The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Hector had gotten Tracey all the way back home with him, somewhat to his surprise. He’d basically pulled her by her arm the entire way there, never relinquishing his grip even briefly. So he’d expected her to put up some kind of struggle, to object to his guiding, but she had not. The two of them hadn’t even traded words. She’d simply followed his direction, moving along under the grip of his hand. And now they had gotten all the way back to his apartment.

He opened his front-door and pulled her inside with him.

Now that they were standing in his entryway, the time had come for him to let go of her. He couldn’t possibly justify holding onto her any longer. He should never even have allowed himself to hold onto any part of her to begin with. But regardless, it was time for him to release her, now.

He still hadn’t quite brought himself to do it.

Now that he was back in his apartment and looking around at it, he felt also that he was looking around at his life. And from where he was standing, since this was a small apartment, he could see further back into it. Could see into his living-room.

He had to it that his apartment was quite drab. He really didn’t spend much time at home, so he’d never seen the point of investing either his time or his money in the pursuit of interior decoration.

Now though, he wondered if Tracey was also looking around his apartment and finding it drab. Silly, now, to be wishing that he had something more impressive to show her. Silly, now, that he wanted to show her a beautifully-decorated space, and win favor from her that way. If he’d known she was coming — not just into his apartment today, but into his awareness more generally, as his life took its course — he might have seen reason to pursue interior decoration; if he could have pursued it imagining he’d receive a reward at the end of his work, the reward of her positive estimation.

Too late now.

This really seemed like the right moment to relinquish his hold of her. He made himself come to the point of releasing her, and then finally let go of her arm.

It saddened him to feel that the hold he’d had on her was now gone. That hold seemed like an absent presence now, and not merely something brief which had stopped happening.

It had been dangerous to indulge his addiction even as much as he had. He hadn’t been directing Tracey mentally, but he’d been directing her physically, and he hadn’t asked her permission before grabbing hold of her, hadn’t asked her permission to continue that hold either, not at any time during the duration of his grip.

Something about controlling her had felt very right. And even though he couldn’t control her physically anymore, he was now thinking up roundabout ways to perpetuate the same kind of experience for himself. She’d been so pliant under his dragging. He wanted to see that pliance from her again.

He returned his focus to his living-room. He was looking at his living-room, and not at her. He was looking where it was safe to look— not where it was dangerous to. He was looking at the main feature of his living-room, which was a large aquarium-tank that emitted blue light through the room. They were inside, now, but he hadn’t turned his lights on yet. He could see that blue glow very clearly through the darkness.

This at least was a small way he could justify it, wasn’t it? He could justify this, couldn’t he? This was the easiest way he could bring it about.

He was under no illusions, though, that even this small move would be harmless.

“Whether or not it suits your preferences, I’m going to leave all my lights turned off.”

Even that little taste of control made him thrill with power.

“You’re right to do it,” Tracey breathed. “I like your apartment better this way.”

She’d never seen it otherwise— had no memory of a previous viewing to compare against. But she seemed to really mean what she’d said. He’d— impressed her after all, when he’d thought that would be impossible for him to do.

Knowing that made him feel lightheaded.

It became obvious that Tracey was watching the blue glow off of the aquarium too, watching that blueness shimmering in the dark. And even at such a distance, it still managed to reach and bathe her faintly. The cast of the aquarium’s glow on her was striking to Hector’s mind.

All the same, he didn’t like seeing her respond to the light this way. She seemed to be having the response of the entranced: finding something to fixate on that was eerie and unsettling, only so it could be fixated on. Something that anybody else would either have overlooked or turned away from, disturbed.

He was falling back into earlier thoughts, now.

She’d responded to his intentions, when he’d expressed them, with approval. Just as she’d shown her acceptance to him silently when she’d moved along after him under his dragging.

He felt surprise strike in him again. Every time she showed him compliance, he found it surprising. There should have been anger when he’d grabbed hold of her arm— or argument. And maybe there should be anger or argument now, protestations from her that he had no right to decide whether the lights were on or off.

It was his apartment, he did have the right to decide that, but… he found it strange that she was just going along with him. Especially because she belonged to somebody else— would never belong to him. His wish that she could belong to him… was ridiculous.

He couldn’t deny, though, how good it felt to have her go along with him. Every time she did, he was left craving her going-along more for the next time.

She was only acquiescent, so acquiescent he couldn’t imagine in this moment what hostility from her would even look like. But he could try starting an argument with her, and maybe draw hostility out of her that way.

He wondered now if that would even work. What if she only went on agreeing to everything he said?

That prospect made him lightheaded, again.

He let that feeling go on uninterrupted, but set it aside internally. Then turned around to close the door behind him. And locked it.

There were things the two of them needed to discuss. He knew there were things they needed to discuss. She must want certain answers from him, but there were certain answers that he also wanted from her. Answers that he’d never gotten from any of his conversations with Marvella.

Suddenly, though, he saw another opportunity to direct Tracey physically. Her approval of his intention to leave the lights off had felt so good it had encouraged him on.

He’d only just been telling himself that he couldn’t justify touching her anymore. He’d only just been telling himself that he couldn’t justify directing her physically anymore. And now here he was, coming up with new justifications so he could do exactly that.

He wasn’t going to give her explanations this time, either. Nor was he going to ask her permission. He took hold of her same arm in the same place, this time completely aware of what he was doing. He’d been aware when he’d pulled her before, but only half aware. The other half of his awareness had been split into two quarters; one quarter of him set on getting all the way home, and the other quarter of him waiting in fear for some pursuer to chase after them. No pursuer had chased after them, and they had gotten all the way back to his home.

But now there were no other distractions, so all of Hector’s awareness was centered on the fact that her arm was under his grip. He could feel the flesh of her body under that grip, even through her clothing.

It was only her arm. Touching her arm shouldn’t mean so much to him, but it did.

He had her by the arm now— so he led her into the living-room, walking her there alongside him.

It would be good host behavior on his part if he sat her down on the couch, or on the chair. But he needed more compliance from her. He needed to see her go along, be pliant to his will.

Even if this was still going to be a more roundabout way of achieving that aim.

They were now only about five paces sideways from the aquarium-tank. He let go of her arm, put his hands on her shoulders, and put a little pressure through them to signify he wanted her to lower herself down.

He was showing her where to sit, showing her that she should sit. And he hadn’t led her to a more comfortable seat, but he was still providing her a seat at all— and so, in a roundabout way here as well, providing her the comfort she was due as his guest.

He hadn’t given her instruction, but she seemed to understand what his intention was perfectly. She did lower herself down, crossing her legs and sitting on the floor.

I like that he made me sit, Tracey thought.

He’d show her other hospitality, too, Hector decided. At least briefly. He went into the kitchen, and brought her back a glass of juice and some crackers. Her status as guest entitled her to refreshment of this sort, too.

He crouched down to place both drink and snack in her hands.

“You should have something to eat and drink. You’ve been through— a harrowing experience, today.”

The subsumption-machine. It had been harrowing for him to watch her close herself into it— he understood that she’d been wanting its destruction, though.

Tracey took what he’d given her. She drank the juice, and ate the salted crackers. I like that he made me take my refreshments, she thought. But she was finding that withstanding Hector’s authority and competency and care— demanded a lot of her. Taking that care from him was as difficult as taking his grip on her arm had been, when he’d pulled her bodily out of Designed-Oblivion. As difficult as taking it had been while he’d been unreleasingly pulling her all the way here.

All of his care only made her want his poison.

And her honest response to his manner was just displaying itself on her body in full sincerity. The manner he had about him just called to her and she did… want him for it.

That kind… of competency and authority and caretaking… damaged women like that, don’t they?

She wondered…

Only just managed to keep from sobbing over.

They like having a powerful protector. She’d eaten the snack he’d given her, and drunk that beverage of identical provenance. She’d set the glass beside her— and no traces of the snack remained; she’d eaten so carefully as to not leave crumbs— as though she’d imagined that was the ideal way of complying with him.

He was seeing a mind-stunning image: her beauty, bathed over by that blue light. And now the proper thing for him to do would be to go up and sit on the couch. That would elevate him above her, signify he had power over her, even if that would only be fantasy, and only in his mind.

But he couldn’t actually make himself do that. If he sat up on the couch, he would be so far from her. What he really needed to do was sit down in front of her, crosslegged just the way she was, almost close enough for their knees to be touching. That was how he was going to have to sit.

So he sat that way.

“I have some questions for you,” he said, “and you have some questions for me. You ask your questions first, and I’ll ask my questions second.”

“Alright,” she said, and made something spike up in his heart. She’d just complied again. “What were you doing at Designed-Oblivion today?”

He’d expected a question like this, but now that he’d really been asked one, he needed a moment to think up his answer.

This was a way of getting compliance from her too, though. “You’ll be patient for me, and wait a minute while I think that over,” he told her. She nodded once. So well-behaved… again it made him lightheaded.

He could tell her the veritable truth. But that would reveal Marvella’s involvement in this situation, and every time Marvella had ever tried to involve herself in the past, Tracey had gotten very angry. And even if he only knew this information second-hand through Marvella, it was credible information, because Marvella was a trustworthy person.

And if he indicated Marvella’s involvement now, Tracey would likely anger at that, too. It might even cause the argument he’d pondered starting before. Although he wondered if this would even be enough to start that. She was just— going along with everything so easily— it was hard to picture her pushing back. And she wasn’t like this because of anything he’d done. Her state wasn’t some achievement of his. She was only like this because of what Fredrick had done to her.

He didn’t want to think about that. He only wanted to believe the illusion.

He thought of Tracey’s question again, for a change of topic. If he answered it truthfully and indicated Marvella’s involvement, that might anger Tracey, and it also might cause trouble for Marvella. And he didn’t want to cause trouble for Marvella, since he was trying to do all of this to help her as well as Tracey.

That recalled his larger objective to him. He was really doing all of this to rescue Tracey. And if she did anger at the knowledge of Marvella’s involvement, that would undermine his aim. So if there was any chance that she would anger, not mentioning Marvella would be the better move.

Once he’d decided that, he made quick work of inventing an easy and fanciful explanation on the spot. But even as he held the concept of it in his mind, he was sure it would be plausible enough to convince Tracey.

“I often go to Designed-Oblivion,” he began. Tracey inclined to him physically a little. Their knees were still almost brushing, but they never quite did it.

“I don’t like that place, but I still go and take a look around it when I can,” he lied. “I despise everything they do. And I wish I could stop what they’re doing, somehow—”

He’d been ready to carry on with his next statement, but Tracey’s response to his last one had distracted him. She’d only made physical response, and perhaps it had been unintentional— but she had visibly jolted in place.

She had not turned from the sight of the blue light as a free-minded person might have, with either indifference or disturbance. But now she was turning in disturbance, in a manner of understanding, from what Hector had just said. The thought of Designed-Oblivion being stopped was apparently the most horrifying and upsetting thing she’d ever heard.

That was what her expression seemed to suggest, anyway.

“Yes,” Hector pushed, and that felt like putting his power over her again, forcing her to confront the thing she wanted to run from, forcing her to take something, even if she didn’t want to.

It was dangerous that this felt so good.

This was how it had started with the terminal patients. Just pushing a little at first, telling himself it would be alright, then pushing a little more and a little more, until he was consuming minds whole and entire. And to consume Tracey’s mind—

He put it out of his thoughts.

“Yes,” he said. She jolted again, and he hadn’t meant that second time to be as much of a push as the first one, but it had been received that way.

He was so glad it had been received that way.

“I go, because every time I go, I’m hoping that I’ll see something, some flaw in their system I could exploit to bring about their downfall. Something which would break open their organization entirely, if only a little pressure were applied to it. And no one’s ever stopped me, so I keep going back and looking. Keep going back and hoping. There has to be some way of stopping them. I believe that. That’s why I keep going back.”

Tracey looked even more distressed after hearing this explanation, but she didn’t seem to suspect it for being untruth or otherwise doubt it. He would have seen that in her face if the feeling had been in her. He was watching her fairly closely.

“So I was there yesterday, looking around as I do. Then I saw you there. I’d never seen you there. If we were ever there at the same time before, we must have been in different parts of their space. And when I saw you, I followed you. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever seen someone conscious walking around there. And when I saw you I recognized that that was what you were, that you weren’t one of their captives undergoing some destruction-process. So I followed you. And at first I thought you might be like me.

“It became clear fairly quickly though that you weren’t. And then I was just following you out of concern, and I was there again today because, as I told you, I do go there often. And then I saw you try to destroy yourself, and I felt the need to intervene. I couldn’t just stand by and let it happen.”

She seemed to believe what he’d said, which brought relief to him. He’d tried very hard to make his explanation sound convincing. He’d mixed truth into his invention of fancy to sell it all the better.

He really did hate Designed-Oblivion, and everything they did. He really did wish they would someday show themselves to have a weakness which could be exploited. He really did wish that something or somebody could stop them, even wished that he could be that person.

But he had never actually gone wandering around there searching out weak-points, because he’d never trusted himself not to get carried away in anger. He’d always worried that he would try to lash out vengefully, no matter how unwise that lashing out would be. The only reason that hadn’t happened the last two times he’d been there was because he’d kept himself anchored on Tracey. The knowledge that he’d have to get her out of there if things went wrong had kept him focused. If he’d been there without objective, though, his hatred probably would have overcome him. And he probably would have lashed out in vengeance.

He was still looking at her. Something else was happening, now.

This experience felt so familiar. He’d watched her go through Designed-Oblivion more than once, now. Had watched her stopping, before one picture of destruction or another, before a picture of destruction ongoing, or a picture of destruction completed, or in the picture of a destruction she was complicit in. He’d seen her stop near so many pictures of destruction.

That made it easy to recognize what she was doing right now.

She was watching the entrancing image again, though it ever changed for her. He would have seen anger or doubt in her face if they had been there, but a different feeling was there, and he could see that too.

It was just some kind of openness.

The action in what she was doing was presenting her the image. He was perceiving as she watched him, watched him watching her in her vulnerability. And holding the thought in her head that he was watching her vulnerability— was the thing which entranced her now.

Seeing that on her was swaying him a bit, too. Muddling him around in confusion. It was confusing to see her seeing him. It was like they were ing one glance back and forth between themselves, never letting it break or end.

It made him confused about where that glance had started, made him confused about where it would end. He was watching her watch him watch her, and she was seeing him watch her vulnerability. But he was seeing her see that.

The longer he thought about it the more it confused him, pulled his mind down, into confusion and into trance.

He should be able to fend trance off, but he’d spent a decent amount of time watching her in his near past, and he’d had too much practice trancing shallowly on the sight of her. Now he couldn’t help returning to that state. Couldn’t help going a little deeper with it, even.

The glance started from him, went to her, went to him, went to her. Went to him.

When they’d been at Designed-Oblivion, he’d earlier wondered what it would mean for him to go into a deeper trance. Wondered if it would mean his becoming mindless and suggestible for whatever desires she indicated, or if it would only mean his becoming susceptible to his own worst impulses. It felt now like the latter was true. Because now in this state of tranced confusion, thoughts were ri in him. But they were ri with greater amplification than they would have done if his mind had still been clear. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking them.

What was she thinking about him? He was just a stranger to her, a stranger who’d said he was against Designed-Oblivion and wanted to be part of its overthrow, if that were possible. And she’d been compliant to each showing of power that he’d made in the time they’d been formally acquainted, brief a time though that was.

Was she looking at him, and imagining he was someone who’d always been destined to hold power, and assert his will? Maybe she looked at him, and saw that, but then imagined that because he was morally set against the destruction of other people, he’d never once allowed himself to do what he’d been destined to do. Maybe she looked at him and thought it was a pity he’d never had the chance. Maybe she looked at him and thought he had never yet made anything of his potential for power-assertion.

She didn’t know about his history. He had held power, once. He had even brought about the subsumption of other minds once. He had subsumed those minds into his own control. But if she was thinking those things about him, if he was reading the nuances in her expression correctly...

He thought of what she might be thinking of him again. Was she accurate in thinking those things, if she were thinking them? If he borrowed those thoughts from her, and thought them about himself, would he be thinking accurately in doing so?

He had done something with his potential for destruction, once. But had he ever reached some pinnacle of achievement with it? Had he ever made a masterpiece of destruction? Had he ever destroyed a person into being a masterpiece of a destroyed-good? He didn’t think he could say that he had.

That traitorous voice of addiction was in him again. He couldn’t say that surprised him either. He’d been making self-justifications throughout this most recent stretch of time, feeding his addiction, feeding it every time she acquiesced. He had asserted his control over her from the time they’d left Designed-Oblivion to present, but he was in trance, so the sound of that voice of addiction speaking inside him was amplified, too.

He should allow himself to control Tracey, to control Tracey more, to subsume her or to destroy her or both. He could make his masterpiece on her canvas. He could make his masterpiece out of her.

He read the nuances in her expression again. Was he reading them right? For all that his trance gave him certainty, that certainty was not total. Was he reading right? Was she looking at him and thinking that bringing about destruction was his true destiny? Was she looking at him and thinking that his true nature was that of a destroyer?

That really did seem to be what she was thinking.

And was he reading this right? Was she thinking that it was her destiny to submit to destruction? Was she thinking that her true nature was that of the destroyed? And was she thinking that if they both indulged their natures, they could know truer satisfaction than they’d ever known— know satisfaction through each other, and together? Know satisfaction, and feel they were genuinely experiencing each of their own natures in full, for the time that they remained in each other’s company?

That really did seem to be what she was thinking. But if he had read this right…

Fredrick was the one who’d told her it was her destiny to submit to destruction. Fredrick was the one who’d told her that her nature was that of the destroyed.

And how could she be looking at him as he sat across from her now, thinking they could know satisfaction together? She had a destroyer already. She belonged to another man.

And he shouldn’t be thinking this as the last thought in the sequence, but it was only coming to him now. Everything was so trance-obscured...

He was supposed to be rescuing her, not destroying her.

Tracey watched Hector as she sat across from him. She watched him watching her. Watched him as he was seeing her vulnerability.

She was watching him for every sign of response that presented itself. And so she was fairly confident that he was seeing the vulnerability she wanted him to see.

That vulnerability was on display. But she was filled with guilt over the fact that it was not a part of her performance. It was supposed to be a part of her performance. But something had gone wrong.

The feeling she was concocting wasn’t only on her surface. It had somehow gotten inside. It was inside.

In the short time that Hector had been aware of and following her, she’d pretended all manner of entrancement. And that entrancement had never been inside. She’d pretended fixation, and that had never been inside either. She’d pretended reverence, especially for the picture of living-death, and that too, had not been inside.

Now, though, she was supposed to be pretending awe. She was supposed to be pretending self-consciousness. She was supposed to be pretending delicacy and weakness. Delicacy and weakness in the face of his presence and steadiness.

She was supposed to be pretending vulnerability, but it was— inside—

And even though she was trying to remind herself, right now, of what her objective was, it wasn’t helping her to separate herself out from that vulnerability at all.

Reminding herself this way was the only strategy she could think of, though, so she’d cling to it a little longer.

The pretense — that having Hector behold her in her vulnerability was affecting her — was all that was required of her. Conveying it was all she had to do, here. The vulnerability was only supposed to be like every other performance-facet she’d ever displayed. And this was supposed to be like every other time she’d put the performance on. She was only supposed to be feeling indifferent inside, or at the most, malicious. Sometimes she had been feeling that instead, as she’d performed.

Now she wondered if that had set her up for later failure. It would have been better if she had always felt indifferent inside as she’d been performing. Then she would have been more accustomed to that habit. But she’d thought then that it would be alright to allow anger, in those certain moments of performance.

Now that was dooming her. Because just like those other times, there was now a powerful feeling inside which maybe should have been indifference instead; only now it wasn’t a negative feeling or even a bitter one. It was just a shrinking and delicate feeling.

The vulnerability really was inside. It was displaying itself on her, but it was inside for her to feel too. And that was out of place. Why should she be feeling vulnerable in this situation? She was a stranger to him. Hector didn’t know anything real about her, anything true. So why should this vulnerability be so sincere within her?

She kept close watch of his face. She couldn’t make herself stop watching it closely. Was she seeing correctly?

She’d been aware of him receiving her performance in many moments before this one, and she’d imagined all kinds of responses on his part at such times. She set all that aside now, to try and better interpret this moment. Was he looking at her and thinking she was destined to submit to destruction? Was he looking at her and thinking the identity of the destroyed was well-suited to her? Was he looking at her and thinking she’d never yet had the chance, looking at her and thinking that her potential for being the destroyed had so far been unactualized?

He had seen her place those women into the subsumption-machines. Had he watched her then, and thought she must find the role of destroyer confining as she assumed it for herself? Had he watched her and thought she must be finding that that role sat like ill-fitting clothing on her?

He’d seen her place those women in the subsumption-machines. But he’d also seen her call to them when they’d been a part of a larger group, when she’d called to that group and coerced one of them into answering her. Did he think he could liberate her from the burden of an ill-fitting role and guide her to embody her destined role? Did he think he could help her submit to destruction in the way she’d always been meant to?

If he were thinking thoughts like those, was he right to think them?

She tried that line of thinking out for herself, and wondered if she was right to try it. Was she destined for destruction? Was she meant to embody that role of the destroyed? According to the narrative Hector believed, the answer to both questions was already a ‘yes’ in her mind, because fictive-Fredrick had already put those answers into place inside her.

In her real case, though, was her potential so unactualized? She had submitted to destruction. She had taken on the role of the destroyed, because Marvella had arranged for her to do that. But had she reached some summit of that experience? Had she submitted to destruction completely and utterly? No she hadn’t. The reason she was even here, voluntarily making these decisions in the course of her performance, was that Marvella had decided the best way of destroying her was through Hector. Marvella had decided her destruction could be done no other way. And so she hadn’t submitted to ultimate destruction under Marvella. She had not allowed Marvella’s destruction to fully claim her, as perhaps Hector’s destruction would, if he gave it.

But I can still take throatpours of his toxin, she reassured herself. Maybe they won’t destroy me either, and I’ll be just that solid.

Was Hector looking at her and thinking that, that she was destined for utter destruction? Looking at her, thinking that she was destined to submit to utter destruction and that he was destined to ister it, and that now the two of them together could be fully satisfied as they actualized their full potential, actualized it through each other, while feeling they were honestly being themselves?

Hector was watching the blue light cast on Tracey. He couldn’t let this go on much longer. He couldn’t allow his trance to further worsen. He reminded himself of what his objective was supposed to be. He’d given her opportunity to question him, and now he needed to be questioning her. He’d prove unable to keep from being forceful about his questioning, though. He was finding her acquiescence too heady.

“Alright,” he said, partly to center himself. “You asked me your questions. Now I’m going to ask you all of mine. Why would you try to obliterate yourself that way? Don’t you have any desire to live? Don’t you have any desire to go on and see what life can be? To go on, and see what experiences it can bring to you? I would think most people had desires like those. Why should you be different?”

With every question he’d asked, he’d really felt he was trying to dig the truth out of her, like he was laying his questions on her heavily, driving them into her, trying to bring something out of her.

She had only held herself up under those questions, submitting to them. And that had been an entrancing image too, seeing her submit to his power, if not his destruction. Seeing her allow and accept his authority over her.

I like how he keeps pushing and pushing me in this interaction, Tracey thought. That feeling wasn’t supposed to be inside, either.

“There’s just no way you could possibly want this,” Hector went on, pushing still. “There’s no way that you could look at something like that picture of living-death and actually want its fate to happen to you, actually want your mind permanently shut off, and your body kept like a grotesque doll. That’s just not something any person would ever want. It just can’t be.”

“But I want it,” Tracey told him. “Fredrick has shown me what a good and right thing it is to want, and shown me I should desire destruction, has shown me I should desire my death. And so I should. It’s right to want that. It’s right to have that desire. When the moment of my death arrives, I’ll know the truest satisfaction I’ve ever known. When the moment of my death arrives, I’ll be free. My spirit will be released from my body, perhaps to go flying over land. The heart of who I am will be put to rest. And I think that’s the only true ecstasy anybody ever gets to have. And they only ever get to have it when they die. While life goes on, it’s only suffering and struggle. The only time that peace or ecstasy or joy ever really happens to anybody is when they’re set loose and absolved of all those burdens of living. That’s true freedom. That’s the only freedom. It’s the only kind anyone ever gets.

“So I want it, and when I have it, I’ll be happy that I do. And then I won’t feel anything else ever again.”

Tracey had felt each word of performance as it had come out of her mouth. The words had only been words of performance. They weren’t hers, honest words that came from the heart of who she truly was, though she’d made oblique reference even to that.

She had not generated her words of performance from within the deepest, truest part of herself. They did not represent her. They were hers in the sense that she had come up with them, but she’d come up with them from a shallower place. They revealed nothing true about her. She’d only invented them in service of the performance she needed to give. And in inventing them, she’d only been following the guidelines that Marvella had instructed her to follow. And in what she was doing, in all the language she’d laid out, she had not behaved like herself.

She was not behaving like she was her own person. She was only behaving as if she really were Hector’s idea of her, and maybe in a way behaving as if she were Marvella’s idea of her, but she was not behaving as if she had any ideas about herself. She was not behaving like her own person.

A pang of regret hit her from the inside, then. That pang shouldn’t have been inside her either. All the answers she’d just given him had only been inventions of performance. And she’d only given them in service of someone else. She’d obeyed Marvella in telling him these things. Those had been designed answers, and they had followed Marvella’s guidelines.

Hector couldn’t stand to hear another answer from Tracey like the one he’d just heard. His heart felt ill. He wanted comfort now. And the only thing that really sounded like a comforting idea to him was the thought of asserting control over her again. It was an addictive response though, to seek solace in this way.

He was still in his trance. He was still watching that blue light bathe onto her, and this was another desire yet again amplified within him. He had to indulge it.

He looked down at her, at what she was wearing. Still that suit-skirt combo, magenta with its crisscrossing black flecking. Her outfit looked worse off now, though, than it had when she’d put it on in the presence of the picture of living-death.

He looked over her outfit still, as he spoke again.

“What you’re wearing got… singed by the subsumption-machine.”

And it had. At the sides of her body, yes, but also partly across her chest, enough for the fabric to have receded to holes, so that he could see through to her skin in some places.

“It’s left you looking a bit immodest,” he added. And thought of the two times so far within Designed-Oblivion that he’d turned away as she’d changed in front of the wardrobe in that space with the picture of living-death.

“I don’t have anything spare to offer you,” he said, now using a tone that left no path open for protestation. “I’ve profferred you a different means of modesty, though. I’ve left the lights off.”

He’d only just had another fanciful fit of invention. Such thoughts had not been in his mind when they’d entered his apartment. He could pretend now, though, that they had been. And she would believe him— accept his authority again here, too.

“And so you’re mostly hidden.”

But not as hidden as she would have been, if he hadn’t made her sit down in front of the aquarium.

She’d seen another entrancing image in him again, as he always saw the entrancing image in her. She was seeing his competency and authority, appreciating that he’d made such a decision on her behalf. That he’d spoken to her in a tone that closed off all other options for her. That looked so clear in her face.

And she’d believed his claim, even though it had been untruth and she’d failed to see that.

Hector kept looking over the singing that had been done to her clothes. And he saw now that she had a hair-tie around her wrist.

He needed to assert this control over her, too.

“Put your hair up,” he told her. “Some of the ends of it look a little singed, too.”

Suddenly she was putting her hair up, and just because he’d said, but she wasn’t following her own ingrained ideal of that picture of living-death. Her hairstyle didn’t say sophistication in the same tongue as the picture of living-death’s hairstyle had, but there was still something about it that seemed characteristic of that picture somehow.

Tracey presented the doing-up of her hair for Hector deliberately. This felt like getting back to her performance. Felt like getting back to what she was supposed to be doing. She was just… being the character a man would like. Being the character this man would like. Being the character Hector would like.

But she was also submitting to the power he was exercising over her. And that was sincere, as it never should have been.

All this sincerity was so wrong of her to feel. That she was feeling it— shouldn’t be happening, it shouldn’t be happening, but it was— just— happening.

It’s alright, she thought. He hasn’t given me a true throatpour of toxin yet, but when he does I’ll be able to take it. I will be able to take it.

Tracey stood up suddenly.

Hector was jarred by the wrongness of this. He hadn’t given her permission to stand up. What was she doing?

She stood up. She could have just walked to the side, but that wasn’t what she was doing. She was stepping across him, diagonally. Their knees had never brushed as they’d been sitting, but now as she stepped across him, her leg brushed his arm. And that was a brushing-past touch of skin in the wrong place, only two parts of their bodies touching, and yet… they were skin to skin for just this second. He hadn’t been wearing a full-sleeve shirt today.

The second had seemed to last forever, and still not long enough. But now she’d gotten past him, and she was calling to him from where she stood at a distance.

“I have to call Fredrick,” she told him.

And though he hadn’t given her any tour of his abode, she moved into the other room, and closed the door behind herself.

This somehow functioned as a wake-trigger for Hector. Even that jarring of her standing up hadn’t done it. It was only the sound of his bedroom-door closing which had.

And now that Hector felt clearheaded for the first time since she’d come home with him, he could really see how far into trance he had gone, and as he saw that now, he felt very disturbed.

Well, Tracey was making a call, so he might as well make a call too. He took out his phone, and dialed Marvella’s number.

He was clearheaded now, but he still felt disoriented.

“Marvella,” he said.

“Yes?” She answered. She sounded on edge.

“I followed Tracey around Designed-Oblivion again today. She tried to put herself in a subsumption-machine and end her existence.”

Marvella let out a stifled gasp, which might have been the start of a scream.

Marvella was enjoying Hector’s response to her own performance. Unlike Tracey, she did have a greater sense of control inside, which was really what Tracey had been looking for when she’d been wishing for indifference. Although maybe Tracey would have advised Marvella that it was a mistake to be feeling positive emotion, given what it might lead to later.

She’d bounced between their thoughts so seamlessly. She’d found theirs to be an immersive interaction. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt it with her own reflections.

But now as she spoke to Hector, she felt everything was right and proper again.

Hector had two inducers: she the first, Tracey the second, and now she could give him other ideas to reinforce on, herself.

“It’s all so horrible,” Marvella said, and Hector’s heart sagged for her. “Tracey’s going to die, isn’t she? Tracey’s going to die, and she’s going to die this year, and she’s going to die this month, and she’s going to die soon.”

That had just been a confessing of her deepest fears, but somehow Hector’s mind had latched on to each idea she’d expressed. It had been like Marvella was speaking truth, speaking prophecy, speaking destiny.

“That’s wrong,” Hector said. He was so disturbed by the idea that what she was saying could come true. It couldn’t come true, he didn’t want it to come true, he wanted to stop it from coming true.

“She’s not going to die,” he said. “She’s not going to die this year, this month or even soon. I’m going to save her.”

But he’d been so frightened by what Marvella had said that he felt the need now to see Tracey again. He hung up the call, and went to open his bedroom-door.

Once he was standing in his bedroom, though, he saw she was not there. This was less of a mystery than when he’d lost track of her in Designed-Oblivion yesterday, because his apartment was on the first floor, and his bedroom-window was open.

He didn’t like what that suggested, though. She must have made the call to Fredrick, and Fredrick must have spoken some trigger to her which had immediately summoned her back to his side. Then she’d sought the fastest available way of returning herself there, thus going out through the window and not bothering to try and go out through Hector’s main door.

She must have stood up because of Fredrick, too. There must have been some latent trigger installed in her head and waiting, which had activated at just that moment, and interrupted the experience of control and co-operation which the two of them had been ing back and forth between each other like an ongoing glance.

He sank down to sitting on his bed. He wasn’t with her now, but he was seeing the entrancing image in his mind; one of her more recent fixations. The look on her face as she’d looked at the blue light, and then an entrancing image for him, the blue light as it had been bathing her from the side, casting over her as she’d been in front of him. In overlay across her, but now only in his memory.

Perfect, Marvella thought. He’s reinforcing himself even on his own time. And perfect. All Tracey’s fixations were only invention, but her vulnerability was sincere.