The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“So you’ve bought the place, then?”

“Well I haven’t taken to acts of charity just yet, if that’s what you mean.” Alice lifted her head until she could peer down the length of the bar, finding the old man seated at the end of it. He’d found the storeroom and its remaining stash of whiskey. “It only looks banjaxed, granda. Once the electricians get the place wired properly, it’ll brighten right up in here.”

“Yes, but why here, Lissie? There’s no shortage of pubs back home. No shortage of drunk old men, either.” He held up the bottle and examined its label. “Parsons. Hmph. I should have known the Germans wouldn’t know their arse from their elbow when it came to whiskey.”

Alice resumed her scrubbing and polishing. The entire bar was full of metal bits and trim. Most of it was garish and ugly, the product of a post-Wall rehab, but the old bar and its brass fittings had somehow managed to survive both Communism and the Nineties. She attacked the last stubborn stain at the far end of the bar, grateful to have at least one task on her checklist completed.

“Is that it, then?” She narrowed her eyes as she spoke, a shared joke that dated back to her childhood. “Did you come all the way to Berlin just to complain about the local selection?”

“What can I say? It was either this or Tunisia again. I got tired of battling the Germans over deck chairs and decided to take the fight to their homeland. And as much as I hate to admit it, the liquor here is still better than the watered-down stuff you get down there.”

The last bits of greenish crud fell away, revealing the dull, warm metal beneath. Alice sighed happily. The old bar was one of the nicest features of the entire club, second only to its convenient location. Alice didn’t know a thing about tending bar—she’d have to hire someone trustworthy for that, and soon—but she imagined that such a handsome antique would draw more than a few appreciative eyes.

“Are you going to help, granda? You could help now and then, you know.” She slid her rag down the bar. Thanks to her earlier polishing efforts, it made it all the way to where he was sitting in one smooth motion.

He laughed, and hoisted his glass to his lips. “I am helping! I’ll have you know that I’ve had four of your new girls up to ninety since… oh, I’d say about half eight? It’s amazing how hard a person will work once you’ve scrubbed all of those other thoughts and purposes from their little minds. The blonde one’s quite a looker, too. I may have her cut out of work a bit early.”

“Orla won’t be happy to hear that.”

“Orla will feel whichever way I tell her to feel.”

“Fair enough. Now that you’re working them half to death, how am I supposed to explain their sore arms and shoulders tomorrow morning? Program them to ignore their muscles? Convince them that they’re hung over?”

Even from the other end of the bar, she could see the twinkle in his eye.

“Nothing of the sort, Lissie. I’ve already handled it! Convinced them that those bags of loose springs you call ‘mattresses’ are actually the most comfortable beds on the planet. They’ll sleep like infants tonight, and feel perfectly normal come morning. ‘Best sleep ever,’ they’ll say, and they’ll mean it, too.”

“You’re fucking brilliant, granda. I ever tell you that?”

“Language, Lissie! And yes, many times. All you have to remember is what I’ve already taught you. Let them think that what they’re getting is what they want, even if it’s really what you want. Then they’ll do anything you ask of them. Lovely paint color you’ve chosen, by the way. Don’t know why the Communists had such a bad taste in interior decoration.”

Alice climbed onto the stool next to him and took the glass he offered to her. She closed her eyes and downed the entire shot, in part because of the nasty sting that whatever passed for German whiskey imparted on her body, but mostly to hide the tears that lingered behind her eyelids.

“Granda… I don’t want this to be our last time together,” she said, her voice crumbling. “I don’t…”

“Lissie.” He placed a gentle hand between her shoulders. “I can’t hypnotize the cancer any more than I can hypnotize your mother into being a decent human being. Some things just are, dearie. You must understand that.”

“I know.” She knew, but it didn’t seem fair. Not one bit. Not when other, terrible people got to live to beyond a century. Not when she was just getting started out on her own, with a hostel and a nightclub to her name, and a dozen beautiful girls now thoroughly under her spell. Not when there was so much more to do, so much more that he’d be so proud of…

“Enough of that, lass! Let an old man drink and smoke and lavish attention and money on his lovely granddaughter, even if she was daft enough to choose Berlin, of all places, to set up business.” He chuckled, his voice as warm and deep as the brown liquid he was adding to his glass. “Do you know how much you could have gotten in Dublin for the price of what you’ve spent here?”

“A shop about the size of that bottle, most likely!”

His laugh echoed through the dusty nightclub. “Sounds about right! Should have sold my plot, let them build three houses on top of it!”

She reached for the bottle and poured more than her better judgment would have approved of, hoping to find herself in that perfect spot between too drunk and not drunk enough.

“I owe all of this to you. The bar, the hostel, the money to buy them, the funds to upgrade them… all thanks to you and hypnosis. Hypnosis, of all things! The future’s wide open now. Every girl I hypnotize will bring three of her friends back with her the next time, then nine, then… well, whatever that is! Fuck, granda! Promise me you’ll stick around long enough to see that, please?” The tears welled up again, stinging her eyes. “Please promise me that.”

“Lissie, if there’s one thing I can offer, it’s this. I’m being serious now, so listen closely. No jokes.”

Her smile vanished. “No jokes, granda. I mean it.”

“Good.” He looked her in the eyes, but his gaze stretched well beyond her face, as if he were reaching through time to speak instead to his younger self. “I know the possibilities are intoxicating, dearie. But don’t linger too long in this business. It will… it’ll change you. For the worse. It always does. My whole life, I’ve kept myself at a good distance from it, always at the edge of the pitch, never on it. And it’s changed me all the same.”

“You don’t seem any different.” She immediately pictured Orla, naked and crawling about on all fours. “A bit more randy than the average old man, but…”

“No jokes!” he barked, causing a stunned Alice to nearly fall from her stool. “I mean it! Of all the things I’ve taught you, this one is most important. This is your life at stake here, so pay attention!”

She lowered her head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, be wise. A day will come, long after I’m gone, so you can’t ask me if it’s this day or that… a day will come when you’ll have to know that it’s time to quit. That you can’t… shan’t go any further. It’s when you wake up in the morning and all you can think about is who might be out to get you, who might be out to steal your girls, who you might put over before the day is done. That’s the day, Lissie, that you leave this business forever.”

“But you never left it,” she protested. “Literally today, you’re here putting those Liverpool girls under and having them scrub my floors. You’ll be shagging one of them tonight, won’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s diff—”

“How? How is that any different?”

He reached for the bottle, and gave it a shake. “Well, we tore through that, didn’t we?”

“Granda…”

“Just promise your dying grandfather this one thing, dearie. That when you’ve got enough to settle down properly, you’ll do exactly that. Settle down. Find yourself an Orla and retire. Save your hypnosis for your friends, and the nosy neighbors, and the local constable, and whatever lovely grandchildren you may have. But don’t get caught up in the tit-for-tat business. The mobsters. The gangs. The assassins. Know when to leave the mind control business for good.”

He fell silent. His eyes, sad and blue and wet with tears, never left hers. It was a side of him that Alice rarely saw. Reflective. Pensive, even. She opened her mouth to speak, and found that she couldn’t.

“I’d never forgive myself, Lissie,” he said. “I didn’t teach you all of this to have you… for you to destroy your soul. What we do is dirty, and illegal, and profitable… but you must never let it become you.”

“I understand. I promise. When it’s time… I promise.”

“Good. And no harems, Alice Cunningham!” His eyes brightened as he raised his voice. “Nothing but trouble, they are! I don’t care how mindless you make them, there’s always a scrum when you walk through the front door after a long day. ‘Let me serve you, no, let me serve you, master! No, me first!’ Pfft. Rubbish! All one really needs in life is one very devoted and very brainwashed slave…”

“So, what else?”

Celeste looked up from her textbook, more than a little annoyed at the interruption. Her management classes weren’t going to take themselves, and her new slate of professors were already turning out to be much more demanding than the old gang back in New York. If she didn’t get at least one chapter wrapped before the end of the day, if not two…

“What else about what?” she asked, knowing exactly what—no, who—the subject of that question was.

“About Mistress Rebecca. I wanna know everything about her.” Zoe sat cross-legged on the couch, her twinkling blue eyes locked on Celeste instead of the television. “Like, even the things she’d never tell me.”

“Mmmm!” Kayla, upon hearing the magical phrase Mistress Rebecca, came running back into the room, leaving a fairytale trail of popcorn kernels in her wake. “Mmmph y-yeah, I wanna know, too! Is she bi? Is she full-on gay? Is she gentle?”

“Where does she like to be touched?”

Kayla set her bowl on the coffee table, fully caught up in the endless possibilities that Celeste, her new sisterly fountain of knowledge, could provide. “Ooh! What’s her favorite vibrator brand, huh?”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it’s Hitachi, Kayla. God! Please don’t act like that in front of Mistress Rebecca! I mean, Jesus! Ask some better questions!”

“You ask better questions! I want to know! I need to know!”

Celeste scrunched her nose. She raised her textbook until it was blocking her bickering slaves from view, a thick paper shield protecting her academic future from the sexy, brainwashed heathens. The endless discussion about Mistress drifted around it and into her ears, distracting her in the middle of each paragraph, wiping her brain of everything the book was trying to teach her. After five fruitless minutes spent reading and re-reading the same passage, she threw down the book in disgust.

“Girls!” She decided to start over, properly. “Slaves! You will listen to me, understood? Listen and obey me.”

Both girls stopped in mid-argument, their eyes glazing over as Celeste’s voice washed over them. Kayla’s arms, raised to argue a particularly minor point, fell to her sides with soft plops.

“Yes, Celeste,” she droned.

“I’ll always listen carefully to you, Celeste,” Zoe agreed.

“Good.” Celeste bent down and recovered the book from the floor, miffed to discover that one of its corners had taken some damage in the fall. A hundred bucks brand new, they’re gonna give me ten cents turning it back in. She set it aside and tried not to think about it. Worst-case scenario, she could always make someone else pay for it. Someone like Zoe, or Kayla, or… no, these two are more than I can handle as it is!

“I know you’re eager to learn, and I love that. I’m totally happy to answer some questions about Mistress Rebecca.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew it was a mistake to say them. Zoe immediately snapped back into full awareness. “Oh, cool! So, does Mistress Rebecca like blondes or brunettes the best?”

“But. BUT, Zoe!” Celeste looked around the room, searching in vain for an understanding face, finding only Kayla and Zoe staring back at her with dopey, puppy dog smiles. Kayla had an understanding face, once upon a time, until Celeste brainwashed it away. Rebecca would know what to do. Rebecca always knows what to do.

“But… I need to study. I really need to study. And you both have stuff to do too, right? Classes and shit?” Her voice grew more confident as she thought of more things to say. “If we flunk out of school, we won’t be able to stay here with Mistress Rebecca, right?” She watched their eyes widen into saucers as the horror of being Mistress-less sunk in. “Right. So, you both should go. For now! We can hang later.”

“Okay,” said Kayla. She didn’t sound okay at all. “I guess we can go.”

Zoe stood and stretched again, treating Celeste to another view of her incredibly toned body. “Yeah.. I honestly don’t care about anything but Mistress Rebecca, Celeste, but you’re right. We should probably get some stuff done, or something.”

Celeste bit her lip. She could let the girls walk out the door, their minds automatically erasing all of the brainwashing/slavery bits of the day with fun but unsexy memories of hanging out with their cool new friend, the pretty coed from upstate New York. Their absence would leave no excuse for buckling down on the schoolwork Celeste absolutely needed to get done. Once Rebecca got back, there’d be no time for Marketing textbooks.

But on the other hand…

“Huh? What did you say, Celeste?” Kayla tilted her head, like a dog hearing an unknown human word, and Celeste felt her resistance crumble. There was something about the look in those eyes, confused and a little dazed, that made her forget all about her textbooks and responsibility. What the hell, there’s time.

“Before you go,” she said, speeding through the words before Responsible Celeste could stop her, “your obedience is perfect and total.”

The trigger hit both girls as they were in motion, causing Kayla to crash back down into the couch’s embrace, and for Zoe to topple over until she was resting awkwardly on Kayla’s lower legs. They remained that way, in spite of the obvious discomfort, their attention fixed solely on Celeste.

“Our obedience is perfect and total,” they said, their voices syncing in a way that made Celeste’s cunt hum.

“Okay,” Celeste said, as much to herself as to her sexy playthings. “When I snap my fingers, you’re going to spend the next fifteen minutes making out with each other. Then…” she glanced over at the clock in the kitchen, and reconsidered. “Okay, for the next ten minutes. Then I gotta study. Remember, you have to practice for Mistress Rebecca.”

“Practice,” Zoe said, licking her lips. “I must be perfect for my Mistress.”

“Perfect for Mistress.” Kayla was already reaching for her top. “I must practice for my Mistress.”

The point of the trigger was to have the two girls practice in their dorm rooms, or even with other girls in their circle—the last thing Mistress needed after a long flight from Europe was a clumsy attempt at lovemaking from two slaves newly interested in girls—but Celeste was feeling lonely, and horny.

Snap.

Zoe scrambled across the couch and pinned her friend down before the other girl could react. She brushed the hair away from Kayla’s pretty face and leaned in for a long, passionate kiss. “For our Mistress,” she breathed, hands disappearing behind Kayla’s head and pulling her into a tight embrace. Kayla responded with a happy, low purr, her eyes rolling back in her head before closing.

Celeste’s hand plunged into her pants. Her panties were very, very damp.

“So, we’re all alone.” Celeste sank into their new couch, surprised at how soft it was given how little they’d spent on it. Way more comfortable than the futon she’d left behind in Troy. “What should we mmmmmmphh mmmmnnnn mmmmm… damn, you move fast!”

“I think,” said Rebecca, slipping her arms around her girlfriend and moving in for another devastating round of kisses, “that we should skip the bedroom for now.”

“You’re so sexy when you’re a dom.” Celeste wiggled out of her jeans as Rebecca did the same. “I like it.”

“Well, you are my slave. My willing, beautiful, amazing slavegirl.”

Their lips met like shy lovers, touching and breaking away and touching again, until Rebecca pounced. They toppled sideways, giggling and groping and kissing as they shed themselves of their remaining clothes. Rebecca laid a trail of wet kisses between Celeste’s neck and her burning, eager pussy, pausing only to wink seductively before pushing between the brunette’s legs. Celeste closed her eyes and, in short order, began to moan. “Mmmmm… you-

“—dirty little whore!” Kayla placed her hands on the blonde’s ass and squeezed. “I am going to make you come so hard…”

Zoe’s head was buried between Kayla’s tits. She mumbled something about Mistress Rebecca in response, but the words were lost in the brunette’s cleavage.

Mistress Rebecca… Celeste glanced at the clock. Five minutes left? Five and fifteen seconds. Wait, am I counting down?

She was, which surprised her. Part of it was that it felt like Kayla and Zoe had already been going at it, tongues and lips and hands and moans and all, for way more than five minutes. But also… the sight of two beautiful, brainwashed women making out at her command wasn’t nearly as sexy as she’d first imagined.

“Porn videos make me sad.” Celeste wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s soft, inviting body. She took a deep breath, letting Rebecca’s perfume wash through her nose. Rebecca always smelled nice.

“That’s a random observation.” Rebecca snickered as she adjusted her body, leaning to her left so that Celeste could fall against her. “Why do they make you sad?”

“I dunno. Why watch when you can do, I guess? Watching them jus makes me think of the things I could be doing myself. To my hot girlfriend. Just a random thing, I guess. I feel the same way about strip clubs.”

“You’re the only porn star and stripper that I care about, baby.”

“Aw!” Celeste leaned in and kissed Rebecca on the cheek. “That’s so weird and awkward and sweet all at the same time!”

“I love you, Celeste.”

“I love you so damn much, Rebecca.”

“Girls.” The volume of Celeste’s voice surprised herself, and her body involuntarily stiffened. “Listen to me. Stop making out now.”

Every subject interpreted commands in their own way. Brainwashing and programming helped to standardize things, but on a micro-level, each girl would carry out her orders as she saw best to do so, not necessarily exactly in the way their hypnotist intended. To Celeste’s amusement, her slaves chose instead to literally stop, freezing mid-kiss, the tip of Zoe’s tongue pressed against Kayla’s lips.

Amusing, but also depressing. There were two hot girls seated on the couch, but neither of them was Rebecca. Neither of them were as funny, or cute, or sweet. They would never willingly get on a plane and fly right back to the lion’s den to save a friend. In their waking lives they were vain, petty, more than a little bitchy, and obsessed with parties and lacrosse.

When they weren’t hypnotized, they were nothing like Rebecca.

Then again, who was?

Her Mistress was off saving the world and here she was, safe at home, fucking around with a couple of background extras from a sorority movie. Mistress was the ant, and she was the grasshopper. “Welcome back, Rebecca! I made some new slaves for you, because I had nothing better to do, because I’m just frivolous and irrelevant and if you like that, you’re gonna love these two!”

“You know what? Just go. Get fully dressed, grab your things, and leave. Remember only what I told you to remember.”

Their faces smoothed into empty obedience, and they pulled away from each other. “I will remember only what you told me to remember,” Zoe droned. Kayla may have joined in, but Celeste was no longer interested in their responses. She wanted them gone. She wanted Rebecca back.

“Good,” she said. She picked up her textbook and buried herself in it, physically and mentally, until she heard the front door close. By then, she’d already begun to cry.

“Heya, boss!”

Grace—the real deal, not the meek and brainwashed version—greeted Rebecca and Mistress as they slipped into a deserted Club Trabant with Leslie in tow. They glanced around the bar. No sign of Alice, although the Irish woman seemed to delight in appearing out of nowhere in the middle of someone else’s conversation.

“Alice is upstairs in the office,” Grace confirmed. “You can go up, if you want. No one’s been in all day.” She was restocking clean glasses, a herculean effort at a bar like Club Trabant, where hundreds of half-consumed pints littered every horizontal surface by closing time. What Alice really needed was an assistant to run the Club, not the hostel.

Rebecca, not looking forward to dealing with Alice, opted to procrastinate. “Leslie, why don’t you go back up the street to the hostel and wait for us there? Grab a seat at the desk. Tell them I sent you, okay?”

“Yes, Rebecca.” The redhead turned and marched out of the club. Her exit allowed another icy blast of Berlin winter to sneak inside.

“Fuck me,” said Grace. “It’s cold as fuck out there today. Peter called in sick, said he got a cold after being out last night.” She cleared her throat, a worried look on her face. “I hope I don’t get fucking sick. I got bills to pay.”

“Ask Alice for a raise. She’s got plenty of cash, trust me.”

Grace laughed. “I fucking love you, you know that? I admire your balls, but trust me, new girl asks for raise, new girl gets sent packing. That’s how this business works. Now, when I’ve got a couple dozen drooling German boys all lined up outside at the start of each of my shifts? Then… then, Rebecca, I ask Alice for a raise.”

“So… like next month?”

“Next week. If I didn’t catch whatever Peter’s sick with, you know?”

Rebecca leaned against the old, sturdy bar, resting her elbows on its polished surface. This is nice. This is normal. Why couldn’t our trip just be this, Mistress? “So… do you… need help with the dishes?”

“Nah. It’s a workout for me. See? Lunges, calf raises, workin’ my arms here, little bit of shoulder work… how else do you think I keep my fine ass in shape? I gotta burn off those beer calories.” She plunged a mug into the sink with both hands and began to scrub it, her boobs moving freely beneath a thin college sweatshirt.

Holy shit, Rebecca. I mean, God. Damn!

Right? I shouldn’t have let her eat me out, though. That wasn’t right. Celeste-

Celeste got us into that in the first place! Besides, we can make it up to Grace. Let’s do what we do best. Call it Operation Leslie Part Two. You up for it?

Rebecca was. “I can fix this,” she said through her teeth. “I can.”

“Say something, boss?”

Rebecca looked up to find Grace staring at her, head resting on soapy hands, leaning across the bar with a concerned look on her face. “You okay, Rebecca?”

“Grace,” said Mistress, lowering her voice. “It’s very important that you listen very carefully to my voice. And look at the pretty lights. Can you see them?”

Grace smiled briefly, amused by the ridiculous nature of Mistress’s request. The club was unlit and dark in every corner save for the bar itself, and if Grace even remembered the hypnotic dance lights at all, she certainly didn’t remember what they did to her. Could do to her.

But a part of her did remember, and that part quickly turned her bemused smile into a blank, open-lipped stare. Her eyes glazed over. “I…” she stammered. “I… um… they um…”

“You do see them, don’t you? Good girl. They’re swirling around the club, around your head, around mine, too. So pretty and yellow, flashing into your eyes, Grace. Flash. Flash.”

“Flash.” The invisible lights held her will now, just as surely as the real ones had taken control of it on the night she’d unwittingly saved them all from Edwin and Amanda. “Flash. I am obedient.”

“Empty your mind of all thoughts, Grace. Let the pretty yellow lights take their place. The lights, and my voice.”

“Of course, Rebecca,” she sighed, a deflating balloon leaking willpower instead of air. “I am obedient.”

“You will go deep into trance now.”

“I will go deep into trance for you, Rebecca.”

Do you want to do the rest, Rebecca?

Rebecca did, even more than she wanted to leap over the bar and strip off the shapely bartender’s clothes, allowing herself a replay of the sexy times they’d had upstairs in Alice’s office. She looked into Grace’s fluttering eyes. “Sleep, Grace.”

“Uhnnn.” The fluttering eyes stopped fluttering, lowering themselves in a way that reminded Rebecca of twin garage doors.

“Okay. Let’s see what we can do, Mistress. Grace, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Rebecca.” Her voice, so soft and demure in trance, the exact opposite of her usual self. That was a problem; it hinted that Grace, for all of her hardass-ness, harbored a desire to be dominated. Controlled. Programmed. Of course Alice had gotten her hooks into her. Someone in Berlin would have, eventually.

Eventually, someone else might give it a try anyway, surprising Grace on the way home from Club Trabant with a hypno-screen like Edwin’s, or a will-flattening drug like Alice’s, or maybe just an old-fashioned hypno-talent like Rebecca. But someone, eventually. Grace was far too pretty to avoid being fought over.

Rebecca took a deep breath. “I want you to imagine a big bathroom mirror, Grace. One that’s covered in steam after you’ve had a nice, long, relaxing hot shower. Can you do that for me?”

“Mmmm, yes…”

“When I give you a command, you’ll imagine the words appearing on the mirror, as if I’ve written the command on it with my finger. You’ll read it back to me. And then the steam will fog up the mirror again and it will disappear.”

“It will disappear.”

“But you’ll remember it, deep in your own mind. No one else will see anything but a mirror. Only you will remember what you saw on it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Rebecca.”

That was a good sign. Grace was smart and inquisitive. Smart, stubborn, willful girls made the best subjects. She knew that Alice had seen that in Grace, too. “You’re strong, and free, and independent.”

“Heck yeah…” A bit of fire blazed behind her empty eyes before the trance snuffed it out. “I’m… I’m that…”

Keep that fire burning, Grace. “So even though Alice controls your mind when you’re deep in trance, when you’re awake, you’ll always be that same old Grace. You’ll always be strong and free and independent. And hot as shit. And strong. Very strong.”

A smile crossed her placid, peaceful face. “Always.”

“You won’t let Alice push you around. You won’t let Alice reprogram your waking self. In fact, you won’t let anyone try to hypnotize you, except for Alice.”

“I… I won’t?”

“No, Grace. When you are deep in trance, you’ll obey Alice without question.” There was no fighting that one, not without at least a week of deprogramming and a vengeful Alice just waiting to exact her revenge. The best they could hope for was to keep Free Grace from drifting too far into Slave Grace’s lane. “But you will obey Alice without question only when you are in trance. When you wake up, and become yourself, you’ll be able to shake off any suggestions she’s given to you, because Awake Grace is very, very strong.”

“Strong and willful,” Mistress added. “When you are awake, you will obey only your true self. Nobody else. Obedience is for Slave Grace. Slave Grace is obedient.”

“Slave Grace is obedient.”

“Awake Grace is not. Awake Grace is free.”

“Awake Grace is free,” said Grace. Her eyebrows darted up, her sleepy brain finally making the connection they were hoping it would make. “When I am awake, I am strong. When I am asleep, I will obey.”

“Very good, Grace!” Rebecca reached for the girl’s arm and gave it a quick, playful shake. “Good girl! One more thing. Just one more thing, Grace, and then you can go back to being nice and sleepy. Okay?”

“Mmm. Yes, Rebecca. Anything for you. Slave Grace is obedient.”

Grace’s tongue, pressed against their burning sex. The edge of the paneled office door pressing sharply into their flesh as they pressed equally hard against it, their hand curled around the doorknob in a death grip as their arousal built and built and built and…

“Ahem.” Rebecca shook her head, and thought about the other things that happened upstairs in Alice’s office. That was more than enough to switch off her internal heat, and brought her neatly back to her original point. “When you decide to leave this job, you’ll just go. You won’t tell Alice. You just won’t come to work that day. Instead, you’ll leave town and never come back. Understand?”

“Yes, Rebecca.”

“The mirror is fogged over. What does it say?”

“Nothing, Rebecca.”

“Good. Now count backwards from one hundred. When you reach zero, you will wake up, and remember only that I came in and we chatted for a little bit. You will not notice the change in time or anything else unusual. Understood?”

“Yes, Rebecca.”

“Well, that should do it,” said Rebecca. The glassy-eyed bartender did not respond. “Remember Grace, when we leave the bar and go upstairs, you’ll wake up, and remember only that we had a nice, fun chat for a little bit. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Rebecca.”

Do you think Alice will know?

Why would she, Mistress? We didn’t break any rules, same as with Leslie. But hopefully it will get her out of this town before somebody really nasty comes after her. Like Edwin.

Or another Alice.

“Rebecca!”

Alice swept across the office faster than Rebecca could retreat, catching her in an awkward, but thankfully brief embrace. It reminded Rebecca of childhood days at the beach, of the one wave in ten that would rush ashore faster and higher than all of the others, soaking her flip-flops before she could clamber to safer ground. Shit, if that’s not a metaphor for the last six months of our life…

Because she’s always ten steps ahead?

Always, yeah.

Not when we hypnotized her, Rebecca. Mistress’s inner voice was soothing, calming, almost as if she were trying to hypnotize Rebecca herself. It felt good, and Rebecca felt her nerves calm down to a manageable level. If she’s ten steps ahead, we’re twenty.

“Dearie!” Alice was never one to let anyone finish a thought. “I take it by Leslie’s absence that Edwin agreed to our little offer, then? I must say, I’m more than a bit surprised. He’s never been much of a reasoner.”

“Leslie’s at the hostel,” said Rebecca. To her surprise, Alice seemed to brighten at the news. “Edwin told us that we were wasting his time and that he knew Leslie was just going to be a mole spying on him, blah blah blah.”

“But you knew that,” added Mistress. “Didn’t you?”

“If you’re asking if I’m daft, dearie, then the answer is no.” Alice retreated, as quickly as the waves in Rebecca’s memory, and took a seat behind her desk. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know what most men want. Most women, too. Mind you, some of them still manage to surprise me, but not many!”

“Including us.”

“You and Celeste?” Alice rolled her glacial blue eyes, and laughed. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Rebecca, I’ll be quite happy to be rid of you once and for all! And now that Edwin’s been dealt with, there’ll be no more attempts on Emily.”

“Dealt with?”

Alice was too wrapped up in her own story to notice the question. “And consequently, dearie, no further need for you or Celeste to be involved in any of my future business. Which includes Leslie, I might add. I hope you didn’t try filling her head with a bunch of rebellious nonsense! If you did, I’m afraid it’s all going to come out in the wash.”

“Not a thing,” she lied. “I told you, Alice. We’re getting out of the mind control business for good.”

“Well, while you ponder that new and exciting venture, I’m rather busy arranging for a new assistant. It’s fair to say that our business relationship is at an end, Rebecca Sanders. And not a moment too soon!”

The mention of a new assistant led Rebecca and Mistress to the same conclusion at the same time. “Grace?”

“The bartender? Oh, heavens no, dearie! That girl is smart, I’ll give you that, but can you imagine the shock she’d be in for, were I to tell her what really goes on in this place? You needn’t trouble yourself thinking about her, Rebecca. If she wasn’t so good for business, and if you weren’t so clearly in love with Celeste, I’d have half a mind to send her back to the States with you. She very much fancies you, you know. ‘Rebecca this, Rebecca that, Rebecca all the bloody time!’ You’ve got a knack for stealing the hearts of my girls, dearie.”

“One woman’s enough, Alice,” said Mistress. “You’d know that if you weren’t married to this place.”

Rebecca thought about her one woman, the one Alice had brought into her life. Her girlfriend. Her slave, the slavegirl she never knew she needed or wanted. Celeste’s soft hazel eyes and her sweet lips changed everything about her life. No more pining for unattainable roommates, or resisting the temptation to brainwash a hot coed from the bar. Celeste belonged to her, and Celeste wanted to be brainwashed. It was the best of everything. It was, Rebecca knew, the thing that gave her a reason to move on from her past. “I’ve asked you this before,” she said to Alice, “but… but do you think you’ll ever retire, Alice? Give this stuff up? Settle down with some hottie and…”

She paused. It occurred to her that she had no idea if Alice was into men, or women, or both. Or neither, which would possibly explain why she spent her days shuffling between club and hostel with no “Alice time” in between.

She’s a workaholic, Rebecca, that’s all. Just like Edwin. All work, no play. Let’s get out of here and go home.

But Rebecca held firm. She wanted to hear the answer, even if she felt she knew what it was going to be. A firm scolding was in the cards, most likely, a lecture about how she was being a starry-eyed optimist and that she didn’t understand “this business,” or how she was throwing away her natural talent to hide herself away in Illinois. At least then, with that answer in hand, she could go home knowing that Alice was as doomed as Edwin.

I guess no answer is the answer we expected?

Alice, to their surprise, looked at them thoughtfully, her face a mask of pensive reflection. The expected snappy comeback never arrived. Instead, Alice looked downright sad. Finally, she looked away from them, her blue eyes settling on a far corner of the office.

“Sometimes,” she began, slowly. “No, dearie, that would be a lie. To tell the truth, I haven’t given it much thought until now. Until you came along. I suppose you’re set, then? Giving it all up, heading back to America to eat hamburgers and hypnotize absolutely no one?”

“Just Celeste,” said Mistress, smiling at the thought of the pretty brunette surrendering her will to them. “You know how I feel about mind control, Alice.”

“Well you certainly haven’t been quiet about it!” Alice’s eyes darted back to the corner. “But I suppose all things do come to an end, eventually. We all get old and we all start to slow down… oh, I know that seems far in the future for you, Rebecca! But it does creep up on you eventually.”

“All the better to get out now, while we have our whole lives ahead of us.”

“Tell you what, Rebecca.” Alice was facing them again. “My granda once told me that I’d know when it was time, and that I’d be better off not lingering past that time if I knew what was best for me. To be honest, I haven’t… ha! I haven’t thought much about it in donkey’s years! So I will promise you this—and you know that I am a woman of my word, Rebecca—that when the time comes, I will retire and I will find myself another place to live.”

“But not today,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. “And not tomorrow, I can assure you of that. There’s still much to do in Berlin, and I have a suspicion that I’m to be quite busy over the next year or two. Before I’m too old and grey, is what I can promise you dearie! After all, I doubt the young women will fancy chatting with me when I’m old enough to be their Maimeó!”

“Good.” Rebecca turned to leave. “We’re, um… we’re good?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rebecca!” Alice’s laugh threatened to shatter the glass. “Go! Go forth and be boring! And never show your face around here again, unless—wait, wait, there is one more thing!”

Let’s go, Rebecca. Screw her ‘more things.’ Mistress began to head for the door.

“Rebecca! Wait!”

Rebecca forced them to a stop, ignoring Mistress’s protests. She remained pointed at the door, back turned to Alice, a sort of compromise between storming out and giving in.

“What is it?” she said to the door. “We’ve got packing to do.”

“I am curious, dearie.” They could sense Alice closing in behind them, and tensed, half-expecting to be attacked with a jab from a needle or a handkerchief thick with chloroform. But Alice was, after all, a woman of her word.

“The one thing I can’t figure out, Rebecca, is how.”

“How?”

“How you did it, dearie! I had the both of you thoroughly brainwashed, with your permission! With the both of you helping me, for heaven’s sake! And yet, you knew exactly who I was, you knew exactly what was going on with Emily, and you headed straight back here to handle it. Does that sound like a girl who can’t remember anything about Germany to you?”

The question—earnest, honest, and more than a little out of left field—made Mistress fume. She ground her heel against the wood floor. “What do you care, Alice? We’re never coming back here, and we’re never going to rat you out. So who cares?”

“It’s a matter of my professional curiosity, dearie! I’d chalk it up to you being jammy, but you’re much too clever to rely on luck, aren’t you? But you never could have known what was coming, and I had you drugged! So I can’t work it out. It’s as if you were—“

“Always ten steps ahead?” Rebecca wanted to smile. Rebecca wanted to broadcast the world’s biggest shit-eating grin to Alice, Grace, and half of the former East Berlin. She somehow managed to keep a poker face.

Mistress swung around until they were facing Alice. They stared into her glacial eyes until Alice, surprised by the move, sputtered to a stop in front of them. A long moment passed, then another.

“I guess that’s going to be our little secret.”

Mistress allowed herself a wry, knowing smile, before spinning on her heels and making for the office door as quickly as she could. Behind them, Alice was yelling something, but her commanding words no longer mattered.