The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Berlin

Rebecca reached the sidewalk and let out a loud, exhausted sigh.

It wasn’t as if she’d expected Berlin to go entirely smoothly, but finding a place to sleep? Having a guaranteed roof over their heads every night? In a city with three million people? How hard could that possibly be? How could a fuckup like herself… fuck that up? Impossible, even for her.

And yet… first that overpriced shoebox in Mitte double-booked them out of their room, forcing them to spend a night in a pricey hotel. And now, their supposed savior, the really great hostel… booked fucking solid for the next week.

Of course it was booked solid. That made sense. Places got that way sometimes. The reasoning didn’t make her feel any better. After they’d found a few glowing reviews online, and the cute girls in the club had vouched for it—best beds ever… Rebecca cursed herself now for even getting her hopes up.

“All the way across town… and not even a dorm bed?” She searched for a helpless victim on which to vent her frustrations, and settled on a paper coffee cup within striking distance.

“Fuck me!” She watched the cup skitter across the sidewalk and into the street. That didn’t make her feel any better, either.

“Hey.” A hand, soft and warm, gently squeezing her shoulder. “It’s okay, Rebecca. There’s supposed to be three other hostels in this neighborhood. We’ll find something.”

Rebecca turned and fell—yet again—into the most beautiful pair of eyes she’d ever seen in her short life. They were hazel, flecked with what she swore were bits of genuine gold. Magical eyes. Fairy tale eyes. Gorgeous, amazing eyes. They made up maybe one percent of the most beautiful, wonderful girl on Earth.

My girlfriend. My girlfriend! Even if they had to spend the night sleeping on cardboard boxes soaked by rain, even if the next hostel had rooms available but turned out to be just like its namesake from the horror movies… Celeste was still her girlfriend. Celeste had still happened. Amazingly, improbably, but undeniably, she had happened. Was happening, even now, squeezing her shoulder and telling her it was going to be okay.

And just like that, she felt better. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry! It sucks! I was really hoping for a few nights in a nice comfy bed.”

“I was hoping for a few nights in your nice comfy bed, too. Should we splurge one more night on a nice hotel?”

The brunette raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Your mom will kill you when she sees the bill. Besides, I’ve got top men working on the problem.”

“I’ll go anywhere with you.” To hell and back, if I need to. “So… which way do we go? Point me in a direction and I’ll start walking.”

Slam.

They both jumped a bit at the sound, turning simultaneously to find Emily skipping down the front steps, a shit-eating grin on her pretty face. She held up her phone like an Olympic medal. “Four-bed dorm, totally ours, ten Euros each. Boom! I just booked it.” She jerked her thumb towards the door behind her. “This lady can suck it! We’ve got ourselves a roooooom, girls! Woo!”

Celeste grinned. “Told you. Top. Men. So Emily? Can we book that fourth bunk and use it to store all of our stuff? Make a little private home base for the three of us?”

Two rows of perfect teeth, framed by a triumphant smile. Emily was loving her life at this particular moment. “Already done! Split the bunk three ways and it’s cheaper than coffee. It’s just us, girls!”

“You are a fucking travel guru. Rick Steves has nothing on you.” Whenever Rebecca had her hopes dashed, Emily was always there to offer a helping hand and another solution. She smiled, then realized that she was smiling, and smiled even more. “So where is this magical place?”

Emily’s smile dimmed, but only slightly. “Friedrichshain. So, you know, it’s not the closest, but also did I mention it costs tennnnn Euros a night? And we can stay there for the rest of the trip? You can both buy me a beer later and we’ll call it even, kay?”

With that, she swept forward, slicing between Celeste and Rebecca and dashing across the street. Her eyes remained glued to her phone, even as she lifted her arm and shouted “This way! Follow me!” She glanced up only long enough to ensure that she was not about to crash into a wall or a pole, before returning to the directions on the screen and stomping up the street in her borrowed boots. “Woo!”

“That’s Emily for you. I don’t even know why I got upset when she—hey, are you okay?”

Celeste didn’t look okay. Somehow, in the five seconds they’d spent watching Emily, those pretty hazel eyes had widened as far as they could. Her breathing came in rapid, greedy spurts, as if she’d just run all the way from Mitte while carrying all of their luggage. She turned, pale and clammy-looking, to face Rebecca.

“I just…” she began, before her lungs demanded another round of air. Her eyes darted back and forth. “Where’s… where’s Emily?”

“She’s up the street,” Rebecca offered.

Just as she said it, Celeste spotted the girl with her own eyes. She exhaled, long and slow. Rebecca assumed that she was forcing out much more than just air. They stood like that on the edge of the street for an eternal minute, not saying anything, one growing less worried by the moment, the other taking that worry and doubling down on it.

“Hey! Are you two gonna sleep on the sidewalk?” Distance may have made Emily visually smaller, but even perspective was powerless against her voice. “I wanna get there and get these boots off!”

Rebecca’s first priority was her girlfriend. “Are you okay? I thought you were going to be sick there for a second.”

“No.” Celeste shook her head and blinked herself back to something resembling normal. “I’m okay. We’re okay, right? We’re out of the hostel and we’re back on the street, so everything’s good.”

Rebecca tilted her head, well aware that she looked just like her dog responding to a weird noise. This was weird. “Did… you think we were gonna get captured by that old German lady and… I dunno, tortured in her basement?”

“Yeah, maybe a little.” A weak smile. “But that won’t happen now, because we’re safe. Thanks to you. You’re amazing, Rebecca.”

Celeste leaned forward until her nose, still warm from the hostel, nuzzled Rebecca’s cheek. Her kisses felt like raindrops. “I love you so fucking much, Rebecca Sanders. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for saving us. I never… I’ll explain when I can, okay? When it’s time.”

Emily had turned around and was making her way back to them. Rebecca felt a familiar little tinge of guilt. Juggling a best friend and a girlfriend was going to take some practice. Was Emily mad? Was Celeste mad? Was that why there were both acting like-

“I screwed up.” Emily scowled at the offending map app. “NOW I’m good. Why didn’t you tell me I was heading off the wrong way, you dork?”

“We’re all dorks today.” Celeste wrapped an arm around Rebecca’s waist, her fingers pressing gentle divots into her girlfriend’s jacket. “I was getting the weirdest vibes off of that woman in the hostel. Like she was going to tie us up in the basement. I’m glad they were booked solid!”

Rebecca slid her arm around her girlfriend’s waist, pulling her close. It felt good. It felt right. Whatever was bugging Celeste, she’d make sure that it was taken care of. I can fix this.

“C’mon,” she said, taking the lead. “Tell me where to go and I’ll make sure we get there.”

Chicago

“Just tell me where to go and I’ll make sure we get there.”

Celeste felt her stomach tighten. Her right hand reached for, and gratefully found, the ‘oh shit’ handle above her window. It immediately came in handy as Emily swerved into an adjacent lane, her Toyota grinding to a halt inches from disaster.

“The International Terminal,” she said. It was more of a gulp than a sentence. “Deutschlandair.”

“Eeeeee! The best terminal! Home sweet home!” Emily yanked the steering wheel again, and glared to her left. “Look buddy, I’m coming over whether you like it or not! You wanna get hit?”

The other driver did not, and the redhead zipped into the exit lane for the Tri-State Tollway. “Don’t worry, you guys. My dad was a taxi driver. Taught me everything I know.”

Kayla, alone in the back, clutched her seat belt and nodded. Her face was more than a little ashen. Originally chatty, she’d clammed up right around the time Emily sprinted ahead of two honking semis near the Oak Park exit. “Thanks for, uh… you know. Taking us, Emily.”

She tugged her seatbelt again, then remembered where she was and where she was headed. Her face brightened accordingly. “I’m so excited to meet Rebecca! Celeste keeps telling us how awesome she is! I just know she’s going to be the coolest!”

“She’s the best!” Swerve. Honk. “I’m so glad you guys came with me to pick her up. The cult of Rebecca keeps on growing!”

Celeste tucked her lower lip beneath her front teeth and clamped down, partially out of a fear of blurting out something like we must all obey our wonderful Mistress! to a confused Emily, but mostly to tamp down the growing guilt that welled up from below. She was bringing her Mistress the first of a small harem’s worth of new thralls. What would she think? How would she react?

How’s Rebecca going to react?

Celeste knew the answer to that one. And that meant spending a good week or two with her girlfriend, Mistress-free, and ignoring Kayla and Zoe altogether. While she cuddled with Rebecca, they’d be running missions behind the scenes, laying the groundwork for a miniature empire.

“Who do you know that’s smart? Creative? Already into girls, or at least curious?” They both rattled off names of random girls, strangers to Celeste, and likely to Rebecca as well. The names came bundled with adjectives like ‘great ass’ and ‘really funny.’ Celeste didn’t care much about the individual girls—Mistress would decide which ones to keep and which ones to toss, and whether a fine ass trumped a good sense of humor. She only cared about making sure that Zoe and Kayla didn’t immediately tank the whole thing by trying to brainwash the star quarterback’s girlfriend.

Well, unless she’s into girls…

“Okay, team planning moment! Now that Colonel Sanders is back, and she’s stuffed full of frequent-flyer miles, can we start talking about Australia?” Emily squirmed in her seat, causing the Camry to make little squiggle lines on the Tri-State. “Now we can have an epic trip! We can book extra flights once we get to Sydney, and see the entire country! Koalas, kangaroos, emus!” She glanced over her shoulder at Kayla. “We travel, like, every year,” she explained, before turning her attention back to the road. “Did Celeste tell you about our trip to Germany?”

“I have a question.”

Celeste rolled her eyes. “You always have questions, Zoe.”

“Yeah, but… hey!” The blonde pouted and crossed her arms, an instinctive move from when she was still a free girl with a strong and free will. Neither of those things existed now, and she let her arms fall to her sides. “I… um… can I ask you a question about Emily? Please? I—I want to obey but a-also…”

“What about Emily?”

Their table was on the balcony level of the student union, giving them a clear and slightly secretive view of the lobby below. Emily marched from one end to the other without stopping, her hair caked with melting snow, the slush from her boots sloughing off and joining a growing puddle on the tile floor. She was laughing. Emily laughed a lot.

“Well… um…” Zoe stammered, unsure on how to proceed without making her controller unhappy. “She’s hot, and she’s nice, and she already knows Mistress Rebecca really well, right? So why don’t we add her to our list? It’d be so easy, and we could hypnotize her practically anytime we—”

“No.” The word barreled out of Celeste’s throat with a rumble that made passing students glance in her direction. She waited for them to lose interest and move on, then reached across the table. She grabbed a handful of sweater.

“I’m sorry, I did—”

Celeste tugged, sharply, causing Zoe to fall forward. The blonde braced herself at the last moment, and tensed. She didn’t speak. Celeste knew she didn’t dare.

“No.”

The snooty girl that slept inside of Slave Zoe’s mind stirred, a sun breaking through a bank of clouds. “But she’s… you told us to find girls who are hot and smart and creative… and I bet she’s really good in bed.”

“Emily is off limits.”

“Yeah but… the way you look at her?”

“Why not? I bet she’s great in bed.”

Zoe began to pull away, but the brunette held firm. Her eyes burned a hole into Zoe’s forehead. “Emily,” she growled, “is off. Limits. Understood?”

“Yes, Celeste.”

That wasn’t good enough. “Your mind is blank. Your body is nothing. Hear and obey.”

Zoe’s eyes fluttered and slammed shut. The hand holding her steady crumpled, and she collapsed onto the table with a thud. Celeste glanced around; no one noticed. No one seemed to ever notice. Maybe, if they knew what Celeste had done… was planning to do… they might have stepped forward to stop her.

Only to be hypnotized as well.

“Emily is a wonderful person. You will worship her as much as you worship me, second only to our wonderful Mistress. Do you understand.”

“Mmmsss mlesssttt.”

Celeste sighed. “Raise your head from the table and look directly into my eyes. My beautiful, hypnotic eyes. Obey.”

The blonde did so, and sank even deeper into trance. Her lips formed a tight circle.

“Who will you worship?”

“Misssstress. Celesssste. Emmmily…”

“Good slave.”

“You know what, Celeste?”

The brunette blinked. How long had she been staring off into space? She glanced up in time to catch a quick glimpse of a passing overhead sign. ‘O’Hare/River Road.’ She rolled to her left as Emily took advantage of an unexpected gap in traffic and floored it.

“Huh?” She clapped her mouth shut, embarrassed at being caught drifting off. How she even managed to drift off in the middle of this racecourse slalom was anyone’s guess. “Um… know what what?”

The redhead ignored both her shame and her oddly-phrased comeback. “I have to tell you, I mean seriously, I absolutely can’t wait to see the look on Rebecca’s face when she sees you again! She is so in love with you! I’ve been her wing girl for three years, and in all that time? Never been happier than she is now. Neeeeever. So, thanks for that. My Colonel deserves some happiness after all these years!”

“Aw, thanks!”

“No, for real, new Rebecca is like ten times the girl she used to be. She’s confident and happy and…” She glanced at the rear view mirror and Kayla. “I mean, I could go on, and there’s like a whole history… but I’m just really excited about everything in my life right now. Our lives! Eeeee!”

“I love her so much,” said Celeste. “I love Rebecca so much.”

Her stomach curled and her muscles tightened, but for once it wasn’t due to Emily’s aggressive driving. It wasn’t the reaction she’d gotten from declaring her love for Rebecca. Hell, everyone seemed to love Rebecca.

Rebecca. Not “I love my Mistress and obey her without question, but the simple and plain “Rebecca.”

Of course she meant to say Rebecca out loud. Emily would never know about Mistress, could never even begin to grasp the idea of Mistress. But Mistress was the person Celeste worshipped night and day. Mistress was the captain of Celeste’s ship, soon to be the admiral of a fleet of willing and devoted slaves. Mistress had gone to Germany to save Emily, to free them all from Edwin and Alice. Mistress was the one coming home today.

But the image that birthed the word Rebecca wasn’t Mistress, at least not in that unguarded moment when Celeste’s subconscious was free to do as it pleased. Deep down inside, she didn’t love Mistress. Not directly.

She loved Rebecca.

Rebecca was coming home today, from a trip she wouldn’t remember taking, after defeating enemies she didn’t know she had. Rebecca Sanders, the unwitting pawn of Celeste’s own creation, thrown into danger through no fault of her own, lucky to come home alive. Sweet, caring Rebecca, who had given up hypnosis for good. Who probably—no, who absolutely would have gone to Berlin in a heartbeat for Emily’s sake. Who would have taken on Alice no matter the risk. “I used to be good at hypnosis,” she would have told Celeste. “I can fix this. I promise.”

Rebecca was the one who pulled her off of that train track. Who chased Celeste through the streets of Berlin after fighting her way out of Club Trabant. For her. To save her. Rebecca was the one who came up with the idea to create a shell within Celeste that could absorb any brainwashing that Alice could throw at them. She knew that she was risking her own mind, her own free will, but she’d made sure that Celeste would leave Germany a free woman, no matter what. She saved me. She didn’t bother to save herself.

“No garage?” Kayla sounded disappointed.

“No, it’s just a parking lot for international flights. But it’s not that far of a walk and we’re not gonna be here that long. When’s Rebecca’s flight get in, Celeste? Two-fifteen, right?”

Mistress saved Emily, too. Rebecca never would have caught on. You had no one else to turn to! The only reason Emily’s not naked in a cheap hotel room right now is because of you and Mistress. She’s better than Rebecca! She’s strong enough to survive in this world. And she knows all of the things Rebecca won’t, ever!

“Um… yeah.” Celeste tried to picture the flight itinerary in her mind. It was more than a little fuzzy. Still… “Two-fifteen sounds about right. I don’t remember the gate, though.”

“I mean everyone just comes out of the big door from customs, so gate numbers don’t matter. We’re good. By the time Colonel Sanders gets off the plane we’ll be inside.”

Celeste wanted nothing more than to stay inside the car and wait, alone with her own competing thoughts on Mistress versus Rebecca, while Emily and Kayla forged ahead. But Emily was having none of that. She placed a gentle, understanding hand on Celeste’s shoulder.

“I used to get nervous a lot, too.” Her brown eyes softened. “It’ll be okay. One vacay without you isn’t going to change her mind, okay? Come on inside and have a cup of coffee with us. There’s a kiosk right inside.”

I know that place. I had coffee there with Rebecca. With my amazing girlfriend. The memory seemed to jolt Celeste out of her funk, and she reached for her seatbelt. “Deal.”

Deutschlandair Flight 1911, Berlin TXL to Chicago ORD

“I love her. I mean, I guess we both love her.”

“But she fucked up. I’ll admit it. Carving me out of you… she was cheating on you with, well, us!”

Rebecca brushed her hair again. It didn’t need it. But it gave her an excuse to linger in the bathroom a little while longer, even if none of the other 300-odd passengers could see her. More importantly, they couldn’t hear her.

“Hypnosis fucks everything up, Miss. Look what happened with Emily. I finally got her brain put back together, again, and then Alice fucked it all up with… oh right, hypnosis! And now I owe my dad eighteen hundred fucking dollars because I had—we had to fly last minute to Berlin to fix her again!” She let her brush clatter into the metal sink. “And then this!” She stared at her reflection. “Us! I’m you and you’re me and we’re both Rebecca and… another thing hypnosis fucked up!”

She felt the angry thought well up inside of her, and felt powerless to stop it. She let it barrel through to her mouth. Maybe it needed to be said. “Celeste fucked this up for us. Her and her stupid hypnosis fetish and that stupid action show and her stupid stories and…”

The plane bounced over a hill made of air, and Rebecca sank against the built-in sink. She felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept at all, nine hours in the air and counting.

“But she likes being hypnotized, Rebecca. She likes it when we hypnotize her. And only when we hypnotize her. She’s never going to trust anyone else after what happened to her, but she trusts us because she loves us. We can’t punish Celeste for the shit that Alice and Edwin did to her, or to us, or to Emily. Or to anyone! We just can’t!”

Someone tugged at the bi-fold door. Rebecca’s first thought was how dumb that was—the bathroom was clearly marked as occupied. But it possibly meant that all of the other bathrooms were also full and that passengers were getting impatient. They were probably over the east coast now. It was time to wrap things up and wobble their way down the aisle to their seat.

“You know how I feel about this,” she said, not caring whether the person on the other side of the flimsy door could hear her or not. “I don’t want to do this any more.”

“That’s not what you said to Edwin,” Mistress countered. “Remember that? Just one person? Find that one person and make it your person? Celeste is our one person!”

Rebecca shrugged. She reached for the lock bolt and prepared to slide it back, but Mistress held fast. It was weird, being in control and not being in control at the same time, a situation they both still struggled to come to terms with. For the time being, Rebecca relented. There was a loud creaking noise from the other side of the door, and a few muffled voices. Someone had finally exited one of the other occupied bathrooms, giving Rebecca and Mistress a moment to linger.

“You love her. We love her. She’s everything to us. You and I both know that she’ll be in safe hands, and that we’d never do anything to hurt her. Whether she’s under hypnosis or not. Right?”

Rebecca couldn’t argue with that. “Right.” Her hand became her own again, and she jerked the bolt open. The door sagged open, and she brushed past a waiting crowd of you’re not even supposed to be waiting in a crowd, you jerks, go sit down! “Oh, and Miss?”

“Miss is such a dumb name. Mistress is better, but that’s not really a name. That’s what we are.”

Inspiration sometimes strikes in the strangest moments and places. This was one of them. Rebecca plucked the word out of her brain the moment it appeared. “How about Tris instead? Or Miss Tris?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Not at all. Rolls off the tongue. And Tris makes you sound like a character in a YA novel.”

They both giggled at that. “Tris it is,” said Tris.

They reached Row 40 and slid into their window seat, grateful once again for the vacant aisle seat next to them. Two sweet seats for two hot girls. Rebecca kicked off her slippers and fumbled with their blanket, trying to find the edge of it, eager to hide beneath it. Books and headphones tumbled to the floor below, but she ignored them. She was eager to shut it all out—the plane, the passengers, everything about Berlin and Alice and mind control. Everything that didn’t involve coming home and wrapping her arms around her beautiful girlfriend.

Her brainwashed girlfriend. She sighed heavily, her head coming to rest against the wall of the cabin. The hum of the engines filled her head.

“This is a bad time, I guess,” Tris gently prodded, “but what are we going to tell her, exactly?”

Nothing. Everything. Some of the things. Whatever we trust her with. Whatever we think she won’t freak out about. Whatever won’t make her cry, or scare her. Rebecca shook her head. There were a thousand things she could tell Celeste. She went with the most obvious option.

“We’re going to tell her the truth, Tris. That’s what we’re going to tell her.”

Troy, New York

“You wanted to tell me something.”

“Hmm?” The brunette rolled over onto her back, her hazel eyes half-open and studying the fine cracks in the plaster ceiling. “Tell you what?”

“I don’t know, you were going to tell me something.” Rebecca yawned. She shifted her body to her left until she was touching as much of Celeste as possible. Her girlfriend was soft and warm. She fell silent, waiting for the brunette to remember what it was she needed to say.

The silence carried on for far longer than she expected. “I don’t remember,” Celeste finally said. “Did I say something last night? I say weird things when I’m four beers in.”

“Three beers, and no, this was a while ago. Back in Germany, before we flew home. You got all tense and scared and when I asked about it, you said you’d tell me later.”

“Three heavy IPAs, with like double the alcohol! I’m gonna be lucky if I remember where I left my keys, never mind what I said in Berlin two months ago!”

Rebecca rolled over until she was half on top of her girlfriend. She lowered her head until she was drowning in a mass of soft brown hair. “It’s probably nothing,” she told the hair. “I don’t even know why it popped into my head. You just… I don’t know. You made it seem like it was really important.”

“It was probably something like ‘I love you more than the sun, Rebecca.’ Something too shmoopy even for you.”

“I am not shmoopy!” Rebecca laughed and finished her roll. She had Celeste pinned to the bed. The pendant necklace the brunette had given to her for Christmas dangled between them, its facets catching the morning light and sending it off into the corners of Celeste’s bedroom.

Look into my eyes, Old Rebecca would have said. She giggled out loud. She didn’t need hypnosis now. She had a real live girl beneath her, their eager bodies barely apart, the scent of their mutual arousal filling their noses. Everything was right with the world. Except…

“If you ever want to tell me something, baby, I promise you, you can just tell me. No need to wait. I love you and I want you to tell me every little thing that’s on your mind.” She leaned on her right arm, leaving her left to wander down the length of Celeste’s body until it found what it was looking for.

“Mmmmm.” Celeste moaned softly as Rebecca gently fingered her. “It’sssss… oh fuck, you’re magicaaaalll… it wasn’t anything immmmportaaant… what I had… nnnn… to say…”

Rebecca paused. Her fingers paused as well, and Celeste responded with a sad whimper.

“So you do remember what you wanted to tell me?” Her eyes narrowed. “Come on, spill it.”

“Well…”

“Don’t keep me in suspense! It’s a three hour flight back to Chicago! Do you want your poor girlfriend to sit all by herself on a plane wondering about this?”

“Okay. So what if I told you that when we were in Berlin, this crazy lady kidnapped and brainwashed you, and then had you brainwash me, and then together we hypnotized a whole bunch of other girls and fought off this whole mind control conspiracy?”

“I’d probably say it’s too early in the morning for role-play,” Rebecca groaned. She lowered herself until she was just touching Celeste, enough to feel as if they were becoming one and the same. Rebesteca Sanwooders. “And that’s not what you were going to tell me. I’m serious! I want to know!”

“I bet…” Celeste lowered her voice until it was just a wisp. “I bet you would save me, if that happened. You’d hypnotize me and make me think I was someone else, so that that other personality would soak up all of the brainwashing meant for me, so that I’d always be free even if we both got caught and had our minds wiped. You’d make me wake up later as myself. Maybe I’d be able to save you, then.”

“I’d save you from a pack of lions if I had to.” Rebecca kissed Celeste on the lips. She closed her eyes. “Mmmmmph. There’s not an army that could stop me.”

“I know. And you’d have this whole elaborate plan where you’d trick everyone and get the upper hand, because you’re always ten steps ahead. And you’d save me and you’d save Emily, too.”

“Was this…” Rebecca paused for a few more kisses. “… was this a weird dream you had last night?”

“Kind of like that. A dream. Half dream and half nightmare, I guess. You’re the dream part.”

“I like it when you say things like that.”

“I think I know how to fix it,” Celeste said, her eyes still glued to the ceiling. “I thought about it a lot and I guess now is as good of a time as any.”

Rebecca stiffened. Her mouth curled. “You’re freaking me out a little, baby. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I know I can do this. Thanks to you.”

Before Rebecca could react, Celeste reached out and began stroking her cheek, her fingers sliding up and down from chin to ear and back again. Something slid inside Rebecca’s mind, too, and she found herself feeling incredibly woozy. Punch drunk, like she’d been drugged. She blinked, then blinked again until her vision was at least mostly focused. Celeste was looking directly into her eyes.

Look into my eyes.

“Rebecca,” Celeste said, her voice firm and commanding. “My touch always relaxes you instantly. Instantly and completely. Breathe, and relax.”

Rebecca did as she was told.