The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“This morning, North Alexandria Interim Police Chief Flaherty gave a press conference detailing the results of their investigation of the explosion and fire that destroyed the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity house on Fraternity Row.”

Daniel looked up towards the television hanging high on the ceiling of the university dining hall, the same hall where he and Jenn and Serena and Radhu had shared many a meal, a lifetime ago. Was it masochism, or a return to a safe environment? He wanted to feel the presence of people around him, but at the same time was repelled by the thought of interacting with anyone. He sat alone at his table, a sandwich half eaten in front of him. The lunch crowd had thinned noticeably.

His arm was in a sling, his shoulder bandaged. It hurt whenever he moved without thinking about it. But he had come to like the pain. It provide a strange kind of comfort.

Jenn. Serena. Radhu. Gone, all of them. The Three Musketeers, Jenn had called Daniel, Serena, and Radhu—all for one, one for all—were no more. Serena had been caught in the fire at the frat house. Radhu had been found dead in his apartment. Daniel still could not believe it; heart attack, he had been told. And then Cindy. Her body had been identified in the burnt-out husk of his apartment, one more victim of the several fires that had ravaged the city.

And as for Jenn... The police had appeared at the hotel he was staying earlier that morning to inform him that his fiancée had been identified in the remains of a car crash at the bottom of a cliff towards the lake, away from the campus. They did not know how or why she lost control of the vehicle, but they believed she died on impact, her body smashed beyond recognition. Dental records had to be used to perform the identification. He had stared at the cops—one of them too young to be delivering such awful news—who could not stay long because of the chaos that had engulfed the town.

In one fell swoop, everyone he was close to was gone. He felt numb.

“The destruction of the fraternity has been called the worst disaster in the county’s history, if not the entire state. Nearly two hundred bodies were recovered from the fire site. Darnell President James Calhoun is believed to be among the victims, as are several influential alumni of both the University and the fraternity. Details are being withheld until victim identification is completed. Interim Chief Flaherty indicated that the preliminary investigation pointed to a gas explosion, linked to the city-wide power outage experienced by the city two nights ago, were the cause of the fire. As to why no one was able to escape the fire, alcohol and drugs are pursued as possible explanations. Outraged parents have been calling for renewed enforcement of anti-intoxication laws, and civil suits for wrongful deaths against the University and the national Delta Iota Kappa fraternity are expected to be filed within the coming days.”

Death. So much death. And Daniel had blood on his hands, too. He had let Biff die. He could have saved him—maybe—but he did not. The guy was a bastard, there was no doubt about it. But did he deserve to die? Did anyone?

“In related news, firefighters are still busy dealing with the aftermath of several fires across town and on Darnell University’s East Campus, believed to be related to the same gas line problems suspected in the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity fire. Three deaths have been reported due to those fires. Representatives from the New England Gas and Power company have not commented beyond a press release stating that ‘they were doing everything possible to ascertain the source of the leaks,’ and reassuring the public that no further danger to public safety is expected. The North Alexandria Fire Department, unwilling to take any more chances, has ordered the company to suspend gas distribution until the system could be examined by hand, a process that may take several weeks.”

Several fires across town. Three deaths. Cindy one of them. And possibly Doctor Cargyle, as Ryder Hall, where he had been hiding, had been destroyed by the fire that had raged through East Campus, believed to have started at the power station next to the abandoned building. Daniel had raced to Ryder the day following the Delta Iota Kappa explosion, hoping that the doctor might help him locate Jenn, only to find destruction. And of course, in the end, nothing mattered. Jenn was gone.

He felt the presence before he saw the shadow cast upon the table. “Agent Shawbank,” he said without turning around.

“Mister Malcolm,” she acknowledged, after a beat. “May I sit down?”

Daniel shrugged. “Sure.” He kept looking up at the television. From the corner of his eye, he watched the raven-haired woman take a seat at his table. She wore exactly what she wore at their last meeting, and what he had seen her wear the few times he had seen her watch him—a long black leather duster over a black pantsuit.

She remained silent, and Daniel was in no hurry to start up any conversation, and thus they stared in silence as the newscaster detailed the suicide of Police Chief Henry Roberts by self-inflicted gunshot wound in his own home, as well as the disappearance of Police Officer Sonya Gonzales.

“We caught Doctor Cargyle,” said Shawbank.

Daniel glanced at her. She was still watching the television set. Around them, students were circulating, talking, laughing, generally acting like this was a normal day, as if they had not been affected by the disaster, as if they had not lost loved ones in the tragedy.

“Ah. I wondered what had happened to him.” He knew he should have cared more, since the doctor was the one person that could help Jenn, but she was gone—they were all gone—and he had no energy left to deal with any of it.

“We found him in an abandoned building on campus.”

On the television, the newscaster was talking about the fatal car crash during the night in the cliffs near the lake that had claimed the life of a young woman, identified to be a student at Darnell University, an additional loss for a community already shattered. Jenn, he thought. He felt his eyes tear up.

A young man at a nearby table was looking at Shawbank, a winning smile on his face, and he rose, keeping his eyes on her. She turned her head to look at him, and he stopped just as he was taking a step towards Daniel’s table, suddenly unsure of himself. Shawbank stared at the young man until he sat back down trying to look nonchalant. “Someone left him cuffed up for us,” she continued, not noticing or not paying attention to Daniel’s emotions.

Daniel took a moment to compose himself, thinking of how pointless all of it was. “Good thing you found him when you did, then. Seems those abandoned buildings on campus are dangerous these days...”

She met Daniel’s gaze, and Daniel was once more struck by the steel-blue eyes that seemed to stare coldly into his soul. “Indeed,” she said, simply. She did not smile.

Daniel sighed, and turned his attention back to the television. “Why are you here, Agent Shawbank? You’re not just paying a social call to let me know that you caught your man...”

Shawbank looked at him with her glacial stare for several long beats, before seeming to come to a decision. “I’m attached to the FBI as a special consultant. I specialize in, shall we say, esoteric cases, of the kind exemplified by Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle.”

“Mind control,” said Daniel, without emotion, matching Shawbank’s tone.

“Yes. The company I work for has a certain expertise on the subject, and they lend a hand to the authorities when needed.”

When Daniel did not react to her statement, she looked at him for a while longer before continuing. “I have been tracking Cargyle for nearly two years now. I lost his trail a year ago in Boston. It took more than six months for him to make a mistake, but he made one, and that was enough.”

Daniel could not help the calculation in his mind. A year ago. Add six month, that would make it...

“The brouhaha with NADA. Marjorie.”

Shawbank gave a sharp nod. “It made sense, in retrospect. A small isolated town and access to state-of-the-art research facilities. Exactly what he would be looking for.”

“So you know about Delta Iota Kappa.” It was not a question.

Shawbank looked at him for a while longer before returning to scanning the crowd. “The fraternity president, one Kevin Cusker, agreed to shelter the doctor and to provide him with lab equipment in exchange for the use of the doctor’s skills. Girls were abducted and adjusted into sexual servitude while maintaining a normal daytime cover. The doctor was at the Fraternity Row house until the end of December, when he went deep into hiding again.”

Daniel nodded. Cindy had told him that Kevin had been upset at the doctor disappearing without a trace. Had it not been for Biff dragging Daniel into the whole sordid affair by taking Jenn, the doctor might be hiding still. He was the link. Which meant...

“You followed me to the building where Cargyle was hiding, didn’t you?”

Shawbank never answered the question. “Mister Malcolm, my company believe that you would be an asset. They have asked me to extend you an offer, when you graduate.”

Daniel fought back the urge to laugh out loud. Graduation? That was furthest from his mind right now. It was pointless, like so many other things. Jenn would not graduate. Serena would not graduate. Radhu would not graduate. Cindy would not graduate.

But he did not laugh. He stared at the half-eaten sandwich on his tray, noticing that the mayonnaise had an unhealthy yellow tinge to it. “Why?” he eventually asked. He was not quite sure what the question meant himself.

“You proved your investigative abilities. I would not have found Cargyle without you.”

“I didn’t do any of it, you know.” And indeed, he did not. Serena had done much of the leg work while searching for Marjorie the previous semester, and then Radhu had been the driving force in looking for Jenn and Biff and then Cargyle.

“Investigation is as much about discovering small details as it is perseverance in assembling the larger picture hinted at by those small details. You had a support system, which you used effectively.”

Daniel had the feeling he had just been complimented, although Shawbank’s cool tone and facial expression never changed. He looked at her. She was beautiful, despite the aloofness of her expression. “That’s one way to look at things,” he said. I failed, and lost everything. How’s that for effectiveness, Agent Shawbank?

She turned to look at him, their eyes meeting once again. She seemed to read into his soul. “Mister Malcolm. You have seen first-hand what people like Cargyle can do. You have seen the pain, the suffering, the agony that can be unleashed. We’re offering you a chance to make a difference. You can help us catch those monsters. Because they are out there, Mister Malcolm. Cargyle was but one of many. With your help, we can find them, catch them, and eliminate them.”

Shawbank had shown more emotion in that tirade than Daniel suspected she was comfortable exhibiting, because she stopped and pursed her lips and went back to scanning the crowd.

Daniel had no energy to think about the scale Shawbank was suggesting. More people like Cargyle? More people like Kevin and Biff and the rest of those bastards? And Jenn was still dead. And so were Serena and Radhu and Cindy.

“You have my card,” Shawbank said, standing up. “Call me after you think about it.”

Daniel did not watch her go, unlike many of the men in the dining hall.

Eve Shawbank entered her hotel room, her mind sifting through various post-operative facts, not attending to a single one of them in particular, just watching thoughts and ideas and feelings stream through. A very Zen way of approaching life, one of her colleagues had told her once in an atypical moment of closeness. Shawbank did not know anything about that, and had no interest in learning either. All she knew is that it was the only way for her to deal with the world, to escape and recover. Not that she would ever let anyone know about that.

Her earpiece clicked twice, letting her know that Brisecoeur was on the encrypted line. “Just got the report that all operatives have left the area. No issues. Everything looks clean from this end.”

Shawbank nodded. She looked around the bare room. Picked up a small travel bag from the chair in the corner. “Good. Let’s go before the heat picks up.”

“Heat? Really?” She could hear the mocking tone in Brisecoeur’s voice. “From those idiots on the police force? They couldn’t find their big toe in the dark without a flashlight.”

Shawbank could not disagree with Brisecoeur’s assessment. Even by the standards of small-town police, the law enforcement officials in this town had been particularly bumbling at every step. That Police Chief Roberts had an arrangement with the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity without a doubt helped in that respect. Things would have been more difficult to pull off in New York or Chicago.

“The Interim Chief called in the State Police. They will bring the heat.” She started grabbing the few pieces of clothing she had put in drawers, packing her bag.

“Oh. Merde.” She could hear Brisecoeur’s fingers fly over his keyboard through the earpiece. “Well, the final reports are in. Twenty-eight girls. I’ve triple-checked with the data I pulled out of Cargyle’s computer, and that’s all of them—all the girls he affected—if you add Duquesne, which we were able to track down in Bangkok, and Caprese, who kicked the bucket with Unit Echo.”

Shawbank groaned. Unit Echo dying in that fire had been an annoyance. They had recovered the bodies, of course, leaving Caprese’s body to be found by the authorities, but she had no particularly satisfying explanation for the death of the two operatives. Somehow, Caprese must have put up enough of a fight that Unit Echo was caught in the explosion they had been ordered to arrange to eliminate the evidence of Caprese’s termination.

“Thirty girls,” confirmed Shawbank. “All accounted for.” Thirty-one, corrected Shawbank internally. Jennifer Hansen, Daniel Malcolm’s fiancée, had not been accounted for in Doctor Cargyle’s files, because he did not know of her adjustment. Biff Cusker and Bernie Tilling had done it all on their own, without telling anyone. She had been found dead earlier this morning, according to police information bulletins. Car accident.

Shawbank kept that information to herself. She would have been hard pressed to explain why exactly, except for pointing out a lifetime of not divulging information until it was strictly necessary to do so, until she understood exactly what game was being played and how the information she had could be useful to her. Jennifer Hansen was an unknown quantity. Because Daniel Malcolm was an unknown quantity.

As if he was reading her mind, Brisecoeur spoke up. “So did you do it? What Control asked?”

“Of course,” she scoffed, closing up her travel bag and sliding her tablet computer in the side sleeve. “It’s Control.”

“And? What did he say?”

“Malcolm did not accept, but did not refuse either.”

Brisecoeur was getting agitated. “So Control’s seriously thinking of giving Malcolm a job in IE Division? C’est fou!”

“Feel free to take that up with Control.”

Brisecoeur sputtered something incomprehensible, then sighed. “No, of course not. Still. It’s just such a bad idea, it’s... it’s...” He did not complete his sentence.

“For the record, I don’t think Malcolm is interested.”

“Bad idea... bad idea...” repeated Brisecoeur.

Bad idea is right, she thought. But Control was Control, and one did not argue with Control. At least not to his face. She would find a way to get her point across. In the meantime, she had a flight to catch, and a debriefing back at Headquarters to get ready for.

It was time to leave Bumfuck, New England.

It was the end of day when Daniel approached the cordoned-off area and slipped under the police yellow tape. Beyond, the ruins of what up until two days earlier had been the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity house lay in ruins that he could not help but think should be smoldering. They were not. But they were ruins.

Daniel stared, trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened. As if in silent testimony to the loss that had occurred in this place, nature itself remained quiet—only the sound of wind in the trees or the rare cry of a bird or the rustling of a squirrel in the nearby shrubs betrayed life.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now? he wondered. Take the rest of the semester off? Ask for a leave of absence because of the tragedy? Travel to the Himalayas to find himself? Graduate and take that job in Texas he had been offered months earlier? Take Shawbank’s job offer? Get drunk and try to forget the world? The problem was, none of it sounded even remotely interesting. Including doing nothing. He did not want things to be different—he wanted himself to be different—to be someone else, thinking someone else’s thoughts, feeling someone else’s feelings.

The soft crunching of twigs from behind him intruded on his meditation. A man came to stand beside him, staring at the ruins of the house. He was wearing a trench coat that had seen better days, a hat that would have not have looked out of place on Daniel’s great-grandfather, and held an old unlit cigar in his mouth.

Daniel shot him a glance.

“Such a waste,” said the man.

Daniel did not react to the comment.

“I want you to know, Mister Malcolm. that I’m very sorry not to have gotten here in time,” said the man after a long pause.

Daniel turned to look at the man. “Do I know you?”

The man pocketed his cigar. “My name is Sam O’Neill.”

The name sounded familiar to Daniel. Where had he heard it before?

“I’m a private investigator. You called me back in January? Your fiancée had gone missing under, shall we say, strange circumstances?”

Of course. O’Neill, the private investigator from—where? Boston? Philadelphia? No, New York City—that Radhu had said had a reputation as the go-to person when looking for people going missing after exhibiting odd behavior.

“As I said, Mister Malcolm,” continued O’Neill, after seeing all of the above play out on Daniel’s face, “I’m sorry I could not get here in time.”

“Could you have prevented this?”

O’Neill shrugged. “Can’t ever tell, can we?”

“Well, the story turned out to be a bit more complicated than you think, Mister O’Neill.”

“Please, call me Sam. And no, the story was pretty much exactly as complicated as I feared it would be.”

“Oh. And what do you know of the story?”

“It’s a story with two tales. In the first tale, we have a crazed scientist helping a fraternity acquire sexual slaves in exchange for protection using technology that has no right to exist. In the second tale, we have a frustrated college boy with deep-seated issues taking a liking to a beautiful girl engaged to another man, and using the aforementioned technology to steal the girl and use her for his perverted needs. The two tales finally clash into a climax the result of which we have before of us today.”

O’Neill smiled at Daniel’ reaction.

“Your blonde girlfriend read me the CliffsNotes,” continued O’Neill. “Although I could have guessed the main lines of the first tale. The second tale was a bit more interesting, although not entirely unpredictable if you take into account the psychology of the folks involved. I’m sorry about your Indian friend.”

“What do you mean, my blonde girlfriend?”

“Miss Caprese? I grabbed her from your place when those goons tried to snatch her.”

“Cindy? But... but she’s dead. They found her body... they identified her...”

“They identified her using her dental records. Dental records can be switched, by the right person, for the right price. Once you switch the records with those of a handy cadaver that you happen to have laying around, well... In any case, I assure you—Miss Caprese is alive and well.”

“Where?”

“I’ll give you the hotel and room number. It took some work to keep her from running to you, Mister Malcolm. But I couldn’t chance it until now. But before I tell you, we probably should talk.”

“What about?” Daniel was only half listening. Not everyone was dead, he exulted. Cindy’s alive!

“A lot, actually. To start, I hear you have received a job offer earlier today.”

Daniel was surprised. “How do you know what?”

O’Neill ignored the question. “Are you thinking of accepting?”

Daniel looked O’Neill in the eye, trying to get a sense of the older man. Eventually, he shrugged. “I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t thought that far. And since I can’t really make up my mind, I suspect that the answer will be no.”

“May I suggest you take the job, Mister Malcolm. It may help you reunite with your fiancée.”

Daniel turned around and stared at O’Neill, who was looking back at him calmly. “She’s gone, Sam.” He emphasized the name, dismissively. How dared he talk about Jenn that way? “Dead. Car accident, last night. While she was running away from all this. She’s gone. They’re all gone. Look around. Can’t you smell the bodies burning still?”

O’Neill remained calm. “Nothing is quite as it seems.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“This, for instance, was no accident.” He stared at the wreckage of the house.

“What?”

“Tell me what happened the night of the fire. You were there.”

Daniel hesitated. He bit back the answer he had at the ready. He tried to read O’Neill’s face, searching for signs of deceit. But all Daniel saw was patience—patience, and understanding. The man looked older than he had seemed at first, was probably in his late forties.

“Why should I trust you?” O’Neill had said that Cindy was alive, and had implied that Jenn might be as well. Was any of it true?

“You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t trust anybody. But telling me what you saw doesn’t imply trust.”

Daniel told his story. Of attending DIK-Bash with Jackson, of looking for Jenn and Kyra, of finding Biff, of being captured by Biff, of the murder of Kevin, of escaping during the power failure, of the black-clad men attacking, of finding Biff, fighting Biff, losing Jenn. O’Neill listened to everything without saying a word, merely nodding a few times at salient points of the story.

When he was done, Daniel waited, while O’Neill stood thinking. The older man had pulled his cigar out of his pocket and was munching on the end.

“Now it’s your turn. Why do you say this wasn’t an accident? What happened to Jenn? Is she alive?”

“The frat house was set on fire. It was no accident.”

“But why?”

“Spring cleaning, some may call it. Getting rid of a group of people that had the potential of becoming extremely embarrassing. And to get rid of the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“Evidence of what had been done to the girls.”

“What?” The connections were forming in Daniel’s head. “The black-clad men, shooting everyone. Cindy. They sent people for her?”

“They did. I helped her take care of them. Left a body in exchange so that they’d think her dead.”

“Who? Who did this?”

“That’s a very good question, Mister Malcolm. A very good question.”

“And Jenn?”

O’Neill was thoroughly destroying the end of his cigar, spitting out shreds of tobacco leaves on the ground.

“I found her car slammed into a tree down on the side of Route 4 two miles from the frat house. The car was registered to Balthazar Cusker. It was empty.”

“How did... how did you know to look for it?”

“While I was out helping Miss Caprese, I had eyes on the house. They spotted a girl matching your fiancée’s description appear out of nowhere in the parking lot and get in the car and leave. They followed. They lost it on that stretch of Route 4. I went back the next morning, found the car where it had lost control. It was pretty much invisible from the road, unless you paid attention to the skid marks.”

“It was empty?”

“Yes. I knew who the driver was, based on the description that Miss Caprese had given me, and I figured she might need the same protection that Miss Caprese had obtained. So I arranged a little staged accident at a more convenient location.”

Daniel decided not to question how O’Neill had staged an accident at another location. “But the body? I mean, they identified...” Daniel paused when he saw the look on O’Neill’s face. “Of course. Dental records.”

O’Neill nodded.

“So where is she?” asked Daniel, trying to keep the trepidation from his voice. Jenn was alive?

“That I do not know, Mister Malcolm. All I do know is that she walked away from that car crash, as alive as you and me.” O’Neill munched on his cigar, calm, his hands in his trench coat’s pockets.

Daniel digested that information, trying to quell the rise of hope that was swelling in his chest. He only had this man’s word for it. “Why did you say that me taking the job might help me find Jenn?”

“What do you know about the offer?”

“Not much, really. Agent Eve Shawbank—she consults with the FBI—told me that her company was interested in hiring me. She’s been...” He paused, again unsure of what he should tell O’Neill.

“She’s been looking for Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle, the man suspected to be behind the technology to enslave the girls.”

“Yes. And she told me that her company helps find people that do that, find people that... well... enslaves women like that, and stop them.”

O’Neill nodded, without saying a word.

“Is that true?”

“It’s not false.” O’Neill put his cigar back in his pocket. “Shawbank—” he said the word with almost a sneer, “works for ADCorp.”

“ADCorp?”

“ADCorp. The largest company you’ve never heard of. They have their hands in so many cookie jars it’s a full-time job keeping track of how many cookies they’re grasping, from industrial chemistry to pharmacology to defense contracting.”

“And...?”

“Let’s just say that I would like to have someone on the inside that can keep me abreast of interesting developments.”

“You want me to take the job because you need a spy on the inside?”

“No. I want you to take the job because Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle was a researcher with ADCorp until two years ago, when he disappeared.” O’Neill let that information sink in. “If you want to understand what happened to your fiancée and how to help her, then that’s where you need to start. It just so happens that we can help each other, Mister Malcolm.”

“How?”

“You take the job, you go in, and you keep your ears and eyes open. And once in a while, we chat.”

“And how will you help me?”

“I will help you find your fiancée, of course. Free of charge. I am a private investigator, after all. And a pretty darn good one at that.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why does anyone do anything?”

“So,” Cindy asked Daniel after a long pause, “are you going to take it?”

She was sitting on the sofa in her hotel suite, while Daniel stood leaning against the wall opposite her. He had been pacing while giving her a rundown of the events at the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity house, a more detailed variant of the story he had told O’Neill. Cindy had listened carefully, with eyes widening at all the important plot points—at Kevin’s brutal killing, at Biff’s treatment of Serena and Kyra, at the death of Jackson, at the invasion by the black-clad commandos, at the face-off with Biff down in the bootlegging tunnel.

When he had arrived at the hotel that O’Neill had told him after their meeting, Cindy had been there, waiting for him. She had practically choked him off with a hug when he opened the door. There were tears in her eyes. There were tears in his as well.

She had told him what had happened to her, how two black-clad men—clearly the same people that had swarmed into the frat house—had stalked her out in the apartment only to be neutralized by this man, O’Neill, who snatched her away and kept her safe for two days. She had wanted to get in touch with Daniel as soon as she was safe, but O’Neill had kept her from communicating “until the coast was clear,” he had said, somewhat mysteriously.

She had wanted to know about the events at the Delta Iota Kappa costume party—whether he had found Jenn and Kyra and what had happened with Biff and Jackson. He had told her everything that had happened to him.

And now, after Daniel had recounted his own encounter with O’Neill, Cindy had asked the question that had been bugging him ever since leaving the fire site, at least the question he kept playing with to avoid thinking about what he really wanted to think about but about which he could do nothing.

“That’s the question, Cin.” He started pacing again. “O’Neill believes that ADCorp is involved in this whole story. That they were looking for Cargyle. That they’re the ones that stormed the frat house to clean up the mess that Cargyle made.”

“But why?”

“Well, if any of it’s true, including the fact that Cargyle used to work for them, as O’Neill claims, then maybe they’re the one that developed the technology that Cargyle used, and they wanted it back. And eliminate any evidence in the process. I mean, you said so yourself, Cargyle was hiding from somebody. He knew they were hunting him down, to try to stop him. And I guess they did.”

“So they got him, eliminated the fraternity that harbored him, including all the girls that had been brainwashed and everyone that was involved. Radhu too? Do you think they responsible too?” She looked up when a thought crossed her mind. “You said the guys at the frat spoke of police protection. The police chief committed suicide yesterday. Do you think...?”

“They killed two hundred people in that frat house. I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

“I’m so sorry about Radhu, Dan. I don’t know what to say.”

Daniel nodded, acknowledging. He had not really dealt with it yet. With any of it. “As near as I can tell, I’m the only loose end.” He looked at her meaningfully.

She completed the thought. “Of course. They think I’m dead.”

“Everybody thinks your dead.”

“O’Neill is working to get me a new identity.”

They remained silent for a while.

Cindy asked the obvious question. “But if any of it is true, then why would they want to hire you?”

“Well, I can think of a few reasons. One, Shawbank told me the truth, and they want me to help them track down bad guys, and they think I’m safe because I know what’s going on. Two, they want to keep me close because they’re worried I’m going to cause them problems, and if I’m close they can keep an eye on me. Three, we’re wrong about what happened, and Shawbank has nothing to do with any of it and she was really here to apprehend Cargyle and she got him and I helped and that makes me interesting.”

Cindy digested it all. She twirled one of her blonde strands while she thought. “What’s O’Neill’s beef with ADCorp?”

“He said it was personal. That he would explain everything later, but that it was safer for me the less I knew. He did say something about paying special attention to any reference to a group he called The Adjusters.”

“The Adjusters?”

“That’s what he said. Didn’t provide more details.”

“Tall, brooding, and mysterious, that Sam O’Neill.”

“I take it he didn’t tell you much either?”

“No. He mostly questioned me about what I knew of the fraternity and the stuff that happened in the last year. He knew a lot, but not everything.”

Daniel stared out of the window, thinking.

Cindy waited for several minutes, then stood up and approached him. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. And asked the question he had been dreading. “And what about Jenn?”

He squeezed her arm, trying to keep the deep emotions from his voice. “She’s alive, Cin.” And he told her what O’Neill had told him. Of course, he only had the private investigator’s word about the events, but part of him wanted so much to believe it that he was willing to disregard rationality. “I’ve got to find her,” he concluded.

“I know.” She headed to her bag, pulled out a thumb drive. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“It’s my first pass at the data that Radhu collected from the frat’s computers, the stuff that was encrypted. I cracked it. And isolated a lot of stuff from Jenn. And from Biff. Mostly emails, to you and to other people. I didn’t get to all of them, and for many of those that I read, I’m not entirely sure you want to read them either. Or watch the videos. But there are some things that might be interesting, and possibly relevant. I’ve isolated and marked up what I think you should look at.”

“Great. Thanks...” He took the drive. He did not know how to broach the next topic, but he knew he had to. “Cin... a while back you asked me... about us...”

She looked up at him, her big blue eyes seeming to stare deep into his soul.

“Well...” he continued, found he could not. “I’ve got to find her.”

Her eyes still on his, she smiled—did he imagine the melancholy he saw in that smile? “I know,” she said, softly. She closed her eyes. “I meant it,” she said, “when I told you that I didn’t want to get between you and Jenn.”

“Still...”

“Look, Dan. I’m not dumb. I know what she means to you. I mean, I’ve looked at you risk everything to find her, and you can’t fake that. I’ve seen how your whole world lit up this week when you figured out what was going on and saw a way to get her back. I won’t lie to you—I want a guy that would do that for me. It’d be nice. Then again,” and she grinned, “I also want a guy that will push me around and force me to do all sort of filthy things. Point is, I’m okay if you’re not the guy that does that for me. You love her. And I know you care about me. And you know what? That’s good enough for me right now. I’m happy to be your friend.”

“You are? Friends. That’s it?”

Her grin never left her face. “Well, I was sort of thinking... friends, with benefits?” She ran her hand down his chest, and under his shirt. “You have my medallion, and it’s kind of the key to my kink right now, at least until I work out my... issues. And I’ve got years of pent-up sexual needs that want addressing. Now, I could go around and offer that medallion to every other guy I meet, but honest, it’s you I trust with it. Sex, with no strings attached. That’s what I’m offering. And what you’re getting is someone ready to do whatever it is that you wish, no matter how dirty. And fully happy to do it. What so you say?”

“And when I get Jenn back?”

“Then if you want me to, I’ll fade away into that good night. Or you can just use me as your serving wench, both of you. I’d be more than happy to do Jenn’s bidding as well as yours...”

“Cin!”

Cindy pushed herself on her tiptoes. “Kidding,” she said softly, “or kindda...” She kissed him, a kiss that started as a soft touch of lips on lips before quickly turning into a passionate exchange of desire and lust. Cindy pressed herself against Daniel, a moan escaping her lips.

Daniel let himself go into the embrace, letting go of his guilt, of his shame, of the pain of the last few days, all in one go. Embrace the day. Embrace the hope. Jenn’s alive. Cindy’s alive. He grasped Cindy tighter, the need for solace and company raging strong, the tension of the last few days sublimating into an erection that was pushing into Cindy’s stomach, a state which she must have felt because she rubbed her body against it with the unmistakable goal to entice it to greater hardness.

He pulled out of the kissed, looking at her in the eyes, and while keep his expression carefully neutral, he reached for his wallet and slipped out a folded piece of paper.

He handed it over to Cindy.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw it, and a slow smile lit up her face. She took it with trembling hands, and opened it, as if to confirm what it was, even though she clearly recognized it on sight. Inside, seven simple words. Good for one blow job, anytime, anywhere. Signed with her name. The folded piece of paper that she gave him for his birthday, weeks ago. The one that had seemed to herald the roller-coaster that had been his life since.

Cindy looked at him. “Now?” Her voice had a slight tremble. She knew what this meant. That he was okay with the arrangement. Friends with benefits, she had said. He could live with that. When he got Jenn back, they would figure out where everyone stood.

She went to her purse, sitting on the floor by the entrance to the room. She pulled out her medallion.

“How did it survive the fire?” he asked, puzzled.

“Do you think I’d leave it behind?”

She came back to Daniel with the bronze medallion hanging on its leather string, holding it almost reverently. She held it out to him. There was something official to the exchange. Daniel had to comment on it, to dissipate some of the aura of seriousness. “It’s almost like a ceremony,” he joked.

“It is, in a way. I’m yours, Dan. To do with as you wish. For as long as you wish.” She looked him in the eyes before looking down. Daniel almost expected her to drop to her knees. He had to admit that the thought was at once intriguing and arousing.

He took the medallion, and slipped it over his head. He saw Cindy shiver noticeably as the heavy pendant settled on his chest. He still did not quite understand how the medallion worked. Cindy did not seem to really know either, but she told him that it lifted all of her inhibitions—not only those natural ones that everyone had, but more importantly for her even those unnatural ones that had been plaguing her since puberty, those that kept her from opening herself to her own sexuality. She also believed that it removed much of her free will along the way, although she remained fully conscious of what she was doing. Which to Daniel meant that what he had around his neck was a heavy responsibility. He did not particularly care for it, but it seemed necessary to Cindy, and he did care for her. And she did help him. And he needed the company, the comfort, the love. Did that make him selfish? So be it.

Cindy was looking at him expectantly. In the past, when he had put the medallion on, she had wasted no time to jump on him. Not this time. She was waiting. Letting him drive. Letting him take control. He shook his head. Silly girl. “Cin,” he said. “Please strip.”

In a flash, Cindy reached down and pulled her shirt over her head, tossing it across the room. Her breasts bounced in the sheer lacy white bra she had on. She was reaching back to unclasp it when Daniel stopped her. “Whoa! Slow down, please. Slow. Make it slow.”

Cindy grinned, and let her arms fall to the side. She thrust her chest out. Her nipples could be seen hard and tight underneath the white lace. With only a short flared skirt on, she was baring a lot of leg. Her long blonde hair were cascading down to her shoulders.

She pulled down a hidden zipper on the side of her skirt, and with a tantalizing wiggle of her hips the piece of cloth slid down her legs to pool at her feet. Her underwear matched her bra, the same sheer white lace hinting at the hidden treasures underneath. She ran her hand over the material, shivering once more and sighing loudly.

She lifted her hand to her mouth, sliding two fingers into her mouth, her eyes closed. When they were properly wet, she thrust them into her panties and gasped as she clearly ran them through her slit. Daniel watched on mesmerized as Cindy started to pleasure herself with lazy broad strokes, her breathing punctuated by sighs.

She opened her eyes, smiled at him. “Sorry about that,” she said with a small voice. “I got carried away a little bit. I was imagining it was your tongue down there, exploring me...” She shook her head. “Where was I? Ah yes... ‘Strip,’ you said. ‘Make it slow,’ you said.”

Reaching behind her, she unclasped her bra, but she kept it up with one hand, preventing it from uncovering her breasts. “By the way, you’ll have to tell me what you’d like me to wear from now on. Like for lingerie—do you prefer it virginal white? Wicked red? Deep black?” She teased him by slowly dropping the bra. “Or do you prefer none at all—au naturel, if you will?” Her breasts came into view as the bra fell down to the ground. Her nipples were hard. She pinched one with a hand as she cupped her breasts, hefting them up. “Oh, look at that,” she said, her voice soft. “My titties like you, Dan. They know they’re yours, that you can do what you want with them: kiss them, suck them, bite them... whatever you want.”

She let her hands travel down her sides to her panties, which she hooked beneath her fingers before sliding down her shapely legs. She tossed the thin white material in Daniel’s direction. She ran her fingers through the trimmed patch of blonde fur above her lips, accompanying the motion with a short moan. “You’ll also have to tell me if you prefer me to be shaved bald—like a little girl.”

Daniel did not respond, merely stared at the beautiful blonde girl baring herself before him. He was turned on, there was no doubt about it, and he was enjoying himself. It took a bit of an effort to push to the side the emotions of the past few days, but his body—his cock—seemed to have a mind of its own, and he did not feel like fighting it.

Meanwhile, Cindy had her two hands in her crotch, pulling her pussy lips apart with her fingers while gently running two of them up and down her slicked slit, moaning throughout. She lifted those two fingers to her face. “Fuck, I’m so wet...” she said before putting those two fingers in her mouth and sucking loudly.

She pushed those same two fingers in her pussy, collapsing on her knees as she did so. She finger fucked herself right before him, her eyes closing. “So tight... I’m tight just for you, Dan. Oh! My tight cunt is all yours, Dan, to fuck whenever you want, however you want.” She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the sensations. Saying those words out loud seemed to turn her on even more.

She straightened up, her hand still pushing in and out between her thighs, her eyes fastened on his crotch. “Are you gonna come here and feed me your cock, Dan? Push it in deep, choke me up? You can come here and fuck my mouth as hard as you want, whenever you want... It’s all yours. I’m all yours.”

She was springing up and down on her knees, her hand working hard on her pussy, fingers sliding in and out, the sound of suction loud in the silent living room. Daniel looked at her, her mouth wide open, her eyes half closed, her breasts bouncing, her legs taut with the effort to keep themselves spread out and her pelvis thrust up.

Daniel moved closer to her, and raised a hand to palm her cheek. She exhaled loudly before turning her head and capturing his thumb between her lips, sucking it inside her mouth, swirling her tongue around it as she bobbed her head back and forth over it. Through it all, she kept her eyes riveted on his crotch.

Grunting, Daniel pulled Cindy upwards, and she stumbled to her feet. Her hand, which had previously been busy thrusting fingers up her pussy shot straight up into his mouth, and she painted his lips with her wet fingers before following up with a scorching kiss. Her stomach pressed against his erection, and her not-so subtle movements did not help his composure.

“Cin,” he said, pulling out of the kiss, leaving the blonde girl panting, “if we’re gonna do this, then none of that master and slave crap, okay?”

“Are you telling me it’s not turning you on even a little bit? To have a blonde cutie at your beck and call, ready to fulfill your most sickening desires?” Her lips were in his neck, her hands underneath his shirt, and it did feel amazing.

Daniel grunted again. “Well... Considering...” Cindy had grasped his cock through his pants, and was rubbing her hand hard against it. “Considering all that’s happened around here, that may not be in the best of taste...”

“Oh, come on!” teased Cindy, running her lips on the side of his jaw. “Yes, what happened was bad and evil and condemnable. But this is different... This is fun”

She took his hand and brought it down to her pussy, which he found soaked. “See,” she said, “I’m so wet I’m dripping. This is what I want, Dan, for you to use me. That’s what gets me hot. Maybe I’m fucked up, but hurray for you—you get to reap the benefits of my craziness.” She thrust her hips forward, pressing into his hand. “Put your fingers in... Oh! Like that!”

Daniel’s fingers sank in with no resistance whatsoever. Cindy was not lying—she was aroused. Still, what he told her was also the truth. After what he had witnessed at the frat house, the last thing he wanted was domination. It reminded him too much of Biff, of Jenn, of the rest of the girls. Even though Cindy wanted it. Did he truly believe she did, or was she just programmed to believe she did? Where did it end, the doubt, the questioning?

“You said I’m charge, right?” he asked her, as she writhed before him, pumping herself up and down on his fingers. She nodded, lost in a haze. “Then what I want is for you to do your very best to pleasure yourself with me. That’s what makes me hot. To see you lose control and want me. Would that work?”

She grinned, still rubbing herself up and down on his fingers. “It might. Doing what you want makes me hot, and if what you want is for me to ravish you, then I think I can sacrifice myself. But you should know—I can be very kinky.” She pulled his fingers out of her snatch and raised them up to her lips before sucking on them, her eyes never leaving his. “Downright perverted, in fact.”

“I’m sure I can deal.”

“Good, because I believe I owe you a nasty blow job right about now.” She waved the folded note between two fingers, before chuckling and dropping to her knees. “I’ve been craving this big boy in my mouth for the past hour,” she said, unfastening his belt and pulling his pants down.

Cindy wasted no time to engulf his already hard cock between her lips and suck it enthusiastically, her head bobbing, her long blonde hair thrown to and fro. She hummed as she worked, the vibrations sending delicious sensations up Daniel’s spine. When she pushed her head down until his cock hit the back of her throat and held it there, swirling her tongue on the underside of his shaft, Daniel’s knees buckled. When she did it again, and then one more time, Daniel shivered so hard he lost his balance, and fell down onto the carpet.

Cindy never let him go, following him down the whole way, and once they were both on the ground continued her blow job as if there had been no interruption. She even seemed to double in fervor, pushing her head onto his cock more violently than before, to the extent that Daniel had to grab hold of her head to keep from being injured.

“Fuck! That’s right,” she groaned, jacking him off with a hand, a line of drool dripping from her lips. “Grab my head and fuck my face, Dan!” She thrust her head back down and resumed her blow job, open-mouthed this time, hard jab after hard jab.

It was too much for Daniel—it was edging the fine line between pleasurable and painful, and he tried to snake away, but Cindy was latched on to him like a leech. He finally grabbed her hair and pulled her off of him.

She knelt beside him, panting, her lips red, grinning widely. “If you’re not gonna fuck my face, then how about you fuck my cunt, huh?” She flipped onto her hands and knees and pressed her head against the carpet, raising her ass high.

Daniel stared. Her ass was round, rounder than Jenn’s, her skin lighter, but still a wonder to behold. Between her parted thighs, he could spy her slit, dewy and practically pulsing. When two of her fingers snuck down and parted her pussy lips, they separated with a wet sound that was echoed by that of her fingers dipping into her hole. She rocked her hips back and forth, thrusting her ass up on every outward push, all the while fucking herself rapidly. Her juices were coating her fingers like oil seeping from a jar.

“Please,” she pleaded, her voice perfectly pitched, “please fuck me! I want to feel you deep inside me! Come on! You know how good it feels inside, how hot it is, how tight... Just put your cock in there and shove! Just fuck—Oh! OH!”

Kneeling behind the bent-over form of the blonde girl, Daniel fucked her hard, relishing the way her pussy clasped his shaft in its grip, the way her buttocks shook with every one of his thrusts, the way she let out a gasp every time he bottomed out.

After the superb job she had done with her mouth, he knew he would not be able to hold on for very long, and in an attempt to maximize her pleasure, getting an understanding of what she might like, he grasped her hair in his fist and pulled—not hard, just enough to get her attention. And it did. She groaned, “Fuck yes! Fuck me! Harder!” before pulling herself up on her hands and arching herself backwards.

Fuck her harder he did. To the music of her cries, he pounced, still holding on to her hair, keeping her head up, his skin slapping on her skin. She moaned her joy when he reached underneath her and grabbed one of her swinging breasts, grasping her nipple and twisting it lightly.

Cindy was tensing up, he could feel it, her moans having both grown in intensity and in frequency. If he timed it right, they could come together. As he thrust into her, relishing the sensation of her ass pressing against his hips, the medallion thumping on his chest gave him an idea.

“Come here,” he said, growling out the words in an attempt to sound rougher than he was, and jerking on her hair. She arched her back more, and when he did not let up, she straightened up, going up on her knees to press her shoulders against his chest, her back still arched to keep his cock inside her. Daniel let go of her hair and grasped her breasts and squeezed them, to her groaning delight.

“When I pinch your clit,” he growled in her ear, “I want you to come hard.” Cindy did not reply, merely moaned in what he took to be an agreement, and he wasted no time in trailing his hand down her taut stomach to her slit, stretched tight by his own cock embedded deep inside. There was no angle to thrust, and so Cindy was twisting her hips, gyrating them to provide a different but still wonderful sensation. And then he located her clitoris, hard and angry and begging to be touched, and he grasped it between his fingers and squeezed.

She exploded. As he had hoped. The medallion worked, or her mind was so primed that it did not matter whether it worked or not. He had told her to come, and she did. Hard. A long hard shuddering orgasm that made her cry out, a cry that reshaped itself into a scream as Daniel whispered in her ear, “Come!”

She bucked violently, her shivers threatening to tease them apart, and he had to pull her back against him hard to keep her standing, and she moaned deep in her throat as she thrust her ass back towards him, her pussy clenching madly around his cock. He could not resist and whispered “Come!” in her ear again.

She stiffened as if hit by an electric shock, and as she shouted “Oh fuck!” her hands shot backwards to latch onto his buttocks and pull him roughly deeper into her as she rapidly shoved her ass back at him, whimpering incoherently, her pussy a frenzy of quivers and shudders and pulses that milked him like the hand of a farmer’s daughter. When he whispered “Come!” in her ear again, the shock that ran through her crushed his cock in a viselike grip and just like that, with nary a thrust, he came, to Cindy’s delirious glee, as she laughed and cried and pressed herself against him while the final crashing waves of her multiple orgasms echoed across her body.

They folded to the ground, still united, and they remained there, silent, catching their respective breaths. Daniel summoned the energy to reach over and grab the blanket from the bed. They were both covered in sweat, and Cindy was shivering.

“Wow,” exhaled Cindy, once she had regained the capacity to form words. “That was...”

“Yeah...”

“Promise me you’re gonna fuck me like that often?”

“As long as my dick doesn’t fall off.”

“Don’t worry,” she turned her head around and sought his mouth. “I’m gonna be a doctor. I’ll figure out a way to glue it back on.”

They kissed.

“I’m gonna make a hard-ass master out of you yet,” she whispered, a twinkle in her eyes. Daniel swatted her ass in lieu of a response.

Several hours later, with a thoroughly exhausted Cindy fast asleep in the bedroom, Daniel sat alone on the sofa, a triple glass of scotch from the hotel bar downstairs in hand, Cindy’s computer next to him. He had been sitting there, motionless but for the intermittent sips from his glass, for the past hour, once again contemplating how his life had changed, and also gathering courage. The laptop was off, the thumb drive sitting atop the folded cover. It beckoned him, while at the same time frightening him.

Emails, Cindy had said. Emails from Jenn, from Biff, emails with pictures and videos attached, that had never been delivered—had never left the server. Daniel remembered how Biff had raged that Daniel had ignored him, ignored what he had sent. But he had never received it. Cindy’s best guess was that someone had quarantined every message from Biff and from Jenn, writing from Biff’s account, with Daniel’s email as a destination. That fit with a story that Jackson had told her a while back.

And so Daniel had more than two months’ worth of emails that he could go through if he wanted. He did not want to, although he knew full well he would in the future. But not now. Besides, he had a pretty clear idea what was in those emails, and in those pictures, and in those videos. Biff had said as much: pictures of Jenn, videos of Jenn, being controlled into... well, into a sexual slave for the prurient pleasures of the bastard—the now burned-to-a-crisp bastard—who had brainwashed her into it.

Daniel worried about what Biff had done to her. Biff had said that he had programmed Jenn with specific instructions in case she was away from him for too long. How long? And what would happen now that Biff was dead? What would happen to her? He felt the drive to move, to jump off the couch and head outside and search for her. But where to start? O’Neill had started the search, said he was on top of things, he had people that could be much more productive that Daniel could. Which did not help Daniel’s feelings of helplessness.

He stared at the thumb drive. There were a few emails that Cindy had said he should look at, emails written by Jenn. Cindy had looked contrite as she said that, and Daniel had a pretty good idea, once again, what those emails entailed. And then there was the story. She had not provided more details.

It took him ten minutes to work up the courage to pick up the laptop. He powered it up, plugged in the thumb drive. Folders with emails, with videos. He ignored them all. There was a file among the folders. Charlie and the Chancellor’s Plot. He clicked on it. It was a printed version of a story that claimed to have been published online, a week earlier. Cindy had marked up the text with a yellow box: In Flights of Erotic Fantasy Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 15-37. This month’s issue.

Daniel started reading.

Charlie and the Chancellor’s Plot, by J. Dumas. “It was year four hundred and sixteen of the Renascence Era, a full forty one years since the Great Darkness War, and thirty five years into the reign of King Altobar the First, Wise Ruler and Hero of the War. The land had been at peace for much of that time, the King having dispatched the last persisting remnants of Darkness from the realm with an alacrity that had bordered on earnestness. But rumors of a new peril had started to seep the kingdom, a peril more pernicious than invading armies of soulless undead.”

Daniel frowned. A story? Cindy had marked up the side of the first page: J. Dumas = Jennifer? Jenn used to call Daniel, Radhu, and Serena the three musketeers, and she jokingly referred to herself as D’Artagnan in that context. That had been during her Alexandre Dumas phase, when she had plowed through all the three volumes of the Musketeers series—as well as The Count of Monte-Cristo and the lesser known The Black Tulip, that last one in the original French—in a frenzied reading orgy their first summer together.

He read through the story, a piece of very explicit erotica—really, porn—set in a Tolkienesque fantasy world featuring a group of royal guards in some unspecified kingdom, wherein one of the guards—a woman nicknamed Charlie—is slipped a love potion by a rival for her affections, and in which her lover Oliver and her friends try to help her. The plot revolved around an attempt to take over the throne.

Daniel read. He recognized Jenn’s writing style, the voice she favored in most of her creative writing. Cindy had marked up the text on several pages: Charlie = Jenn, Oliver = Dan. The antagonist, the Count of Rochefort, like in the first Musketeers volume, was circled by Cindy. Rochefort = Biff? Later, more annotations. The Count of Rochefort, in the story, was a knight in the Dragoons of the Imperial Kingdom, the Chancellor’s personal guard. Dragoons of the Imperial Kingdom = DIK = Delta Iota Kappa? Chancellor = Kevin? He shivered. It fit. Even the character names: Charlie, Oliver.

He fired up a web browser. He had read The Three Musketeers when he was young, and remembered the main story line, but the details were fuzzy. But Jenn had talked about it for a full summer, commenting on Dumas’s writing style and choices of locales and characters, and had talked about the inspiration for those characters. A quick web search confirmed what he dimly remembered. In the stories, d’Artagnan’s full name was Charles de Batz-Castelmore d’Artagnan. Charlie. And Jenn had referred to herself as D’Artagnan. And there was Olivier d’Athos de la Fère. Oliver. Jenn had called Daniel Athos that summer. Oliver the lover, with his friends Portia and Aramia, trying to free Charlie who was under the clutches of a love potion stolen by Rochefort—Biff. And the scene at the pub, where Rochefort forced Charlie to offer herself to Oliver in a travesty of seduction? Those were the events at the diner where Daniel had first seen Jenn once she was back from her trip with Biff. It fit.

Cindy had marked up the end of the story: Programming loophole? Fiction okay? Daniel stared, seeing the words that confirmed what he himself was thinking already. Jenn was giving her side of the story, and she had managed to do so by couching it as a piece of fiction. Biff would not have let her tell the truth of what was happening to her—that much had been obvious—but somehow his programmed left her with the ability to craft fiction that she could use to convey messages.

He stared at the story, scrolled to the last paragraph.

You haven’t lost me, she thought, I’m still here, I’m still me. I still love you. Find me, Oliver. Find me, and we shall be together again.

He closed the laptop, plunging the room into darkness. “I will, love. I promise.”