The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Corelle D’Amber was killing again.

It was intensely moving and beautiful to watch. Celestial Fu heard the howling ecstasy of Heather Jesby dying as counterpoint to the Glorious Light. The sound blended with the visual intensity and somehow was not out of place. Fu’s senses almost overloaded watching the mesmerizing display of the Great River and her sex twitched with an ache to step into the line of deadly force that ran invisible to mortal eyes between Jesby and Corelle D’Amber. Visible to her, that force was the most beautiful thing she had ever beheld. She knew in an instant that she must possess it for her own.

Must. Possess.

Fu was the Empress of the World. All of the beautiful things belonged to her by right. Was she not the oldest? Were there any more powerful than she?

They all feared her. All the Ancients scattered about the globe held her in dread.

Her amber eyes fixed on the Great Light that enflamed Heather. Fu marveled. She had never seen the River like this and never imagined she would; only ever felt it as it hummed in her own blood. Now she saw the twisting passionate River before her eyes as it exalted Heather Jesby to a greater force than the one that burned within Fu’s own heart. No simple vibration, no ephemeral touch to be steered by the will, Fu saw the Great River was too glorious to forget, too complex to remember. Summoned to life and light by Corelle, also known as the Ancient Serpent, the River twisted Fu’s senses and pulled her regard irresistibly. It bathed upon Heather, who was only a simple mortal fool to be used and discarded. The River sang deeper and deeper into Fu’s perceptions.

Too glorious.

She had seen this once when Heather had died the first time. She did not want to see it again. Yet, she could not close her eyes. Her sex ached with jealous desire. She shouted to the Serpent, “No more! Kill her quickly! Do not share any more of the River with that mortal filth!”

She could not hear anything but the magnificent scream of ecstasy that Heather was sounding. The Serpent ignored her command. The beauty did not stop. The Serpent smiled and continued to ravish the mortal right before Fu’s eyes with the implacable force.

Fu rocked on her throne as her head throbbed painfully and her sexual flower dripped passion. She reached down to finger her flower. The knot of pain in her forehead was destroying her concentration. She stared into the beauty of the River flowing from the Serpent’s Eye as Heather died slowly, as the simple girl became the Phoenix.

Too glorious.

Then Fu saw the moment that split her heart with longing. The Serpent and the Phoenix embraced within the Great River that bound the two of them together. They touched and twined. Slender mortal passion and stormy immortal anger melded into one terribly beautiful shape and vanished into incandescence.

She rushed her own fingers, trying to complete her own orgasm with the one she watched.

And failed.

And woke within the darkness of her chamber. Her head throbbed. It was because of the wound delivered by the firearm of the nameless slave of the Serpent. Pale slender fingers slid numb from her sex petals and she groaned with the unconsummated lust of the dream.

Again the dream. The Feng-Huang. The Phoenix.

Fu raised her slick fingers to the bitter wound above her eyebrow.

After many months, it still pained her, still troubled her concentration, and still seemed to be the source of dreams and disturbances. It was nothing. She had suffered many wounds more grievous. Ancients always healed if not killed outright. She had seen the x-rays and the reports from her cadre of physicians. The wound would heal cleanly and soon. She ground her teeth together and sat up.

Awake, she would work to continue her plans. She would have vengeance in lieu of sleep.

He was awake and yet he dreamed of golden needles. Inspector Huang shivered at attention before his Bride.

He longed to be a ghost. He desired to be dead and in Hell. He prayed that he stood before the glinting amber eyes of the Devil and not his magnificent Bride that he loved with all his being. Still he attended to his duty. He motioned his daughters to step forward before Her throne.

If he was in Hell then these were not his daughters and he was not about to betray them to a monster. His sweet daughters were not in Hell. If this was Hell then everything was some sort of trick; a deception upon his honor.

His daughters, or their doubles, stepped forward.

The thought of deception was not worthy, but then again, his Bride had reminded him repeatedly that he was of two minds about what was to happen here. If he was not in Hell, then presenting his daughters to his Bride was completely proper.

He loved his Bride. He loved his daughters. All was as it should be. He felt the passion of the moment swallow his doubts. His Bride had allowed him the presentation honors personally.

He presented his eldest daughter first, as befit the traditions observed here. “Ancient One, this is my daughter, Merry. She is also with the Hong Kong Police and holds a captain’s rank in our laboratory division.” He was pleased with Merry’s grace and bow. He smiled and nodded to her.

A muscle in his stomach was cramping. He was relieved. All was as it should be, for mundane muscles did not tax one in Hell.

“And this is my daughter, Spring. She is an assistant curator at the Science Museum. Her education is in physics and history. She has just returned from a special conference in Singapore where she represented our city.” Spring managed a good bow. She was ever the rebel, but here she made him proud.

A pain registered in his neck near his right ear. He wondered if he would be embarrassed by a stroke before he accomplished his part. No. He was already a ghost. Ghosts did not have mortal frailties. He tried to fasten his attention on the small white bandage on his Bride’s forehead, but his gaze slid back to the amber eyes of the Celestial Fu.

He felt his senses dull with lust. The chorus of voices hummed beauty in his ear.

She smiled and his heart thudded at her beauty. Her voice was so soft and dear. “Two beautiful women, two treasures who bring honor to their father, Inspector Huang. I welcome you both to my palace.” She nodded for him to continue.

Spring was looking at him already. Did she sense something amiss? His Bride’s language was formal and laced with meanings that he understood all too well. This ritual was all because he had soiled his Bride. He had touched her purity with his own common clay. The chorus of sweet golden voices in his head told him there was a cost to be paid.

Weeks past, he came to Her palace and demanded to be admitted for investigative work. Her grounds were to be probed for bodies. He shared a chat with Her; he was polite but insistent. He had a duty no matter that She was one of the most venerable persons of Hong Kong. Today, he still did not quite know why he had left with his troop of officers, the investigation not done. Celestial Fu was a persuasive woman. Her quiet words, Her simple touch and elegant entreaty had turned him from his duty.

Today he must pay the price. His mind drifted to yesterday and the golden needles singing in his flesh. The swell of passion was immediate. No. He must concentrate on this moment instead.

He smiled at Spring and Merry. “The Most Honored wishes for you both to participate in a presentation. One moment.” He turned away from their questioning eyes and walked the few steps to the bulky machine. He nodded to the man standing there. A relay closed, the proper lights became burning lanterns and he grabbed the grip on the bound cables and turned to point the emitter at his daughters.

He pulled the trigger and shook slightly as he orgasmed.

The electronic hiss was nearly silent. He saw their eyes widen, their bodies spasmed and collapsed to the floor. He used the built-in laser pointer to keep them in the invisible beam as they twitched on the floor.

“Recite,” demanded his Bride, watching his face with narrowed eyes.

He swallowed pain and joy. “Merry and Spring, you must obey your father. You obey my every word; my every request is an order you find joy to execute. You will know that this joy is strange and new, you will remember this moment when I betrayed you with a peculiar device in my hand.”

Their bodies twitched. He found a desire to release the trigger and ignored it. His Bride was watching.

“You will obey me. You will remember your minds burning with my words; you will know how false my heart has been. You will obey me. You will know I changed your minds with the burning words, but you will only obey. You may hate me, but you will obey. You may fear, but you will obey.”

The twitching and muscle shaking became more severe with each passing second.

“Done,” allowed his Bride.

He gasped and released the trigger device. He carefully put the cable back in its holder, and then rushed to the side of Spring.

She lay still. Her eyes were blank. She did not breathe.

He sobbed suddenly and stroked her face. His Bride had said that the machine killed as often as it worked. That was why she tested again and again. He was crying and shaking. He was unmanned at showing this emotion. His head was all at once entirely pain and sweet music. He knew his Bride would be pleased and felt the erotic pleasure of that knowledge.

Merry sat up slowly still shaking; her face was white. “Father! What did you do, what is happening here?”

He heard his bride’s voice clearly. “Tell her to kiss her dead sister.”

His vision seared on Spring’s face. He didn’t have the strength to contain this loving current. “Merry, kiss your dead sister.” He wondered that his voice did not shake like his hands.

He did not see her face, but he heard his daughter’s small whimpers. He looked up. “Obey me!”

Merry shook. She lifted trembling hands to her head and touched her temples. “Kiss.”

She stared at him. “Dead.”

She whispered with her eyes growing larger and more fearful. “Sister.”

Then one of her eyes swung out of alignment with the other with an erratic jolt. Merry gagged and fell into his arms. She stopped moving. She died.

He screamed.

He sang his pain into the flames of Hell while his beautiful Bride closed her amber eyes on the scene.

Failure.

Again and again.

Fu stared at the machine that was supposed to duplicate the Eye weapon of the Serpent. All of the records rendered flawed in the last moments of Corelle’s captivity here in Hong Kong. ‘Distorted’, the scientists told her from the energies released by the Serpent killing the Jesby woman.

Useless. The machine did not work. The scientists did not know what was wrong. They had no information they could trust. Dr. Ling was dead and the information gathered from the Serpent was a mockery.

Failure.

Even when victims survived exposure to the machine, they died when commanded against their will. Their brains conflicted and burned out when driven by the machine’s imprint. None had survived.

She had lied to the Inspector about that, but it was of little importance. Perhaps this weapon would work wonders on another Ancient. With her planning, it would not be difficult to trap one. She had hunted so many of them; had captured other Ancients so many times.

She knew more captures were not what she needed or wanted.

Fu reached up and gently rubbed her forehead. The howling of the inspector was intolerable. She wanted to kill him now that he had served her vengeance by twisting his own soul, but he might have some use yet. She gestured for everyone to go and take the screaming mortal worm with them.

The failure of the machine wasn’t glorious. It wasn’t useful. It wasn’t the plan.

It had a bitter taste.

She closed her eyes against the frustration and instantly saw the illuminated Phoenix in her mind. Beauty incarnate swayed behind her eyelids.

Her eyes flashed open and she accepted the truth. Haunted by the vision, drawn to it, she wanted to control some part of it. She wanted to possess it. It was a dream she wished she had never seen. It was beauty of another order entirely. The glory was irresistible.

She was slaved to the beauty of the Great River. She needed the machine to work. She wanted to use it on herself. She wanted to stand within that beauty.

She stood and walked to a concealed compartment. When the panel opened, she used the phone to call one of her slaves in the communications center manned around-the-clock beneath the grounds.

A nameless voice answered, “Awaiting orders.”

She felt the emptiness of the failure. She saw again the glorious embrace between the Serpent and the Phoenix. The dream was intruding into her waking hours now. “This is your Honored Patron.”

“Patron.”

“She who must be Obeyed.”

“Obeyed.”

“I give you the Word.”

“Word.”

She paused. What was she doing? Her hand started to shake. Fu blinked. She took another breath.

No. It was not the time for this. Foolish. How could she think to order the Final Command? What madness was loose in her thoughts?

“Stand down. Continue as normal.”

“Normal.”

She hung up and stared at the instrument. What price vengeance? What price beauty? What had she been thinking?

Corelle D’Amber was killing again.

It was intensely arousing and beautiful to watch. Celestial Fu could not bear the musical ecstasy of Heather Jesby dying in glory. Fu’s senses pulsed absorbing the mesmerizing power and her sex throbbed with an ache to step into the line of glorious force that ran invisible to mortal eyes between Jesby and Corelle D’Amber. The Great River was the most beautiful living thing she had ever seen. She knew that it desired her.

Wanted her.

The Great River was the Epiphany of the World. All beautiful things were part of the Great River. Was she not the most glorious Ancient? Were there any more powerful than she?

They all feared her. All the Ancients scattered about the globe held her in dread. The Great River knew she was incomparable beside every one of them.

Her amber eyes fixed on the Great Light that enflamed Heather. Fu moved toward the Light. She had never seen the River like this; only ever felt it as it teased her own blood. Now she was seeing the twisting Passion before her eyes as it called to her through Heather Jesby; called her to become a greater force; called her to join her heart with its own glory. No longer simple mastery of those who believed they were her peers. She would rise above them all. No ephemeral touch of the Great River; instead she would ascend and join with it and become the Feng-Huang. She would encompass all that was glorious.

Her mind stirred with flaring tendrils of the force before her. She lusted for it.

She could not close her eyes. Her sex ached with hot desire. Her thighs were hot and moist. She shouted to the River, “Power! Take me quickly! Do not share any more with any other Ancient! I am the One!”

She could not hear anything but the magnificent call of ecstasy that Heather was sounding. The Serpent stepped suddenly between the River and she and the glory eclipsed. Darkness fell everywhere at once.

Black.

She woke within the gloom of her chamber. Her head throbbed from the wound delivered by the cursed slave of the Serpent. Her slender fingers slipped numbly from her sex petals and she groaned with the unconsummated lust.

Again the dream. The Phoenix. The Serpent. The desire so much stronger.

Fu raised her unfeeling fingers to the biting wound above her eyebrow. Her forehead felt as if a metal boot were there, pressing downward. She wanted to return to the dream; to see the glory again and step away from the pain. The dream was a place to forget about the pain; to discover the secret of Heather’s ascension.

Awake, she stared upward into the darkness. It was a dream she wished to become. It was beauty of another order entirely. The glory was irresistible. The idea was so tangible.

She was slaved.

The Great River was her Master.

She shivered. She touched her nipples. She stroked her sex. Sitting up she spread her smooth lovely legs and worked her hand in her flower. She grew wet; hotter and hotter imagining walking into the Great Light.

She remembered Heather spreading her legs and thrusting her dripping flower on the Light.

Fu was so close. She used all of her will. She spread her thighs as the Phoenix had done. She drew the full River down between her legs. It teased. It hummed in her petals. The vibration was a promise of much more. She could not reach ecstasy. Her Master would not let her reach fulfillment.

Why?

She whispered into the darkness in the language of her childhood, “Master? What must I do to be one with you?”

Worship.

Sweat on her neck chilled at the answer out of darkness where she had expected none. Madness. Was her power that much greater than the other Ancients? Could she be that close to the Great River as to speak with it?

She murmured to the darkness, “I have not had fulfillment from my courtesans for days now. You withhold your pleasure. Have I not killed my own kind for you? Have I not bettered all those who remain? Am I not the greatest? I do worship you for you are the Power and Power is all that touches me and all that matters to me.”

Sacrifice.

The revelation sprang full-blown in her mind. “Sacrifice,” she whispered. Of course, how pure and yet elegant; as it was in the oldest times, sacrifice was the path to the highest enlightenment.

And the truth set her free. Suddenly, her sex became flushed with heat, pouring terrible arousal between her thighs. Her Master was immediate with his reward. The Great River was with her in full.

She cried out with the joy and buried both hands in her flower.

Vessel.

Her eyes glazed. “Yes!” Her fingers deepened their thrusting work.

Sacrifice.

“Yes!” She felt the first of many orgasms crest around her fingers.

Temple.

“Yes!” She worked her hips. Another epiphany exploded deep in her sex.

Sacrifice.

“Yes!” Flames licked at her flower. Sweat ran down her neck. She was nourished by the River. Her nipples burned like embers.

Horror.

“YES!” Her mouth drew back in a secret grin of pleasure. The River knew her as no lover ever had.

Sacrifice.

“Yes!” Orgasms pummeled her flower. Pain ran beside pleasure. Jolting cums ran together.

Bitch.

“YES!” She screamed. She floated above her bed with the power.

Slut.

The bodyguards outside her chambers reacted to the sharp sounds getting louder. They worked the secret mechanism that released the doors and rushed into her chambers.

Celestial Fu felt the outrage of their intrusion into her sacred fornication with the River. She stepped down from the currents washing over her and touched each guard once with the huge tide cascading within her. They died instantly.

She laughed brightly and licked her fingers.

Then her eye caught upon the ornamented hilt of the short blade on one corpse. She bent and snatched it up. She tested the blade with one slight finger. A strange passion seized her.

Sacrifice.

Illuminated, Fu knelt to the floor as four more guards rushed into the room in response to the alarm of the open chamber.

She gave them the blade and told them what she wanted. The order was clear. It was a measure of her great power that they did not question her. They did it quickly. Even so, the flashing edge was notched by the time it was done by her command.

Ecstasy.

Fu collapsed with the ultimate pleasure. Only for a brief fraction of a second did she have time to wonder why it was darkness that claimed her instead of light.

Darkness.

Corelle D’Amber was watching in the darkness.

She continued her examination through the scope until it was certain that the guards were following Celestial Fu’s last orders, and then she removed the device from the tripod brace and lowered the instrument. She smiled and pulled down her eye patch. With a small tug, she restored the fabric in its normal place. “Evelyn?”

There was immediate movement in the dark room as her security chief joined Corelle. The blonde asked, “Pack up for tonight?”

“Yes. Expect a sealed package delivered to our plane at the airport in an hour. Be certain no one but me opens it. We’re leaving tonight. Going home.”

Evelyn swallowed her surprise and displeasure. The relationship between her and her employer was a strange one. There were obligations and confidences that were complex and hidden. She risked a trespass by crossing a line and asked, “I thought we were here to do more than reconnaissance, Corelle. You’ve watched the Horror’s palace from this cliff for six nights running. Do we strike soon? Why leave now? What do we know that we didn’t know before? How can I help? What can you tell me?”

Corelle handed the scope over to Evelyn. She looked around the dark tree house constructed to her specifications here on the high ground six miles from Fu’s palace. “Just that it is time to go, dear Evelyn. Perhaps we will get drunk together and I’ll tell you a story on the plane back to the States. If you are very good for a bit.”

Evelyn sighed and clamped down on her unprofessional frustration. She busied herself with the packing. Not much to put away. She was most careful with the EM instrument entrusted to her. Slipping it back into the foam-lined case, she noted the metal was warm, but the battery check lamp failed the test when she pressed it. She opened the compartment and found it was empty.

Odd.

Puzzled, she stared at the million-dollar device. This was the first time she had handled it since they came to Hong Kong. She knew it was actually designed to examine EM radiation on the surface from orbit. Built for use in commercial satellites. If it was off, why had Corelle been playing with it all week from midnight until dawn? What has she been really doing?

Crap. She couldn’t find an answer. She assumed Corelle needed the first-hand study of the grounds for her plans for vengeance on Fu. This device could transmit and read information in detail without visible light but not if it wasn’t turned on. She looked on the floor carefully for discarded batteries. She walked the tiny enclosure twice before she was sure there was nothing left to give them away if they never returned.

Then she followed Corelle D’Amber into the night.

Despite Evelyn’s protest, Corelle drove to the airport.

Evelyn noted the energy in her employer’s every movement. Something important was on the wind. She considered reopening the questions or mentioning the discovery of the missing batteries. No. She knew Corelle wasn’t one to talk when she had already deferred a point. Evelyn made herself a promise to talk to some of the PolyCorp techs who had recommended the scope for their observation mission.

The trip went quickly. Corelle drove rapidly and with concise motions. She knew the road as well as Evelyn.

Some rain had started by the time the car rolled out onto the airstrip by the chartered jet. They had called ahead to the crew. The trip was so quick, Evelyn glanced at her watch and confirmed that they still had twenty minutes to scheduled take-off.

Corelle lit a cigarette. The car interior was quiet.

Evelyn reconsidered things. Maybe Corelle was in a mood to talk after all. She didn’t seem eager to climb into the jet and kill time. A minute passed while she debated internally. They waited with the engine off and the lights out. The smell of the cigarette tweaked at Evelyn’s nose. “Can I ask you something, Corelle?” she finally broke the silence after six minutes.

Corelle nodded around a freshly lit cigarette. The red spark bobbed in the darkness.

“I know you. We accomplished something. What? Is Fu never going to pay for what she did to you or Heather? Why did we come? I thought we were going to start a campaign. Fu will be back, I’m sure. This won’t be over until one of you is dead. After Heather died, while you fought Fu, I heard you curse her. ‘I’m going to shit on your bones,’ you said.”

Corelle did not reply. Evelyn felt the compelling attraction of this silent woman. Corelle was so effortless to talk to and yet it was too easy to think you understood her. Evelyn knew Corelle was older than she seemed. Knew few things about her boss were really completely true. But for all that, Evelyn kept coming back to the same strange reflection. What was it like to feel the devotion some of her friends and fellow employees felt for Corelle? She noted in herself a longing to soothe something in Corelle hidden from everyone. As if there was a wound in her boss that Evelyn felt would heal if only Corelle would confess its location.

Corelle’s next words seemed wry, “I’m not a fighter, Evelyn. I never have been.” The voice was husky with smoke and Evelyn was sure she wasn’t supposed to hear the sadness. “And justice is a false concept. It is a fairy tale. People who work for me should be mature enough to know that.”

Evelyn hated that answer and didn’t trust it. Corelle was dedicated to some purpose she wasn’t sharing. Corelle was going to do something to Fu and that was the purpose of the trip. Evelyn shifted in the passenger’s seat. Any attempt to comfort Corelle was inevitably turned aside.

Then out of the dark rain, a man walked up to the car and put a large box on the hood. He glanced at the car’s dark interior. Then he walked away quickly.

Evelyn stared. The man wore a hood over his face. A green silk hood that was opaque even with the rain wetting it down.

She had seen such at Celestial Fu’s palace. They dressed exactly that way. One of the Ancient’s people had just left a package on the hood of their car.

Evelyn tensed for action. A bomb. An attack. Danger to Corelle. She had to—.

More shocking, Evelyn’s initiative stopped before it began as she felt a hand slide along the top of her pants to her hip and hold her in place with a steely grip. She twitched and turned to gaze at Corelle.

Who was staring at the package through the wet shimmer of the car’s glass. Apparently, this box was the delivery she expected.

Corelle blew smoke and crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. Her hand squeezed Evelyn’s leg more warmly now.

Again Evelyn found herself aroused by the smallest of Corelle’s gestures. “Are you going to tease me or take me?” she said softly to her boss. God, I hope.

Corelle closed the ashtray. “Can I have a rain-check?”

“It is raining.” Evelyn felt her blood pounding hot. She was risking everything and had to wonder why now.

Corelle looked at her. “I’m not teasing you. I respect you, Evelyn. I trust you. Someday soon, I’ll ask you an important question and I’ll want an honest answer. Not an answer mixed with sentimental feeling or any sexual dependence. It will be a change for both of us when I ask it.”

“Ask me now.”

“Relax, Evelyn.” The voice was very quiet. She had to strain to hear it.

So she took a deep breath.

“Relax and look at the rain sliding down the glass,” Corelle whispered, “Each drop moving slowly in front of us. Thousands of them are dancing in front of us. So small. Each individual drop of water. So many. Thousands of them. So gracious and elegant. Flowing down the glass.”

She looked at the rain. Evelyn found the water moving down the glass more interesting than the words. She was puzzled in a distant way.

“Rain is sweet. Rain is cleansing. Rain is real. Relax and feel the rain sliding down the glass. Sliding down your skin the way my hand slides over your breast. Each drop moving slowly in front of us. Like a wet finger drawing down the glass. Sliding across your neck. Thousands of them finger you in front of me. So small. Each individual drop of water. So many. Thousands of them. So gracious and elegant. Flowing down the glass. Flowing down you. You and the glass. Like fingers.”

Evelyn could feel them. Sliding all over her. Relaxing her.

Corelle moved closer to Evelyn’s side on the bench seat. “Relax. Feel the rain sliding down the glass. Sliding down your skin the way my hand slides over your nipples. Each finger moving slowly. A wet finger sliding into your pants. Sliding across your clit. Thousands of them fingering you in front of me. Your pussy on display and dripping with the rain. Each individual drop of water. So many. Thousands of them. So gracious and elegant. Flowing down your legs. Flowing down you. Like fingers. Like my tongue, tracing your neck. Relaxing you and making the display of your body everything that you want. Each drop a touch. Each touch a finger. Each moment making you more relaxed and hotter for another touch.”

Evelyn spread her legs and orgasmed very slowly. Her breathing slowed down even more.

“Tiny drops sliding over you. Kissing your flesh. Touching you everywhere you long to be touched. Making you cum. Each drop of rain wanting you to cum.”

Evelyn felt tiny sparks dancing on her flesh. She unbuttoned her blouse and unfastened her bra so she could finger and tease her hard nipples. Orgasms so small she almost couldn’t be sure they were there, but the total of them made her flesh burn and tense.

Corelle leaned into Evelyn’s open blouse and sucked on her nipple.

That was a bright lance of pleasure that drove through Evelyn’s entire understanding of herself. She arched, she gushed into her panties and thrust upon the finger buried in her sweet slit.

She melted downward into the seat and closed her eyes shutting out the sensuous rain in front of the glass. Even breathing was a warm rolling sensation of delight.

Corelle eased back to her side of the car. She looked at the jet. The running lights were on now and the engines had just started. “Evelyn?”

“Ummm?”

“Would you die for me?”

Evelyn felt so sensual, so horny that the question seemed absurd. “Yes.”

The next question came back quickly. “Would you live for me?”

Evelyn opened her mouth to answer, then realized she didn’t understand the question. Then she belatedly saw she hadn’t understood the one before it. She had only taken the first, most shallow meaning, and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t what was asked of her.

Her mind moved in a circle, looking back on itself. Evelyn felt that ordinarily, she might have hurt herself doing this. Like some sort of kata done without warm-up. She saw the answer and the reason both. “Yes. I would live for you.”

“Good. Remember that answer even when you feel more like yourself later. Remember when events are soaked in blood and everything I tell you is a lie.”

Evelyn nodded.

“Now button your clothes. We’re going to leave the car and go to the plane. Take the box from the hood as we leave. Keep it safe, please.”

“Yes,” she answered with a soft voice. “Corelle?”

Corelle paused with her hand on the door handle.

“Thank you. I’ve been wanting that for a long time.” She smiled.

Corelle nodded slightly. “Let’s go home.”

They left the warm car for the darkness outside.

Darkness.

Ecstasy.

Fu opened her eyes. She focused on the light, but it was imperfect. Everything was imperfect. Everything blurred with pain and loss and dark numbness. She felt ill in her soul. She felt weak. She could not remember the last time she had felt this weak. Then she remembered a brief fraction of a second where it was darkness that claimed her instead of light.

Darkness then, but now light.

Voices.

Familiar. She closed her eyes and tried to stretch but could not. She tried to turn her head and could not. She opened her eyes again and could not even summon fear for the numbness within. Her mouth hurt vaguely. Her tongue was in a clamp. Her mouth was full of a spreading device.

She spent long moments bringing her vision to focus. It was so tiring. And the voices were more compelling when she ignored them. The voices blended and sang in beauty while she worked to force her eyes to tell her something about her situation.

Then she saw the needles in her arm. The golden needles quivered in her milk white flesh. Hundreds of them stood in the delicate coils of her substance.

She remembered the word ‘outrage’ should apply to what she saw. Who had done this? For a moment, she automatically tried to note minor corrections she might make in the needle dance artistry on her arm, but the intent was lost before the thought completed. The concentration lost substance as a wave of numbness rose up within her tight humming flesh.

She blinked slowly; her arm ended at the elbow, bandaged heavily at the abrupt end. Outrage. Without understanding, she saw bindings also holding her fixed within the prisoner lash-up frame that she had designed for the Serpent, Corelle.

Slowly, ignoring the voices blending within her head and devouring her pride, she shifted her eyes to see her other arm. It ended at the elbow, too.

No wonder she did not remember her art. She had no hands to practice it.

She sighed. The voices sang more clearly, more deeply into her. Her eyes were so heavy; it was so hard to keep them open. Through the narrowing windows of her eyes, she saw more needles sliding into her flesh.

The voices were glorious.

A flicker of apprehension chased about her mind behind the drowsing amber eyes. This was the natural order of things after failure. She recognized her finest student stood before her working the golden needles upon her flesh. That was the way it had always been. When the mentors were weak, the unruly students tore them down. She tried to whisper something about the wrongness of this. Remind him of just who she was and of how much more she knew than she had ever shared with him. Perhaps to compel him with her awful strength.

The strength was already departed. She did not remember where it had gone.

“RiverSlut.” His voice broke through her sluggish stream of thought.

She listened. Her passionflower bloomed with heat and her legs quivered. The orgasm was beautiful and she oriented around the sensation. Her thoughts crashed into chaos. Of course he acted this way, he was her creature, he was her student and his words flowed from her. He had never learned enough to be Kinspawn, but it was because of how much she had withheld. She was the source of everything he understood.

She did not need to speak, for it was her own voice speaking if he spoke now.

“RiverSlut.” He said again.

She closed her eyes. Orgasm rolled through her flesh. Easier. Better. She nodded. She understood. The River had done this to her. She had failed her ascension. She was cast down. He was clever enough to see her weakness and move to rule it.

“RiverSlut.” He said again.

She nodded cumming again. The scale of her fall was equal to the height of her power. Balance.

“Now.” Her student said.

Her eyes opened a sensuous sliver width. She saw a policeman she knew move to a bulky machine, he nodded to another standing there. A relay closed, the telltales became burning lanterns and the policeman grabbed the grip on a set of bound cables. Returning he waited.

Her student nodded, “Give her what she craves.”

The policeman stepped forward and pushed the emitter between her legs.

Fu felt the chill of metal push into her petals. She smiled.

He pulled the trigger. The electronic hiss was nearly silent. Power crashed inside her sex. She fornicated on the failed mockery of the Great River. Ecstasy in failure. Raw heat. Then even the failure did not matter. She moved as much as she could in her weakness, giving everything that she could to the motion of her hot hips. She was RiverSlut.

It was shameful. It was so hot.

The misery of her fall was equal to the height of her power and she had been the Empress of the World.