The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Passageway Chapter 7 – Which Side are You On?

Neve was waiting for Jackie in the back of their customary BK. “Football did it,” she explained. “She was going to football games every week, the little idiot. The whole clique is there. Hell, they are the student section, and the student section is them. Sweet little country girl loved to watch the violence of the collisions, just like a little boy playing with Hot Wheels and smashing them into each other. Fucking idiot. Forget her. Football games with everyone at their brashest and no way of telling the sports frenzy apart from the blood frenzy? Of course she’s gonna get roped in! Don’t know who lured her in, but it just takes one slip to pass through the doorway. Let that be a lesson to you. Keep it in you, don’t cry it out, don’t let it go, and they won’t go near you.“

Sure, and what will that cost me? Furious, she lashed out at Neve, “You know? You know she was going? She told you she was going and you just sat there and let her march off into oblivion? And you didn’t tell me so I could warn her?“

“Warn her? You’d have walked into the light with her! Don’t call me an idiot. It’s okay, I think you’re cute too.”

“What the—oh, no, she—I don’t—”

“Shut up,” Neve said, not unkindly. “Besides, you’re both the same thing, or you were, or something like that. It’s the discipline driving you mad. You were both as popular as those things, just without the control, and it eats at you to stay away from the popular kids. You keep thinking you belong with them, but at the same time, you don’t want to be them. Carlene was a unifier, I bet, back at her old high school. She was tomboy enough to earn respect from the boys, could clean up like a southern belle should, and of course those tits. And I bet that’s how they got her. They didn’t all attack her at once, but they took every approach—chatty girls, boys who wanted to talk about the game, that kind of thing. And it was a public space. She probably thought she was safe in a public space. Think her roommate’s gone too. Bet they went together and chased some boy in the celebration after a game, and just never stopped running after him until they were both into the light. Yes, in real life sometimes it really is that simple. It might have taken weeks to break her down, but that’s how it goes. You just don’t get it. You never do. All five years I’ve been here, and only the Omegas get it, and there’s only ever a dozen of us at a time.” By the end, she was caught somewhere between high-pitched mockery and high-strung hysterics, and Jackie was no longer sure where Neve’s madness ended and her sanity began.

“Well, if it was a choice between being ready for the white coats and the net, or a white light and a vibrator, I think Carlene knew what she was doing!” Jackie screamed, tears in her eyes. As soon as the words had escaped her, she put a hand over her mouth and stared in horror at what she had just said.

To Jackie’s surprise, Neve didn’t immediately tear her a new one. “Better you get that rationalization out of your system here than there. I texted my sister more than once. Now I’m used to it. Now I can get my MBA and return to the wonderful land of Sanity. You do realize they timed this two weeks before finals for a reason. I’ve seen it before, and it works. Take everything away from you, break your will, destroy everything you’ve ever touched, until there’s nothing left on your side but you and the crazies, and you know you don’t want to be on the same side as the crazies. Ms. Popular Queen Bee needs her hive back, and there’s a hive waiting for you. Just a step through the doorway, and it’s all there for you. Of course, you’ll be a different person, and you’ll just be a drone in their hive, but you don’t realize that until it’s too late.” Neve’s face was very serious, grave as death. “They will stop at nothing. You know too much of the secret, and you’re drop dead gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Carlene will call and text you like a madwoman. So will Lissy. If Laura isn’t too busy being fucked into creating the next generation of legacies, they’ll use her too. Don’t go near her or anyone else who got your number. Seduction is a powerful form of control, and they’ll lure you with it. Make sure you run.”

“Control the weak, break the strong,” Jackie said. “They’re animals. Or animal handlers.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

For the first time, Jackie really understood the girls who shaved their heads, or the boys with the excessive tattoos. She shuddered at what might lie under the long sleeves that some people wore—needle tracks? scars? And Beth’s use of food to escape scrutiny made Jackie wonder if there were those who did the opposite, though in her heart she knew there were.

Two more weeks, she told herself, and she prayed that it was true.

Two more weeks. That was the mantra she held on to. Two more weeks and I can transfer. She’d already told her mom that she was helplessly homesick, and her mom understood. They’d had a long discussion regarding the merits of Hinkle and Fort Wayne, and why Indianapolis just wasn’t a good fit despite their strong math program. She’d helped explain everything to Jackie’s dad, to the point where Jackie wondered if her mother had learned something new about Atlantic Coast while she was away.

If it weren’t for the evil mind-controlling conspiracy, there was no way Jackie would have even considered a transfer. The weather was everything she could have dreamed of for a Florida autumn, she was near the top of all her classes despite the controlled kids being compelled to never fail at anything, and she was starting to warm up to the unwanted freaks now that she understood the reason for their freakish behavior. She would be able to make a few friends there, if she could get past the pot smoke and the other crazy quirks. After all, it’s not like obsessing over what’s on the other side of that door is any kind of healthy behavior, she thought.

What worried her, frightened her, and yet attracted her was that the controlled kids weren’t like what she and her other had both been afraid of from South Beach. They weren’t just glassy-eyed whores and brain-dead sucking posts, only concerned with how they looked for their owner. There was something about them that Jackie didn’t dare consider too much lest she get sucked in like Carlene had.

She glared at the door as if she could see through the thick metal. It sat there, still and dark and quiet, and Jackie wondered what could be behind it, what force could turn a chain-smoking, racecar-loving tomboy into a submissive Southern belle. With a sigh, she turned away, because she knew what it was. It was the same force that had sucked out what little there was of Lissy’s brain until the word “awesome” was a majority of her vocabulary, and had lured Mikala into what she had called the Asshole Country Club, and had turned Holy Roller Liz into an exhibitionist, and had turned punk rock Laura into a rule-abiding rebel. This was what she had to face. She had to get past it.

Two more weeks, she told herself, to take her mind off the few hundred students she suspected or knew had gone through the door sometime that semester. She didn’t understand why a school with a solid record and gorgeous facilities like Atlantic Coast needed to make extra money through slave trading. And why weren’t there more students speaking out against it? Why were they all just standing by and letting their roommates and classmates be taken through the door to God only knew what? Because we’re scared we’re next, Jackie admitted, including herself in the group. The Omegas fought back, but even they were more about warning others than any kind of action to stop the process. And Jackie was starting to understand their unique brand of madness. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see a sister changed and twisted the way all the Jameson girls were changed and twisted—just enough to be recognizable, but nothing beyond that, just enough to leave the bitter taste. Years of loss and hope had to have left Neve genuinely mad. The others were just as bad from what Jackie had seen of them.

Two more weeks, she told herself as she took her mystery meat out onto the quad to distract herself with people-watching.

Even then, thinking of how Neve saw people as nothing more than walking dolls and corpses in waiting put her off her appetite. She set aside the sandwich of questionable origin and applied herself to more thorough people-watching. The non-controlled part of the campus was either trying to look unattractive in various ways (at least two of which Jackie already knew wouldn’t work) or lost in study. The controlled kids were coming on to the people around them, or making out under trees, or otherwise parading themselves around for everyone to see. The odd thing was there was still some uniqueness to them. Laura was still punk, even if she didn’t know how to make a Ramones joke anymore. Carlene was still the country girl, just not the kind she had once been. Mikala was still stylistically recognizable. Jackie thought she saw her with four other black girls in similar outfits, jean shorts that barely covered their asses, the tiniest possible bikinis that could still qualify as bikinis, impossibly-colored wigs, and garish jewelry.

They still had their sub-cliques—the athletic teams, the sororities, the fraternities, all with their own twists on the style. But the end result was the same: sexual, obsessed, and devoted. What was frightening was their obsession and devotion weren’t just directed towards their sexuality. There was a driving fire in them that was more than just the inferno of lust. They kept plenty of their intelligence. The boys showed more of it, which made sense if they were being groomed for high-paying jobs. But the girls were right up there with them. True, some of the girls, like Lissy, didn’t seem to have gained any study skill from their control, and those were the ones she imagined would be sold off as sex workers. The others, though—Jackie knew the types: the secretary that had all the ideas and the charm to persuade the boss that they were his, the seductive saleswoman who found every loophole in the contract, the housewife who balanced the books down to fractions of a penny.

A big-breasted girl with golden tan skin sat across from her, flashing ample panty under her blue excuse for a skirt and mountains of cleavage in the top that most places would have classified as lingerie. Without so much as a grunt of effort, she hauled a law book about four inches thick out of her bag and started to page through it, making notes as she did and muttering Latin phrases. She might as well be saying Harry Potter spells, for all that makes sense to me, Jackie thought in disbelief.

“Thought you’d be here. Now you know part of why I stayed. Don’t make the Cuban food joke, please. Heard it way too many times.”

Jackie let out an embarrassing squeak. “Beth! You scared the you-know-what out of me! But I’ve missed you. Sit down?”

Beth did so. “Ever wonder how a politician can drop fifty grand on fees for a hooker, then spend another fifty thousand on transportation, meals and hotel? Look at her. That’s why. Even big-league cheerleading is too lowbrow for these guys. That’s why the school does it, and why people who object let it go. Besides the obvious self-preservation urges, I mean. This isn’t the kind of control you see on South Beach or in the movies. They still leave educated and able to use that education. They’re just submissive and controlled. You know the kind. The pretty girl who marries the son of a billionaire and helps cover up that he’s only half as smart as his dad. If not that, then Hollywood, and not the seamy underbelly, either. I always thought Did Diaz was a one-semester party girl until I checked the records. And if all else fails, there are always the lonely, dangerous, high-paying jobs to share with the boys,” she explained in a stream of consciousness that Jackie was too fascinated by to interrupt.

“So one way or another, you’re a high-class whore? Charming,” Jackie said, not wanting to let on that she was intrigued by the idea.

“You get the best, but you pay the price: a great life with no will, or an iron will with no life. Or you give up the good life and give up the best, and you run away, and people will think you’re crazy if you ever try to tell them why.”

“No one’s ever spoken up? Even you? There’s got to be people who would believe this.”

“That’s a jungle you don’t want to enter. Trust me on that one. Those people make Neve look stable and calm. You can go into that world if you want, sure, but that’s just insanity. Atlantic Coast isn’t that bad that you should run to them.“

“Would explain why my mom seemed to know that something was up and understood why I wanted to leave,” Jackie mused, contemplating her future.

“You wanna be like them, don’t you? I see it in your eyes. Not in the bad way, the way Neve scoffs at you or Professor Chin won’t even be bothered with your name. The way I did when I first saw it. Across from us? That’s what I dreamed I’d be. Well, aside from the gratuitous panty shots, of course. But popular, cunning, beautiful, and knowing how to use that beauty to get the boys to accept my brain. I just wouldn’t give up the brain, let alone, you know, give brain. Sausage ain’t kosher, you know. Man, you really are out of it. No Cuban sandwich jokes?”

Jackie wasn’t having with Beth’s sense of humor. “So it’s those who don’t want it against those who don’t care. Lovely.”

“And everyone else who thinks they aren’t sure in the middle. Or something like that. That’s why getting involved in football games was enough for Carlene. Remember, two more weeks and you don’t have to choose between your free will or your life.”

That’s what you think. Running away is still giving up. And Jackie hated that she was so close to giving up. She’d never failed at anything she really wanted in high school. Why should it start now? But what was going on in Jameson Hall was too much for her. Will breaking, sexual addiction, the loss of life and memory—she couldn’t take the idea of it, so she headed back to her dorm room to sulk and cry over the situation.