The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It was Tuesday, which, for Alexa, meant that it was time for another track practice. Given the way the last one had gone, she was nervous to return. Everyone on her team already wore a leotard— she was the only one left who didn’t.

But there was a comfort in thinking that, this time, she had the earplugs in her ears. She remembered what it had felt like to run inside that music, remembered how much it had affected her, and confused her mind around. She’d be protected this time. She could run but run without being in the music, run without letting it touch her. That was her reassurance, but the thought of being surrounded by leotard wearers still scared her.

And if that weren’t enough, she was still feeling upset about the squabble she and Kara had had in the dorm hall last night. She still hadn’t gotten over it. She and Kara hardly ever thought, and she’d thought they’d both been handling the stress of being in an impossible situation together pretty well to this point; without ever lashing out at each other. She’d been proud of them for that, but Kara had let that fall apart; now apparently had no compunctions about venting her frustration, anger and pain by directing it at Alexa.

Alexa left her dorm and left her thoughts of their quarrel behind her in it. She was still, stubbornly, wearing her old track uniform, the one they’d all worn before. And she was, of course, still wearing her earbuds in her ears; like she wore them everywhere, and was, so, protected by them... it gave her a little more confidence in her step.

She reached the track field; her teammates were already huddled up, in their leotards; with the coach looking on at them, smiling proudly, proud of them it seemed.

Alexa swallowed, and plucked herself up a bit more, then ran to reach the huddle.

They shifted aside to make room for her. She joined.

No one said anything to Alexa about the fact that she was not wearing a leotard like the rest of them; and none of them noticed the earbuds she had in her ears. No one ever seemed to notice them, a fact for which she was grateful every day.

The group stood huddled; the others were chanting but Alexa couldn’t hear them. It seemed the earbuds tuned things out selectively; when someone was speaking to her, she could hear, but if someone were trying to say something that would otherwise influence her— towards Haigure— they tuned it right out. She knew the group around her were chanting, “Haigure, Haigure, Haigure,” and if she had heard it, it would have gone right into her head, and scrambled it around; and every time she heard it after that, scramble it more, until she wanted the leotard they kept set aside from her; which sat on a table in the grass centre of the track where she could see it all the time.

But from Alexa’s perspective their lips moved silently and she could never hear; and no effect put itself on her; it was amazing, really, how the earbuds worked, how they worked so well and protected them all perfectly. She was so glad Jamie had found them, so glad Jamie had joined them in what they were doing.

At last their lips stopped moving— and they had never cared that she had not joined their chant— and they all broke the huddle together; and started running at once, all together still.

So she was running again. It felt good to run— it was elemental to her— she felt herself set back into water that she knew how to swim. Her legs moved fluidly and she felt the air streaking past her, brushing over her body from all angles. She put on more speed, but it was hopeless even when she did so. The others were so fast; they ran like they were mechanical. She wasn’t.

She could feel her heart thundering in her chest as if it could break open the sky. She could hear the sound of footfalls; those were not a danger that needed to be tuned out. Her feet and there feet— they were faster than her but she was whipping herself to keep from being slowest or from being to slow. She could never hope to be as fast as them but she could still go; and the music was not drumming into her from every side, were not— she kept thinking back to the last practice she’d run in because it had affected her so deeply that it had frightened when she thought of it again after. It had taken getting her earbuds, winning back her mental freedom, to realize how frightening that other day had been. If they had tried to pressure her as she’d been coming off the track, she probably would have put the leotard on willingly. She’d felt mechanized with them all... she felt perfectly human this time with her human slowness and stumbling error, but she wondered if she had not been changed more deeply than she’d guess... her eyes were on her trackmates as they ran, as their leotards shone under sunlight. It was a brisk fall day but not for them. None of them broke a sweat... they looked perfectly comfortable.

Alexa herself might have been cold, if she were not driving her body harder than it should be driven.

She wasn’t looking at them in marvel because of their comfort in the morning; she was looking at them to see their leotards.

She knew, she was certain, the things could not have an effect by sight alone. But she wanted to look on them, which could only mean one thing or a second. Either she had been changed by the exposure she’d had before the protection had set in, or there was something fundamental in her that was drawn to the leotards. She was responsible only.

She didn’t know which she preferred to be true; didn’t know if she better liked the idea of having already been changed... or the idea that there had been something in her, something from her, that had been waiting inside all along which was attracted to the look of the leotards. Something that wanted to keep looking, that felt natural arousal in response when she saw. Not because anything had whispered in her head, not because any unnatural influence had exerted its effect on her. Only because of some unknown and unforeseen feeling... only because there was a button in her she hadn’t known the presence of, but when she rounded the track, she knew it... a button that had waited in her head and which had just quietly been pressed down, the result of which was flowing full-body arousal.

They all rounded the track again; she was always a pace or two to the back of the mechanized pack. As she thought, she had to face the reality that one option would be a comfort and the other would be true. Thinking that the changes, which had snuck into her before her protection had started, were the cause of this newly found interest, as she rounded and rounded her curving lane in the two-step walk of the others, was comforting. It elevated her, saved her own self-conception. It meant she could hold herself above this, count herself superior to the relentless advance of what felt like an invasion.

But as she thought that she knew it was only a mental defense. She could force herself to believe it, but it wouldn’t be true. She knew the feeling... that feeling of finding something new, even something unexpected, that pressed her buttons exactly right. A new way of tweaking a finger, a hidden spot she’d overlooked before... and looking at the leotards felt like that. The surprise, the novelty... then the enjoyment when that gave way to pure pleasure.

Her heart thudded, her skin sweated. Her eyes were only on the other runners. She ran without looking at what she was doing, letting her body fall into blind repetition. But all of that was invisible to her... even the identities of the girls she had known, that still she ran with, were forgotten to her. She only saw her leotards... she was bad for only caring about her fix, for only seeking more arousal and not caring in this moment about her lost teammates.

But when she looked and her eyes settled on target, even if they drifted from one leotard to the next, she forgot all that. Just looking at them... just seeing them... put warmth in her, then drew moisture out which jostled with every run. How that material clung to whichever body it was on... how it shifted as that body moved; all the places it left revealed. Naked backs, naked asses, so much naked skin... but it made Alexa think of how the bodies that ran in those leotards must feel; even as they ran there was a slight tremble to them, and she knew, from seeing it over and over again, that the Haigure-ites lived in a constant state of pleasure.

Even if the leotards themselves had provided no physical stimulus, just the sight alone should have been enough... Alexa could understand the idea of that, anyway... if any one of them ever looked down at themselves, and saw their leotards the way she was seeing them... felt the way she was feeling right now... well, then no matter it was a delectably arousing experience. And if there was added physical stimulus on top of that... then no wonder, after all.

Alexa didn’t ever want to look away, anymore. Her internal reprimands had lost their sting... it just felt so good, felt good in the way running did, moving her body naturally did— to look, and to feel herself respond to what she saw. She openly enjoyed herself through track practice’s duration.

Talking with Steph the night before had convinced Kara of one thing. She missed her sister, badly; craved the reassurance of seeing her and being with her, and she didn’t want to delay that reassurance for any duration. If it had not been so late, she would have arranged, the day before, to get Steph onto campus, but it had been late and that hadn’t been an option.

But it was a new day now, and the failed possibilities of the previous day had dissipated in the face of returning potentials for the day that was ahead of her now. She still wanted to see her sister; and it was after school now, she would be safely home at Selina’s. She’d called over there enough times since Steph had switched to staying with Selina to be able to begin trusting Steph’s routine— that she would be where Kara expected to find her, that nothing else would have gone wrong by the appointed time that Kara went searching for her. She never shook her fear for her sister entirely, but she was learning to trust, however slowly.

She didn’t feel like bringing Steph and Selina on campus today; the necessary maneuvering was just too much for her, the necessary time in which they were neither safe at home nor safe with her seemed too long to wait. She wanted to leave them where they were safe and seek them out there. From now on, perhaps, if she was going to bring them on campus, then maybe she would seek them out at home first and personally deliver them to the campus herself, rendering the in-between unsafe time into safe time by being there herself to transform it by keeping watch.

But she didn’t want to bring them on campus at all, today; especially after yesterday’s sabotage, it felt as thought there might be some unexpected hostility; Haigure lashing out at them as if it were one thinking organism which knew their guilt even if it could not prove it through human channels. She didn’t want Steph or Selina to be there to catch the brunt of that.

So she took herself off campus, and rode by taxi to Selina’s house. She’d remembered the address by heart well enough; she may never have been quite as close to Selina’s family as she had been to Rose’s, but when she’d gotten older, she herself had helped both take and pick up Steph and Rose’s sister, Lily— to think of Rose, her sister and her mother was torture now, so she turned to look out the other window. There was nothing surprising there that it could offer to her; the sights that lined the streets in the brief dozen minute ride into her own town were nothing novel, but it was more about shifting her perspective, changing something externally to change what was inside.

It worked, and she arrived at Selina’s door more or less forgetting the brief interlude of pain. She hadn’t called first, so immediate had been her desire to see her sister; she hadn’t wanted to take even the time a phone call would have required before leaving campus after her last class of that day; but when she knocked, it was Steph who answered, as if she’d expected to find Kara waiting there to be discovered as the originator of the knock.

Every time Kara saw Steph, it filled her with such powerful relief that it made her want to cry. Her body moved before she understood that it had, stepping forward, and she was already pulling Steph tight into the strongest possible hug that she could muster; Steph needed to know, needed to feel how glad she was to see her, how glad she was every time that she found out Steph was okay.

The hug ended, and Steph smiled at her when Kara pulled back into a range which allowed her to see it. “I thought I might see you today, after the way you sounded on the phone last night.”

Kara touched Steph’s face softly. One hug hadn’t been enough— no one physical conveyance of affection would ever be enough. “It does me such good to see you every time.”

Steph smiled; Kara was glad to be able to make her sister smile in what felt like such dark times.

“Why don’t you come in,” Steph said. “You can say hi to everyone.”

Kara followed Steph inside; she noticed the earbuds in her sister’s ears, and they filled her with an additional sense of comfort. She was building a world under her to stand on again, since the certainties of the old one had fallen apart; and each time she tested it with a step and found it holding her up, she trusted a little more... it got just a little easier.

In the kitchen, Selina was standing behind the island counter, drinking what looked like a glass of lemonade from a pitcher. She had the earbuds in too, Kara saw them. She was midsip, but she waved at Kara with her hand that was not holding the glass. It was a little late in the year for lemonade, but it made Kara vaguely happy; as if something enjoyable had been made just so her sister and her friend could enjoy it. It made her feel better about relocating Steph all over again.

Selina’s sip ended. “Mom made it,” she said, with a sigh of satisfaction. “Have some.”

Kara didn’t want it just then, but when she saw Selina’s mom cross the kitchen, she just wanted to express her satisfaction; “Mrs. Green,” she said. “Thanks for making my sister and your daughter that lemonade.”

Mrs. Green noticed Kara, and smiled; “It was no problem, Kara,” she said, and then had to continue on her way into the house— but Kara just had time to see the earbuds there... she’d had Jamie make an extra pair, and had given it to Steph and Selina with no comment; not quite able to tell them what to do with it; but clearly they’d been clever enough to understand, even if she’d been too overwhelmed to tell them. They’d talked Selina’s mom into wearing them, even if they hadn’t completely brought her in on everything the takedown group was doing.

That was important, in a town increasingly full of speakers and subliminals— this house was only as safe as Mrs. Green’s mind was free. And with her own set of earbuds, she could be free indefinitely.

Kara leaned her forearms on the island counter between her and Selina, as her sister caught up to standing beside her.

“So tell me what’s happening at school,” she said, with a sense of gravity.

The cheerful feeling of reunion dissipated, and Selina and Steph shared a look.

“All the teachers are converted now,” Selina said. “They’re really starting in on the students.” Selina looked from Kara to Steph, and Steph took up speaking, so Kara turned her face to look at her.

“This is how they’re mostly doing it,” Kara said. “They call one student in for a private meeting; they convert that student, then they themselves leave and go back to the teacher’s lounge. Then that one student converts the rest of the class; we don’t know exactly what they’re doing, or how they’re doing it, because neither one of us thinks it’s a good idea to stay in a classroom where it’s happening to be able to find out. We’ve got our earbuds, but they might have other methods...”

Kara sensed her sister was unsure of herself. “No, of course staying out of it is the right thing to do. It keeps you safe.”

But it alarmed her to hear how much progress was being made.

“We’ve been skipping all our classes and staying in the hallways together,” Steph went on. “Basically every course is just conversion 101, now. So we don’t go in at all.”

Kara nodded. “Maybe soon we should talk about pulling you both out of school. But as long as you’re staying out of it for now.”

“We are,” Selina said, but she looked a little embarrassed of something. “I know that none of their techniques have gotten to me... you made sure that Steph and I were protected right away. But maybe there’s just something wrong with me... when I see unconverted students go into a classroom, it... affects my body a bit. Then when I see them come back out again after... it affects me more.”

It was a sign of how far the world had slipped that hearing her sister’s friend talk about being turned on wasn’t a completely abnormal horror; Selina must have just had something latent in her that responded to the idea of masked indoctrination, or doomed trapping. At least she seemed able to keep it in the proper context.

“I don’t know if that means there’s anything wrong with you,” Steph said. “I feel that too, when I’m watching with you, even if we haven’t talked about it before. It’s hard to be around such constant arousing stimulus and not be affected... I know when I see people wearing the leotards in the the hallways when we pass them by, it gives me a little twinge below my stomach. It feels good to see them, if only for a moment... But then I remember how evil what they’re doing is. And I remember how safely wrapped in protection I am, and how glad I am to be there. I never need to question, or worry, about how protected I really am. I just know it’s true.”

Steph smiled brightly at Kara.

It was a relief to have that surety, it was true. Kara felt it too.

“You can’t blame yourselves,” she offered them. “It’s hard to constantly see people dressed so scandalously and not be affected... or to know that such a sexual conversion is happening... as long as you both stay safe, that’s the only thing that matters.”

It was hard on Zoe, being around Himiko now; she still had to see her every day, since they shared a living space in their dorm room; and as the days had gone on Himiko had only gone further into being this stranger that Zoe didn’t know at all.

Judging by the way Himiko was always fiddling with the controls of their standing speaker— which she had only recently brought home— Zoe was pretty sure that Himiko was keeping subliminal playing in the dorm at basically all hours; not for the first time, Zoe was glad she couldn’t hear them. Sometimes, she had nightmares about the vibrations in the air caused by the soundwaves which the subliminal-laden music bore... dreamed that even if she couldn’t hear them, the air disturbance could still touch her body, and slowly change her with that touch. In the dreams she felt terror. But when she woke from them her sheets would be soaked in arousal.

Then sometimes when she was awake, she felt for fleeting minutes of absolute fear that the dreams were really happening to her, that they were really true; she had trouble, sometimes, remembering where dream-reality ended and where it started up. In the dreams it could not be questioned that it was truly happening; so when awake it felt sometimes as if the dream was coming true, as true reality had dropped and dream-truth had replaced it, as happened most nights now that she slept.

She worried sometimes these dreams were trying to tell her something; but reassured herself, always, that it was only her fear. This, at least, was no instance of the paranormal. It may have been more of a skeptic’s approach, but in this area, Zoe was sure that the dreams were just a sign of her mind trying to reconcile lived horror. The knowledge she had to be up and watching further descent happening all around her, never being sure if anything she did against it made any different at all, or if it were all futile... she wouldn’t even have let herself think that way a few days before, but she thought that the constant wear of seeing more and more people in leotards every day was getting to her.

And Himiko’s behavior had gone beyond getting subliminals to play constantly in their dorm room; she’d only become more frisky. Sometimes she brought Emily into the dorm and had very obnoxious and loud sex with her in the open area; but she was by no means constrained to one partner. A whole parade of girls seemed to come and go from Zoe’s room, and if they were there, it meant they were having sex with Himiko.

She just had to see this, while she made her morning coffee or got herself breakfast; or if she got up in the night to go to the bathroom; Himiko never moved things to her bedroom, as if she were constantly trying to bait Zoe into confronting her about it.

Zoe had thought about it, but thought it was too dangerous to engage. She wasn’t sure if it was a dream, a nightmare, or a fantasy... but she imagined going over to the couch, or the floor, on those occasions where Himiko and her partner missed the couch... and in her imagining, when she got there, and started to shout at them, they both only had to look at her, and extend their hands to her, and then she would let them pull her down, and she would join them, be in it with them; having sex too... and then she’d find herself aroused, even if her mind was scared.

So it was safer to just act as if everything was normal; to just completely ignore Emily and Himiko, and Himiko and whoever else. The only respite were those times when Himiko left the dorm to go somewhere else to meet her partner of that day; or sometimes, her partner of the hour, there were days when she had multiple partners and seemed to change them up that frequently. Then the dorm room would be empty.

Zoe would have used that time for studying time once, but she just couldn’t seem to concentrate now. Her days were blurs; she knew she was still going to class, at least she was when the takedown group wasn’t otherwise demanding her time, but she was retaining nothing from them. The one thing she was glad of was that her family lived far away; all her friends from her life before, far away. They couldn’t be touched by what was happening here, and wouldn’t have believed her if she’d told them anyway. So she went to classes, stared at information she would never retain, and then when Himiko was out of the apartment, stared at nothing; her only source of purpose now was the takedown group. And she dreamed the soundwaves touched her... and got wet from so many things... and tried to cope with it all.

Jessica had, all her life, been used to getting her own way. And she found herself in a situation in which things grew more serious and more terrible, more and more all the time. It was her idea of a nightmare, or some kind of personal disaster. Her whole life, she had been able to point at something to tell it to stop, and that thing had stopped; even minor inconveniences had been halted in their tracks at her say-so; yet now she had no power to stop the onward march of a thing she couldn’t understand. It was like hell; she could act but it changed nothing. The Haigure group could act, but it changed nothing; they could do their little rebellions, they could try to think of better ones all the time. But it was a new day, and they’d done all they could in the direction of achieving their goals, and it hadn’t even come close to making a difference. One speaker down, posters down; a secret meeting half-infiltrated; and for their works, a lot of nothing. There were new people wearing Haigure today. Their numbers had quietly grown again, as if nothing they’d done had made any difference. It probably hadn’t.

Still, Jessica was a proactive person. She didn’t let herself mire in that kind of despair. She’d taken up jogging to try and do something with all her nervous energy. It was always felt a little strange to do it; in some roundabout way she’d come to think of Alexa, and the other takedown group members as friends.

Duress did things like that to the brain, made a person want to cling to the people who were suffering with them; and Alexa was the Runner in the group; Jessica could never have run competitively and had no real skill for it; it was just about moving, it was just about going somewhere, just about feeling, even for a moment, that she was progressing somewhere, towards something, in a situation that only seemed to keep deteriorating in front of her eyes.

She still had her car, too, which her parents had bought her... fancy car... she didn’t even care about the make of it anymore. It was like running. A way to go; she was skipping classes a lot more these days, clearing it with the takedown group first; making sure they knew she didn’t need to be counted in the group walk-arounds that safely delivered everyone to and from where they needed to go; to make sure none of them would worry about her if they found she was not where they expected her to be.

When she drove, when she ran, she felt like she was getting away; she felt like she was going somewhere, moving through the world, even though the destination was only ever back in front of her dorm door again. She tried to ignore the sink of despair she felt each time she arrived there again... sometimes the endorphins from jogging were high enough to combat it. Or the adrenaline from speeding in her car; she drove a bit dangerously sometimes; not veering between lanes, only dangerous in the sense of going above the speed limit where she could get away with it... and then going higher... and higher. Really pushing it slightly farther than it should be pushed, not absolutely able to guarantee she could keep from losing control of the car... and just at that breaking point she would slow again.

There was a thought she was trying to outrun. Or outdrive.

And she knew it was a thought only for herself, that she couldn’t share with anyone; she knew it was a thought that had come from her own mind. She knew herself.

When she thought of Haigure, it increasingly turned her on. That wasn’t the thought. The thought was, if she did put a leotard on, she would be used— she would be one of the ones who converted others; she would hold power over them, they would listen to her. She would hold power, after this strange period of being so powerless. The thought of people being made to obey, by her, being convinced to put on leotards and turn into Haigure sluts because she made them— if she didn’t run from the thought, drive from the thought, it had her clenching her thighs together in hunger. She’d always been the more dominant one in her relationships, taking the upper hand... and the idea of all that power, of making others weak, making them give in to evil... well, it was the thing that had her running and driving so hard. But just like her destination was always her dorm door, in her mind, she always circled back to the thought she was running from. It would be hot.

It would, no question, but it would mean giving her freedom up. So she ran harder, and drove faster, and patiently waited for more takedown group activities to take place.

Kara didn’t want to leave Selina’s house, abandon Steph back to the grip of the unknown; to the state of never quite knowing if she was okay or not. To lose the certainty of being able to just look over and see that Steph was okay; to have to trust on routine, trust on previous checks that she would be where it was safe when she was supposed to be there; but there were some hours left in the day yet; it was only late afternoon, and Kara knew she truly belonged back on campus again.

So she told Steph and Selina goodbye; gave Selina a quick hug, and Steph a much longer one, holding her to show her she wasn’t letting her go and leaving her of her own accord, but that other necessities called her hence; and Steph hugged her back as hard; and then she told Selina to express Kara’s appreciation to Selina’s mother— she could never offer her own mother that same thing again, she thought with a twinge; and then she left the house by taxi and sent herself back to campus when he asked her where she had to go.

She was surprised to find Kasumi standing at the campus gate.

“Kasumi?” Kara called, getting out of the taxi. “Is everything okay?”

Kasumi shook her head, running from the arching entrance of Rosedale university to the sidewalk that Kara had just stepped onto. She was breathless when she reached Kara, and began speaking.

“Kara— I’m so sorry— but we’ve got to go into the newspaper for an emergency meeting,” she said, still out of breath but forcing through the words without it anyway. “They’re going to be working late into the night, they said, and they need us there.”

Kara frowned, already suspicious. She knew there had to be at least one infected staff member by now— Amelia— there was no way she’d left her prize story, her Haigure story, so long as to not have started writing it by now. Which meant she was converted by now. But how many would she have had time to convert after she herself had changed? This evening summons was suspicious, made more suspicious by the fact that she had been put on an involuntary leave of absence from the paper, and now they suddenly wanted her back. She didn’t like it at all, but there was still more information that she was missing.

“Who called and told you this?” Kara asked.

Kasumi seemed to be catching her breath now. “It was… Veronica I think…” which immediately set off Kara’s internal alarm. Why hadn’t Elena been the one to call— or Carol Harris, their administrator. Veronica had no real authority on the paper. Why had she been the one calling?

Kara tried to speak up to express her suspicion. “That’s—”

But Kasumi cut her off. “No, listen, there’s more. I told Veronica no, that neither one of us were coming— I thought it would be safer for us to stay away— but then I got a call from the dean only fifteen minutes later, the dean herself, and she threatened to expel us and kick us off the campus if we didn’t go. So Kara— I don’t see how we can avoid it— and I was so scared; I couldn’t find you and you weren’t answering your cellphone, so then I thought you must have gone to where your sister is saying, so I waited—”

Kara laid a hand on Kasumi’s shoulders. “I understand what you’re saying, Kasumi. You did a good job; you tried your best, but it looks like there’s no way around this for us. We’ve got to go to the newspaper meeting and we’ve got to go now. We’re on a time crunch, I’m guessing, though you didn’t stay as much. They’ve forced our hand this time. If we’re expelled, it won’t do the takedown group, or the town of Rosedale itself any favours. We need to stay here to stay in position. Which means we have to go.”

Kasumi nodded fast, wordlessly.

There was only one thing left to say. “Let’s go.”

The two of them took off at an incredibly brisk pace; past building after building, until they found the one the newspaper club met in. Then they followed its hallways and stairs, up, up, in search of the newspaper club’s meeting room; Kara didn’t know about Kasumi, but she herself was feeling nothing other than complete trepidation. Their enemies had cornered them, wanted them in a specific place at a specific time. It could mean absolutely nothing good.

Inside the newspaper club office, they did not find a newspaper team hard at work to put out a new issue. If Kara were being honest with herself, she had to admit that the chance of finding that had been low. But what she did find was worse than her worse fears. Every single newspaper staff member was wearing a leotard— and their faculty administrator, Carol Harris, was present, too, and she was in a leotard, the same as all the others. It had spread through the newspaper faster than Kara had ever expected, and she and Kasumi could only stand just in past the door looking at the scene they’d found in the room.

There wasn’t a word for it— not a proper word, no word beyond frenzy, no word beyond chaos. Thanks to the earbuds, Kara heard only silence, but she was sure that the room’s sound system was drilling subliminals into heads by means of musical conveyance, for everyone who could hear it.

No one had seemed to notice them come in; or at least that was Kara’s impression at first. It would take her some minutes, but gradually her eyes would track to Veronica Granger, the only one above the fray, sitting on a desk’s surface, one leg crossed over the other, holding a deskphone to her ear, watching Kara and Kasumi; but it would take some minutes for that to happen.

For now, Kara’s every other sense was bombarded. Her ears were protected but that wasn’t enough. Her eyes, her taste, her scenting ability; her sensing ability, those four were all still vulnerable, and were being veritably assailed by what was happening.

What was taking place in the room could only be called an orgy; she had tried labeling it frenzy first, then chaos— that writer’s instinct to revise, to be more precise, to more perfectly describe. That writer’s instinct to try and make sense of fear, of what was un-understandable… but both frenzy and chaos fell short. This was an orgy, plain and simple, she had at last landed on the final draft, and everything taking place was orgiastic; girls were in tangles together everywhere she looked. Lying on each other on the floor, pinning each other up in pairs to walls or blinded windows; lying each other down on desk, straddling each other on deskchairs. They were everywhere in twos, and threes, and fours; touching, moaning, grunting, shrieking. They moved, they thrusted, they writhed, it was happening everywhere that Kara turned her head.

She knew anywhere Kasumi looked she would be seeing the same thing; but she couldn’t look at Kasumi. She was hating her body, hating her senses.

In the confusion, at last Kara found Veronica, the only non-participant, and she smiled when Kara looked at her, and dialed a number on her phone. It rang once, and then with curving, smiling lips Veronica spoke; and even through the din of moans Kara heard it— “They’re here.” She had said it to the dean, Kara was sure— so both she and Kasumi had gotten their attendance checkmarks for this orgy; so both she and Kasumi had spared themselves expulsion; as soon as Veronica had smiled and said this, she hung up the phone and slipped herself into a fray, sliding herself beneath another girl— starting to kiss and lick and thrust and suck like all the rest.

Kara hated every single other one of her senses; hated her nose for bringing the heady odor of sex— and of so many juicing sexes— to her nostrils. Hated her ears for bringing her moans and grunts and other vocalizations. The earbuds could do a lot; but for whatever reason, what was happening here was too sophisticated for them to judge the surrounding audio as outright hostile. They just couldn’t recognize it for that— couldn’t protect them.

She hated her eyes, for seeing bodies thrusting and moving together, sexing each other everywhere she looked; what felt like a thousand leotards, rubbing against each other as the bodies in them rubbed too; leotard, leotard, leotard— everywhere, heightening the pleasure of every woman who was involved in the communal pursuit of pleasure they were all undertaking— how sexy to wear a leotard, to have sex in a leotard— it was her own thought, she couldn’t escape it with the evidence right before her eyes.

And she hated her sense, for giving her the feeling of arousal all throughout her body, everywhere she could feel. Kasumi was pale as her, when she looked; as aroused, probably, and as terrified of it. And Kara knew it was the decisive moment. If she did not run from the room now, she would never escape it. If she did not leave, she would join in with all the others; sex them, and then surrender to wearing a leotard. So pulling Kasumi by the hand, she ran, and escaped the room.

She wasn’t even worried about being expelled anymore; she’d made her appearance, so had Kasumi. And presumably the effect they were both suffering right now, frightening arousal, had been what the Haigure organization wanted them to experience; their goal had been accomplished, so they would have no reason to penalize them. Kara felt Haigure had managed to slip in past her defences, so safe-guarded; because part of her had willingly let in, she had no one to blame but herself.

But she couldn’t say that to Kasumi. Neither could she abandon Kasumi to danger; she and Kasumi both were still running, though no one was chasing them. Running and trying to outrun what was in their heads; the memories of what they had seen, what they had felt.

They ran far enough to reach Kasumi’s dorm, and neither said anything to the other when Kasumi stumbled inside, looking like she’d seen a fright.

Kara ran harder the rest of the way home even though she wasn’t the runner in her relationship— and she thought of Alexa, and the fight they’d had the night before, how harsh and biting Kara had been with her when Alexa had only been trying to help.

Kara didn’t want to see Alexa tonight. She was ashamed of what she’d felt, terrified of it; who cared what the Haigure group might be trying to do, what new techniques they might employ, if all the time the only thing that it was going to take to seduce Kara into temptation was herself? She was disgusted; she’d formed the takedown group, after a failed false start first attempt; she shouldn’t have been affected the way she was by what she’d seen— but she had been, and she didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself. Entering her dorm was a blur— and it was the only the calling of her name in the hall outside her door that stirred her.

“Kara—” It was Alexa, exactly who she’d been wanting to avoid, Alexa who she’d not been wanting to see, but it was too late to do anything about that now, and she couldn’t very well ignore her own girlfriend.

“What is it, Alexa?” Kara said. She meant it to come out tired and weary in the hopes it would get Alexa to leave her alone for tonight at least; but it came out almost as snappy as she’d been the day before, and this time Alexa didn’t look hurt. She just looked snappy right back.

“Kara, you can’t just keep biting my head off. We’re in a relationship. I care about you! Don’t take that out on me. Don’t punish me for liking you.”

That only made Kara feel angrier. She didn’t know where all the rage was coming from; maybe one too many stresses had been heaped on her, and something in her had finally given way after all that build up. But whatever the reason, it had happened, and it was still happening now. She’d just have to weather it— or give into it?— as best she could.

“I’m not totally over how I was feeling last night, Alexa,” Kara said, trying to dial back her anger at least a little bit. She wasn’t truly angry at Alexa— more irritated. Alexa was only serving as a catalyst for all her other anger— anger at herself, at the world, at the university, at Haigure, at her mother; and Alexa had already suspected that, but if Kara was just venting anger at her she couldn’t know that for certain, so she had to at least try to temper herself a bit.

“You can’t avoid me forever!” Alexa said, clearly not willing to let Kara off for the night.

“Fine, you want to have this out? You really want my company tonight?”

There was a touch of danger in Kara’s voice that surprised even her; but it never registered in Alexa’s eyes; she only squared her chin to the challenge.

“It’d be a nice change from yesterday!” Alexa parried back.

Kara took the few strides down the hall to Alexa’s dorm door, and roughly linked her arm through Alexa’s. “Fine then,” she bit. “Have my company for tonight.” She jerked Alexa toward her own door; which, when Kara turned the knob of it, she found Alexa had left it unlocked.

Inside Kara kept pulling Alexa by where their arms were linked, over to the couch that was in the common area of the dorm suite. None of Alexa’s other roommates were out in the open area, so Kara sat down roughly on the sofa, unceremoniously tugging Alexa down with her and then unlinking their arms.

Alexa had scurried her feet to keep up with Kara when she’d been rushing them inside by the place they were joined; to go from moving so fast to sitting so still had clearly jarred her, and she as looking more annoyed with Kara now. “What’s your problem, Kara? Why are you in such a bad mood?”

Just moments ago she’d thought to herself that she never, ever wanted Alexa to know how she’d felt in the newspaper meeting. But now she was annoyed enough that she wanted to vent more at her, since Alexa had all but insisted she spend this night in her company. Oh, she had never said it in so many words. She’d done it in that Alexa way she had, where she could imply so much and say so little... Kara was just fed up with all of it, that night, and so she blurted out the complete truth.

“Because, Alexa,” she said, speaking steel. “I’ve just been to a meeting of Rosedale’s Uni News, and I saw an orgy there. They were all in leotards, Kasumi and I were forced to go, and the earbuds did shit all to protect me, because I looked around, and saw all those girls in leotards fucking, and the only thing I could think about was joining them! I’ve been fighting and fighting Haigure, and it only took one glimpse of Haigure-induced orgy for me to stop caring about everything I know, everything I’ve seen. I could taste the sex smells in the back of my throat; my body was only full of arousal, and if I hadn’t run out of there when I did, I’d still be there, fucking, and I would have come home in a leotard before the night was done.”

She was panting out breaths after, not sure if she was angry or aroused anymore. She was on fire, anyway, alight with temptation, and that might have enraged her, and it might have thrilled her, but either way, she was burning.

Alexa was mirroring her; her chest rising and falling with quick breaths too. “You think you’re the only one?” There was urgency to her words, but she was speaking quieter now. “You think you’re special? I had to go to track practice today— not that you cared, or even knew, since you were still taking it out on me for last night and you didn’t check in with me all day long. You’re not the only one tempted... not the only one with a self-destructive pleasure streak inside. I ran on the track with my team— every single one of them is a Haigure-ite, and I willingly chose to stare at their leotards because seeing them in their leotards turned me on, and I wanted to be turned on. It felt like something was fucking stroking my mind, and stroking between my legs at the same time, and I wanted that heat, Kara, even knowing everything I know. So you’re not the only one feeling this, and you don’t get to act like you’re the only one Haigure’s ever done hard by.”

Both of them were breathing heavily still, both of them inflamed, but it wasn’t pure rage anymore. Alexa’s pupils were wide opened, and Kara didn’t know who was mirror who anymore; she was sure her own must have looked the same, and she was hearing so many things in her head; hearing Steph describe the arousal she’d felt seeing Haigure, hearing Selina describe the arousal she’d felt, remembering her own feelings as she’d stood their surrounded by the orgy; and now, the nail in the coffin, the words Alexa had just spoken to her; describing her own arousal, describing her willing choice to stare after the leotards ahead of her on the race-track and get mind-pleasured by.

It was all too much, and Kara couldn’t contain it for one second more— and Alexa was having the exact same thought at the exact same second, because they had both moved for each other, their mouths colliding and the fire in each of them combining to become one inferno’s blaze.

Kara kissed her, and it had never been like this; there had always been love, affection, sweetness, friendliness. This was only consummatory. They were a raging wildfire and they would burn the forest down and choke the skies with smoke that would be seen for miles. Their tongues slathered over each other, sometimes licking too wide and feeling teeth; Kara kissed Alexa back into the couch, but Alexa met her there and pulled her further in. Alexa’s hands were in her hair, tangling, pulling at the roots, hurting, and Kara’s hands were on Alexa’s breasts, twisting them a little too hard to be pleasurable— twisting them hard enough to make it painful instead, and it forced Alexa to stop kissing her for a moment and to gasp into her mouth.

Neither one of them were thinking of each other— or thinking of each other in the normal way, the girlfriend to girlfriend way, the lover to lover way. They were both thinking of Haigure, Kara knew it; and thinking of how it affected the other; thinking of the other’s confession of secret temptation; spurred by it, aroused by it, made hungry by it. And maybe the thing that frustrated them both the most, even if they wouldn’t admit it, was that there was no leotard here for either one of them to put on. That both of them were still too stubborn, too against Haigure to be able to breakdown and give into, when clearly each of them had some secret desire to do so; a secret desire that they alone were responsible for and had not come from outside of them. Or maybe they were each angry at themselves for having that desire to begin with.

Kara just didn’t care anymore. She was twisting at Alexa’s breasts with her hands but getting hungrier. She tore Alexa’s shirt open, and Alexa’s body arched toward hers; she groped her more, but Alexa would not be outdone. Alexa ripped Kara’s shirt open in turn, weaving her arms through Kara’s to reach it, and she did not grope Kara’s breasts. Alexa was always more about the tactical strike. With her mouth still moving on Kara’s, she reached with each thumb and forefinger, and pinched Kara’s nipples hard enough, at the same time, it pricked Kara’s eyes with moisture— not from emotion, only in response to the sensation, and then Alexa swallowed down the half-shriek that left Kara’s mouth and got into hers.

It wasn’t enough. She was twisting Alexa’s breasts— and Alexa kept pinching the nipples on hers hard enough Kara wondered if she might burst some blood vessels there, but it wasn’t enough. Kara started grinding her crotch into Alexa’s but didn’t stop anything else she was doing, and was more than happy when Alexa didn’t stop anything either. Alexa pinched and kissed fiercely; Kara twisted, and kissed back, and rocked harder on Alexa’s crotch, and finally had to give up her hold on Alexa’s breasts, for just a minute, even as Alexa kept pinching her nipples and keeping all other thoughts out of Kara’s head, the pain sharp enough to make everything clear— Kara got Alexa’s pants and underwear rolled down, by coaxing her into lifting her hips long enough to get them unpinned from beneath her, and down; and Alexa met this action with more nipple-pinches, harder, which kept blurring Kara’s world, but gave her something she was needing oh-so badly; then Kara shucked her own pants and underwear down, didn’t care what mess they were making of the couch or of each other, and Alexa was a waterfall down there, and she herself was flowing to give her a run for her money— and Kara wrapped her legs around her, pressing their pussies together, and she rocked harder, so wet dragged against wet, tender nerves brushed tender nerves, but they were both so sensitive now that it was another kind of pain, but it felt so good in the way that last one had.

Alexa had to stop pinching her then, had to stop doing anything to her, because it seemed all she could do now was hold onto Kara and cry; her hands had left Kara’s breasts, and they embraced her body fully, encircling Kara in her arms and impressing her body closer to hers. This only spurred Kara to rock forward and back again harder— she’d had to drop her hands from Alexa’s breasts, too; so they could press together everywhere, breast to breast, nipple to nipple, feeling the nerve endings going haywire everywhere.

Kara was making a grunting noise and couldn’t stop; Alexa was still streaming moisture from her eyes, but she didn’t look sad— Kara imagined it was the physical intensity of what was happening, her body needing some outlet to release the pressure. Kara was still driven on by blind determination, otherwise her body might have been doing the same thing.

Nipples slipped over each other, kept budding; sometimes their mouths knocked together, and sometimes they gasped apart. All Kara could think of was her arousal, how turned on she’d been all day, how it had just gotten worse, and worse... how, even though she hadn’t been able to say it until this moment, she’d known in the moment she’d seen the orgy, in the moment she’d almost caved, she’d known she needed to someone to fuck, and that it wouldn’t be a nice fuck... that it would be like this, animalistic, and guttural and base... she didn’t care... she was giving it to Alexa, all her darkest impulses, even the impulse to given in and join Haigure, and she didn’t care— she had only ever given Alexa care and affection and cherishing, and she didn’t care— it was only the pleasure, it was all she could think of.

She thrust a hand down, and crushed it between them; a fist both their pussies took turns slurping and sliding over; something to grind into, something to hurt; something kissing Alexa and sometimes not; then after leaving her fist there, moved it up and crushed a knuckle against Alexa’s clit, and Alexa groaned; and her eyes moist-ed more, but she rocked harder; and then Alexa was coming, twitching, and that was only the beginning of it.

Alexa would never allow Kara to top her; never, especially not in this, which had somehow become a battle for dominance where neither one wanted to concede to the other or let the other win, or even think they won. So this meant Alexa’s hand had to come down, and instead of knuckling her clit like Kara had done to her, she plucked over it again and again with slipping fingers until Kara saw stars. And Kara saw stars and thought of her Haigure, and shrieked out to put the orgy participants to shame— and that still wasn’t the end of it.

She flipped Alexa over, got her down on her back and shifted herself around in a rough move, lining her mouth to Alexa’s crotch; the first orgasm had taken the edge off a bit, but not nearly enough. The first bite of the desperate arousal had been dulled, but there was so much more waiting behind it. Kara lowered her mouth to Alexa’s cunt, and lapped it with her tongue; and Alexa twitched her body’s aftershocks from the first orgasm into Kara’s mouth— and Alexa writhed, as if it were too intense, but her hands pressed Kara’s face harder into her core, and then Kara felt Alexa’s mouth on her own core, and thought she could understand exactly what Alexa was going through. Thought, in that moment, she could understand her perfectly.

It was too intense, but it was only intensity to that degree that could ever satisfy her— she needed pleasure, she needed pleasure beyond anything, pleasures such as had never been felt... she needed such extreme ecstasy— because that was what everyone who was Haigure got all the time, and she wanted ecstasy that extreme, she wanted the ecstasy she had seen and smelled and heard in the newspaper office, she wanted to go into a room and be shut up with other Haigure slaves to be and be changed with them all, trapped with no way out, the way it kept happening at her sister’s school... like her sister had told her... and she couldn’t have or be any of those things because she couldn’t be Haigure, not yet, but her body was still craving it, and the ecstasy that was like this, that shone so bright it hurt, that shone so bright it pierced, was the only thing that could come close to being good, to being close enough to what she truly craved. She was sure, from everything Alexa had said, both in her words and in her the cues of her body movement, that Alexa was feeling the same way.

But she couldn’t think or feel anything anymore... couldn’t think or feel anything. Alexa was still licking her hard and working her jaw to do it; and Kara was licking and moving her own jaw, too, to keep up— and she tasted Alexa on her tongue, a flavor she knew but which was so different in this context of desperation. And she felt Alexa’s tongue on her, and she didn’t think they’d ever gotten quite this close sexually, but it wasn’t intimate, because the third partner was the specter of Haigure... how badly they both still craved it, how badly they had been affected by whatever each of them had inside which Haigure could call to... Alexa was licking Kara so well that her aftershock had melted away into simple pleasure again that was rapidly building her back up to a climax. And judging by the way that Alexa was going taut under Kara’s mouth, judging by the way all her muscles in her lower body, around her thighs, everywhere, were tensing, Kara was sure she was doing the same to Alexa.

Kara was greedy. She’d had one orgasm, maybe two, she couldn’t even remember more, and her body had barely recovered but already she wanted her next one and it was the only thing she could concentrate on, all that she wished for. It either silenced all the memories of that day, or made them louder, she couldn’t tell. She had a bad feeling that this behavior was addicted. It satisfied only to leave a greater craving in its wake, and if she was becoming addicted, it meant she was addicting Alexa to the same thing that was taking her. Alexa, who she’d tried so long and so hard to protect, just like she’d tried to protect all the others... she was the danger to Alexa now, she was the threat, putting Alexa more in touch with the side of herself that wanted Haigure, making her forget everything else.

It didn’t matter that Alexa was doing the same thing for her; Kara felt she was the one responsible, because she always took the lead, took charge, and Alexa followed her, and Alexa was following her here, too, to somewhere dark that would be bad for both of them... that might even, someday, lead them to sacrifice themselves to have the white-hot ecstasy both of them were starting to believe only Haigure could give them... and which they were starting to crave.

But neither one of them cared, because they were arriving at the point of their mutual orgasm; their bodies still so attuned to each other even in a darker moment; and they kept licking until both of them were limp and seemingly without bone structure on the couch, lying there, mouths off each other and panting... both still craving.