The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

From the moment Beck broke the treeline she was sprinting, pushing herself to her limit to cross the mansion grounds as quickly as possible. Adrenaline pumped through her, and she welcomed the extra strength. Despite all her planning and preparation, she was in danger, and the best way to keep safe was to get inside as fast as she could. She only had about thirty seconds until the next sensor sweep. Despite the danger, the thin, wiry girl grinned a wolfish grin. She loved feeling alive.

With seconds at most to spare, Beck reached the walls of the palatial mansion that rose high in the middle of the spacious grounds. She immediately pressed herself tight against the stone, and waited for the tell-tale flicker of sensor lights to pass. Once they did, and no alarm triggered, she allowed herself a laugh. A vulnerability, just as she’d been informed. With luck, the rest of her intel was good too. It had certainly cost enough, but to Beck no price was too high for the chance to screw over a corp. SPQ Conglomerate was one of the worst. Everyone knew the kinds of shady dealings and unethical practices they were tied up in, but due to their political influence and inordinate wealth they were untouchable. The injustice of it made Beck rage. She’d seen what SPQ had done to the poor part of the city she’d grown up in. Between their pollution and their recruiting of the hopeless and helpless for illegal human experimentation, they’d killed hundreds, and ripped the heart out of her entire neighbourhood. It had always been rough and dirty, but it had had a heartbeat. A life. A vibrancy. Not anymore. That was why, for the first time in her life, Beck had left the megacity she’d been born in, and traveled to a remote country house. Revenge. It was what she was best at. Beck prided herself as one of the best off-the-grid hackers most people had never heard of. She wasn’t the kind to go on the extranet and brag about her exploits, only to get picked up by a corporate task force two weeks later. She kept things quiet and professional, despite her aggressively punk appearance. As always, Beck was wearing her black battle vest over a simple tank top, and baggy black pants with dozens of pockets for all the gear she might need. The skin she was showing on her arms was covered in tattoos, and she had a pierced lip, nose and eyebrow. She’d never been one to shy away from a few body mods—the jagged metal of bootlegged tech-implants showing through her skin in several places was proof of that.

Now that she was past the sensor grid, Beck got to work finding the drain pipe she’d noticed on the building holo-plans. It led up to a window with a nearby external system access panel, probably intended for maintenance use. Access points like those hardly ever had any meaningful security. Beck had hardly been able to believe it when she’d noticed the flaw on the plans. It wasn’t like such a huge corp go get so lazy, but at the same time, it was so perfectly like them to be so arrogant as to assume no-one would ever try to hit them in such a place: the personal country home of one of their most senior executives. According to her intel, as an executive, Evelynn Aurelia had a hard-wired connection between her residence and SDQ headquarters back in the city. If Beck could access that connection on her end, she’d easily be able to get her hands on all kinds of insider information, and hopefully that would include something obscene enough that, just for once, the politicians and corrupt media wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

Beck found the drain pipe. Climbing it was easy for lower-rung city rat like her. Once she was thirty feet in the air, she started feeling at the stonework around her for the access panel. It didn’t take long to find, and it didn’t take much longer to pry the panel open to expose a small console. Using only her legs to grip the pipe she was clinging to, Beck reached a hand behind her head and felt her way down her spine until she reached her central implant. Then, she sent a mental command to open it and release her jack. She quickly pulled it out of herself, the thin wire unraveling until it was long enough for her to reach across to the access panel and jack herself in. Beck couldn’t help shuddering briefly as she felt her mind opening itself up to a brand new system, interfacing with all its protocols and functions. There was security, of course, but Beck breezed past it. She came from a rough part of the city, and looked like it, but her cyberbrain augmentations were top-of-the-line, at least for the black market. She could perform trillions of calculations per second, enough to deal with all but the best encryption. In an instant, the system was hers. She only needed it for one thing: opening a window.

With the agility of a monkey, Beck clambered into the window. Just as expected, the room she found herself in was nothing more than a spare bedroom, dark and empty. With nothing more than a thought, Beck closed the window behind her and switched on the lights. It was easy, now that she’d tapped into the system. It was just like a rich corper to have everything integrated, despite how insecure it was. Beck grinned to herself. She wasn’t one to get cocky on the job, but so far everything had been going perfectly to plan. Beck crept out of the bedroom and looked around. From the detailed building plan she had downloaded to her memory she already knew where she was, but she’d learned the value of not taking anything for granted. She needed to find Aurelia’s office. It wasn’t marked as such on any of the intel she’d received, but she’d identified a few likely candidates. Fortunately, as far as she could tell the mansion was empty, so she had plenty of time to search. Beck made her way along the corridor and down the staircase to the first floor. As she did, she couldn’t help but marvel at her own surroundings. It was like she’d stepped into a previous century. The whole interior of the building was lined with real wood panels, the carpet on the floor was as soft as velvet, and the light fittings looked like they were covered with diamonds. The opulence was tasteful, though, rather than overwhelming. The degree of wealth it represented was obscene, yes, but Beck couldn’t help finding it beautiful as she walked down the magnificent staircase and into a large, high-ceilinged room dominated by a huge mahogany table with an open fireplace at one end.

As she was walking across the room, Beck froze.

She didn’t mean to freeze, and at first she thought it was some kind of instinctive response, or perhaps a consequence of her own distractedness. But no. She couldn’t move. She was held in place, mid-step, her muscles locked up and unresponsive. Surprise turned into confusion, turned into fear. This was very, very wrong. Beck focused all her energy on trying to lift just one foot, but she couldn’t. Something had paralyzed her from the neck down.

“Welcome!” announced a refined, feminine, authoritative voice. “I must admit, you’re earlier than I expected.”

The figure of a woman emerged from the doorway Beck had been heading towards. She was taller than Beck, which wasn’t hard—everyone was taller than Beck—but it wasn’t that which lent her such a domineering presence. She had a full figure and was wearing a floor-length yet revealing red dress, and she moved like someone who’d never needed to make space for anyone else in her life. Beck knew straight away who she was: Evelynn Aurelia.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Beck snarled. She knew that if Aurelia had been expecting her then she was almost certainly in extreme danger, but she also knew better than to show any fear.

“New tech,” Miss Aurelia replied. She made a small gesture with her hand, and the wood panels on the wall next to Beck slid away to reveal a set of emitters thrumming with energy. “A little something we’ve been working on. A disruptive energy frequency targeted at the cybernetic enhancements you have in your spine. It intercepts all the signals your cyberbrain is trying to send to your muscles. Quite effective, don’t you think?”

“Fuck you,” Beck spat. She hated everything Aurelia represented, from her arrogance to her educated, upper-crust accent.

Miss Aurelia just laughed. “I suppose you must be wondering how I knew you were coming?”

“Let me go, you fucking corper!” Beck screamed, but despite her defiance, she was curious.

“How eloquent,” Miss Aurelia commented. “Let me make it simple for you: you were being played.”

That took the wind out of Beck’s sails. “What?”

“Did you really think some dirtbag extranet hacker would have access to all that information about my personal dwelling? Please,” Miss Aurelia scoffed. “That information didn’t come from any hacker. It came from Glaxxo Integrated, one of SDQ Conglomerate’s main rivals.”

“Bullshit!” Beck spat. “I got that from Ajax! He’d never—”

“They got to him,” Ms Aurelia interrupted flatly. “Everyone has their weak points, little girl.” Beck snarled. “Even the people you think you can trust. He approached you about this job, didn’t he? Seemed rather eager, didn’t he? But you didn’t even question it.”

Beck was torn between blind panic and blind rage, but at the same time, she was desperately trying to figure out what was really going on. “But then, how did they…” she started to ask, even though she was already starting to piece it together.

“How did Glaxxo get the intel? Because I leaked it to them, of course. Not that they know that.” Miss Aurelia flashed a predatory grin, and approached closer to Beck. “It was so easy to leave out a couple of my more subtle security systems. I wanted to see if they’d believe it, and who they’d send, and how the information would travel. I’ve been tracking it all the way. It’s been very, very informative.”

“Fuck!” Beck exclaimed. “But… I…”

“You’re a pawn in a game, little girl,” Miss Aurelia told her, with no hint of sympathy. “Nothing more. The only question you need to be concerned with is: what happens to you now?”

“Either let me go or kill me,” Beck hissed, her voice defiant. “Just do it quick. I ain’t telling you shit.”

Maddeningly, Miss Aurelia just laughed again. Beck wanted to tear her throat out, but that desire only underscored how powerless she was. She was still straining to move, and still couldn’t. The feeling of her own body rebelling against her was the most disturbing thing she’d ever felt. “ But Beck—that is your name, isn’t it?—those are both just so boring! I can think of much more interesting things to do with you. Much more interesting. I could send you back as a double agent, for instance.”

“If you think I’d ever do anything for you, you’re stupid even for a corper,” Beck snorted.

“I know you wouldn’t. Not willingly, anyway.” There was a sudden threatening note in Miss Aurelia’s voice that sent a chill down Beck’s spine. Miss Aurelia approached even closer, until she was just inches away from Beck. At that distance, her presence was overpowering. All Beck could smell was her expensive perfume. The executive reached out to stroke a finger down Beck’s neck. The hacker girl hated that she couldn’t pull away. “But once I get in your head, I can make you do or think anything I want.”

“Just try it,” Beck spat, mustering all her defiance.

“Thank you, I will,” Miss Aurelia replied, sounding amused. With Beck still paralyzed, she was unable to stop the domineering woman reaching behind her and using her long, immaculately painted nails to pry open her cybernetic access node, at the back of her neck. Then, Miss Aurelia reached behind herself and extended a connection wire from her own implants. Beck grit her teeth. Aurelia was going to try and brainjack her. Beck was a good hacker, but she was under no illusions that it would be hard to hold out against someone who undoubtedly had a next-gen cyberbrain. She did her best to mentally prepare herself as Miss Aurelia jacked in to her.

The instant the connection was made, Beck felt a sharp, headache-inducing pressure in her skull, as well as a near-overwhelming flood of data as Miss Aurelia’s numerous and highly sophisticated attack programs started probing her defenses. Her security protocols responded in kind, rotating and randomizing all access routes to her core systems in order to keep the attackers at bay for as long as possible. Beck found herself struggling to keep up. Aurelia’s hacking capabilities were like nothing she’d ever seen before. They seemed to be constantly multiplying and evolving, trying to find new and innovative ways to circumvent all the barriers she was putting up. They seemed able to sink their digital claws into every little foothold they made in her mind, making it that much harder to resist the next assault. Eventually, though, Beck managed to fight her way to a stalemate. Even though she was visibly sweating and grunting with the exertion, she was able to look up and Miss Aurelia and give her a vicious, triumphant grin.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that, fuckface,” she said. “I ain’t no amateur. I don’t skimp on security.” It was true. When she’d just been starting out as a hacker, at thirteen, she’d witnessed another young hacker get their brain burned out by a corper who reverse-hacked them and overclocked all their heat-producing systems Not a nice way to go. That had impressed on Beck the importance of good-quality protection.

“You’re impressive, Beck, I have to admit,” Miss Aurelia said. Beck’s sense of triumph starting to feel hollow when she noticed that Miss Aurelia’s smile hadn’t diminished even by a hair. “Unfortunately for you, it won’t matter when you disable your security protocols for me.”

Beck laughed, but even to her ears she sounded a little nervous. “And why the fuck would I do that?”

“Oh, I didn’t say it would be voluntary,” Miss Aurelia replied threateningly.

“W-what do you mean?” Beck asked. She’d long since learned how important it was to trust her instincts, and at that moment, they were screaming at her.

“Brainjacking isn’t the only way to get into someone’s head, little girl.” Miss Aurelia started walking in a slow circle around Beck. “I have some low-tech ways of getting what I want.”

“Just tell me what the fuck you’re talking about!” Beck yelled. She hated that she couldn’t properly turn her head to follow Aurelia when the executive walked behind her.

“Hypnosis.”

Beck snorted. “You mean like out of old movies? That’s all bullshit, lady.”

Miss Aurelia gave a rich laugh. “I assure you, it isn’t. But I’m glad you think so. It’s much more convenient when no-one expects what I can do to them. Let me show you.”

Beck felt Miss Aurelia reach around from behind her and touch the fingertips of her index fingers to Beck’s forehead. Beck still didn’t really understand what she was trying to do, but out of instinct she did her best to squirm away. Since the most she could do was turn her head, however, escape was impossible.

“Get the fuck off of me!” Beck screamed, but to no avail. Like a skilled rider taming a wild animal, Miss Aurelia seemed completely indifferent to the way Beck was wildly jerking her head around, and was able to keep her hands exactly where she wanted them, resting lightly at the front of Beck’s head.

“Shh,” Miss Aurelia said, in a voice so soothing it became creepy. “There’s no use in fighting. Just relax.”

As she spoke, Miss Aurelia drew her hands back and apart, tracing a pair of lines across Beck’s forehead, from front to temple. She was touching the hacker so lightly that her fingertips were just barely grazing her skin. The motion seemed innocuous, but the effect it had on Beck was anything but. Beck felt a wave of warmth, a wave of tingling, wash across her skin and down her face. She got goosebumps all the way down to her fingertips. Suddenly, Aurelia’s touch was all she could think about. It was as though the way the corporate executive had touched her was so light, so gentle, and yet so precise, that her nerves couldn’t quite decide if she was being touched at all or not. Beck felt like her mind had momentarily short-circuited. Before she could re-orient herself, Miss Aurelia repeated the gesture, but further down her face. She touched both of her fingertips to the tip of Beck’s nose and then moved them apart again, touching Beck under her eyes and all along her cheekbones, breaking contact at the sides of her face. The effect on Beck was the same, but stronger. All of a sudden, the room before her was swimming before her unfocused eyes.

“W-what… are you doing to me?” Beck managed to say.

“I’m hypnotizing you,” Miss Aurelia answered matter-of-factly. “I’m stimulating sensitive patterns of nerves on your face. It causes an instinctive relaxation response. Intimate contact, if delivered in an appropriately skillful way, bypasses all your critical and higher-brain functions. You can’t fight it. Even me telling you this is priming your mind to respond just the way I want you to.”

“What… the fuck,” Beck murmured. She found that she was so off-kilter she could barely make sense of what she was hearing.

“It’s OK. Soon enough, it won’t matter if you understand or not.” Miss Aurelia touched Beck in the same way for the third time, this time at the bottom of her face, caressing her on both sides at once on her chin, and then tracing twin lines along her jawline and all the way back to the start of her neck. Again, Beck felt a strange, soporific feeling wash over her. She couldn’t fight it. She didn’t know how. She couldn’t focus for long enough to figure out what exactly she was even trying to fight. It was like a warm, smothering blanket had been placed over her mind, turning her thoughts to melted mush. Her body felt so weak. Beck hated feeling weak, and she hated even more that she was powerless to do anything about it. Next, Miss Aurelia touched her forehead again, but this time with only one fingertip. She ran her finger down Beck’s face this time, all the way between her eyebrows, over the bridge and tip of her nose, and across her slightly-parted lips, finishing at the tip of her chin. Once more, Beck found herself utterly fixated on Miss Aurelia’s touch. When the powerful, confident woman touched her, it stopped her thoughts in their tracks. This time, she even found her eyes naturally following the motion of Miss Aurelia’s hand. As she lowered her eyes to look down, she felt her eyelids becoming heavy and starting to fall shut. What little free thoughts Beck had left were starting to truly panic. What was happening to her?

“Sleep.”

As Miss Aurelia spoke the command, her voice full of iron authority, she moved her other hand directly in front of Beck’s face and, quick as a whip, snapped her fingers. To Beck, the combination of the sudden, sharp sound and the blunt, expectant command were dazzling. She felt like she’d been hit by a flash grenade, or like she’d just slammed back her tenth shot of tequila. Her eyes had blinked open and were now staring dead ahead, unable to move. Beck couldn’t move her head anymore either. Everything, every sound and everything she could see and feel, felt muted and distant, like she was at the bottom of a deep hole and peering out. But there was no stillness or tranquility in the quiet, just the fuzziness of sleep.

“Beck?” Miss Aurelia whispered in her ear. Her voice was quiet, soft and poisonously seductive. “Disable your security for me.”

Her words echoed around in Beck’s head, making it so hard for her to think about anything else. Disable her security? From what felt like a long, long way away, alarm bells were ringing, telling her that she shouldn’t. But why shouldn’t she? Beck found she couldn’t answer that question. It was so hard to think. Much too hard. Everything felt sluggish. The idea of trying to muster the energy to resist seemed simply exhausting, whereas obedience felt easy. Simple. Natural. Obedience didn’t require thought. Beck bowed to the gentle voice in her ear, and issued a neural command to disable all security protocols guarding access to her cyberbrain.

“Good,” Miss Aurelia whispered. “Now, wake up.”

She snapped her fingers in front of Beck’s face again, and Beck awoke. After a single moment of disorientation, memories of what had happened flooded back to her and filled her with horror. How could she have done that? How could she have been so stupid? It suddenly seemed so clear that she could hardly remember what it had felt like to be hypnotized, even though it was only seconds before. It felt like a dream. Beck cursed herself. Why hadn’t she fought harder? Why hadn’t she been able to remember what was going on? Then, she realized she didn’t have time for those questions. She was defenseless! The hacker did her best to reactivate her security protocols as quickly as she could, but the moment she tried, she felt the icy tendrils of Miss Aurelia’s attack programs extended deep into her mind, rendering her powerless. Anxiety formed a black pit in Beck’s stomach. She’d lost. She was completely in Miss Aurelia’s power. With her cyberbrain so completely exposed, there was almost nothing the corporate executive couldn’t do to her.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Miss Aurelia said sadistically, as she circled back around to look Beck in the face. “You’re not the first to fall victim to my hypnosis, and you won’t be the last. These days everyone’s so worried about getting hacked, they forget their more human vulnerabilities.”

The idea of begging for mercy crossed Beck’s mind, but she discarded it instantly. It just wasn’t in her nature, no matter how scared it was. “Fuck you!” she yelled, eyes smoldering with anger.

“Defiant to the last? That’s cute.” Miss Aurelia laughed indulgently. “But it won’t matter. You’re mine now. The only question left is: what should I do with you? After some thought, I don’t think I’ll use you as a double agent. It’s a little too obvious a ploy. No, I have another use for you in mind.”

“Oh yeah?” Beck asked, through gritted teeth. She could feel the older woman picking through her thoughts, getting a feel for how her mind worked, and it made her nauseous. “What’s that?”

“To satisfy some of my own… predilections.” The way she spoke the last word filled Beck with an even deeper sense of fear, which was only multiplied when Miss Aurelia reached out and started toying with a dirty strand of Beck’s red, unkempt hair.

“Go fuck yourself,” Beck growled.

Miss Aurelia ignored her. “You know, you look like quite the pretty young thing, underneath all that grime and all those rough edges. It’s a shame, really. So much missed potential. This hair, for instance. You really ought to take better care of it. In fact, why don’t I help you with that?”

For a moment Beck just blinked, confused. What was Aurelia talking about? But then, Miss Aurelia picked something up off the table and held it in front of her face. It was a mirror. Beck found herself staring at her own face. She looked as she always did, except a little angry and stressed. Her hair was as it always was: red, about shoulder length, and completely untidy, full of knots and grime. As the seconds passed, Beck found herself more and more fixated on her own hair. She couldn’t figure out why, but for some reason it was bothering her. Beck never cared much about her own appearance but she could be a little compulsive about other things, and her hair was starting to irritate her. It was just so untidy and disorderly. The more she noticed it the more it bothered her, and the more it bothered her the more she noticed it. It was like an itch, and the urge to scratch it was growing and growing.

“You can move,” Miss Aurelia said, as if she knew what Beck was thinking. “Just as long as you don’t do anything unwise. In fact, we don’t need this anymore. You’re integrated into my wireless network.” She removed her jack cable from Beck’s implant.

Movement returned to Beck’s limbs, but she didn’t try to run or lash out. Instead her hands shot to her head, and she started re-arranging her hair. She couldn’t help it. The compulsion had become as irresistible as gravity. Beck started raking her fingers back across her head, trying to pull out all the little knots and force all her annoying tufts into a more orderly arrangement. The feeling of being able to finally scratch her itch was as gratifying as she’d thought, but it wasn’t enough.

“Here.” Beck looked, and saw that Miss Aurelia was offering her a comb. She snatched it greedily, and started combing her hair. She almost moaned with pleasure and relief as she felt the comb’s teeth across her scalp, doing a better job of fixing her hair than her fingers ever could. Beck kept combing her hair for minutes, longer than she ever had before in her life. She felt a sudden perfectionist urge about it. Her hair needed to be neat. Every red strand needed to be in its place. She had to look good. It was only once she was finished and the compulsion subsided that she realized what had happened. Aurelia had done something to her. It was only explanation. Beck felt confused and violated in equal measure. She shot Miss Aurelia a filthy look, and caught sight of herself in the mirror as she did. She barely looked like the same girl. Even though only her hair had changed, she looked so neat and proper. Part of her wanted to mess up her own hair again, just out of spite, but she couldn’t bring herself to.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she hissed. “You’re one sick piece of shit!”

Miss Aurelia giggled. “Now, now! That’s no way for a princess to talk.”

Beck looked at her in disgust. The way she said ‘princess’ made her stomach do butterflies. “I’m no fucking princess.”

“I suppose I’ll have to help you with that too.”

This time, Beck was able to pick up on it—the slightly fuzziness she felt as a new piece of code was downloaded into her brain, against her will. It made her so angry that she couldn’t stop it. “What the f—”

Just as Beck opened her mouth to swear, she froze. It was like the word was caught in her throat, or like her tongue was refusing to make the right shape. She tried again, but this time it was even worse. She couldn’t remember the word. She knew it had been there, she was conscious of its absence, but she couldn’t quite grasp it no matter how hard she tried. It had been deleted from her memory. Beck searched for another piece of profanity she could use to express her anger, but every word that occurred to her slipped elusively out of her mental grasp before she could even begin to voice it. For as long as she could remember Beck had been able to swear as colorfully as a sailor, but now all that was gone.

“That’s better, isn’t it, princess?” Miss Aurelia asked her, eyes shining with mirth.

“W-what’s all this ‘princess’… stuff?’ Beck asked, momentarily tripping up on her own inability to use profanity.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Miss Aurelia replied, a shark-like grin on her face. “Suffice it to say, I’ll be keeping you from now on. Like a pet. And since you are such a pretty little thing, I think it’ll be fun to see what you’re like when I’ve got you all cleaned up and dressed nicely and behaving like a good girl. When you’re just like a pretty princess.”

“Y-you can’t.” That prospect was somehow more terrifying than almost any other fate Beck had imagined.

“Don’t worry, princess.” Miss Aurelia reached out to stroke Beck’s chin. The hacker girl found she couldn’t pull away. “I’ve seen you looking at all the nice things I have around my house. Soon, you’ll be just like that: a nice, pretty, expensive-looking ornament. I promise you, you’ll enjoy it. I’ll make you.”

Beck’s mouth was dry. She swallowed with an awkward gulp.

“Your hair is looking so pretty already,” Miss Aurelia continued. “It needs a real wash, of course, but that can come later. What’s next? Clothes, I think. A princess needs some finery to look the part, don’t you agree?”

Beck just glared viciously at her. Without the ability to swear, she couldn’t think of a retort venomous enough to capture what she was feeling.

“Let’s start by getting all this off.” Ignoring her reaction, Miss Aurelia held up her right hand and snapped her fingers. The instant she did, Beck’s body came to life. Entirely against her volition, she reached up and shrugged her prize battle jacket off over her shoulders, and then reached down to pull her tank top off over her hand. All she had on underneath was an unpretentious black bralette, and soon she’d removed that too, leaving her naked above the waist. Next, Beck unzipped her pants and let them fall to the floor, and kicked them aside. The feeling of her own body being puppeted by someone else was beyond unnerving. Beck had seen it done before, and had sworn to take whatever precautions she needed to take to stop it happening to her. Her security, though, had proved worthless, and so she was completely unable to stop herself slipping out of her underwear, leaving herself standing naked before Miss Aurelia. The corporate executive let her stand like that, silent and motionless, inspecting her body with naked enjoyment on her face. Beck wished she could cover herself, even just with her hands, but Aurelia had locked her limbs to her sides. Discomfort at her own nudity was another unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling. Beck never usually cared who saw her body. In front of Miss Aurelia, though, she didn’t feel like herself. Maybe it was the fact that her hair was different. Suddenly, she felt like she had something to be self-conscious about.

“Oh, you’re going to make such a perfect princess,” Miss Aurelia purred. “So many possibilities… let’s see. I think green would be just your colour. A nice emerald would set off your hair perfectly. I have just the thing! I think it’ll be just your size.”

Miss Aurelia turned away from Beck and walked into a different room, leaving Beck alone for a moment. When she returned, she was carrying a hanger, from which was hanging the most extravagant piece of clothing Beck had ever seen. It was a floor-length emerald green dress that looked to be made of the softest, finest silk imaginable. Beck’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of it. She couldn’t even begin to guess at the price tag. It looked like it could be an antique, something worn by the queens and courtly ladies of centuries past. It had an intricate lace trim at the collar and at the ends of the flared sleeves, and a golden ribbon that was woven between two sides of the dress all the way down the front, fastening it together like a corset. The skirt portion of the dress flared enormously, and seemed to be composed of many layers, each carefully set atop the one below. Beck couldn’t ever imagine wearing something like that.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Miss Aurelia took the dress off the hanger, and started walking around behind Beck. “I can’t wait to see how it looks on you.”

“Get away from me,” Beck growled. She didn’t want to find out what Miss Aurelia was going to do to her after she made her wear the dress.

Once again, Miss Aurelia ignored her protests. Beck heard her unzip the dress, and then felt her own body lurch into motion. Her arms lifted themselves straight up, allowing Miss Aurelia to slip the dress on over her head. Beck’s first impression of it was of the smothering weight of all that fabric. As the layers settled across her body, smoothed into place by Miss Aurelia’s hands, she started to realize how constraining it was. There was no way she’d be able to run in the dress. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to breathe properly. Beck had never worn something so intricate and heavy; she liked to be able to move. It was practically a necessity, in her line of work. In Miss Aurelia’s dress, as beautiful as she had to admit it was, she felt suffocated. The feeling improved, though, when Miss Aurelia knelt behind her and started arranging the folds of her skirt, and then stood and zipped up the dress at the back. With that, the weight of the garment rested less heavily on Beck’s shoulders, and it almost felt like she was being given a tight hug, especially when her captor started lacing together the corset portion of the dress at the front. Miss Aurelia tied it so tight it pinched her waist and pushed all the air out of her lungs, until she could only take small breaths that made her light-headed. Not only that, the many layers of fabric made the dress incredibly warm, and it wasn’t long before Beck was feeling dizzy and faint.

“There!” Miss Aurelia announced, a touch of pride in her voice. “Here, take a look, and tell me what you think.”

She held up the mirror again, and Beck’s eyes went wide at the sigh of her own reflection. At first, she quite literally didn’t recognize herself. She’d never worn a dress before, and she’d never seen what one could do to her body. The way it pinched at the waist but flared out into a huge skirt accentuated her feminine features to an incredible degree. It even managed to make her small chest look impressive. Her tattoos were completely covered. With her hair all neat and without her usual punk garb, it was like all her rough edges had been sanded off. She didn’t look like a girl who’d grown up rough, fighting for survival. She looked like a girl who’d been pampered every day of her life.

“It’s… it’s…” Beck’s face contorted awkwardly as she struggled to put into words what the sight of herself in the emerald dress was making her feel.

“You love it,” Miss Aurelia whispered.

Beck blinked rapidly for a few seconds as her head filled with static. She was about to say something indignant in response, but the protest died in her throat. Suddenly, she was transfixed by the sight of her own reflection. She started turning and tilting her head slightly, to view herself at slightly different angles. She looked beautiful. She hadn’t realized it at first due to the stress of the situation, but now that she had, there was no other word for it. Beck looked beautiful. Her eyes darted across different parts of her own body as she admired herself: the gentle swell of her breasts, the exaggerated curve of her waist, the incredible flare of her hips. Beck’s cheeks started to burn as she blushed faintly at how feminine, how pretty, and how enticing she looked. She’d become like the models she saw on billboards: artificial and ornamental. Beck struggled to articulate why that idea made her tingle. At the same time, she looked like an elegant debutante from a previous century, and the idea of being wrapped up in such elegance and extravagance was breathtaking. She felt treasured. It wasn’t just the way she looked. Beck couldn’t stop noticing how soft the silk was against her skin. She’d never felt anything so gentle, so wonderful. She wanted to lose herself in the sensation forever.

“Why do I feel this way?” Beck breathed. She knew Miss Aurelia must have done something to her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was so hard to think.

“Because,” Miss Aurelia whispered again, “deep down, you’ve always wanted this.”

Again, Beck blinked, thrown off balance by the burst of static. What was she talking about. Of course she hadn’t always wanted it! Hadn’t she? Suddenly, Beck wasn’t so sure. It would seem to explain why she was finding wearing the dress so inexplicably pleasurable. Still, though, Miss Aurelia suggestion bothered her. It didn’t seem right. But it was like a thick fog had descended on her memories, making it hard for her to feel any amount of confidence in her convictions. When the fog cleared, she found herself reminiscing about things that she hadn’t thought about in a long time. She remembered long childhood hours spent staring up at a screen, watching old movies set in even older times, being amazed by all the fancy, expensive outfits the women were wearing. She remembered longing for clothing like that of her own. She remembered how crushed she’d been when she’d been told how far out of reach that was. Finding those memories was like dusting off an old book, then turning the pages to find that the words were all strangely familiar. Were they real? Beck tried to tell herself that they were fake. Intellectually, she knew that it was trivial for Miss Aurelia to fill her memory banks with whatever she liked, real or fake. But in her gut, she couldn’t make herself believe it. The memories felt just too real. Her head warred with her heart, until she felt like she was splitting in two. Beck didn’t know what to believe.

“You… you’re doing this to me!” Beck said, as much to herself as to Miss Aurelia.

“Is that so?” The executive laughed.

“You’re messing with my head?” Beck tried to sound firm, but it came out more like a question than a statement.

“My princess.” Miss Aurelia shook her head sympathetically. “So silly. If I’m in your head, who knows what’s real and what’s not? How do you know your name is really your name? How do you know you are who you think you are? How do you know how you really got here? It could all be real, it could all be fake.”

I… that’s….” The enormity of what Aurelia was suggesting was too much for Beck to wrap her addled mind around. It couldn’t all be fake. Could it?

“So,” her captor continued, grinning from ear to ear. “What choice do you have but to trust your instinct. Ask yourself: what seems real? What feels real? What does your heart tell you?”

Beck nodded slowly. If there was one thing Beck had learned in her years as a hacker, it was the importance of trusting her gut. She was loathe to accept a corper’s advice about anything, but it made sense. It was about the only thing that made sense. Besides, no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t get Miss Aurelia’s words out of her head. She’d always wanted this. Always. The desire had been buried so deep she hadn’t even been aware of it, but that didn’t make it any less real. What she was feeling was proof of that. When Beck looked at her reflection again, the swell of emotion she felt was almost overwhelming. Seeing herself in a dress like that was like a dream come true. All thoughts of escape or resistance fled her mind. All she could think about was how pretty she looked.

“Do you like it, princess?” Miss Aurelia asked.

Beck nodded absently, too dumbstruck to speak.

“Well then, what do you say?” Miss Aurelia wheedled.

That brought Beck back to Earth a little. As off-balance as she was, she wasn’t about to thank a corper for anything. “Get lost,” she replied lamely, unable to say anything more vicious.

“Now now, princess,” Miss Aurelia warned, although she sounded more sadistic than irritated. “You need to learn some manners.”

Beck was about to issue another retort, but she paused when another burst of static hit her, and when she opened her mouth all that came out was: “Thank you.” Beck frowned. That didn’t seem right, but she couldn’t think of anything else that she might have been about to say.

“Thank you what?” Miss Aurelia prompted.

“Thank you, Miss Aurelia,” Beck replied. It seemed only natural to address the corporate executive properly.

“That’s better. Now, what do you say for being so rude earlier?”

Again, Beck felt the urge to say something cutting, but that urge was immediately overwhelmed by a pang of contrition. Miss Aurelia had just given her a gift. Not just any gift; the best gift she’d ever received. How could she have been so ungrateful? Despite the circumstances, Beck knew she needed to keep to a certain level of basic decency. “I’m sorry, Miss Aurelia.”

“Good girl.” Beck shivered involuntarily at the praise, as an unfamiliar pleasure rippled across her skin and gave her goosebumps. She was so confused she couldn’t remember if feeling like that was right or wrong. She remembered being bitterly angry at Miss Aurelia, but she couldn’t reconcile that feeling with the sense of overwhelming gratitude she now felt. The only thing she could remember clearly was that she needed to escape, but she was starting to lose sight of why.

“What next, what next?” Miss Aurelia pondered. “Makeup, perhaps. Every princess needs makeup.”

“I’m not… a princess,” Beck insisted, pausing awkwardly as she recalled Miss Aurelia’s words and realized she couldn’t even be sure of that.

Miss Aurelia chucked. “Of course not, princess,” she said, her voice thick with condescension. Uncharacteristically, Beck blushed again. She felt like a child being reprimanded by an adult, even though as a kid she’d never really cared what adults had to say to her. She felt embarrassed disagreeing with Miss Aurelia, especially in her own home. “Now, let me get something for you.”

Beck was left alone again, as Miss Aurelia left the room. This time, when she returned she was carrying a small bag in one hand and a damp beauty sponge in the other. She handed the sponge to Beck, who took it automatically, and then started rooting around in the bag for a case of foundation. She gave that to Beck too, who then found herself holding two things she’d never used in her entire life. Beck had never seen the need for makeup, and had always found the idea of it actively inconvenient. She’d never felt ashamed of that before, but she found herself cringing at her own lack of experience.

“I don’t know how,” she admitted quietly. Deep down, she didn’t know shy she was so embarrassed. Deep down, a defiant little voice inside her was questioning why she felt so obliged to go along with Miss Aurelia’s suggestions, but a further burst of static in her head silenced it.

“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Miss Aurelia said, smiling maliciously. “It’s only natural, for a princess.”

Beck was about to ask her what she meant when she was hit by another dizzying burst of static, right on the heels of the first. This one was powerful enough that, for a moment, Beck went staggering completely off-balance. Up became down, down became up, and she would have fallen over if not for Miss Aurelia kindly reaching out a hand to steady her. Beck realized she wasn’t sure when Miss Aurelia had restored her ability to move freely, and then realized that at some point she’d forgotten that Miss Aurelia had been keeping her paralyzed. But that thought was obliterated an instant later when her head filled itself with new data and new skills. All of a sudden, she knew exactly what to do with the objects in her hand, and with many more items of makeup too. She had all the knowledge of an expert. The breadth and depth of her new expertise was dazzling. How did she know all this? The possibility that it was Miss Aurelia’s doing occurred to her, but it seemed somehow unconvincing. Instead, just like before, she started uncovering memories that supported a different story. She remembered watching old movies and admiring not just the characters’ clothing, but their polished, elaborate makeup too. She remembered many hours spent in front of the mirror, painstakingly applying cheap makeup only to rub it off and start again, seeking to become better and better, until makeup routines became second-nature to her. Beck glanced at her reflection in the mirror Miss Aurelia was once again holding up for her. Suddenly, it bothered her. Her face was wrong. She wasn’t wearing makeup. That wasn’t right. She always wore makeup. Without it, it was like all the tiny little imperfections in her face were screaming at her. Beck felt naked, more naked than she had moments ago, when she’d been about to put on the emerald dress.

“Oh!” Beck blushed, and turned her face aside in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Miss Aurelia.”

“That’s OK, princess.” Beck couldn’t help but smile a little. She didn’t like being called ‘princess’, but she was glad that Miss Aurelia was being so indulgent towards her foolishness. She knew she needed to return the kindness by making herself properly presentable. As quickly as she could without rushing, Beck dabbed the beauty sponge into the foundation to pick up some powder, and then started applying it to her face with practiced ease. “There, isn’t that better?” Miss Aurelia asked.

Beck nodded.

“Of course.” Miss Aurelia nodded along with her. “A princess must always look her best.”

There was another burst of static, quickly forgotten. “A princess must always look her best,” Beck echoed. She couldn’t stop thinking about those words. They stuck in her head like a catchy song, or like a mantra. “A princess must always look her best,” she repeated again, with religious reverence. She didn’t know why that idea felt so important to her. She wasn’t anybody’s princess, was she?

“That’s right,” Miss Aurelia said encouragingly. “A princess must always look her best. Keep going.”

“A princess must always look her best,” Beck echoed, as she finished covering her face with powder, smoothing out all her small blemishes and scars.

“A princess must always look her best,” Beck repeated, as she took the lipstick Miss Aurelia offered her, and used it to paint her lips, giving herself a pronounced, sultry Cupid’s bow.

“A princess must always look her best,” Beck intoned, as she deftly lined her eyes with shadow and liner, before touching up her lashes with mascara. The words were burned into her brain, and become more and more powerful with each repetition.

“Good girl,” Miss Aurelia cooed. Again, her praise filled Beck’s body with pleasure. “Take a look, princess. What do you think?”

Beck looked at herself in the mirror, and what she saw made her shiver. She didn’t recognize herself, not even slightly. Her makeup was so perfectly smooth that she looked more like a mannequin or a doll than a person. Moreover, she looked beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. Beck almost didn’t believe it was her in the mirror. She’d never known she could look that way, even though it was all she’d ever wanted. The hair, the dress, everything. The sight of herself looking so pretty made her chest swell with so much emotion she was brought to the brink of tears. Yet at the same time, she felt suddenly rootless and uncertain. Beck literally didn’t recognize herself. She didn’t know the doll-like girl staring back at her. She didn’t know what to think about herself. Her memories were of little help. They offered nothing more than a confusing mess of different feelings about her current situation, and beyond that, a discordant clash of radically different memories. One set told her that she’d been a rough, tomboyish child. The other told her that she’d been girlish to a fault, constantly wishing she was more beautiful and that she had the kinds of nice, expensive things she only saw in memories. She didn’t know which memories to believe. There wasn’t much more she could be certain about than her own name. Her sense of existential anxiety grew and grew, and she felt angry with herself that she couldn’t simply be happy that Miss Aurelia had given her such nice things.

“Oh princess, what’s wrong?” Miss Aurelia asked, noticing her discomfort. Beck was touched by her concern.

For some reason, Beck latched on to the word ‘princess’. Miss Aurelia calling her that was about the only constant she could remember. “Princess… is that me, Miss Aurelia?”

“Yes, princess,” Miss Aurelia told her, grinning.

“Oh.” Beck blinked again, to clear her head of static. She couldn’t remember why that title had bothered her just a few moments before. The thought of it was starting to make her feel warm, safe and treasured. “But—”

“But what, princess?” Miss Aurelia asked. Beck couldn’t help but smile a little, despite her anxiety.

“I’m sorry, Miss Aurelia. It just doesn’t feel right,” Beck admitted, eyes downcast. Once again, she felt embarrassed at her own rudeness.

“Well, we can’t have that for you, can we, princess?” Miss Aurelia gently ran the back of her hand along Beck’s cheek. “Would you like me to fix that for you?”

Beck looked up at Miss Aurelia hopefully. “How, Miss Aurelia?”

“I can take everything else away,” Miss Aurelia said simply.

Beck’s first reaction was a sense of gut revulsion, but it was quickly swept away by a great sense of gratitude and temptation. Miss Aurelia’s generosity continued to astound her. She didn’t understand why Miss Aurelia was being so kind, or how she could possibly repay her. Regardless of that, the idea of being rid of her anxiety and confusion was almost impossibly tempting. Somehow the idea of letting Miss Aurelia ‘take everything else away’ aroused some near-forgotten instinct warning her against danger, but Beck wasn’t sure she cared anymore. She was so tired of having to keep asking herself who she was and what she wanted. She wanted it to end. She wanted all the difficult thinking to end.

“I… yes.” Once she said that one word, it became easier. “Please, Miss Aurelia.”

“Then it’s done.”

As Miss Aurelia spoke, Beck’s head filled with such intense static that it became all she could see, think or feel. It was like she could feel the energy of it thrumming through her body. When the static cleared, she felt a sudden sense of tranquility. It was a like a fresh breeze had blown right through her, refreshing her and clearing away everything that didn’t matter. She sighed in happy relief. Everything had become so simple. She no longer needed to doubt anything. She knew who she was. She was Princess.

“Is that better, Princess?” Miss Aurelia asked her.

“Yes, Miss Aurelia,” Princess answered, bowing her head slightly as she spoke. Courtesy was vital for a princess, especially to her mistress.

“I’m so glad.” Miss Aurelia reached out to her and used her hand to slightly tilt up her chin, looking her in the eyes. “You look even prettier than I’d expected.”

“Thank you, Miss Aurelia,” Princess replied, blushing faintly. Nothing could be more important to her than her mistress’s praise.

“What do you remember?” Miss Aurelia asked her.

Princess searched her memory for a moment. “Nothing,” she answered without hesitation. The thought didn’t trouble her. She knew she didn’t need to remember anything. A princess didn’t need to remember anything. She had more important things to worry about. A princess must always look her best.

“Excellent.” Miss Aurelia licked her lips, as if she was enjoying pondering what she might do next. “Now, princess, run along upstairs to my bedroom. I still have much more to do to you before you’re perfect, but unfortunately I have a little business to take care of first.”

“Of course, Miss Aurelia.” Princess trembled at the thought, but she maintained her composure, just like a good princess. “I do hope it’s nothing troublesome.”

“Not really. A hacker came by here earlier, trying to get at some of my secrets.”

“Oh.” Princess felt faintly perturbed by the thought. “Are they gone now?”

Miss Aurelia’s grin widened, becoming almost manic. “Oh yes. Completely.”