The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Last of the Independents

Chapter 16: And so it Goes

Baby I got a Plan—Run away as fast as you can

“Runaway” Kanye West

That night, Christy looked like a true queen in her floor-length jet-black gown. Her hair was done to perfection, and the glittering purse she carried might have qualified as a weapon in certain circles. She strode towards the door with regal bearing, and while everyone else looked at her in awe, Sasha shared a look of pure fear with Hank and Melinda.

Right before she got to the door, she turned and faced her subjects. “There is a problem at Senate Records even I can’t ignore. I will return, though some of you may determine that I have not. Go with your feelings, not with anything I say to you after this. I’ll be there for you as long as you need me,” she declared, and with that she left the building, going to the unfamiliar waiting limo completely alone, not even with Hank or any of the security detail.

It was enough. Sasha sighed and went upstairs to zip up her bags and book the next flight to Chicago.

“You idiot! You liar! You traitor! You—pendeja, puta, coward—aaaaargh!” Melinda shrieked, running out of words for a moment before powering on. “Tired of running? She’s more fearless than all of us put together! Tired of running? Is that what you think? Is that what you think it came to? I read the headline, I remember the lyrics! She’s sacrificing herself so they don’t prey on kids! Tired of running? She’s just making sure we won’t be known as the United States of fucking Pedophilia, one nation on top of Leslie Swords, indivisible, with tight jeans and fake tits for all! Tired of running? Is that all you got out of that? I thought you were smarter than that, Sasha, how can you—”

“I know what she’s doing,” Sasha interrupted, her voice thick. “Well, that’s a lie. I know part of what she’s doing. She’s going to get herself killed one way or another. And we might not survive her return. If they break her—if they tear down her inhibitions—she’ll break us. She’s not a coward. She’s suffered more than we can ever understand, but she’s no coward. Nor am I.” With a sudden sharp movement, she shut down her computer and stood up. “Fearless to the end. If she is, who are we not to be? We’re what she made us.”

“You’re wrong. You’re both wrong. She’s gonna break them. She might not survive, but she’s fighting them. She’s not gonna give up. Her voice, their toys—fair fight. You guys have no faith. You think she’s just gonna roll over to be eaten by a pack of wild pigs? Hell no. She might lose, but she’s going down fighting, like the Christy Reed I’ve known so long, like the woman she is, damn it!” Hank snapped, ready to cause violence.

“The woman she was,” Sasha said sadly. “Three years ago I’d agree, but she’s seen too much now. She’s too close to the edge. If it didn’t end tonight, she knew she’d go mad. So it will. One way or another. Hollywood, Redwood, across the oceans...”

“Keeps her searching,” Hank and Melinda said together.

It was a revelation, an epiphany, knowledge that struck the three of them in their bones and blood. Christy Reed, the one they all knew and loved, their friend, their inspiration, the reason they got up in the morning and worked hard all day—she would never leave them. She was part of them, no matter what happened to her. Sasha locked the door, loaded every album she could fit into the CD changer, and cranked up the volume. Clothes were on the floor with the first note, and by the end of the second track, they were entwined in a threesome for the ages, just the three of them, the last true fans of the last of the independents.

“Load up the buses! Business meeting in one hour! Christy will meet you there! Don’t be afraid—it’s just a new strategic partnership for us all! Come on, move it. We have to get the mansion ready for the party!” a stranger said over the loudspeaker in the morning. Sasha tried to rub her eyes, but her arms were around Hank and her hands were caught in Melinda’s, so she let it go.

Hank squirmed around until he was free of the two women. “Sounds like they won,” he said distantly as he grabbed his clothes and headed back to his room.

Melinda blinked and stared at Sasha. “Well. He’s taking it well,” she said as she got out of bed, her face locked into the fearless mask.

“I don’t know about that. And I don’t know how you want to do this, but if we’re going to go down fighting, I’m going to make sure everyone knows what I’m fighting for,” Sasha said, rummaging through her closet and pulling out an exquisite silver, purple, and black minidress before going in the shower.

“Fearless,” Melinda said with a smile, going back to her room to find her finest outfit.

They met again at the bottom of the stairs, dressed to the nines, black pantyhose smooth and lavender shoes glimmering with every step as they took their time joining the group for the bus. “What’s this? Oh, you must be her... close friends. Get on board. Do be careful of those heels, though,” one said with a smirk.

No one talks to Christy Reed that way. And we’re all that’s left of the woman she was, Sasha thought, striding past the Senate flunkies as dismissively as her queen of darkness would, letting nothing of the heartbreak and fear she felt show on her face.

The others weren’t as calm. She saw panic and terror in each person’s eyes as she went to a seat in the back of the bus. Magdalena grabbed her in a hug and started babbling in Spanish at her, with a hand down her dress—but Sasha felt the paper in her hand and realized what Magdalena was doing, so she let it happen, storing the note safely until she was in her seat in the back, next to Melinda. Only then did she take it out. “She wrote it in Spanish. Translate?” she asked Melinda.

“There isn’t much to translate. ÀEs muerte? Is she dead?” Melinda replied.

Sasha took a deep breath. Magdalena wasn’t strong enough to make it through whatever was in store for them, too bound to Christy to run, and too tempting a victim for someone else. The next place she could imagine her was on the Internet with her legs in the air and half of Miami in between them. She reached into her purse and passed Melinda a pen. “Tell her Christy will be there, that she’s Christy’s no matter who she’s with, and to never leave her side,” she said.

Melinda nodded, scribbled a few short sentences, and tilted her head. Magdalena took the hint and went to the back in the guise of going to the bathroom. When she came back, the note was in her hand, and she worked her way down the rows slowly. “I also said to pass the word,” Melinda admitted.

“Good. That’s good. Good. Christy’s going to need them. That’s good,” Sasha said, hearing the edge of hysteria in her voice and hating every second of it. As much as she was telling herself to be fearless, she felt panic taking over. Melinda grasped her hand and squeezed it, and her nails dug into Melinda’s skin as she answered. Her heart was pounding. Is this it? Is this the end? Are these going to be the last conscious moments of my life? If I don’t make it out, what will they do to me? Just another porn queen and a pretty face? Would they make me... would they find Bree? Or Daria? God...

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Melinda whispered, snaking an arm around her waist. “And you feel like someone rammed a steel rod down your spine.

“Imagination running away with me. Thank God Bree’s not here. Seeing what they’d do to her might be enough to break me,” Sasha replied. “Are you ready?”

“How can you be ready for something like this? But fearless, querida, fearless,” Melinda said, staring out the window.

Sasha followed her gaze to the sight of Senate’s headquarters, and she shuddered. Senate was famous for their building, designed to look like a giant and somewhat sloppy stack of records, but now Sasha could only see it as a giant spiral to fall into, a machine that sucked in everything it touched and turned it into money.

The bus offloaded, and they were marched into a theater-like conference room and sat in the comfortable seats, all facing Christy—or what Christy had become.

Melinda’s hand twitched like she wanted to cross herself. “D’os m’o, no,” she muttered, tearing up as she saw her former idol in torn jean shorts, hair bleached almost white over the old jet black to make her look like a frosted cake. Instead of the black gown, Christy was in a tied-up t-shirt that made it obvious she had no bra on underneath, with fishnets and knee-high boots to keep the illusion of her rebellion alive.

“Don’t cry. It’ll make you soft,” Sasha said, tensing up, knowing that the new Christy was going to be unleashed on the confused audience at their most disoriented. Whatever had become of her, it was still her eyes and her stage presence before them, and her voice on the cheap demo CD playing to keep everyone calm.

“We can’t do this! We have to sneak out or we’re dead!” Melinda said with fear in her eyes.

“How? They’ve got us surrounded. Just keep searching,” Sasha said, and that was enough for the song in her head to cue up and block out everything else for the moment.

Christy took the podium, and the canned speech didn’t even register in either Sasha’s or Melinda’s brain as they closed their eyes and held on to the memory of their Christy—the Christy who still owned them, not the Christy who was trying to steal them.

Then Christy started singing.

Sasha was hard-pressed to think of it as singing, though. Synch-pop, half rap might have been a better description of it. Crap would have been even more accurate. But it was Christy’s crap, in Christy’s voice, and that was enough. The wild flashing lights in support only made it worse. One by one, Sasha saw the dancers, the broken house staff, and the lower level roadies give in and touch themselves in surrender.

Then the loops kicked in, and the dramatic rises and drops in pitch, and all the tricks that Christy had to worm her way into someone’s mind and soul. Sasha heard and felt the waves crashing over her like never before. She wanted to let go, to shed her dress, to rip off her bra and panties, to fuck anyone who would hold still long enough, to give in completely, to think her last thought, to give herself to the one who owned her... and that reminded her of who Christy had been, and not what she was now.

Sharp little pains distracted her, and she realized that Melinda was clutching her hand so tightly that her nails were drawing blood. Then she felt pressure, and she realized that she was doing the same thing to Melinda. The twinges cleared her mind enough to fight the influence of the music just a bit, just enough for her to hear Christy’s lullaby—not the one she was singing, but the real one that was lodged in Sasha’s head and would never leave. She felt herself rise to her feet. “I wanna live! I wanna give!” she screamed.

“Been a miner...” Melinda added, getting up and holding on to her shoulder. They were both wobbling and dizzy, but Sasha was on autopilot as she led the way out, shoving aside a guard on the stairs as she went.

“Booby trap. Let them go, it’s only two. We have enough pussy we can let go of the kind that scratches back,” someone said behind them, but Sasha didn’t care. She had to focus on stumbling down the stairs, trying to keep herself from falling on Melinda, Melinda trying to keep herself from falling on Sasha. Anyone who saw them without knowing the whole story would think they were drunken club girls who would fuck a dog just to get some action.

“I’m burning up... gotta focus... it’s pulling me back,” Melinda gasped.

“Stay fearless, Melinda! Christy’s theirs now! She’s what she fought against. Keeps me searching...” Sasha warned.

“Been in my mind...” Melinda panted, and the words gave her the strength to take off down the stairs and out the fire door as the alarm sounded.

Sasha suddenly stopped short. “No! Gotta go back!” she exclaimed, starting to turn.

“Snap out of it!” Melinda said with a slap across Sasha’s face. “I got you! Fearless, chica, fearless!”

“No, look! Hank! He’s gonna go postal!” Sasha said, recognizing the car as it pulled up and Hank got out with a rifle in hand.

“Let him. The bimbos at the front are dead to begin with, and... he wants to go out fighting the way he thought Christy would.” Melinda’s gaze shifted. “Besides, he won’t need this in jail.” She bolted for the car, and Sasha followed her, sobbing profusely every step of the way. Melinda didn’t hesitate, taking the driver’s seat with dry eyes and putting the pedal to the metal.

“We’re receiving reports of a shootout at the headquarters of Senate Records. Twelve people are believed dead in what is believed to be a botched robbery. A lone gunman is said to have opened fire, demanding ‘hearts of gold’, likely mistaking the building for a bank headquarters, before being shot dead by police,” the car radio said some time later. Sasha gasped, and Melinda bit her lip hard to keep from crying.

“Think he was right?” Sasha asked.

“Justified, but never right. And I don’t want to know how many of the ones we left behind will end up on the Internet somewhere,” Melinda said with a deep breath.

“Justified, but never right... do you think that describes us? Is that what we’re doing?” Sasha said, staring out the window. Her next words were as much so that she could organize her thoughts without the static of Christy’s song getting in the way. “You think that’s why she gave us the lyrics? That she knew that would happen? That if we knew what brought us under, nothing else could bring us further? And that it would break the chains in case...”

“No, it oiled the chains so nothing could come over them, even if Christy herself was holding them. It’s still there. It’ll always be there,” Melinda said softly as they pulled into a cheap hotel.

“Always will be,” Sasha agreed. They walked into the hotel arm in arm, letting the hotel staff make their own assumptions, went to their room, and finally let go of all the stress from the wild day with an even wilder night.

“England! That’s all I could think about last night! Something Christy once said... if she ever woke up as someone else, go to England first,” Sasha said, bolting awake at four in the morning, grabbing whatever she could, and taking it out to the car.

“Bwuh? Noise? Wha?” Melinda mumbled.

“The people in England know the kind of thing that happened to us, even crave it. They’ll understand and we’ll fit in. Don’t you think Senate is looking for us?” Sasha asked.

“’kay. Find a flight. Still have passport. Right?” Melinda said, still half asleep. Sasha took the last of the bags out, then lifted Melinda up and put her in the backseat like another piece of luggage, and they were off to LAX to get the first flight to England they could find.