The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Well, Kalchek,” Xerxes said. “Let’s see what Tara’s mind shows us now.”

He set his hand to the first dial, coaxing it forward, then did the same for the second and the third.

The frequency-scanner projected Tara’s mind up for Xerxes’ videocamera to catch.

Tara, Natalie and Helen were all together in Helen’s office. It was just another August day, Tara thought; just getting to the heart of midsummer.

As Tara took out the hot-plate from one of Helen’s drawers, she looked over at Helen, who was still sitting behind her desk. “Thank you for asking Natalie to bring all the equipment here, all that time ago.”

Natalie was the one who had actually done that bringing, but the thanks were not owed to her, because she’d only done it in response to a request from Helen. And Helen had made the request— so she deserved that thanks.

Natalie was otherwise occupied anyway, too busy to receive thanks, because she was kneeling in front of Helen’s desk-chair and licking out her pussy while the two of them were waiting for Tara to do her task.

Helen had built-in cabinets in her office just like Natalie did, but they were on her side-wall, and not behind her desk. Tara set the hot-plate on the cabinet she was facing, and sat down in the chair she had dragged over from where it had been sitting across Helen’s desk before. She plugged it into the wall-mounted outlet above the cabinet, and opened one of the other drawers to draw out: a multi-liter water-bottle, a container of citric acid, and a tray covered in heroin.

She reached into another drawer, and took out a pot. This she placed on one of the hot-plate’s two elements, as she had done many times. She took the multi-liter bottle, poured the water in, and started it boiling.

Once it was boiling, and sterile, she dumped the heroin into it, along with a helping of citric acid to make it dissolve. Then she waited for it to reduce.

When they had been smoking crack, that had been an activity which was easier to contain. It had been possible to make the crack-rocks ahead of time, and save them for later. It had not been a task which spidered out and stole more and more time from all different portions of the day. Now that they were doing heroin, this preparation of the heroin was a task of this kind, one that spidered out and stole an ever-increasing amount of time. Unlike when Tara had been preparing crack, she could not prepare their drugs ahead of time and save them for later use.

She was chained to doing the task immediately before every use, now—which did take up more of her time— but this was simply the point things had come to, and there was no impulse in Tara that would have guided her towards making complaints. She liked preparing their heroin, just as she’d liked preparing their crack, and even though this had become a more sprawling and time-consuming task, she found she still enjoyed doing this preparation of their drugs as much as she ever had.

She waited until the heroin reduced down, and then placed a filter in the water to screen out all remaining impurities. Then she took the box of sterile needles out, and turned from where she sat.

“If you’ll come over now, I’ll give you both a needle.”

Helen pushed Natalie back, and both women got up to come over.

Tara took the first needle, put it through the filter, and drew the heroin-concoction up inside. She pushed the plunger a little, to put out any air-bubbles, and then tapped the needle from its other end to make the beading on the tip fall off. She ed the first prepared needle to Helen, who took it from its plunger-end, careful not to brush the needle-tip against anything.

Tara took the second needle, and repeated the same process. When this needle was similarly prepared, she ed it to Natalie, who showed a similar level of caution towards the needle-tip as Helen— Helen had impressed this upon them both, Run it into their minds, and so this response had come out of Natalie like instinct.

The third needle was for Tara, and she prepared this in just the way she’d prepared both others. They’d been doing heroin a while now, Tara had been in the habit of preparing needles this way for a while now, so it was easy enough to repeat her habit one additional time.

“I still find it strange that Helen partakes with them,” Xerxes commented to Kalchek. “I can understand her forcing the use of drugs on them. I can understand why she’d want to bring them so low that they’re forced to confront the reality of her Running even there, but I don’t understand why she uses along with them. Obviously, forcing them to take such crazy risks with their health makes them feel more Run— but what does that kind of risk-taking accomplish for her? It isn’t as if she is being Run. So why risk herself in the way she makes them risk themselves? If she truly is just addicted to these substances and has been for a long time, then I suppose it isn’t a choice for her anymore— but that explanation doesn’t satisfy me— I still find something strange about it.

“And I’m thinking about— the Fifth Law of Running. If there were a Runner more skilled than Helen, what would she do if she came face to face with them? If one is faced with a Runner of superior skill, what can one do? Outright brute struggle won’t work, if your opponent has greater skill than you do.”

Xerxes stood back, raising his hand to let his chin rest atop it. “I’m ing the time Natalie made Tara go down to the plaza. She looked into the minds of all those different Runners— and there was that one skillful Runner who was tricked by that other Runner pretending weakness. I suppose in that kind of match-up, where you know you’re outmatched, you would have to trick your superior opponent somehow. That would be what Helen would have to do, if she ever met a Runner more skillful than her. But she can Run two minds at once. I really still just can’t imagine there’s anyone out there who’s better than she is.”

Tara, Natalie and Helen were all doing the same thing now. Each one had their forearm extended, and each one was flicking around, trying to raise a vein.

At about the same moment, they all seemed to find one, and pricked their needles in to make sure some blood beaded up, to make sure it was really a vein they were all in, and not artery or simple tissue.

When they were all confident of their placement, they nodded at each other. Each one had a grip on their plunger, and at the same time they made to plunge it down, and push in—

And as their plungers all went down simultaneously, the door to Helen’s office opened.

“Helen, I wondered if you could just look over these— what?!!!!!”

One of the other Senior Partners had stepped in— without knocking— and was staring at the three of them huddled in their little group, with needles in their arms.

Of course it was a Senior Partner who had entered without knocking. Anyone lower than Helen’s rank in the firm would have knocked, if they’d dared to even think of approaching Helen at all.

“Veronica,” Helen said, already a bit disoriented from feeling the first effects of the heroin. “It’s not—”

But Veronica’s eyes had slid past the three of them to see all the equipment on the cabinet; the hot-plate, the pot, the water-bottle, the citric acid.

“This isn’t going to cause them any issue in the long-term,” Xerxes dismissed. “Helen is skillful, no matter how much the heroin has impaired her mind in this moment. She can just Run Veronica and make her forget she’s ever seen anything.”

“…but Helen isn’t doing that. Why isn’t she doing that?”

Veronica just shook her head, and fled the room.

“Fuck,” Helen cursed. “Just— we’ll have to take the needles out and put them in our sharps container and— try to clear— the rest of it all away—”

But Tara understood Helen’s sluggishness. The heroin was coming into effect for her too— she felt sleepy-warm, and somewhat incapable of either acting or deciding. For Tara, the heroin coming into effect only meant that she was getting Helen’s Running from a heroin-source, but for Helen, heroin must really just feel like heroin— either way, the three of them were similarly sluggish now.

But all the same, Tara did withdraw her needle from her arm, having injected the full dose anyway, and put it in the sharps container she’d also taken out. Helen and Natalie did the same.

Tara took paper-towels, and wiped the inside of the pot— Natalie was working to stash the rest of the things back into cabinet-drawers— Helen had taken the rest of her powdered-heroin, which was in a plastic baggie, and disappeared into the bathroom.

There was no sound of a flushing, even a few minutes later, so she— had stashed it somewhere inside or on her person.

Helen’s office looked above-suspicion once again, when Helen re-emerged from her private-bathroom. Tara had stood, and Natalie had taken her place in the chair which had been returned to sitting across Helen’s desk. Tara seated herself in Helen’s chair, and Helen remained standing, looking casual and comfortable, with her fingertips drumming against her hips and her elbows triangling out from her body.

It only took another minute for the door to be thrown open again.

All the Senior Partners had come together— they stood in a group just past the threshold of Helen’s office.

“Maybe this is why Helen did nothing before?” Xerxes posited, uncertainly. “She wanted to take care of everyone at once? I don’t think even that many minds would be too much for her. She’ll Run them all simultaneously now, and make them all forget what Veronica’s told them— and make Veronica forget what she’s seen.”

Helen launched into her spiel seamlessly. “Veronica’s hated me for years, and it’s in her nature to come up with vicious lies. I keep a hot-plate in here just for soup, and I have an illness I’d prefer to keep private— you don’t legally have any right to ask me to disclose what it is. But I’ve been prescribed a medicine that I have to take a dose of every day, and that I have to take intravenously. Veronica came in, saw me taking my dose of medicine, and made up awful lies because she saw the chance to do so. If you search this office top to bottom, you won’t find a speck of heroin anywhere.”

Xerxes was still frowning. “Maybe she’s waiting to Run them all because she considers that to be a last resort? And she’s just that confident in her ability to talk herself out of facing consequences?”

Even so intoxicated on Helen’s Running, Tara found herself iring how Helen was handling their present situation. It was like the heroin was ing her, rolling along underneath her response, making it easy for her to pour out convincing words in a stream. And she looked so calm and collected at the same time— not like she was under the influence of drugs at all— she really knew how to hide her deviancy back away again, after first letting it out.

But the crowd of Senior Partners did not look impressed.

Veronica was the one to step forward, breaking from the crowd and coming a few paces ahead of them.

“Don’t waste your time with any more explanations,” Veronica said simply. “We’ve all conferred, and I’m speaking for all of us. We know you’re a very smart woman, and that, since we left you alone in here for a few minutes, no amount of searching is going to turn up any evidence; and that you’re unlikely to put yourself in a position where you’ll be caught a second time. So we’re not going to search for evidence, and we’re not going to lull you into a false sense of security to try and catch you in the act again later. We’re just going to tell you that we’ve all come to an agreement, and that we want to inform you that you don’t work here anymore.”

Veronica looked to Natalie and Tara, as if they were afterthoughts. “Oh, and you two don’t work here anymore, either.”

“Now Helen will Run them all,” Xerxes said. “She’s got the skill for it. She will—

“But she’s only pleading! She’s not even threatening to sue them for firing her— she’s a lawyer, she should have thought of that— I don’t understand why she’s ignoring such obvious courses of action— she’s pleading and now they’re all leaving the room—”

When Helen’s pleading got nowhere, she went to go find an emptied paper-supply box; brought three back in total, and gave one each to Tara and Natalie before keeping the last for herself. She began packing her things into it— Natalie took her box to her own office, and Tara took hers to her own cubicle.

She didn’t have much to pack away, she realized as she came to the point of doing this. She wasn’t sad about having lost her job, either. Helen had allowed it to happen— and to happen to herself, too— so clearly it was what Helen had wanted. She’d never much cared about her job. It was something to hold onto because Helen had wanted her to hold onto it. Helen didn’t want that anymore, so good riddance.

And it filled her with a kind of thrill when she reflected on how she had lost her job. She was just such a useless Running-addict that she’d been willing to take it from such risky sources— that she’d allowed her dependency on Helen’s Running to fully destroy her life. And she was such a Running-addict that in reflecting on that, there was no response of shame or regret. There was only a sense of twisted enjoyment— and impatience to take Helen’s Running again in whatever form she could get it.

After another half an hour, the three of them met, each one with a box under-arm, near the elevators that led out of the building.

They all left the building together; Tara felt very unconcerned as they did. She would follow Helen. So far, she had followed Helen into ruin— but the fact that Helen had not protected them, the fact that Helen had made such a mistake as she had— did not change Tara’s opinion of her. To Tara, Helen was still the most perfect person who had ever existed— and she belonged to her, fully. And so, since Helen was walking, Tara was going to trail after her, in just the way Natalie was doing.

Tara wondered if Helen would take care of them both now— she’d said she had a lot of money, after all. But she could deny them just as easily— and Tara would look upon her in awe as she did it.

Helen didn’t lead them to any method of transport— didn’t arrange for them to be carried off to some other location. But neither did she turn to them and tell them to go their own separate ways. She just— walked— as if she were stunned, as if she simply didn’t know what to do.

Tara’s mind accommodated this contradiction quite easily. Yes, Helen was the most brilliant woman ever and she always knew exactly what she was doing and exactly the way that she wanted things to be. AND she also had no idea what to do in this current situation and couldn’t even believe it was happening. Yes. Two opposite truths like that could be true at the same time. Because Helen’s Running could make them both simultaneously true in Tara’s head. And Tara savored that knowledge, and felt more Run still…

And so far, Helen was still just— wandering them around through various downtown streets. They crossed the stone-plaza, and kept going— sometimes they circled the same block more than once.

After another hour or so of walking, Tara was starting to feel it. They were all wearing their office-attire, after all, so they were all in heels— and walking for this long in heels was uncomfortable.

Tara couldn’t blame Helen for seeming so out of sorts, though— they were all still feeling the lingering effects of the heroin, too, Tara was sure.

It started to rain, about a half-hour later, just as they were going down one of the downtown sidestreets.

They’d just been walking near a dilapidated looking house— about to go past it, when the downpour started to fall. For the first time since they had left the office building, Helen changed course— did something that made it seem she was going to do something other than go on wandering and wandering. She turned from the sidewalk and hurried up to the rundown looking house— and finding the front-door ajar, she pushed it in a ways, and entered the house.

Helen had decided to enter the house so she had made the perfect decision. Every decision she made was always the perfect decision. And this way they’d have roof-cover— wouldn’t have to stand in the downpour, and wouldn’t have to keep walking in their heels— wouldn’t have to keep walking in their heels through puddles and mud, either.

Tara and Natalie followed Helen up into the house.

She was standing in the dilapidated front-hall, looking at a series of buzzers.

“It’s all apartments in here,” she said. “Someone converted this place, once.”

They went through the house together as a trio, but every door which marked the beginning of a new apartment was also ajar— which really wasn’t surprising, considering the terrible conditions of the place— there were gaps in all the interior walls, and the insulation and ing inside could be seen through them— there were floorboards missing in most stretches of floor.

“We’re the only ones here,” Helen decided, once they’d gotten all the way through the house. She pressed her way across the series of five buzzers, but nothing happened. Clearly, they didn’t do anything anymore.

Helen looked around again, then ed from the main-hall into the first ajar-doored apartment. There was a ripped-up sofa that had furniture-stuffing spilling out of its various gashes and tears, and there was a rickety old table. There was nothing else.

She threw down her box of personal effects, and so did Tara and Natalie.

Then Helen sat down on the floor. Tara and Natalie did that too.

Helen looked around again, looked at all the water-damage and staining on the ceiling. “We should live here now, since no one’s using it,” she said at last.

Brilliant idea, Tara thought, because it was Helen’s idea. She couldn’t have brought herself to question Helen if she’d wanted to.

But Helen didn’t need prompting. She clearly still had more to say.

“I’ve got my own penthouse on the other side of the metro-area. I could have owned it outright years ago, but I never deployed any of my riches in a useful direction. I just pissed it all away. I have nothing in savings.”

Helen reached somewhere out of sight, and withdrew the baggie of heroin.

“That’s all my savings have left me,” she said. “That’s all I have to show for them. And without a job, now, I’ll miss my next housing payment, and it will only be a matter of time, after that, only a matter of time before they confiscate everything. I’m sure it’s going to be the same for the two of you. You can’t pay rent anymore, so soon enough you’ll be evicted.”

“But why?” Xerxes exclaimed in confusion. He held the top of his head under both hands. Then he started tugging his short hair back against its roots. “Helen still has— skills— why would she just give up this way and take it lying down? Why not— go looking for other work? She could Run ANYONE SHE MET, and force them to hire her. She is choosing to let things fall apart, and I don’t understand! And besides, if she knew her situation was so precarious— then why didn’t she try to keep the job she already had? And why is she just letting her life collapse now, instead of finding other work? She can literally force anyone at all into hiring her. WHY is she just accepting this?”

“And since we’re all shortly going to have nowhere to live— we might as well live here, since it’s not being used.”

Tara smiled at the sight of the bag of heroin in Helen’s hand. “Who cares about all the rest of it? We still have that, and that’s the only thing that really matters. As long as we can spend our days using— this will be a fine place to live.”

“If the electricity’s disconnected, we can’t plug the hot-plate in,” Helen pointed out.

“Then we can make a campfire on the floor and put the pot over that. That will still bring the water to a boil, and we still have some of those full multi-liter bottles, so the water will be sterile.”

“That’s true,” Helen said. Tara was happy to have been helpful.

Helen looked around. “I’m glad this is what things have come to.”

Tara looked around too. They were literally inside a ruin, and their lives were now also in a state of ruin— and Tara saw the appeal of that. It made her think of the woman she’d once been— she found herself reflecting on that person just as when she had been making crack-rocks at Helen’s say-so. The Tara she’d once been— would have been horrified to end up here, to have this ahead of her in her future. The Tara of that time— was much less worldly and experienced than the Tara of the present moment.

And as the Tara of the present moment, Tara could only be glad. It made her feel wicked, and misbehaving, it made her feel deviant— but she loved the ruins that surrounded them, both physical and abstract. It turned her on to think of what a failure she’d become, to think what she had allowed to happen to her just because of her dependence on Running. It was delicious— just made her ravenous to have more of her life ruined as it already was.

“Yes,” Helen said, with a nod. “I’m glad things have turned out this way. I could have stopped them— I could have Run all their minds at once and made them forget—”

“I knew she’d be capable of it,” Xerxes cried, throwing his hands down from his head. “So why didn’t—?”

“— but I didn’t want to. I thought I would enjoy it more, watching everything fall apart. I was right. It just… turns me on so much… to think I’ve allowed myself to lose everything because of my own vices. Even looking around this squalid place, and thinking that I’m going to have to live here— that turns me on, too.”

“But they don’t have to live there! It’s infuriating! She hasn’t actually lost her penthouse yet! She could change course!”

Helen made a sound of great satisfaction. “Yes, it’s arousing to think of losing everything— of squatting here, and preparing heroin over open campfire-flame— so I let that firing happen.”

“And she’s going to let her unemployment happen,” Xerxes grumbled. “Even though she could fix that just as easily by Running a few people. And it would be wrong of her to do it— I wouldn’t approve of it if she did, but I just can’t understand— why someone with her skillset wouldn’t use it! It defies the habits of human-behavior!”

“It pleased me,” Helen said decisively. “And this pleases me too.”

Xerxes could only shake his head. “She’s talking just the way Tara was thinking— about how hot it is to know she’s ruined herself, and be ruined, how hot it is to know she’s let her addiction claim everything. It makes sense that Tara would speak that way— she’s someone who’s being Run. But Helen is an independent woman— why would she have the exact same reaction as Tara?”

Xerxes frowned. “It’s got to just be that her mind is too warped by her addiction. It’s impairing her thinking and causing her to have nonsensical responses. And— it’s also got to be the case that— Tara is having an identical response to Helen— just because that’s a sign of Helen’s influence— she’s treating them both like extensions of her, so her reactions flow into them— it’s got to be a combination of those two things, Kalchek. But something about that explanation leaves me so dissatisfied… and I can’t say why that is.”

“Well,” Helen said after another minute. “I think we’ve settled in long enough. I think I’m ready for my next dose.”

Helen felt that way, so they both felt that way too.

This time it wouldn’t only be Tara’s job to prepare their heroin. Because this was going to be trickier, Helen wanted the two of them working together now. She put her power through both of their minds— Running them at the same time. She wanted everything done correctly, and she didn’t want to have to explain to them verbally— so she could orchestrate their each movement this way.

Tara just felt so happy to have Helen’s Running inside her again. She was glad there was a practical reason for it happening, because she didn’t think she had done anything to deserve it. It was pleasant, though, to give up directing her own body for herself— to let Helen’s Running steer each move of her limbs— to find herself just carried along to the side of what she needed to do. It was pleasant— she was just a enger now, and Helen was the one laying out the journey, the one making her body embark upon it, and Tara could just watch the sites as she ed by herself, ed by her own actions. She had loved Helen’s Running so many times before this, but she loved it again now, too.

She felt her body doing everything, as Natalie doubled her actions. They went out into the hall, and pulled boards out of the interior-walls, wherever there was a gap that made this possible.

They took them back into the room, and placed them in the center of the floor. They worked together and broke the boards into sections— they went outside and scooped dirt and gravel with their hands into one of the paper-supply boxes, then came in and spread it out in a wide area, wide and thick, so the fire would not burn down into the wooden-flooring.

Then they began stacking the wood-chunks together in a campfire construction. They went back outside, and walked for a while until they found some small, trod-on pieces of branches.

They went back in, and struck the branches together until they sparked— the flame spread to the stacked wood, but did not get through the dirt or gravel.

They ripped up the now-empty paper-supply box, and threw the cardboard onto the flame as further kindling. It burned hotter, and a little higher.

Once it was burning steadily, once it had gotten good purchase on the wood that was feeding it, Tara and Natalie moved as Helen directed them once more. Tara took the pot out of one of the other paper-supply boxes, and Natalie took one of the multi-liter water-bottles out.

Tara put the pot over the flame, holding it there, and Natalie poured the water into it.

“It seems like the only things they took with them when they left that job were things they could use in doing more drugs after,” Xerxes reflected. “There might have been other things worth taking— lists of s to try networking with, things that could be used to try and arrange a better future! But I suppose if Helen decided she wanted ruin to be their future— then all they really needed to take with them was their drug paraphernalia. It isn’t like they’d have used any of those actively useful resources, even if they had them.”

It took longer for the water to boil when it was an open-flame beneath it, with all its uneven lurching and leaping— the open-flame was not the consistent heat-source the hot-plate was. It could not distribute its temperature evenly.

Tara was unbothered, though. Both she and Natalie were perfectly calm, and perfectly controlled. Helen’s Running could make them perfectly patient, and it was doing that. They could kneel over the pot for nine hours and not care— Helen had such a good grip on them such cares would never arise.

Still, the inevitable boiling-point was reached after a while. When it was, Natalie opened the baggie of heroin, and shook some of it into the water. Then she shook some citric acid in, too.

As when they had waited for the water to boil, they had to wait longer for the heroin to reduce down. But they were still perfectly patient under the direction of Helen’s Running just as they had been the last time.

Finally, Natalie placed the filter in there, and she busied herself with preparing their needles. She prepared the first, and gave it to Helen. She prepared the second, and gave this also to Helen. She was only an extra set of extremities Helen was also directing, so it was really like Helen had ed the second needle to herself, having already decided she would hold two, for the sake of coordinating practicalities.

Natalie prepared the last needle, and then Helen’s Running moved in Tara. She took the pot off the fire, and cleaned it out with the help of a roll of paper-towels that one of them had stolen from the office when they’d left. The help of that roll of paper-towels, and then a little more water.

She took off her suit-jacket, then, and used it to smother the flame until it went out.

Then she took a needle from Helen. Natalie had kept hers for her own.

And it was just at this moment that Helen took her power out of both their minds. They could be trusted to shoot up, at least.

The three of them flicked to find veins, and having tested them with their first needle-pricks, they all injected together once again.

This time would go better than the previous time, though. This time, no one was going to interrupt them. They weren’t suddenly going to have to scramble to cover their tracks. They would just be able to— luxuriate in the additional high, the one that went beyond the remaining traces of their previous high. They were unemployed now, unemployed, squatting, and the fire had already been put out. There was nothing else to take care of. Nothing else to worry about.

Tara felt the heroin coursing into her. Really, it was Helen’s Running which was coursing into her. Helen’s Running for which she had destroyed her life, Helen’s Running for which she had been fired. She loved Helen’s Running, and was happy to find it brought to her by the drug she’d injected. Helen had Run her for so long already, in the time she’d spent holding the pot over the flame, but she was never truly satisfied with any amount of Running she’d had from Helen. Nor was she ever satisfied with one method of taking it in.

So she was pleased to take it in drug-form, too.

And she could feel it moving through her body now, circulating along with her blood. She loved that, through the heroin, Helen’s Running could be a physical presence inside her. Even if she tried to resist inside her mind, just for the sake of feeling more overcome, she wouldn’t even be able to start on that. As soon as she tried to, she would feel Helen’s Running moving through her as the heroin— and that would put a stop to it. As the heroin, Helen’s Running was physically inside, physically affecting her. It could not be escaped.

And she would have almost wanted to mount a doomed attempt at escape, just to see it fail. But she could appreciate Helen’s Running even this way. It was moving in her physically, and that made her understand how truly Helen’s Running had become the thing of central importance in her life.

When she had first taken Helen’s Running from Natalie, she had not understood the full nature of what she was taking. But she had been whisked along, pulled forward, racing into the experience. And at that moment of beginning, she had not fully known what Running would come to mean to her— how it would come to so fully define her, to occupy every part of her mind and body and heart and spirit. The beginning of all this seemed almost laughably unserious now. And it was so strange to think that, then, she had not understood what she was at the beginning of. Strange to think she had not known she was engaging with something that would come to fully define her. Strange to think she had not known she was engaging with something she would later become chained to.

She had not known, either, that she was engaging with something that would one day cause her complete ruin. She had been more ambivalent about being Run in those days— perhaps that knowledge would have easily dissuaded her from her course. And she could have made different decisions, turned away at some earlier point, made better use of her resources. But she hadn’t cared to. And she was ruined now, but she enjoyed being ruined.

She agreed with what Helen had said, as always. It was hot to find she had fallen into a state of ruin and decay. She felt so influenced by Helen’s Running now, Helen’s physical Running right now, that it seemed she was asleep and dreaming a dream of ruin. What a lovely thing ruin was, and how lovely to be so completely and utterly ruined. How wonderful to know that it was for love of something that she had allowed herself to be ruined— for love of Helen’s Running, she had allowed it.

And how pleasing to know, too, that it was her past decisions that had condemned her— that it was her past self who had condemned her to this future she could never now escape. She would never have any chance of getting away, as the version of herself she now was. But some past version of herself could have gotten away— some past version of herself, in some prior month where she was not so dependent on being Run as she’d now become— that version of herself could have changed the future, and so Tara’s present. But every past version of her had condemned her to this— had allowed their dependence on Running to increase, had always just ventured further and further into the experience. And this was where Tara had ended up as a result.

Helen’s Running was in her physically— making her dream a dream of ruin, and it had made that dream of ruin true in her external life, too. Helen’s Running was in her physically, and the burden and the joy of it seemed to transform the world when she viewed it. She ed how the world had looked to her before Helen’s Running had been her prism; there had been so much in it, so much possibility and happiness.

And now there was only ruin and decrepitude, and depravity— and Tara thrilled over that. That was all there was in the world now, all the world held in store for her, anyway, and Tara loved Helen’s Running more for that— for what it had done to her, how it had changed her, what it had destined her for. And she could even love all past versions of herself— all those women who had made objectively idiotic decisions and put her here. She was glad to have been ruined. She was glad to have ruined herself.

She was happy to be dreaming a dream of ruin, and to find that ruin was, at the same time, real in her life. The longer she felt Helen’s Running influencing her physically, the more deeply this thought became true in her mind.

Helen didn’t want them to be dreaming dreams any longer— or maybe Helen felt she was moving through her own dream, and she wanted to act in a way that would bring about her dreamfantasy. She pulled Natalie closer to her, and started kissing her deeply— Tara could see their tongues working together. Her hands went to Natalie’s breasts, and started kneading— Natalie reached under Helen’s skirt, and Helen started gyrating her hips, as if responding to the rhythm Natalie was giving her by hand.

Natalie had moved so smoothly— was still moving so smoothly. It made Tara wonder if Helen was actively Running her mind in this moment. And if Helen was, Tara’s next turn at being directly Run again couldn’t be far off.

It filled Tara with a sense of wonder, though, even to see Helen and Natalie pleasuring each other this way. They were going about it like they didn’t care what their surroundings were— like what was happening between them was more important than what was around them. Maybe it even went further than that: if Tara really paid attention to what she was seeing, then it was like they were being spurred on by their surroundings— like it was inspiring things in them, inspiring lust in them, driving them into a frenzy. They were quite actively enjoying their ruination, then, if the reminder that they were squatting now was having this kind of impact.

Helen was convulsing on Natalie’s hand in another moment— and Natalie was convulsing too. Maybe just from Helen’s hands on her breasts— but it seemed to Tara that Helen had given Natalie a sympathy orgasm just by Running her into having one— and surely that must mean that Tara’s turn would come soon. She could still feel Helen’s Running moving through her physically— but she wanted Helen’s direct Running, and she wanted it mentally. It would just mean being Run by Helen in multiple ways at once— and it would mean getting to have an additional taste of being Run, and Tara always wanted more of those.

When Helen was finished convulsing, Natalie seemed to be done too. Helen pushed her away. Natalie went at the first prompting.

And Helen was a little out of breath, a little exhausted, it looked like. She flopped onto her back, but she gestured to Tara with her hand, beckoning her over.

Tara crawled across the shoddy floor. Helen spread her thighs out, but did nothing to raise herself from the position she’d flopped too.

Tara understood, though. She rolled Helen’s skirt up— Helen hadn’t been wearing any underwear under there. And she was still drenched from Natalie’s efforts— but it felt both easy and natural to put her mouth to Helen’s pussy and begin licking. Natalie wasn’t touching Tara, Natalie had been brushed aside for now, but Tara found the pleasure of giving Helen pleasure was sufficient.

Actually, she found the pleasure of being inside the room they were in, sufficient. She understood why Helen and Natalie had been drawing inspiration from it before. She felt the room was infusing her with erotic energy. She was here inside these walls because her life had fallen apart— because she’d let it. She was here because she preferred Helen’s Running over everything else in the world, including her former identity. She had sacrificed everything she’d once been, and everything she’d once had— and now her life was just a string of moments in which she would eternally wait for her own turn— hoping for just one more taste of being Run— just one more.

Tara kept licking Helen. She felt more invested in Helen’s pleasure than in her own. She wanted to bring forth Helen’s orgasm— and Helen’s power wasn’t in her head, telling her to want that. She had been Run for long enough that this had impressed itself within her. She had been Run long enough that this sense of determination was just naturally occurring— it just naturally arose.

She didn’t care how long it took— she knew what she wanted and she was determined to get it. But Helen was so sensitive from having gotten off on Natalie’s fingers— it couldn’t take that long, could it? In a matter of five minutes, she might find she had already achieved her aim.

And Tara thought about that more. Achieving her aim, bringing forth Helen’s orgasm as she hoped to, that would be so nice. Helen might give her the reward of direct Running, if she did. And that was part of the reason Tara hoped to win her goal.

But the other part of it was just her dedication to Helen— her appreciation of Helen’s perspective.

It couldn’t be much longer, now. Helen was shaking, trembling and spasming— but not with a full and wild abandon— she hadn’t quite gone over the edge. It was so close, it really must be about to happen— Tara licked a few more times—

Helen streamed and streamed onto Tara’s face, into Tara’s mouth, and Tara did her best to drink that all in.

And just then— as Tara had hoped for— her reward came.

Helen’s power entered her mind. Tara was being directly Run.

And being Run in three ways, suddenly. In response to Helen’s power entering her, her body achieved immediate orgasm— but Tara had long since understood that all sexual pleasure was just another variation of being Run, so she was being Run that way— and she was being Run by the heroin still inside her— and now she was being Run in her mind, the place she most liked taking it.

It felt even better than dreaming a dream of ruin along the lines of the heroin’s inspiration. It made everything feel more real, it made everything so incredibly vivid. She was so happy to have gotten where she wanted to go— to have received what she’d hoped to receive. Helen was Running her!

And Running her in three different ways— with the pleasure that kept on happening, with the heroin-high which kept on circulating, and with her power— if only Helen could think of four ways to Run her simultaneously— or five—

She wanted as much of Helen’s Running as she could get.

The dials spun themselves again, and now the killer’s mind-capture was up for them to see.

Oh, I want you, I want to capture you. Oh I want you, I want to conquer you.

“I don’t understand why Helen would be thinking like that,” Xerxes said with a shake of his head. “She’s not really in the position of conqueror anymore, is she? She’s moreso been conquered by life— and again that’s so strange to me. She’s the one who’s in the habit of conquering others, and yet she simply let it happen to her. Let herself be ruined, when she could have prevented it. Her addiction just got the better of her— that still has to be the explanation, right?”

But Xerxes frowned at what the frequency-scanner was showing him. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he lamented.

The dials started spinning again— now the killer’s mind itself was up for them to see.

The Sixth Law of Running States that Survival Depends on the Ability to Outwit, Not on the Ability to Run. The Sixth Law of Running States that Survival…

This made Xerxes’ frown deepen. “It’s like I was thinking before. If Helen ever did come face to face with a Runner who was better than her— however unlikely that happening may seem— her only chance would be to rely on cunning and conniving. That is hard to understand— but I can just see— how the fifth and sixth laws of Running are true. There really might be Runners out there, of unimaginable skill. And if another Runner crossed paths with them— they would have to outwit them— like Tara saw happen in the stone-plaza, and we saw through her seeing.”

Xerxes turned his wrist toward himself. “11:18,” he said. “I’ve got to close in on the killer soon. I think… I might almost be ready to.”