, Anna now looks out through the eyes of the perverted male fantasy of a teenage sex bomb. Today she meets the particular male who commissioned her magical transformation. Then she fumes helplessly while her old and new masters have her perform a kinky fashion parade for them.

And the dreams still wait, stranger and more nightmarish than ever!

DISCLAIMER

This story contains explicit sexual themes. If you are a minor, or if you are offended by writing about sex or non-consensual mind control, then this story is not for you. I suggest that you navigate somewhere less scary instead.

Blood and Gore Warning: There is a lot of blood! People are being ripped apart now! It’s all part of the plot and the mind control, but only loosely connected with the sex. Nevertheless, Be Warned! If it all gets too much, skip over the sections in italics, which are only backstory.

It should be obvious, but this is a carefully constructed FANTASY. The characters in this story are not real. If you have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, then, again, this story is not for you. Go and look at some nice things instead.

And if none of that applies to you, then enjoy...

“Any final tweaks?” Master asked, and the visitor slowly circled her, speaking now and then. She stared at a point on the wall, kneeling patiently in her usual knees-apart, hands-behind-head pose while they talked—something about a successful transaction that slipped from her mind even as she heard it—until Master said, “Pet! Look at me!”

Meeting his eyes felt strange, unaccustomed, wrong, but she found she couldn’t look away.

“I prefer my slaves to be nothing but mindless sex toys,” he told her, “but mostly, I’m a manufacturer of bespoke products. My customers get to choose how their purchases interact with them, and yours has decided that you are to be fully aware and intelligent, with your own will, but physically completely obedient to him. Remember, Pet, that he will be able to change that decision at any time, and make you as dumb as a brick, or mad, either temporarily or permanently. So take care to keep him happy and safe. Do you understand?”

Like the decrees of a deity, his words burned into her soul. “Yes, Master,” she found herself saying, “I’m to take care to keep him happy and safe. Or else.”

“Exactly. Finally, your new master’s word is your command. You are to obey him absolutely, without question. Also, you will continue to obey me in the same way since I’m the consultant around here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master. I will obey you and my new master absolutely.”

“Good. You’re done.” He gripped the collar by a ‘D’—ring, and the evil little device simply came away in his hand. To Anna, the transition was like a plunge into icy water, and it was as though a light went out inside her master. His face, his body and his presence in her consciousness became no more significant than any other human. Meanwhile, the visitor took on life, as if a blurry, sepia photograph had burst into vivid reality. She gasped at the sudden change in her perspective, and gasped again because she knew him.

“You!” she exclaimed, “Geoffrey!”

His fascinated expression became gleeful. She leapt at him with an incoherent scream, pink nails in claws that aimed straight for his eyes, but he caught her wrists and held her. She screamed and pushed against him, but her hard-won strength and coordination were gone, leaving her helpless and impotent.

“You did all this to me,” she screamed up into his smirking face, “turned me into this, this… This bimbo!

And then she remembered: the knowing looks he had given her over the past weeks, his victorious snarl when she had accidentally dropped the name ‘Discreet Liaisons’, the dating site she had used, into a conversation, and his outrageous behaviour yesterday, before that tube journey.

With a sigh, she gave up trying to attack him and let her arms fall in defeat. “You set me up. You fed me to Mast—, to this bastard; you paid him to do this to me. You… That blowjob! Jesus!”

“And it worked!” he giggled, “God, this guy’s expensive, but his adverts were dead right! Look at you! Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you! You’re a perfect sex doll of a woman, shiny and squeezy and sweet as candy, and all mine. But Anna’s still right in there, isn’t she? Aren’t you, Anna?”

“You chose all this.” She looked down at herself, at her too-perfect skin, her impossibly tiny waist, her ridiculous balloons of tits. She glared at his creepy, punchable face, leering back at her—Leering down at her! The old Anna had towered over Geoffrey, and now he towered over his brand new sex doll. “All of this actually has you so written all over it,” she sighed. “I don’t know why I didn’t guess sooner!”

“Yep, there’s my Anna. Shake your new tits for me, Anna.”

“Fuck off, Geoffrey,” she said, and jiggled her chest from side to side. “Oh.”

“No, not just once,” he grinned. “Don’t stop, and vary the movement: up and down, side to side.”

It was difficult to talk while her body gyrated at his command, but she managed, “Is this—the rest—of my life? Performing—titty,— titillating—little stunts—while you—get off?”

“Part of it, for certain. Now shut up and listen to me.” He glanced down at a sheet of paper and read aloud, “‘You are my slave, and you must do everything I wish. But I don’t want you to be a mindless doll, so if I ever give you a command that will damage you like “forget it” or “drop dead’, you must use your intelligence and decide what I really wish you to do, rather than self-destructively obey my commands verbatim.’ Understand?”

The commands were taking hold, so she was able to reason that even though he had told her to shut up, answering this question was an exception, so she intoned “Yes—Master,” in a robotic monotone, still shimmying.

“I hesitate to tell you ’good girl’ since you’re not really being good. You’re just being forced to obey me by the collar’s spell, aren’t you?”

“Yes—Maasterrrr,” she said again, this time with much more sneer.

“More jiggling, I think. Jump up and down, too. Now,” again, he referred to the paper, “‘I won’t always be there with you, but whether I’m there or not, you must do nothing that will harm or displease me and do your best to find ways to delight me.’ Ooh, I like that one: where you lean back and shake your shoulders. Just do that now. Hard as you can.”

“Fuck you—Master.”

“Definitely, and soon, but will you do as I just read?”

“Yes,” shake, shake, “Geoffrey.”

“Oh, yes. One more thing.” He reached out and caught a flying nipple, then pulled her forward by it, staring her in the eye. “From now on, it’s ‘Geoff’. Say, ‘Yes, Geoff’.”

She squealed through a storm of pleasure-tinged agony, “Yes, Geoff!”

“Fine.” He released her flesh. “Now stand still and shut up.”

So she stood and fumed while they discussed clothing options for her outward journey. It turned out that her ex-master had a stock of bimbo costumes that he had collected from previous slaves, and so the morning turned into a fashion show of sorts. She was their indignant, seething, helpless runway model, wordlessly squeezing into costumes that ranged from revealing to ridiculously skimpy, posing, strutting back and forth, shaking her tits again for them. As she performed, a familiar sweet perfume filled the room: the modified scent of her arousal. This game they were playing was turning her on! It had to be her programming, didn’t it? Strutting her brand new, perfect, near-naked body in front of two appreciative men would never have thrilled her like this before, would it?

Yeah, it would. The all-new scent and syrupy quality of her juices were the work of the collar, but the horniness was Anna to the core.

The game they were playing was having a visible effect on her spectators, too. Her ex-master’s jeans bulged lewdly, and his face had taken on a brooding, thoughtful quality that she had learned to recognise. Even Geoffrey’s loose chinos sported a modest tent.

Geoffrey finally gave in to his desires as she was stretching to pull off a tight tee-shirt. “Oh God, I can’t wait any longer. Get down on your knees and blow me.”

She was down instantly, rushing to free his member with hands that shook with eagerness. As before, the reality of his earnest little penis was damply disappointing, but her programming took over, and in moments she had him as erect as he was going to get.

Her nose nestled deep into stale pubic hair, she let her tongue and upper throat tend to his cocklet, while one hand massaged his balls and the other played a long fingernail around his anus. Despite her body’s eager obedience, she couldn’t escape a feeling of disgust that it was Geoffrey who was benefitting from her skills. But this ability went beyond mere skill: Geoffrey’s manly member was hardly a challenge, but she didn’t gag or feel the slightest discomfort as she took in his whole length and gave him her best. She could keep this up for hours! It was almost as if her throat had been redesigned just for this purpose.

After a pathetically short time, he bellowed and clutched her head in both hands as he throbbed out his orgasm. “Fuck! Fuck, but I’m going to fuck you so much!” he exclaimed, not very coherently, and she discovered that the programming prevented her from rolling her eyes in case it displeased him. “You’re up, Dom.”

‘Dom?’ she thought. Really?

Geoffrey looked on, erection at half-mast and grey trousers in a ridiculous tangle around his ankles, while master’s—Dom’s—none too gentle hands gripped her shoulders. “Much appreciated,” he said, and fired off a series of commands that she found herself obeying faster than her mind could process them. “Stand up! Legs apart! Wider! Bend over! Hands on knees!”

His clawed grip shifted to her hips, and she orgasmed, instantly and hard, at the electric thrill of his gorgeous cock sliding smoothly into her. He set up a pounding rhythm, and the flat filled with her high, breathless keening, rising and rising like a whistling kettle.

After an eternity of bliss, his iron-hard erection slid out of her, and for a moment, something of her mind returned. She realised that she was repeating “Oh God, Oh God,” over and over, and that she was no longer standing but was on her elbows and knees, her golden mane forming a curtain around her face.

Oh Jesus! Sex was just one continuous orgasm! She had assumed that little quirk had gone with the removal of the collar. Did that mean she was stuck with it?

She had mixed feelings about that.

Geoffrey, pants finally kicked away and mini erection bobbing eagerly, prepared for entry. His hands steadied her, and his tip pressed insistently against the pucker of her anus and oh-so-easily slid in. Straight away, she was gone again, perhaps not as intensely as with Dom’s supremely competent member, but very satisfyingly. Distantly, she heard his cry as her sphincter reflexively closed down on him, felt her hair grabbed, and her face lifted to stare into Dom’s eyes. Then, while Geoffrey set a rapid tempo, her ex-master used his handhold as a lever and aimed her mouth down onto his long, long cock.

Hey! My first spitroast! she thought as his flesh shut off her screams and her oxygen supply and she passed out.

* * *

Sleep. Would she ever sleep? Yasamin lay and stared into the darkness and waited for the dawn to end it.

Sleep was usually easy to find since the dread night of the necklace—and the vivid dreams that now went with every moment’s slumber.

Most of the dreams, vivid as they were, were nothing but a parade of seemingly impossible sexual exploits. Her nightly education in the desires of men and the power of the necklace she wore had shocked and disgusted her at first, but more and more, she was beginning to crave the vivid lessons. Her needs were seeping into her waking life, too. Her favourite among the guards, young and handsome Mehmet, had become the star of a thousand erotic, athletic fantasies, where she occupied the beautiful bodies of all those bewitched slaves that lived in her dreams.

Her reality was so much less exciting. Since that night and the terrible morning after, her uncle had barely exchanged a word with her. But she felt his eyes on her, watching, waiting for the signs that the necklace had started its work on her. Perhaps because of this, she had withdrawn even further into herself, talking to nobody, standing back and letting others do every chore, not even responding when the servant handed her the twice-daily bowl of food. Sometimes she caught Mehmet’s eyes glancing in her direction, too, but she couldn’t guess whether he felt sexual interest, sympathy, or just disgust like everyone else.

And so the days grated by, and she rode, walked, stood, or sat until it was time to sleep again and retreat into her dreams.

But tonight, she lay awake and frustrated. What was different? The food had been the same, as had the muttered conversations that circled around her. No terrible revelations had set her mind thinking. Nothing had changed, yet here she lay wide awake with nothing but her lust-filled fantasies for company.

What was that? The slightest of noises, the rustle of cloth so faint she might have imagined it. Her bored, fevered imagination painted for her a picture of Mehmed’s arm snaking in between the floor and the base of the tent, turning to loosen a buckle.

Snick!

That really had sounded like someone undoing a buckle! Was her fantasy coming true? She held her breath and strained to listen over the hammering of her heart. At last!

With a near-silent sigh, a form slid into the tent beside her. A body settled against her side, and a cool hand brushed against her cheek.

“Mehm—?” Her whisper was cut off as the caress turned steely, a heavy knife blade sliding down her chin to her throat. A great weight settled on her torso, trapping her within her bedroll.

“This in your mouth, lady merchant,” whispered an unfamiliar, harsh voice next to her ear, and a hand pressed cloth against her lips. Terrified, she opened her jaw and let the fingers press yard after yard of filthy, bitter-tasting fabric between her teeth. His weight and the cold blade maintained their pressure while expert hands wrapped rope around her head to secure the cloth in place, then rolled her onto her belly to bind her wrists and elbows behind her. “Now we go on a little adventure,” the voice breathed as he hooded her—needlessly in the utter blackness. Then, silently, the knife’s tip as encouragement, he urged her up and into the moonless night.

Oh, Allah, help me, she thought, I’m being kidnapped!

At first, her body was held tight, and the kiss of the blade guided her staggering steps. After perhaps two hundred paces, though, her captor’s grip on her loosened, and the pace quickened as he switched to pulling her along by the rope around her neck.

The ground beneath her bare feet was hard and rocky, every third step promising some rock to painfully kick or a sharp pebble to stand on, so that she staggered helplessly as he dragged her. The pull of the rope was her guide through a nightmare of pain and fear, since she seemed to walk alone through the silent, endless night.

Finally, though, the journey ended. Blind, shaking and moaning in fear, she could do nothing but stand and wait, ears straining to hear clues.

A tug on the rope dragged her to her knees, and another forced her to sit. A fist drew the hood tight around her head, and the kiss of the blade loosed her bound arms, then returned to her throat, turning her breath to a panicked panting and her limbs to jelly as more hands roughly dragged her arms forward and bound each wrist to an ankle. Three. There were at least three kidnappers—one to hold the knife and two to tie her.

There was a hammering to her left and right, sending vibrations through the hard, rocky ground where she sat, and then they used the ropes around her limbs to tip her backwards. She wailed helplessly into the cloth that sealed her mouth when they pulled her legs apart. They tied her there on her back, spread wide for them, and her sleeping gown betrayed her as it fell away to leave her helplessly exposed to them.

The necklace throbbed, sending a shiver through her. Then, wide awake and in fear for her virginity and her life, she felt its enchantment spreading from her chest throughout her body, calming her racing heart and numbing the sensations of her bondage. The straining sinews of her limbs, the sting of rope at wrist, ankle and throat, the rough pressure of the rocky earth beneath her: all simply faded away until she floated in emptiness, in calm silence and blackness.

Then the dream began, though at first, she didn’t realise it because her dream viewpoint was as bleak as her real life, the lead player in the nightmare just as terrified as she.

* * *

She stood in a cellar lit by flickering oil lamps, their light dancing across a vaulted stone ceiling that rose in arches from each wall and swept inwards to a central column. She stood centre stage, her hands tied behind her and around the column, to an iron ring that rattled with her every movement. At her feet lay the unconscious form of her bodyguard, Lucius, blood oozing from a wound on his forehead. Surrounding them, backs against the walls of the chill room, were perhaps twenty silent figures, their faces devoid of expression as if they slept while they stood and watched.

All but one.

He had supervised as their four captors had dragged them down here, had ordered them to tie her here while he checked that Lucius still breathed. The four stood now among the others, patient and uncaring while he paced the room like a caged lion.

The circle of men and women were a bizarre mixture. Two—a man and woman—were naked. Others were dressed in rags, while a couple wore fine robes. A few of the faces were familiar to her. One of them was... “Senator Galvisius? What is this? What’s happening?”

He didn’t even blink! It was as though their years and years of friendship, of his partnership with her husband on a hundred votes and debates, meant nothing to him.

“How could you participate in this outrage?” she yelled. “Why do you ignore me?”

“He won’t answer you, Lady Portia.” The caged lion spoke as he continued pacing. “He has other priorities now.”

“What? What do you mean?” He was behind her, but his flickering shadow still paced across the figures around her. “Who are you?”

“You know me, Lady Portia Sebastiana.” He ceased his pacing at last and stared her in the face. “You’ve met me a dozen times.”

She squinted back at him. His skin was a fevered crimson in the flickering half-light, his eyes bulging and wild. “Yes, I do know you. Tancinus, or something? I’ve seen you rabble-rousing, campaigning against the Senate. Against my husband.”

“It’s Tasius! Gaius PlautiusTasius! You don’t even remember me, do you?”

“No, not really. And if you think this grotesque charade will intimidate me, you’re mistaken as well as foolish!”

“This is not some show for your benefit!” he screamed spittle into her face. “This is the machinery of my revolution! Soon, my name will not be so easily forgotten!”

She laughed in his face. “Your revolution? This ragtag bunch of freaks and your imitation Senator? This is a joke, not a revolution!”

There was a clatter from the stairs, and three bloodstained figures burst into the cellar.

“At last,” exclaimed Tasius, reeling melodramatically across the cellar. “Tell me you’ve succeeded in your mission.”

“Yes, my lord. General Vindex is dead.” The woman had been very beautiful, with high cheekbones, full lips and a sweet, curvaceous figure, hair and clothes in the tattered remains of the most fashionable style. But her skin and expensive garments were covered in blood, which had dried on her face and arms, and still dripped freely from a deep sword wound below one breast. “I slit his throat as he fucked me,” she said, “but his guards broke through the door and did this.” uncaring, she indicated her mortal wound. “Your two thralls took them by surprise and killed them, and we returned here after ensuring nobody followed us.”

“Are you two wounded?” he barked at her male companions.

“No, my Lord,” they said in unison.

“Good. Stand back.” He studied her injuries as the pair merged with the others. “Barria,” he said, not without sorrow, “this wound goes right through you. Even the torque you wear cannot save you. You know what to do.”

Portia frowned in puzzlement, because the woman’s neck was bare.

“Yes, my Lord,” Barria said. She closed her eyes and spread her arms, seeming to meditate for a moment, and then tiny shards of bright metal emerged from her fingertips, glinting in the lamplight. The knives moved of their own accord, slicing through her flesh, and glistening red things the size of olives fell to the floor. Again the metal glinted, faster and faster, and more little pieces fell away from her. Portia began screaming then, because the bloody fragments were Barria’s fingers, then her arms, neatly diced, and then the rest of her body, until all that remained of the woman was a steaming, stinking pile of flesh.

Portia couldn’t stop screaming. “Aaaaghhh! What sorcery is this? What are you people?”

Tasius dipped a finger into the dismantled woman and brought out a scarlet band, shook off drops of gore with a flick, then opened it and placed it around unconscious Lucius’s throat

The room seemed to wait. Even Portia’s protests tailed off, leaving the room silent but for her panicked panting.

Lucius’s body spasmed. Slowly, unsteadily, then, he rolled over and rose to his knees. His eyes opened, and with more certainty, he stood and faced Tasius. Dried blood still caked his face from the deep gash he had sustained defending her, but the wound had disappeared, leaving no sign of a scar.

“Lucius?” she whispered. “Can you hear me? Are you well?”

His eyes didn’t even flicker toward her. His expression was slack and uncaring.

“Oh no, no! Not you, too!” she wept.

Her captor’s hand reached out to the bodyguard’s throat, and the ring of glistening red came away from the man’s neck. He turned to her and, ignoring her struggles, screams and curses and attempts to bite him, put the thing around her throat.

He whispered into the sudden silence, “You’re mine, now. Cut your bonds, Portia.”

She found that she knew how to make the knives, so she freed her wrists, then healed the tiny cuts they had made and the abrasions the ropes had left. Then, calm and expressionless like the others, she silently stared at Tasius while he spelt out what he wanted of her.

* * *

“Fuck!” she exclaimed, shocking herself awake. That dream had been a rough one.

As ever, her mind struggled for a moment to separate dream and reality. She lay face down, naked on a cold floor. She opened her eyes a crack, expecting to see a flame-lit dungeon, but was assaulted by sunlight streaming through a vast picture window, dazzlingly reflected by Master’s antique hardwood parquet floor, polished by her own hand only two days ago. A few centimetres from her nose was a sock-clad foot—Geoffrey, sprawled on the sofa directly in front of her, gently snoring.

So this was what ‘aftermath’ meant.

She was linked to that mirror-surfaced floor by a short stream of drool running from the corner of her mouth. She rubbed a hand down her face and then lifted herself onto her elbows. The remains of her little fashion show were strewn about the furniture, and a few cushions were out of place, but otherwise, Master’s flat had survived the ordeal undamaged.

She rolled into a cross-legged stance with youthful ease, ignoring the twitch of leg and abdominal muscles voicing their complaint at their recent workout, and stretched back to unwind the kinks in her lower back. It seemed she had survived the ordeal, too.

He wasn’t her Master, capital ‘M’, he was just Dom, and she no longer felt the slightest compulsion to tidy his nest for him.

The toilet flushed, and he strode into the room, his flaccid penis dancing. “Hey, Anna. You’re back.”

She watched him run his eyes over her body, naked but for those same fuck-me heels she had worn to work and a skirt so short that it didn’t reach the floor on which she sat. No, she felt no need to obey him—and no hatred, which surprised her, considering everything he had taken away from her. All she felt was a mild irritation and, she had to confess, a thrill of sexual attraction. She held her stretched-back pose, palms on the floor behind her, chest out.

“You were muttering in your sleep there,” he said, eyes drawn helplessly to her ample torso. “Still getting the dreams, then?”

She blinked. “You know about the dreams?”

“Of course I do. Who was it this time? Yasamin?”

Her mind reeled. She felt like Dom was reading it. “Yes. How could you possibly—“

“When you’ve used the band as often as I have, you get to know all of its secrets. Anyway, it’s usually Yasamin—she wore the necklace for a long, long time.”

He grinned at her shocked expression and was about to say more when Geoffrey snorted loudly from the sofa, then blinked awake. His eyes locked on her. He stared at her in amazed confusion for a moment, and then a grin spread across his face. “Anna! Wow! You look good enough to eat!”

She grated her teeth. “Hello, Geoffrrr... Geoff. Nice socks.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Get me water.”

She was on her feet and heading for the kitchen before her mind even registered the command. Oh God, it was true! She really was his slave.

She watched cool, fresh ice-water flow from jug to glass, but when she blinked, her mind’s eye saw the images from the dream-within-a-dream she had just endured: of zombie-like slaves and a woman dis-assembling herself into a pile of bloody flesh. It was a horror story—a nightmare—but the bloody ring that Tasius had rescued from the heap of meat was the collar in another of its guises. But she was shocked to see the device used for a purpose even worse than manufacturing sex slaves.

She strode, glass in hand, through the calm familiarity of Dom’s brightly lit, modern, safe flat, feeling their eyes on her fuck-doll body as she returned with her new master’s drink, and found herself kneeling to present it to him.

“Good girl,” he said, and her body exploded with the familiar blast of instant ecstasy.

She returned to reality with her head thrown back and her arms thrown wide like some beatified saint, her sex still twitching in the aftermath of the orgasm.

“Thank you, Geoff,” she whispered.

Something was wrong.

Dom, standing behind her, was laughing as if at some hilarious joke. With a frown, she brought her gaze down from the spotlight-strewn ceiling and looked at Geoffrey, who was staring at her in shock, water dripping from his nose and chin.

“What?” she exclaimed, “What just happened?”

Her master and the seat around him were soaking wet. He blinked away drops of water and pointed a finger to her right, where the glass’s shattered remains lay against the wall: the glass that had been full of water, water that was now all over Geoffrey.

She couldn’t stop herself from joining in with Dom’s laughter. “I so wanted to be a good girl,” she giggled.

“It’s a glitch, I admit,” Dom said. “Call it a minor programming issue.”

“I’d call it a glass of water in the face,” Geoffrey muttered, and endured their renewed peals of laughter.

Dom’s hands gently gathered her hair behind her, and she felt the brush of leather enclosing her neck.

The collar!

“No, wait,” she pleaded, “I’ll—”

Her world shifted dizzyingly as though the floor had given way beneath her. The room around her, the furniture, her owner, became as nothing in the presence of her Master, looming god-like over her.

With a shiver, she realised that Master’s hands rested on her shoulders and that he had bent to whisper in her ear. Her whole being centred on that touch, on those whispered words:

“Sleep, pet,” he whispered, “Sleep.”

* * *

Portia and her children were quietly playing when her husband returned, acknowledging Lucius and the other bodyguard with a nod as he passed between them. The boys leapt to their feet at the sight of him. “Daddy, Daddy!” they chorused, running to him.

“Hello, my little senators,” he laughed, “and how have your lessons gone today?”

They chose not to answer, pouting at the memory of their morning’s tutoring.

Consul Caius JucentiusClodian chuckled and gathered his wife in his arms, breathing in the scent of her hair. “Oh Portia, it’s good to be home,” he whispered. “Today was worse than ever.”

She held him close and raised her mouth to his. “Tell me.”

He sighed deeply again and returned her kiss. “Sometimes I think the Senate is destined to descend into anarchy, and I swear I believe more and more that only Galvisius and I stand between this upstart warmonger Tasius and his bloody revolution.”

“Tasius. Yes, We’ve met.”

“Arrogant and petty, a child in a man’s body,” he growled, “yet he seems to live this charmed life. Spies we send into these meetings of his come back spying on us.”

“But you and Galvisius still hold the majority in the Senate—and popular opinion.” She caught Lucius’s eye and exchanged a tiny nod, then glanced at the boys, already bored of the adult talk and returned to their self-absorbed games.

“Popular opinion!” he scoffed. “Popular opinion is digested fresh every morning with breakfast. Our circle of senators needs to work hard just to keep the populace on our side.”

“But you are the figurehead for the old guard.” He smiled at her use of the military phrase. “The people will always rally around you.”

“Yes, I believe so, and it’s my only solace. That, and knowing that you will always be here with me.”

“Yes, my love. Tasius believes that too,” she whispered in his ear and quietly extended a blade through the base of his skull.

His death was instant, and there was little blood. She glanced down at the boys, still playing, oblivious to the murder, and with more than human strength, she gently lowered her husband’s body so that he reclined on a chair. She locked eyes with Lucius as she sat and gathered her children in her arms, and she slit their throats at the very moment his sword entered the second guard’s heart.

They had murdered four in a few violent, silent moments. Lucius cleaned his sword on his dead colleague’s robe and walked over to her, looking down at the bloody tableau. “It’s all as he ordered, my lady,” he said. “I’ll deal with the kitchen staff once we finish here. All that remains is your suicide and my taking of the band from your body. You know what to do.”

“Yes, Lucius.” Calmly, she let the collar become visible metal about her neck, then commanded it to constrict, neatly slicing her head from her body.

* * *

Pain! Pain and darkness! The scene of calm slaughter and suicide had become a black nightmare of torment and screaming and the stink of excrement and blood.

Was this Jahannam? Was this the eternal Hell she faced for killing her children and stealing the necklace?

The pain in the sinews of her upper legs was very real, as was the terrible tearing agony in her most private place, and with every stab of pain, there was an animalistic grunt and a slap of flesh on flesh.

She was being raped. She was not Portia; she was Yasamin, still tied in just the same way after who knew how long, and they were going to rape her to death.

Panic confused her mind, blurring the distinction between dream memories and reality. Amidst her cries of pain, she still wept at the fresh horror of Portia’s murders of her husband and children, at the memory of the blood welling from the rips in their little throats, cut by blades she had conjured up from nothing.

Again the necklace throbbed, stinging her panic away, letting her think.

She was Yasamin, hooded, tied and ravaged, but alive and real. Portia had been a nightmare, but maybe a lesson, too. How had Portia made those blades grow out of her body?

Yes! With tiny blades, she parted her bonds with a quiet snick. And then, with one hand, she pulled away the sack that covered her head and stared into her attacker’s eyes.

She had expected a filthy, stinking, snarling monster, and he was all of those. She had expected victorious rage or even surprise over her sudden ability to use her hands, but she saw mindless panic instead. He finally noticed that she was watching him and cried, “What have you done to me, you witch? Ahh, Allah help me, I can’t stop!”

He thrust and thrust, each impact drawing a whistle of expelled air from her. The necklace had removed the pain, and she could feel the magic gradually, slyly turning his pummeling of her into pleasure.

Repelled by him, she turned her head away from his panting and looked around the large tent—at three more would-be rapists. Two of them, naked and bloody and lewdly erect, fought each other, trading punches and kicks in a hysterical frenzy. The third had already lost the fight. He lay face-up beside them, his hard penis poking into the air like a short flagpole, forming a mismatched pair with a long knife buried in his chest.

This scene of madness was the necklace’s doing, she realised. Memories from her dozens of dreams told her of the ways that the juices of those wearing the band could be made to drive sexual partners crazy, or drug them, or kill them. While she dreamed of Portia, the necklace had turned her attackers, with their well-planned and executed kidnap, into frenzied, mindless sex demons, leaving them at her mercy.

Her panic had turned to disgust. These were common thieves, casual rapists and probably just as casual murderers, and they deserved all she was about to deal them.

Gently, she wrapped her arms and legs around her assailant’s body and hugged him close. At last, her over-assertive lover’s face showed some surprise at her freedom from her bonds, but his attack did not slow. For a while, she let him—and found the sensation of penetration surprisingly enjoyable now that the necklace had taken away the pain. Nevertheless, she felt no guilt as she caressed the back of his neck with a hand and, copying Portia’s first murder, grew a blade into his skull.

His pummelling ended with a final spasm, and his dead weight settled on her, still impaling her even in death. For a moment, panic gripped her again, her arms and legs flailing beneath him, but she remembered her dream of Portia once more, braced her hands beneath his enormous chest and, with intoxicating ease, threw him away.

She rolled to one side, and noticed for the first time that her body had changed. A heavy breast rested against one arm, and as she turned against the hard earth, she found that a generous layer of womanly padding protected her bony hips. It was the necklace again, moulding her into the shape she had so long desired, enchanting her kidnappers into violating her and daubing themselves with her poisoned juices.

The eyes of her two remaining assailants were drawn to her as she stood and brushed away dust from her sweetly feminine flesh. Their faces twisted into feral snarls, and they advanced upon her, cocks dancing enthusiastically. She backed away from them instinctively, but she need not have worried because they had barely taken a single step before they seemed to notice each other, rivals in love, and the battle began again.

She found herself smiling. Despite their rapacious lust, she had nothing to fear from these men. As they circled and lunged at one another, she found it easy to grab one of them by his long hair, pull his head back and break his neck with a savage twist.

The sole survivor watched her throw his rival’s body away, then gurgled a victorious laugh, his member swelling obscenely.

“What is your name?” she whispered as he advanced on her, but he seemed beyond speech. On an impulse then, she spread her arms to him, blissfully permitting him to bear her to the ground and bury his desperately hard cock inside her.

He was an animal, mouth foaming as he ranted incoherently and ravished her in a fury, but she turned the violence of his attack into purest pleasure, let him drive her slowly and deliciously to her climax. Sated, then, she slit his throat.

* * *

...the rough edge of the leather collar slid against the flesh of her shoulder, and she blinked under the harsh LED light of Dom’s bathroom.

“Fuck! What the Fuck?”

She dove for a corner and retreated into a shivering ball. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...”

“Shhh, calm down,” whispered Dom’s familiar voice, “it was a dream. Just a dream.”

“No!” she turned on him and battered him away, then wrapped her head in her hands. “It all really happened! She- They- Oh fuck! Yasamin chose to do that! To kill those guys!”

“Ah,” he said, “Yasamin’s rebirth.”

“Jesus! Is that what you call it? ‘Rebirth?’” She took a shuddering breath and felt again the remembered sting of the blade growing out of her thumb, the hot spray of rapist blood across her face. The memories were just too painful. She rounded on him instead. “How do you even know this? Have you got it all written down somewhere? Bedtime stories for psychopaths?”

“Not exactly.” He took her face in his hands and locked eyes with her. “Anna, calm down.”

At last, she managed to catch her breath and control the shivering. She placed a shaking leg under her, and, with the help of his steadying hand, she made it to her feet. “That was the worst ever.”

“Are you back in the room?” he breathed, and for the first time, she realised he was showing her a lot more than just a glimmer of sympathy. “OK, let’s check you in the mirror.”

The same familiar stranger stared back at her. Perfect, freshly showered, rinse-clean hair framed a teen magazine face in permanently gaudy party makeup, with no blood spatters at all. Her eyes were bright and startlingly blue. For the first time, she noticed that she, too, was dressed, more or less. During her reprogramming, that obscene skirt had been replaced with something a little more legal, and her chest covered in a pink boob tube—she wore a total of four items counting the strappy heels that seemed to have become the heart of her wardrobe. Eyeshadow blended artfully from the blue of her eyes to the precise shade of her top and her glossy lips.

Dom, dressed in his usual lounging attire of jeans and tee-shirt, rested his hands on her shoulders, and she found she didn’t mind his touch at all.

“How old are you, Anna?”

She frowned. A gentleman never asks that of a lady, but they were a million miles beyond such silly politeness. “Thirty Four.”

“Wrong! By any measure that matters, you’re eighteen, with the agile mind and body of an eighteen-year-old. And the life expectancy.”

“So I get to live an extra sixteen years of slavery, ripped from my life, friends, and career, stuck instead with these fucking nightmares, and this -and I choose my words with infinite care—total jerk!”

“Anna, it’s not as bleak as you paint it. Well, about the friends and career, and the jerk, yes. But the dreams tail off fast after the collar’s gone, and there are long-term compensations.”

“Really? Long term?” She was increasingly struggling to match his low voice. “And what happens when I’m middle-aged again? Is there much market for wrinkly sex dolls?”

“It won’t ever come to that. The collar is always going to be here to rejuvenate you.”

“Oh goody. An eternity of service to Geoff’s little wiener.”

He moved in close and whispered in her ear. “Geoff is, what? Fifty? And a slob, lazy and unhealthy, and just embarking on the pizza and hard sex diet. How long will he last? And then the money goes to…?”

She stared back at his face reflected in the bathroom mirror.

“And don’t worry about the little weiner. Your sweet juices have some,” he grinned mischievously, “surprising properties. Let’s go and find Geoffrey.”

* * *

“Fixed?” said a showered and fully clothed Geoffrey, emerging from the guest suite.

“Fixed,” Dom confirmed, “and ready to go.”

Anna looked down at herself, at the four items she wore. “No coat? Is ‘hooker’ in style this season?” she fumed. “The two of you can not seriously expect me to go outside dressed like this!”

Dom grinned and raised an eyebrow as he opened the flat door. “‘Hooker’ is always in style, Anna.”

Geoffrey snorted. “Dominic, thank you for everything. I’ll be in touch.”

“Any time, Geoff.”

“No! Seriously,” Anna pleaded, “I can’t!”

“Anna, shut up and follow me,” Geoffrey commanded her as he headed for the stairs.

And she did.