The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Ronin’

(mc, f/f, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS: A motorcycle mechanic meets a strange biker who changes her life.

* * *

‘Ronin’ Part One

Tarri pushed her tongue stud against her teeth and urged the Triumph into fifth. Sheriff Clarke had warned her against topping a hundred twenty, but she’d fixed up his Gold Wing last week and anyway it was eight o’clock and he was probably already staking out the tweakers on the far side of town. The road was level for miles, the sun was already behind the mountains but the light was fine to see by, and there wasn’t a car in sight.

And the speed just felt so damned good.

The blacktop blurred by; the Bott dots they’d installed (in little grooves so the snowplows didn’t just pop them off) were a solid line of white reflection. Tarri was tense but it was a good tense, a ready tense, the coiled concentration of the lioness. The tension that one only got on a good bike moving at well over a hundred miles an hour.

She was coming up on the Wy Hollow bridge and shifted down, letting the air brake her before using the real brakes, ninety, seventy, fifty; the Z-shaped jag on the west side of the bridge had claimed speeders’ lives since a week after it went up in nineteen fifty eight. During the four weeks of the year that Wy Creek had water in it, that water had eaten at the eastern bank, leaving a cliff face about twenty feet high, and it was cheaper to build a flat bridge, a ninety degree turn, and a sideways ramp than it was to just have the bridge be higher at one end than the other.

The Triumph purred around the corner, and Tarri opened it up on the ramp, leaning in tight as she took the second ninety degree turn at the top, kneepad dusting the asphalt and then she was up again and away, seventy, ninety, over the century mark.

A bug murdered itself against her facemask and she laughed, crouched down atop her beast, rocket between her legs.

The hills were coming closer now, purple in the gathering dark. Highway seventy nine ran straight to them and curled north, snuggling up against their broken dry spine, headed north to Yellowstone. Tarri would turn around before then, or maybe take Nine Mile Road back across the Wy up north, then down through the farms of the valley to Haney Lane and home. It was a decision easily postponed.

Tarri felt a touch of surprise to see headlights approaching. Four of them: two cars. Not many locals out here, not after suppertime. Tourists most likely, or someone from the northwest headed for Casper, some gas well technician headed for the airport and his flight back to Chicago or LA.

She calmed her beast, down to eighty, seventy-five. Give them a thrill as she blew past on her bright blue steed.

But it wasn’t cars at all.

The headlights came at her and they were bikes, four singles; and they came fast. Tarri’s seventy-five was matched by more, much more, racing speed, flying speed.

The first bike shot by like a bullet, a snapping blur of black. A heartbeat, and then three more, cracking by like jets, cherry red even in the dwindling light, a tight formation of crouched figures.

When she saw that the headlights were bikes, Tarri had expected Harleys. But racers? Here?

She braked hard, streaking the street, swinging her back wheel around in a tight arc.

And launched her rocket after them.

This was risky now, crazy—they could be anyone, and Clint might let Tarri off with a sigh and a warning but he couldn’t ignore a pack of racers, not at a hundred and... hundred and... fifty? Sixty? Holy shit, these boys were crazy!

Tarri laughed out loud.

She wanted to see their bikes now, the wonderful engines they were straddling, fine machines operating at precise tolerances... BMW maybe? Ducati? No, probably something Japanese...

But catching up to them close enough to see, in this light, would be stupid. The three in back, leathers as red as their bikes, were in a close formation; something they must have practiced for hours, or they were stupid. Your own death at a hundred and seventy was a shame, but taking out your friends would be unforgivable.

But they had to slow soon, because the Wy and the bridge and the paired ninety degree turns were approaching. The lead bike, the black one, suddenly lit up its brake light, glowing like a red eye in the twilight. Tarri, a quarter mile behind the pack, slowed as well, not braking, coasting down. She wasn’t in this race, it was their affair. Didn’t need to get too close. She just wanted to see.

The pack didn’t slow. They drew up on the decelerating lead bike and there were sudden flashes of light, bright pops like they were taking pictures-

-or firing guns.

Holy shit.

Tarri braked, hard, and took the Triple off the road to the right. Her interest in catching up to the racers had done a complete one-eighty, and now she wished that Clint was here, because this was well beyond anything even street racers should be doing.

There were more flashes; apparently the black rider hadn’t gone down. On second thought, the flashes didn’t look like gunfire, more like electric arc, MIG welding bursts—what the fuck were they doing?

Then all three bikes were breaking, hard, but only the black bike was going slow enough to lie down to the right and turn hard, and the black racer disappeared down the slope but the red racers went past and over, down the dirt scree into the dry pebble bed of Wy Creek.

Stillness dropped like a curtain.

Tarri took off her helmet, killed the engine, and listened.

One motorcycle, accelerating. So the black rider was still on the road, and leaving fast.

It had been a pursuit.

Tarri waited. She ought to turn around, ought to head further out seventy nine and make the loop. Ought not ride up to the gulch and see what had become of the red riders.

Then engine sound. Engines, and then lights; one, two, three headlamps up out of the gulch, a cloud of dust visible in the twilight as they scrabbled onto the road. Tarri was impressed with their skill, they must have been doing fifty as they hit the downslope, on road bikes, but here they were back again, and not lying in a heap...

They stopped at the top. Tarri realized with a start that she had left her headlight on.

As one, the racers started towards her.

She wasn’t a fucking deer in the headlights. Tarri scrambled her brain—she couldn’t get started and get away, not in the thirty seconds it would take for them to reach her. But she wasn’t their prey, she was obviously someone else. Although in the dark, a figure in leathers on a sportbike...

Tarri flexed her fingers in her gloves, and watched them come.

They slowed down, engines revving. Red leathers, sleek, cherry red bikes. Red-tinted helmet glass, almost black in the thickening shadows. They were leaned back, sitting up, each with one hand on the bars and the other pointing something at Tarri. One of them held something that looked like a cross between a radar gun and a power drill. One of them held a big-barreled black thing that looked like a sawed-off hunting rifle. And one of them held a black nine millimeter Beretta, like the one Tarri had in her nightstand at home.

They rolled up to her, guns out, helmets slowly turning as one.

Tarri stared back at them.

BMW K2100s, nice bikes, high end. Faster than Tarri’s Speed Triple and a decade newer. Custom paint, that bright red. Matching leathers.

Then they turned around, tight synchronized arcs. The guns went into holsters on the bikes; as one, they revved engines and accelerated back towards the bridge.

Tarri watched as they slowed well before the turn, this time, then vanished around the corner, down the slope. Listened as they turned again onto the bridge proper, then punched it down the straightaway.

What the fuck?

Tarri listened to the sound of their engines die away. She eased out onto the road, cruised down to the curves, and headed across the bridge. She didn’t punch it; speed would have been distracting. Not even fifty-five, just thirty, just barely moving as she let her thoughts cascade.

Mostly she kept coming back to a variation on ‘what the fuck?’.

The three in red had been chasing the one in black. And when they had drawn up alongside, because he’d slowed down to make the curve, they’d fired those guns at him. But why not earlier? Bullets travel faster than motorcycles. If they’d wanted to kill him... so they didn’t want to kill him. They wanted to catch him. So what were those big boxy gun-things? And who the fuck were they, the red riders and the black-

It was too dark to have seen it, but something flashed and Tarri saw it anyways, just for a second, just because she was moving so slowly. Oil on the road or a scuff of gravel, she didn’t know, but something was suddenly there, telling her to stop.

Tarri revved down and pulled over. She pulled her helmet off again, and the sudden quiet rushed at her—the ticking of her hot engine, the low brushing of the wind, an owl in the middle distance. She closed her eyes and felt the adrenaline tingling in her fingers, heating her heart.

She swung her leg over the bike and crunched down along the roadside gravel. There. Fresh wheel tracks in the dirt. Tarri knelt down and pushed a finger into them; fat, round road tires. Not an off-road bike. Squinting, she tried to see where they went, but it was too dark.

She tried to remember the sound of the black bike as it left the bridge, how far it had gotten, but those memories were all of the red riders appearing over the lip and looking at her.

There was a flashlight—but no gun—in her saddlebags. She popped one open and pulled out the Mag-Lite, but its weight failed to give her the usual reassurance. Tarri clicked her stud past her teeth a few times, then flicked the flashlight on and walked out into the field.

It was dirt and low scrub, and the bike tracks were easy to spot in the light. Tarri followed them thirty feet out, fifty, and she began to wonder if this was pointless, if the black rider had simply driven off across the playa.

Then the bike went down—or rather, the tracks did, a broad scuff of dirt and stones. Tarri rolled the light around. There: the tracks led away from the lie-down, but now there were footprints alongside them.

Footprints in heels.

What kind of biker wore heels?

Holy shit, the black rider was a woman?

And even then—what kind of biker wore heels?

She was a strong one though, pushing several hundred pounds of motorcycle through this dirt. Again Tarri considered stopping, not meeting this crazy person who was probably armed and very determined not to be discovered by his or her pursuers.

Then her flashlight hit the dark, reflective bulk of the bike.

It was on its side, a jet black Ducati Monster, this year’s model. Tarri couldn’t see an immediate cause of failure—no bullet holes, for instance, no leaking gas—but she’d have to get into it to really look. She touched the engine and felt the heat through her glove. It had been a long ride before this bike had even been close to where Tarri met it.

She stood up and slid the flashlight beam around. The body was lying fifteen feet away, face down.

Sleek black leathers, helmet still on. Not leaking fluid, either—and breathing, Tarri saw with a surprising burst of relief. Gingerly, she knelt down and tugged at the helmet. It came up but then halted; there were cords holding it to the jacket. Tarri fumbled at them and saw they had jacks, unplugged them, and then lifted the helmet away.

It was a woman.

A beautiful one.

Tarri rolled her over onto her back.

Dark hair, a little wavy, clipped short. Fair skin, with a light spray of freckles across the nose and under her eyes, which remained closed.

Now what?

Tarri took her gloves off, gingerly pulled open one of the woman’s eyes. It was rolled up, out cold. Drugged? Concussed? But the helmet was fine. Drugged then. She could be out for hours.

She was ridiculously beautiful.

Tarri put that aside. Take her to the hospital? But Casper was miles away. Call up Clint and have him... what?

And the red riders could, and probably would, come back. Possibly soon.

Tarri stood up. There were lights on the road, and she clicked off the flashlight. But it was a car. It slowed as it passed her bike, but didn’t stop.

She turned the flashlight back on, and walked back towards the road. She’d fetch the truck, then, and come back. Shouldn’t take that long, and she could pick up both the woman and her Monster. Leaving nothing for the red riders but tire tracks in the dirt. Assuming that they didn’t return, didn’t see the tracks in the dark, in the forty minutes it would take Tarri to get home and back.

In the event, it was almost an hour; Clint pulled her over doing seventy-eight as she skirted Three Sticks. He let her off with (another) warning, but when she came back through in the truck she had to stick with forty all the way past the town. Son of a bitch grinned at her and waved as she drove by. Didn’t he have a meth lab to bust?

Even so, the black rider was still there when she got back.

* * *

She really was gorgeous. Skin like wax (freckles on top), round cheekbones, pointed-but-not-too chin. Aside from her nose, which was thin through the bridge but rounded at the end, she was supermodel gorgeous. Definitely one of the prettiest women Tarri had ever seen in person.

She was laid out on Tarri’s guest bed. The room had been her uncle’s, but he’d passed away three years ago and left Tarri the house and some worthless land in Nebraska. She’d sold the land for tools and opened her shop in the garage. Since she’d been living with Uncle Hank since her mother threw her out, she hadn’t even needed to move.

The woman was still in her leathers, which were about as form-fitting as real leathers could be; had Tarri seen her in broad daylight, and at a combined speed of less than two hundred miles an hour, she would have seen instantly that the black rider wasn’t a man. The leathers were high-end, like the bike, deerhide with kevlar plating. Custom tailored, too, they way they melted around those curves. Tarri couldn’t have afforded them; they probably cost more than her bike. Back when it was new.

Normally she would have taken the leathers off—sleeping in leathers was no comfort—but something—the woman’s beauty, the overall weirdness of the situation—kept her from doing so. She’d simply stretched her guest out on the bed, pillow under her head, helmet on the nightstand.

Tarri had peeled out of her own leathers as soon as she’d laid the woman down and seen that she wasn’t close to waking up. Now she was in t-shirt and sweats, staring down uncertainly at the stranger passed out on her guest bed.

Finally, Tarri decided to have a look at the bike. Bikes, unlike women, she understood.

It was a Ducati Monster S4Rs Testastretta, no more than six months old. Beautiful bike, black high-gloss paint and gleaming naked engine. Fifteen grand and that was before any of the aftermarket tinkering. Tarri rolled it down the ramp from her truck bed to the center of the garage floor. Andy White’s Buell would have to wait for the morning; tonight belonged to this beauty.

Nothing seemed wrong with it, but it didn’t even try to start. Tarri fetched the Ducati manual—and blew dust off it, she hadn’t actually worked on one since two summers ago at a meet in St. Louis—and pulled out her metric tools.

Two hours later, she looked up and smeared oil on her cheek chasing a sweat bead.

The shop clock told her it was going on midnight.

Could she sleep with the black rider in the house? There hadn’t been a gun, or anything else, strapped to the tank of her bike. Or in the saddlebags, or on her person. But the people chasing her had definitely been armed, and dangerous. Waking up in a strange place, after whatever had happened; who knew how she might react?

Tarri would lock her own bedroom door. The keys to the truck, her Triumph, Andy White’s Buell, and Ole Wikeson’s Harley were all in the lockbox. Nothing else here worth stealing, not that the black rider seemed at all like a thief. Tarri’s tools, maybe, but no one was taking many of them very far on foot.

She stood up, stretching out her legs and hula-ing her waist. The Ducati had had a seizure, all fuses blown, but that seemed to be about it. A couple of new fuses from the Napa in Three Sticks and it should be running fine.

She went around the house turning off the lights and locking the doors. She stood on the front porch and looked out at the empty road, the half-dozen houses in the near distance. The Tuckers’ dog was barking at something, but the white sodium of their barn light showed nothing but moths.

Could the red riders find her? Impossible. There was nothing, nothing at all, to connect Tarri to the tire tracks left in the dirt back off seventy nine. As far as they were concerned, their quarry had been taken to the moon.

Tarri went in to look at her again. Sleeping quietly, breathing deeply. She really ought to take off the woman’s leathers, she was going to have hellacious skinlines when she woke-

The woman’s eyes slowly came open.

Tarri’s breath caught. Black eyes, wet and glittering, so dark the iris was almost indistinct. The woman stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then her eyes turned to look at Tarri. Her head followed. They stared at each other.

The woman broke the stare, and looked around the room. Looked at her helmet, down at the bed, at the oil painting of the electrical lineman that Tarri’s uncle had found such meaning in. She rolled slightly, swiveled her legs off the bed, and sat up.

She looked at Tarri again.

“Who is your Mistress?” she asked, in a pretty voice with just the hint of an accent.

“Come again?”

The woman looked at her for a moment, then spoke. “Who is your Mistress?”

“Uh... I don’t...”

The woman’s head tilted ever so slightly. “You do not have a Mistress?”

“I’m, uh, not attached,” Tarri replied. “Don’t have a girlfriend.” Damn it! Way to confirm... How did she know...?

But the woman was looking around again. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my house. I found you off the side of the road, after, uh, after those other bikers caught up to you.”

The woman looked at her, let those onyx eyes rest on Tarri’s nervous face. She seemed to be in the habit of thinking before she spoke. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

“I, uh...” It was a habit Tarri suddenly wished she had. “I don’t know. Don’t really know. They were chasing you and it seemed wrong to just leave you there, after they attacked you. And I fix bikes,” she added. Where did that come from?

“Where is my motorcycle?”

“It’s in my garage. My shop. It’s not running but I can fix it in the morning, after I get some parts.”

“You repair motorcycles?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The woman looked at her with a dispassionate, assessing look.

“Uh, do you want something to drink?” Tarri asked. “You can stay the night. I didn’t take off your leathers.” Go, mouth! Way to impress!

She nodded. “I would like a drink.”

“Okay.”

Tarri walked down the hall to the kitchen. So weird, she thought, and I’m stammering like a schoolgirl. She pulled down one of the green Tumblers from Target, threw in some ice cubes, and filled it from the tap. Her well water was hard—so hard she had a filter put on the shop line for washing bike parts—but it tasted fine.

What was that business about a mistress? Tarri wondered as she returned to the bedroom. Do I really look gay? But why “mistress” and not “girlfriend”? And what’s her accent, it’s so-

But whatever that thought would have been was lost as Tarri turned into the bedroom and all her ruminations were blown away. She was lucky she didn’t drop the water.

The woman had taken off her leathers, and beneath them she wasn’t wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She was wearing something black and very, very shiny. A black rubber suit, glossy and skin-thin, and buck-naked tight. It clung to the woman’s curves—very, very nice curves—like it had been sprayed on. The white hundred-watt in the ceiling glittered off of every slope, her breasts, her hips, her thighs, the small hill above her sex...

Tarri swallowed slowly, and failed to speak. She was a vision, a black latex vision from a sex fantasy...

The woman, who had been folding her overall-style leather pants into a neat square and placing them on the dresser, turned to face Tarri. She walked over and extended her hand, and Tarri realized she was taking the water glass only after the woman’s fingers closed around it.

“Thank you,” she said, and took a long drink.

“You’re welcome” came out. Dry, but it did come out. Tarri had no chance not to stare, to look anywhere but at this strange woman as she drank. It was like she was naked, except night-black and covered in oil. It was more sexual than if she had simply been naked. As she turned, the material clung to her, only the smallest of folds appearing as she bent over to neaten her boots...

With Herculean force of will Tarri turned ever so slightly away. Stop staring, she demanded, recognizing immediately the futility of that command. Her heart was racing all over again. She focused on the painted lineman, orange sky backlighting him as he worked high up on his pole.

“Please unzip my suit,” the woman said. Tarri turned to find her two feet away, facing the far wall, lifting her hair from the nape of her neck.

Oh God, her rear is as nice as her front, Tarri thought first, and then that’s a tattoo!

It was a tattoo, a bar code, a neat square of lines just below her hairline, perfectly centered on the back of her neck.

“Please unzip my suit,” the woman asked again.

Tarri swallowed and focused on the woman’s suit. Sure enough there was the tiniest of black zippers there, running the length of her spine. Utterly impossible to open oneself, and Tarri wondered for a moment who had put it on her. She reached for the pull—it was so small it would have been difficult for most people to work, but Tarri was a mechanic. She took hold and slid it down the curve of the woman’s back, heart hammering. It parted to reveal smooth, white, slightly damp skin.

“Um,” Tarri managed, closing her eyes for focus. “What’s your name?”

“I am Courser Five,” the woman replied, still facing away. “What is your name?”

Tarri had reached the woman’s ass, but the zipper continued downward. Somehow she heard the question. “I’m Tarri Gerarde,” she said. “Tarri with an ‘a’ and an ‘i’.”

The zipper went just where she hoped it wouldn’t—and really really hoped it would—but Tarri stopped. “I think you can get it now,” she said, then winced.

Wait, is this a come-on? It’s got to be—but she was wearing it anyway, didn’t know I- but-Damn it, so hard to tell! Oh please, let it be... but I’ve already blown it then-

The woman looked down. “Yes, I can. Thank you.” She stepped over to the bed and sat down, reaching back up between her legs.

Tarri looked away, which was about the hardest thing she’d ever done. The lineman had no advice for her, he was busy with the line. The sound of the zipper as it arced up across the woman’s crotch seemed to laugh at her. “You said your name is Courser? And your last name is Five? Did your parents give you that name?”

Oh smooth, insult her name-

“My Mistress gave me that name,” the woman said, and Tarri looked and Oh My She’s Getting Naked and forced her head back to face the lineman. There were very definitely no underclothes beneath that suit. Her peripheral vision demanded that Tarri turn her head just a little, just a little...

“Um, would you like some pajamas or something? Or do you have something in your saddlebags?”

“What do you mean?” the woman asked.

“Um. To sleep in.”

There was a pause. Tarri looked at the oil and canvas sun, low on the horizon.

“If it will make you more comfortable I will wear sleeping clothes,” the woman said. “I do not have any with me.”

“Okay,” Tarri replied, “I’ll get you something.” She forced herself back out into the hallway. Head swirling, she walked to her bedroom. Of course she sleeps naked. Of course. Tarri laughed at herself. Am I lucky to have this... incredible woman here? Or is this the worst sextease in history? Should I be grateful just to have seen her? Oh, Tarri...

The woman was a bit taller than Tarri, and seemed thinner but that was probably because of her frame. Tarri found some very loose pajamas in green and white stripes in one of her clothes-I-rarely-wear drawers.

She left her bedroom and almost stumbled when found the woman standing, buck naked, in the hall. She was examining a framed poster from a rally several years ago, long fingers hovering an inch above the glass as she read.

Oh, God, she was hot.

She turned her head to look at Tarri. “Do you have a connection to the Internet?”

Tarri held out the pajamas. “Uh, yeah. You need to email someone?”

“I require an Internet connection so that I may report and receive instructions. Do you use a telephone modem, a cable service connection, satellite, or DSL? Is there an internally routed network in this home?”

The questions were simple but somehow very hard to grasp when faced with a nude fantasy body, displayed utterly unselfconsciously.

“Uh. I, ah, I have satellite. And, uh, home network.”

“May I use your Internet connection?”

“Um.” Tarri thrust the pajamas at her. “Yes, you can. And, uh, here’s the pajamas.”

The woman looked at them, then took them and bent to put them on. Perhaps realizing this was her last chance, Tarri didn’t—couldn’t—look away. Her skin glowed in the yellow of the ceiling lamp, her curves moved as she stepped into the pajamas, the dark patch where her legs came together—thighs almost but not touching—covered as the pajama bottoms rose. Then she reached for the ceiling, her breasts suddenly, jigglingly real, commanding Tarri’s attention, the nipples only just darker than the pale skin, and pink-

The loose flannel fell over them.

With the pajamas on—they were loose on Tarri and, surprisingly, slightly loose even on the woman—she returned to staring placidly at Tarri, her hands at her sides. There was an awkward pause.

“May I use your Internet connection?” the woman asked.

“Oh, right, the computer,” Tarri said. “It’s down here.”

Tarri led the woman down the hall and across the family room to the office. It had been a breakfast nook when this was her uncle’s house but Tarri ate all over the house—in the garage, often, or in front of the teevee—so she’d put a door across two filing cabinets and made herself a desk. The computer, a hand-me-down from Doctor Salazar’s office, worked well enough for email and word processing, creating invoices and watching porn.

“Here it is,” Tarri said, turning and gesturing. The woman—somehow Tarri couldn’t call her ‘Courser’, it was too weird, even in her head—looked at the computer and the small router with its blinking green lights. There was another computer in the garage; that computer had also been free, but the diagnostic software on it had cost several thousand dollars and updated itself over the Internet.

“I do not require the use of the computer. I only require the use of the Internet connection.”

The woman turned on her heel, though slowly, and walked back towards the bedroom. Tarri stood in the office, confused; a moment later the woman returned carrying her helmet.

Tarri stepped back as the woman sat down in her chair, also from Dr. Salazar’s office. Dr. Salazar had a Harley that Tarri worked on, and although he paid as much as anyone else he also gave her free leftovers whenever his office upgraded its furnishings. The woman flipped open a panel at the rear neck of the helmet, and pulled out a black plastic jack.

She pulled smoothly and the jack was followed by unspooling cable. The woman plugged the jack, standard 10 base T, into the router.

The woman looked at Tarri. “I need to use your Internet connection for some time. Is that acceptable?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

The woman nodded, then put on the helmet. She laid her hands down softly on the desk surface, palms down.

And sat there.

Okay, this brings the weirdness level back to eleven, thought Terri.

The woman sat erect but relaxed, face hidden behind mirrored visor, green striped pajamas beneath sleek black racing helmet. Aside from her breathing, she didn’t seem to be moving. No, wait—Tarri heard her speak, but softly, too quiet to hear without putting her ear up to the helmet.

So what do I do now?

Ultimately, Tarri settled for watching some teevee. From the sofa she could watch both Jon Stewart and her bizarre, beautiful, helmet-and-pajamas guest at the same time.

* * *

In the morning, the black rider was sleeping in the guest bed.

Tarri had given up at quarter to one and gone to bed. She had woken up without an alarm for years, and rolled out of bed as usual at seven twenty. Before showering, she walked down the hall; her guest had left the door open, and was sleeping beneath the covers in the guest bed. Her helmet was on the dresser, along with her leathers.

And the glossy, folded package of that black... suit she had been wearing. The memory of it was incredible—in the classic sense, wondrous and hard to believe. But there it was, a slinky black bundle next to the folded black overalls and above the heeled leather boots.

Biking in heels.

Tarri took a shower, and made herself a bowl of cereal. She watched the local news, which had nothing at all about an epidemic of sexy but dangerous riders. Then she went out to the garage to work on the Buell, which had a leaking rocker box. She’d have to go into town for the Ducati’s fuses, but wanted to be home when the black rider woke up.

She flipped on the lights and the exterior neon sign, raised the garage door, and was open for business. Not that there was much ride-in custom, but being open was being open. She gave the sleek black Monster a look, then circled it and got to work on the Buell.

Some time later she looked up to see the woman standing in the doorway, wearing the pajamas, watching Tarri.

“You are skilled and methodical,” the woman said.

Tarri blinked. “Uh, thanks. Do you want some breakfast?”

“I would like some food, yes, if it is amenable to you. I do not desire to interrupt your work.”

Tarri put down the pneumatic wrench, slapped a hand on the ground, and pushed herself up. She walked over to the door; the woman remained standing there, her black eyes on Tarri, her face expressionless. Tarri flipped the garage switch, leaving the ‘Open’ sign lit but lowering the door to a knee-high gap. Didn’t want anyone driving by and deciding they could help themselves. She moved forward into the house and the woman stepped aside. Tarri led her to the kitchen.

‘The woman’.

“Is your name really Courser Five?” Tarri asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Why? What’s that about?” Hey, courageous this morning.

“I am a courser,” the woman said. “My Mistress has others besides me; I am the fifth. Hence, I am Courser Five.”

Tarri, pouring the milk, gave the woman a look. “So it’s a job title.”

“It is my identity.”

“What was your name before?”

“Before I was Courser Five I was Material Seventy-Two. But before I belonged to Mistress, I was Marion Lefkowicz.”

“Do you mind if I call you Marion?”

“I do not mind, but that is no longer my identity.”

Tarri handed over the bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and fetched a spoon from the drawer. Courser, or Marion, began to eat with gusto.

“So... tell me about this Mistress of yours.”

“She is my Mistress. She owns me and I obey Her. She is the being most deserving of worship in the entire world.”

“She owns you?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that, um, illegal?”

“The legality of Her ownership is irrelevant. It is fact.”

Too weird. But she said it all with a perfectly straight face, utterly deadpan. Tarri decided to change her line of inquiry. “Ah. So, ah, where are you from, then?”

“I am currently housed in Los Angeles.”

“Does she live there? At your house?”

“It is one of Her residences.”

“Why on Earth were you riding around out here? And who were those people chasing you?”

“I am not to discuss my Mistress’ purposes. And those were Hounds.”

“Hounds?”

“Yes. May I have some orange juice?”

Tarri fetched a glass, and some juice. It was surreal, having this beautiful, beautiful woman sitting at her counter, in green striped pajamas, drinking orange juice and discussing a woman who ostensibly fucking owned her. She poured a second glass for herself, and watched as her guest slugged down half her glass.

“When will you have my motorcycle repaired?” the woman asked, a faint rim of orange lining her upper lip.

“I need to pick up some fuses from the Napa store in town. I don’t have any of them here.”

“I see. Considering that, when will you have my motorcycle ready?”

“I—”

The bell rang.

It was the tripwire, telling Tarri that someone had driven into the driveway. She looked at Courser-Marion, and held up a finger. “Be right back.”

“Yes,” Courser/Marion replied.

Tarri went over to the front door and looked out front. Clint’s big sheriff’s car was in the driveway. Relaxing a little—and slightly surprised to find that she had tensed up—Tarri walked outside and loped around her truck.

Clint stood by the front of his car; next to him was a tall woman in a very well-cut suit. She had on dark sunglasses and a vague smile.

“Howdy Tarri,” Clint said, holding up his hand in greeting. “Got a minute?”

“Sure thing Clint. What’s up?”

He turned to indicate the woman. “This is Miss Clarion. She has a friend who didn’t turn up last night; the missing woman was out riding her bike around these parts. Miss Clarion came to ask if we found anyone who had maybe wrecked or something, which we ain’t, but I thought that if she’d had a breakdown she might have come out here, maybe get you fixin’ her bike.”

“She is riding a black Ducati Monster S4Rs Testastretta,” Clarion said, and her voice was crisp and pure, high-powered attorney or business newscaster. Her eyes were dark and matched her perfectly styled hair. Her skin was cafe au lait, Caucasian stirred with African and possibly spiked with something else.

The dark eyes were focused intently on Tarri. “If you have seen her, or her bike, you must tell me,” Clarion said.

“I... haven’t,” Tarri replied. She pushed her tongue stud against her teeth. The Ducati was in plain sight in the middle of the floor, behind the partly open garage door. But no woman in a tailored skirt like Ms. Clarion would bend her knee to find that out.

Tarri hoped.

Clarion stared down at her; she was tall even before the three-inch heels. Tarri stared right back. If Clint and his buddies couldn’t see through her poker face when they played Texas hold-em, neither could this bitch when Tarri lied right to her face.

Clarion sighed, let her attention move to the garage, then back to Tarri. She hadn’t blinked. “Miss Gerarde, I need your assistance. The missing woman is a good friend of mine. She’s a little... touched. Not dangerous,” she added quickly, “but she takes medication and hadn’t brought any with her. If you have seen her, please, let me know.”

“Haven’t,” Tarri said. “Sorry. I’d really like to help. A Ducati you say?”

Clarion stared down at her some more. “Yes,” she finally replied. “A black Ducati Monster Testastretta. A naked street bike. Much like the Triumph you ride.”

That got through. How’d she know that? Had Clint told her?

Had the red riders?

Did Clarion know about last night? How much did she suspect? If she knew Tarri was the woman on the Triumph...

“I, uh... sorry,” Tarri said.

Another long pause. Clarion’s eyes were deep, strong. Then she looked away again. “Well. Here,” and she reached into the interior of her jacket, “is my card. If you do encounter my friend, or her bike, call me immediately.”

Tarri nodded and took the card. “Will do.”

Clint was looking at Clarion with a dubious expression. He flicked his eyes over and smiled at Tarri. “Thanks, Tarri. Guess we’ll be going. Gimme a jingle if you hear anything. Keep the speed down, huh?”

Tarri just raised her hand as Clint stood up off the cruiser’s hood and circled to the driver’s door. Miss Clarion, she observed, sat up front. Tarri waved as they pulled out onto Three Sticks road.

She watched as they drove off towards town.

Courser/Marion had finished her bowl of cereal, and her orange juice, and was sitting on the stool reading the Financial Times. Tarri didn’t exactly have much in the way of investments, but being self-employed meant running your own retirement plan. Besides, any newspaper with the sack to print on pink paper was worth her subscription.

C/M looked up.

“That was my friend the sheriff,” Tarri announced, moving back to her own glass of orange juice. “He brought someone to ask if I had seen a woman riding a black Ducati.” She placed Clarion’s card on the counter.

C/M looked down and pointed at the card without touching it. “Yes. This law firm is an agency of the Mistress of the Hounds. They must know or suspect that I have not yet been able to leave the area.”

“So they’re not your friends, then.”

Courser/Marion’s looked up and Tarri was stuck yet again with her beauty. “No,” she replied. “They seek only to catch me.”

Tarri leaned forward. “Why?”

C/M paused. “I am carrying... information. That their Mistress wants. But it is more than that. It is also... a game, Tarri. A very dangerous game. If the Mistress of the Hounds can catch me, she can bend me to Her will. Brainwash me. I would give Her all the secrets I know about my Mistress, which would give Her power. And... and She would enjoy it. It would greatly amuse her to take one of my Mistress’ slaves.”

“And you don’t want that.”

“I want to remain who I am.”

Tarri shook her head. “Then why come here?”

“There are things that need be transmitted physically.”

“So you’re a courier? Why not take a jet?”

Courser/Marion’s mouth finally deviated from its lush, emotionless line. She smiled. “Because it is a game, Tarri. Played between my Mistress and Her.”

Tarri stared as the smile faded slowly back into the curved line of C/M’s still mouth. The obsidian eyes stared at her, blinked slowly.

Tarri shook her head. “You need to get out of here. I think that Ms. Clarion is suspicious. She mentioned my Triumph when she was asking about you; she knows I was there, on the road last night.”

“If Clarion knew that I was here, she would not have come. She would have send the Hounds. You live alone and She controls all local law enforcement. If either Clarion or her Mistress knew that you had taken me in, you would already be under deep hypnosis and answering all questions.”

“Hypnosis?”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t... it doesn’t work that way.”

“You do not know how it works. With drugs and inducers even I could put you in an utterly unresisting and obedient trance in tens of minutes. You would answer all questions.”

Tarri exhaled. Courser/Marion seemed unfazed by what she had just said. As thought it were perfectly normal to speak of kidnapping and brainwashing. And Mistresses.

“Look,” Tarri said, “I need to ride into Three Sticks and get those fuses so that you can get out of here. I could use the truck if you want to come.”

“If I come I will be seen. It would be better for me to wait here.”

Tarri nodded.

“Then I’ll be right back.”

* * *

It was less than ten minutes to town, even at sixty-five.

The questions piled up and swirled around. What sort of craziness had Tarri stumbled into? It wasn’t just the riders, or Courser/Marion and her weird emotionlessness; now there was Ms. Clarion and her piercing brown eyes... it was as though Tarri had bumped into a vampire clan or a spy ring or some crazy thing.

Bumped into, picked up, and taken home.

Was she even on the right side? C/M could be crazy, or even if she wasn’t loopy she could be part of some weird hypno-slavery ring and ought to be, what did they call it, deprogrammed. All this talk about Mistresses and purposes and... and she gave up her fucking name, for chrissakes. Courser Five...

Tarri bought the fuses, exchanged a few pleasantries with Kurt Schnecher, and got back on her bike to ride home.

She didn’t, in truth, mind. It was the strangest mother-fucking thing she’d encountered while sober, true. But it was interesting, dammit, and Marion or Courser or whatever was smoking hot and wore that sort of latex second skin under her leathers. That alone was worth the price of admission.

Still. What if the red riders showed up? With a gun and a syringe full of mind-blur?

Assuming that this wasn’t all bullshit, of course.

The high-speed chase last night wasn’t bullshit, though. Nor the Beretta that one of them had been packing. There was real danger here.

Tarri nudged the Triumph up to a hundred.

Que sera, sera, I guess.

* * *

In the event, Courser Five left without further incident.

Tarri installed the fuses, did some further tinkering, ran some tests. Started the Ducati up first try. It ran like it was off the showroom floor.

Courser/Marion got dressed. Tarri had to zip her up, her tongue stud hard against the backside of her teeth the whole time. Oh, to lick that back.

Then the leather overalls, the jacket, the boots (with those stupid heels), the gloves and helmet. It plugged into the jacket in three places, the jacket having battery packs or BIOS chips or some damned thing in it, aside from and alongside the kevlar plating.

And then she plugged herself into the damned bike.

Two cords ran from C/M’s jacket to the tank of the bike, into circular sockets like high-end stereo cabling. C/M plugged them in then sat on the bike, erect, hands at her sides. For a good ten minutes.

Finally, when Tarri had tired of waiting and gone over to look at the Buell (and found herself utterly unable to concentrate on it, running over the next step again and again in her mind), C/M flipped up her visor. Lights danced faintly on the inside of it.

“Thank you, Tarri Gerarde. Your help will not be forgotten.”

Tarri stepped away from the Buell and stood looking at the black rider on her black ride.

“Uh. You’re welcome.” Beautiful.

Courser/Marion snapped her visor down. She revved the engine, and rolled the bike in a tight circle. Rumbled down the driveway.

And blasted away north like a rocket.

* * *

END Part One