Broodcomb
Chapter 2
She walked into the endless black, chasing the gem swinging in front of her.
It was always in front of her. It hung off a little horn which was strapped to her head. As she walked, the motion set it swinging.
She kept walking. If she could catch the gem, she could escape this blackness. She knew this, because the gem told her.
It told her lots of things. It told her that in order to escape the blackness, she needed to catch it. It told her that in order to catch it, she needed to please it. It told her that in order to please it, she needed to walk towards it. As it told her these things, it sparkled and spun through the spectrum, flashing fractal highlights into her eyes, and she found herself paying absolute attention to it. And, eventually, believing it.
As she kept walking, it told her more things. It told her that the occasional sting of invisible needles going into her arm, the faint burn of exhaustion in her legs, the creeping blankness of her mind, were nothing that mattered. It told her that in order to catch it, she needed to be thinking only of pleasing it. It told her that in order to catch it, she needed to be thinking only of obeying it.
She stopped as a thought occurred to her. It stopped swinging, and asked her what she thought she was doing.
She reached up and grabbed it.
It was like grasping smoke. When her hand closed around it, it was gone. Then she’d blink and it was there, swinging circles around her fist, and she’d try again, and it’d be gone again.
Eventually, she stopped trying. She bowed her head in defeat, heard a small chime, and looked up. The gem was there again, and told her she needed to obey it in order to catch it.
She hesitated, then slowly nodded, setting it swinging again. It told her to start walking.
So she walked.
She walked, staring at the gem. It had long since stopped talking to her, except when she stopped walking or stopped looking at it.
Her eyes fluttered, struggling to stay open, aching and filling up with grit. She was so tired. Too much walking for one day, too many new Truths stuffed into her head. Too many mind-altering chemicals, one last bastion of rational thought wryly interjected.
At first, she didn’t notice how the gem began to twist around her gaze. Its facets unfolded outwards, melting into the Center of the Spiral as it anchored itself on empty space.
She almost walked into it before she halted, blinking rapidly. The Spiral was right in front of her. It sang cricket song as it spun, words whirling around the edges and slipping into her subconscious without passing through the tattered remains of her waking mind.
Her knees buckled. Slowly, gently, dreamily, she tipped backward onto an invisible bed, the Spiral tilting over and following her down.
She smiled, exhausted. She could finally stop.
The Spiral slowly closed in, encompassing everything. Her eyelids slid closed as the crickets whispered lullabies, lulling her to sleep as she floated in their midst. She cooed as a twisted shape slowly screwed into her vagina, slowly filling her up. Something heated and vibrated against the nape of her neck. She gasped as muscles she had forgotten about relaxed and came loose under the mystery masseur’s ministrations.
It worked its way down her spine, while the thing in her pussy undulated and vibrated and sent pulsating heat diffusing up it. Between them they turned her into jelly, one muscle at a time. She had no idea how she could be so aroused and relaxed at the same time, but—
She climaxed suddenly, her back briefly arching off the bed as she gasped in shock. Then she flowed back into it, her eyes fluttering shut again. She breathed one contented sigh, and then sleep took her utterly and completely.
She dreamed she walked.
She walked down the spiral staircase, seeking the bottom level. Her shadow pooled around her ankles and flashed along the roughhewn, ivy coated stone of the walls, incandescent light cascading down from the gigantic Gem that topped the staircase like a sunroof.
There was something down there. She had to retrieve it.
The wind whispered periodically through the air vents. She thought she could heard the Gem’s voice in them, but she couldn’t be sure.
She passed by doors as she descended. Wooden doors with windows, and tiny labels inset in plastic beside them—Lebowski, Claire, Year 2021, Basics of Neurochemistry, Calhoun. As she descended, the doors became more decrepit, the creeping vines more bold, the labels more generic.
She didn’t spare them a second glance. They were memories—her memories—and she wasn’t looking for that right now.
She walked down the steps, deeper and deeper into the recesses of her mind. As she did, she started to glance up. Somehow, although she kept going down and down and down, the Gem never seemed very far overhead.
The wind whispered. She shrugged and returned her attention to descending the stairs. She didn’t look up again.
Eventually, she reached the bottom. There, a cheap steel door overgrown with ivy sat at the foot of the stairs. The label was indecipherable beyond the fogged plastic window, framed by the creeping vines.
The wind whispered. She gently tugged at the door, then pulled harder and harder until it came unstuck from the frame with a metallic squeal. The vines came away as she swung it open and stepped into the room.
There was an old incandescent bulb, swinging gently under a hanging shade. Nothing else.
She stared. Then she snarled in frustration and turned to the door. Perhaps it’s up a—
The wind whispered. She paused at the door, looked back into the room one more time.
There was a large, cardboard box sitting in the middle. Black markings dotted it here and there, shifting and fuzzing over when she tried to look at them.
The flaps on top hung loosely, the tape sliced neatly in half. She flipped them open.
Inside was the Spiral.
Her legs went boneless. She fell forward, catching herself on the edge of the cardboard just in time.
She couldn’t look away, couldn’t lift herself free. The Spiral was all she could see. It sapped her strength out through her eyes, her hands trembling and struggling to keep her torso off the cardboard. Then her body failed her entirely and she lurched forward a little as her hips landed back onto the lip of the box, her arms dangling into the void.
The cheap cardboard buckled under her weight, and she slid forward a little. Then a little more, a little more, and then she tipped over and her jellied legs scrapped against the sides as she slipped in.
She tumbled. The Spiral was all around her now, it was the universe, infinitely distant and in arm’s reach at the same time. The old incandescent light shone through the box-shaped window out of the Spiral, slipping further and further away as she fell until it disappeared into the swirling, endless chaos above her.
The Spiral undulated and spun faster, drawing her eyes up as she stabilized falling head-down. Her ears thrummed with the words twisting out of the Center, too fast to hear but not to understand. She fell upwards into the Spiral, her mind slipping into sleep even as her body climbed to climax. Her eyes fluttered closed—
And then she was back at the top of the staircase, looking down over the railing. The staircase seemed to twist below her as she watched, a trick of the highlights cascading down from the whirling Gem above her.
There was something down there. She had to retrieve it.
So she walked.
She walked along the spiral path, a white, plastic road on a plain of grey nothing. She needed to find the Center.
It was slow going. The path was spinning, pushing her back out.
“Find the Center.” A voice instructed her. “You need to find the Center!”
She walked faster. But the spiral spun even faster, and pushed her away again. She moaned in frustration. She needed to find the Center.
“Find the Center, Emily.” The voice urged. “Nothing else matters. Find the Center! Say it with me! I need to find the Center!”
“I need to find the Center.” She intoned. The spiral path flashed briefly, smaller spirals whirling in counterpoint and drawing her eye. The afterimage twisted gently at her nipples before fading away.
“It’s working! Keep doing it!”
“I need to find the Center. “ It flashed again, longer, stronger, and spirals within the spirals spun and dragged her eyes along. Something twisted deep inside of her, and she mewled with need. “I-I need to find the Center. “ This time the spirals merged, lengthened, and began to circle downwards before they faded, drawing her gaze with them into their collective Centers. A thrill raced up her spine. “I need—” She gasped. “—I need to find the Center. “ She’d stopped walking. The Center was before her, the Spiral circling down into infinity right between her feet. Her vulva clenched with anticipation.“I need to find the Center.” She was falling into it, tumbling head over heels, trailing juices as she came again and again and again—
Then she was back on the spiral path, a white, plastic road on a plain of grey nothing.
She needed to find the Center. She walked.
She walked, following the spiral as some faceless man in a labcoat held it on a tablet in front of her.
It was a smaller spiral than the Spiral, but it made up for its size with creativity and can-do. Sometimes it spun through a rotation, stopped, twisted around, and then went the other way while its yellow counterpart continued on. Then they combined again, and spun as one black unit. And sometimes they did stranger things.
They walked past other people, down corridors that changed sometimes from antiseptic white to warm oranges to frantic, flashing blues. She didn’t remember details. The spiral was always more interesting.
Sometimes, she thought she glimpsed words in the spiral, but every time she pondered that her nipples came alive with a sudden jolt and she lost her train of thought. It would be irritating if the spiral wasn’t so pretty to look at.
They came to a bright white room. The man walked inside, taking the spiral with him, so she walked.
She walked endlessly into the fog. Others were walking beside her. Many others. Virtual others, she guessed muzzily, although she couldn’t be sure.
An insanely cheerful voice interrupted what could charitably be called her train of thought. “Simon says, halt!”
Everyone else halted. So she halted.
“Simon says, on your knees!” Everyone else fell to their knees. So she fell to her knees. Peer pressure, the thought came up drowsily. Another psychological—
“Simon says, spread your legs!” Absently, she spread her legs apart. Psychological exploits. Behavior modification. What was going—
“Simon says, masturbate but do not orgasm!” Her fingers plunged into her vagina in perfect synchronization with the fuzzy silhouette of the woman in front of her. Her reasoning fluttered away into the fog.
Moving almost by themselves, her fingers brought her to the edge of orgasm—and stopped just short. All around her, voices moaned or gasped distantly, the fog swallowing the sound like layers of cotton. She mewled in single-minded need, and tried to force her fingers to move. They twitched, sending her right back to the edge, and then locked up entirely.
“Simon says, orgasm!” She bit back a scream as the climax thundered through her.
“Simon says, stand up!” Everyone else stood up. So she stood up.
“Simon says, walk!” Everyone else walked. So she walked.
She walked through an open door into some sort of office. A man stood before her, holding a stack of papers and a pencil worn almost to the nub.
“Simon says, obey this man!” She paused as she parsed the command, then nodded.
The man nodded back, and held the pencil to the paper. “Alright miss, I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re to answer completely and honestly, no matter the subject. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Your name?”
“Emily Calhoun.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Occupation?”
“Full time student. Oakland University.”
“Interesting. Your major?”
“Psychology.”
He nodded, satisfied with that line of questioning. “Any friends or family? Anyone who’d miss you.”
“No. “ She paused, considered the question again. “Yes. Claire Polson. I was...hiking with her? I...”
“Hmmm.” He considered his sheaf of papers again, checked something off, scribbled a note down. Then he looked up, and caught her wondering expression. “Stop thinking about that.” So she did.
“How many times have you had sex?”
For the first time, she considered refusing to answer. Then she squashed the thought. This man said to answer truthfully whatever the subject, and Simon said to obey him, and Simon was always right. “A few times.”
“Male or female?”
“Twice with a male. Once with a female.”
“An experiment?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, that’s all the important bits. Just one more thing, then you’re on your way. “ He set the papers and the pencil down, and then unzipped his pants. “Tit job. Now.”
She paused, but only for a few seconds. Then she squatted down, and pulled his boxers down to free his penis. She spat on it, and then rubbed it all over with her breasts.
Then she got to work. Her B-sized breasts didn’t make it easy, but eventually he grunted and came all over her face. As he came down from his orgasm, she slowly wound down, stopped. And then stood up. She did not do anything about the cum dripping down her face.
“Good job. “ He gently turned her around, then groped her ass, and eyed her face. She did not respond to that either, which seemed to satisfy him. “On your way then.” So she walked.
She walked in a big circle, following the yellow chalk line on the granite-tile floor. Other women did the same, mindlessly marching along at Simon’s direction. The one in front of her was a giantess, an African-American towering heads and shoulders above her, with skin the color of lightly sweetened coffee and baby fat in all the right places. Her buttocks, especially, arched and jiggled a little with each step.
Her gaze happened to wonder across that bare, luscious ass. A sudden flash of arousal made her gasp and stumble, but she didn’t stop. The voice urged her again to walk, so she walked.
But she hadn’t been ordered to not stare. So she stared, as the ass swung and jiggled hypnotically before her, and the arousal came back. Her nipples perked up. Her hands trembled.
She mewled with need. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, but she wanted that ass and she wanted it now.
Unbidden, her hand slowly reached over and groped it. The woman gasped a little, but didn’t stop walking, and neither did she.
Then a hand grabbed her own ass. She mewled, but didn’t stop.
The others seemed to get the idea. Every woman reached forward and groped the ass of the one in front of them. A chorus of gasps and throaty moans echoed off the walls, underpinned by the uneven drumming of stamping feet.
Simon urged them to keep walking. So they kept walking, stumbling along as their buttocks were kneaded and mashed together by the ones following them and they themselves played with the divine asses before them.
Then Simon told them to stop. They stopped, and stood at attention by well-trained reflex.
Simon then called out pairs of names. Each pair was to go to a particular point on the circle, and to face each other, and to await instructions. It happened that she was paired with the black giantess. They walked together to the twelve o’clock position. Then they turned and stared at each other, and stood there as Simon called out other, less important names.
Simon called out the last pair, and then fell silent. They stared at each other, their bodies standing at attention, their minds dissolving in artificial lust. Lust that they couldn’t act on, because they were awaiting instructions.
Simon remained silent. They continued to stare. By now, her mind was so soggy with induced arousal and lust that she began forgetting she had done anything else. She had always been staring at this ebony goddess of lust, and she always would be.
Suddenly, Simon spoke something which, in her addled state of mind, she didn’t quite catch. But the giantess did, and she smiled brilliantly as she reached down and drove two fingers into Emily’s vagina.
The pleasure thundered into her brain, and it was too much. She went crazy with need. Thankfully, her hands knew what to do, and answered in kind. The hall echoed with moans and cries of pleasure, but her mind was too far gone to understand that.
Then Simon told them to stop. They paused, juices dripping around their fingers and out of their pussies onto the tiles. Then he told them to stand up, and then to face outwards from the circle.
Then he told them to forgot the woman they had paired with.
She blinked. Even as she parsed the command, details began to fade away,
Her face scrunched up. She hurriedly dredged up the memories, watching them over and over again in her minds eye, but they slipped through her grasp even as phantom tongues licked her clit. She struggled, silently, for an endless moment before the last memory of an ebony face bleached itself, and faded away.
She relaxed, staring at the off-white walls. Distantly, she noted that her face ached. What had she been panicking about again?
Simon told them to walk along the red chalk line. So she walked.
She walked on a treadmill while some sort of gel-like vibrator buzzed in her vagina. She didn’t dare stop. The moment she did, the vibrator stopped and a harsh buzz sounded in her ears. Then the pain began.
A holographic silhouette walked inside her, occasionally breaking the surface when she failed to match its movements exactly. The less that happened, the closer she matched the silhouette’s fast, confident, sexily arching stride, the stronger the vibrator buzzed.
Occasionally, she came. The first time that happened, she had stumbled and the pleasure had stopped. Now, she simply didn’t allow it to break her stride even as juices dripped down her legs. She walked.
She walked through a white curtain into a room filled with fluorescent lanterns. A camera stood on a tripod on one side, next to a thin TV screen displaying a test pattern. A white backdrop sheet hung at the other, pinned to the wall at one place by a folded chair.
“Hello, ma’am! Please stand on the yellow footprints.” She looked down. A mat with bright yellow footprints laid before the camera.
She stepped up onto them. A little wave of pride and sexual heat tingled up her spine at her prompt, unthinking response.
“Good! Now, match the pose on the screen!” The screen cut suddenly to a picture of a mannequin posing provocatively. Hands behind its head, chest thrust out to put its tits on display, legs ramrod straight, heels touching together.
She stared. Then the buzzer sounded, and she quickly interlaced her fingers behind the back of her head. The buzzer stopped, and the vibrator she had forgotten about started up again.
She shuffled her feet closer together. The closer she matched the pose, the more the vibrator buzzed. She swung her arms back a little and her nipples perked up with sexual heat. She matched the mannequin’s vacant smile and her cunt clenched around the vibrator. She straightened her legs and was suddenly on the edge of orgasm.
Then she thrust her chest out.
The camera flashed suddenly as she came, blanking her mind with white hot pleasure.
“Good girl!” Even in her fugue-like state a flush of warmth flowed through her at the praise. “Now match this pose!” Now the mannequin was leaning towards the camera, one hand on her knee and the other beckoning the viewer forwards.
This time she didn’t hesitate. Before any thoughts could come back to interrupt the process, she beckoned at the camera and it flashed her mind clean again.
“Good! Again!” The mannequin stood on one leg, the other folded up against her ass, one fist thrust into the air and the other folded in and ready to be pumped as she cheered an imaginary crowd.
“Very good! Again!” On her knees, fondling her breasts, mouth open in a silent moan as it ground against the foldout chair
“You’re a natural at this! Again!” Sitting on the chair, legs spread, fingers spreading its cunt open, a naughty smile.
“Very, very good! Now, one more shot and we can get back to processing you! You’ll be a mindless slave in no time!” She knew vaguely that this was not a good thing to be, but in her stunned, pleasure-drowned mind she couldn’t bring herself to care. Obeying was simple. Obeying was fun. Obeying was sexy. Obeying was good. “Now, match this pose!”
She stared incredulously. The mannequin was doing a hand stand on the chair, legs spread at 45 degrees, forming a Y shape. How was she supposed to—
Then the buzzer sounded. She quickly spun around, grabbed the chair, smashed it down behind the footprint matte, placed her hands on the seat, and tried to jump her legs up.
She almost succeeded. Her legs went up past her head, but then thudded back onto the thin carpet.
She tried again. Her legs got a little higher, but then they crashed down again.
She stopped and panted for a bit. Then the buzzer sounded, and she immediately leaped up again. This time, however, she only managed to lift her feet past the level of her hands.
She moaned with frustration. She needed to match the pose. She needed to obey!
Midway through her fourth attempt, soft hands grabbed her legs from behind.
“There you go...” The mannequin cooed, as it effortlessly lifted her legs over her head. “Now, dear, if you could hold that a moment?” It let go, and exited the photo booth before she could question the assistance. She trembled with effort, struggling to hold her balance, to keep her legs pointed at the right angle. She needed to match the pose. She needed to—
The camera flashed. She tumbled to the floor, too pleasure-stunned to feel the pain.
“Good girl! Very good girl! Now, please exit out through the curtain at your right. The man there will guide you to your next assignment.” She slowly got to her feet, began to step towards the curtain. “Oh, and place that chair back where you found it, that’s a good girl.” She stopped, looked at where the chair had tumbled onto its back, picked it up, folded it, and placed it back on the backdrop. Then she turned back, and she walked.
She walked barefoot along the beach, trudging through the bright white sand towards the promise of shade under a bamboo hut. To her right, the ocean thrummed and smashed itself against the sand and the rocks. To her left, carefully trimmed rows of palm trees and bamboo stalks rustled in the breeze.
The hut, like the beach itself, was devoid of life. Mostly. A parrot hung off a feeder on the hut’s porch, helping himself to a meal.
She looked around, registering the normalcy of the scene for the first time. “I, uhhh...” She combed her mind for words. Eventually, reluctantly, they came back. “What is this place?”
The parrot looked up from the feeder. “Temporary holding simulation. We’re having some equipment failures IRL.” He waved his head at the rows of empty beach recliners, lying in the shade of their umbrellas. “Take a seat, you’ll be here a while.”
She stared. Then she turned and walked up to the closest recliner, and sat down sideways.
And nothing happened.
She sat, and breathed, and nothing happened.
Slowly, muzzily, she began to wake up. What’s happening to me?
One by one, traces of thought cautiously surfaced into her mind’s eye. She set about organizing them.
It was slow going. Everything in her head seemed to flow together, mixing, mutating, unless she was focusing on something hard enough to nail it down. And in the pleasant heat of the tropic shade, focus was in short supply.
I’m being...I’m being brainwashed. She grabbed onto that like a lifeline. White fog; peer pressure. Simon says; Authority figure?. And the Spiral. Something in her mind’s eye began to twist around. Some sort of...of...
The thought stalled. Distantly, she felt herself toppling over, collapsing across the recliners, staring up at the Spiral, and waited for its words to fill in the gaps.
But no words came.
It was an endless moment before she realized that no words would ever come, that the Spiral was only in her head. It was another before she dragged herself out of the trance that even that had instilled.
“What’s happening to me?” She whispered to herself.
The parrot turned to her “Don’t you remember? You want this.”
She blinked and craned her head up. “I...I want this?”
He looked up and appraised her expression. “...I’d better start from the beginning. Pina Colada’s on the table, by the way. Go ahead, drink up.” She looked. Sure enough, there was a full glass, with a bendy straw and a little parasol. She carefully sat up, and took the glass in one hand.
“So, “ the parrot began as she took a sip, “Most people, surprise surprise, aren’t very receptive to getting brainwashed. We can compel obedience—brute-force methods, pleasure/pain conditioning and drugging and the like—but it doesn’t really stick. Not unless someone wants it to.” He scratched his head. “So there’s only a subset of people receptive to permanent conditioning—people we can work with, in other words. Hypnofetishists, closet submissives and the like. “ He put his claw down and stared up at her. “In short, people like you.”
She blinked. Then she carefully set the glass down. “...Me?” That...doesn’t sound like me. Does it?
The parrot rolled his head. “”You. Or why would the conditioning take so well?” He fluttered down to the armrest and stared up at her very seriously. “Tell me. What do you feel when you obey?”
Emily rolled her head back into the recliner, and closed her eyes. She replayed what she could remember of the white fog. Then Simon, and the mannequin...
“...Warm.” She finally mewled. “ Aroused. Accomplished.“ Then her eyes flew open. “Wait.”
“First thing that came to mind?” Hesitantly, she nodded.“Now, why is that?”
“...I don’t...” She whispered to herself. “...know?” Did I want this?
A vivid premonition of herself on her knees, begging to be stripped of everything that made Emily Emily pressed itself into her mind’s eye. She gasped and hurriedly pushed it away.
OK. That had to have been planted. Something trickled between her legs. They’re doing this to me—making me think this. Feel this. Right?
So she spoke up instead. “You’re brainwashing me. You were hypnotizing me earlier—that Spiral.”
“Hypnosis isn’t something we do to you—it’s something you do to yourself. Remember?” She hummed and nodded. She did remember this, from an Applied Psychology class a lifetime ago. “You have to want it to work. Maybe not consciously, but deep down.”
“And you couldn’t make me want it?”
“No.” He rolled his head. “Not really. Even operand conditioning could have only made you pretend to.”
“No, wait. Hold on.” “That’s not how it works. Operand conditioning—positive reinforcers cause the reward system of the brain to change—to assign it incentive salience. It’s how addictions work.”
“Our experience says otherwise.” He shook his head. “We’ve been burned too many times by slaves we thought sufficiently conditioned to overcome initial hostility.”
OK. That’s a appeal to authority fallacy—not an actual counterargument. She rubbed her aching forehead. Then why does this sound so right?
The drugs. She blinked. Of course. No need for consent when you can induce altered states of conscious as needed.
She opened her mouth—and paused. The drugs, yes—but did that have anything to do with it?
Or, more to the point: was there more at work?
Do I want this? She flinched away.
“...Then...what about the drugs? The—” She rubbed her arm. “—you know.”
“Doesn’t last. Liver filters it all out inside of a few hours. An addiction might help solidify control—that’s something one of our, ah, predecessors used to do—but that doesn’t make anyone want it, and it’s trivially treated nowadays, anyway.“
His claw tapped against the rest with a plastic rap, tap, tap. “Which reminds me. Why do you keep seeking the Spiral?“
“Uh—“ The Spiral beckoned. She nibbled her tongue and tried to ignore it. “—what? No, it just kinda...shows up.”
“And?”
She blinked. “...And?”
“Again: Hypnosis is something you do to yourself.“ He leaned in, and only then did she realize that he had been looking at her head on—not sideways.“In all twelve Spiral simulations, you had the option to walk away, and you didn’t. You jumped in with both feet.”
“Have I?” She kinda had...hadn’t she? Had the option to walk away—
And then it hit her. “Wait. Twelve simulations?”
He nodded. “Twelve. It’s one of our more effective deepeners, for some reason—probably because it’s closely associated with hypnotism.”
“I...I don’t—”It can’t be—I would’ve remembered—Would I have?“...twelve?”
She clenched her eyes shut and cast her memory back.
The gem. That twisting transformation. That’s one.
A spiraling staircase. The box. Open the box—No, don’t, don’t. That’s two, next.
The pathway. White on nothing. Fractal splitting, layer on layer—No no don’t think about it don’t think about it. Three...that’s three, right? She felt her head shake, and somehow that rocked her loose. Yes, it’s three, it’s three. Why am I so tired?
The corridor. A tablet. The one that split...That’s...that’s...so tired. What’s that word... Distantly, her feet scooted up, and then down the recliner. Left...then right...left...right...follow? Follow the Spiral...Am I? No, that’s not...no, No, NO—
Her eyes flew open. She gasped, breaking the slow, shallow rhythm of trance breathing.
Four. She could only remember four. But with how even that effort had almost dragged her back into trance...she could believe far more than four.
Oh, God. Her mind churned. What—what else don’t I remember?
Do I want to remember? A sudden chill raced down her spine. Do I want this?
“Emily?” His voice pulled her out of the morass she hadn’t realized she was wallowing into. “Are you OK?”
“Could you...go away for a bit?” She was shivering. Why was she shivering?“ I...I need to think.”
“Sure, sure.” He fluttered back to his meal.
She rested her head back on the recliner. Did I want this? Did I ever want this?
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. And would I remember if I hadn’t before?
She closed her eyes, and cast herself back again, as far as she could go. What did I want—
—Screaming elation. A sudden sideways rain. A lurch as the boat nosed up—
—Confusion. Frustration. Won’t this guy just get to the point alre—
—The taste of orange and mint splashed across her tongue—
Flashes of impressions. Emotions.
No names. No thoughts. No context.
Why couldn’t she remember?
Do I want to remember? She felt her lips curl in. And if I didn’t...
She gasped when a finger brushed against her swollen sex. She hurriedly snatched the hand away and restrained it with the other.
She was wet. Why was she so wet?
Amnesia. Amnesia play can be a part of hypnoeroticism. Either I was a hypnofetishest before, or they removed any memory of being otherwise and conditioned me into being one. I’d be aroused either way.
She began to tremble. Do I want this? Her hand clenched into a fist, and then opened, spreading her juices between the fingers. I shouldn’t want this. Should I?
Do I have a choice? She shuddered at an image of her skull being cracked open, her brain exposed to a ghoulish array of tools. They’ll remake me to suit their purposes. Either I go along with it or they carve and carve until they have someone who will.
Her fingers glistened in the shade. She curled and uncurled each in turn, and felt her breath slow. So is this it? Do I just surrender and get it over with?
The world seemed to recede. Would I be admitting to the truth? Or accepting the lie? She felt herself grimace—or was it a smile? Does it matter? It’s the same either way—or it will be after they’re done with me.
And with that, there was nothing left to forestall it. Nothing left to deny the truth.
“Yes.” The answer, put to words, was the most terrifying liberation she could have imagined. “I...I want this.”
Emily came undone. Everything she knew shifted, cracked, and crumbled as bedrock truths realigned themselves.
She had to scream. She muttered instead. “I want this.” She felt herself grin even as tears cascaded down her face. “I want this. I want this!”
“Want what?” She flinched. The parrot had looked up from his meal again.
“This! I want this!” She shouted back, and then hurriedly sucked in a breath. “Want the brainwashing! Want the enslavement!” She was babbling, tripping over herself, stringing words together as they came. “Want the—“
“Stop.” Her mouth slammed shut. Her racing mind skidded to a halt.
“Take a breath.” She took a breath. “Count to four. With me. One” One, “Two,” Two, “Three,” Three, “Four,” Four, “ and exhale.” And she exhaled.
“Now...” The parrot continued. “How do you feel?”
She took another breath, more slowly this time, and began again. “I’m fine. Maybe. Maybe.” Her hand drifted back down again. This time, she didn’t bother to stop it. “I’m everything you said I was.” She admitted. “It’s the only thing that makes sense to be, here.” A broken chortle forced itself out of her. “And I want this!”
“...OK.” The parrot breathed. “That’s good. But, uh, we can’t process you further right now until they get the replacements shipped, so, we’re gonna be here a while. I’d suggest taking a nap—“ Then he pawed his face. “No, no. I’m doing this wrong. Sleep.”
She lurched and toppled as the desperate energy that had held her up drained away. Distantly, her body collapsed into the recliner.
She felt a smile crease her cheeks as her eyes slid close. She wanted this. She wanted this...
Her eyes flicked open. Then she woke up. The last echoes of a faint, sourceless chiming rolled in from the sea.
“Ah, they’ve switched you to another conditioning stream.” The meaning of the words escaped her for a moment. Oh. Holding sim. Right.
The parrot fluttered over to the head of the recliner as she yawned and stretched. “We’re going to flush you out of VR. I need you to exactly what I say, alright?”
“...Alright.” She nodded.
“Good girl.” She mewled and wiggled. “ Now, we’re going to start by relaxing you completely. Curl your toes...”
But I’m already...the thought trailed off as her toes curled...
“...and relax.”...and relaxed.
“Good. Again, curl...” They curled...“...and relax.”...and relaxed.
“Good girl.” She squirmed. “Now, your lower legs. Tense.”They tensed. “ And relax.” And relaxed. Somehow, from somewhere, a little more tension flowed out of her with every repetition.
Her thighs tensed.. And relaxed..
Her arms tensed.. And relaxed..
”Good girl. “ She sighed happily. “Now, look up here, and stare into my eye.”
She stared.
“See only my eye, Emily.” His eye seemed to grow.
She stared.
His eye was growing.
Her heart shuddered momentarily with some strange emotion, but it was a quiet and formless thing that she no longer knew the name of. Then it drained away to the same place the tension had gone.
He asked a question. It fled her mind the moment she surrendered the answer.
She stared.
His eye was everywhere, a deepening, spiraling void that sucked her gaze in and in and in until it fell into the center. His voice was everywhere, a sourceless, wordless droning that corralled her wandering thoughts into tighter and tighter enclosures.
Distantly, she knew she was soaking wet.
She wanted this.
“Listen to me.” Suddenly his words were stamping themselves onto her brain, pressing it into shape, indisputable and undeniable. “I’m going to order you to cum, and when you do you’re going to fall into my eye. When you fall into my eye, you’re going to fall into a trance, the deepest trance you’ve ever gone but deeper, deeper yet. When you’re caught in my eye you’ll be a mindlessly obedient slave. You will think of nothing but what you’re told to think, you will do nothing but what you’re told to do. You’ll be a helplessly hypnotized slave to the first person that commands you. You will become this slave as soon as you cum, and you will cum when I order you to.”
He paused. She hung before the threshold.
”Good girl.“ She stared. ”Now, cum!”
She came, and fell into the void.
For a long, endless moment she floated there, staring into the endless black, juices dribbling down her legs. Then the black unsealed itself from her face and lifted away.
The machine whirred and clicked to itself as it unfolded. Her arms hung loosely as the gloves inflated and slid off, followed by the limb braces unlatching and lifting away. She wobbled slightly as the chest brace came off. She stood there, staring blankly at where the VR mask had been, as feet tramped beyond the confines of the pod.
The door slid open. A voice told her to walk. She walked.