The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Shoplifters Will Be Persecuted

Chapter 4 — The sporting goods department

“New bend over girl! Nice one!” one of the men behind her announced, the words knifing through her like a wad of spit.

“Dude! Check out her silicone valley over here!” another yelled.

Great. I’m being used as entertainment for the pig freezer, Lauren thought.

“Lauren, right? Our salesperson told me you were moving here. Welcome to sporting goods! Take it all in stride. This will only last until you’re properly introduced to your co-workers. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a stretcher with your assets in a while, and the gentlemen are a bit deprived,” a female voice buzzed in her head.

“Don’t let that squeaky voice fool you! Mia’s as much into your tits as I am!” another of the pigs squealed.

Of course, my head’s so horizontal I can’t see anything, Lauren thought.

“Oh my! Boys, I think she’s NEW new. Like, first time off the ramp new! This is gonna be a hoot!” yet another of them said, and soon her brain was abuzz with shrill whistles and catcalls.

“What? Stop! Please!” Lauren begged. She was in Hell. That was the only way this could be happening. I’ve been turned into a sex object with every part of me out there to be groped by any passer-by, blind, helpless, there to be a curiosity while some stranger grabs my ass for a funny picture. Yep, this is Hell. I’m dead and this is Hell.

“Trust me, it’s just rookie hazing. Every time you move you’re sexualized somehow, either in a revealing outfit, or a pose, or given sexy sporting goods, or some combination. I know they obstructed your view, but I’m next to you, and if you could see how open my legs are, you’d feel a little better. Seriously, whoever invented the weight machine was a pervert. But would it calm you down to tell you I have a clean view of two new boys in nothing but black shorts and sneakers showing off the new basketball display?” a strange female voice said in Lauren’s head right before she tried to shut down to save her sanity.

“God, I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I miss my friends on the escalator,” Lauren said, near breaking down.

“Relax. I’m Bonnie. I’ve been here about a year. If this is your first day in sporting goods, trust me, at least it’s better than housewares. There they have you in nothing but an apron. NO customers complain, because they’re only looking at the front, but it’s still embarrassing. It’s an old custom. Don’t let it get to you. That’s what they want,” Bonnie explained.

“Nice to sort of meet you. I’m Lauren. Are these guys really dumb-ass jocks?”

“Yeah, sorta. Mia’s not gay. They just say that because she’s a denizen and that’s the only way alpha males like them think the owner of the floor could be a woman. Oh, wow, I can feel the confusion coming off you. Sorry for the shop talk. You really are new,” Bonnie said.

“Hey! I spent a month on the escalator, don’t call me completely new!” Lauren replied proudly, not wanting to show weakness.

“That just shows how new you are. Here you’re judged by where you are, not how long you’ve been here. If you’re gonna stay sane and know who you can talk to, that’s the first thing you’ll need to learn. Second is that there’s rank and file.”

“Oh, you mean like that bitch Ashlynn who kept trying to brainwash me into being a mannequin forever? I figured that out pretty quick.”

Yeah, Ashlynn’s a bitch. I remember her. Glad she’s in evening gowns with the other long term mannequins. She wasn’t trying to brainwash you, though. I don’t think she knows anymore that she once walked and breathed. I don’t even know how long she’s been here I think she truly thinks she was born out of a factory. It’s creepy, there are a few like that that are just a little too comfortable in their own shell. She’s den mothering now? I met her in career wear, and it looked like she was going to stay there for a while.”

“So is that what a denizen is?” Lauren inquired. Learning about mannequin office politics was a distraction from being turned into a distraction, although she could see the tourists streaming in and faintly feel their hands on her shell as their friends took pictures.

“They run some of the departments. It’s fucked up, but they actually judge your sales and how much you’re attracting the customers to buy. They send back figures of how what you were wearing or presenting sold and make sure the best mannequins sell the most expensive stuff. You’re right that they didn’t mind being mannequins from the get-go. But they’re weird. I mean weird. You’ll see. It’s not the first time I’ve dealt with Mia up here.

“Shut up and start selling,” Mia snapped at the two of them. In what felt like a lower tone to Lauren, she went on, “I’ll start out easy on you, but I expect sales here. Keep stretching that glute and work that body for the customers!”

“Do I have a choice?” Lauren asked the room rhetorically. The pigs squealed and giggled.

“Don’t mind her. She’s just a... denizen. Nothing else to call her, really,” Bonnie said with a sigh.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lauren said, not wanting to get in trouble on her first day on the floor.

But as the day wore on, she got more comfortable in her new position. She could sneak chats with Bonnie, but she also got used to her racy pose. Her cheerleader training kicked in, and she was able to relax and let her sex sell. It didn’t mean that she appreciated her cleavage being rubbed so much that she was sure it shone, but she could grin and bear it. Her aplomb seemed to rub off on the other mannequins in the room, because she could hear the catcalls dying down into simple appreciation. As the bell sounded to end the day, Lauren heard sighs of relief from all over the room, and she realized she wasn’t the only one who didn’t appreciate being sexualized. She expected something to move her, but she didn’t expect the prod to be straightening her to standing position so quickly. Back on her pedestal, she felt herself moving towards the fangear section and a giant video wall, where she was lined up with everyone else.

“Good job today! Our sexies were in rare form. Five gym sets sold today at ten thousand apiece? Not bad for a true rookie.” Lauren’s brain tingled at the message from Mia, but her eyes could not believe it when she saw the way the room was set up. Mia was in front of them in her sweatsuit, but there was no salesperson, just two of the blue jumpsuit people holding her podium in place. She could hear short faint buzzes in the back of her head, and she guessed that everyone was getting a personal evaluation. Lauren had to grudgingly admire Mia’s ability to have multiple private conversations in a row without slipping.

Denizens are our bosses, but I wouldn’t call them human. Not anymore. There’s still a comatose human body in that shell just like us, but that brain’s long gone from the real world. If you did whatever they do to free us, they couldn’t function,” Bonnie noted.

“What the fuck? God, that’s scary. You mean their brains shut down and are just in the computer?” Lauren replied, terrified.

“Bonnie, if you’re still telling campfire stories, I’ll ask for you to be moved over with the tents. Are you still scaring the new people? Why won’t you grow up?” Mia scolded. Bonnie went so silent that Lauren knew she was ignoring Mia. Mia’s attention turned to Lauren, and she continued, “Don’t worry, Lauren, you did wonderfully. Heard you actually cheered when the teenyboppers gave way to Torre’s boppers. That’s when you were marked for here. You’ll learn that the best thing you ever did was shoplift. You’ll be forever beautiful and always young, a mature brain in a teenage body, the most dangerous weapon in the world. And one day I’m sure you’ll think about leaving, and you’ll make a living. Just don’t found a competitor. You have impressive natural talents, so stick with me and you’ll go far.”

“And then we’ll talk about lezzing out in the lingerie department!” one of the men interrupted with a laugh.

“Jason! I’m sorry, Lauren, but I’m sure Bonnie’s told you that the silly boys think I’m sort of lesbian. As if I have any use for that. Keep up the good work. No one’s bought that gym set in three months- it’s overpriced for what you get, but it’s ours. Relax. With your skills, you won’t have to be a sexy that long. But it’s good to know that you have the skills,” Mia finished, moving on to scolding Bonnie’s lack of work ethic.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist. Mia’s such a d...”

“Lesbian? I think the short hair would have tipped me off, dude,” Lauren scolded, not wanting hate speech implanted in her brain.

“Denizen,” Jason went on as if Lauren hadn’t interrupted. “She’s such a computer it’s scary. No one likes her. Everyone mocks her, if you listen in sometime.”

“Right. Okay, you aren’t a total pig. Good thing about being plastic- no body to trick you into falling for a loser just because he’s ripped,” Lauren taunted.

“That’s ‘cause you can’t see me where you are,” Jason replied cheerfully.

“Pig.” But it came out jokingly, and Jason laughed in her head. Finally a salesperson came and moved Mia into line, then turned on the baseball game. It was fun for Lauren to finally watch something that wasn’t inane, but she spent the first two innings questioning what was happening to them, and what it would take for someone like her to become someone like Mia. Cheers and whoops from the other mannequins around her brought her attention back to the game, and she enjoyed the Dodgers’ win with them before drifting away until the next day.

“We’re going to top yesterday today!” Mia yelled like an alarm clock. “Hallie, you’ve been good enough for fangear. Bonnie, maybe stretching out in front of the weight machine will help you keep quiet and focus on your work. Trade places with Lauren. We’re going to see how the new girl sells.” The blue jumpsuits looked at their BlackBerries and followed the orders. Lauren was wheeled over, and it took some artistic work with the prod to put her in a seated position doing a bench press on the same weight machine she had stood in front of the previous day. From the dirty wisecracks zipping through the air around her, she knew she was more exposed than she would have liked.

“I guess we can’t sue for sexual harassment,” Lauren sighed.

“Just testing your resolve and your nerve. We’re all just as exposed, believe it or not,” Jason said. He “sounded” closer, and as she got her bearings, she recognized the source of his voice coming from the mannequin posed on a bench in front of her. Though the plastic didn’t reveal every detail, he was quite good-looking, with brown hair that would have been unruly if it weren’t coated in plastic, and a well-toned body. He was curling a dumbbell with one leg up on the bench, wearing nothing but a pair of black shorts. In fact, the whole display reminded Lauren of a bad music video, with all the girls posed in revealing stretches and the boys all shirtless or in tight tank tops as they showed off the latest weights or sports equipment. It was an elaborate little plastic gym. Even Mia was set up so she was showing her legs as she flaunted the newest sneakers.

“Those are three hundred a pair, you bet Mia’s showing some leg,” Jason said as the bell rang and the customers started pouring in. “Oh no, ten hours of staring at blonde hotness with her legs spread. What will I do?”

“You stare at me like that for ten hours, I’m gonna spend those ten hours commenting on your lack of a shirt,” Lauren teased back, having none of the catcalls.

“As worked up as I know you’d get, you’d go for as long as I can dish it out,” Jason replied.

Is he really flirting with me? Like we’re in high school? Oh Lord have mercy, Lauren thought.

“You two keep it up, this is fun. It’s passing the time, and God knows I’ve fantasized to keep things moving. It’s a nice distraction and Jason’s a nice guy. Ooh, is he in the speedo again today?” Bonnie cut in.

“Umm, no, just black shorts,” Lauren replied, disgusted and more jealous than she expected. At least it kept her thoughts from the cycle of people sticking things in her cleavage and the salespeople doing something useful and fishing them out. To Jason she said, “You just love yourself because you have rock hard abs for eternity.”

“Among other things,” Jason shot back.

“I’m enough of a girl to know the real reason Barbie dumped Ken,” Lauren said with a giggle.

“That’s just the public story. She caught him in a threesome with the Bratz, and then she got caught getting gangbanged by a bunch of GI Joes on the USO trip to Cobra Command. Being plastic gets you clued into the strangest celebrity gossip,” Jason fired back, his voice so deadpan that for a moment she wondered if he was being serious and had just lost it, but she could feel his amusement coming in waves, and she cracked, giving into a fit of the giggles.

“So what’s a nice guy like you doing in a piece of plastic like this?” she asked after minutes of giggling.

“Tried to break one of the windows. Don’t look surprised. We aren’t all here from giving in to temptation and taking things we could never have,” Jason explained, trying to sound smarter than he really was.

“Oh, I was stealing just to be funny. If I’d stuck to the bracelets, I’d have been fine,” she told Jason, and the two started chatting away. Though Lauren knew everyone could hear them, Mia didn’t complain. Maybe it was because the weights were selling well. She could tell when a customer was sold by the salesperson’s reactions. The weird thing was that more than once the customers spent most of the transaction staring at her.

“Son, the dummy doesn’t come with the gym set,” one father told his teenage son as he stared wide-eyed at Lauren’s cleavage.

“Yeah, I know,” the son replied, blushing and stammering- but smiling shyly as his father whipped out his credit card.

“Well, the kid could use the thing, that’s for sure,” Lauren quipped to Jason.

“Don’t make fun of the customers!” Mia interrupted.

If Lauren could have raised an eyebrow she would have. “Ummm, she does know they can’t hear us, right?” she asked Jason.

“Yeah, she’s weird, but she’s better than most denizens. She doesn’t think that you’re worse off if you ever get to be human again. Seriously, Arthur in the men’s department thinks we’re some kind of different species. I guess if you’re trapped long enough, you go crazy, but he went so crazy he’s coming back up on sane from the back side,” Jason replied, and Lauren tried to shudder at the thought of someone being so immersed in the plastic that they didn’t realize what they once were. She almost missed Jason’s next thought. “I gotta wonder sometimes, though. Sometimes I get people staring at me and then they go run and buy whatever I’m wearing or showing off, so it’s a little freaky sometimes. Maybe the salespeople are that damn good.”

Another day was done, and another lineup gone through, and another game on the television, and another night melted away as Lauren let her brain turn off for a few hours. The next day, she was with the aerobics girls. Viewing the world sideways was a new experience as she was tilted over in an overhead stretch. That gave her more than an eyeful of Jason’s perfectly chiseled plastic body, and they flirted the day away. “You do know that if we were really walking and talking, I’d be dying and praying for you to ask me out,” she finally admitted. As strange as it was, her brain was reacting to Jason the way she had reacted with way too many boys back home. But it’s still human. I’m still human, and Jason’s got a nice personality and a wicked sense of humor. I keep thinking I’m falling for a piece of plastic, but I’m not, the same way I’m not a piece of plastic, right?

“Well, you can have me for a longer time this way, and you’re making this job so fun I forget it’s a job sometimes,” Jason replied, and Lauren wanted to do nothing but kiss him.

“You and Jason are getting along really well,” Bonnie said one night, somehow conveying a waggle of her eyebrows without being able to move.

“Yeah, we’re- I mean- we’re- I’d totally be dating him if we were still out there, but it’s not real. We’re not real. This is so messed up that I can’t even-”

“Girl, your personality doesn’t leave you unless you let it die like Mia or some of the others. You’re still you. I hear you chatting with people sometimes. You love baseball, hate surfing, have a wicked sense of humor, don’t mind having good looks as long as the catcalls are on your terms. You’re a cheerleader who was carrying a 4.0. You’re still Lauren in there just like Jason’s still Jason and I’m still me. I know this is gonna sound like some kind of brainwashing, but we’re people. We just happen to be plastic people I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve made friend and lost friends, seen them get moved around, seen some of them walking around free. It’s natural and human, and it’s the only way this can possibly be healthy. Hell, you’ve been here a few weeks, and I’ve overheard some of the thoughts you’re not so careful about- maybe you need a trip to the lingerie department.”

“Oh, Lord. I’ve heard enough about that to figure out what you mean, and I didn’t get off by cybersex when I could reach down there, so how’s it gonna help when I can’t? He’s really cute, though. Maybe we can get freed at the same time or something. But is he just another trap to lock me here forever?” Lauren asked, lamenting the conflict.

“Naaaaaah. Dazzling you with thousand-dollar outfits and stuff Britney Spears wouldn’t get caught dead in, yes. But keeping a personal life? Staying yourself instead of becoming plastic on the inside? It’s more rebellious than anything else you have the power to do,” Bonnie said coyly.

“Then why doesn’t Mia seem to mind?”

“Hot blonde obsessed over a hotter guy? Emotions running high? Okay, this is based off science fiction movies, so you know it’s going to sound weird, but you know how you’re supposed to hear ghosts talking in the back of your head? I sometimes wonder if the customers can hear us, and, well, happy talk like you two fill the air with...”

“Oh, God, no, we are not some kind of subliminal pocket watch! This is pretty damn weird, but it can’t be that weird. I think Mia believes in it, the way she’s been gushing over me when all I’ve done is flirt with Jason,” Lauren said, her mental voice trailing off.

“So think of it this way. It’s a good way to keep the denizens off your back. Besides, don’t you think Mia’s figured out you two are into each other? Why do you think you’re always set up to be staring right at each other?”

It went on like this all through baseball season. Lauren and Jason were always set up to look at each other, and they spent their hours together in private conversation, flirting, talking, and fantasizing about their freedom. Sales in the sporting goods department were taking off, and Lauren started to wonder if Bonnie’s ghost stories were true. Bonnie was a nice girl, albeit way too much into fringe theories for anyone’s comfort, and a good friend to have for being stuck in a plastic shell. And Jason... her brain tingled pleasantly at the thought of him. She could deny it, but it was a natural reaction. She was hooked. She was in love. Great job, Lauren. You’re in love with a department store mannequin.

But that was only half true. The human brain inside the plastic shell was pure charm, warm, humble without being obnoxious, and very funny. She could zone out laughing for minutes just from the simplest of his jokes. She knew that any day either of them could be moved to another department and they’d never see each other again, but for now she was happy to be lost in the fantasy. It kept the months moving, and that was something she could appreciate more than anything else.