“The Abduction of Margaret”
Margaret awoke in total darkness. She’d never experienced an absence of light so absolute before, not in her entire life; even when she turned off the lights at night and drew the curtains, there was always a diffuse haze of illumination coming through the fabric from streetlamps or moonlight. Not even her childhood camping trips left her in this kind of pitch blackness—when the embers of the fire died away to nothing, the stars overhead at least shone brightly enough to remind her that light existed. But this... Margaret waved her hand in front of her face. If not for the evidence of her other senses, she would have no idea it was there.
She began to sit up, but a sick wave of dizziness passed through her every time she tried to move and she lay back down on the bed until it passed. For a moment, she wondered if she was ill—maybe the room wasn’t dark at all, maybe something was wrong with her eyes as well as her stomach and her sense of balance. Some sort of brain injury? She didn’t remember anything like that happening, but of course if her brain was damaged she wouldn’t. Margaret felt her head gingerly for bandages or signs of pain, but she seemed to be intact. Just dizzy and confused. She tried to think back, find her last firm memory and work from there to reconstruct events.
She was in... Margaret’s brain stumbled for a moment, as much from the whirlwind pace of her European trip as from her inexplicable grogginess. She’d been through six cities in twelve days, an itinerary that took her from Rome to Madrid to Paris to Brussels to Amsterdam to Berlin to... to... had she made it out of Berlin? She felt certain she recalled checking out of the hotel, getting into the tour bus and heading for Vienna. They crossed the Austrian border, and there was a, a breakdown? Yes, that was it. The tour bus broke down and the company arranged for a fleet of limousines for them as an apology.
And... yes! She could see it now in her mind’s eye. Margaret got into a limo with Leroy, the retired postal carrier from Santa Monica, and Betty, the college sophomore taking a few weeks before the beginning of fall classes to see the world, and the three of them broke open a bottle of complimentary champagne. And... and Margaret vaguely remembered wondering why it was hitting her so hard, because she had more tolerance than Betty. (And a bit more body mass, she admitted reluctantly. She didn’t like the way she looked in green, but Betty’s sylph-like body and long, honey blonde curls made a depressing contrast to Margaret’s flat brown hair and chunky body.)
She’d gone out for plenty of hen nights and gone through harder stuff than champagne, but three glasses of this made her head swim. In a discomfortingly familiar way, Margaret suddenly realized as she looked back on the moment.
And Margaret remembered thinking about asking the others if they felt the same way, but when she looked over at Betty she saw the young woman slump over sideways and collapse onto the floor of the limo. And she tried to tell the driver, but her face suddenly felt numb and her limbs seemed heavy and lifeless and the champagne glass slipped through her nerveless fingers. Margaret could recall watching it fall, but somehow it never seemed to hit the ground...
And now she was here. In darkness. Dizzy and nauseous. Margaret stumbled to her feet, a sick feeling growing in her gut that had nothing at all to do with the champagne. She took maybe four steps before smacking into a padded wall, the impact of the vinyl surface against her entire body providing her first realization that her clothing was missing. She felt her way along the room for three, maybe four steps before coming to a corner, then another four steps to another corner, then carefully back to the bed. It was bolted to the floor. The only furniture in this tiny little box was bolted to the floor.
Margaret had just started to panic when the lights came on. She blinked, the harsh fluorescent bulbs stinging her completely unprepared eyes, and for a moment all she could see was white. Then she realized that there was nothing else to see—every surface was coated with that same padded vinyl, except for the far wall which looked like it was a floor-to-ceiling television screen displaying a solid white picture. She staggered over to it and pounded on it with her fists, not from any plan but simply because it looked like the only thing she might possibly be able to break, but the plastic window in front of it simply absorbed her blows with only a slight wobble. She hit it again anyway.
Then she heard the voice. “Maggie,” it said, in clipped Continental English, “if you can’t behave, we’ll have to put you back into the dark again.” It was a woman’s voice, calm and throaty and infinitely patient, but there was a determination behind it that made Margaret slowly lower her hands to her sides. Something told her this woman didn’t make any kind of idle threat. And now that she could see the entire room, Margaret realized there was no visible door anywhere in the small structure. A toilet in the corner, a recessed slot directly opposite the bed... but no way out. At all.
The woman’s voice softened a little. “That’s better,” she said. “Maggie, you’ll soon learn that there are certain privileges to your existence here. Light is a privilege. Freedom of movement is a privilege. Communication with the outside is a privilege. The better you behave, the more privileges you’ll be given. The worse you behave...” The woman paused before adding sympathetically, “Let’s just say that you don’t want to find out how many privileges you have right now, Maggie.”
“Margaret,” she corrected automatically. It had become force of habit by now, the word slipping out before she even realized what she’d said. It was just an instinctive response to a lifetime of Megs and Maggies and Peggys and Madges and Mamies and Midges, an endless flood of people who thought she knew what her name was better than she did herself, but as soon as it escaped her lips, Margaret knew she’d made a mistake.
Even so, the swiftness of the woman’s response caught Margaret off guard. The lights went out instantly, plunging the room into total blackness once more. The screen clicked off. Even the tiny little hum of the intercom ceased, leaving Maggie in silence as well as darkness in her tiny prison. She had never felt so completely, totally alone in her life.
She tried to fill the silence, humming loudly as she felt her way over to the toilet and carefully relieved herself. The hum sounded weirdly flat with nothing but padded vinyl to echo off of, but it still kept Margaret company for a little while. She made her way back to the bed, trying to think of every song by every singer that she could possibly remember... but after a while, her throat began to feel dry, and the hum dried up into a pathetic croak. There wasn’t a faucet in the cube. There wasn’t any visible source of food or water at all. Margaret heard the woman’s voice echoing uncomfortably in her memory: ‘You don’t want to find out how many privileges you have right now.’ Slowly, her voice trailed away to nothing.
The darkness and silence stretched on for what seemed like hours, until Margaret began to see colored patterns in front of her as her eyes attempted to process a lack of sensory information so complete that her brain simply didn’t know how to handle it. Finally, the lights flickered back into life, and the woman’s voice returned. “There you go, Maggie,” she said, her voice filled with nothing but praise. “You see how much easier it is when you behave for us?”
Margaret sat up, biting back her first few replies out of sheer self-preservation. She’d spent her time in the darkness thinking about just how much she was dependent on her captors’ goodwill at the moment, and how very few choices she had right now. She’d read about Patty Hearst and she knew what Stockholm syndrome was, but at the same time she couldn’t escape if she was starved or asphyxiated or dehydrated to death. She had to play along for now. “Yes,” she said at last, trying to keep her voice polite and respectful. “Am I allowed to ask questions?”
The woman sounded pleased with Margaret’s response. “You’re allowed to ask,” she said, “but we may decide not to answer if we feel that the knowledge would prejudice the results of the experiment. There are certain parameters we’re testing with you that we consider to be important variables, and we wouldn’t want to have to throw out your data.” There was another pause. “Neither would you, Maggie.”
Margaret stifled the urge to correct her name again, and instead said, “Why am I here?” She found herself drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her pale arms around herself in an attempt at modesty. She couldn’t see cameras, but based on the way the woman talked to her, Margaret knew they had to be there. She didn’t feel nearly comfortable enough about her body to be seen naked by strangers like this.
Another pause, as if the woman was consulting a chart or a database, and then a reply. “You’re participating in an experiment,” she said, almost sounding a bit eager for the chance to finally talk about her work. “To determine the amount of time it takes to brainwash an entirely unwilling subject into total compliance, without using torture or physical coercion. I’m sure you can imagine the potential uses for the data we’re gathering, so I won’t trouble you with the details. You don’t really need to know anyway.”
She went on, as calmly as if she were speaking to a potential investor and not to a captive test subject. “You were selected for suitability with our experimental criteria—primarily demographic at this time, although it was certainly important to us that you could be removed to a testing environment for an extended period without suspicion—and subsequently renditioned to our private facility for conditioning. Naturally, an important aspect of this experiment involves obtaining genuinely unwilling victims, so we were somewhat constrained when it comes to the usual consent practices. I’m afraid you’ll just have to excuse us.”
Margaret wasn’t sure what part of that terrified her most, the phrase ‘total compliance’ or the chilling certainty in the woman’s voice when she said, ‘the amount of time it takes’. It didn’t sound like she expected even the slightest possibility of failure. She really thought that Margaret’s... brainwashing? The word sounded almost absurd in its sinister implications, but the woman clearly believed that it was only a matter of time before they broke Margaret’s will. Before she did anything they told them to, before she stopped struggling even in the privacy of her own head. “please don’t,” she heard herself whimper, almost without even realizing it.
The lights went out. The silence stretched on. And Margaret learned her first lesson—it was useless to plead with her captors.
The slot in the wall slid open, revealing a plastic bowl filled with warm oatmeal. Margaret stared at it skeptically, curling up on the bed and trying desperately to ignore the growling of her stomach and the scent of food that gradually filled the tiny room. After a few minutes, she turned to face the wall. It didn’t really make it any easier.
She was pretty sure the food was drugged. Not that she could be certain—they usually waited longer before they gave her the drugged food, just to make sure that she wouldn’t be able to resist eating it, but the maddening truth was that Margaret could never be absolutely positive about any part of her daily routine. Or at least, what she’d come to think of as ‘daily’; she hadn’t seen a clock or a calendar since they put her in the cube, and for all she knew, what she thought of as the last two weeks was really six months. Or maybe just a few days.
It all seemed so infuriatingly random. Sometimes the lights went out for long stretches, leaving Margaret with nothing to do but lie on her bed in the darkness and doze in an empty fugue state. Sometimes they woke her after what seemed like minutes, flicking the lights on and off in a stroboscopic pattern that broke through even her deepest sleep. If she tried to put her arm over her face to block it out, they only started to play blaring horns and sirens until she dragged herself to her feet. They kept her up for what felt like hours, until sleep deprivation left her groggy and bewildered, before forcing her back into silence and shadow for another stretch of enforced idleness.
The only other way Margaret had to judge time was by talking to the experimenter. Even that seemed to happen on a random basis, though, and her conversations with the woman she’d come to call ‘Madame’ didn’t tell her anything. When Margaret tried to get a hint of how long she’d been a captive or how much time passed between their talks, Madame simply said, “I’m afraid that’s all part of the protocol, Maggie dear. Consider it confidential information from now on, please.”
Margaret didn’t dare ask again after that. She knew all too well that even a hint of displeasure led to long stretches of silence, her only human connection cut off for what felt like days. She’d already grown to hate herself for how much she looked forward to talking to Madame, how eagerly she sought to please the other woman simply to prolong their conversations a few minutes more. (Not that she knew they were minutes, but Margaret continued to use the terms in the privacy of her own head as much out of spite as anything else.)
And despite her suspicions about the drugs, she couldn’t judge her captivity by her mealtimes either. They fed her when they felt like feeding her, it seemed, sliding water and oatmeal and chicken tenders through the slot at random intervals. If she didn’t eat it, they would simply close the slot again and she’d have to wait for the next chance at a meal. She thought about going on a hunger strike once or twice, just to see what they’d do... but after a while, the simple diversion of putting food in her mouth overwhelmed her resolve. With so little to do, even eating became an escape from boredom.
That was how they treated most of Margaret’s attempts at defiance—with utter disinterest. There was nowhere she could go, nothing she could do to present meaningful resistance; eventually, she wound up complying simply because she had no real alternative options. The only exceptions were rudeness to Madame—even the slightest hint of disrespect in Margaret’s voice brought about a swift end to their conversations, followed by hours of silent darkness—and attempts at self-harm. Madame had explained early on what would happen if she tried that.
“I know you might think that you have some leverage there,” she’d lectured, her voice never losing that calm, polite, almost didactic tone, “because you think that you have more value to us as a compromised test subject than as a dead one. I will be honest with you, Maggie; that isn’t actually true. If you persisted in defiance, at some point we would have to cut our losses and terminate the experiment... at which point, unfortunately, even your limited knowledge about our protocols would present a security risk we’d have to eliminate. I’m not saying this as a threat, you understand; I’m merely presenting a set of facts for you to consider.”
Margaret still shivered sometimes, remembering the absolute disinterest in Madame’s voice as she went on. “That said, you don’t need to be afraid that we’re simply going to give up on you the moment you start acting up. There’s an entire spectrum of options available to us that don’t compromise the integrity of our experiment, while still restricting your privileges to the point where self-harm simply becomes impossible for you. We would dislike exercising those options, Maggie... but not nearly as much as you would.”
Margaret had decided not to push her luck.
Hunger strikes apparently didn’t qualify for punishment, and Margaret was tempted to let this one go on a little bit longer. She’d gotten all too familiar with the sluggish, heavy-limbed sensation that hit her after eating a meal that they gave her when she was starving, a sign that her food had been drugged with some sort of powerful sedative to knock her out. No matter how hard she tried to stay awake, a full dose of whatever they were giving her on an all-too empty stomach was enough to send her slumping to the padded floor, her eyes slipping shut and her brain going numb with chemically-induced exhaustion.
The most frustrating part was that Margaret knew that if she could somehow resist, it would be the perfect opportunity to escape—all the evidence indicated that they drugged her so that they could enter her cell without risking a confrontation. She woke up to a clean cell every time; any evidence of sweat, splatters from her messy meals (they never allowed her utensils) or the residue of her awkward attempts to use the toilet in pitch darkness always disappeared after one of her drugged slumbers. That was why they used vinyl, she figured. The non-porous fabric simply wiped clean.
They cleaned her while she slept, too. Margaret always woke up freshly scrubbed, her skin bright pink and faintly perfumed with the lingering scent of some generic brand of soap. They washed and trimmed her hair, clipped her fingernails and toenails... of course, Margaret wasn’t naive enough to imagine they did it out of kindness or anything. They did it so that she couldn’t tell how long she’d been in the cube.
And it was working. Rome already felt like a dream, and even the familiar sights and sounds of her hometown in Indiana had started to fade away under the grinding familiarity of the numbing routine of captivity. Margaret paced the cell when she was awake, ate when she was fed and drank when she was watered, and spent the hours of darkness sleeping as though her mind switched off along with the lights. She could feel herself being reduced down to fit into her cube, losing bits and pieces without really realizing what went missing. They simply drifted off into the silence, leaving a numb, placid acceptance in their wake.
Was this what brainwashing was? Was this all it took to break her will? It couldn’t be. They’d have to let her out someday, if only to test their absurd hypothesis, and when she had the chance, she would make her escape. She just needed to keep her mind together enough to recognize the opportunity when it came, let the monotony wash over her and past her and wait for the right time to act. She could do it, she knew she could. They would get complacent, let their guard down, and then... and then...
The thought trailed off into a void of uncertainty. Margaret had no idea how long they would keep her here, or what kind of opportunity she would find. She knew it would be a disaster to try to escape prematurely; Madame had made it pointedly clear that her value to them depended in no small part on her cooperation. Escape attempts didn’t sound very cooperative. She would have to bide her time, convince them completely that she had been brainwashed into compliance. Beyond that, she had no idea what lay ahead for her. Following their instructions was literally the only hope she had right now.
Which meant that she couldn’t ignore her food any longer. With a sigh, Margaret hauled herself off the bed and padded across the floor to the slot. If she didn’t eat her drugged oatmeal now, they’d only give it to her at the next meal. Or the next, or the next... sooner or later, she knew, her resolve would eventually give out, or she’d test their patience too far and they’d just flood the room with knockout gas or something. Best to simply get on with it before it got cold. She mechanically scooped the food out of the bowl with her bare hands, glad that they at least sweetened it with enough honey to cover the medicinal taste of the sedatives. “Flavor is a privilege,” Madame once said, and it was one privilege Margaret was desperate to keep.
It was only minutes before her eyelids began to droop, and her limbs relaxed into a drowsy lassitude that left her sprawling onto the soft, cushioned floor. She didn’t bother trying to rise; it wasn’t as if she had anywhere to go, anyway. Margaret closed her eyes, and somehow it seemed like she couldn’t remember how to open them again. The drugged lethargy swallowed her mind up like a pool of black water, submerging her into darkness even deeper than the cube at night until her awareness slipped away completely once more.
“It’s time to open your eyes for me, Maggie.” Margaret stirred blearily at the sound of Madame’s voice, but it was just another recording. Even so, it was hard to ignore the feeling of eager anticipation that welled up in her chest every time she heard those soft, soothing tones—the only human contact she’d had in what felt like months. She supposed that to that extent, the conditioning had worked. She associated Madame with familiarity, comfort, connection. It was probably why they had Madame record the brainwashing mantras.
“Open your eyes and stare into the spiral for me. Stare, stop thinking, and obey.” Margaret knew better than to follow the instructions by now. Instead, she turned to face the opposite wall, looking away from the screen that had already dissolved into a whirling vortex of swirling lights. They’d caught her once or twice, back when the spiral was an unexpected novelty and any kind of light in the darkness of her cell immediately attracted her attention, but Margaret was determined not to let it happen again.
“It’s so much easier to follow the patterns and let my voice tell you what to think.“Margaret shivered, remembering for herself just how true Madame’s words really were. Once she started watching, it was all too easy for her stimulation-starved brain to drink in the trails of light as they wove around each other into a twisting, swirling tunnel that pulled her mind into slack-jawed fascination with the images on the screen. She remembered a moment of astonishment at how effective it all was... and then nothing.
“The less you think, the better you feel. Emptying your mind into the spiral brings you so much peace and pleasure.” In a way, Margaret felt a little sheepish about how easily she’d fallen into the swirling patterns on the screen. Somehow, after the sophisticated sensory deprivation and varying routines and strategic deprivation of social contact, it seemed kind of silly that it all came down to plopping her in front of a big cartoon spiral and telling her to listen and obey. And it was even sillier that it actually worked.
“You want more pleasure, pretty girl. It’s only natural to want to feel good. And the less you think, the more you listen to my words and follow my instructions, the better you feel.” Margaret tried to tell herself that it was every bit as absurd as it sounded to believe that any of this was actually working. Just because she allowed herself to become... distracted, once or twice, it didn’t mean that she was actually falling victim to some sort of insidious brainwashing scheme. It only meant that she was bored beyond belief and desperate for any kind of sensory input. She’d probably watch a test pattern the same way.
“When I tell you to stare into the spiral and play with your wet pussy, you feel so much pleasure when you comply.” Margaret’s fingers twitched reflexively, but she kept them planted firmly on her knees. That had to prove that the conditioning wasn’t working, didn’t it? If she was really being brainwashed by the spiral and Madame’s soft, comforting voice, she would have turned around by now. She would be stroking and rubbing her tingling labia, dipping into her slick cleft to tease her pulsing clit... god, she really did need a good fuck, didn’t she?
“And every time you comply, a little bit more of your mind slips away into thoughtless, obedient bliss. Getting more aroused, more happy, more blank and open to my words now, pet.” It was enough to make her wish that she’d masturbated more, back before they tried to make her feel like she was only doing it because they told her to. She did it a few times back at the beginning—what else was there to do in the pitch darkness of an empty room? But Madame had dropped a few hints that their hidden cameras could see her even when the lights were out, and she’d decided not to show them anything more than she had to.
“Imagine how good it’s going to feel when that pleasure fills you up completely, when you rub your thoughts away and fuck yourself into placid, helpless surrender to your owners.” In hindsight, though, Margaret’s modesty seemed pointless. It certainly didn’t stop Madame from relentlessly coaxing her to play with herself, constantly describing masturbation as just one more way that Margaret was giving in to her captors. It might be blatant reverse psychology, but Margaret was willing to accept a little sexual frustration to keep herself convinced that resistance was possible.
“Imagine how much better the collar will feel around your neck, a warm and constant embrace reminding you that you’re a good girl, a happy and contented slave with no desires save obedience.” Margaret couldn’t help herself, she tugged at the thick leather strap in another futile effort to pull it free from its buckle. She knew it was pointless—even if she somehow managed to loosen the locking mechanism enough to get it off, they’d only put it back on the next time they drugged her into unconsciousness. But she couldn’t stop trying. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that so much of Madame’s mantras drew Margaret’s attention back to the collar. She’d feel safer with it off.
“The sweet, gentle caress of the leather against your skin never ends, just like your descent into obedience never ends. You can always sink deeper into the spiral. You can always fill your mind with more pleasure. You can always surrender more and more to our unbreakable control.” Not that she was sure that taking off the collar was the safe thing to do at all. Margaret was perilously aware that she was playing a dangerous game when she openly defied their attempts at brainwashing; Madame had made it very clear that while they wanted her to resist, the better to determine exactly how to break her, they also had no use for anyone they couldn’t brainwash. Margaret couldn’t let them think that she was a waste of time.
“The spiral never ends either, Maggie. Stare deeper, sink deeper, let your thoughts float endlessly into the tunnel of light. Our thoughts will replace them, and you’ll be so much happier when they do.” But at the same time, she couldn’t just go from open defiance to sitting in the middle of the room chanting ‘I obey’ like a mindless zombie. They’d get suspicious. They wouldn’t trust it. She’d never get her chance to escape. No, she had to remain on her guard, stay wary of the constant efforts to numb her mind into compliance, and pretend to sink into obedience so convincingly that she fooled them. Somehow.
“You know exactly what we want you to think, Maggie girl. My voice is always in your mind, telling you how to obey, telling you what to say and what to do as you forget how to be anything but a good slave for us.” Maybe she could pretend to play with herself. Just sort of rest her hand on her pubic mound and make moaning sounds. If she got really good at looking down at the floor just below the screen, she might be able to convince them that she was being hypnotized... and Madame was definitely right about one thing. Hours and hours of listening to the recordings gave Margaret a pretty good idea of what a brainwashed slave was supposed to say.
“Our programming feels so much better than your thoughts, Maggie. It feels so good to think the thoughts you’ve been given, the thoughts etched into your head by deep, irresistible pleasure.” For now, she just needed to stay awake. She wasn’t sure how much sleep she’d gotten since the last brainwashing session, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough. She’d fallen asleep a few times with Madame’s voice playing in her ears, the endless soporific chant combining with the lack of regular rest to lull her into a half-doze filled with strange, erotic dreams. It seemed... less than safe to give in to her exhaustion like that.
“Deeper pleasure, good girl. Deeper obedience. Deeper sleep. Rub your mind off to sleep and let my voice fill your world, pretty girl.” Margaret’s eyelids drooped. But she stayed on her guard. She was determined to resist Madame’s programming. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t touch. And she wouldn’t give in.
Of course she gave in.
She wasn’t really sure when she started masturbating again. It was a gradual thing, almost accidental; Maggie surfaced from sleep more and more often with her hand nestled between her thighs and Madame’s soft voice dripping sweet words into her ears. At first, she pulled her fingers away when she realized what she was doing, but eventually it started to feel too much like work. It felt so comfortable, lying there in a drowsy haze with her index finger rubbing back and forth, around and around her clit in a slow teasing motion, and Maggie could only resist the lazy pleasure for so long when she was constantly turned on like that. After a while, she forgot why she even bothered to try.
It certainly made Madame happy. “That’s my good girl,” she cooed during one of Maggie’s seemingly endless masturbation sessions, her voice slipping in between the recorded recitations so smoothly and easily that it took Maggie a few moments to realize that it was really her. “I’m so proud of you, Maggie. You’re doing such a good job, and learning your lessons so well. Tell me, pretty girl, doesn’t it feel good to rub your thoughts away for me like that?”
Maggie earned herself a long spell in the darkness that day. She couldn’t remember her exact words anymore—it was something defiant, but her brain reflexively shied away now from thinking about anything that might send her back into the void of utter solitude again. Even so, Maggie knew she tried to tell Madame that she wasn’t rubbing her thoughts away. She wasn’t obeying, she was just... just horny, that was all. Just aching to cum. To clear her head with a good hard orgasm so she could think straight again and make it easier to resist Madame’s programming.
Madame didn’t like that. The next time the spiral came back—the spiral was Maggie’s only source of light now, filling the room with shifting bands of color that flowed ceaselessly over the white vinyl surface wherever Maggie looked—she asked the question again. “I’m so sorry we were interrupted,” she said, her voice never losing that poisoned sweetness. “But I believe I had a question for you, and I’m not sure if you answered it correctly. Does it feel good to stare into the spiral and rub your thoughts away for me, Maggie? Take your time and try to think about it.”
Maggie definitely took her time. It seemed to stretch like taffy in her head as her eyes followed the swirling patterns of light, as her fingers drifted down between her thighs to tease and stroke her slick, sensitive labia. She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped looking away from the spiral, any more than she could recall exactly when she’d given up on resisting the lazy, drifting pleasure of masturbation. It had simply happened. It didn’t even affect her the way it used to; she could stare into the whirling patterns for hours, following them down and down, deeper and deeper, and still... still...
Think. She had to think about Madame’s question. It was important to get it right—if she answered wrong, Madame’s voice would go away, and take the light with it. But she couldn’t say yes, she simply couldn’t. It wasn’t true. Maggie still remembered her name, she could look into the spiral without losing track of Madame’s sweet soothing voice and her instructions... she was still resisting. She still knew she was resisting, because... because she could still, um, still... still...
Think. She could think about this. She needed to think about it; Madame was waiting patiently, no doubt watching on the hidden cameras as Maggie stared into the spiral and worked her fingers in and out of her soaking cunt. Maggie couldn’t let her think that any of this was having an effect on her, not when she... not when it... Maggie’s brain tripped over itself, trying to find the delicate balance between self-defeating defiance and slow, delicious surrender to the pleasure that filled her mind.
If Madame got the idea that the brainwashing was working... if she saw Maggie mindlessly finger-fucking her gushing pussy and heard her admit that she was losing track of everything except her programming... then maybe she would let her guard down. Maybe this wasn’t a threat to Maggie’s independence at all. Maybe it was the opportunity she had been waiting for all this time. Maybe all she needed to do was convince Madame that she was sinking into blank, blissful obedience, and Madame would let her out.
Or leave the light on for a little while longer. Or keep talking to her. Or at least give her the recording to keep her company, instead of leaving her in darkness and isolation for hours or days or weeks or years or... “Yes, Madame,” Maggie murmured. “It feels good to stare into the spiral and rub my thoughts away for you.” Her voice sounded strangely vacant and helpless in her own ears. She hoped it was convincing.
It was. At least enough for Madame to keep talking to her. “That’s my obedient girl,” she purred triumphantly. “You love to be hypnotized and obedient, don’t you?” Maggie nodded absently, her fingers still working away in her pussy. The warm, tingling arousal slowly melted into the gentle praise in Madame’s voice until Maggie couldn’t separate them anymore. She didn’t need to, anyway, not yet at least. All she needed to do was convince them that she was giving in, and they would have to let her out.
She just needed to be a little more believable, that was all. They, they could probably still tell that there was a tiny bit of defiance left underneath the surface, they could see it in the darkness when she thought nobody was looking. Maggie needed to remember that. She needed to behave like a good girl, even when no one was watching. Even when she was all by herself, alone in the darkness. If she showed them any resistance at all, then they would see and they would leave her here and she’d never get away.
That idea preyed on Maggie in the ‘days’ that followed, during the waking periods that she filled with slow, sensuous masturbation to the spiral and Madame’s words. How did they know she was still resisting? How did they know she hadn’t been brainwashed yet? They must be keeping an even closer eye on her than she imagined; somehow they knew whenever she came, punishing her for her orgasms with silence and darkness that stretched on and on no matter how much she begged Madame to speak to her again. They must be able to tell when she was thinking about escape, too.
Which meant that the only way to truly resist them was to stop even thinking about resistance. Maggie needed to push those thoughts deep down, deep into the core of her very self until even she didn’t know they were there. Until anyone looking at her would see only an empty, drooling, obedient slave, mindlessly masturbating and staring into the spiral with glassy eyes as she recited along with Madame’s brainwashing mantras.
“It feels so good to comply,” Maggie murmured in a vacant monotone, her eyes half-open and unseeing. “It makes me happy to sink deeper into the spiral and stop thinking. I am a mindless slave, and it’s so wonderful to... to think only the thoughts my owners give me.” Maggie was so proud. She was resisting so well. She had no doubt that she would be free before she knew it.
“Maggie?”
No response.
“Maggie girl, can you hear me?” A moment later, the woman in the small cell nodded, her head bobbing slowly as if moving through thick syrup. The motion was the only sign that she had registered Madame’s words at all; her eyes continued to gaze vacantly into the spiral, and her expression remained blank and plastic. Her parted lips curled at the corners in a tiny smile, as if the pleasure coursing through her empty mind was so powerful she could scarcely even register it, and a trickle of drool dribbled down her chin to drip onto her breasts.
If there had been a mirror in the room, Maggie would barely even have recognized herself in it; months of following the experimenters’ regimented diet had trimmed her body down into smooth, flowing curves. Her long dark hair had been buzzed into a short, stubbly cut that barely hid her pale scalp. But nothing had changed as much as her eyes. Even if she had looked the same in every other aspect, Margaret would never have known that the mindless, placid woman with the empty stare was her.
In many respects, it wasn’t. “Maggie, can you stand for me?” Madame asked, and Maggie rose to her feet robotically to stand, swaying slightly as though in a slight breeze, in front of the screen. Her fingers continued to lightly tease her dripping cunt; masturbation was almost as reflexive as breathing to her now, her hand slipping down to play with herself even when she slept. She ate and drank one-handed, fucking herself even as she drank extra water to make up for the fluids she lost to her constant arousal.
“That’s a good girl,” Madame continued, her words stroking Maggie’s empty mind into a bliss no masturbation could match. “Turn around and walk for me now.” Maggie swiveled on her heels, still looking for all the world like a brilliantly constructed automaton, and began to walk to the edge of the cell. She would readily have smacked straight into the wall if allowed; but before she could reach it, a concealed door opened up and she marched out of the small room to stand in a much wider hallway. She didn’t respond with surprise, or excitement. She simply continued to march until Madame’s voice echoed, “Stop.”
The hallway was taller than it was wide, an impressive achievement given that it stretched almost a full twenty feet from one side to the other. Walkways lined either side, each one leading past banks of containers that slid into the walls on purpose-built rails. A massive crane in the center of the room sat idle, but its unique jaws left no doubt that it was there to move the containers in and out as needed. Each container had a number. Each container had a door. Each door looked exactly like the one Maggie had just walked out of.
Not that she noticed any of this. She simply stared straight ahead, her fingers still playing with her soaking cunt.
A blonde Caucasian woman in a lab coat came out of a booth at the far end, the room so vast that it took her almost a full five minutes to reach Maggie’s door. Maggie waited patiently for her, staring vacantly into space as though she still saw the spiral in her mind’s eye. At long last, she made her way over to where Maggie stood. “Hello,” she said, a tender smile on her face. “Do you recognize my voice, Maggie?”
Maggie nodded again, the same exact motion as before. “Good, good,” Madame said. Her hand reached out to caress Maggie’s cheek, the first human contact Maggie consciously registered in months. “And how do you feel right now?” She smiled proudly as she spoke, looking at Maggie like a proud teacher staring out on a class of graduating students.
Maggie stood in place for a long moment, her mind sluggishly searching for words in a sea of passive pleasure. “...happy,” she said at long last, her tiny smile curling a bit more broadly on her cheeks. “Obedient.” Madame waited a moment or two longer, but those two words were seemingly all that Maggie was capable of now without further prompting.
“Excellent,” Madame said. “And what do you want to do right now, Maggie? If you could do anything in the world, if you could go anywhere that you wanted, what would you be doing right this minute?” She watched Maggie carefully, barely even daring to breathe in anticipation of her response.
Slowly, almost glacially, Maggie’s brow furrowed in confusion. Her eyes began to focus again, as though aware of her surroundings for the very first time. She looked around hesitantly, first left and then right, taking in the long metal walkways that led to unguarded doors at either end of the long chamber. Her mouth moved silently, as if reading a very difficult book with very few pictures.
“.....” Maggie sighed, but still no words escaped her mouth. Her fingers slowed to a gradual halt in her pussy, still nestled snugly between her labia as though she couldn’t bear to pull them away. She blinked once, heavily, then a second time. She pursed her lips, swaying in place like she was struggling with all her might to escape from invisible chains. Finally, she spoke.
“...ohhh... bey?” she said quizzically, like an unprepared student trying to guess the right answer off the blackboard. Her whole body quivered with nervous tension, looking to Madame for a sign of approval as if she somehow expected the other woman to disappear at any moment, plunging the entire vast chamber into darkness in the process.
But instead, Madame smiled. “Good girl!” she purred, stroking Maggie’s arm tenderly until the helpless slave shuddered with delight. “That’s a very good girl, Maggie. You answered perfectly. You answered absolutely right! And I’m going to reward you now. We’re going to take you to a nice big room with plenty of other happy slaves and a helmet with a spiral all your own, and you never need to think again.” She kissed Maggie sweetly on the cheek, every touch binding the mindless woman deeper and deeper with gratitude. “I promise.”
Maggie smiled widely, and followed along as Madame led her along the walkways and out of the massive chamber. She didn’t think about the other doors, or what might lie behind them. She didn’t wonder what variables were unique to her programming, or how a scientist might test them with rigorous, careful experimentation. She didn’t even question what would happen to her, once the experiment was over.
In fact, Maggie didn’t think at all anymore. She obeyed. And if there was any part of her, deep down in the core of her very self, that still resisted her conditioning... it was happy to keep waiting. Forever.