The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

You’re going to be very dizzy. Just go slow. Let me lead and don’t take the shades off until I say so,” the department manager said as the young woman blinked awake. Except for the sunglasses to shade her eyes from the lights, she was naked, coated in dried brown gunk and white dust. Her arms and legs were moved slowly, one at a time, bent and stretched until the dust came off and they moved freely and naturally. The woman let it happen, indifferent to her body.” Stand up now. Let your body bend. It’ll come back to you instantly once you do it.”

The woman moved stiffly, levering herself out of the plastic shell that had held her for more than three years. She coughed, and the noise seemed to startle her. “Drink this,” the manager said, holding out a water bottle. The woman grabbed it and put it to her mouth, chugging it down hard. “Go slow,” the manager cautioned her. “It’s your first drink in... three years, seven months, thirteen days, and ten hours.”

The woman stared at the manager in confusion, then spoke in a voice rusty from disuse. “Where am I?” she asked.

“Home. Mr. Gimbel himself is behind me, making sure you come back to us properly. You might be able to see him monitoring you, making sure you don’t go to o fast.”

“It’s dark,” the woman said.

“Ah, your eyes are adjusting. Promise us you’ll blink until you can see clearly.”

The woman took the glasses off, blinking until her blue eyes had adjusted to the light. She stood straight and tall, not moving, waiting for her next assignment.

“Welcome to our new Louisville RVP!” Darryl said proudly. “You put in a lot of hard work for us, and I know you’ll do an excellent job now that you’re back walking the earth.”

Walking the earth... The phrase gave her a dull pang of fear, as if this was a fate she had never wanted, but Mr. Gimbel was telling her that she’d earned it, so it had to be all right. “Thank you, sir!” she said, wanting to show how proud she was of being part of the Darryl’s retail machine. It was all she had known for the last three years of her life, after all, and in those three years she’d lived a lifetime: rebelled, loved, lost, loved again, learned a full career path, changed her inner self several times, caught thieves, made friends, and become a role model. She had learned how to control the wayward, make the poor feel rich, and turn the rich into icons. Now she was reborn, a college girl from Kentucky, ready to lead for the rest of this second life she had been given.

She was led into the shower to remove the rest of her excess plastic. The white robe almost matched her ghostly pale skin when she came out. The next room had hundreds of thousands of dollars in suits and handbags arranged in outfits that would have been the envy of any fashionista. She chose the first one, indifferent to what she would wear, and after a few minutes of waiting for a keeper to put her in position and dress her, she put on an ivory suit that clung tightly to her body. A discreet cough from the manager reminded her that underwear was necessary for a human being, and she took off the pants and put on a plain set of panties and bra before putting the pants back on, then the pale gray shell and the ivory jacket. The suit blended with her ghostly complexion; only a tinge of pink at her lips, the pale blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair, gave any hint that this woman was real and not a ghost. She put on the dove-gray pumps that matched her top, picked up the matching handbag, and exited the room, coming to attention as she stood and faced Darryl.

“The name you will answer to is Lauren Murphy. You will turn your head to whoever says it and acknowledge their presence. You’re the new RVP for northern Kentucky and southern Ohio, centered in Louisville. You have a driver’s license and keys to the address listed on there. First, you’ll spend some days here in training, as well as learning how to walk and act like a human again. You’ll be leaving in a few days and taking your core staff with you.

“My staff?” Lauren asked, her glassy eyes never leaving Darryl, her thoughts only on how she could serve Darryl’s Department Stores.

“You chose them over the last six months. You probably don’t remember, as that’s such a short time for you, but you’ll need to adjust to human time. You will get tired, and you’ll need to go somewhere and lie down- you can’t just sleep standing up the way you once did. If you feel sudden sharp stomach pain, you just need the cafeteria, and if you feel an unpleasant heaviness there, you need the bathroom. That’ll take time to remember, but you’re an RVP. You can do it. You will have one freestanding store and three mall locations that share room with Kaiser, with territory stretching out to Lexington.”

Just the mention of their hated rivals made Lauren growl. Darryl smiled. “Now, let’s get Miss Kentucky some food, and then we’ll go over some promotions for your stores.”

“Yes, sir!” Lauren and the other manager said in unison, and their heels made a sickening click as they marched in lockstep to the company cafeteria.

As they passed the hundreds of mannequins that made Darryl’s so famous, the latest RVP felt a stab of jealousy, wishing she was back in her shell and immersed in their network. The handbag she had been given had her new BlackBerry in it, and she took it out to listen to the mannequins’ thoughts and ambitions. She envied them their simplicity, but at the same time, she appreciated that she was now an RVP for the best retail store in the world. She had been chosen by Darryl himself to help expand his empire.

“Here is my department, housewares,” the manager droned.

Lauren looked at it in approval. The scenes were very domestic, and showcased the merchandise well. “Hello, Lori, you’re selling great, although that knife is a little... let’s get you down to juniors and let you rock some sparkling jeans,” she said. An IM popped up on her BlackBerry, but it was irrelevant.

Two days later, she arrived at the airport, only turning to the name Lauren or “Miss Murphy?” out of a formality that was stuck in the back of her head with the training she had received at headquarters. She boarded her plane, took her first-class seat, and went stiff. Staring blankly into space with no need to think was more relaxing than sleep could be. She could almost feel the plastic back on her skin, her eyes scanning for shoplifters and her feet suspended in the air as she rotated on the prom display with... with...

She landed in Louisville and deplaned, picking up a suitcase that cost more than her plane ticket and being met by a $50,000 Lexus. The only reaction she had to the white car was to feel proud of the Darylzgrl vanity plate. She got behind the wheel and followed the directions on the GPS to the address she had been given as home, obeying every light and speed limit to the letter. The luxury condo was spacious and could have been luxurious, but the spartan furniture and unpainted walls suited her better. She didn’t need decoration unless the jumpsuits were going to set up a display for her.

Her eyes began to close, and she took her pantsuit and lay back on the memory foam bed. As she sank into it, she could dream of once again being encased in the plastic that had preserved her and remade her as she drifted into a deep sleep.

The next morning, she lifted herself up, cleaned herself, and changed into a pale green pantsuit, put her shoes on ,and ate the first thing she found in the refrigerator- milk and toast, bland enough to make her forget that she had to eat now. She had to visit her locations and see what she could do to improve them for Darryl, after all. She almost smiled as she greeted the mannequins by name when she knew it, turning some heads and eliciting some giggles, but mostly going unnoticed. She talked to everyone plastic, those who still had potential, but all who walked were just another part of the machine. She had no instructions to give to the giggling salespeople or the blank-faced attendants.

An office was waiting for her, and she sat down behind the desk and paged the store manager. He arrived promptly, as well trained as she expected from a Darryl’s employee. The paleness of his skin suggested that he hadn’t been much longer out of his shell than she was. He wore his pitch black suit, spotless white shirt, and plain red tie well. Her body reacted at the sight of him, and a memory of looking into his eyes flashed through her head, but she shrugged it off as irrelevant to the success of the store. She took in his neatly combed brown hair and rugged features, then the name on his tag. “So...” she checked the tag again- “Jason, what do you have for us at Green Valley?”

“Shoplifters for your appraisal,” Green Valley replied.

“Excellent,” she purred.

Green Valley led her to a back room where the giggling salespeople had the sleeping teens lined up in a row. She pushed the limp bodies of the unworthy away, where the salespeople carried them out to be released back into the world. The others- five girls and two boys in a pleasingly aesthetic array of races and hair colors- were carried into the lab. Now the RVP could let her body react as the shoplifters were stripped, immobilized in the plastic solution until stiff, then put into the bath, then uploaded, and revealed as her first mannequins. She crossed her legs as hard as she could, remembering the feeling of being safely enclosed and patched into the wider network of Darryl’s. Green Valley rubbed her shoulders, recognizing that she was in heat and needed to be relaxed.

As the new mannequins came online, she recited the speech that Mr. Gimbel had given her three years ago, word for word and tone for tone, then had the salespeople and jumpsuits dress them in what they were trying to steal. She watched as they were put along her escalators. Her eyes lit up with a feeble excuse for life as she conversed with her newest employees, ignoring their misguided rage.

“Good work, Green Valley,” she said, and Green Valley looked pleased that he had done his job well.

She headed out to her next mall, but stopped at the food court outside first, looking at the blue and silver t-shirts of her enemy as the Crystals were fed by their keepers before returning to their duties. “Such an amateur break of character having them outside like that. My staff has no need for lunch breaks. We will bury you. I’ll see you at the liquidation,” she sneered at the head of the group as she claimed her undressed green salad and got in her car to go the next store.

She lived, if that existence could be called living. She answered to the name Lauren Murphy, but it was a name she used out of convenience. She was the RVP for northern Kentucky and southern Ohio, and that was the only thing that she was called that meant anything to her. She reunited with her family, who were so grateful that she was alive after three years, and educated and successful to boot, that they could overlook the change in her personality from bubbly cheerleader to cold and dull businesswoman. As the years passed, she married Green Valley to explain to her workers why she had such strong emotional reactions in his presence and allow her company to rent out one less apartment.

She walked and talked and presented herself with class and grace to promote Darryl’s and its products: the tailored pantsuits she wore every day in their understated colors, the perfectly matched handbags and shoes that coordinated with every outfit, the jewelry that Green Valley gave her to flaunt and sparkle people’s eyes, the minimal elegance of the living room she and Green Valley shared and used to entertain. She was a leader of the local business clubs, even as their ranks dwindled as she removed the need for them with her perfect little glass boxes. She looked like the model of a successful person- but a model was all she was. Inside, she was as plastic as the mannequins in her stores.

When the stores were closed, she’d talk to her charges, the living beings in the plastic shells. “Enjoy it. Respect it. Embrace it. These are the best years of your lives,” she urged them, and that was the only time she showed any warmth. Her BlackBerry would ignite with catcalls and sarcasm from the children, but she shrugged it off and went home.

She could afford gourmet meals and the finest cuisine, but she would just as readily eat unsalted chicken with celery and drink water before lying in the memory foam next to Green Valley. Sometimes their physical needs overwhelmed them, and they came together in passion before separating and sinking into sleep to live out their hottest fantasy and their last real memory.

The bedroom, away from the prying eyes of the people they had to entertain, was plain and unadorned- except for one photograph on a table across the bed, showing the impossible dance of two mannequins locked in each other’s arms, lost in one another’s eyes, floating above the scene, eternally untouched by the real world. The girl wore a lavender dress that hugged her curves, and her blonde hair gave the illusion of flowing past the tens of thousands of dollars in jewels that adorned her. The boy had brown hair and a spotless white tuxedo. They looked like something out of another time... a lifetime ago.