The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

System Corrupt

(mc, ma, ex, hu, mf)

Part 3

Work did suck on Sunday. Laurie’s boss gave her a disapproving frown when she came in the front sliding doors wearing dark sunglasses, but otherwise said nothing about it.

Laurie did the best she could manage, but every smile she turned on for a customer became a wince, and every question someone asked her sounded like air raid klaxons.

Over lunch, she checked her bank account and found nothing new. It seemed the whole hypnosis debacle really was over. Laurie was able to breath a little bit easier, and after lunch, her hangover had cleared enough that she could put away her sunglasses and speak to other human beings without cringing. She still felt on the verge of vomiting, but she was confident that she could hide it well.

She got off work at three thirty, and since there were no coworkers to go swimming with, she decided to take a jog around town lake. Her nausea had subsided, and she really did think she needed to be working out more. The fresh air and exertion might even help lift the cobwebs the hangover had left over her mind.

A few minutes later, she was cursing herself her stupidity. It was three forty-five in the afternoon, in July, in Texas. The projected high for the day was about a hundred and three degrees, and it felt to be about there. Laurie had slept for only four hours, every part of her body ached, and her nausea was back, threatening to make her spill her lunch over the gravel trail. Still she pressed on, and though she never thought she could do it, she completed a full mile-long circuit around the lake in less than thirteen minutes.

Upon completion, she immediately dashed into the bushes to heave up her lunch, but afterward she felt worlds better.

After a shower of first cold water, then hot, Laurie’s hangover was entirely cured. She felt a bit tired, but otherwise happy. She climbed into bed in her underwear and settled in for an afternoon nap.

Trilling alarm clock, cool air, bare skin, smell of sweat and arousal, tender nethers. This did not seem promising. Laurie opened her eyes and stared blankly at her ceiling.

Not again... How had the virus gotten her this time? Her computer was in a repair shop. Mikaela’s old laptop hadn’t even been on the internet for several months before Laurie borrowed it; it couldn’t have been infected.

The alarm still sounded. Laurie shifted to press the off button, and as she did, something slid against her hip. It was smallish, slender, smooth, warm, damp... Laurie found it with her hand and held it over her eyes, looked up at it from her pillow.

It was a vibrator. An inch wide and nine inches long, smooth, black. Laurie flung it across the room as if it had bitten her. A queasy shiver ran through her body. She jumped to her feet, now fully alert, and glared at her desk where Mikaela’s old laptop sat in Steg’s old spot, that same window on its desktop casting Laurie’s naked image back at her. The Logitek QuikCam sat once again in its place, staring at her with a blank, lifeless lens and an uncaring little green ‘record’ light.

There was something else. The computer screen was... flickering.

Laurie let out a loud cry of anguish. She thought she would be safe if she separated herself from the influence of the infected computer. But it wasn’t just the computer that had the virus. It was in her now; she was infected. She was the one who had passed the virus on to Mikaela’s computer.

Mikaela burst into Laurie’s room, saying, “What is it, what’s wrong?”

Laurie whipped around to face her, loose curls spinning around her head, and Mikaela looked her up and down, took in her entirely naked form, nearly stumbled over the plastic vibrator on the floor without noticing, and said, “Sorry.” She backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her, feeling almost as embarrassed as Laurie.

Laurie, who was still too busy feeling surprised to respond, turned red from head to toe, and finally she called back, “Don’t worry about it, I’m ok.”

What did she see? she asked herself. Her heart was racing, fear was blocking her airways making it hard to breath. Did she notice the webcam was on? ...Probably not. And she practically stepped on that... that thing without seeing it either.

Laurie struggled to calm down.

Trying to fix my computer was a waste of money. Returning the camera was a waste of time. I’m the problem. I’m the one that’s infected. So what do I do now?

She could return Mikaela’s computer, sell Stegs online, and only use the computer in the break room at work... But what if I wind up just buying a brand new one, next time I’m... she couldn’t bear to give a name to the state that overtook her; could hardly acknowledge it at all. No, I can’t afford that. The problem is in me, and so the solution should be something that fixes me.

Laurie glanced at the clock, and for a moment she couldn’t tell what day it was. The time said 8:24, but... well, the quality of light pouring in through the window told her it had to be Monday morning, not Sunday evening. She’d been sleeping or blacked-out for fifteen and a half hours. At some point, she got up from her nap, went to the computer store, bought the webcam again, went to some sex store (she thought of Cindi’s on Llamar), bought a vibrator, came home, found the virus somewhere on the internet, installed it on Mikaela’s computer, installed the webcam, opened up this video chat window, and... and did the rest. All without recollection. How was that possible? How could she be so controlled?

Laurie was at a loss, but she couldn’t be late for work. She showered, dressed, hid the incriminating vibrator in her bathroom cabinet, and went to the kitchen, thinking a nice breakfast would help her reestablish some sense of control over her day.

Mikaela was sitting at the counter with a bowl of cereal. When Laurie walked in, a moment of very uncomfortable silence passed between them, and then Mikaela said, “So is everything ok?”

Laurie smiled reassuringly and said, “Yeah, fine. Sorry about that. I guess that’s what I get for sleeping naked.”

And they ate in uncomfortable silence until Laurie left for work.

After work, Laurie went down to the pool with the bookees. They left for dinner at four o’clock, but Laurie hung back, deciding instead to swim some laps and get in a good workout. She thought, not for the first time, that maybe she ought to get herself a gym membership. She just wanted to trim off a little bit of her belly so it would be totally flat, and maybe get rid of the slight jiggle in her thighs.

On her way home, with the sun beginning to hang low in the west, she reflected that if she were going to black out, it would probably happen any time now. She wondered if she could simply steel herself against it, block out the trance or whatever with sheer force of will. So as she rode her bicycle, she kept her mental energies focused on keeping herself in the here and now.

But no black-out came, and she spent the evening googling ways to resist mind control. Mostly all she found were insane conspiracies about MK Ultra, overly vague advice about self-hypnotism, and advice to visit a hypnotherapist. A couple of times the screen started flickering, and Laurie was surprised and terrified at how quickly it acted on her. Before she even realized what she was looking at, she found herself feeling groggy and almost complacent. But each time it happened, she was able to restart the machine, which successfully halted the routine for a while, and she went on. The idea in the back of her mind that she might not remember even if it had worked on her one of those times was difficult to ignore.

Laurie only went to bed when she was able to convince herself that no black out was coming, as if somehow she could stop it when she was awake.

Tuesday she read for a few hours in the morning, worked a full eight hour shift, took a swim, and...

She woke up Wednesday morning, naked but for an unfamiliar black lace bra, its cups tucked under her breasts uncomfortably. The abhorrent black vibrator was clenched by the base in her right hand. Her clothes from the day before were in her laundry basket. A pair of slim, high-heeled, knee-high, violet vinyl boots lay on the ground, along with lacy black panties to match her bra, a vinyl violet miniskirt, long, gauzy white stockings, and a translucent black mesh top.

Laurie gazed over the scattered clothing and her first thought was, There goes my leisure budget for the week.

What’s more, her room had been rearranged. The bed was along the front wall so that it almost blocked the door, her dresser blocked her closet and left only a foot or so of space between it and the bed to squeeze through coming into the room, and her desk had been turned at an angle in the corner, all apparently so that Laurie would have more space to do whatever slutty things she was doing in front of the camera.

So return whatever clothes the store will take back, return the camera, fix your room, and for mercy sake, give Mikaela back her computer (after getting the virus off of it, of course)!

But it was hopeless. There was nothing she could undo today that she wouldn’t just redo the next time around; she was sure of it. And it might end up costing her the price of a new computer. No, her only hope lay in breaking the hypnosis.

Laurie gathered up the fishnet shirt, the panties, the skirt, the boots, the stockings, and paused, just for a second, to wonder how she must have looked in all of this. Try as she might, she couldn’t picture herself dressed this way. The temptation to play dress-up lingered longer than she wanted to admit, but then she pushed the dresser out of the way, opened her closet, and dumped the ensemble into the darkest back corner.

It was early yet (only 8 o’clock), but Laurie wanted to get in a workout before softball practice. So breaking the hypnosis would have to wait until the afternoon. Thankfully, she had the day off from work.

She went into her bathroom to pee and stopped cold when she passed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had never been so made up before. Her lips were a glistening plumb violet, the same as those boots and skirt. Her eyeliner was thick and her eyeshadow was dark, and her hair, though it had mostly come loose, had clearly been braided and piled on top of her head, and with the rest of the get-up she’d found scattered on her floor that morning, she must have looked... well, really skanky. A pretty skank, no doubt, but a serious skank. Laurie washed her face thoroughly and teased out the pins and bands that had held her hair in place.

It wasn’t until she went to put on her underwear that she noticed one final aesthetic touch—and, since she had just about reached her quota for disturbing and embarrassing affronts to her self determination, this one struck her as more funny than anything else. She was shaven. Her pubic hair was gone, except for one little tuft of curls on her mons, replaced by slick pink flesh. The thought of her sitting on the edge of her bathtub, mindlessly and methodically carving away the hair on her crotch with her razor brought a couple tears to her eyes at the same time that it brought laughter bubbling up from her chest.

After a long run, a set of sit ups, a full set of stretches, and a shower, Laurie made it to softball practice. She was a little tired from her morning routine, but she played well anyway. She thought maybe all the extra exercise was paying off.

After practice, her team, which mostly consisted of bookees, went to lunch at G. Terry’s and then to the pool to hang out. Laurie knew she needed to be focused on breaking her little “curse,” but time spent with friends was time she could forget all about those troubles, time that, but for a little mishap with an email from a friend, should have been hers to enjoy carefree.

Jean, by the way, didn’t seem to be suffering in the way Laurie had been, although it was hard to tell if she was keeping a secret the way Laurie was. She was there at the pool that day, and Laurie danced around the subject a bit when she got a moment alone with Jean. They were leaning against the edge of the pool, kicking lazily at the cool water under the shade of an oak tree that spread its branches overhead.

“So that email you sent me last week,” began Laurie, and suddenly she felt afraid.

“Yeah?” Jean had an olive complexion and jet-black hair, a round face given easily to smiling, and glittering brown eyes that always seemed entreating, like she wasn’t sure if the people around her were really ok with her being there. She was sweet and had a sense of humor that tended to catch people off guard.

“I liked the story about the limo driver. That was really cute.”

Jean smiled graciously. “Thanks,” she said, “I didn’t take as much time with it as I usually do, though. I kind of just wanted to get it out there, you know?”

Laurie nodded. “Yeah. And the kittens were adorable.”

At this, Jean’s brow furrowed, trying to puzzle out what Laurie was talking about, but then a realization seemed to strike her and she said, “Yeah! Weren’t they? I just sort of attached that as an afterthought.”

Laurie was quiet for a moment, examining Jean’s face for some sort of tell, and then she said, “But... I think it gave my computer a virus.”

Jean’s eyes went wide in alarm. “What, really? It couldn’t have.”

Laurie hesitated again, but she said, “I think it could have, though. Have you... been having computer problems, lately?”

It took a beat for Jean to answer. “Um... No.” She gazed out across the pool, where some of their friends were cued up at the diving board. “I mean, it’s been a bit slow, but that’s just because it’s an old computer. I need to defrag it or something.”

“The monitor doesn’t flicker or anything?”

“Um... Well, I had something like that a couple months ago,” she said. “But it went away after I did a scan.”

“Oh, I see,” said Laurie. And the only questions she had left would sound really crazy if she said them out loud.

They were quiet for a little bit, and then their friends called for them to join in some game they were going to play, and Laurie was relieved.

Laurie wondered who else among her friends might have gotten the virus, and if any of them were afflicted like she was. No one seemed troubled, but then, she doubted anyone thought she seemed particularly morose herself. Maybe she could come up with some unassuming way of polling them for computer problems. The email was still archived; she could look it up and start with everyone on the CC list...

Laurie pondered over this idea for a little while, then set it aside. When she left the pool, as much as it hurt her to leave the group, she felt it was necessary to go home and start trying to break free of this problem of hers. And besides, they were going to dinner at another restaurant, and her restaurant budget for the week was completely blown. At lunch that day all she’d eaten were french fries, and she was getting pretty hungry.

So when she got home she made a salad, one eye on the clock and wondering, as usual, whether or not she would black out. Then she got back online and began another search for methods of breaking hypnosis.

She wound up downloading three tracks by a reputable hypnotherapist (they cost $5.99 a track, and Laurie could almost hear the strain they put on her over-burdened bank account).

Then she loaded them onto her mp3 player, turned off her computer (wouldn’t want the virus to start up while she was already hypnotized), put in her earbuds, lay back on her bed, and pressed ‘play.’

There was a lot of preamble, cautions against listening while driving, advice for first-timers, and then a long, slow induction. The man in the recording had a deep voice with a very trustworthy feel to it and a slight English accent. He began by describing a meadow, then led her down an imaginary staircase, repeating phrases like “deep breath in... hold it... and release,” and, “down and down, deeper and deeper.” By the time he’d moved beyond the induction, Laurie was feeling very relaxed, certainly. But she didn’t feel... hypnotized. She was aware of her legs, her hands, her body in general. She didn’t want to move or stop the recording, but she couldn’t help distracting herself with doubt. Instead she tried to focus on what the hypnotist told her:

“I am going to give you a series of phrases that I want you to remember. After each phrase, I would like you to repeat them back to me—out loud, or, if you find it is too much effort to move your mouth and throat, simply repeat them clearly in your mind.

“You are in control of your own destiny. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do. Repeat.”

Laurie muttered, “I am in control of my own destiny. No one can make me do anything I don’t want to do.”

“You are free from any compulsion or illusion which has been imposed upon you. Unwanted instructions have no influence on you.”

Laurie listened to the full file with a small grain of hope, but a larger lump of doubt. She’d felt very comfortable and at ease listening to the file, that was true. But at no point did she lose awareness of herself or her surroundings. At no point did she stop... thinking. Maybe hypnosis didn’t really involve those things, though. Maybe real hypnosis was just talking yourself into believing the things someone was telling you. Power of suggestion and all that. But that wasn’t what she’d been experiencing at all. Something as weak as this hypnosis tape could never have done things to her like that computer virus had done.

She’d try again. The recording had mentioned that not everyone would be hypnotized on their first listening, that it took willingness and sometimes practice to enter a deep trance state. And anyway, there were two other recordings to try as well. She’d try again and again, if she needed to. But for now, she felt she’d relaxed about as much as was humanly possible. She decided to read a little and go to bed.