The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Melissa stood outside, holding her bags, looking at the window display. The rain had stopped. She wanted to turn away from the window just like she’d wanted to put the phone down on him.

It was a fairly disreputable part of town and many of the shops were boarded up or shuttered. This building was newer and the window was a massive expanse of plate glass. Behind the glass, the floor had been raised into a kind of stage and behind that there were heavy black drapes. In front of the drapes, two female mannequins were posed in tableau.

An impressive antique writing desk had been manoeuvred into the display space. One of the mannequins was bent over it, ass thrust out, head looking straight ahead, palms flat on the desk. She had been dressed in a white blouse and a pleated skirt, the back of which had been lifted up to expose a pair of tight white panties. All of the clothes were smooth and glistening in the window light. Rubber, she guessed.

The other mannequin wore a severe pinstriped suit with a short tight skirt. Again, the clothing was shiny and reflective. Her gloved hand raised a large leather paddle. She was poised to swing it. They seemed very realistic, Melissa thought. The tanned thighs, the muscle detail in the calves, the full breasts that filled the jacket and the blouse. The head was posed to stare straight ahead, frozen and oblivious.

Cathy had talked about shops like this, but Melissa had never been anywhere like it. Whenever those sort of subjects came up, Melissa had blushed and turned the conversation to something else. Now she remembered the things that Cathy had said, and bought. She knew why he’d wanted her to come here. Knew that, if she went inside, he’d get his wish.

She looked more closely at the window display. There were thin strings attached to the hands and feet of the models, and to their heads. They ran vertically upwards, out of sight. Puppets, she thought. How could people get away with displays like this? It was wrong.

Even with that thought, Melissa imagined being the target, baring herself and receiving the stinging blow. She imagined being the mannequin and cursed herself for it. Just like he’d said, she needed to go inside. The idea of it, the thought of stepping through the door into a place like that, made her tremble.

“This is the reason you came out today,” he’d said to her in the taxi. He’d given her the address and she’d repeated it obediently to the driver.

She saw her reflection in the window, almost ghostly in her white jacket and jeans, and thought of her reflection in the changing room mirror. How she’d seen herself whilst she... No. She forced herself to remember that she’d done nothing in there. Nothing except to try on the blue satin underwear and admire the way it looked and the way it felt. Nothing else.

The memory was so difficult to hold on to. She tried to remember standing in front of the mirror and then getting dressed again but it was opaque, like she was seeing it through smoked glass.

“This is the reason. You know that you shouldn’t. You know that it’s wrong, but you’re helpless.”

Helpless. The image of her spread and gasping in front of the mirror, dreaming about being caught by the shop assistant was ... luminescent. It felt so much more real. She looked again at the strings.

“All those racks of tight, shiny clothing. The way it feels against your skin, so cool and smooth. And not just the clothes. Beautiful pictures, beautiful toys. All those things that you need to have. But it doesn’t feel like you’re buying, does it? It feels like you’re selling. You’re selling you.” She remembered the sharp, stabbing anger that she’d felt at those words and the way her breathing had quickened as he’d drawn up a memory of what he wanted her... what she needed to buy.

People were looking at her as she stood outside. They could see her looking at the window and they were going to see her go in. She could feel her face flushing at the thought of it. Her heart began to beat so hard, so fast, that she could imagine that it would stop if she tried to walk through the door.

She could almost picture the inside of the shop. So close to remembering it all. There, she could feel it, feel herself believing him.

“You know,” he’d said, “but you’ll do it anyway.”

Repeating his words in whispers, she reached for the handle and pushed the door open. The trip hammer beating of her heart. Helpless.

Inside the shop his words were gone. She felt like she was drowning.

The walls and floor were tiled in black, and spotlights illuminated the rails of sleek and shining clothes. Mannequins were posed on pedestals in tightly stretched vinyl dresses, or entangled in thick leather straps and chains, or shrouded and masked in flowing rubber capes and hoods. Lights reflected on the folds of rubber and leather like moonlight on waves. They strobed across her mind, a dark ocean that was swallowing her.

On the far side of the store, behind the counter, stood a girl with long dark hair. She was a little older than Melissa and she wore a black leather top, tight fitting and low cut. Her skin was pale white. With one slender hand she turned the pages of a magazine, totally at ease.

Music, or at least a repetitive beat and some bass notes, played faintly in the background. Melissa hardly noticed it, fighting to keep her balance, the scent of the clothes filling her with each breath that she took. When she tried to look away, her eyes found rows of phallic toys, displays of steel handcuffs and leather collars, shelves of magazines that were bright with naked flesh, racks of whips, crops, paddles and, always, the blank eyed mannequins. Nowhere was safe.

Against her will she took a step forward and another, until she was amongst the rails of clothes and screaming silently to stop, to turn around and run. She saw herself reflected in another mirror, her white outfit the only pure thing amongst rows of black and red and steel. The virgin in the labyrinth. Clutching her bags tightly, she tried not to let anything touch her and she walked as if she was surrounded by thorns, by poison.

But she needed to touch. She whimpered at the thought and the shop girl looked up from her magazine.

Melissa felt herself being calmly appraised. The girl smiled then, white teeth against red lips and to Melissa it felt like the ice had given way and she had suddenly plunged through into the freezing water beneath.

What was she doing here? She needed to get out, to-

She took another step. Another step towards the counter and the girl. Another.

What was she doing? Why had she come to this place?

“Do you need some help?”

Yes, she wanted to shout. Help me! Don’t let him do this to me!

“I need to... to buy some things...”

“Yes?”

“I... I have to get some magazines.”

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” There was a trace of amusement in the softness of the girl’s voice, the edge of a smile on her elfin face.

“I...”

Melissa broke away from the darkness of the girl’s eyes. Trying to escape, her gaze traced down from that dangerous smile, down over her breasts, tightly wrapped by the leather top, the beautiful curves and shadows, down to the counter top and the magazine that was open there.

It was open at the centrefold. A photo of a woman reclining on satin sheets, her blonde hair spraying out like an unfolded fan, her legs drawn up but spread, the inside of her thighs perfectly smooth and tanned. Her hands reached downwards, where they held the back of another woman’s head, fingers laced tightly through dark brown hair.

Melissa was staring at the picture now, drawn into the details. The glimpse of a tongue as it played upon the naked slit and the way the blonde woman pointed her toes as she tipped back her head into the pillow. Most of all, the look in her eyes. The look of triumph as she made the other woman pleasure her.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Not this, it has to be...” In her head she heard what she was going to say and tried to bite down on her lip. She couldn’t do it. The girl held her gaze unblinking, not letting her look away. Coaxing the words out of her. Melissa knew how clear her embarrassment was and she could see the girl reacting to it. The delight shone out from her eyes.

“Particular titles?”

“Y-yes.”

“Why don’t you tell me their names and we can look for them.” Her voice was almost maternal now.

Making her say it. Making her wet.

“Lesbian Love, Dildo Girls and Rubber Punishment.”

“Rubber Punishment?”

Please, she thought, don’t make me say it again. She nodded. The girl raised an eyebrow.

“He’d love to hear your voice right now, wouldn’t he? He’d love to hear you say it, but he knows my rules. He has to wait.”

Wait for? She didn’t get time to think about it.

“The magazines are over here. Leave your bags behind the counter.”

She led Melissa across the store and Melissa followed as if she was on a leash. The magazines were displayed, row upon row, on black metal shelves. This corner of the shop was brightly lit.

“These are the girl-girl magazines…” She stood behind Melissa as she said it, reaching past her to point, so close that her breasts pressed against Melissa’s back.

“I don’t... I can’t-”

“Too much choice? Let me show you a selection. You can choose your favourites.”

She took a handful down from the shelves and spread them out on top of a wide glass display case. Beneath them, inside the case, vibrators were laid out on ruffled silk, glinting like jewellry.

Again she stood behind, reaching around Melissa almost like an embrace, turning the glossy pages.

“What do you like to see most? Tongues? Toys?”

Melissa couldn’t speak. She knew that some women did these things, but now they were laid out before her in unblinking detail. She told herself that it wasn’t real, they were doing these things for the camera. They didn’t, couldn’t really want to do it.

But somehow, that sent her heart racing even more. They were doing these things to each other to excite ... whoever saw the pictures. To excite her.

The girl was standing so close now, she could feel the breath against her ear.

“Do you like to see an innocent girl on her hands and knees, taking a strap-on? The look in her eyes as she surrenders?”

Her imagination responded, obedient to the words. Was that what she was going to see? Did she like to see those things? She liked boys, not girls. Didn’t she? She tried to be sure, certain in the thought, but it was hard. She had to concentrate just to draw breath. So difficult to do anything but inhale ... the scents of the rubber and the leather and the girl and to exhale ... her resistance.

Picture after picture of firm bodies entwined, fingers delving, heads thrown back in release. Were these the things she wanted? Locked away inside her head, a voice was screaming that this was wrong, wrong. She tried to focus on it but it felt like she was trying to listen through a wall in her mind. Trying to listen through the wall while the girl moved against her, softly, insistently.

She took Melissa’s hand, made her open another magazine. Moving her body even closer, pressing her hips tightly against Melissa’s rear, pushing her firmly against the case and bending her body over it. The light from within the cabinet bled around the edges of the pages, the edges of their fingers.

The girl’s hands were soft on top of hers as she made her turn the pages.

“Do you like what I’m showing you?” A girl with an enormous rubber dildo harnessed around her hips, smiling down at her partner who knelt before her. Stretching her lips around it. Sucking it deeply into her mouth.

They turned the page and Melissa gasped.

“Do you like to see girls fucking each other in the ass? Mmmm? Why don’t you think about it while I help these ladies.”

What? Drowning in the freezing water again. She lifted her head and saw that people had come into the shop. Two women stood by the entrance. Sisters? Twins? They had identical leather jackets, tight trousers and knee high boots. Both had their dark hair tightly drawn up into a bun. Both were stern, unsmiling, their faces perfect but remorseless like the faces of statues. One of them held a leash. The other wore it.

Both were staring at Melissa, illuminated in the light from the cabinet, as if she was a specimen on a slide. She squirmed beneath their gaze, the shop girl still holding her in place.

“Oh yes,” the girl whispered to her, “They can see what you’re doing.”

She placed her hand on the back of Melissa’s head, stroking her hair gently. Then she made her look down again.

“Stay here. Look at every page. Carefully.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll ask you some questions.”

She left Melissa bent over the display case and went over to the women, her leather jeans and then the high heels of her boots disappearing out of Melissa’s peripheral vision.

Now! Go! The voice in her head screamed, and she tried to run. Her feet shuffled but she was still gazing intently at the magazine, trying to drink every detail from the picture. The kneeling girl now face down on a bed. Her partner straddling her. The thick, veined dildo sliding into her ass.

Go! Angrily she tried to move but she could only slide her hips against the case, feeling the tightness of her jeans between her legs, the wetness. She saw the way the girl’s breasts were flattened against the bed, the way the sheets pooled around them, the way she was raising her hips to give a better angle, to help the other girl to fuck her. The pain and the pleasure on her face.

Why would anyone let herself be taken like that? And to let someone photograph it? Even as she thought it, she felt the echo in her body: Taken.

What would it feel like?

Breathing hard now. The rest of the shop disappearing, voices coming through in fragments.

“We want some new dildos. Bigger...”

She tried to sweep the magazines out of sight with her arm but her hands only turned the page. A close-up photo. The shaft of the dildo between the girl’s ass cheeks, her asshole taut around it, the slick shine of lubricant on the rubber, on her skin. It was so… obscene. What would it feel like?

“Yes, these are new...”

Melissa spent a long time looking at the picture, still trying to make her body obey. She was afraid now. She tried to just shut her eyes, to close everything off. All that she could do was blink. Her eyes, so eager, devoured the next photo and the next. She closed one magazine, moved seamlessly to another.

“It would go very well with this harness...”

Each of the girls was different but always there was a pattern; kissing, touching, undressing, tongues, fingers, toys. Melissa felt her body responding each time. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? The slow rhythmic turn of the page was like a slow rhythmic fucking. Like the pictures were fucking her thoughts.

Fucking her. Thoughts. Her mind betraying her. She could still think, she told herself. She couldn’t let this happen to her. She had to hold on. She-

“You’ll love the ridges on this one...”

Always, the submission of one girl and the dominance of another. One partner taking, the other being taken. Even in the softest of caresses, even in a kiss. One in command and the other obeying, or being made to obey. Being made to...

In her head she heard a voice again but it wasn’t screaming any more, just crying.

“Of course you can. The bench is set up in the third dressing room. Let me know if you need any help...”

All the magazines were closed now and still she stood, bent over them, looking at the cover girls and feeling nothing except desire and shame.

She was barely aware of the footsteps returning and the girl slowly circling her. Her jeans were loosened and pulled down over her hips. She moaned softly as a hand slipped under the waistband of her shorts, stroking over her freshly shaven mound. She moaned again as fingers, slick with her juices, curved up inside her, probing her, holding her.

“He’s primed you so well that this feels almost correct now, doesn’t it,” the shop girl said to her, “and yet deep inside, you still think that it’s unnatural, wicked. I love girls like you. You have such a clearly defined sense of right and wrong. So much fun to play with.”

Slowly, the girl let her fingers slide back out. Melissa sighed in disappointment.

“Shhh. Turn around. Good. Look at me now.” She held up her fingers, still wet. “Yes, open your mouth. Good girl. Open. Just like you’ve seen the other girls do it. Do you like how you taste? Mmmm?”

When her fingers were licked clean, she trailed them down Melissa’s chest.

“Undress.”

“Please…” but she’d meant to say ‘No’. If she could focus then she could still-

The girl gave her another amused smile.

“I can’t…” Melissa pleaded, but her body was already obeying. Stepping out of her boots and socks, letting her jeans pool around her ankles, unbuttoning her jacket, pulling her sweater over her head. She discarded it all on to the floor and stood, barefoot on the tiles. Eyes downcast, her thumbs hooked into the waistband of her silk boy-shorts, starting to pull downwards even as she tried to hold on to them.

“You can leave the underwear for now,” the girl said. “I like pink.”

Melissa bit down on the meek “thank you” that she was about to offer.

She tried to cover herself with her arms and to turn her body away, but the girls eyes simply moved from her breasts, cradled in the silk bra, to the wetness that was dampening the front of her shorts, to the curves of her ass. The more she tried to hide, the more she displayed herself.

A hand, gentle on her cheek. She wanted to glare in response. When she looked up, the girl was much taller now in her heels and the only feelings she could summon were apprehension and vulnerability. The girl’s hand was soft against her skin, stroking downwards, caressing her breasts through the silk, tracing over the hard points of her nipples. Drawing another feeling; desperation.

“I can see why he chose you,” said the girl, “you look so innocent, so ... lost. It’s making me wet. But you still need Rubber Punishment don’t you? Over here.”

The black tiles were cold against her feet and her steps were uncertain as the girl steered her to another wall of magazines.

“Here. Below the Spanking mags.” Girls apprehensively lifting their skirts, stern ladies flexing canes, tearful faces. Soft, submissive eyes.

The girl was so close again, her hands on Melissa’s hips, pulling her in. The leather jeans slid against her bare skin. A gentle pressure on her back and she tipped forward to grasp the metal shelves. She pushed back at the girl with her ass, presenting it. Waiting for the hand to strike it. Waiting for the flash of pain. Wanting it.

“No,” the girl said, “further down.” Melissa looked. The title was in large cheerful letters but beneath it, the cover photos made her whimper again. Girls in black rubber, tightly suited and masked, or with their legs poured in to high black stockings, or with taut rubber dresses stretched over huge breasts. Girls chained in dungeons, thick rubber masking their faces, staring blindly towards their approaching owners. Girls on their hands and knees, collared like dogs, thick tubing extruding from their rears like obscene tails.

No. She tried to say it but-

A hand glided over her ass, down between her legs, one finger tip stroking her softly. The friction of the silk against her wet slit.

“Yes, good.” The finger continued to stroke, but she felt the girl lean in over the top of her. Again, the smooth firmness of the leather, cool against her skin. The girl’s lips against her ear.

“He’s watching us,” she whispered

Panic. Melissa bucked, but the girl was unyielding. Holding her. Still stroking, the movements unrelenting.

“There are cameras everywhere. He’s watching right now. He can see you standing here in those shreds of pink silk and he can see what I’m doing to you.”

Melissa made a small cry.

“He can see how much you want it, all of it.”

“Nnnnn-“

“Hush,” said the girl softly. She took her fingers away, only to encircle one of Melissa’s wrists and draw her hand away from its grip on the shelf. Guiding it between her bare legs. Gently edging one of Melissa’s fingers into the wet fold that she had made.

“Slowly. You aren’t … allowed … to come. Or to stop.”

She heard the sound of the heels clicking against the tiles.

Slowly. Sliding against the finger as she gripped the shelf with the other hand. Her eyes flicked along the row of magazines, moving in time. She imagined being remade in those images. Her finger rubbing, softly, rubbing the ideas into her mind.

Chained. Masked. Collared. Plugged. Owned.

Images sliding in deep.

Someone’s fingers hooking inside the waistband of her shorts, pulling it taut. Something being placed inside her shorts, something thin, rectangular, metallic. Silk holding it tight against her ass cheek. A wire running up her back. Headphone buds pushed into her ears.

She had to take them out, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop.

Whispering in her ears. Instructing her. Helping her to remember.

Everything else dissolving. All of her thoughts falling down, out of sight.

Rubbing.

Melissa waited for the shop girl to ring her magazines through the till.

She shifted from one foot to the other, impatient, wanting to get home. To get into her bedroom and lock the door. It was so hard to think about anything else.

With every movement she felt the three balls rock inside her and she clenched against them. The wetness trickling down the string. Trapped inside her rubber shorts. So tight to her skin, smooth over her ass. She wanted to run her hands on them again, to feel herself through them, but she’d been told to stop.

The girl smiled at her as she wrapped the magazines and placed them into a black plastic bag, almost full. Smiling at the way her breasts were pressed tightly together by the black rubber bra. Like being held by the girl’s soft hands. So hard to think about...

“I just need to scan the rest of your things,” said the girl. “Why don’t you get up on to the counter?”

“I…on to the…” Something she had to remember, something that she wasn’t supposed to do. There had been a voice, telling her that something was wrong. It was so hard to remember. So hard to think.

“Yes, the counter. On your hands and knees. Then I can scan you.”

She had to do what the girl told her, she remembered that.

She twisted up on to the long counter top, facing away from the till. Settling on to her knees, she walked her hands out in front of her. The shorts stretched as she leant her head down on her arms and pushed her butt up and back. Wrists crossed, as if they were cuffed, ankles together. Dildos and bottles of lubricant stood upright around her on the counter. She could feel the spot lights, hot on her back.

“I’ve kept you on the edge for so long,” the girl said. She snaked the lead for the scanning gun around Melissa’s thigh, drawing it between her legs, pulling it up between the globes of her ass, pulling it tight.

“Your brain must be nearly fried, mustn’t it? You’d never known what it was like to need it so much and be denied. Never realised how badly you could need it and what you’d do just for the chance.” She pulled on the strap of the bra, stretching it out and threading the gun and the wire through it.

Melissa pushed up on to her elbows, tipping her head back, trying to move against the tightness of the scanner cable. When she looked down, she saw the girl’s handbag on the floor and on top of it, pink silk. Again there was a blurred memory. Begging, holding her underwear in outstretched hands. Pleading for permission-

“Does it feel good to be up here? Being scanned through with the other sex toys?” Fingers trailing down Melissa’s back, brushing softly over the rubber. Working at the zip that ran from front to back. A mewling noise. Melissa realised that it was coming from her.

The girl unzipped her and took hold of the cord.

“I need to scan these first.” She pulled on the scanner wire, tangled in Melissa’s bra strap. “Can’t quite reach.”

She pulled on the cord. Melissa felt the balls move inside her and cried out.

“Maybe if I just pulled one out.”

She pulled again. One. Two. Three. A cry from Melissa with each one.

“Oops,” the girl’s fingers, spreading her, pushing the balls back inside. Pulling them out. Again and again. Everything wet. “You like this, don’t you? But I can’t reach them like this.” Pulling them out. Pushing her fingers back in their place. Melissa bucking against them. Moaning in need.

“Soon.”

There was a sound like a hornet. A buzzing between her legs as something long and sleek was pushed up between them. Just the tip at first but she was so wet that there was no resistance, only acceptance. A slow penetration, spreading and filling her, reverberating through her core.

“Good girl, hold it tight.”

She obeyed. Her body arced towards release but it was held back, waiting for the girl’s command.

The rubber curtain of one of the changing rooms was drawn back. The two women emerged, their hair perfect and their leather jackets tightly done up. One of them held a bulging shopping bag and the other carried a long, thick dildo with a handle like a truncheon and a tip like a rocket head.

Their eyes connected to Melissa’s. They fixed her in place, kneeling on the counter. Held her there whilst the shop girl took hold of the vibrator and angled it up and down, back and forth between her legs. She felt the strength of the vibrations double and the hornet noise became a shriek.

“Please,” Melissa sobbed, “please.”

Knowing that she was begging, knowing that they were watching her beg. The recognition in their eyes was like the completion of a circuit.

“Yes, now.”

It was like a star exploding behind her eyes. Exploding through the tightness of her muscles, through her whole body. Fire underneath her skin. Then her head slumping on to her wrists, her mouth hanging open. Her ankles, still pressed firmly together, flapping on the countertop like a fishtail. Body convulsing but still tied down by her mind and by their silent stares.

The women strode up to the counter. Their faces were expressionless and cold but they were watching Melissa intently. She was still coming, clenching around the vibrating toy as the girl pulled the cable tight and scanned the tags on the rubber bra and shorts. The scanner beeping.

She was crying out. Eyes closing. Nothing left.

She leaned heavily on the railing and looked out over the river. The day had turned cold and the sky was slate grey, the clouds churning and brewing. By her feet, there were her four shopping bags, three blazing with logos and one plain black. There was no one else by the riverside and even the traffic noise seemed distant. The water was slow and quiet.

The women had waited for her to open her eyes. Waited for the recognition of what had happened. The recognition when her mind fought through the haze and she found herself penetrated and entangled on the countertop. When the need had burnt entirely away and there was only her shame. She had looked up at them and they had seen it.

In that instant there had been a crack in the perfection of their faces and she had seen a look of … satisfaction. Then it was gone and they turned away and left.

Raindrops broke on the surface of the water. The surface rippled like her thoughts. Remembering.

“What... what have you done?”

That smile in response and the idle touch of her hand.

“I used to feel guilty when I came. I got over it. Now I sometimes feel guilty when I make other girls come. Just a little.”

“Let ... me ... go.” Teeth gritted.

“I’d like to keep you.”

“Please, I just want to go home.”

“Of course.” Unwrapping the cable from her. “Get down. What? Is there something else you want?”

“My clothes...”

“No, I think you should stay like that. Don’t you like the way the rubber feels?”

“You bitch, I want them, now!”

“You need to get used to being obedient.”

“No...”

“Compliant.”

“Please, don’t do this again, I just want to...”

“Kiss me.”

“No.”

“That’s all you have to do. After everything you’ve seen and done today, why would you be afraid?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Yes, you are. That’s one of the reasons why you’re wet again, you’re afraid of what I can make you do.”

“Shut up,” Melissa said as she stepped up to the girl and kissed her full on the lips.

She replayed the words in her mind, drowning out the sound of the rain.

Her handbag was open. The phone was lying there like a blade.

Rain water on her hands, on her face.

The phone...

The girl’s mouth, the hotness of her breath, her tongue.

Melissa tried to pull away, to find that shred of will again. Even as she moved, she felt the girl’s lips brushing across her cheek. Underneath the soft breath was a whisper.

The girl’s voice blew over her like the wind crossing midnight fields.

A door closed tightly in her mind.

... was lying there like a blade.

She closed her hand around it.

Then she drew back her arm, twisted from her hips and brought all the power of her body into the throw.

The phone arced out over the water, falling between the rain. She couldn’t see where it met the surface of the river, but it was gone. There was relief but it was muted, as if there was still something holding on to her. Still a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.

She looked down at the shopping bags. The black bag was anonymous but heavy.

Picking up the other three bags, she left the black bag on the ground.

Striding away from the river side, she felt as though that hold on her was weakening. Five steps away. Ten. The freshness of the rain. Fifteen steps. The tightness of the rubber beneath her clothes, between her legs. Twenty. All those things she’d bought. Dark and shiny. The thought and the need were the same.

One more step. Shivering. Stumbling. Rain and tears on her face.

She looked back.

A black cab emerged from out of the rain. Melissa flagged it down.

She slumped in the seat, exhausted and soaked, the three shopping bags dumped on the floor in front of her.

One hand cradled her head. The other hand gripped the black bag tightly.

The taxi pulled away, taking her home.

She could feel the weight of the bag against her. It was bulging and heavy but sealed at the top by her clenched fist. But she could open it, she could look inside, she could -

“Please,” she said to the driver, “Hurry.”