The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

01 Landing

It’s Wednesday, and though it is the middle of the morning and the office building is in fact a hive of activity, there is silence here on the landing.

But from down the stairs there comes the sound of double doors being pushed open, and now voices are drifting up.

“So that’s Olivia,” says Mary Harper, apparently ticking off an item on an itinerary. “Now, I better just show you upstairs.”

“OK,” says a voice never heard on the landing before.

There’s the sound of people ascending. And then Mary rises into view, with the unfamiliar Sadie McCall almost beside her, maybe one step behind her, but still apparently taller.

“Now up here...” says Mary, the faintest trace of a Welsh accent evident in her voice, “Well, to be honest, I don’t really know much about what goes on up here.”

Sadie smiles politely. And as she steps onto the landing, the air is filled with an inaudible sigh.

Twenty-seven year old Sadie is followed everywhere by inaudible sighs.

There must be something magical in the combination: her short brown hair, her large hazel eyes, her prominent cheekbones, her delicate nose. Or perhaps it’s something suggested by the shape of her mouth, something enticing in her lips, her teeth. Or maybe it’s the way her subtly stylish clothes hang on her slender but surprisingly shapely frame.

Whatever it is, even the landing can see it. And it must feel it too, because as she steps onto it, it sighs. She’s as light as a feather really, yet those understated heels somehow drill deep into its soul, and it longs for her to keep walking, and keep drilling.

Mary sighs too, but audibly, and only from the exertion. She takes just a few steps on the landing before stopping and turning. Evidently her itinerary does not include a full tour of the offices upstairs.

“Now, there are more toilets up here,” she says, waving vaguely towards the corridor to their right. “So if there’s no room at the inn downstairs...” And then apparently realising what she has said, she hurriedly asks, “Oh, you’re not religious are you?”

Sadie laughs. “No. No, I’m not. It’s OK.”

Mary smiles. It’s just possible that it’s a knowing smile. “Oh that’s a relief. You have to be so careful what you say these days.”

Sadie guesses that Mary is in her late fifties. She wonders how many of these inductions Mary has conducted, and how much of this performance is, by now, rehearsed.

“OK, well, so, the toilets are that way. And I should just say, there are some people who work up here, you know; it’s not a wasteland. But they’re mostly... Well I was going to say they’re not all there. But what I mean is that a lot of them are out today, because there’s a meeting... somewhere... Like I said, I don’t really know, but you won’t be having much to do with them anyway. This part of the tour really is mostly for the toilets. So... [tick] I think we may as well go back downstairs and I’ll take you through to the back office.“

“OK,” says Sadie, with another polite smile, looking for all the world like someone on her first day in a new job. She keeps one respectful pace behind, letting Mary lead the way.

And as they descend, Sadie can be heard to say, “So, forgive me, but just going back to Olivia Charles for a second...”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. I was just wondering... Well, that is to say...”

Double doors can be heard being pulled open, and they swallow up the conversation as they gently bang shut again.

On the landing there is silence once more, except, perhaps, for one more wistful sigh. But then even that is, of course, inaudible.

02 A Veil Of Ambiguity

It’s lunchtime that same day, Wednesday, and Sadie has been temporarily deposited back at her desk in the office that she’s going to be sharing with Rachel, once Mary has finally finished introducing her to every damn person that works in the building.

Rachel Harrison is the accountant for this, Hepworth’s office in the smallish city of Shelby. Sadie McCall is her new assistant, occupying the second desk in Rachel’s office that until today has never been used—not in Rachel’s time anyway. Sadie’s position is only temporary, however. She has a six-month contract, the bulk of which she is expected to spend digitising a huge pile of old paper accounts that nobody thought were important, until it turned out they were.

It’s slightly too large a room even for two people. Rachel’s desk faces the door; Sadie’s is perpendicular to it, a few yards away to Rachel’s left. Both are stranded, some distance from the walls. A couple of old filing cabinets and a very large metal cupboard—all perfectly functional relics from the seventies at the latest—make little impact on the space.

Rachel’s currently engaged in what has obviously already been a very long phone conversation. Sadie’s sitting looking at her bag on the floor—the one she plonked there a little before nine this morning. She’s trying to decide whether to make a start on her sandwiches. This is a surprisingly difficult decision to make.

The first and so far only proper conversation the two have had took place two weeks ago, when Rachel interviewed Sadie for the job. Though Sadie is almost halfway through her first day as Rachel’s assistant, they had little chance to talk this morning before this remarkably thorough induction procedure took Sadie away. And because of Rachel’s phone call, they’ve still exchanged no more than brief smiles since Sadie returned for her lunch break. It is this failure to manage a reasonable conversation that is at the root of Sadie’s dithering over her packed lunch.

Sadie wants to eat but she’s even keener to talk to Rachel. She doesn’t want to be eating when Rachel gets off the phone in case that somehow causes a further delay. Of course it seems pretty unlikely that it would; she knows she’s being irrational. Plus, she’s not sure that Rachel’s phone call is ever going to end. And she’s hungry. But she really doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise their talking to each other.

To understand why this conversation with Rachel is so important to Sadie is perhaps to understand all. But it cannot be understood without knowing this: Sadie McCall is not what she is seeking to appear.

While it is true that Sadie is Rachel’s new assistant, she is not really that. Certainly she will be spending the next few months ploughing through the pile of paper accounts, digitising them by means of her digits. But that is not what she is really here to do. It is not why she is here.

Exactly why Sadie is here is her own business of course. For now let it suffice to say that she has what we shall call a professional interest in one member of the staff here at Hepworth’s—a woman called Olivia Charles. Sadie’s aim is to find out what she can about Olivia, and to use that information to get close to Olivia, so that she can... Well, yes. Let that suffice for now.

Unfortunately, however much Sadie might want to be cultivating some kind of friendship with Olivia, there was no vacancy in her office. Of course Sadie just had to take whatever opportunity presented itself to get inside Hepworth’s, but inevitably her role means that she will be spending most of her work hours sitting in this office with Rachel. So, how to make the best use of that time? How to make the best use of Rachel?

Sadie’s interview with Rachel was a fairly informal affair, the only formality being—as far as she was concerned—the subsequent job offer. Sadie is very good at presenting herself as anyone’s ideal candidate for anything. But interviews are not just a hoop for her to jump through; they are an opportunity to assess the lay of the land. And it didn’t take too much assessment for Sadie to reach the conclusion that Rachel is a lesbian. So naturally, even by the end of the interview she was already pondering how best to exploit that.

Sadie’s thinking was broadly as follows. She wants Rachel to talk as freely as possible about Olivia Charles, or indeed about anything and everything. And she has a vague notion that Rachel will talk more freely to someone she believes to be another lesbian than she would to a straight woman. More than that, Sadie believes that if Rachel thinks it’s possible that Sadie is a lesbian, she may try to tease out the truth about that, using titbits of gossip about female co-workers as her bait.

To repeat: it is only a vague notion. But Sadie has decided to act upon it.

Clearly she couldn’t walk into the office on this her first day and simply declare herself to be a lesbian. Indeed, she doesn’t want at any point to actually say that she is a lesbian. She merely hopes to give so strong an impression that she could be one that Rachel will believe it’s possible. Essentially her intention has been to turn herself into a closet heterosexual. Or as Sadie is putting it: she has cast a veil of ambiguity over her sexuality.

Sadie feels that she has something of an affinity for lesbians. Certainly she has far more lesbian friends than most straight women do. One look at Sadie would probably explain to you exactly why that is; but that truth has never revealed itself to her. No, what Sadie believes she has is this affinity thing.

Whatever the truth may be about that, Sadie believes that she knows this territory pretty well, and she has spotted an opportunity to use this inside knowledge to her advantage. Since her interview, she has had her hair styled slightly differently, and she has bought herself one or two new business suits of a slightly different cut. She even smells a little different. But it’s nothing too dramatic; she didn’t look so very different the last time Rachel saw her.

Perhaps it’s worth stating at this point that Sadie never really feels like she’s working on a case unless she’s wearing a disguise of some kind. Channelling her non-existent inner lesbian will go some way towards satisfying that need, even if Rachel doesn’t notice.

But what if Rachel does notice?

Dreamt up at home, in abstract, the idea really seemed to be just a bit of fun—a little project for Sadie; a game for her to play. But sitting here now, a would-be lesbian alone in a room with a very real one, it would be fair to say that she has some doubts. She knows that in truth it’s not much of a deception—and not much of a disguise. But it does feel now as though she might be doing something disrespectful and wrong. So naturally she is keen to find out how it is going to play with Rachel. And that is why this, their first proper conversation, is so important to her.

However, Rachel’s phone call is showing no signs of ending, and Sadie is starting to fear that by the time it does, she’ll already have had to rejoin Mary for part two of the induction. It’s all very frustrating.

But while the induction process has been keeping her away from Rachel today, it has at least thrown up one unexpected opportunity. Because, mid-morning, Sadie found herself in Olivia Charles’s office, being introduced to the woman herself.

If Sadie had had some kind of rough timeline for what she could hope to achieve here, then getting on speaking terms with Olivia Charles might have been pencilled in for maybe two weeks from now at the earliest. To be introduced to her on Day One was a very pleasant surprise. Though naturally she tried to make the most of the encounter, it could hardly be described as tremendously productive, but it has to be considered a good start.

And the fact remains that she has had a chance to assess her quarry now. And she found her to be... perfectly pleasant, in a very professional, very middle-class kind of a way. In brief then, Olivia Charles: late twenties, high achiever, very capable, fairly conservative, attractive enough—though slightly overdoing the personal presentation. Oh, and she mentioned how busy she is at least once too often. But she seemed nice enough, and very approachable—and that alone is a good sign.

So Sadie certainly feels that she has earned her lunch, even if it’s really Rachel that she wants to be getting her teeth into right now. She has finally fished her packed lunch out of her bag now and the opened lunchbox is on her desk. But she still hasn’t started eating.

And perhaps that can wait now. Because out of the blue, this damned phone conversation is apparently drawing to a conclusion. And now Rachel has just said goodbye and is replacing the receiver. And after directing a long deep sigh at her phone, she’s looking across at Sadie and smiling, and it’s clear that this long-awaited conversation is about to begin.

03 A Winning Strategy

But it seems that Sadie will have to wait just a little longer, as there’s a knock at the door.

“Sandwich for you, Rachel,” says the girl who rushes in.

Thankfully her obvious haste suggests the interruption will be brief. And indeed, even before she has actually dropped the sizeable sandwich on Rachel’s desk, the girl is already turning to leave. As she does so though, she performs a near-comical double-take upon noticing Sadie for the first time. Most likely she was simply—and naturally—not expecting to see someone sitting where no one has ever been sitting before.

Sadie adopts a friendly smile, but otherwise pays the girl a degree of attention that is commensurate with her status. And judging from her attire, the girl’s status is trash. Sadie wonders if she actually works here and decides it’s more likely that she’s just someone making deliveries from a local sandwich shop.

The girl doesn’t quite return Sadie’s smile. If anything it seems to hasten her departure. Before Rachel has finished saying thank you, the door has already closed and the girl has gone.

Finally the conversation can begin.

“Hmmm,” says Rachel, looking at the door and fingering her sandwich. “So, anyway Sadie, how’s the induction going?”

“Fine,” says Sadie. “Mary’s very nice.”

“Oh yes,” says Rachel, “Mary is very nice. That’s not just a first impression thing. Have you got many more people to see?“

“I think we’re almost done. But I have to say I’m surprised they’re going to all this trouble for someone with a six-month contract.”

“Well, it’s an IIP thing really but, you know, people will always want to meet the new girl, especially as an alternative to working. Now speaking personally, I wouldn’t have had you wasting any of your valuable working days being told where all the fire exits are.“

“Well that’s reassuring,” says Sadie, with a more relaxed and more genuine smile than she was showing with Mary.

She remembers now enjoying Rachel’s deadpan delivery during her interview. Indeed, she remembers making her enjoyment of it as obvious as she judged the situation to demand, because just the right amount of flattery will go a long way at a job interview.

“So who have you seen so far?” asks Rachel. “What’s been the highlight of your exciting morning?”

It’s the perfect opportunity for Sadie. And though her answer is given disingenuously, it is fundamentally absolutely truthful.

“Oh, well, I think, er, Olivia... Charles, is it? I think her role was the most interesting to me: client-facing, you know.“

“So you fancy a roll with Olivia, eh?”

“Ha ha! That’s not quite what I er... Well, anyway, she just seemed quite... impressive, you know.“

“Oh yes, certainly. And I can assure you that there’s nothing false about the impression Olivia leaves.“

Sadie’s not absolutely sure, but she believes that Rachel is making a joke about Olivia’s breasts, which even she noticed were a good size. She also has a feeling that her veil may be working, though she hardly dares to believe that yet.

She laughs at the assumed joke, but she wants to keep Rachel talking about Olivia, so she chances a joke-bitchy remark in reply.

“Do you think it’s possible though that her tan might be just the teensiest bit fake...?“

Thankfully Rachel laughs too. Well, sort of. It’s more of a snort really.

“Ha! Well... it’s possible, I suppose. She does look amazing with it though, doesn’t she?“

It’s not the kind of response Sadie is expecting. But there’s a faraway look in Rachel’s eyes that suggests she really means it.

Sadie says nothing, but she decides to smile coyly, as if to say, “Yes, I find Olivia attractive,” without actually saying it. It would be an actual lie to actually say it. And as we know, Sadie isn’t lying; she’s being ambiguous.

Nonetheless, and to Sadie’s surprise, when she smiles as if to say that she finds Olivia attractive without actually saying it, it does seem as though Rachel believes it’s at least possible.

“Well, if you were interested in Olivia,” she says, “I’m sure young Jane would have something to say about it.“

“Jane?”

“Jane Smith: works with Mary; lives with Olivia.“

Even Sadie can’t believe it as she senses that her veil may just have paid immediate dividends...

“Lives with? As in: lives with?“

“Lives with, as in sleeps with, yes.“

Sadie can’t quite believe this either though. She isn’t used to being wrong about people.

Ridiculous as it may seem, Olivia had come across as just so upper-middle-class earlier that somehow it was natural to assume that she was straight as well. Perhaps there is something false about the impression she leaves after all.

“Is Olivia... a lesbian then?“

For some reason Sadie feels like she should be avoiding that word, but Rachel doesn’t seem to balk at it.

“Well, if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it, er, sleeps... erm... with ducks... No, hang on, that’s ducks isn’t it, not lesbians...”

Sadie is still too surprised to show amusement at this. In her job she wears several veils, and her veil of imperturbable cool has certainly slipped.

“Wow. That’s just... I think I’d have been less surprised if you’d told me she really does sleep with ducks. I really didn’t pick up on that earlier.“

“No, well, you can’t always tell, can you?”

Now there’s a loaded question...

“Oh, I know. It’s just that... well, Olivia just seemed so... conventional.“

Sadie’s pleased with this. She has made being conventional sound boring. Rachel should be flattered. Plus she thinks it suggests that she isn’t conventional either—without actually saying it of course.

“Well, on the surface she may appear conventional, but down below her feet are paddling furiously... No, I’m thinking of ducks again, aren’t I? Or is it swans? I think it may be swans.”

Sadie does laugh this time and she feels like she’s back in the game. But it occurs to her for the first time that Rachel is hiding behind a veil of her own. And with the realisation that Rachel has probably spent her whole life behind that veil, Sadie suddenly, if only briefly, feels like the fraud she absolutely is.

But she presses on.

“So who is this Jane Smith then?”

“Lucky Jane? Oh you’ve just seen her—she just brought me my sandwich.”

Sadie’s confidence in her own intuition won’t withstand many more knocks like this. So the rather conservative and obviously straight Olivia Charles is not only a lesbian, but she shares a bed with...

Sadie tries desperately to recall the girl she dismissed as trash just moments ago. She remembers cheap ankle boots and a much too short leather skirt revealing long thin legs that frankly should have been covered up. She recalls a partly-exposed midriff and some kind of chain around the waist. Or did she imagine that? Anyway she can’t recall the face. But it shouldn’t be too hard to pick out Jane Smith from the crowd: she’ll be the one dressed like a slut.

Of course Sadie doesn’t say the word.

“What, that...?!“

But incredibly Rachel does.

“That sexy little slut? Sleeping with the oh-so conventional Olivia Charles? Oh yes.“

Just for this moment or two, all of Sadie’s veils have slipped.

“Wow. Just, wow.”

“Yes, I think that about covers it.”

At least it’s clear that Sadie was supposed to be amazed. Rachel knew she was delivering a very juicy bit of gossip. And now, as if to say her work here is done, she is biting into her sandwich.

But she stops suddenly, to add one more thing.

“Listen, I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you, you know. But, well, I thought I’d better, just in case you were interested—in Olivia, I mean.“

“Oh, sure,” says Sadie. “Well, erm, thanks.”

So it wasn’t juicy gossip then; just a friendly warning from one lesbian to another.

It really does seem as though Rachel has already taken it as read that Sadie is a lesbian. Even now it doesn’t occur to Sadie that Rachel might have reached that conclusion two weeks ago. Regardless, it seems as though she may have hit upon a winning strategy. She and Rachel are to be two lesbians, each jousting from behind her own veil of choice.

Anyway the conversation has certainly ended for now. Rachel is looking at something on her screen as she tears into her big sandwich. Sadie makes a start on one of her rather daintier home-made efforts.

It’s only now that she has time to consider certain nuances. Veil or no veil, Rachel did just describe Jane Smith as a sexy little slut, didn’t she? And she called her lucky Jane, because Jane’s sleeping with Olivia Charles, and Rachel thinks that Olivia looks amazing. It’s weird enough that Olivia and this Jane girl are a couple, but Rachel apparently finds both of them attractive, and that strikes Sadie as being every bit as odd.

She’s no expert of course, but she can’t believe that either of them would be Rachel’s type. And she feels a little foolish too. After all, she’s sitting here dressed up as a postulated lesbian; she rather thought that she was closer to Rachel’s type.

Regardless, she figures that this veil thing has already yielded something of interest regarding Olivia. Or perhaps she just chooses to believe that. Either way, it seems that Jane Smith could be worth a closer look as a possible route to Olivia.

But more interesting than that is the tantalising thought that Sadie could be Olivia’s type. Now there’s a possibility that she certainly hadn’t anticipated...

04 Machine Conversations

In addition to coffee, tea, water, orange, and a curious soup that might more accurately be described as brine, this machine in the corridor also serves up conversations. And it is only this last feature that keeps drawing Sadie back, because the drinks are, without exception, awful.

It’s Friday morning—the start of her third day in the job—and she is standing talking to an attractive woman of about thirty-five whose name is Debbie.

“So, yeah, I’ve been introduced to so many people in the last couple of days, you know? I mean I don’t think I’d recognise most of them if I saw them again, let alone remember their names. Oh, and now you’re going to tell me that I’ve been introduced to you already...!“

Debbie laughs. “No, you’re OK. I’m not important enough to be on the induction circuit.”

“That’s a relief,” says Sadie.

She has already used this line a few times now. She remembers wondering how rehearsed Mary’s banter was during her induction. Three days in and her own conversation is already getting that way.

She decides to plough straight on into another familiar routine.

“But honestly, I mean, I think the only person I really remember is Olivia Charles.”

There’s some kind of reaction from Debbie to this hopefully leading opener, but Sadie can’t read it.

“Olivia?”

“Yeah. She just seemed to stand out, somehow.”

“Oh well, of course, Olivia would stand out, I suppose. I mean, she’s so beautiful...“

Oh this is just crazy...

Debbie is now the fourth woman to have told Sadie that Olivia is beautiful. In fact, the word Rachel used was amazing, wasn’t it? Sadie’s starting to wonder what they can all see that she can’t.

Olivia is not unattractive by any means, but beautiful...? And all that attention she pays—so obviously—to her appearance: the fake tan, the nails... it’s a little overdone for Sadie’s tastes. However ultra-middle-class Olivia may be, there’s something a little common about all that.

Of course it’s easy for someone as beautiful as Sadie to make that judgement. She doesn’t need to make such an effort. And though she isn’t vain, she isn’t insecure about her looks either. It doesn’t occur to her that Olivia might be.

Anyway, she’s very surprised to be donning the veil again, but don it she quickly does.

“Oh yes, well, maybe that’s why she stuck in my mind. She does have that certain something...“

It’s an invitation to agree and perhaps expand a little. But the faraway look in Debbie’s eyes says much more than her mouth does.

“Yes...”

So Debbie’s another one then. Sadie may look like central casting’s idea of a lesbian, but she’s starting to wonder if she’s the only woman in this place who isn’t one.

Not for the first time she tries her second tack.

“Actually Rachel told me something about Olivia. I was really surprised... About her and Jane Smith...?”

“Oh, yes, well... that’s... I mean, we’re so happy for them. And Jane is just... I mean she’s so... Well, you know what I mean.“

Perhaps surprisingly, Sadie does in fact know what Debbie means. She means that she finds Jane sexually very attractive.

Sadie has had this conversation before. It’s like Groundhog Day. She didn’t know for sure what Sue meant when she said—or didn’t say—much the same thing. But she was starting to get the idea when Emily said it. And by now she knows what Debbie means. She just doesn’t understand what all these women can see in perfectly normal Olivia and scrawny, trampy Jane.

But perhaps she can find out.

“Oh, yeah... I mean, Jane... Wow...”

It’s not Sadie’s finest performance, perhaps. But it looks like Debbie has bought it, possibly.

“I know,” she says. “I mean, those legs... You just want to...”

“Yeah...,” says Sadie, who really doesn’t.

“And she’s just... Oh, I mean, her...”

Debbie appears to have lost the ability to finish a sentence. Sadie can only imagine the filthy thoughts being filtered out. Unfortunately.

“Yeah...,” she says, hoping her puzzlement isn’t showing.

She’s after more, but there are voices coming from somewhere and suddenly Debbie clams up.

“Oh, well, look, I better get back to it. Busy, you know.”

“Sure,” says Sadie. “Nice to have met you.”

“You too,” says Debbie, and she hurries away.

Sadie sips her coffee. It’s cold, which isn’t an improvement. She tips it into the machine and orders up another.

05 The Offer

It’s later that same Friday morning and Rachel has taken an early lunch to pop out into town. Sadie is sitting at her desk but she isn’t working. She’s thinking about her conversation with Debbie, and her similar conversations with Emily and Sue, and Rachel.

It’s weird, this thing that everyone seems to have for Olivia Charles and Jane Smith. And it’s troubling her. She tells herself it’s nothing really, and that she shouldn’t let it distract her from her assignment. But there’s just something creepy about it and she can’t quite dismiss it from her mind.

Ah, yes, the assignment... She has to admit she hasn’t really got anywhere yet. It’s early days though.

Her approach is always softly-softly. It’s all a matter of gently pushing buttons until something gives. And something always gives eventually. The most important thing—the only important thing really—is not to get caught.

There’s a knock at the door and Jane Smith enters. She acknowledges Sadie with a shy nod as she makes her way to Rachel’s desk and deposits a sandwich.

Sadie has to check to make sure. She has to force herself to look at those nasty boots, those slightly spindly legs, that joke of a skirt. And she’s relieved to find that she feels nothing—not up to there at least. Whatever charms Jane may possess, evidently Sadie is resistant to them.

Her eyes have to jump suddenly upwards when she realises that Jane has turned and is walking towards her.

“Hello, I’m Jane.”

Jane looks awkward but she’s smiling, and Sadie thinks that perhaps she has been a little unfair. Jane is hardly ravishing, but she’s pretty enough.

Anyway, Sadie manages a warm friendly smile.

“Hi, Jane. I’m Sadie.”

“Yes, I know,” says Jane.

There’s something... Her social skills seem lacking.

“I do this sandwich run thing,” she continues. “They all call it that. It sounds odd to me; I don’t run to get them. But anyway... I was wondering if you’d like to join? It means I’d bring you a sandwich every day from the shop. You do have to pay for it though.“

Sadie wants to laugh—Jane looks so serious. Ordinarily she’d turn the offer down—she’s quite capable of preparing a packed lunch for herself each day. But she recognises the potential value in having this regular contact with Jane, who is so close to Olivia. So...

“That sounds like it would be great! Thank you!”

“Oh that’s good then,” says Jane. She looks and sounds really relieved, like she expected and feared rejection. Either she can’t hide her emotions or she doesn’t realise one is expected to. “So what sandwich would you like?”

Sadie was expecting some kind of menu, a price list, something, but Jane evidently has nothing.

“Er, could I have just, I don’t know, cheese and tomato?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure they do that,” says Jane brightly. “I don’t have the details, sorry. I’ll have to check and get back to you. And, you know, you can change the order as we go on or, well, some people have a different order for each day, stuff like that. But for now, do you want me to bring you a cheese and tomato starting on Monday?”

“Sure,” says Sadie, though in fact she’s not sure what she’s getting, or for what price.

“OK,” says Jane. “I’ll bring it, well, about this same time. Oh, I can probably bring it when I bring Rachel’s.”

“That’s a good idea,” smiles Sadie, concluding that the sharpest knife is probably still tucked safely in the cutlery drawer.

“See you on Monday then.”

“I’ll look forward to it!”

“See you then, Sadie.”

“See you, Jane.”

Sadie checks again as Jane leaves. She’s fairly sure she catches a glimpse of the lower part of a bum cheek as Jane reaches forward for the door handle. But there’s nothing: no sign of any burgeoning attraction.

She smiles to herself and resumes thinking things over. The thought of all those women lusting after Jane seems weirder than ever. But perhaps ridiculous is really the word. And now she’s less worried by it, and more inclined just to laugh.

06 The Grind

Monday, and it’s almost lunchtime. Sadie doesn’t mind Mondays but the shine is definitely starting to come off this paper accounts thing already, and it wasn’t very shiny to begin with.

Rachel’s going to be out of the office this afternoon, and frankly Sadie’s looking forward to her leaving. It’s not that she has anything against Rachel, it’s just that... Well, sometimes pretending you’re working is more of a strain than actually working would be. Sadie could definitely do with a rest from that.

There’s a knock at the door and suddenly Jane is in the room.

“Sandwich for you, Rachel.”

“Thanks Jane.”

Rachel doesn’t even look up from her screen. She has been quiet all morning. Maybe she’s not a Monday person.

“And a sandwich for you, Sadie.”

“Thank you Jane.”

Sadie makes a point of making eye contact and smiling. It’s not part of her strategy; she was just raised to be polite, and she feels the need to compensate for Rachel’s apparent rudeness.

Jane smiles back and Sadie feels like she has done her good deed for the day. She tries not to think about the packed lunch in her bag—the one she brought, fully expecting Jane to have forgotten their arrangement.

It’s a different skirt today but she still catches sight of that bum cheek again as Jane’s reaching for the door handle. And there’s still no hint of arousal.

“Joined the sandwich run then?” asks Rachel, a few seconds after the door has closed.

“Yeah. Jane asked me on Friday.”

“Wow that’s quick. It normally takes her at least a month to notice that someone new has started. She must have taken a shine to you. Anyway, good; I’m glad you’re settling in.” Rachel’s eyes are still glued to her screen.

“I haven’t actually paid her yet. In fact, she hasn’t told me how much it is, or anything, really.”

“The first one’s usually on the house.”

“Oh, right.”

“I mean, it’s not supposed to be. It’s just that she’s not that organised, bless her.”

“Oh. I see.”

Rachel finally turns to look at Sadie.

“I’m half-joking. Well, almost half. Don’t worry about it. The sandwich run has kind of ballooned up around Jane. It’s... it gives her something to do. The company pays for the sandwiches then Jane comes around and collects the money—usually on Thursday afternoon. It’ll be about twelve pounds for the week, unless you’re having something fancy.”

“I’m not,” says Sadie, eyeing her cheese and tomato sandwich. Actually it looks quite appetising.

“No. Well. If they sell anything fancy then Jane’s never told anyone about it. But I was being unfair really. Her approach to organising things is certainly unorthodox, but she gets the job done. I mean, I do the accounts, obviously, and every week she gets the money in, and every week it’s spot on. And believe me, that’s a bigger achievement than it sounds. But her desk is like a collage rendered in post-its, bless her.”

“Is she...? I mean... She seems a little... awkward.“

“She’s a bit shy, I suppose.”

“She doesn’t dress shy.”

Rachel laughs.

“Ha! No, I suppose she doesn’t. And thank god for that, eh?”

She sighs. Sadie recognises that faraway look. It’s the look that means a conversation about Jane has come to an end.

She picks up her sandwich and slides the end of it out of the bag.

“We all love her though,” says Rachel, unexpectedly, even though she’s looking at her screen again now.

Sadie bites off a piece of her sandwich and begins to chew. It’s not at all bad.

“Yep, we all love her,” says Rachel again, almost to herself.

07 The Fold

It’s Monday afternoon and Jane is strolling down the corridor towards Rachel’s office. It’s certainly purposeful, but it’s still a stroll.

She doesn’t feel like she’s Impending Doom. If anything, she feels like she’s on a nurse’s errand.

She knocks ever-so gently on Rachel’s door before popping her head inside. She knows that Rachel is out of the office this afternoon, but it is not Rachel she has come to see.

This is her second visit of the day. The first was two hours ago, when she made her first delivery to Sadie, the latest subscriber to the sandwich run. So ostensibly she is here to... well, let’s see.

“Hello Sadie, I just came to check that your sandwich was OK...”

There, that’s ostensibly why she is here. But...

“Oh, Sadie! Are you OK? You look a bit...“

Sadie feels a bit dot-dot-dot too. More specifically she feels that it’s just possible that the sandwich Jane brought her has made her ill. And Sadie hates being ill. Being ill, she feels, is something that other people do better, and she’s happy to let them.

More than anything else, she does not want to be feeling ill on an afternoon when she has the office to herself. So she feels like saying, “No, goddammit! You’ve made me ill with your stupid sandwich, you stupid dot-dot-dot!“

But of course, she doesn’t say that. Right now she’s probably incapable of saying that. And though she hasn’t noticed yet, she’s becoming even less capable.

“I think I’m OK. I just feel a little dizzy. I’m sure if I...”

“Hey,” says Jane, quite softly, stepping properly into the room and closing the door behind her. “You just need to take a little time to relax. Here, let’s get these blinds closed.”

“Oh, well, I... No, I don’t think I...”

Sadie hates sympathy. She hates being subjected to kindness. Really she just wants to be left alone. She’s not even that ill, she thinks; her mind’s just swimming a little, and that will surely pass.

But the truth is that it’s swimming a lot now—enough to leave her already unsure who this weird girl is who’s doing something over there by the window. If Sadie’s wearing a veil of ambiguity right now, she must have it on inside-out.

“Come on now,” says Jane, starting to make her way from the window towards Sadie.

Her voice really is so soft, and yet somehow it is commanding.

The room suddenly seems smaller. It’s amazing what a difference closing the blinds makes. With the blinds closed, you could easily forget where you are.

Sadie is in a small room—a cupboard maybe—with this weird girl. But she senses something else... She’s in a cupboard with the weird girl, but there’s something else here, isn’t there? There’s a wild animal in here...

Sadie feels something—a tingling—in her scalp, or is it inside her head?

That can’t be good.

Oh. Well. Maybe it can be though.

Yes, maybe it can...

This animal... it’s something untamed but it’s not a threat. It’s a wounded animal maybe. A hurt animal. A frightened animal. Sadie feels its fathomless fear and its aching loneliness and she wants to help it in any way she can.

“You just need to lean back and close your eyes.”

Weirdly, that was what Sadie was just thinking: if she leaned back and closed her eyes, maybe it would all be OK.

And it is.

Closing her eyes is like wrapping her arms around this poor wounded creature—embracing it, giving it what it needs. Maybe the weird girl knows what she’s doing after all. Maybe she’s not so weird. And anyway, weird girls are pretty cool. Sadie likes weird girls. You just need to forget your reservations and embrace them.

Is that a door being locked?

No, it probably wasn’t that.

This is like...

It’s like having her hair brushed—when she had long hair, when she was little. Only it’s not her hair, it’s her mind. It’s like having her mind brushed. And oh it does feel nice...!

Weird girls are so cool, aren’t they?

“Here...”

The girl is nearby now. Sadie can’t say exactly how near because her eyes are closed. But it feels very near. And actually, it’s not near enough. The important thing is that the girl should be able to touch her. That would be nice.

“That’s it,” says Jane. Her voice is little more than a whisper. She is standing behind Sadie’s chair and now her fingertips come to rest on Sadie’s temples.

“That’s it.“

The girl—the kind, gentle girl—is gently stroking and tickling Sadie’s tingling temples with her soft fingertips. Sadie was feeling ill and now the lovely, kind, gentle girl is making her feel better.

“That’s good.“

It is good. It is already well beyond Sadie to judge the appropriateness of what is happening. It is just a thing that she wanted to happen. And it is a thing that is happening. And she likes it.

“There’s a good girl.“

And then it is not even a thing. And the idea of liking or not liking things is no longer a thing.

“Good girl.“

And then there are simply no things. And that makes things very simple indeed.

“That’s it. That’s right.“

Right is very much what it is. Yes.

Yes...

The two women stay like this for about fifteen minutes.

Well, more or less.

Jane doesn’t need to touch Sadie’s temples at all, of course. She’s only doing it because she has wanted to touch Sadie since she first saw her, and now she can. Indeed, her fingers quickly drift down, stroking Sadie’s cheeks, briefly exploring her inviting mouth, and finally, of course, gently feeling up her rather nice breasts. For the record, the breast fondling occupies about thirteen of those fifteen minutes.

Jane is able to do this because Sadie is unconscious.

Well, more or less.

In fact Sadie is not unconscious; it is just that her mind is otherwise occupied. Her mind is occupied by Jane’s mind. And it is occupied with unbidden thoughts of Jane. And while Sadie will not remember that Jane was feeling her up like this, she will remember these thoughts of Jane. She will remember them as though they were her own thoughts and memories. And they will frame all of her future thoughts about Jane.

“Hmmmmmm...”

Sadie sighs. Her eyes are closed but there’s the trace of a smile on her slightly upturned face.

The fifteen minutes are up and Jane is crouching now beside Sadie’s chair. She’s taking the time to allow herself to come down. She needed to take Sadie so much. The urge hasn’t been this strong, this overwhelming, since she took Olivia. And the deeper the urge, the harder it is to come down afterwards. But she knows she has got it right today. Already her racing thoughts have slowed to something quite manageable.

She’s looking up at that beautiful face as she lightly strokes the crotch of Sadie’s trousers with her fingertips. The soft cloth smells nice when she leans her head down to kiss Sadie’s thigh. She runs her hand all the way up that long leg, watching its progress as it just lightly strokes the material. Then she leans in again, further forward this time, pressing her face right down into the junction of those legs, alternately kissing, and inhaling deeply. She even sighs, quite audibly.

Sadie has that certain something, that’s for sure. It’s like the trousers. They look like men’s trousers, but the material is so soft. And that’s what Sadie has: the kind of mix of masculine and feminine that always fascinates Jane. It’s really only a hint of masculine with Sadie, but it’s enough. Perhaps it’s exactly the right amount.

With her nose and mouth so close to that desired pussy, possibly it’s odd—incongruous—but Jane is thinking about penises.

Jane never really gave any thought to penetration until she met Olivia. Olivia’s so straight that she couldn’t conceive of lesbian sex without some kind of cock substitute—namely a big strap-on dildo. Jane has taught Olivia a thing or two since then of course. But Jane has learnt at least two things about penetration from Olivia.

And right now she’s thinking how any man would want to just open these long legs—spread them wide—and thrust his big hard cock right into Sadie, right into this very spot. Any man would want to do that. Any man would want to plant his seed deep inside her beautiful, defenceless body. It would only be natural.

And so it’s only natural, it seems to Jane, that she should have planted some seeds of her own, deep inside Sadie’s defenceless mind. No one could blame her for that. It’s exactly the same urge. It’s just Mother Nature doing her thing.

But Jane’s seeds will take only a few hours to grow.

There’s one last kiss for the pussy before she straightens up. Then she raises herself to her feet and leans down to plant soft kisses on each of Sadie’s breasts, where she guesses the nipples to be.

Now standing straight, she lifts up the front of her skirt with her left hand, and with her right hand she gently grasps Sadie’s right hand at the wrist. She guides Sadie’s hand to her own now exposed pussy. It’s just a gesture of course—for now. She combs her pubic hair with Sadie’s long fingers. And she manages to insert just the tips of them into her pussy, although insert may be an exaggeration. Then, she guides the hand to Sadie’s mouth and manages to push the fingertips gently between those lips. Just a gesture.

Finally she carefully puts the hand down, leans over Sadie’s face, and kisses those enticing lips. Still apparently unaware, Sadie somehow responds, and their tongues play together in the incredible space formed by their joined mouths.

Whatever is happening, Sadie experiences it, at best, second-hand.

It is an all-consuming passion in an all-consuming darkness.

And then it’s just the darkness again. Maybe the passion ate itself.

But maybe, just maybe, the darkness is starting to lift now. In fact, she’s sure it is. So it must be.

“I’ll get you a coffee, Sadie. That should make you feel all better.”

A door is unlocked. Then it opens and closes.

The sound evokes an odd memory: just a tantalising glimpse of a much-desired bum cheek.

Sadie has no idea where she is, let alone who has just spoken.

But wherever it is, it feels like heaven. And whoever that was, she hopes to hell it was Jane.