"Hello, My Name Is" - The Stories

[Ms Myrrh]

Use Me While You Can

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L I C

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1. Life in the Ghost of the Bush

The sand blew against her face as she stood on the cusp of the watering hole. A nameless girl watched the water rippling from the raining sand and the wind. On the slope of the surrounding depression a two toned sheep, lost from its herd, strode headlong against the sandy winds. It showed heart, but its eyes were sad and already the crows were gathering nearby in watching. They too possessed two tones of colour, the opposites of black and white. High cliffs loomed beyond and they blocked out half of the sun and cast the land in dusk.

And upon those cliffs, amidst the jagged rocks and nauseating heights, were houses and small huts clinging to the edge of the rock face among tired and weathered stumps of trees long since harvested. The houses looked out over the plain that had once been verdant, then had been reduced to broken stalks, and was now a harsh desert. A ghost of the bush that existed before it.

And she stood beside the watering hole, her back to the wind and the sand, and her eyes watching the acacias blowing and bending. Above her head a coconut fell, smacking the ground hard and drawing her attention up to the ragged palms that stretched high overhead with branches like arms scratching the sky. The trees, the people, the sheep and the flowers all clustered ‘round the watering hole, clinging to life.

And over the zenith of a sandy dune beyond strode a milk white camel and a heroic rider. He bounced with every trot but his gaze stayed firm and straight and his rifle tight to his back. He pressed the camel harder, kicking at its haunches as though it were a horse, his objective beyond all vision or knowing though still important, and he disappeared over the hill. And the only traces of his existence thereafter were the echoes in the air of the transistor radio hung around his neck.

He was a rare sight, the kind that would be missed if one blinked, and never seen again. She was glad she’d caught him when she did; she’d seen a lot of things in her time and not many as incredible as the Mamaluke’s charge. She checked it off the list in her head and began to walk…around the edge of the watering hole.

Nearby, a hooded woman bent down in the sand under the wan disk of the sun and spat expertly at a black beetle. The shades of her teeth matched the colours of the dirt and sand around her. She gritted those dirty teeth and smiled, and she hoisted a water bucket over her head and vanished into the lands beyond the water’s oasis sanctuary. The beetle cleaned itself, dug into the sand, and vanished from sight and sun. 


2. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos


When the water bearer was gone the nameless girl noticed the glare of colour against a tree at the far end of the pool. A person she supposed, who sought shelter from the sun, a burning sun that had now taken the two toned sheep and given the crows something to peck and nibble She drew closer, and found a man leaning against the base of a dying palm tree. She could hear the man’s laboured breaths and painful moans from across the water. So she stepped closer and closer, and conquered the gap between them. Life was rare and hard in these parts and she sought every chance to see it.

“I’m done for.” he announced as she knelt down beside him. Her gaze mourned his apparent grief that shrouded the shine of his eyes. He clutched at the painful wound in his gut. A bolt made the wound, a bolt from a lone crossbowman that was still lodged in his flesh. Blood soaked his thighs and the sand below.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Luther King Martin.” he replied with a weak voice. His speech was hoarse; she could sense the dryness in his mouth.

“Take this.” she offered. She produced a flask from her white robe and gave him the gift of life. He drank from the flask and the water soothed his sandpaper mouth.

“What happened?” she asked. He seemed happy to explain, happy that someone wanted to hear his story.

“I was a great man once. I was the leader of my people and the leader of a revolution. I had a dream and an opportunity and they took it from me. Those High Elven bastards!  They shot me, they shot me with this bolt here.”

“I’m sorry.” she whispered. She raised her hand to his shoulder and felt his pain, her empathy seeping into his every pour. And he saw then just how beautiful she was with her big brown eyes and her sandy hair that licked at her face in the wind. Beyond the golden cloak of her bangs were the blackest and thickest eyelashes of any person he had ever seen. They framed her eyes perfectly.

“You are so beautiful. So beautiful…so beautiful.” he sobbed. He was glad to see her, he was glad she was with him at the end. If he was going to die in this hole in the desert, he felt he deserved to see the most beautiful woman in the world before he passed.

“Have hope.” She cried with him. Her tears wet his face as they leaned against one another in a solemn embrace.

“Hope…is a good thing no? I’ve had it all my life. I’ve always hoped that someday there would be a time when my people would be equal with the High Elves, a time when we would no longer be shunned and confined to the forests over those cliffs. I never got that chance. I never got to see it.”

“But you tried.”

“Yes, I tried.” His tears fell in droves. “I did pretty good I think, if only I had had more time, I might have done something, I might have accomplished more.”

“You’ve done all you need to do Luther King Martin. Hope needs a martyr.”

His breath began to falter, and he clutched tightly at the grievous wound in his belly. “Uh…oh. That doesn’t feel very good.”

“At least you tried Luther King Martin.” She consoled.

“Yes, I tried didn’t I? I failed, but I gave it my best shot. I don’t think I can ask for any more than that could I? I guess it’s all I really need, to feel no regrets and no lost opportunities. That does feel good.”

“Goodbye Luther King Martin. I’ll see you soon.”

“Goodbye – ung – my sweet girl.” He paused for a moment, his eyes rolling in thought, and he called to her as she walked away. “Why are you here?”

“Fate.”

And she turned back around and walked further down the shore of the watering hole, past the rows of forked palms blowing in the wind, and past the rows of acacia’s blowing row on row.

Life is but a path to be walked,
Death is but a change in the road,
What lies beyond is never talked,
Give back to us what you have owed.

And Luther leaned his head to the side, his vision behind him blocked by the palm he rested against, and he heard the beautiful voices of three women singing from the water. They drew closer, and he stretched his eyes around the bark of the tree and saw them rising up the shore. Three women, clad in black, one with a wheel, another with shears and the third with straw lots in her sash.

They were ravishingly beautiful. Pale skin juxtaposed with hair of the blackest shade and lips with the shine of obsidian. Their fingers slender and long touched his body and gripped his attention. He smiled at them and they smiled back and surrounded him.

Oh Luther why so are you so sad?
Oh Luther why resist the sand?
You’ve always had cause to be glad,
We are the ones who dealt your hand.

And they kneeled down before him and gazed into his eyes, piercing his mind and his soul, and they inched closer. And he could feel the heat of their nubile bodies through their loose robes. Looking between the breasts packed in any one of their hemlines was like running down a dark tunnel. It was easy to get lost.

And they all sang in unison “Come back to us Luther. You did well dear child!”

Luther looked at them with wide eyes, and he knew finally who these women were. “Hello my Darlings.” They stroked his pointed elf ears.

“We’re so proud of you Luther.” And two of the women drew a string between them, and the third clipped it in two.

“I remember when I was a kid Lord Fiddler would make delicious sour balls in his tree using Molokai herbs. If there was one thing I could miss from this life, those memories would be my choice. I always loved that sour taste.” And he died.


3. Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia


And she walked on by the swaying acacia’s and the forked palms and the rippling water blowing in the sandy winds. And her tan hair blew in her face, protecting her beautiful eyes from the harsh light of the sun and the coarse scratching of the desert.

The sound of shots roared over the horizon and cracked the sky as a rifle fired in the distance. Each blast echoed three times in the wind. The crows on the nearby sheep carcass scattered, called off by the ringing in the air, and they set perch upon a crooked and aged palm tree. Silence then returned, broken only by the hissing of midday insects.

And there was another man by the shore up ahead with his head between his knees and his hands limp at his sides. An elephant stood by him with his trunk draped over the man’s shoulder and his eyes cast down at the human on the sand.

“I’m done for.” He announced as she knelt down beside him. The elephant stepped on the sand, moving closer to her and quietly blowing a snuff through his trunk. His elephant’s call was ripe with loss and frustration.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Bob Walters, and I have everything in the world. And this is Eli, an elephant found in the Ganges River on a planet very far away.”

“How do you do young lady.” greeted the elephant.

“If you have everything in the world why are you so sad?” She pulled on his chin and turned his head to face her. It was marked by the stains of evapourating tears.

“Because I have everything a man could ever want. I’m the king of a lost human colony, the father of a thousand children, the husband of a thousand wives, and the god of a thousand men. I’m so unhappy, and it seems unthankful to feel that way.”

“There, there, tell me your troubles.” She stroked his hair. It was dark, almost the colour of a raven, and his eyes were concealed behind large aviators. He wore a candy purple coat of the finest material and rings of rubies around his fingers.

“How can a man with everything, with an entire colony at his beck and call, ever be justifiably unhappy?” he confessed, “I want to explain why I’m sad, but it seems so ungrateful.”

“You can tell me, I will not judge you Bob Walters.”

“I’m helpless, I cannot do a thing for my own. Everything I have has been provided for me. My house, my fortune, even my women are given to me without hesitation. And the only face they show me is of total bliss and an unwillingness to do me wrong. I cannot judge their motives anymore, and I do not know who they are. They are faceless slaves, enslaved to me by something not of my doing. They…well…I just don’t know because I should be happy. I have all the women a man could ever want. But it’s all very empty, for they will enjoy me regardless, and I have no gauge as to my own worth. I feel worthless, because it no longer matters what I do or who I am. They will simply love me.”

“Why come to this watering hole my dear Bob Walters?”

“To sit and pray. To spend time in a place that will not work to save or harm me. To be in a place where I must work and feel satisfaction in what I have and keep close in my life. The desert is a harsh life no? I fine place to carve out an existence.”

“And the people of your colony?”

“I have left someone in charge of Athens of my decree. Since the shire is forever bound to my will they will follow her until I return. If I do not return they will draw lots to elect the next leader and so on.”

“Why do you bring an elephant?”

“The GTO’s in the shop.” said the elephant.

Bob followed that with a comment of his own. “Together we will ride into the sunset. His days as a circus animal are over, and my days of leadership are over as well. Tonight, we ride, and we will be free.”

“That sounds very nice.” He looked at her with a cautious eye, expecting that she too had fallen under his spell. But he realized the nature of her ethereal existence and his suspicion faded. Her opinion had indeed been genuine. “Yes Bob Walters, I do not follow you. I only offer the truth. And your idea sounds very nice.”

“You really mean that?”

“I think it’s a very good idea.”

“You really think I have good ideas?”

“Yes, Bob Walters, I do think so.”

He leaned over and hugged her. Her soft buxom body collided with his and sparks could be felt. He released the bottled feelings of twenty years onto her shoulder. “You have no idea how good that makes me feel. All this time I’ve never known how good my ideas were. Everyone always agreed with me, and I found myself having to trick them into suggesting actions so I could pretend. Naturally they always claimed it was my idea though. But thank you my dear girl, for letting me know that I have some goodness in me.”

“We’re all human here, not gods.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” He gasped, “I’ve heard plenty of compliments in my day, many of them from screaming women in my bed. They practically threw themselves at me, and they always came easy. It’s nice, for just a moment, to not have to live up to being a fake god.” He lifted his head from her shoulder and manoeuvred for a kiss. She blocked him with a finger across his lips.

“I’m actually an elephant.” Eli interjected, but he was not heard.

“You need love? A love on all levels that is both challenging and satisfying?” she asked and offered within a single tone of voice.

“I think I’d like that.”

“Goodbye Bob Walters. Enjoy the rite of exploration.” She stood up and began to walk away. She returned to her path around the fringes of the watering hole nestled within the depression of the desert sand. She walked with a leisurely pace.

“Why are you here?” he asked with Eli at his side.

“Grace.”

And she vanished beyond the vertical horizon of the trees that lined the shore, and he was left staring at the sand.

Oh Bob young man your thirst is gone,
Come play with us reveal your fire,
Oh Bob young man don’t be withdrawn,
Come wet your lips on our desire.

Three beautiful women emerged from the water’s edge. Three women of unimaginable beauty whose radiance filled him with joy and unstrung his most visceral feelings. The sun reflected off their flawless wet skins. They advanced upon him with lustful smiles and with beads of water rolling and cascading off their curvaceous bodies. They wore little, and what they had was wet and clung to them like glue, leaving little to be imagined. Close to nothing. Three women, rising from the water and dripping wet, with erotic intent. 

One carried a harp and she strummed it gently, her dainty fingers plucking the strings in a way both precise and seductive. He was overwhelmed by dreams of those fingers touching his body. And the trio approached and circled him, the two girls without harps drawing their hands across his face and shoulders as they went around and around in a hypnotic display of curves and flesh. 

Come now my sweet we are your prey,
Come work for us and drink our sex,
Now prove your worth and make us spray,
We will tear down your grim complex.

Together they sang, “We won’t be easy.”

And they strode around him, closing in ever more with each pass, until they rubbed him with their hips and breasts. He could feel their genuine arousal by the hardness showing through their scant clothing. And they thrust him to the ground and ripped their robes asunder so that their indomitable breasts, more than a match in size and weight for any garb or handful, could be readily enjoyed.

And Bob Walters was last seen after his gruelling test with a tired tongue, sore muscles and ruffled hair, riding into the distance on his companion elephant.

“I did a good job didn’t I?” he was last heard asking.

“Now you know what grace tastes like.” Eli the elephant was said to reply.

And without running, they both politely bowed out, and set out to find their limits.


4. The Milk White Camel


 And still she walked, slowly and steadily, around her watering hole territory. The wind was more accommodating now, and her piercing eyes could see far into the distance. The sun was setting down behind the cliff, and the relief of shade had descended over the nearby desert. In the distance, Bob and Eli sauntered beyond the edge of the horizon towards the pink sky with the dimming sun at their backs.

And she came again upon Luther King Martin’s resting place, and he was gone. She could still remember his words and his phrases. He had spoken well and said his piece, and she would never forget his hopes and dreams. Her memory was a tribute to his loss.

And walking further she came again to Bob and Eli’s thinking spot. In their places were marks and stains in the sand that paid tribute to the sensual entanglement that had taken place. And the apparent animosity of the sex had been fierce and forever inscribed as deep marks in the dirt, a tribute to Bob Walter’s nearly forgotten prowess. Those who had performed no doubt left dirty.

A long time passed, the sun faded ever deeper behind the cliff, and the sky turned from blazing pink to navy blue. A lonely milk white camel came trotting by and licked at the glassy water. He drank thankfully, glad for a taste of wetness in such a dry place, but his eyes were sad. His back was unburdened, a stain of blood upon his hump, and the sense of fellowship in his eyes was gone. The heroic gallop of his glory days as a Mamaluke were over and his rider was never to return.

The absence of weight on his back transmuted to a feeling of emptiness in his heart.

And she walked to him and ran a hand along his side, letting her fingers dig ticklishly into his fur as though scratching an itch. He really liked that feeling and he longed for the touch of his former master and the exhilaration of the chase. He longed for the need his rider had felt for him. He missed the blowing of the wind in his fur as he galloped and the billowing of his rider’s blue robe. Most of all though, he missed being called ‘old reliable’. It took but a moment, a blink of an eye even, and his rider was gone, a ghost in the wind.

And she sensed that in him through her touch, and she felt sad for him. But they both knew he had come to the right place and her pity did not hold long.

“I’m here for you,” she whispered, “use me while you can.”

“Please,” the camel insisted, “use me while you can.”

So she grasped the camel’s reins and led him off down the shore, all the while telling him her incredible story and all she’d seen and done.

The sun sank completely and the moon faded in through the navy sky. From the ground it was a bright treasure in the heavens, the palm branches like fingers of a black hand rising from the trees and plucking the white pearl from the sky. And the watering hole glittered with an aqua aura, casting vibrant light on all around it.

The End


Names:


http://www.mcforum.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=1215.msg58424#msg58424

http://www.mcforum.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=1215.msg38335#msg38335

http://www.mcforum.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=1215.msg38533#msg38533

[Ms Myrrh]

Ooo, Woo, Woo-Ooo, Woo, Woo

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Geo

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Starring:
Martin Mephistopheles
Perdita Prague
And introducing
Kenda Bassetti


1987: Perdita, age 16 and Martin, age 64
A flat in Prague, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

   She could hear the noises from the other room. Normally mother had better sense and taste than to bring them home, but there was something about this one. Something Perdita saw in the quick glimpse of the man. The man that was now making her mother scream with ecstasy. The man who was strangely silent himself. Usually, on the rare occasions when they did come home, the silent one was mother unless she was faking to get a better rate.

   I can’t believe it. She sounds like she’s ... enjoying it. Mother repeats herself when she pretends, but these are wild, improvised cries, and not her usual script. It actually sounds ... good.

   “Please allow me to introduce myself,” said the man of obvious wealth and taste. Despite the continued passion-filled yells of her mother, the ‘gentleman’ stood in the doorway. “I am Martin Mephistopheles, and I hear you, my dear, have the voice of an angel.”

   I didn’t even hear the door open! thought Perdita, calmly standing. Something ... feel ... I don’t know. I don’t care.

   Wealth was perhaps an understatement, but taste hit the mark perfectly. Never had she seen a more immaculately dressed man. He had a strong Mediterranean face and the slicked-back hair you saw on a movie vampire. He should have looked ridiculous, but he did not. In some strange way it fit, and he looked exactly as he should: Strong, proud, and almost ... sexy.

   “Th-thank you, sir,” she mumbled as the strange feeling of pleasant discomfort intensified. She wanted to walk forward, but her legs stepped back. Is he with the party? Has mother done something foolish again?

   “You shy away. I am not with the party, nor am I one of your mother’s special friends or one of those sad, sad men who seek out the company of too-young women.

   “In fact, I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispered conspiratorially, barely audible over the erotically charged gasps and cries of Perdita’s mother. “I should not be here at all. Your nation’s overlords would quite upset to find that I have left the hotel, but in a way, your mother is protection for both of us. I have hired your mother, but not for reasons she usually barters her services. As long as my watchers believe I am dallying with her, I can speak with the true prize of this trip: You.”

   “Me? I’m just a girl. A slut’s daughter—”

   “Ah ah ah ah. Never think that you are just something. That way lies nothing but failure. One must always strive for greatness. True, you have little now, but I see the spark. But just a spark. You will need help to coax that spark into a roaring inferno.

   “If there is one thing that I know in all creation, it is heat.”

   “What do you want from me? Greatness at what?”

   “You sing magnificently, and you should go on singing. You must be allowed to share your voice with the world.”

   “I’d love to, but I would never be allowed the lessons—”

   “Here? No, you would not, and it is ridiculous. A voice like yours a serious teacher would pay to train.” He took a card from his pocket, scribbled something on it, and passed it to her. “It is unfortunate. Having to leave such a vibrant place, but to become what you can be, you must leave. The winds of change are coming, but by the time they reach here, it will be too late. So you must leave now.”

   “With you?” asked Perdita, incredulous.

   “No, but I can get you out of the country. I must leave by a different route. That is a note for a man who can help you once you reach Paris. My people will look after you until then.”

   Perdita looked at the card and tried to read it. Some she could, like the name—a French name—and some she could not, specifically the short note signed with a stylized M. The M looked strangely like a pair of horns.

   She turned the card over. Reading the front was much easier. “You are a shipper? We have no ports. What could you possibly want here?”

   “I am in the business of moving commodities from where they are to where they are needed. Often this is by ship, but train, aircraft or truck is also necessary. Even the soviets need things moved. You need shipping to Paris.

   “All work and no play makes for dull times, so I have many interests besides the moving of goods. In a way, you could say I lay traps for troubadours. I like a good singer and I like a good song. They say Hell has the best music, and I would love to put Satan out of business.”

   “And you are offering what? A way out? I’ll sell my body for that, gladly, but I won’t go my mother’s route.”

   “I do not buy bodies. Such a crass notion. I may sometimes buy services, but I have no interest in people who are not with me by their own choice. Be that in business or bed. People are free to make their own decisions, so I simply apply nudges from time to time. What I give you, you will pay back, and I am not offering an easy life. The great never have an easy passage. If excellence was easy, what use would it be? For a man like myself, it would have no value, but that is just the nature of my game.

   “Now, will you pack and say goodbye to your mother?”

   “I’ll pack, but I’d rather not disturb mother right now. Whoever you left with her must be very good.”

   “Oh, he is,” said Mephistopheles. “The best I have to offer.”


1995: Perdita, age 24 and Martin, age 64
A Bar in Prague, Czech Republic.

   “The people here have a power that is lacking further west. Here are a people readying for greatness after being denied for so long. Good to be home is it?”

   “Mr. Mephistopheles!” blurted Perdita, her head bouncing up from the contemplation of her drink. “How did you ...?”

   “It is a knack. And, please, you are not a child anymore. Call me Martin.”

   “Not a child. So it is time for you to collect the debt then, is it?”

   “No, no. I never seduce a woman less than half my age and I certainly know better than to get too involved with the talent.”

   “The talent. I’m not doing too much with that, I’m afraid. Just doing the same things over and over. Opera and classical. If I wanted to do that for the rest of my life, I would have stayed on as DuPlessis’ assistant. What are you doing here and why now? I just returned myself.”

   “I’ve been here and there, looking after my interests. I stuck around St. Petersburg for a while, then I saw it was a time for a change. So I came here to Praha and I find you, out of work and ask myself, ‘How has this come to pass?’ Your career cannot have dried up so quickly for one so young.”

   “No one denies that I can sing, but I keep getting told that I’m too young and unproven for Evita or any role worth having. That’s total bullshit. What they really want to say is that I’m not statuesque enough for a real role.

   “I want more than just second run classical work. Martin, I want to do something more interesting.”

   “Ah. The lure of a faster life. You want to do rock.”

   “No, I want something a little higher class than that. Besides, I’d never make it in rock either. I’m just not good looking enough to front a band.”

   “Who says that rock can’t be classy? Look at the Stones. I always liked them.”

   “You would, being a ‘man of wealth and taste’ and all that.”

   “Touché,” said Martin, smiling. “Still, they are a class act and none of them is particularly good looking. I said once that I saw greatness in you and I’d hate to see you squander it as a teacher or a second rate chorus girl. How hard can it be to experiment a little? Gather some friends and throw a band together.

   “For example, the bartender plays Bass, don’t you, miss.”

   “I ....” Angelica put down the drink she was mixing before she dropped it. “How did you know?”

   “Your hands.” Martin looked at her, appraised her, and held her eyes. “The way your fingers move. You also play piano and the sax among other instruments. My companion would like to form a band and could use a woman of your talents.”

   “I’m not that good,” said Angelica, trying to turn away.

   “That is excellent.” The intensity of Martin’s gaze grew. Angelica’s jaw dropped. She looked deep into the eyes of Mephistopheles and saw ... something. “I’m not interested in the least in good.”

   “I-I’m ... customers ...,” stammered Angelica, her eyes transfixed. In his eyes were fires. She felt the heat. A roaring inferno that flared, outwards, catching her eyes and burning inwards. Her hands on the bar held her up, but only to keep from breaking eye contact.

   Let it do its work, Angelica, said the crackling of the fire. Let the fires burn out your weakness, your fear. Allow old abandoned desires to be rekindled into lusts. Let me remake you as you should have been. I was familiar with other angels, once. Say no. Tell me to go. You always have a choice. In his ultimate wisdom, mine enemy gave you this great gift.

   Angelica let go, but her hands didn’t. She averted her gaze, but her eyes maintained their lock. She ran, but stood still. She screamed while her body gloried. The fires reached the growing dampness between her legs. Her body sang and her mind screamed as fire made love to her.

   She stood before him, shrouded by flame and completely laid bare. He could see everything, inside and out. He could touch everything and he did. He touched her in ways she never imagined. Touched and changed.

   Buoyed by his smile, she stood taller, prouder. She could do anything, have anything she wanted, men would line up for the chance to give her things she desired. Such power was hers, but inside she was weaker. Inside, behind her mind, she knew she’d failed, that she’d lost what mattered. The body didn’t care.

   “You still seek after greatness Perdita, but you won’t find in the musty halls of opera.” He took a card from his pocket, scribbled something on it, and passed it to her. “Go to the address and give the card to the butler. The man who lives there is an investor and will be able to help you.”

   “A banker? Your banker?”

   “Do I look like the sort who would entrust my money to a man named Judas? Good evening Perdita. I wish you both the best of luck.”

   She stood to follow, but somehow Perdita lost track of him before he’d taken a half dozen steps. Confused and curious, she sat back down. The bartender just stood there, her eyes wide and wild.

   “God!” said the bartender. “That man’s ... amazing! You know him? Is he rich? Married? Uhm. I’m Angelica, by the way. He called you Perdita, right?”


1999: Perdita, age 27 and Martin, age 64
A release party in Athens, Greece.

   “You seem upset, Perdita.”

   “Just a little burned out. And a little disapointed. The album didn’t trun out quite the way I wanted and I hate the jacket picture. I look like a ... I don’t know. I just look out of place beside Angelica and Ronnie. Even Diana’s ... lush. Compared to me.” Her eyes drifted to where Veronica Ziering flirted with a pair of B movie losers who were about as likely to hit the big time as they were to get in bed with Ronnie.

   “You do not like Miss Ziering? According to the V-Jays, watching her on the drums was the high point of your first video.”

   Perdita’s frown made a lie of her words. “Of course I like Ronnie, Martin. She’s ... she’s just a friend. I just don’t want to go into that. It’s just that Ronnie wants to keep playing clubs and we have a chance at a real tour this time. It’s like she doesn’t want fame, just fun.”

   “A waste. Introduce us and leave her with me. You may find her more accommodating after I show her just how much fun fame and wealth can really be.”

   “I don’t know how well that will work. Diana pretty much thinks you’re poison.”

   “Yes, I made a misjudgement on that girl. She would have made a fine nun.”

   “Sometimes I think she still is one, spying on us to see if we really are corrupting the world’s youth or some other shit. Outside of that, she’s probably the best friend I’ve got and certainly keeps our image clean.”



   I can’t believe I let Dee talk me into this, Ronnie thought as she danced. There is something seriously wrong with this guy, other than being three times my age. I can’t quite place it, but he gives me the willies.

   “Perdita tells me that you are from America. How did you happen to find yourself in a Czech rock band?”

   “It started as a tour after university and I just sort of hooked up with Dee after she and Angie broke up with their last band. They needed a drummer and I figured, ‘what the hell.’ It beat getting a regular job and I got to see a lot more of Europe than I would have otherwise.”

   “What the hell. A great many interesting things happen for exactly that reason. For example, I’m told you don’t like the tour that comes with record deal. What the hell, yes?”

   Oh fuck. Is that what this is about? Ronnie mentally groaned. “Look, I happen to like the club scene. It’s a rush, but it’s ... you know, relaxing. Bouncing all over the world promoting an album’s just too much like work.” muttered Ronnie.

   “I understand, I promised Perdita I would give it a try.”

   “Right. Well you can stop now. ‘Let’s hook Ronnie up with an older guy. Maybe she’ll stop being such a square,’” she mocked. “Get real. How hard can it be to find a new drummer?”

   “Have a little sympathy for this old devil, my dear, and don’t underrate yourself. A drummer is easy to replace, a friend is not. You fear success and you should not. Give it a try and you may find that you like fame.”

   “Thank you doctor Freud,” Ronnie snarled, looking away and breaking the rhythm of the dance.

   “Ah, ah. You have lost the beat.”

   Like Hell I did. I just want to get this over. “Sorry. I’m not a very good dancer.”

   “It is easy to learn, Veronika. You just need to listen to the music, follow the beat....” The music suddenly changed and Martin picked up his pace.

   “And look into my eyes,” he said, his voice deep and commanding.

   Distancing herself, Ronnie regained her footing and attempted to catch up. “What ... are you some sort of hypnotist?”

   “No,” said a smooth rumble. “I am the original sin and all sins that followed. I am the guilty thoughts that burn their way through your mind and body, bringing heat to your soul. I am every hot, wet dream you have ever had about filling base desires. I am your every sexual fantasy.”

   “Hup.” Ronnie tried to breathe, but she could not. Her mind ran riot with the hottest, darkest, most passionate memories. Things she had not even thought of in years bubbled up into her consciousness and brought with them ideas and dreams she didn’t know she ever had. She shivered as Martin ran fingers up her arm. He drifted close.

   “Wah-what are you doing? Let me go!”

   “You may go at any time.” His hand cupped her chin, his lips brushed hers. Veronika quaked. “I am not holding you here. Your freedom of choice is part of the compact, but you want to stay. You want to do things you previously only imagined.”

   His eyes burned. Hot and cold at the same time, sweating and shivering, her heart pounding and her blood racing. She had to escape. To flee the images in her mind, the fires in her body. She had to stay. To satisfy the cravings in her mind, the demands of her body.

   “Muhhh. Please.”

   Almost one with her now, he whispered directly into her ear, “Those thoughts, those fantasies, those desires, they come closer to the surface, they become more a part of you, and become needs.”

   The remaining chills faded leaving only the searing heat, leaving only a glorious feeling of warmth coruscating through her. The remnants of the fires gathered in her heart and took the form of hunger, of raging desire. She pressed into him a moment as though trying to take him into her through her clothes, then reached back to undo the clasp that held the top of her gown up.

   “Undressing on a dance floor .... Is there anything that you will not do to quench your passions?”

   “Nothing,” sighed Veronika, her eyes burning with lust. She ground her lower body into him while leaning back, trying to tempt the master of the art with her bare breasts.

   “Come Veronika.” Dazed and wanting, she allowed herself to be lead from the party through a door and into a candle-lit room. Amidst the candles was a bed and on the bed lay the most beautiful woman Veronika’d ever seen. Her heart pounded faster.

   “Lilith and I wish to teach you some beautiful new things to toy with that imagination of yours. Things a famous and beautiful woman can easily find lovers willing to try. Come.”



   “Ronnie?” mumbled a sleepy and hung-over Perdita as her friend slid into the bed. “What are you doing?”

   “What you always wanted me to do, but never asked for, silly. Like Diana says, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’, right?”

   Seductively teasing Perdita’s nightie out of her way, Veronika asked her stunned friend, “Where’s the first tour stop? Any hot nightspots?”


2005: Perdita, age 34 and Martin, age 64
On the way to Perdita’s penthouse apartment, London, England.

   “What you did with your album was impressive Perdita.”

   “Yes it sold quite well, didn’t it, Martin? And I didn’t need any help this time.”

   “Other than your agent, a conductor and a few score musicians, a dozen recording technicians, a subsonics laboratory, and sundry other assistants.”

   Perdita frowned and sped up. “I meant I didn’t need any of your help.”

   “And I meant mixing in all of that hidden content.”

   Her rapid stride ceased faster than it started. “How ...?”

   “Please Perdita,” said Martin, halting alongside her. “I did not get to where I am by being inattentive. It was very skilful work. Secretive, whispering voices that tell your fans what to think and how to live every time they listen to your music. It was almost ... subtle.”

   Timing. Martin was good at that. A few more steps to her apartment and they would part. In our last fight before the band broke up, Diana called you the devil himself, and when you pull stuff like this I almost believe it, you old bastard. You waited until almost the last minute to spring that on me. Why now?

   She began to walk again, slowly this time. Martin matched her. “It was subtle. No one will ever find it unless they look ridiculously hard. How hard did your people have to look?”

   “Quite hard, and they knew what to look for.” He smiled. “You will likely escape undetected for quite some time, if nothing goes wrong.”

   “If no one ever knows, who’s hurt by it? No one.”

   Martin laughed. A real laugh. She’d never heard that before. “You need not justify yourself to me of all people. For me, good and evil are but two more words. In the real world, what lies underneath what people want to see, opposing views are often are often the same. ‘Just as every cop is a criminal/And all the sinners saints/As heads is tails’”

   “Enough with the Stones quotes, Martin. What’s puzzling me is the nature of your game. I know what I’m after. I can be great on my own terms.

   “But you .... You’ve made more than enough off of me. I’ve paid my debt a hundred—a thousand—times over, so what more could you want?”

   “Mind yourself, Perdita. Pride cometh before the fall. This I know,” he spoke slowly, pausing between each word, “all too well.”

   Martin stood back as the doorman nodded at Perdita and the door opened. The doorman had that look of love that Perdita quite enjoyed seeing on the faces of her fans, so she smiled back. This was one of her men, not Martin’s.

    And Martin knew it. “Ah, we are here, so I’d best be going. I’d hate to have you keep Oliver waiting. You have a busy night ahead. I’ll see you in the morning.”

   “I’ll have to call you. I have an early flight tomorrow.”

   “Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time for a quick chat.”

   “Stick to the plan, Edwin,” The doorman muttered as he glared at the departing oily man. “He must be punished, but the goddess must be made immortal tonight, or I’ll lose her forever.”

2005: Kenda, age 24 and Martin, age 64
A non-descript office in Philadephia.

   “Please allow me to introduce myself,” said the man of obvious wealth and taste. “I am Martin Mephistopheles.”

   When she was on top, Kenda had been surrounded by the best and best looking. After that nobody her grandfather’s age should be ... so ... unnerving.

   Wealth was no understatement. Mephistopheles was sickeningly rich. And taste hit the mark perfectly. Never had she seen a more immaculately dressed man. He had a strong Mediterranean face and the slicked-back hair you saw on a movie vampire. He should have looked ridiculous, but he did not. In some strange way it fit, and he looked exactly as he should: Strong, proud, and ... sexy.

   Very sexy. He’s been attached to just about every name in Europe at one point or another, even that psycho Perdita Prague. She could sing and all, but yuck. Very Z and Angelica were much better looking. I can’t think of a girl who wouldn’t have sold their soul to look like either of those two. I guess Perdita’s singing made her sort of attractive, up until all of the deaths after that subliminal thing, that is. Or maybe I’m just being jealous that she could have been sleeping with a guy old enough to be her dad. Right. Jealous. As if.

   “I don’t exactly know what you want with me,” said Kenda. “My agent told me about the gig, and I can do it, sure. But hip-hop’s ... different from what I’m used to and I don’t know how well I’ll fit in. I’m five years older than the rest of the band.” Oh god. I’m totally blowing it.Have to show confidence. You can do this. You have to prove that Alfheim wasn’t a fluke and you aren’t a one hit wonder.

   “One could hardly tell the age difference, Miss Bassetti. You’ve looked after yourself very well and girls today ... you know how it is. They seem to grow up so fast. And I’m sure the other girls will get you up to speed quickly.

   “I admit that you aren’t who I would have approached and it is unusual for me to get involved—”

   “Yeah. I wondered about that. I looked you up and wondered why a shipping magnate would be brokering this.”

   “You will find that I am much more than a mover of goods. My interests are quite far reaching, but I started an experiment some years back that turned into the Prague Maidens and I’ve found I quite like the world of music. Even though Perdita’s actions after the Maiden’s break-up have cast a shadow over those early successes.

   “As I was saying, you are not the one I would have approached, but Laci played your Gospel album for me. It may have sold poorly, but you, my dear, have the voice of an angel and finding items of ignored value is the nature of my game.”

[Ms Myrrh]

The Kid's Got Spunk

[/b][/size]

bobwhite

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*click*

The hammer had fallen.  The sound was never to be heard by the petty criminal who had initiated it.  The quick burst of energy transferred into the primer when the hammer struck it, setting off a chain reaction in the brass cartridge; the man behind the gun found himself thinking, idly, about how amazing the process of shooting a gun really was and what the bullet would be thinking... if it could think.

As the lead slug spun around and around in the vanishing abyss of the rifled barrel, it saw the spinning image of a very surprised man who didn't deserve to die that night come into view.  It felt the warmth of the flesh as it burrowed deep into the man from behind his left ear, flattening out a little as it smashed through the tough but brittle bits of bone it came across on the way to the other side of his head.

It couldn't go through the stone wall the man was kneeling towards, though.  Its duty done and its life sacrificed, it found a cold spot on the ground underneath the dumpster and rested there.

The presence that had lead the man behind the gun to shoot the now-dead man left, but the shooter lingered—he didn't even bother to hurry up and run away.  'Certainly,' he thought, 'someone heard that.'  But it never occurred to him that maybe staying to get every last bit of what he guessed was a hundred thousand dollars or so in small bills was a bad idea.

This was a score.  He'd followed this man from the weird castle-topped building.  The man had a briefcase, just like he'd had with him every Friday night when he went for a walk to an all-night bank depository.  It was a shame that the dead man struggled when the shooter had tried to get the case; that complicated things and meant that he'd have to hurry to get all the money and run.  He wasn't going to shoot this guy.  He only wanted the money.  But his choices were limited when the case came open and Mr. Sebastian's money fell out.  When he saw the name on the deposit slip, he knew he was in a world of shit.

He didn't want anything to go wrong and had brought the gun to ensure it all went smoothly.  He forced the issue of what had just happened out of his head—he had to focus.  He picked up the last non-bloody bundles of twenty dollar bills and placed them back in the case, and right when he clicked the case's latch closed, he heard another click.  And another.  Then, several more.

And then, he felt the cold steel of the police officer's handgun brush the flesh exposed just behind his ear.  At first, he wondered if that's what Mr. Sebastian had felt before his end.  Looking around as much as he could without actually moving his head a millimeter, he saw several uniformed officers—each one had his or her gun drawn and aimed at him.

Mr. Sebastian was a popular man in Chicago.  And historically, Chicago has shown that it really likes its popular citizens.  This was going to cost the shooter dearly.  And, he wouldn't even get to keep the money.  He would be in jail for life, without even the death penalty to shorten his misery—that'd been put on hold a number of years ago.

It was a not a fitting end for the gunman, though.  He didn't mean to shoot anybody and was not in control of his actions when he did.  Someone was in his mind, someone who he thought was just his inner voice. 

The dead man was not Lance Sebastien. The man inside the shooter, though, was.  Far above the murderous scene, Mr. Sebastien watched with a sort-of detached sympathy for the dead man's family.  Lance had never bothered to learn his name—he'd done this too many times to get that attached to an identity switch victim. 

No, this poor man was simply a victim of looking a lot like Lance.  So, when the police found a wallet that was stuffed full of the kinds of things only rich people carry around in a billfold, they'd find ID for one Lance Sebastien.  Lance had lived the equivalent of too many lives to count, and he knew he'd have to change the way he did this soon—times were short for this kind of sport, what with DNA tests being done so commonly.

Shooting a wad of hot cum into the mouth of tabby, his slave, was enough to draw his attention away from the window.  He looked down as she hungrily gobbled up all the semen she could coax from his dick, while slave tina's fingers carefully worked her cunt, keeping tabby just at the edge of orgasm while she facefucked him but never getting her off.

His favorite facefuck, slave tabby, felt his eyes on her and looked up.  With her eyes begging for release, she continued to work his now-spent prick.  He hadn't let slave tina make her cum yet.  'He always makes His slaves cum when He is done with them....' her mind repeated over and over again, waiting for him to allow tina to bring herself to a climax that had been in the works for twenty minutes or so. 

He wasn't releasing her.  He was getting hard again, right in her mouth, as she continued to lovingly suckle at his member.  When she realized that he might fuck her, her pleading eyes widened with anticipation and hope.  It'd been so long for her that she would probably start cumming as soon as he was inside her.

He pulled out of her mouth, turned to his right, and snapped his fingers.  Immediately, slaves joanne and samantha, who were nearly identical in appearance (sharing short-cropped black hair and an athletic build dressed up with leather, heels, and makeup designed to make all of his slaves appear to have the same face), stood up.  Their knees were red and aching, but they had to assist tabby, whose hands were bound behind her back.  They didn't care about the effect the cold, tile floor had on their knees (and oftentimes, elbows) because they hadn't been told to care.

As slaves joanne and samantha came to tabby's side, slave tina was dismissed and found herself crawling over to the other slaves who weren't serving at the moment.

Once at tabby's side, samantha knelt on the floor to the right of tabby and bent over, pressing her pretty face to the cold, hard floor.  Then, joanne removed both samantha's and her own panties, requiring samantha to raise one knee at a time out of the kneeling position she knew she had to hold—but she could feel that Master didn't mind.  He'd just sent her an orgasm that left her panting on the floor.  She was not, however, allowed to make a sound beyond that.  Nor could she move. 

He liked doing that.  Making them cum so hard and silently that you could only tell by looking at how wet their pussies suddenly got.

Quickly, joanne turned tabby so she faced samantha's upraised behind, and placed her face firmly in the crevasse of samantha's derrière—and tabby started licking enthusiastically.  As she did so, tabby slid her knees back one at a time little by little, as her ankles were bound to each other a chain about a foot long; the center of that chain was itself attached to the cuffs around her wrists.  Once her knees were as far back as she knew they should be, she felt her Master's feet slide up the sides of her calves as he moved into position.

Her licking pace picked up as she felt him lower himself, lining up his cock with her cunt.  To make it easier for him, she pushed her hips out and up, presenting her pussy—'His pussy,' she reminded herself—for his use.  And almost immediately she had to fight back the urge to scream in delight as his dick slid effortlessly into her.  He immediately began fucking her fast and hard.

For her part, joanne clenched a fistful of tabby's pink hair tightly; the hair in joanne's hands was like a handle on tabby's head, and she used it to grind tabby's face into samantha's crack, making sure to stop at her pussy and ass often.  The pain and degradation joanne knew tabby was being forced to endure made joanne wish it was her with her face buried in one of the other slave's backsides, gasping for what little air she could get and making the girl in front of her cum and cum and cum... all the while hoping Master would make her cum.

And, since he was working on his second orgasm, it took longer than normal.  Not that the girls cared, though.  To samantha, the endless stream of orgasms was blissful.  To tabby, who still hadn't cum, the anticipation and long delay meant she'd probably literally see stars when she was allowed to cum.  And joanne was just basking in her Master's presence.

When he finally did shoot his seed into tabby, she came so hard that she passed out right where she was with nary an audible whimper—just a shudder and then, silence.  Lance had samantha lay on her stomach, and joanne made sure tabby's face remained on her ass—but turned to the side.  He didn't want her to suffocate. 

This slave was one of his favorites.  There was just something special about the way she clenched her pussy around his cock whenever he let her cum.  He usually had to teach them how to do it and none did it as well as she did.

But, it was time to move.  He had finally received a call from a spy he'd planted (“recruited” would be a better word) in Tala's house.

“Tala” was Tala Nighthaven.  Hers was a name everybody knew, even if most would not admit it.  She was the singularly greatest starlet in the adult movie business and had been so soon after she first took her top off in a movie.  What was amazing was not the fact that she was at the top of her industry, but that she was there and she only did BDSM videos.

Lance knew right away that she was special, and probably a creature like him.  He'd first seen her in a brief bit of one of her films brought to last year's Christmas office party.  It was put on the VCR and played on the wide screen television—the teenage son of one of his workers had brought it in.  He adjusted everybody at the party (particularly the women) to not be offended, and he also made sure everybody got laid after they left his place.  Laid with anyone besides their spouses, anyway.  He was funny like that.

At a thought, a few more slaves appeared from the shadows and licked him clean.  At another thought, a slave raised the lights a little so Lance could look at his cache of slaves one last time—all 34 of them.  They were all dressed in some kind of fetish gear, some with panties that had one or more dildos penetrating them and others with corsettes that shaped them to his liking and took over an hour and (and the assistance of two other slaves) to properly put on.  A few were naked, save a ball gag or garter or something.

At another finger snap, two gagged slaves approached, on their knees, and helped him into his pants, socks, and shoes.  As he walked over to the desk in the large, open room, he took his shirt and put it on.  Now, the only things left in this home were his slaves and his old desk.  Snapping his fingers one last time, the slaves all congregated in the center of the room and started a frenzied orgy, each one feeling the urge to touch, pinch, lick, suck, finger, and fuck any female who was within reach.  They acted on this urge with an urgency like nothing they'd ever felt before.

He walked around the writhing mass of horny slaves and left the room, taking the elevator to the ground floor.  Once at the front door to the office building that was below his castle home, he reached out and removed the block on the slave's orgasms.  He rode the rush of a few dozen climaxes at once—it was almost like a drug—and had them fall asleep when they'd calmed down.  One by one they drifted into slumber. 

And once they woke up, the will and memories he'd taken from them when he'd enslaved them would return.  They'd wake up the people they were when he'd taken them, with no memory of the time that they spent with him.  And they'd weak up in slave gear, entangled with other women in an obviously sexual way.  Since he only took straight women, he laughed at what he thought they might feel when they came to.

He bent down to pick up the briefcase that sat in the lobby of the building, right by the front door.  Inside was everything he needed to to carry with him on his move to Cincinnati—plane ticket in a fake name, cash, keys, etc.—and one thing he needed to leave behind: his will. It left all of his possessions to what it called his illegitimate son—a part he planned to play himself, thanks to the fact that he could control his appearance. 

The lawyers would probably question the timing of the surfacing of the will, as it would be found immediately after the company discovered that Lance Sebastien had been killed in a botched robbery.  But for Lance (soon to be William Forsythe), that was no issue.  He'd just make the legal eagles see things his way, and he'd probably assfuck the secretary in front of them while he did it—if he thought she was cute.

After all, he'd already found a married couple in a nursing home who had no children or immediate surviving family.  And, he had the phony documents needed to prove he was William Forsythe, their son.  If they really wanted to press the issue, he could send for them.  And thankfully, his newly deceased lookalike had no surviving family.

'It was almost too easy,' he thought as he walked out the door.

He put the envelope containing the will in the mail slot just outside the building once he'd gone outside.  A copy of it remained in his briefcase, to make it a little easier to regain his wealth.  Looking one last time at his old home, he mentally hailed a cab and got a ride to O'Hare.


William Forsythe boarded the plane and relaxed, getting a blowjob from the trophy wife of the hockey player sitting a few rows up.  Mentally, he re-watched as much as Tala's videos as he could remember.  Just from the way she moved, the way her flesh seemed to almost sparkle with energy, he knew she was like him.  Ancient and yet young, everlasting and insatiable, and very much in charge of anyone around her.

He'd sneaked a peek at her place a few months ago, when his sources said Tala'd be gone doing some filming in Mexico.  Her house was full of women—nay, slaves.  She had more slaves than him, enough to fill a palatial mansion in a secluded area outside Cincinnati.  And, form their minds, he learned what she used to ensnare them:  her breasts.

He had to admit that they were so soft and bouncy that they could easily cause his destruction.  He'd met enough of his kind to know you can't let them live if you beat them in a battle of minds.  At least, that was his philosophy.  He'd have to force himself not to look at her breasts, and he'd practiced not looking at them while watching her videos for months.

The plane started to land, and as two stewardesses put his seatbelt on him and re-adjusted their slacks (which they'd pulled down so they could allow any passenger in first class to finger or lick their pussies as they walked the aisles), he mentally prepared for the fight. 

He wasn't totally surprised to see that Tala knew he was on his way.  She'd sent a limo.  This made him smile—it was going to be a challenge.  The first in three hundred years or so.

The ride was long and uneventful.  He was new in town and didn't want to make waves or take slaves yet.  Besides, the way he saw it, he had a houseful of them just waiting for him... and a Mistress to ensnare.


The ride took too long for his comfort, and when it was finally over, the walk from the limo to the doors was a great chance to properly stretch his legs.  Using the keys he'd taken from the briefcase that he carried, he unlocked the front entrance and went inside.  Had anyone been allowed to see him, they would have noticed the possessive manner in which he looked at his surroundings.

But everybody wasn't where they normally would have been.  They'd gathered—as many as could fit, anyway—in the open room near the center of the mansion.  The room could easily hold a hundred people or so, and it was full—except for a path, leading to a naked woman with huge, perfect, natural breasts.

They seemed to jiggle a little with each breath.  But, when William noticed that, he shook his head and looked away, scanning the crowd of slaves.  “Nice try,” he said.  “But, you'll have to do better than that.”

He reached out with his mind and forced his way into hers, making one change: she had to obey him.  He would start there and gradually take over her mind's other functions as he saw fit, but he needed her to understand her new place.

“Tell... let's see, slave sally,” William said to Tala, pointing to a kneeling slave whose name he had just pulled from her head, “to come to me.  I know she's your favorite.”  He had made sure of that.

Tala, unable to move, sank to her knees.  Through clenched teeth, she said, “You bastard.”

“Just do it.  Now.”

“OK—slave sally?  Attend...” she started.

“William Forsythe,” he finished for her.  “Master William, to you.”  He raised his voice and yelled, “To all of you!”

But sally remained kneeling and didn't move.  William was infuriated by this and had Tala repeat her command.  He hadn't taken her slaves; he was going to make Tala give them to him to prove a point.  But again and again, Tala repeated her command, and again and again, it was refused.  Angrier than he'd been in decades, William stared at Tala and was about to crush her will completely... when it happened.

He fell to his knees.  Tala looked at him, but she wasn't standing up or smiling.  They both turned when they heard the sound of someone clapping slowly, as if amused at what had just happened.  He waded through the sea of slaves—William somehow hadn't noticed him—and was laughing when he got to them both.

“Listen, Lance.  Or is it William?  Oh fuck it.  Just listen.  I want you to meet Tala Nighthaven, my head slave mistress.  I met her a little over a year ago and decided to treat myself to a nice 17th birthday present last summer.  Her breasts have no effect on me, but I'm going to love playing with them.”

He turned and caressed tala's face, and she leaned into his hand, sucking on his fingers when he put them near her mouth.  He didn't even turn around before he started talking again.

“That slave—slave sally—could not obey because tala here is no longer her Mistress.  I'm in charge.  I'm not so crazy about all this slavery stuff, you know.  But I do love the sex.  So do my friends, and once we get these ladies moved to Boston, I'm going to set up shop.”

He turned  to William and continued.  “And, I'm going to enjoy tala in ways you haven't even imagined.  I know because I know what you've been planning to do for some time.  We're connected, you and I.  Too bad you didn't feel it before I did; our positions might be reversed.  But, enough of that.  We need to take care of that will—the one that leaves everything to one Drew Peterson, a high school kid from Boston.”

It was William's turn to smile now.  He felt Drew's grip loosen, and suddenly he could move again.  Smugly, William opened the briefcase he'd dropped to the floor and grabbed the copy of the will he'd mailed before leaving Chicago.

Drew's laughter was immediate and unnerving.  Looking down, he read what was on the copy of the document he'd triple-checked before having it notarized.  Without meaning to, he began to read out loud.

“I, Lance Sebastien, being of sound mind and body, do hereby will to my sole benefactor, Drew Peterson....”  His voice died right then; he couldn't even take a breath.  His eyes closed and his ears rang so loudly with sudden panic that he barely heard the bang when the gun went off.

It was the last thing he ever heard.  William, shot dead by slave sally, was carried away by several other slaves.  Once the body was out of sight, sally—the spy Lance/William had been so careful to plant and who had confessed her planned betrayal first to Tala and later to Drew—handed the gun to Drew and resumed her kneeling position.

“I hope your ladies like to work for a living, 'cause I need to build a financial empire, don't I?” Drew said as he tweaked his head mistress's erect nipples, making her cum.  She pulled his pants down as fast as she could, hoping to get another taste of that addictive cum that she'd sold herself for.  Drew seemed to have a perpetual hard-on and never was short on semen, thankfully.

As the first man she'd ever fucked rammed his cock in and out of her mouth fast and deep enough to gag a normal person, she prepared for the orgasm that would grip her—and through her, her slaves—when she tasted his cum.  The screams of ecstasy were proving to be quite loud when he made them all cum at once.

'Just the way Master Drew likes it,' she thought as he blew his wad into her mouth, filling it with salty bliss.  With her eyes shut, she rode the waves of pleasure that pummeled her soul—and staring back at her, through her closed eyes, were the hauntingly jade eyes of her bespeckled Master.

Name game players

Tala Nighthaven, from CJ:
Tala Nighthaven is the stage name of a porn starlet who was born with the plain vanilla moniker Jane Smith.  She chose her completely odd stage name by combining the name of her first pet, a three-toed sloth that eventually had learned to play the banjo, Tala, and the name of the first street she lived on, Nighthaven Blvd.

Tala has a very loyal audience.  Some men, and some women as well, become so excited at the sight of Tala's huge natural breasts that they just lose track of themselves altogether.  It's rumored that her staff of live-in slave girls aren't just submissive roleplayers, but women who've actually lost their will completely to her erotic spell.



Drew Petersen from Look Deeper: 
Despite being born to a prominent lawyer father and socialite mother in the northern suburbs of Boston, Drew's presence is less than commanding.  This shy, bookish 17-year old has always put forth the minimum amount of effort needed to get by.  Yet now, in his senior year of prep school, he is dating the captain of the cheerleading squad, being sought after by the best schools and scheduled to give the Valedictory address....despite his B- average.  He snickers when people ask the usual innocuous questions, such as "have you cut your hair."  There is something different.....but it lies in the green pigment of his eyes, behind his conservative wire-rimmed glasses.



Lance Sebastien from Urnmypower: 
Lance Sebastien is an eccentric and very, very, VERY rich man (the latter effectively explaining the former).  Who else but an eccentric billionaire would insist that a Gothic castle be moved, brick by brick, to the roof of his corporate headquarters?  Never seen in public without at LEAST one female on his arm, it appears that time has been kind to him, graying his hair and beard, padding the stomach a little, but leaving the rest apparently intact.

Few know that "Lance Sebastien" is only one of a long string of aliases, public faces on a man as ageless as the mighty Mississippi.  Soon, he will wash the grey out of his hair, shave his beard and detonate his favorite car—one of a limited edition of three in the entire world.  All of his holdings will go to a new identity he has created, thanks to the will he's just notarized.  He will reemerge in the form an illegitimate son.  A woman willing to claim to one of "Lance's" former lovers is as easy to find as his next meal.

There are other beings in the world besides his own kind, and the will in his briefcase will soon be altered, just like the one between his ears, and even his own resistence will be unable to stop it...

[Ms Myrrh]

Stardust Memories
(Or Ewps, I Beg Your Pardon)

layna

[/size]


  “Hey there, Mistah Crandall. Cold enough fo’ ya’ll?”

  The ancient black newsie had already folded a copy of the Times-Picayune and was holding it out to the distinguished looking ofay gent in the charcoal cashmere overcoat. He blew on his fingers energetically, as if providing an exclamation point for this last observation.

  “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it,” his well-dressed customer replied, digging a dollar out of the pocket of his coat.

  “Yeah, well, you can foo’ some of the people all  the time, but my wife, now, there’s a hoss of a entirely diff-”

  The news vendor halted in mid-sentence, his smile slowly giving way to a look of puzzlement as their daily ritual of trading witless, non-sequiter clichés was interrupted by a movement at the far end of his newsstand.

  “Hep you, Mistah?” the old man called out, automatically slipping into the patois of his rural youth as he took a step toward the shapeless form draped in an old army surplus poncho and slouch hat. Call him old fashioned, but Rem Branchwater liked to introduce himself and see his customers’ - and potential customers’ - faces before they started pawing over his inventory. Especially the smut books. Besides, this guy didn’t look to be the sort that’d be any too particular about leaving greasy fingerprints - or Lord knows whatall else - on the merchandise.

  “Scuse me, sah,” Rem tried again as he neared the - man? Woman? Hard to tell in that coat and hat. He peered into the chill fog that was starting to settle in earnest on the nearly deserted Riverwalk, and a corresponding chill began to work its way up his arthritic spine. He didn’t even notice when Mr. Crandall bade him good evening and walked off, vanishing into the mist crawling up over the levee from the river.
 
  “I says, can I hep you?”

  Now Rem was near enough to see the magazine that he (she?) was holding; one of them slick paper, high-tone lesbo fuckbooks, ‘Enstrangled Limbs’ or some damn thing. He made a mental note to cancel his next order for that particular publication as he drew closer to this odd-looking individual. Rem was close enough now - or should have been, anyway - to make out who it was that he was addressing. But he couldn’t. All he could see was that shapeless poncho, and the soft brim of the hat pulled down so low that it concealed its owner’s face entirely.

  Well, almost entirely.

  Rem Branchwater suddenly stopped short, just out of reach of the thing, as if he’d been pole axed. Or rooted to the spot, more like. His brain sent frantic messages to his legs to git a’goin’, but he just stood there, gawping in horror at the apparition in the gloaming that had chosen his little newsstand to haunt this chilly evening.

“Lawd God A’mighty, have muhssy…”

*        *

  “Connie, has Rebecca come in yet?”

  “Not yet, Ms. Krummel. Shall I call and -”

  “No,” Agatha Krummel cut her receptionist off rather brusquely. Agatha hated being anticipated, almost as much as she hated being made to wait. Particularly when she was waiting for someone who’s salary she was in large measure responsible for. “Just tell her to get her fanny in here the instant she arrives. Oh, and Connie,” she added, as an  afterthought. “It might not hurt if you were to put today’s paper on her desk, turned to the ‘help wanted’ ads. Maybe it will give our Ms. Hornay a little something to think about other than when she might be getting my job.”

  Agatha Krummel flipped the switch on the intercom with a little more gusto than she’d intended. Agatha hated losing control of herself too, even when no one else was around to witness it, or would have noticed even if they had been. For most of her forty-odd years Agatha Krummel had made a very good living by concealing what she was thinking - and feeling - from people who were not nearly so adept at doing the same. This rather dubious talent had led to a glass-walled corner office on the ninth floor of the old Cotton Exchange building on Canal Street, from where she oversaw marketing operations for Lighthouse Publications. It had also led to a seat on Lighthouse’s board and - with a little luck combined with some very Machiavellian tactical maneuverings - would ultimately lead to the chairman’s seat on that same board, if Agatha Krummel had anything to say about it. And she fully intended to.

  Her interoffice communicator cheeped again, and she tore her eyes away from the hypnotic sweep of the Mississippi oozing muddily toward the sea to glare at it, forgetting for a moment where she was.

  That’s not like me, Agatha Krummel fretted, pressing the switch on the intercom. Not like me at all…

  “Ms. Hornay to see you, Ms. Krummel.” Connie’s voice was coolly efficient; you’d never have suspected that she’d had been swapping lipstick with the aforementioned Ms. Hornay since Labor Day. Which suited Agatha’s purposes nicely. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Sun Tzu, she thought. Or was it LBJ?

  “Have her come right in please, Connie,” Agatha snapped, running a hand unconsciously over her tightly waved auburn hair. It was an affectation, and she knew it…who wore Marcel waves any more? Ordinarily, Agatha Krummel paid no more attention to her clothing or hair than was absolutely necessary in order to convey the desired effect to those she wished to influence. Now she fidgeted with the button on her jacket, brushed a piece of imaginary lint from a lapel. Caught herself, and made a self-deprecating sound with her tongue.

  Tcha! Foolishness!

  The door opened and in breezed Rebecca Hornay, tugging off fawn-colored ostrich gloves and carelessly tossing them, along with her coat and hat, onto a corner of Agatha Krummel’s desk. She smiled dazzlingly and dropped into the chair across from her boss.

  “So nice of you to find time in your schedule to squeeze us in this afternoon, Rebecca,” Agatha said icily.

  “Oh, I am sorry, Aggie.” Rebecca Hornay assumed an expression of exaggerated contrition designed, Agatha knew very well, simply to irritate her even further. “Honestly I am. That damned ol’ car of mine simply would not start again, wouldn’t you just know it? I believe that it is categorically disinclined to go anywhere when the temperature drops below forty. Shows good sense, don’t you think? An’ then, on the way in on the streetcar, I saw the most charmin’ lil’ dress at Beauvoirs, and don’t you know I just had to stop and try it on, and then -”

  “Yes, yes,” Agatha cut her off with an impatient wave of her hand. “I don’t need your entire diary entry for the day. But since you’re here, perhaps you could spare a moment or two out of your busy day to go over your report?”

  Rebecca gave her a blank look, but one that only affected her eyes. Her brilliant thousand candlepower smile never dimmed a watt.

  “Report?”

  Agatha stared in disbelief, fighting off the impulse to go over the desk at her. What is wrong with me this morning? she thought. First the intercom and Connie, and then woolgathering out the window at the river, and now this inability to conceal her irritation from the woman who was after her job.  She clenched a fist in her lap. “Yes, your report, Rebecca.”

  This was met with more, and whiter, teeth (if that were possible), juxtaposed nicely with even emptier eyes.

  “The distributors, Rebecca? Why they’re canceling their orders for Stroker, and Bliss, and Entangled Limbs, and -”

  “Oh, that report!” A sudden glimmer of something akin to recognition flashed in those startling blue eyes, only to be replaced almost immediately with that vapid blankness again.

  “Yes, 'that' report,” Agatha said, not caring if her exasperation showed this time or not. What was wrong with the girl? She was usually so sharp, so on top of every smallest detail…

  “Well, I um…I mean, that is…I…ahhhh…”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. Your dog ate it.”

  “Oh, Aggie, you! Of course my dog didn’t eat it! I only feed the Biffster Science Diet! Y’all know that!”
 
  Was she blushing? In all her experience of Rebecca Hornay, she could not recall a single instance of the woman ever blushing!
 
  Agatha Krummel pushed herself slowly away from the desk, tamping down the urge to pinch herself, very hard. Perhaps she was still in bed, dreaming. Of course. That was it. All she had to do was to pinch herself and she’d wake up in her big four poster, huddled beneath the covers all warm and stupid still with sleep.

  While she was mulling this possibility over, something that she never would have even dreamt of happened next, something she would have considered impossible if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. Rebecca Hornay slipped her hands under her skirt and expertly wriggled out of her panties, depositing them with a playful kick on Agatha Krummel’s desk.

  “Will you settle for these, Aggie?”  Rebecca Hornay inquired, all wide-eyed, mascara-fluttering innocence.

  Agatha sat staring stupidly at the ridiculously inadequate little rien of peach nylon and frothy lace. Rebecca Hornay took advantage of this momentary lull in the conversation to rise from her chair and hop nimbly onto Agatha Krummel’s glass topped desk, where she knelt and hiked up her skirt, spreading her knees as far as a human being could spread them and still reasonably expect to retain their use for locomotion later on. Agatha crimsoned as she looked first into her administrative assistant’s dreamily bemused cuntenance (Countenance!! COUNTENANCE!!!!), then down at the girl’s smoothly-shaven mons veneris - now conveniently at eye level - which her fingers were plying with an enthusiasm that seemed to belie the almost-catatonic expression on her vacantly pretty young face.

  “Ms. Hornay!!”

  Rebecca Hornay was still enthusiastically fingerfucking herself a half hour later as the EMT’s discreetly carried her out the back entrance, and down to the waiting ambulance.

*        *

  -Did she suspect?
  -No, of course not.
  -You’re quite certain?
  She rolled her eyes. Would YOU have?
  -I have no idea. I’m not one of you, thank the splorgs.
  -You don’t know what you’re missing.
  -You think not?
 
  It was a small, subtle thing; a simple change in tonality, a slight alteration in the surrounding air pressure was all, really. But her orgasm was explosive. Think Hiroshima, on steroids.
 
  -Oh my sweet Virgin and all the blessed Martyrs!
  -Then all is in readiness?
  -Oh God yes fuck yesyesYES…just do THAT again!!
  -Later. We have things to do first…

*        *

“Well, she sorta seemed to have her own…whaddaya callit…her own agenda, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I’m not certain that I do, Mr. Terrell.” Agatha Krummel tried to avoid looking directly into the eyes of the man leering at her across the mountain of order forms, invoices, girly magazines, half-empty coffee cups filled with half-smoked Marlboros, and stale, half-eaten donuts that littered his desk. Powdered sugar frosted the man’s tobacco stained mustache, a nice contrast to the half-moons of grime embedded under his fingernails.

  Hopeless, she thought. “Could you be a little more specific than that, do you think?”

  “Well, what I mean is that she din’t really seem to be all that innerested in my bidness, ya know? It was more like she was innerested in another kinda bidness, if ya get my drift.” He leaned back, the swivel chair groaning in protest under his enormous bulk, and gave her a lewd, conspiratorial wink. “I’d keep my eye on that one, I was you.”

  Grotesque images of her delicate administrative assistant laboring like a two dollar street walker over Terrell (surely she wouldn’t have survived the missionary position with this corpulent pervert!) made Agatha’s stomach knot in fury.

  “Thank you so much for the advice, Mr. Terrell,” Agatha said, favoring the man with a glacial smile. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”  As she rose to leave, Terrell leaned forward and licked his lips, looking her up and down as if she were the lunch special at the BonTon.

  “Ya know, mebbe you and me could do a little bidness too,” he rasped in a voice coarsened with lust. “My tastes have always run to a little older doll, personally…”

  Muttering hasty apologies, Agatha all but ran out of the dingy, claustrophobic office of Terrell Distributors, trailing the tattered remnants of her dignity in her wake.

  Terrell’s was the fourth such office she’d been in this morning, and the experience had left her feeling in desperate need of a hot bath and a thorough scrubbing with a bristle brush. Her skin literally crawled with the sly innuendo and outright filth that had been conveyed to her over the course of the last several hours, by men who were quite obviously relishing the telling.

  Rebecca Hornay. It didn’t seem possible. It made no sense at all.

  And yet, it made such perfect sense in its own way. After all, if circulation suddenly were to crater at Lighthouse Publications, whose head was it that was going to be on the block? AA’s didn’t take the fall for marketing directors. Or at least not directly, they didn’t.

  And her breakdown. That was a thing of genius, Agatha had to grudgingly admit. It would make it awfully hard to lay the blame at Rebecca’s door. She could hear Connie now, sobbing to the board about how that awful Ms. Krummel had worked the poor girl to death, till she went over the edge, anybody could have seen it coming, anybody but Ms. Krummel, that is. No wonder the marketing department was in such a state, with everyone working themselves into nervous breakdowns and all on that horrible woman’s account!

  Agatha Krummel sighed, and reluctantly postponed her soak. There was only one more distributor on her list, and she wanted to finish this as soon as possible, then wash the residue of the morning out of her mouth with a martini - or three - at lunch. Besides, it was a distributor that she was unfamiliar with, and Agatha prided herself on knowing everything that went on at Lighthouse, from the mailroom on up. And she’d never even heard of Andromeda Enterprises. She was looking forward to rectifying that situation as soon as possible.

*        *

  Agatha pressed the chrome button next to the ‘4’ and leaned back against the car’s wall as it silently ascended. She’d ransacked her Rolodex and Outlook files - and Rebecca Hornay’s as well - but had come up an absolute blank on Mr. Pew, and Andromeda Enterprises. No listing in the online yellow or white pages either, nor any hits on the Internet. It had been a stroke of luck really that she’d come across the small card wedged under a case in the bottom drawer of Rebecca Hornay’s desk:

Andromeda Enterprises (IWU). 
S. Pew, Pres.
Suite 417
Galactic Forum
New Orleans, LA

  The case itself had contained the most bizarre looking vibrator (she’d assumed that’s what the thing was, anyway) that she’d ever seen. Soft leather straps attached to a tiny circular object made from some odd material; not really metal, but not plastic either. This girl is just full of surprises, she’d thought, taking the card and - as an afterthought - the case as well. She’d briefly considered stopping by the hospital first and confronting Rebecca - with the card at least - but quickly discarded this notion. She had no desire to be treated to another Tijuana sex show by her former administrative assistant, regardless of how heavily sedated she supposedly was. Besides, it might be better to approach Mr. Pew with an open mind. After all, they could certainly use the circulation boost that a new distribution network could give them!

  The elevator whispered to a stop and the doors slid open with a pneumatic ‘swoosh,’ depositing Agatha Krummel in a dimly lit - and apparently deserted - reception area. She was about to reenter the elevator, certain that she’d stopped on the wrong floor, when her eye fell on a glittering disk floating above the small reception table in the center of the room:

 

-Andromeda Enterprises -
Ad astra per corporea

[/i]

  Agatha shrugged; she’d pretty much slept through Latin in prep school and besides, Latin speakers were a decidedly limited demographic in the slick porn periodical business. Crossing the reception area on carpeting so thick that she nearly twisted an ankle once or twice, she stopped at the table. Nothing on it, nothing at all. Not even a telephone. She stepped around the table and opened the single drawer on the other side; empty as well, except for one or two curious looking silver discs, about an inch and a half or so across. They resembled digital recording media of some type, but were made of a material she was completely unfamiliar with. She put the discs back and was sliding the drawer closed when a hand closed on her shoulder.

  Agatha Krummel nearly leaped out of her skin. Her teeth banged together with an audible ‘clunk,’ which was the only thing that kept her from screaming. She whirled and came face to face with:

  Rebecca Hornay.
 
  Or at least, she thought it was Rebecca. Given the inadequate artificial twilight in this cavernous antechamber, and her state as she waited for her heart to make the return trip from her throat, she couldn’t be completely certain of anything. And she’d certainly never seen her administrative assistant quite like this, even at the impromptu lap dance she’d given the other morning. Dark hair cascaded in loose waves almost to her waist, framing her like some Renaissance oil painting. The woman was otherwise utterly naked, and her pale body seemed to shimmer softly, like some deep underground pool lit indirectly from beneath. The Blue Grotto of Capri would have looked like this, had it magically been transformed into pure alabaster female flesh. Agatha’s eyes traveled over the woman’s body in spite of herself, taking in the uniformly gleaming expanse of her skin that was interrupted only by the twin rose suns of her areoles, with nipples softly erected like small raspberry jelly babies at their center. Agatha found that she had to remind herself to breathe.

  “Re…Rebecca?” she finally managed to stammer. “Wha…what on earth are you doing here?”

  The apparition just smiled sweetly at her, and took Agatha’s hand in her own. With a gentle tug, she led her through a break in the opaque glass paneling that had been invisible just a moment earlier. Without quite knowing why, Agatha meekly allowed the girl to lead her through to the other side.

  It was so unlike her.

  The space they’d passed into was much larger than the reception area, which was no small thing. Agatha tried to get her bearings but the room - if room it was - seemed to defy any attempt by her ordinary senses to define and delineate it in a way that made sense. It seemed to lack the sort of normal architectural form one usually associated with a room, or indeed with any recognizable geometric concept at all. She could feel her feet sinking into the same soft carpeting as the reception room, and was distantly aware that they seemed to be bare now. She wondered vaguely where she’d left her shoes, but the warm, insistent pressure of Rebecca’s hand on her own quickly chased any such mundane considerations from her mind.

  She glanced down at her hand, still clasped in Rebecca’s, and started as she realized that the rest of her own clothing seemed to have vanished as well, leaving her as bare as her soon-to-be-ex-AA. She was suddenly, and intensely, aware of the way her inner thighs chafed against each other while she walked, and of the tingling little itch that this movement seemed to be kindling in her pussy. She squeezed Rebecca’s hand convulsively.

  “It’s all right,” the other woman soothed. “You’ll understand it all in just a little while…”

  “Understand what, Rebecca? What’s going on here, what are YOU doing here, and where have my clothes gotten t -”

  She was in a chair. Finally, something recognizable in this funhouse of an office. Rebecca’s hand was no longer in hers, which wasn’t an entirely bad thing, as the girl’s touch (not to mention the ripe, earthy scent that she’d managed to acquire, quite unlike the delicate lilac perfume that she usually favored) hadn’t been doing anything to relieve the relentless pressure that had been building between Agatha’s legs ever since she’d arrived in this place. She squinted into the shadowy dimness and thought that she could just make out the shape of a desk in front of her, and someone sitting on the other side of it. Or at least she supposed it to be a desk, and a ‘someone.’ It was really almost impossible to tell in these Alice-in-Wonderland surroundings.

  And where had Rebecca gotten to?
 
  Agatha pressed her bare, slippery thighs together more tightly, concentrating on mental images of tax schedules and heavy earth moving machinery. She blinked several times in rapid succession, trying make things out in the surrealistic light - and to preempt her own body’s apparent agenda, if she could. She thought that perhaps it was getting a little easier to see, yes, she was sure that she could see someone (thing?) in the darkness across from her now.

  “Ms. Krummel,” the person across the desk intoned (you couldn’t really say ‘spoke;’ it wasn’t at all like any sort of speech that Agatha was familiar with.) “How kind of you to come.”

  How did HE know?!?

  “Not at all,” Agatha began, trying to salvage what little decorum she could, and regain some control over this highly irregular situation. It would have been easier if she’d been dressed. “Lighthouse is always looking for new, aggressive outlets for its prod -”

  A sound not unlike rocks being tumbled in the spin-dry cycle emanated from ‘Mr. Pew’s’ side of the desk. It could have been laughter, Agatha supposed.

  “Do you mean this tripe?” he said, holding up the latest issue of Nameless Love, the one featuring a very popular runway model on its cover in collar, cuffs, and chains - and precious little else. Agatha was more interested in the hands that were  holding the magazine, however. Or more precisely their number, and odd configuration.

  “Well naturally, we don’t pretend to be Atlantic Monthly, or The New Yorker, but I like to think that we provide product for a certain niche in the -”

  With another of those odd grumbling, growly laughs the thing opposite her seemed to swell up, to actually become larger, looming over the desk - and Agatha Krummel as well. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the semi-darkness, she could see quite plainly that this person didn’t know the first thing about power, or dressing to achieve it, either. Or personal grooming, for that matter. But then, who was she to talk? She tried to casually rearrange her arms and hands so as to provide herself with at least a modicum of modesty. Agatha was beginning to feel distinctly like a model on the cover of one of her own magazines.

  And that damned itch simply would not go away!

  “You slay living entities simply to provide the media on which to purvey this…this…this…” evidently at a loss for the proper word, he (it?) simply tossed the magazine away in disgust. At the same time, several tentacles began worming their way from beneath the desk, slithering wetly toward Agatha Krummel’s ankles. “But we have better ways to accomplish the same exact ends, you see…using methods that don’t encompass the slaughter of innocents on a grand scale simply to assuage our baser instincts…”

  Agatha frowned, frankly confused by the conversation’s abrupt turn toward environmental accountability. “Well of course, we’re exploring alternate forms of dissemination for Lighthouse Publications too, you know. The web, downloadable issues, podcasting, those sorts of things…”

  “Foolish human!” the thing rumbled, all but hanging over Agatha now. From this vantage point, it was easy to see that it wasn’t a person at all, or at least not the sort of person that Agatha Krummel was likely to have lunch with any time soon. A kind of luminous green slime seemed to be exuding from the thing’s pores, and that smell!  When a small drip of it broke loose and fell with a viscuous ‘Plup!’ on her bare thigh, she nearly screamed.

  Agatha was just going to terminate this unseemly interview when one of the tentacles groping across the floor took possession of her right ankle, wrapping around it and the leg of her chair simultaneously. In less time than it takes to relate, additional pliable appendages had secured her other ankle and both of her wrists to the chair. She shuddered in disgust as several slippery vine-like things slithered over her bare skin, then gasped as something cold and metallic was affixed to her left nipple. Now she began to struggle in earnest, thrashing wildly against the tentacles that held her immobilized in the chair as other cold discs were attached to various parts of her anatomy, some of them in places that hadn’t been touched by anyone - other than herself - in ages.

  Then the chair simply wasn’t, any longer. There was only Agatha’s nude body, trailing wires like some futuristic kite, suspended in space and time, splayed in the starlit darkness as dozens, hundreds, thousands of slithering obscenities of all sizes and thicknesses and textures orbited her, gliding over her skin, squeezing and caressing her, sometimes tenderly, sometimes with an incredible lubricity, others with a touch that just seemed unspeakably filthy.

  “More bass,” another voice, very like Pew’s but colder, rumbled from somewhere off in the void. “Her lower register isn’t tracking properly.” Agatha felt a sudden, intense tingling in her clitoris. It was just as if it had fallen asleep, that same pins-and-needles sensation, only a thousand times more intense. A million times more intense. She groaned in despair as she felt herself beginning to cramp rhythmically, that old familiar precursor to her orgasms.

  “Better…”

  The single word almost paralyzed Agatha Krummel with shame. It was bad enough that she was being made to experience desires that she’d nearly forgotten existed, needs she thought she’d subdued forever until this moment. But to have it done to her in the presence of strangers, of thingsthat she realized now were not even human, was simply more than she could bear. She began to tremble violently, writhing in the grip of those alien tentacles, and knew that she was going to climax. She felt like Stella in Streetcar, colored lights flashing and whirling all around her, lights that became textures that became touches that alternately teased and provoked her to the edge of reason, and then roughly pushed her over it. She came once, and then again, and then still again, in almost less time than it took to think it.

  Sudden bright flashes began exploding all around her, blinding her in a pyrotechnical display that was reminiscent of heat lightning before the tornados that ripped across the flat, featureless plains of her childhood. How the flashes, and the explosions of thunder like cannon fire had terrified her! She raised her arms to cover her face, and two more jellylike tentacles wound themselves around her thighs, spreading her open even more widely. She screamed, sobbing like a child and biting into her forearm till she tasted the warm, sweet tang of blood. She opened her mouth to scream again.
 
  It was a mistake.
 
  Mr. Pew’s odd, limb-like protuberances promptly proceeded to occupy every available orifice of Agatha Krummel’s body, including her mouth. One the thickness of a baseball bat curled like a snake along her pussylips, pulsing against her swollen opening, coaxing her wetness from her until suddenly it uncoiled, like a child’s jack-in-the-box, and exploded up into her with unimaginable force. She came almost instantly, something she hadn’t done in years and years. Another, only slightly smaller tentacle corkscrewed itself into her anus with an astonishing dexterity, triggering another orgasm while her first was just starting to wind down. Other, slightly more delicate but no less disgusting tendrils encircled the base of each of her breasts, squeezing them slowly and inexorably until they began to change color and her nipples stood up rigid and buzzing, like two small ruby-colored bullets. Agatha felt that she must surely pass out from the welter of unfamiliar sensations ripping through her body’s overloaded sensory grid.

  Then suddenly two smaller, infinitely more tender things affixed themselves to one of her distended nipples and warmer, more delicate feelers replaced the constricting tendril that had been choking her clitoris. With a start she realized that silken, gardenia-scented hair was fanned across her torso, and that the new tentacles at her breast were lips, and the things stroking her clit and labia were fingers.

  Rebecca...

  Agatha looked dazedly towards where the window should have been, expecting to see New Orlean’s Riverwalk and the Quarter spread beneath her. Instead, she saw only stars, stars in a profusion and brightness such as she’d never imagined could exist, whirling past her besotted eyes. Limbs/lips/fingers/tongues stroked and caressed her, dragging her into her fourth (fourteenth?) orgasm in as many minutes. Or was it hours?

  Tentacle sex, Agatha Krummel smiled to herself, shifting her hips ever so slightly to accommodate yet another slippery little brachia in her sweltering, spasming asshole.

  It’s not just for lipless adolescents anymore…

*        *

  “Evenin’, Ma`am. Hot enough fo’ ya?”

  “If you can’t take the heat, Rem, you’d best keep out of the kitchen.”

  “Yas’m, but remember, ya’ll gots ta strike while that iron’s hot.”

  “Out of the frying pan, into the fire…”

  Rem laughed quietly as he handed the imposing redhead a small, glittering disk. “Yes’m, that sho be the truth, ain’t no denyin’. I guess if I ain’t learned me nuthin else in this heah life, I done learned that f’om my Beatrice.”

  He was still shaking his head and chuckling as the woman turned and strolled off down the levee. This time of night there weren’t many people about, and the streets around the vieux carré were quiet, perhaps even just a little bit sinister, even for an old hand like Remus Branchwater. He looked after her, hoping that she knew her way around, that she’d take care of herself. Good customers like Miz Krummel weren’t all that easy to come by these days.

*        *

  Agatha strolled aimlessly along the levee, savoring the heavy odors and furtive sounds that always seemed to fill the Quarter at this hour on sultry summer’s nights like these. She looked up, counting off the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters…was one of these elegant ladies absent this evening? But no, there she was. Right where she ought to be, too, just next to the new star dipping low on the horizon across the river over Algiers. She smiled and touched her throat absentmindedly, stroking the warm pulse that slid just beneath her skin, savoring the sensual heaviness of her hair, worn loose now so that it brushed against her bare shoulders in the torpid night air.

  Still gazing at the latest addition to the constellations in the Southern night sky, Agatha delicately lifted the hem of her light summer dress and slipped a tiny silver disc into the device strapped to her inner thigh, just where it joined her delta. It began playing at once; soft, inaudible octaves that crept stealthily through her flesh, making it reverberate to the unheard orchestrations. Her cuntlips began to drool almost immediately, and a slow, languid heat spread through her body. She stared at the soft yellow glow of the artificial celestial object again, and wondered if Rebecca was still on the ship, wondered if perhaps it had been she herself that had recorded the sexual sonata which was burning through Agatha’s flesh like fire at this very instant. Then her climax took her, and all thought of Rebecca Hornay, or Ewps, or anything at all but her own sweet pleasure melted away in the furnace of her orgasm.

  When the disc finished Agatha slipped it into her purse, running her fingers through her hair and straightening the seams of her stockings. She wondered if it was too late to return to the office and see how the latest burn was proceeding. She wanted to be there when the billionth disc came off the assembly line. Milestones like that deserved to be commemorated by the new chairwoman of the board of Lightyear Publications. It meant so much to the little people. But a billion issues was really only a drop in the cosmic bucket of Lightyear’s vast new potential audience. A flyspeck in the collective eye of her comprehensive new sexual universe.

  Now, the sky was quite literally the limit.

Epilogue

  Mr. S. Pew (aka ‘the Ewps’) returned to the Andromeda galaxy with a shipload of giant redwood saplings, spotted owls, and Thompson’s kangaroo rats, with which he proceeded to populate the galaxy, overrunning several small solar systems in the process. He also brought back with him the new discs of Lightyear’s latest release, Intergalactic Whores Unlimited, featuring that cross species, pan-planetary sensation, Rebecca Hornay (who later became editor-in-chief of same.)

endit

Thanks to flibinite, Topaz172, half a keylime pie at bedtime and inadequate medication for the inspiration for this. May the farce be with you!

MEB, all rights reserved © 2005

Ewps
A tentacled blob from the Andromeda Galaxy. A Hitchhiking environ,mental protestor currently digging a protest nest under Washington state... and waiting for the next large yellow brick-like hyperspace demolition ship

Agatha Krummel
40, female, Assistant Director of Marketing for Lighthouse Publications, a company specializing in offbeat sexual magazines, like "Stroker" and "Entangled Limbs"... tall and full-figured, Agatha appears rather matronly, dresses very primly, but when it comes to getting their magazines on the racks around the country, will stop at nothing to make that happen.  Unfortunately, she's been reading too many of them lately, and finding her own lovelife boring by comparison.  Boring, that is, until one day she gets a new research assistant, one Rebecca Hornay, a beautiful young woman who's open face and seductive smile hides a sinister secret, and an even darker power

[flibinite]

Helpful Questions

Chapter 1 (of 4) --

Miriam was smiling as she wheeled her blue Mini-Cooper into the supermarket parking space.  It was a beautiful late-Spring day, and she was still on a bit of a high from helping the police solve that robbery at the Bell Arms over the weekend.

They had been more and more willing to work with her lately, as she had been getting results for them, then declining all credit, as that's not what she was about.  She had been growing more and more certain over the years that her "gift" had come from God, and was something that she should use to help people.

She didn't do it for publicity.  Miriam did it because she fancied herself as being a good detective, and because it was just another way for her to help others.  Besides, living alone, at age 54, she enjoyed the excitement of such things, and felt they helped keep her young at heart.

She hauled herself out of her car, happy to be so spry for age, still.  She knew she was luckier than most, not having to work at a 9-to-5 job for a living, so tried to take advantage of it by working out three times a week and taking yoga classes.  Miriam didn't mind getting older, but saw no reason not to take care of herself in the process.

Eating correctly was another aspect of that.  To that end, she entered the Super-Duper and made for the fresh produce section, silently whistling as she smoothed out her tweed skirt and grabbed a cart.

When she got there, she spotted her long-time friend, Rebecca Horowitz, and called out, "Hi, Rebecca."

Rebecca recognized the voice before she even turned to say hello, beginning to smile in spite of herself.  Everyone smiled around Miriam Goochie; she was the type of person who just made one feel better about things, about life.  In fact, her nickname was "Auntie Miriam", a name that just seemed to fit her to a tee.  She was friendly and helpful and a rock of support when needed.

"Hi, Miriam.  You're looking well, as always."

"Thanks, dear."  Miriam knew Rebecca quite well, working for many of the same charity groups as she.  Though Rebecca generally sat on the boards of them, while Miriam did more of the grunt-like work, they had developed a strong friendship over the years.  It was strong enough that she could tell that Rebecca's quick smile was just a momentary mask for what she was really feeling.

"I'd like to say you're looking well, too, but there's something wrong, isn't there?"

Rebecca sighed.  She had seen her friend do this so many times, seen Auntie Miriam instantly cut right to the heart of the matter, that she didn't even try to pretend she was completely ok.

"Just a few personal problems.  I'll be fine... honest.  So how's your day been going?"

Miriam scowled for a moment.  This wouldn't do at all.  Rebecca was hurting, and she needed to help if she could.

"My day’s been fine, until now."  She stared hard into Rebecca's eyes.  "Please tell me what's wrong, dear.  You want to tell Auntie what's wrong, don't you?"

Rebecca sighed, again.  And again, she knew better than to protest.  When Miriam looked at you like that... like this... there was simply no way of resisting her, no way you wanted to resist telling her what she wanted to know.

"It's Dana."  Rebecca heard Miriam's slight gasp.  "No, no.  She's fine... I mean, she's not hurt or ill or anything... I think."

Still holding Rebecca with her eyes, Miriam said, "Just tell me what you're worried about, Becca."

It all came out of Rebecca in a rush.  Dana was still off doing her first year at an upstate college, but her grades had been dropping, she hardly ever called home anymore, and when they did talk on the phone, Dana seemed moody and aloof, nothing like the sweet, cheerful girl that they both knew so well.

"... and she refuses to say anything is even wrong, Miriam.  She insists she's fine.  But not only does she not want me to come visit her, she's making noises about finding a job and apartment up there, and not even coming home this summer.  I just can't help but feel that there's something wrong with her."

Miriam had known Dana since she was 10, and agreed... this didn't sound like the Dana she knew, at all.  She was obviously hiding something from her parents.

Just like that, Miriam decided she would find out what it was for them.

"I'm not doing anything for a few days, Becca.  Let me just drive up there and snoop around a bit, get a sense of what might be going on.  I can talk to her, see what's up."  She gave her friend a wink.  "She might even be persuaded to tell me things she won't, or can't, tell you."

Rebecca had no doubt about that.  But it was her family's business, something she shouldn't even have mentioned, and nothing she wanted to concern her friend with.

"No, Miriam.  I can't ask you to do that."

"But I want to do it," Miriam said quietly.  She put her arms on her friend's shoulders and stared intently at her.  "And you want me to do it, too... don't you?"

Rebecca suddenly did want that.  She really was quite worried about her daughter, and knew Miriam was special somehow, that she had uncanny way of finding things out.

"Would you mind?  It's not fair to you, I know, but I...."

"Consider it done, sweetie!"  Miriam hugged her.  "I'll head up there tomorrow, get a room for a few days, and call you as soon as I know anything.  How's that?"  Miriam stepped back, smiling and happy.

"Thank you," Rebecca said, taking the older woman's hands in hers.  "You're a true friend.  And you know I wouldn't even have asked if I weren't so certain something was wrong."

"Well, I'll find out what it is... I promise.  But I wouldn't worry so much if I were you, sweetie.  Dana's a good girl, and I'm sure whatever the problem is, it's something small.

"Now... how do the honeydews looked today?"

********

Dana spread her knees wider, lowering herself onto him again, feeling his cock pressing even deeper inside her.  God, he's so big, she thought, rising up, then thrusting downward and totally impaling herself on him.

She moaned in pleasure, feeling him stretching her soaked cunt, filling her, and banging away at her insides.

"That's it!  Ride Daddy's big cock, you whore!" the man beneath her grunted.  She clamped her fingers around his wrists as his big hands mauled her breasts even harder, riding him like a human motorcycle on a very rough road.

"Squeeze me, slut!  You know you want to.  You want to milk Big Daddy dry!"  He was almost yelling now, arching his hips upward to meet hers on the way down, driving his thick shaft into her completely.

Dana moaned wildly, tossing her long, dark hair, her face covered with sweat.  She could feel her greasy pussy rippling and spasming along his full length with each grinding penetration.

Like all too many of her johns, this one was an absolute lout... the way he talked to her, his ego, the rough way he used her large breasts.  But it didn't matter what she thought of him.  Marsha had addicted her to the feel of sex, driven her to want it, to crave it, no matter how rough or unseemly it became.  She was getting off on this because she wanted to, had to, and she couldn't have stopped her moans, her wetness, or the way she plunged herself down on him, if she had tried.

She gasped as he pinched her nipples hard, Marsha's training turning that from pain to pleasure, making her scream, and driving her over the edge.  She seized and began to shudder, snapping her hips at him, and started to cum.

Dana barely heard him yell, "Wait for me, bitch!", didn't even realize when he sat up, grabbed her, and slammed her down on the bed under him.  She didn't, and couldn't, stop cumming as he almost broke her legs in his haste to pin her knees to her tits, to start driving his dick into her again... and again... and again.

They both finally finished cumming... at the same time... lying there on the bed covers, panting and momentarily spent.  Their session still had a half-hour to go, though.

"You're good, baby, real good," he said with a toothy leer.

"So are you, Big Daddy," she whispered back.  She hated saying that, but Marsha insisted that all her girls make the paying customers feel like royalty. 

And Dana lived to please Marsha now.  So, even in doing something she detested, pleasure replaced the pain of saying that, too, and she shivered in arousal.

If her trick thought it he was the one triggering that, so much the better.

She reached over to the nightstand to grab another condom, to be ready for when he was able to go again.

Well, cum again, at least.

********

Miriam headed up State Route 8 toward the Utica, listening to the radio, concentrating on her driving, but otherwise letting her mind drift.  She had been all over New York at one time or another in her life, tending to use the much more scenic back roads like this, rather than the faster, but excessively boring, Thruway.  It was prettier, and allowed her to feel more connected to the people of the state she called home.

Besides, time was not a major concern of hers.  Her parents had been rich... not as rich as Dana's parents, but still rich.  When they had died, just after she'd turned 30, they had left Miriam everything, as she was their only child.  She had combined and sold all of those assets, created a large annuity fund for herself, quit her job at the publishing house, and simply lived the life she wanted to live.

And that basically meant trying to help others, when and if she could.

So ever since then, Miriam had lived a frugal, simple life, helping her friends, doing volunteer and charity work around the city.  She had always had a bug about detective work, though, picking that interest up while still at the publishing house.  Detective stories and romance novels had been their stock in trade.

Reading those, and her "gift", had drawn her into some layperson's detective work over the years.  She had been good at it, too, able to get information where others could not.  And now, based on her successes, there was a police captain or two who actually sought her out on occasion, to see what she could find out for them.

The romance novels, on the other hand, had done little for her.  Her interest in such things had basically died on the same night as her full gift had apparently been born.

Miriam had been 23, just out of college.  She had made a bad mistake walking back to her apartment one night, taking a shortcut through an alley she knew better than to enter.  She had been grabbed, beaten, and raped.  As the beast who assaulted her knelt down beside her, brandishing his large knife, her fear had suddenly turned into a cool-burning anger.

"You can't kill me," she had said to him as he raised the knife.  She would never forget the confused look on his face as he hesitated.  "You don't want to kill me, do you?" she had gone on, stunned to hear him tell her "no".  "You want to stand up and walk away, don't you?" she had said firmly, staring into his eyes.

And that's exactly what he had done, mumbling a "yes", standing, and walking off into the night.

Miriam had always been a bit surprised at how readily people seem to agree with her.  But this had felt far different, almost as if she were directly controlling him with her words, her eyes, or her thoughts.  Perhaps it was some combination... she had never tried to find out for sure.

She had never really gotten over the attack, though.  She hadn't been a virgin at the time, but she hadn't been able, hadn't allowed herself to be with a man ever since.  As time went on, and her needs grew, she had tried to be with a few other women.  She had found it enjoyable enough, but had even fallen away from that right about the time her parents had died.

I guess that makes me the classic spinster, she thought, as her car crossed the Utica city line.  Maybe that's why I like tweed so much.  Miriam was still smiling.  Such sexual, romantic things may have passed her by, but overall, she felt as if she had lived a good life, one far better than most.

Now it was time to stop thinking about herself and her past, though, and time to start thinking about Dana and her future.  She had always like Dana, thought she was an intelligent and compassionate young woman, funny and very pretty, and just the right side of shy.

If something is bothering her, I'll get it out of her and then we'll see what I can do to help, she thought.  Then she smiled again, as it always made her feel good to help her friends.

********

After finding her hotel room and getting a shower and a bite to eat, Miriam headed toward Smithsen College.  It was a classy all-women college... very private, an out-of-town alternative for those New York City families that could afford to send their daughters away to the very best, most influential schools.

Utica, itself, was like any other Northeastern city... it had sections that were totally falling apart; it had its poor sections; it had its parts that were in transition; it had its newly restored areas; and it had its "good" (see, rich) parts.  The Smithsen campus fit right into that last category.  It was a quiet campus, with many beautiful red brick and masonry buildings, along with some new, more modernistic structures, all nestled among the now fully-leaved oaks and elms and locust trees.

It's all very pretty, Miriam thought, as she climbed out of the Cooper and headed for Dana's freshman dorm (the campus Visitor's Center had been very helpful).  It was a nice building, and Miriam smiled at the few girls she passed as she walked quietly through the halls.  When she got to Room 311, she paused, fixed her hair bit, and knocked.

The young woman that finally opened the door was definitely not Dana.  Dana looked like her mother... very dark hair, wide face, and full figure.

"May help you?" asked the tall, willowy blond before her.

"Yes.  I'm Miriam Goochie, and I'm an old friend of Dana's.  Is she here?"

"Oh... I'm sorry, she's not."  The attractive girl glanced down at her wristwatch, then continued, "But her last class just ended, so I expect her back in a couple of minutes if you'd like to wait."

Miriam smiled.  "That's very nice of you... um?"

"Claire... sorry."

"Hi, Claire.  And I'd like to wait if I could."

"Sure... c'mon in, Miriam."

Miriam walked in and sat down on what she assumed was Dana's bed.  It was the one that wasn’t quite made up.  She was actually glad Dana wasn't here yet, as this created a golden opportunity for her to gather some information about the things that might be going on.

"I like what you've done with your room, Claire.  I hope you and Dana are getting along well."

Claire frowned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Sure we are.  She's a good kid, if a bit quiet."

Miriam stared at her.  "But you're having some problems, aren't you?  You'd really like to tell me what you're actually thinking about you and Dana, wouldn't you, Claire?"

And even though Claire hadn't intended to talk about Dana to this woman, a person who she didn't even know, she suddenly found everything bubbling out of her.  It felt good to tell someone.

"Well, it was really nice, first semester.  We were good friends and did all kinds of things together.  But then... then... the schoolwork got to her or something, or her new friends or all those parties she goes to, and I hardly even see her anymore.  She's either at class or the library or running off somewhere to be with those others.  Just after Christmas break, it started.  I've tried to make things work, but frankly, I think I'm going to be requesting a new roommate for next fall."  She stopped, looking sad and wistful.

"Oh, my.  I'm so sorry to hear that, Claire."  Miriam was also sorry that she had made Claire feel bad, that she had made her speak about all of this and forced her to remember a better time.  "But don’t give up on Dana for a bit longer, ok?"

"I'll try, Miriam.  But the semester's almost over, and I don't see things changing all that much."

"I'll be honest with you, dear," Miriam said, standing and walking over to the younger woman, taking both her hands in her own.  "Her mother is worried about her, too, and I'm here to see if I can find out what's going on and if I can help at all.  I'm very good at such things," she finished with a wink.

Claire smiled.  "That would be great.  It really was fun with her at first.”

Just then, the door opened and Dana came hustling in.  When she caught sight of Miriam, she stopped in her tracks, practically dropping her books.

"Auntie Miriam?"  What the hell was she doing here?

"Hello, sweetie.  So nice to see you again," Miriam answered, moving to the startled girl and giving her a big hug.

"But... but, what are you doing here, Auntie... I mean, Miriam?"

"I was going to be in the area, and I told your mother I'd look in on you."  Miriam hated to lie, but would occasionally for a higher purpose.  She turned and looked at Claire.  "I'm sorry, hon, but do you think Dana and I might be alone for a few minutes?"

Claire smiled at her.  "Sure, no problem.  I was just off to the Student Union for a cup of coffee, anyway.  Take all the time you want."  She moved past the two of them, grabbing her jacket.  "Was very nice to meet you, Miriam.  Catch you later, Dana."

"Same to you, Claire.  You hang tough, though, ok?"  Claire nodded at that, smiled again, and left the room.

"So, Mom sent you, huh?"  Dana said, pushing past Miriam to go to her desk and dump her schoolbooks on it.  "I don't need babysitting, you know."

"She's worried about you, is all."  So was Miriam, now.  This was not the Dana she knew.  "Something's going on, isn't it?"

"No!"  Dana said, pushing at the papers on her desk.  "Everything is fine.  So my grades are down a bit from first half.  Maybe I'm just not as smart as everybody thinks I am."

This was the part about all this that still bothered Dana, that she knew she was letting her parents down.  She loved them, and wanted to do well for them. 

But it was more than just her grades, though.

Her parents were both very high-profile people back in the city.  Daddy was a hotshot corporate lawyer, but did tons of common cause and pro-bono work.  Mom was on the board of all those major charity organizations.  It people should find out what she, Dana, did now, what she was now, it would crush and embarrass both of them.

It was just that the thought of not working for Marsha anymore, of not being with her, of missing out on all that incredible sex, made Dana feel cold and empty inside.  She'd never felt as alive, as wanted, as she did now, as she had ever since that belated New Year's Eve party at Marsha's.  She hadn't even wanted to go to that, especially without Claire.  But Chloe had dragged her....

"Dana!"

"Yes, Auntie," Dana said meekly, suddenly realizing she had been crushing the papers on her desk with her hands.

"Turn around and look at me, dear," Miriam said, her voice quiet, yet demanding.

Dana did as told, and turned.  As much as she didn't want to talk to Auntie just now, it was just so difficult to refuse her anything.

Miriam caught Dana's eyes with her own.  It was time to find out what was going on.  "Tell me about these parties that you go to, Dana.  Tell me all about where you go and what you do when you leave the campus.  You want to tell someone about that, don't you?  You want to tell me."

Dana opened her mouth to speak.  Yes, she did want to tell Miriam everything about Marsha and how she adored her, prostituted herself for her, would do anything for her.

But she couldn't speak.  She opened her mouth to talk, to tell Miriam what she wanted to know, but no words were coming out.  Dana didn't know why.

Miriam saw her hesitation, a bit surprised that Dana wasn't responding.  "You really must tell me, hon.  You know that you want to tell me.  You must realize how important it is that you tell Auntie Miriam about what's going on with you, don't you?"

Dana began to struggle, desperately wanting to answer Miriam's questions.  "I... I am... I go... it's M... Mar...."

Miriam watched as Dana's eyes grew wider, as her face started to blanch, and it began to look like the poor girl was struggling even to breathe.  Concerned and confused, Miriam rushed over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, crying out, "Dana... stop trying to speak.  You don't have to answer my questions; you don't have to say anything to me at all right now."

She held onto Dana as she started to settle down, as her breathing became easier and more regular.  Miriam felt terrible that she had triggered whatever had happened to her friend.  For a moment, she had thought Dana was having some kind of seizure, but now she wasn't so sure.

"You OK, sweetie?"

Dana just stared at her, trying to sort out what had happened.  Maybe Miriam could help her figure it out.

"I... I wanted to answer your questions, Auntie, but every time I tried to actually say the words, it felt like my mind was going to explode."

"Has this ever happened to you before?"

"No... never!"

Miriam was getting a sinking suspicion that whatever power she had to make others tell her what she wanted, had run into some other power that didn't want Dana to talk, that wouldn’t allow her to speak about what she did off-campus.  That would mean someone, or something, had been messing with Dana's mind.  If that were truly the case, she certainly didn't want to hurt Dana again by pushing at her any harder. 

But now, even more than ever, she had to find out what was going on.

Her gift wasn't going to work, so that meant some regular old-fashioned detective work.

"Well, you just relax, dear.  I don't think you'll have to worry about it happening again."

"Really?  Thank god!  It was too scary."  Dana knew she shouldn't have been talking to anyone about Marsha and the house, but still couldn't understand why when she tried, it had torn her up so badly.  It scared her, and though she trusted Auntie Miriam, she really didn't want to talk to her anymore, certainly not about any of this.

She took a deep breath and said, "I hate to say this, Aun... Miriam, but I really only stopped in here for a minute to drop off my books, and maybe change my clothes.  I have to get going right away."

This is perfect, Miriam thought. I'm betting she's going to head right to where I need her to go.

"That's fine, Dana.  I just wanted to stop in and see how you were.  But here... let me give you my cell phone number," she said, then moved to the desk and wrote it down on a slip of paper.  "I'll be in town a couple of days yet, and you just call me if you want to talk or go out to dinner or anything.  All right?"

"Sure, Miriam," Dana said, giving the other a big hug.  "Thanks for stopping by, and I'm sorry about all the rest of this."

Miriam assured her it was all ok, the two of them exchanged hugs and best wishes again, and then she left, wending her way back to her car.  She waited a few minutes, then moved her car to where she could see the student parking lot.  There she waited some more, slouching down in her seat and watching the dorm exits.

She didn't have to wait long, though, before she saw Dana come rushing outside and make for her own car.  She had obviously changed clothes, switching from the polo shirt and jeans combo she'd been wearing, into a rather short and sexy peach-colored dress.

When Dana started her car and took off, Miriam pulled out and followed her, certain she was on the right track now.

They hadn't driven that far, maybe about eight blocks, when Dana's car pulled off into a side parking lot of what looked to be a cross between someone's mansion and an old-style medical building.  Miriam watched Dana run inside, and decided to just sit in the car to see if she could spot anything of interest.

In the next 20 minutes, she saw four girls park where Dana had, and go inside.  She also saw four men and one woman park on the street and go inside, and two men coming out of the building, getting in their street-parked cars, and leaving.

Miriam was getting another sinking feeling about what she was seeing, about what this place was.  She didn't want to go inside, not yet, certainly, not with Dana still there.  But she wanted information about the place, so started the Cooper and headed off to where she was certain she could get some... the closest supermarket.

********

"I'll take your word for it, Miriam.  I've never tried a prune Danish, but I imagine they might be as helpful as you say."

Miriam smiled at Jessica, a forty-ish wife and mother, as they stood there near the pastry section.  "May I ask you a question, Jessica?"

"Only if I can reserve the right not to answer it," Jessica replied with a laugh. 

Miriam laughed, too.  "No, it's nothing like that.  But you know that big brick building on the corner about three blocks east of here?"

"The one with a wrought-iron fence around the parking lot?"

"Right, that one.  Well, you obviously do.  But do you know what the place is?  I know some architectural students that might be interested in looking it over if such a thing were ok."  Not wanting to take any chances, Miriam stared at Jessica and continued, "You want to tell me everything you know about the building and the people inside, don't you, Jessica?"

So, Jessica told her.

"Well, between you, me, and the wall, we're all pretty sure that that Marsha Slade woman has turned it into some kind of brothel.  She bought it a little while ago, and some strange things have been happening there ever since.  Lots of comings and goings at all hours of the day or night, yet no sign of any specific business.  We see lots of young women there, too... probably from the local colleges.  Frankly, Sharon Henderson, over on Third Street, is just starting up a community group to see what's going on, to try and get the place shut down if it really turns out to be a bordello, or something like that.

"We don't want that kind of place in our neighborhood," she finished breathlessly.

"Marsha Slade, huh?"  Miriam said.

"Yes.  I don't know her personally, other than to say I've seen her wearing some pretty outlandish outfits, and she seems completely unfriendly to everyone who lives around here."

"Thanks, Jessica.  Maybe I'll give her place a pass, then, as far as the architectural students are concerned." 

"Yes, Miriam.  I wouldn't go there if I were you."

Miriam smiled and nodded.  But that was exactly what she was going to have to do, it seemed.

*********

[flibinite]

Helpful Questions  (cont'd.)

Chapter 2 --

Miriam had almost drifted off to sleep when she finally saw Dana leaving the house.  It had been over an hour-and-a-half since Miriam had pulled back in front of Marsha Slade's apparent "house of ill repute".  She was good at waiting, and had simply not wanted to go in while Dana was there.  She wanted to remain incognito, and didn't want her young friend to somehow get in trouble. 

She sighed as she watched Dana walk slowly to her car, climb in, and drive off.  What have you gotten yourself into, sweetie? she thought sadly.

Then, with more determination, she said aloud, "Well, you're on, Miriam.  Make it good!"  Then she climbed out of her car to make her way to the front door.

********

Marsha Slade sat at her desk, staring impatiently at the phone.  That bastard was supposed to call me at 5:30, and here it is an hour later, and still no call.

She hated to be kept waiting, but Councilman Paul Gresham, along with the other two Council "persons" whom she had bought and paid for, held some of her fate in their greedy little hands.  They helped keep the cops and other city folk off her back... at least for now.  Probably wants more money... the pig, she thought angrily.

She was making good money... no doubt about that.  She had eight girls, $100 a session, two-to-three sessions a day for each girl, six days a week.  But she gave a small bit of that back to them for their efforts, she had a big mortgage on this place, and the leeches that were "the powers that be" were trying to suck her dry.

Marsha didn't want to live in New York.  She hated the winters here, and knew she was simply a Southern girl at heart. 

Hell... her great, great, great grandfather had been the infamous Col. Marcus Slade of the Confederate Army.  He had distinguished himself by driving his starving, freezing horde of soldiers into a midnight raid of a Union supply caravan, and slaying the entire company guarding it.  That he had been shot by General Jackson, himself, after Marcus and his men were caught raping and sodomizing a family of Northern sympathizers, meant little to her.

Not only that, but her great grandfather had run liquor back during Prohibition, keeping the Mob out of Northern Georgia almost by the force of his will.  All that had finally ended when he was mowed down in a hail of bullets back in Whitfield County in the summer of '25.

No, the South was where her heart and history were, and she would be moving back there just as soon as she could.

Bastards! she thought again, feeling the burning inner fire of her relentless rage starting to consume her again.

She did what she always did at such times -- she reached out to touch the gold-framed picture of her late husband, Eric.  They had been married 15 wonderful years, until that night three years ago when he had died in a head-on crash with some drunken local.

Marsha still hadn't gotten over that.  In fact, the only reason she was not in prison now was because the drunken driver had died in the crash, too.  Otherwise, she would have sought him out and killed him herself.

Eric was the only person, outside of her parents, who she had ever really loved, and who had ever truly loved her.  And some stupid, drunken, male bastard killed him!  She realized that she had a death grip on his picture again, unable to let it go, unable to let Eric, and all the rage she felt at his death, go, either. 

Marsha had still been a wild child when she'd met him at a bar while attending Duke University in 1985.  Well, he was attending Duke.  Marsha had been kicked out of school two weeks earlier for lousy grades and for "conduct unbecoming a Duke University student".  She was still hanging around the school, though, giving her parents a chance to cool down before she returned home.

She had seen him, thought he was incredibly handsome, and bought him a drink.  He had laughed, asked her to join him, and they had talked for an hour.  Actually, she had talked, and he had politely listened.  And when she'd finally wound down, he had kissed her, completely melting her heart... then and forever.

While he continued in school, getting his degree in the new field of bio-neurology, she had worked all kinds of odd jobs, just to stay with him.  They were such an odd couple. Marsha -- energetic, boisterous, a true daughter of the South.  Eric -- calm, soft-spoken, from rural New York.  After his graduation, they had gotten married and moved back to his home state.

She didn't want to live in New York, but that was where his research grant money was coming from, and she would have followed him to the ends of the earth, if need be.

Marsha slowly released his picture, straightening it on her desk, a bit calmer now.  Eric had been the only person who could ever temper her wild instincts, the only one who could ever draw out the better angels of her nature.

Now, ever since he'd been killed, the darker side of her was leaking out again, was changing her.  She hated the area where she lived, and everyone in it.  She was bound and determined to leave as soon she got enough money to go "home" in style.

She hated all men, because one had killed her beloved husband, and because none of them could ever be as good, anywhere near as good, as Eric.  She would never be with another man again... ever.  Marsha used her girls for her sexual needs now, finding she enjoyed lesbian sex, especially given the power she had over her new employees.

It filled her with perverse delight that she is corrupting the two groups of people she hated the most... men, and those snooty college girls who thought they were too smart and too good for her back at Duke.  And now, with the help of Eric's machine and his training, she was showing everyone who the best person was; she was taking her revenge on all of them, and making the money she needed to move out of this god-forsaken city.

Marsha was just about pick up the phone and call Councilman Gresham, when Amber tapped on her door frame and walked into her office, smiling.

"This had better be important, Amber," Marsha growled, slightly surprised when her young assistant just kept smiling.

"Oh, it is, Marsha.  We have another first-time customer."

Marsha sighed.  "Can’t you handle it?  I'm waiting for this damn phone call."  She normally met all new customers, but it wasn't mandatory.  Amber could have taken care of it.

"Sure, I can handle it.  But I thought you might want to meet her first."

Ohh... a "her", Marsha thought.  They did have more than a handful of lesbian customers, and Marsha tried to make sure that all her girls were proficient at fem-fem sex.  But she loved to check out the women who came here for service, wanted them to see her and get to know her, just in case...

"Wait here by the phone, then, and get me if Councilman Pig calls.  I'll go talk to her."

"Very good, Marsha," Amber said, still grinning as her boss and owner walked out of the office.

Marsha swept down the hall, gathering and calming herself, wanting to show this new customer her poise and enthusiasm.  As she strode into the lobby, she has already starting to speak...

"Hello, and welcome to my house!  My name is... is..." she almost ground to a halt when she saw who was waiting for her by the front door.

It appeared to be a 60-year-old woman wearing a frumpy, gray-tweed suit, a short string of shiny white pearls, and a pair of worn-out gray pumps.  What the hell is she doing here? Marsha thought.

But she kept walking, extending her hand and finishing her sentence. "... Marsha Slade.  And you...?"  She tried not to appear too taken aback, as she did realize that it took all kinds to make a world.

"Miriam Goochie," Miriam said, instantly regretting giving the other her real name, but more than a bit nonplussed by the outrageous attire of the house Madam.  Marsha Slade was a tall woman, with a harsh, if not totally unattractive, face.  And she did have a trim, athletic body, to be sure.

Miriam could tell that for certain, because the other had on the tightest, smoothest outfit Miriam had ever seen.  It was red; some kind of rubber-like material, and it clung to Marsha like a second skin, showing off every curve and line of her excellent body.  In fact, the black vinyl calf boots she was wearing were the most normal part of her attire.

"And what can we do for you today, Miriam?" Marsha said smoothly.  Upon closer inspection, she noted that Miriam was far younger than 60, perhaps even in her late-forties.  But that outfit!

"Well, I'm in town for a couple of weeks, heard two women at the supermarket complaining about this place, and well... not all of us are such prudes, Marsha.  Some of us have needs."

Marsha growled inwardly… stupid busybodies… but replied calmly, "Yes, that's very true.  And that's why I provide this service... for those who have needs.  Did Amber tell you the financial arrangements?"

"Yes.  $100 for an hour, cash on the barrel."  Miriam reached into her purse for some of the money she'd gotten from the ATM down the street, her mind working furiously.

Should she try to persuade this wildly dressed woman to tell her everything that was going on?  Should she try to get her to "fix" Dana?  Should she try to get Marsha to stop doing these things to everyone?

Miriam wished she could actually understand her own "gift" better, that she had some real grasp of the extent of her own power.  She used it almost exclusively to get others to tell her things.  But could she really make people do things?  And if so, for how long?  Did she have to be in their presence?  Someone had apparently been messing with Dana's mind.  Did Marsha have some kind of power, too?  What if she tried to "direct" Marsha, and only succeeded in giving her own power and intentions away?

Miriam needed more information, about herself and about this place.  But what was the best way to get it?

She handed Marsha the $100, still smiling.

Marsha took it, finding herself remarkably intrigued by this woman who dressed like she was still living in the 1930's.  Marsha could see there was a fine, seemingly firm body under all that tweed, and that the other's hands look strong and firm.  It was almost as if her newest customer was trying to look old, for some strange reason, as opposed to actually being old.

She took the money and just held it in her hand, finally letting her curiosity get the better of her.

"Forgive me, Miriam, but can I ask how old you are?"

"Why?  Do you have an upper age limit here?" Miriam replied, her smile never wavering.

Marsha laughed.  "Lord, no.  I was just curious.  Forgive me again, but you look like you're only a little older than my 42 years, yet you dress... well..." she finished, indicating Miriam's outfit with a wave of her hand.

It was Miriam's turn to chuckle, despite the somewhat insulting innuendo.  "I like tweed and big pearls... what can I say?  I'm 54, but I promise not to collapse or anything while I'm, um... doing it."

Doing it? Marsha thought.  Such a prudish expression for someone who would come into a place like this.  She was going to be very interested in Chloe's report after this session.

"Chloe!" she called out, turning back to Miriam to say, "Well, I hope I look so healthy when I'm your age, Miriam.  I won't worry about your... condition.  Our girls are trained to keep track of such things and ease off as the situation warrants."

A small, young woman had walked up to them from an adjoining room.

"Speaking of girls, this is Chloe.  Chloe, Miriam Goochie."

So much for her forgetting my name without "assistance", Miriam inwardly sighed.  She turned to Chloe and took her extended hand.  "Charmed, Chloe," she said, and she meant it.  This girl was cute, with dark, laughing eyes, and Miriam was instantly drawn to her, despite the slutty-looking haltertop and shorts she was wearing.

"You too, Miriam.  Are you ready to go upstairs?"

Miriam hesitated, things moving a little too quickly for her.  She had to make a decision now, as this would be her last chance to work on Marsha until some later time.  But even now it was too late, as Amber struck her head out of the hallway and yelled for Marsha.

"Damn!"  Marsha swore.  "I have to take this phone call.  Perhaps you and I can chat later, Miriam?"  She turned and began to walk away, calling back over her shoulder.  "Enjoy yourself now.  Chloe will take good care of you.  She used to be a lesbian."

And with that, she disappeared through the doorway.

"Used to be?" Miriam said, glancing down at Chloe.  Her "date" for the evening wasn't tiny, but she couldn't have been more than 5' 3".  She had thick, short black hair, an impish face, and an elf's body... outside of the obviously surgically-enhanced breasts.

Chloe looked a bit embarrassed, almost sad.  "Yes, I was strictly a lesbian before I met Marsha.  She showed me the joys of bisexuality.  All sex is enjoyable, and I enjoy all types of sex.  Sex is what I live for, practically."  Chloe smiled up at Miriam.  "You're on the clock now.  Let's head up to your room."

Miriam let her new companion take her hand and lead her toward a large, ornate staircase.  Miriam was frowning now, as it seemed as if Dana wasn't the only one who somehow had been changed.  What Chloe said about "enjoying all kinds of sex" had sounded more like a mantra than anything she truly believed.

Chloe seemed to be moving more and more into her own element as they reached the top of the stairs and approached an open door to one of the rooms.  She was smiling, seemed excited, and was saying things like, "You're going to enjoy this, Miriam," and "I'm going to treat you so special, Miriam."

Miriam would have felt just the opposite, nervous and unsure, if she actually had any plans to be sexual with Chloe.  But she didn't... she was simply going to ask her some questions.

Chloe led her into the room, letting Miriam move past her, and then turned to close and lock the door.  Miriam was actually surprised by just how nice the room was.  It looked like any small, older hotel room; just a square with a window, a queen-size bed, a desk, and a comfortable-looking chair.  It even looked to have its own small bathroom.

A must for cleanup, she thought wryly.

But as Chloe moved past her to light a few candles, Miriam had to admit that the rug and drapes and bedspread were all very nice, matching in both style and color.  She gave a slight gasp when Chloe turned off the room lights.  With the thick drapes blocking what was left of the day's sun, the room took on a comfy, and rather intimate, glow... something she hadn't expected at all.

Still, before Chloe could say anything else, Miriam stared at her, caught the younger woman's eyes with her own, and said "I don't want to have sex with you, Chloe.  You don't mind if we just sit and chat instead, do you?"

Chloe's eyes went wide.  "Wha... no sex... we must... I... I...."

"You want to sit on the bed and answer some questions for me, don't you, Chloe?"

Chloe looked like she wanted to do anything but that, but was already moving to sit down, saying nothing.

"You will answer my questions now, Chloe... won't you?"

"Yes," she murmured, staring hard at Miriam.

"Very good, dear.  Now tell me... how long have you working here?"

"About a year.  Ever since Marsha opened the place."

"Do you enjoy working here?"

A hesitation, a frown, but finally a smile.  "Yes, I enjoy all kinds of sex."

"You like working for Marsha?"

"I love working for Marsha!"  No hesitation there at all.

"Does Marsha treat you girls well?  Does she pay you enough?"

Again the hesitation and the frown.  "Marsha loves us and pays us what we're worth."

"How did you come to start working for Marsha?  You want to tell me that, don't you?"

Some major hesitation at that, with Chloe seeming to struggle just as Dana had, turning white and struggling to breathe.  "I... I... want to... she... she...."

"Stop!  Don't answer that question, Chloe.  It's OK.  Relax," Miriam said, sitting down next to her, stroking her upper arm.

"I'm sorry, Miriam," Chloe whispered, visibly shaken by what had just happened to her.

"No, that's all right, sweetie.  You're doing fine."

You're doing fine, but aren't helping me much, Miriam thought.  Somehow or another, she was being blocked from hearing about the one subject she needed the answers to the most... what was Marsha doing to these women, and how was she doing it?  She was probably going to have to confront the lioness in her own den to find that out... perhaps when she went back downstairs.

For now, she still had almost an hour to kill.

So, in a more normal way, she asked, "So what you do when you're not working here, Chloe?"

"I go to Smithsen College, working for a degree in accounting."

"Oh?"  That was interesting.  "Did you know Dana Horowitz before she started working here?"  She was surprised when Chloe started struggling again.

"I... yes, I did... I mean... in school, I met...."

"Relax, hon," Miriam said, working to calm her again.  This was turning out to be more difficult than she'd thought, and she saw no good reason to keep hurting the young woman.  Chloe seemed like such a very nice girl, too, and another person who might need her help.

"Can we have sex now, Miriam?"  Chloe said softly, reaching out for the first time to touch the older woman's thigh.

"No, dear.  I'm paying for this hour, and I don't really want to."

"But why not?  I'm very good, you know.  I really know how to please other women."

Miriam chuckled.  "I have no doubt that you do.  I simply don't want to."

"But why not?  All sex is good."

Miriam was surprised at the plaintive tone of her companion's request.  She'd have thought the Chloe would be happy for the break.

"Well, for one thing, I'm easily old enough to be your mother."

Chloe looked genuinely surprised.  "What does age have to do with anything?  I think you're very attractive, and would be even more attractive without your clothes," she said, reaching for the top button of Miriam's jacket.

Miriam grabbed her wrist.  "Stop that, Chloe!"

Chloe stopped.  She had to.  However, she spoke again, an edge of desperation in her voice.  "But please, Miriam.  I hardly get to be with other women anymore, and I really, really want to be with you."

Miriam could see the need growing in the young student/prostitute's eyes.  "When you're not working here, can't you have all sex with women that you want?"

Suddenly Chloe was struggling to speak again.  "I... we... not, not allowed."

"OK, OK... relax, please.  I understand now."  Miriam felt bad for her, becoming even more determined to find out just what type of hold Marsha had on these women, that she could keep them from living their own lives even when they weren't here.

Breathing heavily now, Chloe half-whispered, half-hissed at her, "Please!  I want to be with you so bad, Miriam, to make you feel so good.  I don't even care that I'll get in trouble if I don't.  I just want to be with you."

"Trouble?  What trouble?"

Chloe sighed and said, "Marsha gets, well... mad if we don't sexually satisfy our customers.  She wants to make sure they enjoy themselves enough so that they'll want to come back."

Miriam shook her head.  "Don't worry about that.  If I see her, I'll tell her I had a wonderful time with you.  I can handle the occasional lie."

Chloe was shaking her head, too.  "But she'll know.  I can't lie to her when she asks me.  I just can't.  And besides..." Chloe ducked her head, and Miriam could see her start to blush, even in the dim light of the room.  "... she'll want to kiss me afterwards, just to taste you."

Miriam was shocked.  "That's terrible!"

"No, no... it isn't.  Haven't you ever tasted another woman on someone's lips?"

"No, I haven't.  But I didn't mean that.  I meant that it’s terrible that Marsha would make you do such a thing."

"But Marsha's a lesbian now, Miriam, and I love to kiss and be with her.  I don't mind that at all."  Chloe was getting excited talking about this.  "But she'll know I didn't please you, and get mad at me."

Miriam just stared.  Chloe was certainly an attractive and "earnest" young woman, and Miriam didn't want her to get in trouble.

"Please, Miriam," Chloe continued.  "I'm begging you.  I haven't been with a woman in two weeks.  I need you."  Her hands were back up on Miriam's buttons, and this time Miriam didn't stop her.

The girl needed her, needed her help.

"Chloe.  I... well, I haven't been with a man or a woman in almost 25 years now.  I'm not sure I can even... how do the guys say it... perform."

Chloe smile was nearly angelic, and her look of relief was so obvious that Miriam already knew she had made the right decision.

"You're practically of virgin then, aren't you?  I don't know why you haven't been having any sex, Miriam, but you just leave everything to me.  You just let Chloe take good care of you.  Now stand up, please."

Resigned to this now, Miriam stood, Chloe rising with her, working free the last of the jacket's buttons.

"Such good care of you..." Chloe murmured, opening the jacket, then sliding her hands into it at the shoulders.  She pushed it back, then slid it off by pressing her body tightly to Miriam and tracing down the back of the older woman's arms with her hands.  As the jacket dropped off onto the bed, Chloe's hands found the cuff buttons of Miriam's long-sleeved white blouse, and worked them open, as well.

"I must make my Miriam feel good," she whispered, and kissed both sides of her neck, sending small shivers down Miriam's spine.  Chloe stepped back, looking happy and excited, her hands quickly moving to Miriam's blouse again, unbuttoning it as she pulled it up and out of her skirt.

She opened the lacy blouse, staring at Miriam's bra-covered breasts for a few seconds before looking back up.  "I knew you'd be more attractive without your clothes," she said, her hands moving up to Miriam shoulders again.

Chloe slid Miriam's blouse off in the same way as she had her jacket.  Only this time, she was stroking the bare flesh of Miriam's arms as she did so, and was pressed even tighter to Miriam's body, kissing her neck even more passionately.

As her top joined her jacket on the bed, and Chloe began to undulate slowly against her, grinding gently against her breasts and pelvis, Miriam surprised herself by moaning aloud.  She had seriously doubted she would be able to become aroused by this, and here she was moaning before her clothes were even off!  This stunned her, but in spite of that, she attempted to relax, to try to actually enjoy what Chloe was doing to her.

She felt Chloe's hands slide up the small of her back, felt them unclasping her bra, and felt them slide inside her straps.  This time, when Chloe stepped back, she took the bra with her.  Miriam surprised herself again by not being embarrassed.  She did not have a young woman's breasts anymore, but they were about as good as a woman her age could have.  What was the use of being embarrassed about not being young anymore?

Chloe certainly wasn't complaining, staring for a moment before whispering, her voice already thick with desire, "I love your breasts, and want to feel mine against them. Untie my top, Miriam."

Miriam did, reaching out to loosen the knot on Chloe's haltertop, to push it back and expose her breasts, too.  Chloe didn't hesitate at all, shrugging it off her shoulders and letting it drop off her arms and down to the floor.

And then she was in Miriam's arms, moaning and grinding, her mouth finding Miriam's in a hot, passionate kiss.  Miriam shuddered, feeling the force of Chloe's desire, feeling some of the other's sense of urgency working its way into her.  For a few seconds, she felt awkward and clumsy, kissing Chloe back, trying to do it right. 

Then she realized there wasn't a "right".  There was only the feel of warm lips and hot tongue and soft breasts.  There was only the tightness of Chloe's arms around her, and the smoothness of Chloe's skin where Miriam clutched at her.

It had been so long since she’d been this aroused... and it felt wonderful.

They kissed and held, panted and struggled with the rest of their clothes, both of them loath to break apart in any way, to stop what they were doing.  Miriam was finding it hard to think at all, feeling needs surfacing within her that she’d forgotten she had, and that she had no experience in dealing with.  She felt herself being emotionally and physically overwhelmed by all of this.

So, when Chloe finally pulled free of her and dropped to her knees, finally succeeded in pushing Miriam's skirt and panties to the floor and off, there was no question as to her ability to "perform".  And when Chloe leaned in and began to passionately kiss her wet sex, Miriam could only put her head back and moan in pleasure.

She felt herself losing all control, happy to let Chloe direct her, almost falling back on the bed when told to lie down.  Feeling the pressure of Chloe's mouth and hands, she wriggled upward to put her head on the pillows, using a leg to kick her jacket and blouse onto the floor.  Chloe never stopped kissing and tonguing her, and Miriam could not stop her own small cries and gasps of arousal.

When they were both fully on the bed, Miriam found her fingers locked in Chloe's short hair, felt Chloe's tongue driving deep within her, touching spots long dormant, but certainly not dead.  Her heart was pounding as if she were on the treadmill, only she was barely moving, was hardly able to move.

Chloe licked and sucked at her, pulling at her labia and clit, each new touch sending erotic, electric jolts all through Miriam's body.  There was no thought of holding off her onrushing orgasm.  There was no thought at all.  Her body and mind were been run over by a freight train of lust and excitement, and she let it, reveled in it, gasping Chloe's name as she arched and bucked against her mouth.

Suddenly, she was cumming.  There was a moment when it felt as if every muscle and organ in her body had cramped and tightened, and then she was in orgasm; the longest and hardest one of her life.  She tossed and spasmed on the bed, crying out as Chloe locked her arms around her hips and rode out the storm, driving Miriam higher and higher, sucking and lapping at her release.

Miriam couldn't even tell when her orgasm ended.  She just knew she wasn't cumming anymore, and that Chloe was kissing her way up her body, moving up between her breasts to settle gently on top of her.

Chloe kissed her... lightly at first, but then more insistently, swirling her tongue around Miriam's lips and then slowly pushing inside.  Miriam was surprised, as drained as she felt right now, that she could respond as she did, accepting Chloe's tongue, then playing with it with her own.  She was also surprised that she found such enjoyment and eroticism in her own taste, her own smell, on another's lips.  It was something she never could have imagined.

Chloe eventually broke the kiss and slid off Miriam's body and to the side, letting her breasts and belly lean against Miriam's arm, holding her own head up with a crooked arm.

"Now, that isn't such a terrible thing, is it?  I know it's not another woman's taste, but I doubt that you've tasted yourself all that much either.  Have you, Miriam?"

Miriam smiled up at her.  "No, it wasn't so terrible.  In fact, all of it was just wonderful.  You were wonderful, Chloe.  I really enjoyed that."

"You sound like we're all finished here," Chloe said with a soft laugh.  "But we still have plenty of time left, there's still a lot more that we can do, and there's still a lot that I want to do with you."

Miriam's eyes widened as she said, "I just had the biggest orgasm of my life here, Chloe, and I think that's about it for me today."

"Oh, boo!  You're in better shape than most of the women I've been with, Miriam, and they've gone on for seconds or thirds," Chloe chided her.  "You've already recovered a lot, and you've already said that you enjoyed it.  Let me give you more to enjoy."

Before Miriam could reply, Chloe was rolling off the bed and moving over to the dresser, where she opened one of the top drawers and pulled something out.  When she turned back toward the bed, Miriam could see what looked like a bunch of straps and... oh my god... a fake penis.

Before she could stop herself, Miriam called out "What's that?", then blushed in embarrassment.

Chloe stood at the side of the bed, giggling, looking down on Miriam.  "Don't tell me you've never seen or heard of a strapon dildo?"

Miriam nodded, letting her embarrassment slowly melt away.  "I have, Chloe.  It's just that I've never seen one up close like this.  But you can't be thinking about using that on me, dear.  Remember, I haven't had real sex in a long, long time, and that's simply too big for me."

"Nonsense!  This is actually the smallest one we have, and as lubricated as you are down there...."

Miriam felt a shiver run through her as she looked at it, finding it hard to speak amidst the feelings warring within her.  She watched silently for a few moments as her new friend took the initiative and strapped the device on herself.  Miriam had never seen anything like it, and was beginning to imagine what it would feel like inside of her, when she was struck by a sudden fearful thought.

"But is it safe," she whispered.

"This?"  Chloe said.  "Ohh... I know what you mean.  Oh yes, it's quite safe.  All we practice here is safe sex, Miriam.  Except for when we're giving them blow jobs, the men all have to wear condoms before going inside us, and all the toys we use are thoroughly washed with disinfectant soap between sessions." 

As she was speaking, she had leaned down and hooked Miriam's closest leg with her hand, pulling and swinging the older woman around until her tailbone was just on the very edge of the bed.

Chloe was short, and the strapon was at just the right height for this.  Miriam saw and felt Chloe reach down and begin to rub the tip of the dildo up and down against her wet seam, the sensations of that filling her with a mixture of dread and desire.  She could feel her mind flashing back to that night in the alley, and desperately tried to suppress those thoughts, knowing this was a different time and a different place, realizing she was not even with a man, that this was not even a real penis.

Chloe apparently mistook the look on her face as fear of what this would feel like, and she quickly told her, "I won't hurt you, Miriam, please know that.  I'll go very slowly, and if it hurts you in any serious way, then I'll stop.  Just try to relax, and give it a chance."

Licking her suddenly dry lips, Miriam nodded, strangely reassured by Chloe's soft words and real concern for her well-being.  She shuddered and couldn't keep from moaning when she felt the tip of the dildo first push between her slick pussylips.  She closed her eyes and clutched at the bed covers as Chloe began to rock back and forth gently, working it into her a bit deeper with each slow thrust. 

Miriam moaned again and could feel herself starting to relax as she gave in to how good it felt, to how sexually exciting it was to have her pussy stretched and filled like this.

Chloe continued to move slowly, until the dildo was all the way inside her.  Miriam had never felt anything quite like this, at least that she could remember, and she found herself arching her hips and pressing herself tightly against her lover.  As Chloe began a slow, rhythmic motion of her body, working the device in and out of Miriam's gripping sex, Miriam groaned once and then gave in totally to the hot feelings of pleasure bubbling up inside of her.

Sensing that, Chloe began to work faster, pushing and pulling the dildo in and out of Miriam, reaching down to massage her belly and thighs, smiling as she saw the excitement and arousal building in the older woman once again.

"You like this, don't you, Miriam?  You like Chloe fucking you like this?"

"Yess," Miriam hissed, reaching up with a hand to fondle and tease one of her own swollen nipples.  "Oh, yess!"

Raking her nails gently all over Miriam's sensitized skin, Chloe worked her hips harder, driving into Miriam, enjoying the feel of the strapon pressing and bouncing against her own aroused sex, the liquid, suctiony sounds the dildo was making as it plunged in and out of Miriam's pussy.  She moved Miriam's ankles up over her shoulders and leaned forward to press in even deeper, reaching around with a hand to flutter her finger back and forth over the writhing woman's swollen clit.

"Ohhh... Ohhh," Miriam moaned, no longer aware of anything except how good this felt.  She was covered with sweat again and pulling on both nipples now, totally lost in the erotic sensations tearing through her body.

"Ask me to fuck you, Miriam.  Ask me!"

Miriam felt completely out of control, and wanted this so desperately now from Chloe, crying out, "Yess... fuck me, Chloe.  Oh please, fuck me!"

And Chloe did... harder and faster, totally aroused herself, panting and thrusting and working Miriam's clit even faster.

Overwhelmed, Miriam cried out and began to cum again, twisting and pushing herself down against Chloe.  This orgasm was almost as hard as the first one, going on and on.  When it finally played itself out, Miriam felt shaken to her very core.

What had she been missing out on?  What had she been denying herself over all these years?

She had hardly stopped panting when Chloe reached down to take her hands and lift her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.  Marian's mind wasn't working very well just now, and she gazed quizzically at her partner.

"Slide down on the floor, Miriam, and lean back against the bed."

Miriam obeyed, barely able to control her body at all, but finding a certain innate joy in simply doing as she was told.  She liked Chloe, more than she ever thought she would, and found the thought of pleasing her by obeying her to be a very enjoyable one.  So, she slowly slid down onto the floor, with her back comfortably against the side of the bed, unsure of what was supposed to happen now.

She soon found out.

"You liked your taste before, Miriam.  Let's see if you like it now."

Miriam was shocked as Chloe bent her knees slightly, and positioned the tip of the wet dildo against her lips.  She looked up at the dark-haired beauty, almost certain she knew what the other wanted, but not actually believing that she wanted it.

Chloe was smiling down on her, and said softly, "Open wide, and let's see if we can clean this thing off a little bit."

Feeling another soft, sexual shudder work its way through her, Miriam obeyed, and opened her mouth to let Chloe slide the wet dildo in.  Before the incident in the alley, she had always rather liked giving the occasional blow job, and saw this as nothing more than an inanimate version of that.

But she was wrong, and as Chloe worked the wet, fragrant strapon in and out of her mouth, Miriam could feel herself begin to lose it again, totally stunned at how arousing she found this, to be sitting here on the floor while an almost total stranger pumped her mouth with a plastic penis covered with her own sexual essence.  She had already moaned more than she ever had in her life, but did again as she helplessly sucked and licked at her own juices, as Chloe took complete control of her mouth with the strapon.

Chloe was positively beaming now, sliding her fingers into Miriam's hair and using it to hold and control her.  This had all been so hot to her, watching the pleasure she had given to such an inexperienced lesbian, seeing Miriam becoming aroused again as she relentlessly fucked her mouth with the dildo.  Her own pussy was wet and achy, and she desperately wanted some relief and release of her own.  She knew it wasn't her place, but Marsha had created such a need for sex in her mind, that she simply had to ask.

"Miriam?"

"Mmmphh?" Miriam asked, still greedily nursing on the sliding rubber cock.

"Oh, sorry."  She pulled the strapon out of Miriam's mouth and began to unhook it from her body.  "I hate to ask this, as I know you're the customer, and I'm simply here to please you.  But, well... would you maybe like to taste someone other than yourself before the session is over?  We have a couple of minutes yet, and I certainly don't mind running over a little.  I don't have anything scheduled after you."

Miriam looked up at her, drifting in her own rebuilding arousal, as sucking and swallowing her own juices, feeling her mouth so completely full and used had excited her to the point of need again.  "You want me to lick your pussy, don't you?" she asked dreamily.

"Yess, Miriam.  Would you mind?  I'm so close already, and I really need to cum."

"I don't mind at all, dear.  I loved this, and I owe you more than I can say," Miriam said, meaning every word of it.  "Just help me up on the bed, and put me where you want me."

Chloe did just that, taking Miriam's hands and raising her up.  They kissed again for a moment, and then the younger woman helped Miriam to lie back on the bed, using a couple of pillows to prop up her head.  Then Chloe was clamboring up on top of her, facing the opposite way, lowering her entire body to press her own wet sex down against Miriam's face, and to bury her own face between Miriam's thighs.

Miriam gasped.  She was glad and anxious to help her new friend, to help her cum.  But she hadn't expected it to feel this good, to feel so warm, so wonderful, so incredibly... intimate. 

Chloe was like a human blanket covering her, her skin so soft and perfect against her everywhere, her wet pussy against Miriam's face feeling as if it were created just to be there.  As Chloe's tongue found her cummy slit, Miriam helplessly arched up into her body, moaning and knowing what she needed to do now, what she desperately wanted to do.

She began to kiss and nibble at Chloe's puffy labia, using her tongue to paint it with her own saliva, to try to salve the burning need she knew her partner was feeling.  She was totally gratified to feel Chloe's guttural moan into her own sodden sex as she did that, licking her harder, letting her tongue push between the satiny folds to seek the moisture and longing within.  Chloe's tongue inside her was sending daggers of arousal into her brain, but she was determined not to stop until Chloe had the relief she so desperately sought.

They lapped and licked and sucked at each other, locked together in each other's arms and by the depths of their arousal for each other.  The room reeked of sex now, and was filled with their muffled cries and squeals of pleasure.  Miriam hugged Chloe's ass and pulled her face and mouth even tighter to her, sinking her tongue deep inside, tasting and swirling, and doing her absolute best to give Chloe all the pleasure she deserved.

She licked harder, and found Chloe's engorged clit with her tongue, as she sensed the other getting close.  And though she never thought of it in sexual terms, Miriam knew that part of this was what she lived for... to help and please others, to give them anything she could to make their lives better. 

And when Chloe finally began to cum, grinding and humping against her mouth and tongue, Miriam stunned herself by cumming again, too.  For the briefest of moments, she thought of her orgasm as payment from above for services rendered, but then she was too swept up in her own release to think about anything at all.

As the sexual haze of the past 45 minutes finally lifted from Miriam's mind, she realized she was lying comfortably on the bed in Chloe's arms.  She was sweaty and covered with drying fluids, infinitely drained, at least for now, but otherwise feeling marvelous.  She sighed in pleasure as Chloe kissed and nibbled at the sides of her neck.  She stroked Chloe's warm flank and let her fingers trail all over her partner's deliciously soft flesh.

Eventually, Chloe pulled her head back and said, "Well, unfortunately, time's up, Miriam.  Why don't you go into the bathroom and clean up.  I'll shake your clothes out for you."

"Thank you, hon," Miriam replied, leaning in to give Chloe a quick kiss on the cheek.  She slowly made her way into the small bathroom, feeling as if she were floating, everything seeming a bit surreal to her.

She fixed herself up as best she could, with the cold water on her face helping to bring her around a bit.  When she came back into the room, Chloe had laid her clothes out on the bed, and Miriam dressed in silence while Chloe used the bathroom herself.  Miriam felt wonderful, but tired, and it took her a while to even remember why she had come to this place.

As Chloe grabbed her hand and led her out of the room and down the stairs, Miriam struggled with what she would say to Marsha, what she would try to get the Madam to do and say to her.  As they got to the bottom of the stairs, Amber came up to them, smiling.

"Did you enjoy yourself, Ma'am?  Chloe really is one of our best."

Miriam glanced over at her sexual companion, who stared back at her with a soft smile.  "She was wonderful, Amber."  Miriam meant that completely, and there seemed nothing more to say.

She was going to ask to speak to Marsha, when Amber said, "Marsha asked me to apologize to you that she couldn't be here to see you off herself, as she was unexpectedly called away."

Miriam couldn't help but be a bit relieved at that news, as she really didn't feel mentally prepared for what she might need to do with Marsha.  Tomorrow, after she had rested from her long day, would be better anyway.

But that meant that she would have to come back here.  Again, Amber seemed to anticipate her thoughts.

"Will you be joining us again before you leave town?  We'd love to have you back."

Miriam looked at both Amber and Chloe.  "Is there any way I can be with Chloe again; say tomorrow afternoon, around three or so?"  She would worry about how to avoid running into Dana here, later.

"I could come in for that, Amber," Chloe said enthusiastically.  Then, by way of explanation to Miriam, "I'm normally off on Tuesdays, but I'd love to be with you again."  Miriam felt a warmth spread through her at Chloe's words, knowing they were heartfelt, gratified more than she cared to admit that Chloe had apparently truly enjoyed being with her.

"Sounds like a plan then," Amber said.  "And Marsha is almost always here in the afternoon, so maybe she'll get a chance to talk to you again."

"I'd like that," Miriam said.  "I'd like very much to chat with her tomorrow."

That sounded like a plan, too.

********

(Chapter 3 and 4 in a day or two...)

[flibinite]

Helpful Questions  (cont'd)

Chapter 3 --

Miriam didn't wake up until 9 AM the next morning, which surprised her, as she rarely slept past 7 or 7:30.  It had been early evening by the time she'd left Marsha's, and she had found she was famished.  Unsure of how "presentable" she was, she had opted for the drive-thru of a local fast food place to get herself a large salad and chicken sandwich.  She'd taken them back to her room, and devoured them while she stared at some show on the TV.  Then she'd decided on a long tub soak.

She had lain in the tub for the longest time, just drifting from thought to thought, her only conscious act to refresh the hot water a few times.  She'd felt like someone had poured her out of a jello mold when she'd finally climbed out, so languid and relaxed, and had simply fallen into bed, sleeping straight through 'til morning.

Even at that, after all that good sleep, she didn't get up immediately.  She still felt wonderful, warm and cozy under the covers, even though she was very hungry again.  But Miriam seemed to have all kinds of appetites now, and couldn't resist letting her hands play over her naked body as she remembered her time with Chloe.  Talk about a tasty dish, she thought.

Her labia were a bit sore from yesterday's activities, but it was a good kind of sore, one she found easy enough simply to rub away.  The same held true for her nipples, but the slight pain there succumbed to her gentle caresses, too.  She laid under the covers, teasing and fondling herself, enjoying her own soft arousal, for the moment ignoring her upcoming confrontation with Marsha.

She remembered Chloe instead -- the feel of Chloe's tongue inside her, and hers inside Chloe; the weakness and excitement she felt as her pussy and mouth were used and filled by the strapon.  She remembered the tastes and smells, the feel of Chloe's lips on hers.  She remembered the heat and sweat and passion.

And suddenly her arousal wasn't so soft anymore... it was strong and insistent, and she soon found herself arching up against the two fingers she had thrust inside herself, her sex juicy and slick.  One hand moved from breast to breast, teasing and massaging.  Miriam gasped and moaned, working herself harder, unable to resist her own sudden desire.  It took her only minutes to cum, crying out to the ceiling, and writhing and oozing on her own hand.

God, look at you, Miriam, she thought, lying there panting.  You've certainly become the excitable girl all of a sudden.

She got up and managed to shower without any further incidents, and just managed to make it down to the small dining room before they shut down breakfast.  It was a buffet, and even though there wasn't a ton left to choose from, she managed to eat a ton anyway, at least in her own opinion.

Between her upcoming sleuthing assignment and her current "personal" excitements, Miriam was feeling great, feeling young and alive.

In line with her meeting with Marsha, Miriam attempted to determine the actual limits of her power to direct others.  While she was eating, she tried to get others to do things... stir their coffee cups, turn the newspaper page, etc... just by staring at them and thinking of a particular command.  She found out it didn't work, whether they were looking at her or not, if she didn't say anything directly to them.

She did manage to get her waitress to spin around for her, and to stand on one foot for ten seconds, though.  It seemed to confirm something that Miriam already thought -- that she could get others to do things besides answering her questions when she talked to them in certain way.  Of course, the waitress may have been simply humoring an old woman, but short of having her cluck like a chicken or taking off all her clothes, Miriam had no nice way of checking the strength of her control.

Either it would be enough to persuade Marsha of "the errors of her ways", whatever they were... or it would not.  In which case, she'd find out the names of all the girls working there, if she could, and perhaps sic all their parents on her.  She'd do what she could to help them all, in any case.

After breakfast, she spent a little while reading in her room, then went out to do some shopping, and to eat a light lunch before it was time to head back to Marsha's bordello. 

After driving there, and as she approached the house, it surprised her how calm she was, and that what little excitement she was allowing herself to feel was mainly about seeing Chloe, again.  She knew there wouldn't be time to be with her this visit, but she could still remember what they had done together.

And hopefully, if Miriam succeeded in what she had planned, Chloe would be free in just a little while.  At least free to make her own choices, Miriam thought.

As she walked toward the building after parking her car on the street, Miriam took a quick look in the parking lot, and was happy to see that Dana's car wasn't there.  It wouldn't have made any difference if she were here this time, Miriam knew, but it was just easier that she wasn't.

It was three o'clock on the button when Miriam reached the front door, opened it, and walked inside.

As she strode into the lobby, Amber got up from behind her desk and approached her, smiling and calling out for Chloe as she did.  Then she said, "Hello, Miriam.  So good to see you here again."

"Thanks, Amber," Miriam replied, glancing over to see Chloe entering the room.  She was wearing a much more demure white blouse and tan skirt combo today, but still looked attractive and enticing to Miriam.  But no time for such thoughts now, as she had things to take care of here.

"Before I go off with Chloe... and hi, dear... I was wondering if I might have a small chat with Marsha first?"

Amber frowned, but shook her head.  "I'm very sorry, Miriam, but she isn't here.  Something came up that she had to attend to again, and she had to go.  She asked me to give you her apologies, and I know for a fact that she was really looking forward to talking with you."

Now it was Miriam's turn to frown.  This could go on forever at this rate.  "Will she be back after I come back down," she said, looking over at Chloe for a moment.

"Unfortunately, no, as I don't expect her back for a couple of hours, at least."

Miriam nodded.  If Marsha wasn't going to be here, perhaps it would be a good time to look around the place.  Maybe she'd learn something that way.  Miriam had already thought about how she might go about doing that, so said, "May I ask you a question, Amber?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Do you think Chloe is attractive?"

Amber looked startled, then over at Chloe and said, "Yes, I do."

Miriam turned to Chloe and asked her the same question about Amber, and got the same response.  Chloe was grinning though, as if she saw this as a game.

Miriam fixed Amber with her eyes this time and asked, "You've thought about her a lot, Amber, and you'd really like to have sex with Chloe, wouldn't you?  It's all you can think about right now... having sex with Chloe, isn't it."

Amber licked at her lips, staring back at Miriam, and whispered, "Well, she is very hot... yes."

Miriam spoke the same way to Chloe, who replied much more firmly, obviously having a thing for Amber.  "I'd love to have sex with her, Miriam."

So, in order to be alone, Miriam worked on the two attractive, young women for a few minutes, getting them so worked up for each other that they were soon holding hands and thanking her for "graciously" giving up her hour so the two of them could be together.  Miriam even demanded to pay for it, so that they didn't need to be concerned about the non-work, no-sex rule.  Amber readily agreed that Miriam could watch the door for her, as she didn’t expected anyone to show up until after five o'clock anyway.

She had to smile as she watch the decidedly "happy couple" hustle up the stairs, though she surprised herself with a small pang of jealousy that it was Amber, and not her, going off with Chloe.

But she was gratified that her power had worked as well, or better, than she could have hoped, as now she pretty much had carte blanch to go through the house by her lonesome for the next half-hour, and to see what she could find out about how Marsha managed to do what she was doing.

So, still smiling, she turned and headed for the hallway and the rooms beyond, wondering what she might find out about this Marsha Slade.

********

Marsha gripped the steering wheel tighter, really hating this.  Not for Dana's sake, mind you, but more because she detested anyone controlling her.

This had been Councilman Gresham's request for additional payments -- that she bring one of her girls over to his "special" apartment for a weekly session.  Of course, he couldn't come to her place, and, until Marsha could figure out a workaround, she was going to have to go along with the bastard.

She had wanted to see his little love nest first, though, and had decided to pick Dana up and run her over personally this first time.  Dana had not been happy at all about this assignment, but Dana did what she was told, at least in regard to sexual things.  Marsha owned her sexual life and mind completely, and she wouldn't think of disobeying her.

Marsha also hated the fact that she was going to miss Miriam Goochie's next visit, too.  She had really wanted to talk with the older woman, especially after Chloe had gushed so much about how great she was, and about how long she had seemingly gone without sex.  Marsha was insanely curious about Miriam's reason for that, and why she had finally broken her celibacy in such a strange way.

And now she wasn't going to be able to see her again.

"Dammit!"  Marsha said, slapping the wheel hard with her hand.

Startled, and reacting before she could think, Dana yelped out, "What's wrong?"

She immediately wished she could take that back, as one didn't want to question Marsha about anything.  Besides, and in spite of how totally drawn to Marsha she was, Dana still didn't like how easily her boss could be angered, nor having that anger directed back at her.

"Nothing is wrong!"  Marsha said sarcastically.  "I love being blackmailed by a local nobody."  She paused, trying to get as tight a grip on herself as she had on the steering wheel.

"Look... it's none of your concern, Dana.  You just give this guy the ride of his life, and that will help me out a lot.  OK?"

"Yess, Marsha.  I'll do my very best for you," Dana said quickly, glad to be out from under.

Marsha gave her a thin smile.  She knew Dana would do her best.  She could do no less, given the things Marsha had pushed into her mind and body.

"It's just that I wanted to talk to a new customer we got yesterday.  Such a strange old bird.  Some 50-year-old woman wearing tweeds and pearls, who hadn't had any real sex in 25 years, and named Miriam Goochie, for god's sakes."

Dana turned to her, eyes wide.  "Auntie Miriam?  Auntie Miriam was in the house?"  Oh god, thought Dana. Now Mom and Dad will know everything!

Marsha heard Dana's outburst, and just managed to keep herself from slamming on the brakes.  She knew trouble when she heard it, and this was trouble.  She had been speeding, as it was only a couple of minutes before three, the time she was supposed to be at Councilman Gresham's with Dana.  But she slowed down now, turning to ask, "You know this 'Auntie' Miriam, then?"

"I... well, I guess maybe... kinda.  I don't know," Dana finished, not wanting to get Miriam in trouble.  She was totally confused now, not knowing what to think, say, or do about this situation.

Marsha wasn't buying her answer, though, already slapping on the right-turn signal, and whipping her car into an A & P parking lot.  She stopped the car, turned to face Dana, and took all her confusion way.

"Hypnotic Epsilon..."

Marsha watched as Dana's body went soft, her face became expressionless, her eyes grew vacant.

"Very good, Dana.  So relaxed and open, now.  Totally obedient to me and everything I say; so willing to do anything I tell you to do.

"So tell me... tell me everything you know about Miriam Goochie."

********

Miriam turned away from the wall with a sad sigh.  It was obvious to her that everything attached to it was meant to be a memorial to some man named Eric, almost certainly Marsha's husband.  The pictures of her and him, the proud display of his doctoral degree from Duke University, and the newspaper clipping with the blaring headline, "Local Scientist Killed By Drunk Driver", left little doubt in her mind about that.

Miriam had stared at this wall for a long time, looking at the pictures, reading the article about Eric's death, and other articles that related to all he had accomplished in his unfortunately short life.  If nothing else, this display of affection and sadness left her with a greater understanding of Marsha, and perhaps why she was doing the things she apparently was. 

She stopped for a moment to look across what was obviously Marsha's desk, staring at a gold-framed picture of her and Eric together.  For a moment, her heart went out to the woman she was attempting to stop, having some small understanding of the pain and fear and anger she must have felt when Eric had been killed.

For the first time, perhaps, Miriam fully understood how a part of herself must have died on the night she was assaulted and raped.  Like Marsha, it was something she could never fully let go, something she had let affect her for far too long.  She had only to remember all the pleasure she had felt when she had been with Chloe last night to know that.

She walked slowly through Marsha's office and into the room beyond, thinking about pain and loss and how those things could permanently change a person.  Well, not permanently, but deeply enough into the mind and psyche that the person's outlook and attitude on life could be permanently changed... if they let it.

It was then, just at that moment, when Miriam decided that she would attempt to change her life, to make it something more fulfilling, something she could relish and enjoy, rather than simply live.  She would always continue to try to help others, she knew, but maybe it was time that she cast away the past, and lived her life, all the aspects of her life, to the best of her ability, for just as long as she possibly could.

She stared around this new room, not exactly sure what she was looking for, but spotting it instantly, nonetheless.  In the very center of the room was something that looked like a dentist chair, soft and padded and smooth, only much shorter, looking like nothing so much as a filled-in letter "A", laid out on its back.  There were wide, leather straps all over it, something obviously used to hold a person down, something to keep their head and body still while things unimagined were done to them.

There wasn't much else in the room except a couple of wheeled stools, and a strange looking device sitting over on a counter just past the bondage bench.  It didn't appear to be turned on, but there was a maze of wires coming out of its back, all of which were spooled neatly in a row next to it.  She wasn't sure how she knew, but Miriam was certain that somehow this machine was responsible for all that happened to Dana, Chloe, and the others.

She ran her hands over it for a time, not daring to turn it on, but knowing it was something she would ask Marsha about whenever it was that they finally chatted.  Not seeing anything else of interest in the room, she stepped back from it and was about to turn, when someone grabbed her from behind and pressed something soft and damp over her face, held it over her mouth and nose.  She gasped in surprise, and found her lungs filling with the noxious scent of some chemical, something that instantly made her dizzy and weak.

She began to struggle, reaching up with her hands to pull at whatever was being held against her.  She was strong, and desperate, and actually managed to pull it away from her face for a moment.  It was then that she heard the other's voice... Marsha's voice... crying out, "Grab her wrists and pull them down, Dana!"

Miriam's eyes grew wide over the reeking cloth as she saw her friend, Dana, step in front of her and reach up to grab her wrists in grips of steel.  She tried to resist, but she felt dizzy and uncoordinated, and Dana was too strong for her.  She couldn't stop her friend from pulling her hands down, from breaking her grip on Marsha's wrist, and from leaving her completely at the mercy of Marsha's assault. 

Just before her eyes closed and her mind shut down, Miriam noticed just how blank Dana's expression was, and how little this struggle seemed to be making an impression on her.  Dana was obviously, and simply, doing what she had been told to do.  Miriam moaned in despair as she could feel her own struggles weaken, as her body began to give in to the chemicals that had invaded it. 

She wanted to fight... she wanted to kick her legs, twist her body, and break free... but she couldn't, all of her finally giving in to the wave of cloying unconsciousness that was attempting to overwhelm her.

She had messed up badly, and now she knew she was going to pay for that mistake.

********

When Miriam finally dragged herself out of the darkness in which she had been suspended, it only took her only a few seconds to realize where she was, the predicament she was in.  She felt sick and nauseous from the chemical that had been used on her, her mind feeling all muzzy and distant, but she knew she was now strapped to the bench that she’d been examining only seconds before.

She realized that it only seemed like seconds before, as she was now naked and unable to move, uselessly trying to pull free from the bindings that held her wrists down near her hips, and her ankles up against her buttocks on the A-shaped table.  Even though she knew it was hopeless, she tried to sit up, feeling the straps across her neck and below her breasts tightening as she did.  As she struggled, she dimly felt something else, felt something attached to the sides of her head and to various parts of her body.

In looking down along herself, she spotted a still-entranced Dana, apparently kneeling down on the floor between her bound legs. 

She groaned in despair and turned her head to the side, where she saw Marsha's gloating face staring back at her.

"Ahh," Marsha said, "You're awake already, Miriam.  Very good.  Somehow I knew you were strong woman, and so far you haven't disappointed me in the slightest."

"What do you want?"  Miriam whispered, barely able to get her voice to work.

"Well, I didn't really want anything from you, Miriam, until you decided to stick your nose in my business."  She stepped closer to Miriam's bound body, and reached out a hand to lightly stroke one of her breasts.  "But now that you have proven to be just another nosy busybody, I've decided to mess with your mind a little bit, to make you forget all about this and never want to bother me again.  The fact that you'll become my slave in the process is simply unfortunate for you."

"I'll never be your slave," Miriam said, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her mind and body.

"Oh, but you will.  You'll be just the same as anyone I've ever used Eric's device on."

Miriam struggle a bit more, if for no other reason than to try to agitate her body, to get her blood flowing, and to clear her mind enough so that she could possibly use her gift against Marsha.  She felt so foggy, and knew she needed more time to get herself back together.

She pulled up all of the concentration that she could muster, stared hard into Marsha's eyes, and said, "I'd like to know what you're going to do to me, Marsha.  You know that you'd really like to tell me what's going to happen next, don't you?"

Marsha actually didn't want to tell her; she just wanted to get on with it.  But she thought to herself, "Why not?", as she would shortly be controlling Miriam's mind, anyway, and easily be able to erase all her memories, block all the thoughts that she didn't want Miriam to remember or speak about... just the same as she had done to Chloe, Dana, and the others.

"Well, Miriam, you may have noted that you're connected to that machine over there on the counter.  It's a device that my husband, Eric, invented a few years ago.  We called it the "Hypnosis Machine", although that's not really what it is at all."

"It's not?" Miriam murmured, trying to egg Marsha on.

"No, it isn't.  Just look at it."

Miriam did, seeing the display on the front of the box all lit up now, watching lines of sharp green dancing up and down all over the screen, much like the sound bars on the Media Player on her computer back home.  The lines seemed to peak about a third of the way up the screen, at most. 

At the top of it was a straight, blue line, and... "What are those two parallel red lines across the bottom, there?"  She was surprised to see the green lines peak a bit higher as she spoke.

"Excellent, Miriam," Marsha said, the gloating in her voice now.  "That's exactly the thing you should be concentrating on.  It was one of the things my husband created before he was killed.  He worked on things of the mind, and planned to use this machine as an aid for hypnotherapists.  In fact, he thought it could be used for self-hypnosis, too."

"Please tell me what it does, Marsha," Miriam said, now staring at her again.  She was still stalling for time, waiting for her mind to clear.  But she also needed to know about Eric's machine, in case she would have to use it to bring the girls back around.

Marsha frowned, and then continued.  "It basically reads all your brain waves... alpha, beta, and theta.  They go into an algorithm that Eric also developed, and are displayed on the screen in combined form.  You might note how all your levels are going up as the effects of the chloroform wear off."

Miriam did notice this, the green peak lines much closer to the blue line on top of the screen than the parallel red ones on the bottom.

Marsha seemed to be a bit excited about something.  "They seem to go up quite a bit when you speak, too.  That's pretty unusual, you know.  That's only happened for Eric before, when he used to test it on himself.  Hmm...

"Anyrate, you wanted to know about those two red lines, the ones about three-quarters of an inch apart?"

"Yes."

"We called that the red zone.  Long story short, because of how he created the algorithm, the closer all your green lines get to the red zone, the more suggestible you become.  And if all of the lines are in the red zone...."

"Then, I'm hypnotized, right?"  Miriam interrupted, watching many of the lines that represented her brain waves move up and above the blue line.

"Not hypnotized, Miriam, but in a totally suggestible state... a trance, if you will.  You can actually fully induce someone who's not 'in the zone', especially if they want to be hypnotized.  But the kicker is, anyone in the zone cannot resist being hypnotized, whether they want to be or not."

"Ahh, I see now," Miriam said, then jerked at her restraints.  "And I see why these straps now, too."

"You're pretty smart," Marsha said, smiling down at her.

"So are you, Marsha."

Marsha was frowning again.  "I didn't get into Duke because I was stupid, you know!  Eric knew how smart I was, and included me in all his research, taught me all he knew about being a good hypnotist."

Miriam didn't want Marsha angry, as she had more trouble "directing" someone who was angry.  In another minute, she would be ready to try to get free.  But she couldn't keep from saying, "I will resist you."

"Of course you will, Miriam.  They all do.  That's what these pads attached to you are for.  They're my own little contribution to the process, something for those who don't want me to hypnotize them."  She stepped closer, and reached out her hand to slide it over the pads attached to the undersides of Miriam's breasts.  She also played her thumb back and forth over each nipple, causing the bound woman to gasp.

"And these two," Marsha said as she reached down between Miriam's bound legs and rubbed the pads attached to the uppermost portion of her thighs.  This time she let her thumb play over Miriam's labia with each stroke, making her buck and shiver.

"So reactive, Miriam.  My, my."  Marsha removed her hand and stepped back.  "Those pads aren't for pleasure, though, Ms. Snoop.  Those are for pain."

"Pain?"  Miriam didn't like the sound of that all, but needed to hear this one last bit before she tried to free herself.

"Pain.  The mind tries to avoid pain in just the same way it tries to wrap itself around pleasure.  That blue line on top is pain, though it's not turned on yet.  But when it is...."  She winked at Miriam, looking rather pleased with herself.

"When it is...?"  Miriam prompted her, glancing down quickly to see Dana still kneeling at the foot of the bench... not moving, not even blinking.

"It's very simple, really.  Your mind will retreat from the blue line, from the pain, and as it does, the machine will automatically increment the pain triggers toward the red zone.  It won't even be anything you have to think about, Miriam.  Eventually your mind just figures out what it needs to do to keep your body away from the pain.  It will realize it needs to settle itself closer and closer to the red zone.

"I'll even toss in a little positive reinforcement when you're moving in the right direction."  Monica pointed toward Dana.  "Dana is a good pussy licker.  And, as you get closer to the red zone, I start to toss a few verbal suggestions at you until, voilà, you're hypnotized."

Miriam took a deep breath, her mind as clear as it was going to be.  Now or never, she thought, once again staring deeply into Marsha's eyes.

"But you don't really need to hypnotize me, do you, Marsha?  I'm just a silly old woman who would never tell anyone about what you're doing here.  No one would believe me, anyway.  There's no reason to hypnotize me, is there?"

Marsha paused, as what had seemed so perfectly obvious to her before didn't seem quite so clear now.  Maybe she was just wasting her time hypnotizing this nosy, old woman.  She wouldn't dare tell anyone about this anyway, as they would just laugh at her.

But a part of her mind rebelled at that.  Hypnotizing Miriam was a "no-lose" situation, wasn't it?  It insured that she wouldn't be telling anyone, anything.  Not only that, but Marsha enjoyed making a new conquest.  So why shouldn't she do it?

And why did she suddenly not really want to?

Miriam was still talking.  "No, you don't want to hypnotize me at all, do you, Marsha?  In fact, you know probably the best thing to do is to untie me right now and let me go, isn't it?"

Marsha was a bit stunned to feel herself take a step Miriam's direction, to do just that, to start untying this very nice person.  She managed to stop herself, but when she tried to speak, to tell Miriam that she was out of luck, all that came out was, " Noo... I... I can't."

What's going on? she thought, And why can't I take my eyes off hers?  I can't even close them!  Marsha tried again, but couldn't pull her eyes away from Miriam's, nor do anything more than blink.

"Sure you can untie me, dear," Miriam said, seeing her words taking effect.  "It's the easiest, smartest thing to do, isn't it?  You just untie me right now, I leave, never tell a soul about this, and everyone is very happy, aren't they?"

It made so much sense to Marsha, now.  She just had to untie Miriam, let her go, and she’d be done with all of this.

She took another step toward the table.

The part of her mind that knew how such things worked, and as small as that part was, began to scream at her, "She's hypnotizing you!  With her eyes and her voice, she's hypnotizing you!  Fight it!  Look away somehow!"

But she couldn't look away, and she couldn't stop listening, either.  She tried to raise her hands in front of her eyes, but it was all she could do to keep them from reaching out to unbuckle the straps that held Miriam to the bench.  So instead, they just hung, quivering, at her sides.

Marsha knew she needed some kind of distraction, something to break Miriam's hold over her.

She could barely speak now, but managed to croak out, "Dana.  Lick Miriam's pussy."

Dana, still locked in her own hypnotic trance, moved to obey.

"Dana!  You don't want to lick me, do you?"  Miriam called out, knowing what Marsha was trying to do.  Dana wasn't listening to her, however, and Miriam groaned as the young woman's tongue began to slide and flick along the full length of her slit.

Miriam bit her lip to stop herself from moaning, finally managing to say, "It won't help, Marsha, as you still know that you want to untie me more than anything, don't you?  It's the only thing you want to do, isn't it?"

Miriam was right.  Of course, she was going to untie her and let her go.  However, that part of Marsha that knew those weren't her own desires, held firm, at least controlling her body enough to keep her locked in place.

Marsha knew she was losing this battle, though.  Still caught in Miriam's gaze, hearing every word like liquid honey, she was falling, and knew it was only seconds until she would be eagerly setting Miriam free.

Marsha didn't realize it, but Miriam was growing desperate, too.  As much as she wanted to ignore it, Dana's insistent tongue was getting to her.  Swirling around her clit now, it was making it harder and harder for her to concentrate, to put whatever power she had behind her words.  She knew Marsha was close to breaking, but she couldn't quite pushed her over the edge.

"Untie m... me.  You know... you must untie me, don't you, Marsha?"

Marsha groaned, her right hand starting to move.

"I'm so sorry, Marsha.  Amber and I...."

Chloe's voice startled both women, the momentary break in concentration helping Marsha the most.  For a second, her mind cleared enough for her to think of something so obvious she had overlooked it.

Though her voice still barely worked, Marsha managed to cry out, "Hypnotic Beta", hoping her words were clear enough to trigger Chloe.

Miriam wasn't sure what those words meant, but knew they were directed at Chloe, and knew that Marsha controlled Chloe somehow...

"You... you don't want to say another word to Chloe, do you, Marsha?"

That's exactly what Marsha wanted to do, and she screamed inside when she heard Miriam trying to block her.  The words she wanted to say, needed to say, were dying on her lips.  If she couldn't get herself to say them, she was going to lose here, was going to fail.

But I'm a Slade!  I'm Marsha Macah Slade, of the Whitfield County Slade's.  A Slade never gives up, never lets anything stop them until they're dead.  I am a Slade!

Marsha let her anger and pride build within her, let it block out the things Miriam was still telling her.  She let it well up inside her until she could finally blurt out, "Chloe... kiss Miriam on the lips!"

Miriam groaned aloud, and knowing it was now probably useless, turned to face the blank-eyed Chloe and plead, "You don't want to kiss me.  You want to kiss Dana, don't you?"

Chloe never even hesitated, moving up to the end of the bench.  She looked at Miriam for the briefest of moments, then leaned down and began to kiss her on the mouth.

"No, no," Miriam moaned, twisting her head back and forth within the cascade of Chloe's hair, desperate to clear her face so she could see Marsha, again.

But Chloe had been told to kiss her lips, and that's what she would do until told to stop.  In order to do that, she had to be able to get to Miriam's lips, so she reached in and clamped one hand on the top of Miriam's head, the other under her jaw to hold her still, so that she could continue to kiss her.

When Miriam tried one last time to get her to quit, to move away from her, before she could even complete the first word, Chloe's tongue was sliding between her lips, licking and teasing, hot and demanding.

Finally freed from Miriam's eyes and voice, Marsha still had to struggle against the induced urge to release her.  She fought to stand there like a statue, knowing if she could just hang on a little while longer, she could finally defeat the compulsion within her.

It took almost five minutes before she could move; stumbling two steps back from the bench.  She couldn't believe how strong Miriam's aegis had been... still was, in fact.  But her own mind and will were very strong, and over the next few minutes she slowly managed to extricate them from Miriam's command, to turn them instead to what she had planned in the first place... Miriam's subjugation.

Miriam had slowly given up trying to struggle free.  All she could try to do now was to try to resist Marsha's attempt to hypnotize her.  She found herself getting lost in Dana and Chloe's ministrations, helplessly grinding her now soaked pussy against Dana's mouth, and kissing Chloe back, harder and harder.

It all felt so good to her that she almost didn't care what happened to her next.  She was almost too involved with her own arousal to hear the ripping and tearing sounds emanating from above her head.  Marsha's voice seemed as something from a dream when Miriam finally heard her say, "Stop kissing her, Chloe, and stand up straight."

Miriam reluctantly felt her young lover pulling away from her.  She barely had time for one full breath before she felt something tight and sticky being plastered over her mouth and cheeks.  She looked up to see Marsha's upside-down visage smiling at her.

"You were very good, very strong, Miriam," Marsha said, reaching to grab another strip of duct tape that she had lightly connected to her forearm.  This piece came down, too, and was sealed over Miriam's eyes.

"You came within a couple of seconds of having me," she continued, taking the last two strips of tape and adding them to Miriam's gag.

Satisfied the Miriam was finally, and totally, helpless, Marsha squatted down next to her captive's head.

"But it's my turn now!"

********

Marsha stood there with an almost beatific look on her face.  She was straddling the headrest portion of the lowered bench, and sliding her very wet pussy up-and-down over Miriam's untaped mouth and nose.  She had never been very worried about breaking Miriam, but she was thankful that the other’s enslavement was almost complete.

After she had rendered Miriam "toothless", by using the duct tape to block off whatever power she seemed to have, Marsha had known that Miriam's fate was sealed.  Though her respect for Miriam's mind had grown tremendously, Marsha had complete control of the older woman's body, and it was simply a matter of time before Eric's machine and her skill as a hypnotist would create a new slave for her to use and enjoy.

But it had been a major struggle.  Marsha had been completely impressed with Miriam's intelligence, courage, and stubborn resistance.  In the end, it hadn't mattered at all, but it had been very impressive.

Marsha had gotten nowhere at all for the first ten minutes.  The green peak lines that indicated Miriam's brain activity had stayed nearly pegged to the blue.  This wasn't normal at all.

It had finally dawned on her what was happening.  Miriam was reacting differently because Marsha had told her how the machine worked.  Her wily (and brave) captive had forced herself to gravitate toward the pain, not away from it, knowing that running from the pain would have pushed her toward the red zone, and defeat.

So Marsha had removed the pads that had been delivering those painful electric jolts to Miriam's body.  She would just use pleasure, instead.  Marsha had Chloe eating Miriam out, Dana and Amber licking and sucking her breasts and body.  Watching the monitor, she had tapped them on the shoulder when Miriam's lines began to drop, have them speed up their manipulations, hoping to draw Miriam ever downward.

But the magnificent busybody had been too smart and strong to fall for Marsha's tactic.  Somehow, she had willed herself to run from any increase in pleasure, and not to let herself be drawn toward it.

Knowing that, despite Miriam's staunch defense, she must be getting more and more confused, more and more disassociated from reality -- unable to see, speak, or move; being relentlessly sexually stimulated -- Marsha finally fooled her.

She had her girls start giving Miriam the most pleasure when her mind was the strongest, and this time, when Miriam forced herself to run from the pleasure, it caused her to sink deeper.  She had finally slipped deep enough so that Marsha could start in on her, verbally.

She had been talking to Miriam the whole time, sitting on a stool next to her head, and whispering in her ear about relaxing and giving in.  She had not been doing that to subdue her, but simply to let Miriam hear her voice, to get used to it, to begin to ignore it in the same way that any mind tries to ignore a constant stimulus that it doesn't want to feel or hear.

So, as Miriam had sunk lower toward the target zone, become a bit more suggestible, Marsha had used her hypnotic training to pry her way into Miriam subconscious, to take control of her thoughts.  But even that had gone slowly, with Miriam's ability to resist absolutely amazing to watch; her spirited, but useless struggles actually arousing.

She had finally broken through using two things... need, and, surprisingly enough, control.

Frustrated, she had allowed the girls to torment Miriam harder, to let them take her to the very edge of orgasm and hold her there.  She had been gratified to see the green eventually move down very close to the red.  Then, remembering something that Chloe had told her, about how much Miriam had seemed to enjoy being dominated, she taken off the kid gloves and basically demanded that Miriam submit, that it was actually what she'd wanted to do all along.

Finally, Miriam had done just that.  After almost an hour, her brain waves had fallen into the red zone.

As a reward, and as reinforcement, she had allowed the girls to push Miriam into a massive, writhing orgasm.

The first thing Marsha had done then was to take Miriam deeper, deeper than she had ever taken any subject before.  She had used every hypnotic technique she knew to lock Miriam's strong mind to her new owner's will.  Then she had made certain that Miriam would never use her power on her or any of the others, without permission, ever again.

The rest had all been fairly standard.  She had removed Miriam's gag and blindfold, and asked her questions about her life and the nature of her power.  She had gotten more than a little upset at Miriam's monotonish recitation of her rape, seeing it in much the same light as what had happened to her husband.  She had also begun to feel the first pangs of true empathy and compassion for the woman she had just enslaved.

She had also been a bit stunned that anybody could enjoy being such a goodie two-shoes, until she remembered how nice her Eric had been toward others.

Finally, she had taught the completely entranced woman the house rules, had ingrained in her the love of all sex, and had created in Miriam the desire to be totally devoted and obedient to her, Marsha.

Now, she was simply addicting Miriam to the taste and smell of her pussy, grinding her wet sex softly over Miriam's face, telling her how much she needed and wanted it... always.

"...and on the count of three, you'll awaken totally relaxed and refreshed, totally obedient to me, wanting me more than any other woman in the world.

"One... waking slowly, easily.  Two... completely happy and content with your new situation.  And three... awake and refreshed."

Marsha rose up and pushed her hips back a bit, then watched as Miriam slowly opened her eyes.  At Miriam's wide smile, she smiled back and said, "How do you feel, Miriam?"

"I feel wonderful, Marsha."  Miriam's eyes dropped down to stare at Marsha's wet, shaved sex, only inches from her face.  Then she surprised Marsha by looking back up at her and giving her a wink.

"But I'm so very, very hungry."

********

[flibinite]

Helpful Questions  (cont'd)

Chapter 4 --

Dana moaned and pushed back harder, helping her john... Kyle, she thought... slide his dick all the way into her ass.  She pulled away, helped by his hands gripping her hips, and slammed back onto him again, her heavy breasts swaying underneath her.

"God... fuck my ass!  Fuck it harder!"  She gasped, letting her arms collapse to bury her face in the pillows.  It all felt so good, and Dana felt more aroused, was happier than she'd ever been since she’d gone to work for Marsha.

Everything had gotten better since Auntie Miriam had joined the house... everything.  She still couldn't believe that Auntie had done that, and had no idea why, other than for all the great sex.

It was Auntie Miriam who greeted customers at the door, when she was available.  Again, Dana wasn't sure why, except maybe because she was so nice, but all the men that went through Auntie before their sessions with the girls seemed to treat them better, with more respect, now.  They also seemed more concerned that the girls got their pleasure, too.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the sex even more, and already repeat business was picking up.

Marsha had been having Auntie speak to all the girls about their lives away from the house, too.  Dana didn't know what the others had discussed with her, but knew just how well her chat had gone.  She also knew that she felt much less guilty about her sexual life now, and that she fully realized how important it was to keep hitting the books hard.  Semester finals were right around the corner, and for the first time Dana thought she might actually have a chance of doing well, if she only applied herself.

She realize now how badly she had been treating Claire, too, and was bound and determined to make it up to her, to keep her as her roommate next year.  Perhaps she would talk to Marsha about Claire joining the house.  With her blond good looks and model's body, she'd have the johns clamoring for her.  But that was a thought for another day.

The biggest change Miriam seemed to have made was in Marsha, and the way Marsha treated the rest of them.  She was nowhere near as snippy now, as demanding.  Marsha wasn't so angry all the time anymore, either, or complaining so much about the city and the people in it.  Not only that, but she had also doubled the amount each of them got per trick.

Yes... things had gotten so much better here since Auntie had joined them.  It was hard to believe what a great help she had been.

"Ohh, that's it!  Oh my God... harder!"  Dana yelled into the pillows.  Kyle wasn't too big, but that was just perfect for her ass.  She begged him to keep fucking her as she reached under herself with a hand to rub and stimulate her throbbing clit.

Dana was going to cum like a mad woman in a moment.  God, I love all sex, she thought happily.  Then her mind shut down and she simply enjoyed.

********

Marsha sat naked on the stool, idly stroking her glistening sex, smiling happily as she watched Alison sinking closer and closer to the red zone.  Janice had been doing a masterful job of licking her into submission, and the bound, blindfolded, and gagged Teacher's Assistant was responding more and more readily to verbal suggestions, too.

"With each lick becoming more and more relaxed, simply feeling, not thinking, letting your mind melt into your own pleasure, your own need..."

Alison moaned through her gag, and Marsha rubbed herself a bit faster because of the erotic sound of that.  She had started to blindfold and gag her subjects now, based on the things Miriam had told her about how that felt during her own enslavement, how it had made it so much harder to concentrate and to resist.

Miriam.

Marsha dipped a finger inside herself..  Things had improved around here so much since she'd enslaved Miriam, and there wasn't a single aspect of her own life that hadn't gotten better.

The first thing she had done with her new slave was to experiment with Miriam's power; to see what it was, how strong it was, and to find out when it would work.  She had sent Miriam out with Chloe to see if she could "convince" Janice into coming over to the house.  Janice was a star player on the Smithsen volleyball team, one that Chloe had been telling her about.

When Miriam and Chloe had walked back into her office with Janice in tow like a servile little lamb, she hadn't been completely surprised.  She had felt the pull and strength of Miriam's power the day she had finally defeated her, after all.

She hadn't even put Janice on Eric's machine.  She'd simply told Miriam what she wanted Janice to be like for her, and watched as Miriam used her power, her "gift", as her friend like to put it, to enslave Janice to Marsha.  While Janice's conditioning was not as deep as if she been on the machine, it was still holding... witness the way the sexy volleyballer was still lapping away happily at the helpless TA's pussy.

Miriam had brought in Alison, too.  Amber had said she'd make a great addition to the place, and she always trusted Amber's sexual intuition.

"Feel the pleasure that opening your mind to me can bring, Alison. It feels so soft and warm and wonderful.  You want to feel this good all the time; you want to let me help you feel this wonderful forever..."

Miriam had been a godsend to her.  Not only did she now have a portable, human "Hypnosis Machine", but Miriam was also so sensible about things, so calm and reasoned.  Marsha had always known she'd been lacking in those areas, though she'd been loath to admit that to herself.  Sometimes she wondered if Miriam was using "the gift" on her, considering how many of the older woman's suggestions she'd been implementing.

But in many ways that hardly mattered, as the proof was in the pudding.  Miriam had only been here five days before heading back to her old home to clean up some affairs there, and already the place was running smoother, more efficiently, and more profitably than ever.

The house had become a happier place, too, and Marsha had to admit she was stunned by how big a difference that had made to her.  She'd raised the girls pay, treated them nicer, and gotten better, more enthusiastic work from them because of it.  They were showing up earlier, just to hang out a bit, rather than arriving two minutes before a trick, then rushing around like lunatics to get ready.

And why shouldn't her girls be happier?  They were good slaves, and Marsha found she liked the closer-knit attitudes they were getting, the way they looked at her, reacted to her.

They wouldn't be working for her forever, after all; so Miriam was right there, too.  Having them work on their grades, their private lives more, was a good thing.  Better grades meant less school, teacher, and parental concerns.  Better private lives meant fewer questions from friends, happier employees, and an easier transition for them back into the world, when she finally freed them.

"Deeper and deeper now, Alison... so relaxed, so much pleasure; loving this, loving the sound of my voice, loving the way I can help you to feel... so helpless and soft, so open and ready to listen to the wonderful sound of my voice, now..."

She had sent Miriam out (in her tweeds!) to talk to that Sharon Henderson and her "Concerned Citizens" group, along with her three Council leeches, and for some reason she doubted they were going to be that much of a problem anymore.

Marsha smiled.  Yes, Miriam is a godsend for me.

"Yes, that's it, Alison.  You've done so well, so marvelously.  Now feel the pleasure that obeying me can bring you, the enjoyment you'll feel every time you open your mind to me.  That's it... uhhh... let it go, Alison... ohhh... so good, yess... so fucking good... uhhhh..."

As Alison arched and lurched in her restraints, caught in the throes of a huge orgasm, Marsha came all over her own fingers, remembering how Miriam had looked when she'd finally submitted and cum.

After Marsha stopped cumming, she realized just how badly she missed Miriam, already... and it had only been one day!

Miriam was her lover, now, too.  She had dumped her hotel room and moved into the house.  In fact, Miriam was sleeping in Marsha's bed now, the very first person since Eric had died.  The late-night sex there had been incredible, with Miriam almost insatiable.  They ate together, and worked out in Marsha's basement gym, together.  Having Miriam there had turned the drudgery of her "three-times-of-week" into something competitive and exciting for them both.

And the heated sex in the shower, afterward...mmm.

It was hard to imagine that Miriam was actually 54.  But it was becoming easier for Marsha to believe that Miriam really loved her, just as Eric had, and that it was not simply an induced affection.  No... Miriam's love for her was too obvious, open, and unconditional-seeming for it all to be a fake.

She missed Miriam, but her lover would be back in a few days and she knew that she could tough that out.

Until then, she had the better angels of her nature back again to keep her company... that, and her girls.  She'd be ok.

Miriam had helped to show her that it was all right to be ok again.

********

Rebecca rose off the bed, moaning and clutching at Miriam's hair, then slammed back down on the pillows with a shriek as she began to cum again.  Her hips lifted and bucked spasmodically, but Miriam held on, tonguing her clit, driving her even harder than the first time.

Rebecca's mind exploded with a pleasure that she hadn't felt a long time.  That was not counting 20 minutes ago, of course.

As she finally came back down, Miriam had crawled up beside her, letting their naked bodies rest against each other’s.  Miriam kissed her, and again Rebecca realized that her friend was totally correct about how erotic it felt to taste her own juices on another woman’s lips.

They finally broke apart, lying there side-by-side, staring at the ceiling.

"I still can't believe I let you talk me into this, Miriam.  I mean, I appreciated the lunch, all the great info you gave me about how Dana had just messed up a little, partying too much, and would be doing better from now on.  Did I mention she called yesterday and sounded so much better?"

"Yes, you did, Rebecca." 

"OK, sorry... but then I let you talk me into this?"

Miriam rolled over on her side and began to rub Rebecca's stomach gently.  "But you looked so tense, dear; so drawn out and mentally stressed.  You have to admit you must feel better."

"Oh, I do, Miriam.  But it still feels like cheating to me.  I've never cheated, you know."

"I know, hon," Miriam said softly, not wanting her friend to hurt.  She raised her head a bit to stare into Rebecca's eyes.  "But there's no reason to feel guilty, is there?  Just treat it as you would a relaxing massage, ok?  I never want you to feel guilty for being with me like this... not ever.  All right, Rebecca?"

"Yes, Miriam," Rebecca replied.  It really was just like a relaxing massage, anyway.  And it had felt so wonderful.  There really wasn't any reason to feel guilty about being with Miriam like this.

Miriam looked down on her friend and smiled.  She was as attractive to her as Dana was, but not so wonderful as her Marsha.  She shivered as a jolt of lust and longing swept through her, as her incessant need for her owner, lover, and friend sent a spasm through her loins.  But if you can't be... with the one you love....

"I'll bet you're wondering what my pussy tastes like, aren't you, Rebecca?" she said, gazing intently into Rebecca's eyes.

Rebecca blushed and whispered back, "Well, sort of."

"You'd really like to lick me down there, wouldn't you?"

Rebecca looked confused for a second, then her eyes began to dilate as she replied, "Yes, I'd like to lick you down there, Miriam."

"You're going to love how I taste and smell, aren't you, dear?"

"Yess... I'm going to love it," Rebecca answered, her voice breathy and soft.

Miriam smiled sweetly at her.  "Wonderful!  Let me spin around."

She rose up on her hands and knees and started to turn, running her one hand down over Rebecca's full, lush body as she did.  Miriam loved the moan that pulled from her.

She figured she'd wait until they were done to get Rebecca to agree that Dana deserved her own life, and if she wanted to spend most of the summer working in Utica, then that should be her daughter's choice.  Perhaps she should show her current partner what a good idea it would be for her to visit Dana a few times, too, to see the very nice house where she'd be staying.

I'll check with Marsha first on that, to see if she agrees, she thought, straddling Rebecca with her body now, and starting to lower herself.

"You've got me feeling so good here, Miriam," Rebecca said, just before Miriam pressed her wet pussy tight to her mouth.

"I'm so glad I could be of help, dear," Miriam replied, smiling as she buried her face between Rebecca's thighs once again.

-- the end --

**********


(Pure and simple, this story, such as it is, is for the marvelous Maid Myrrhiam.  If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have started, nor finished, it...)

Cast of characters from "The Name Game"...

Auntie Miriam Gooche - is a sweet old spinster who wears tweeds and pearls and imagines herself to be a bit of a detective.

Dana Elaine Horowitz - is a shy, but pretty girl attending a private college in upstate New York.  Daddy is an attorney, specializing in human rights cases and Mom is on the board of a very select group of charities.  Both are high profile, public figures, and would die if they found out about Dana's dirty little secret.

Marsha Macah Slade - can trace her lineage back to Col. Marcus Slade of the Confederate Army, who distinguished himself by driving his starving, freezing horde of soldiers into a midnight raid of a Union supply caravan, slaying the entire company  guarding the trove.  Col. Slade was shot by General Jackson after he and his men were caught raping and sodomizing a family of 'sympathizers' caught harboring slaves.

Marsha is now 42, and holds up to her ancestor’s uncompromising standards of 'integrity'. She is attractive in a severe way, sporting a full but athletic figure usually clad in leather or vinyl.  She runs a bordello with an iron fist.  Her girls stay in line, by any means necessary.

************