The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It was October, and Lani was feeling cheerful. She was engaged to Bella, the woman she loved, and they would be getting married in November, since that was a month of particular significance for them. They’d had a lot of positive experiences together in various November-months over the years, and so they’d chosen that month for their wedding.

And Lani was definitely looking forward to her wedding. But she was also excited about the bachelorette party that her friends had planned for her. They were all going to be there— Tessi, Marcela, Rowen and Brigid. Marcela had already made all the arrangements— she’d assured Lani of this, and had assuaged her anxieties more than once. Everything was going to go to plan— because she’d already planned everything perfectly. She’d chosen Halloween as the day the party should take place— and so they’d all spent the entire month of October looking forward to it. And now it was October thirty-first, and they were all finally going to see what Marcela had in store for them. Considering how many times Marcela had dropped hints that this was going to be a special celebration, Lani was almost as excited to see the bachelorette party unfold as she was to see her own wedding happen.

On the night of October thirty-first, Tessi showed up at the cocktail bar that Marcela had listed on the invitations she’d sent out to their friend group for Lani’s bachelorette party. Tessi had privately thought the invitations were a bit much— but Marcela really seemed to be enjoying the party planning she was doing on Lani’s behalf, and it wouldn’t have been very nice to trash that, so Tessi had kept her thoughts to herself.

Inside, Tessi’s friends were already there. Lani was glowing— being engaged suited her. Tessi set aside some of her private judgements, and allowed herself to simply enjoy the company of her friends. The group spent an hour or two there, and then Marcela announced that it was time for them to get to the main event.

Because of all the drinking and laughing they’d been doing, they were all already in a very good mood. And so as they followed Marcela into a taxi they chattered away joyfully as they went. Then they kept up this joyful chatter even once the taxi started driving.

After a while, Marcela encouraged the driver to pull over— then she paid him, and they all climbed out.

“This is it,” Marcela said, proudly.

“A wax-museum?” Lani asked, sounding a little surprised.

“A special Halloween tour of a wax-museum,” Marcela corrected. “We’ll be the only five people inside! It’s like we’ve rented the whole place out just for ourselves.”

The group of friends exchanged looks. “Well, it’s kind of quirky,” Tessi said finally. “But it does seem seasonally appropriate,” she granted— deciding again that she didn’t want to trash all of Marcela’s hard work.

The five friends entered the wax-museum.

A man was waiting for them in the museum’s lobby— he was the only person there in the partly-lit gloom. “I’m the curator of this museum,” he introduced himself. His smile was a little too wide— his eyes a little too manic. “If everyone is ready, then you can all follow me.”

Tessi gravitated towards the back of the group so that she could walk beside Brigid.

“Did you see the curator’s eyes?” Tessi asked Brigid in a low voice.

“Yes, the look in them was almost crazy. He’s kind of spooky.” Brigid shuddered. But when Brigid looked at the rest of her friends, she noticed that they had missed this— they were all still laughing and chattering, buzzed from the cocktails.

The curator led them on. They began to by some of the museum’s wax-figures. All of them were in exhibits which were set back within separate rooms— the front-wall of each room had a large opening which functioned as a viewing-window— but if one had climbed up onto the ledge and gone through this opening, they would have arrived in the room which contained the exhibit— so there was a clear view of each exhibit, and yet at the same time, each exhibit felt like it was in a different space from the main walking area.

As Tessi continued walking with her friends, she started to take note of what kinds of scenes were being depicted in these exhibits.

They all looked like horror scenes— the exhibit they were ing now was a chain-filled dungeon, and the woman being tormented in this scene was only being tormented sexually— but she was wearing all leather.

The scenes themselves were frightening— but they were also quite sexual in nature.

“I really don’t like how sexed-up everything is here,” Brigid commented to Tessi— and as she said it, Brigid thought how nice it was to have a friend who understood her. She would have been reluctant to say this to the other of their group, just because they were all so cheerful— and because this had been organized for Lani, and she, as the intended recipient of this gift was enjoying it. It would have been rude to ruin that enjoyment. But Brigid thought about how nice it was that she could say what she thought to Tessi without risking ruining anything.

Tessi considered what Brigid had just said to her. “I agree,” she said. “It’s all way too sexual. And it’s never— just simple sex. Some of this is pretty extreme stuff.” Tessi glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of the dungeon exhibit.

When Tessi looked ahead, she realized that she and Brigid had trailed too far behind— they had lost their group of friends— there was no sign of them in the hallway.

“I think I’ve seen enough, and I’m ready to go home,” Brigid said— and thought as she did that it might be time to try and convince the others they should leave with them.

“But where are our friends?” Tessi asked.

Brigid looked again— and saw that their friends were in fact, not there. She couldn’t think of anything to say to Tessi in response.

Tessi forged forward with Brigid at her side— they wandered down one hallway after another, past exhibit after exhibit, but there was no sign of their friends— and no sign of the exit, either. Tessi felt like she’d been locked inside a maze.

She turned another corner, then looked over her shoulder— and realized she had lost Brigid, too. She was now completely alone; and her utter solitude left her stumbling forwards in confusion, barely noticing where she was stepping.

Elsewhere, Lani and Rowen and Marcela were still walking together with the curator. But after a few more hallways, Marcela peeled off, and then the curator, and finally Rowen. Then Lani found herself alone. She turned down another creepy looking hallway— just like in all the other hallways she’d seen, there were scenes on either side of the walking path— but being all by herself made the wax-figures seem scarier to her— it was lonely to be wandering the wax-museum alone. Lonely and a bit scary— she could feel each individual hair that grew out of her neck, and she felt a chill inside her bones.

The scenes surrounding her weren’t helping. They all looked horrible— the things that were happening in them were horrible. Lani tried to keep herself from looking at any one of them too long— each one freaked her out.

She came at last to one that was missing a figure— there was only one figure there, and Lani could tell that wasn’t intentional, because all of the other scenes contained two figures at minimum. There wasn’t even one scene in this particular hall which contained only a solitary figure. So the fact that this scene did only contain one solitary figure was an aberrance. It was not the way things were supposed to be.

There was, suddenly, a hand gripping her shoulder.

Lani shrieked— for one moment irrationally imagining that one of the wax-figures had come to life and done this. She whirled around— but then she saw it was only the museum curator.

“Oh, curator,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s just you.”

He smiled at her serenely. “Yes, it’s just me. I’m sorry to say this, but it seems I’ve lost track of your party— I’ve been walking the halls trying to catch up to one of you, and you’re the first member of your group that I’ve come across. I’m afraid I’ve done a terrible job running this tour— but I’m hoping I can make up for all of that now. I can at least continue to give you a tour. And you’ve picked a very interesting exhibit to pause in front of— so why don’t we resume our tour exactly where we stand?”

“That sounds good to me,” Lani agreed. She liked the thought of keeping company with someone else— liked the idea that she wasn’t going to have to go back to being completely alone. “But what’s so special about this exhibit?”

“Look up at the area of the wall above the opening which looks into the exhibit. Do you see anything there?”

In fact, Lani did— there was a row of lights, centered in the wall above the opening which looked into the exhibit. While it looked like there was space for four lights to illuminate themselves, only two were currently burning there. The first light- was illuminated red, the second light- was darkened, the third one was illuminated red like the first, and the fourth one was darkened like the second.

“Is there something special about that?” Lani asked, starting to feel genuinely curious.

“Well, why don’t you compare against one of the other exhibits?”

Lani turned to look at the exhibit which was directly behind her. In the area above the wall, which was above the presentational opening, things were set up the same way. There were four light-s sitting in a row— but the configuration of illumination was different here. The first light- was darkened here, and the second light- was illuminated green— the third light- was illuminated red, and the fourth light- was darkened.

Lani frowned at this configuration. “I don’t understand what it means,” she said.

“It means,” the curator began, “that the scene has been completed. The green light- shows that— every figure required has been put into place. But the red light beside it means that the museum’s collection is still incomplete. While this particular exhibit is finished, there are still others that are missing their figures. Like the one we’re standing in front of right now.”

Lani turned back to look at the scene the curator was still facing. She hadn’t really paid much attention to it before, apart from noting that there was only one figure in it. That figure was a man, and he was positioned on a bed. He was mostly naked, so clearly he was meant to be engaging in some kind of sexual activity, but it all looked a bit comical as long as he was by himself.

“If you’ve gone to all the trouble to set up a lighting system that shows the overall project status of your museum’s collection, and shows that above every single exhibit, then you must be eager to finish assembling your collection,” Lani observed.

She sensed the curator nodding beside her. “I am very eager to complete it. You see, this a very special museum. Within the greater context of space and time, it sits at a powerful juncture— each presentational opening is a portal of sorts— and when one steps through it, they are taken into other dimensions and into other worlds— the worlds of the scenes that are on display. In this world, those scenes are rendered in wax— but in those other worlds, those scenes are really happening. And it’s been my life’s work to try and reverse those portals— so that what is in those other worlds can come here. It took me so many years just to learn how to make that possible. But if I ever do finish assembling my collection, the portals will reverse, and everything that’s in those other worlds can come here— and do what they’re doing there— to the people of this world.”

Lani did turn to look at the curator then. She’d been wondering if he’d slipped into a scripted portion of this tour— something that had been written out, something that was meant to entertain. Perhaps he’d wanted to try his hand at acting or writing or both— and so he’d come up with a fanciful narrative and had acted it out. Or perhaps he didn’t care about the acting— just cared about giving his words voice. Or cared about the acting exclusively, and not the words.

Or perhaps he was trying to mock her— make a fool of her, catch her out in her gullibility if she went along and believed the ridiculous things he’d just said.

But when she saw the look of ambition that was on his face, it made her heart stutter. There was no way that he was acting— he looked too sincere!

But she didn’t know what to make of this conclusion, either. How could she believe what he’d told her? None of it made sense! All of that bunk about other worlds, bringing them here, sending people there. It couldn’t be possible.

But on the off-chance it was—

“Curator,” she said, nervously. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring things from those other worlds here— have you seen some of things that are in those scenes? They’re dangerous things— what if they overrun the world, and the world can’t handle it? You know what happens when you introduce an invasive species to an unfamiliar ecosystem, don’t you? Most of the time they just absolutely destroy it— what if those things did that to us? It could be downright apocalyptic. You shouldn’t be trying to open the door for forces you can’t control— forces you don’t understand— forces you can’t possibly hope to overcome singlehandedly!”

The more Lani contemplated this possibility, the more it terrified her. So it couldn’t possibly be true— it couldn’t really be real. Could it?

“I hope it will have an apocalyptic effect,” the curator said, in a sinister tone. The look on his face was also chilling. “I want those things to come here— and spread their chaos and their sex and their death.”

He turned to Lani and gave her a very unnerving smile. “And you can help me with this goal.”

“Help you with this goal?” Lani nearly fumbled her words as she tried to speak. “Why would I want to help you with this goal? I don’t want to bring things here that are going to knock our species to the bottom of the food chain. I don’t think we need new natural predators!”

“You can help me with this goal. You can help me complete this exhibit.”

Lani was trying to think of the right thing to say in protest— the right thing to say, which could reach a man— but then she realized the curator was lifting her up.

“No!” She found the words of protest she’d been looking for. “No, I don’t want to go!”

But the curator was strong. And once he had a good hold on her, he threw her through the presentational opening.

At the other end of the museum, Rowen was considering an exhibit that she found particularly engaging. She had seen it from the end of the hallway— and then the longer she’d looked at it, the more she’d wanted to be close to it— so she’d walked up to it. And even now that she was standing in front of it, she found herself staring at it in rapt attention. She was standing directly in front of it but that still wasn’t enough. What if she— what if she just climbed into it?

She only gave it about a half-second’s thought. Then she climbed into the exhibit through the opening in the wall.

Once she was inside it, she took a look at her surroundings. The room was a bit dramatically decorated— there were red accents everywhere, red tapestries on the walls, and red velvet on all the furniture. At the front of it, there was a kind of dais, and on top of that— was that— a coffin?

It was definitely a coffin. She approached it, drawn forwards as she had been before, still not knowing why she wanted to go— at least the room was well-lit. She reached the coffin, whose lid was already open, and looked inside.

A man was sleeping in there, but he looked very pale.

Rowen knew her mythology— this must be a vampire. Usually, they weren’t real, but the rules of reality seemed different in the place she’d stepped into.

Then the vampire opened his eyes, and Rowen felt very stupid for coming over to gawk at him. She tried to remind herself it wasn’t entirely her fault— after all, she’d been drawn on by some fascination she still didn’t understand. She hadn’t consciously made the choice to come over here. Still, it seemed very stupid to her that she’d come over and placed herself within the vampire’s reach. Vampires were dangerous monsters— she’d gotten too used to the idea of them only being fiction. In the real world it was safe to approach them— because they didn’t exist— only renderings of them existed, and no matter which rendering she approached, it would never imperil her.

If she had really been in the wax-museum right now: if she had approached a wax-figure of a vampire, that would have been safe, because it would only have been an inanimate artistic rendering. The same as if she’d approached a painting of a vampire, or a statue of a vampire— they only existed in those forms in the world she came from, and so there was nothing they could do to her. Just as if she approached a book about a vampire, or a movie about a vampire— she could gawk and stand in fascination of whichever vampire it was that she was encountering, in whatever medium she was encountering— because the vampire would only be a figment of the imagination— unable to reach her.

She had not learned the rules of this new world quickly enough— she had not taken the time to try and figure them out while she’d still had the chance. And in this world it was dangerous to go up and gawk at a vampire in fascination. Because she wasn’t standing in front of a flat rendering of one which was inanimate. She was standing in front of a real one. A real one that could really hurt her.

But now that the vampire’s eyes were open— they were the color of ice— she was so paralyzed with fear she couldn’t seem to make herself step back from the casket. The vampire cast a languid smile in her direction. And he seemed to cast something else in her direction too— with his eyes—

When his eyes met hers, it felt like they were looking directly into her brain. It felt like they could see everything— and if he spoke to her— if he asked anything of her— he would be so authoritative about it she’d have no choice but to go along. She was starting to think she might want to go along— starting to think he could make her want to go along.

She was panicking inside— but then there was a voice in her head. It’s alright, it told her. You don’t care about living and dying— you’re not very hung up on the idea of your own safety. In fact, you don’t mind the idea of dying very much at all. You’d think it was worth doing, if you were doing it for the right reason.

What this voice was saying to her made a lot of sense. And something about that was wrong, but what? She tried to sort that out for herself, but she was feeling— so confused.

The vampire sat up in the coffin— he was about level with her, now that he was sitting. And he flashed her a smile, which demonstrated his very sharp fangs— and a very primal response happened inside her— an old and primal response. Other life-forms millions of years before her own species on the evolutionary timescale had had similar responses— and the vestigial remnant of all that history was still in her. But she wasn’t sure if she was human anymore, for just that moment— she felt like she might be some other kind of rudimentary prey animal from eons in the past. The response that happened in her was the same— she saw the fearsome predator, and she wanted to skitter away, escape with her life. The panic inside her was so keening and desperate it felt animalistic— felt like it came from a time before humanity—

But she wasn’t moving.

And the voice was speaking to her in her head again, trying to soothe that panic back down. It’s alright, it told her again. You see how lovely I am— and you know that you would do anything for a being as lovely as me. Even die, if I asked you to do that. And if you died to give me sustenance so that I could go on existing— you’d believe that to be a good reason for your death. You could die to ensure I was well-fed— you could die to ensure I was pleased. And that would be a very good use of your person— of your life. And a worthy cause for your death.

He was… right… everything he said was so right. And listening to someone who was so right about things— was almost comforting! Why had she been so afraid a moment before? Everything was just as it should be— he was the one speaking in her mind but she should listen to him— believe him— because he was right.

He was right because she believed him and she believed him because he was right. The circularity of that… no, she didn’t find that there was anything wrong there, this time.

And then she wanted to— lean into the coffin— so she did that because it was her idea, and she wanted to. She felt his hand cradling the back of her head, felt his lips against her throat and then—

A piercing, stabbing pain. A scream that she had to gargle— so much pain right there— and she felt like something was spurting out of her— spurting and coursing but she couldn’t see it— only, something received it when it erupted— and then when that spurt was met with that kind of reception— it seemed like something calming was being dosed into her right where it ached the most.

It was starting to hurt less— she was getting used to the idea that her neck was being punctured, was being harmed. She was getting used to the feeling of those two sharp projections embedding themselves there.

Now that she was being bitten, everything seemed different. The vampire’s presence in her mind was stronger now that his teeth were in her body. She’d been so confused before— her mind had been in a muddle, but she’d been so deeply confused that she hadn’t been able to understand what was happening to her— only experience it.

He was giving her words for what was happening to her— he was giving her words for what he was doing to her. She was being held in his hypnotic thrall— but whatever he was pulsing into her while he also drew out of her— was giving that thrall a stronger effect. It was giving him more power, and more power over her.

Yes, he was holding her hypnotized as he also held her body with his hands, held her throat between his teeth like a true animal of prey. She… liked being held within his vampiric hypnosis. She… liked that her mind had been stunned. And now being bitten only felt good to her. He’d worked her through those first pangs of pain, and now she was only experiencing a warming sense of euphoria.

It made her throat feel like a heating-pad had been placed against it. His hypnotic hold made her feel like one of those had been placed flush up against her brain, too. That felt soothing.

And to feel her blood go in gushes— in pulls of his mouth that almost seemed perfectly in rhythm with the beating of her heart— that was soothing too. Like a series of waves washing onto a shoreline.

The combination of these pulling sucks and that constant hypnotic hold was affecting her powerfully. It was making her feel sleepy— and she knew if she fell asleep she’d be falling into the deepest, warmest sleep that she’d ever known. One she might never wake up from— wouldn’t that be nice?

It was probably his influence making her think this way— but she didn’t mind. His influence felt warm— so warm around her mind. So now she was feeling sleepy— but yet another feeling was starting in her, too— it was just pure arousal that was finding its beginning in her now. It throbbed in her like his teeth, like her blood into his mouth, like his hold on her mind. As each of these three things happened, this fourth one did too. She was getting wetter— her body was getting more worked up. An insane kind of desperation accompanied that sense of arousal— she needed pleasure. And she needed more pleasure than what his teeth could give her— even than what his hold on her mind could give her.

She knew his hold on her mind was the origin of this internal pleasure she was experiencing now— and she was grateful for that. But it didn’t go far enough. She felt pleasure in her throat— in her mind— in the inner-places of her body. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more than that. She needed pleasure in her pussy— not just in various places within her pussy— not just a feeling of internal pleasure happening here and there inside. She needed something from outside of herself to bring that pleasure to her. She needed something external to introduce it to her.

He had already pulled her into the coffin— they were both sitting facing each other. But he was shifting now, and shifting her. Making sure he was more fully sitting upright, and then ensuring that she was straddling him. She’d worn a skirt— she felt his hand move her underwear aside, and then his cock was there— his cock was perfect. He’d prepared her mind for this so well, made her crave the exact thing he was about to give her. Her body had been in a state of readiness— so now that he was sending his cock into her, she found she was able to fully savor the sensation, and fully enjoy it.

Everything was working together— his presence throbbed in her mind, it throbbed in her throat, it throbbed in her pussy. And she throbbed in response: her blood into his mouth, the pleasure-centers of her body, in response to his thrusts.

It was lifting her up and away from her body. It felt so wonderful. She felt it was helping her to cross over to the afterlife— to go on and enter heaven.

But that was just a feeling— the body sensations were still there, getting more and more enjoyable each time. It was her soul that was going further away— maybe her mind, too.

Or maybe her mind wasn’t going away. After all, it was the thing that had been captured by his hypnotic hold. And as long as he was holding it, it would never really be able to go away— but maybe certain parts of her mind were leaving— certain things that had been inside it. There had been a lot of things inside it, actually. Things that had come from her life before— her life, as it had been, before she’d shown up here and met him. And in him, met her death and her doom.

That was what was going— all that had existed in her mind before meeting him and becoming his sustenance— that was going— and her soul— that was going to— it felt like it was going up into the clouds— through them— behind them— and her life was also leaving her, draining away.

But her body was still with him. And now— everything felt so good in her body that she couldn’t help it— she started to orgasm. She orgasmed, and she was orgasming because of so many things— because of his fangs, because of her blood flowing out, because of his hold on her mind, because of his cock in her pussy— because of the pleasure that was everywhere— there was awareness in her body— she was feeling the experience that was happening to her body— but her soul was gone— and all the old parts of her mind were gone— and she was still wrapped in that same almost never-ending orgasm.

And then the moment seemed to freeze— as though time had paused, trapping her in the same endless experience— of erupting, and being dosed back into— and aching as she was held still by what killed her— but something was happening to her body. Something was happening to her body, and it was wrong that it was happening— but it was happening— it felt like it was— thickening. It had been liquid before— maybe it had even been liquid cement.

But now that cement was hardening— she was becoming a statue— she was becoming a figure— but was the material which hardened in her too soft to be concrete? She didn’t have time to work that out— she’d thought the last thought she was ever going to think— and now she was lost in the endless loop, no longer aware that she was even trapped in this way. Her throat was aching— she was being held by what killed her— and dosed by what soothed her— the experience went on and on.

Over in Brigid’s corner of the museum, Brigid thought to herself that it had been a while since she’d lost track of Tessi. Honestly, it had been a while in general, considering how disturbing some of the scenes around her were, and considering that they were her only company. She turned down a new hallway, her eyes scanning over the exhibits— and then she saw something so strange that she stopped walking.

This exhibit was, in a lot of ways, similar to the others— it was even a little less extreme than some of the rest. There was only a simple bed in it. A woman was on that bed, and a man was kneeling over her— he’d clearly just finished having an orgasm, because he’d painted the naked woman with his cum.

The thing that was odd about this scene was that the woman in it looked exactly like Lani.

Tessi, too, had made a startling discovery. One of the exhibits she’d been trying to walk past and ignore had managed to catch her eye— just because there was so much flashy red in it. But when she stopped to look, she saw something that she hadn’t been expecting.

The basics of the scene were unsurprising: there was a coffin, and there was a vampire sitting up in it. He had pulled a woman part of the way into it— and it was clear from how he was kneeling that he was fucking into the woman’s pussy while simultaneously biting into her neck— the woman’s clothes were tattered— they had been clawed, but she wasn’t fully naked.

The thing that was wrong about it was that— the woman looked exactly like Rowen. And she didn’t seem to be afraid of the monster that was hurting her— possibly killing her— she looked like she’d been drained of the capacity to resist, along with her blood.

When Brigid turned yet another corner, she startled in place. Unlike so many other halls she’d turned down, this one wasn’t empty. There was a person at the other end of it.

“Marcela!” Brigid exclaimed. She hadn’t expected to find any of her friends— she’d spent too long walking around and getting nowhere. But it was very nice to see a friendly face.

“Brigid!” Marcela said cheerfully. When the two met, they hugged.

“I think something really wrong is happening here,” Brigid said, as soon as their hug ended. “I saw a wax-figure that looked exactly like Lani— I think it really was Lani. I don’t know how that’s possible, but that seems to be what’s happening.”

Marcela snickered. “It’s impossible. You’re worrying over nothing— you’re just a little freaked out because we all got lost. But nothing is going on here.”

Marcela trailed off in what she was saying— she found herself looking at a particular exhibit. This was the only exhibit she’d seen like this— there wasn’t a single figure in it. It was just completely empty— there was only background there— no models.

“Marcela?” It was scaring Brigid that Marcela had just stopped talking.

Marcela didn’t listen to her. She moved closer to the empty exhibit— she didn’t care that Brigid was still speaking to her.

Brigid thought she heard a footstep, and looked back over her shoulder to check. But there was nothing there— and when she turned back around, she saw Marcela climbing up through the opening and entering the exhibit.

Marcela looked around the scene that she found herself in. It was a very idyllic scene— it looked like a meadow, and there was a nice cushion of moss on the grass that seemed to be calling to her, begging her to sit on it. She did sit on it— and then when she looked up from where she was sitting, she saw that a small rainbow had streaked in arc through the air just above her, and a little ahead of her.

She didn’t understand the presence of that rainbow. If she had been outside in the normal world, a rainbow this small and this close to a person should have been impossible. But here, in this strange meadow, it was possible. It was possible and it was right in front of her.

It was right in front of her and she was looking at it— frowning at it, trying to understand it. And she was finding that the more she looked at it, the more she wanted to look at it. Ripples of light moved through it sometimes; that made the whole image bend and warp. But something about that warping made it a more interesting image to observe.

She’d keep looking at it, actually. She wouldn’t look anywhere else. She only wanted to look there. It made her feel so peaceful when she looked there. And she could just keep staring up at that rippling, warping shift of color— that ever-changing rainbow— and keep feeling as good as it made her feel, keep feeling as good as she felt right now. She kept watching the colors as they shifted and warped. They never stopped doing that— they always continued their work of shifting and warping— and that captivated her attention, kept her watching there, kept her wanting to watch.

And as she did watch, certain ideas seemed to occur to her. Ideas whose origin she couldn’t exactly name— she couldn’t say what was inspiring them in her, could only say that they were definitely arising inside of her— and they sounded like good ideas. They sounded like things she wanted to do, things that were worth doing.

She followed the impulse that had occurred to her, and got up from the moss she’d seated herself on, to walk over to the stream that was running nearby. She was already following the impulse, so she didn’t see any point in questioning it, and every time she glanced back at the small rainbow, she became more certain of her choice.

She waded into the stream— and took her clothes off once she ed she was still wearing them, after they’d already been plastered to her body with water.

When Marcela really felt the water of the stream, it jarred her mind slightly. Enough that she was partly able to awaken to her circumstances. It didn’t matter what was possible in the world she came from— there was a different set of rules here, and she had to adapt to them, learn to operate within them. Here, a rainbow could project itself over an individual person— could ripple its colors beguilingly, and influence its watcher. It had already influenced her so much that she’d been forced to come over here and place herself in this stream.

And there was something wrong with this water— it was doing something unnatural to her body— putting a kind of unstable, shifting, squirming energy into it. Like her body was now trying to do something that would never have been possible in the world in the world she came from— like her body was trying to change its properties, reshape itself of its own accord.

She wouldn’t spend any time trying to argue what was possible and what wasn’t— in this world, her body might well be able to achieve its goal. So she just needed to get out of the water that was speaking to it— encouraging it to do wrong things. Because the water was speaking to it, and her body was listening.

But was there anywhere in this meadow that would be safe? The whole area felt like a cursed place intent on trapping her. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that there was a hut somewhere out of sight, and a man there who had used mystical means to transform this meadow into a trap; because every part of it seemed to have been designed to ensnare.

She should get out of the water, and wander the wilderness in search of such a caretaker. Or perhaps everything here had simply evolved on its own to ensnare. When she was truly caught, perhaps it would use her for a food source. And perhaps the rainbow was in fact the projection of a plant that would could only live here— she didn’t care. Whether she was facing the work of a master architect, or nature’s drive for survival, it was bad for her to be in this stream. She needed to get out.

But to get out, she first had to stop looking at that rainbow. She had to look anywhere else in the meadow— risk other places being dangerous to her in their own ways.

Or if she couldn’t look anywhere else, then she had to close her eyes. But she couldn’t seem to do anything other than stare. The colors were so… ripple-y. And even though she was further away from the rainbow now, it still commanded as much power over her as it ever had. No, Marcela thought. I don’t want to look, I don’t care how it ripples, I don’t want to be here.

Her body was tingling now. What was that— was it really growing? Her breasts were getting bigger— and her ass was getting bigger, too. This concerned her— immediately her eyes searched out the rainbow, even though it was still quite far away from her now— and that soothed her.

But she found her mind filling with ideas— and found her mind filling with images. In all of those images she saw herself with the new proportions she was developing— saw herself being used sexually in a hundred different ways— and she only accepted this treatment, like she was some kind of brainless sex-doll.

Yet the longer she stood in the water, and the longer she looked at the rainbow, the more her thoughts seemed to slip away from her and the less she seemed to care about thinking.

The rainbow remained stubbornly present... she watched…

The colors seemed to inspire new feelings in her body. There was pleasure there, now, and sexual craving. It lapped at her from the inside, as the water lapped at her from the outside. They were working together, surging both within and against her— and when the rainbow’s colors rippled, it felt like they were surging, too. Three things surging at once— the lust inside her— the water against her— the colors in her vision. No, was it four? The lust, the water, the colors— her body itself, straining to become something new in response to the water’s influence? Or was it five? Five what? Had she been counting something? Had she been trying to think about something? The water felt so good she didn’t need to think about anything— her body felt so good she didn’t need to think about anything— the pleasure so good— the colors so pretty in her vision.

She tried to think, but when she started words mentally they just trailed off— everything that was lapping at her together, from different places, was simultaneously washing her words out of her— like a town being flooded and put underwater. A new ocean of lust was the only thing that remained— the only thing visible on the surface. All the structures that had been drowned were invisible to a surface-level view of the water.

She didn’t care— she didn’t need thoughts for anything. She could just feel that great quantity of lust that was inside her. Her pussy was gushing even though its gush only went into the water around it.

There was nothing in her head but water. Everything had been drowned.

She got out of the water when she knew it was time. Her mind had been emptied— her body had been perfected.

Kneeling there, on the bank of the stream— she masturbated— and didn’t notice the feeling of her flesh congealing.

Brigid paused outside the scene in front of her. She had meant to keep walking, but something about the way it looked arrested her movement. And as she looked at it, looked at the way it was set back in the wall, she thought of room-sized terrariums, and museum exhibits, and something lifted in her chest. She… had to climb up into there. She had to get onto the ledge, then go through the recessed opening to reach the open space of the exhibit.

She forgot Tessi, who was still beside her, and approached the exhibit. She climbed up onto the ledge, went through the recessed opening, and stepped into the exhibit. Only, when she stepped in, it wasn’t there. When she got where she was trying to get to, she wasn’t in an exhibit at all. She’d just stepped into a regular room. She didn’t seem to be in the wax-museum at all, anymore. When she turned around to look behind her, there was only a solid wall. She couldn’t see any way to get back to where she’d come from at all.

Giving return up for now, she looked around the new room that she’d entered, instead.

She didn’t like the look of it, actually. Everything here was black silk, and ruffled. Black silk curtains and valances which had just been mounted on the dark-painted walls as decoration. Brigid felt like everything had been covered in coffin-linings. And there was something eerie, too, in the fact that there was so little color to be seen. There was no electricity, either, just a lot of long black candles in candelabras and other holders, all of which were burning orange flames at the beginning of their wicks. It would be a long time before any of them burned down, but they did cast the room in a dim, warm glow. Which then hit the austere black silk, and seemed to die.

Just being in this room made Brigid uneasy. Black-velvet-lined loveseats with ornate silver furniture-frames were the only pieces of furniture in it. That silver was another place the warmth of the light went to die.

But Brigid didn’t see that there was anything else for her to do— so she moved to the center of the room and seated herself. Presently, there was a rustling behind one of the silk curtains, and she realized there must be a door behind there. She heard it creak open— then that particular curtain seemed to conform around a large, standing lump.

The door clicked shut in the frame, and the black silk curtain was thrown aside. From behind it emerged a young woman who looked to be somewhere in her twenties.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the curtain fell behind her. Then she opened her eyes again, and realized Brigid was there.

“Who are you?” She asked Brigid.

“I’m Brigid— who are you?”

The twenty-something came over to sit down next to her. “I’m Hannah. How did you get here?”

Brigid frowned. “I just— found myself here. What about yourself?”

Hannah swallowed. “I was driving with my sister Stacy, and our car broke down. We came up to this big mansion to ask to for help. We were afraid it was going to start storming.

“And Felicity— this is her house— answered. She invited us in, sat us down in a different parlor of hers. And she— and Stacy—”

Hannah let out a choked sob.

“Felicity?” Brigid echoed.

Hannah wiped her eyes with her hands. “She’s diabolical,” she said darkly. This struck a chord of fear in Brigid.

“There just isn’t another word for it. She sat Stacy and I down and she— talked— then Stacy seemed to freeze on the glance Felicity was flashing to her with her eyes. And then Stacy started screaming and saying it felt like dying… and then she just… wasn’t Stacy anymore. Felicity had murdered her right in front of me and reanimated her with something else.

“So I ran. I ran and tried to keep ahead of her so that she couldn’t do the same thing to me that she’d done to Stacy. I’ve been looking for an exit, but I haven’t found any. I’ve run into a lot of other women my age, though— they’re all the same as Stacy. Murdered and reanimated things. They look so pretty, but there’s just nothing there. And they all said— Felicity wanted them as her thralls even though she had so many already. She’s— insatiable. Just— a death-worshiping collector who’s never content to declare her collection complete. Maybe that makes her insane, too. But she always wants to acquire more.

“She must love how powerful it makes her feel— it must be a kind of ambition with her. I think she’d fuck her own sister to get ahead, if that would work. If she has a sister. Whatever she gets out of making her thralls, she always wants more. She doesn’t mind that she has to murder to do it. She has no soul— no capacity for remorse at all, but she has such strange powers. With just a flash of her eyes—”

Hannah reconsidered Brigid, falling silent for the first time since starting her tirade.

“You said you just— found yourself here? I bet she put you to sleep and left you here so she could come back to you later.”

A look of alarm crossed Hannah’s face. “Which means we should leave! She probably is going to come back.”

Brigid started shaking her head. “No I don’t think that’s how I got here—”

But the same rustling happened behind the door.

“Hide!” Hannah yelp-whispered. She got off the couch and ran over to the wall on the other side of the room, putting some curtains down in front of herself. Brigid glanced around frantically— the rustling was getting louder. She raced to one corner of the room, got behind a curtain, too, and then crouched down until she was just about sitting on the floor.

She’d gotten into position just in time, too— the noise of the door opening sounded, the curtain was pushed aside and a new figure emerged into the room. It was a woman in her thirties. She was shapely, but her proportions were not exaggerated— her hair was black. And her complexion was almost ghostly in its paleness.

Her hair was straight, and hung a little past her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless evening gown, which was also black.

There was a point of color on her, though. Her nails had been painted a bright crimson shade, and when Brigid happened to glance down at her own nails, she saw that they were painted to match Felicity’s. That made Brigid wonder if Hannah had been right. Her nails hadn’t been painted this way while she’d been in the wax-museum; maybe she had been unconscious for a while, and maybe during that time Felicity had painted her nails to match her own. It frightened Brigid that there was a period in her own memory that she couldn’t for. And she also found that she could not understand why Felicity would have wanted to make the two of them match each other.

But then, maybe Felicity hadn’t done it. Maybe one of Felicity’s thralls had come in here and done it randomly. Although if Brigid had been in here unconscious at all, then Felicity had likely been the one to place her in such a state. Which meant Felicity must have left her in this room— must know she was in here now.

Brigid shook her head. No, she wouldn’t believe that. Her nails had been this color while she’d been wandering the museum— she had to believe that. She did. It was just coincidence that Felicity was wearing a similar shade, and Felicity had no idea that Brigid was here.

Thinking all of that out had settled her mind. She turned her attention back to Felicity. And Felicity looked very graceful and elegant. But all the same seeing her struck fear in Brigid’s heart.

“Hannah,” Felicity called in a songfully sweet voice. Brigid could see she also had quite dramatic eye-makeup on— and quite red lips.

Obviously, no answer came from Hannah.

Felicity sighed, and went over to the wall Hannah had hidden against. Brigid was glad she had hidden near an ading corner which connected the opposite parallel wall to a perpendicular wall.

Felicity started at the far end of Hannah’s wall. She ripped the first curtain aside, found nothing there, and moved on.

“There’s no point in hiding from me.” Another curtain ripped aside, which revealed nothing.

“You’re in my house.” Another curtain-parting which turned nothing up.

“Do you really think you can delay the inevitable?” Another fruitless moment of search.

“You really do have to be killed, Hannah. It’s for a greater purpose. It’s going to help me get where I want to go. Don’t you want to help me with that?”

She had reached the curtain Hannah was standing behind— and poor Hannah! What could she have done? She could not have slipped out from behind the curtain while Felicity was searching. She would have been immediately seen.

But Brigid didn’t envy her at all— to have to stay in one spot, and hear your doom coming closer and closer—!

Felicity ripped the curtain back. Hannah shrieked, and screwed her eyes shut.

This didn’t seem to faze Felicity at all. She reached out with both of her slender, elegant arms, her hands seeking Hannah’s face. And when they were in range, she set gentle fingertips on Hannah’s eyelids.

It was very startling to see Felicity’s crimson nails sitting so close to Hannah’s shut lids— a flash of color against skin-tone.

The image only lasted for a moment, though, because then Felicity rolled her fingertips gently up, suggesting to Hannah that she should open her eyes again.

Brigid was surprised to see Hannah that did— she had expected Hannah to struggle. But maybe the feeling of Felicity’s hands on her body had stunned her in terror.

And Brigid couldn’t see perfectly, because Felicity’s back was facing her, but she could see Hannah’s face— it was a mask of dread, in one moment, and then it had gone slack.

In that one moment, Brigid saw that everything Hannah had told her was true. And she saw now what Hannah had meant when she said her sister Stacy had died. The woman standing in front of Felicity didn’t look like Hannah anymore. Brigid had only spoken to her briefly, but she’d still gotten a sense of her personality in that time. And that was gone now.

Hannah was dead and Felicity was a killer. Just nothing but a remorseless killer— Hannah had died and her body had been reanimated but the spirit inhabiting it was not Hannah’s spirit, wherever that had gone.

Perhaps it had been dissolved into nothingness.

But the point was, now it was another kind of thing that wore Hannah’s skin, and Hannah’s spirit would never again live inside Hannah’s body. Felicity was a remorseless killer, and she was with Brigid in the room— but maybe she’d go out again, as she’d come in, and then maybe Brigid would be able to find an exit from her mansion.

She dismissed the memory of Hannah telling her that in all her searching she’d never found an exit. She didn’t care if it was delusional. For this moment, she was going to believe that escape was possible.

Felicity exhaled in relief. “There— now you’ll agree that that wasn’t so bad. Because you can’t do otherwise. But I don’t need to hear you say it. You can leave the room now.”

The reanimated body shuffled off, moved the curtain aside which hung in front of the door, and went through it. So lifelike and pretty— but undeniably dead.

Felicity turned around. She seemed to glow— as if acquiring one more piece for her collection had bestowed that glow on her.

Now that she had turned around, she put each hand on either side of her waist, and glanced around the room. “You can come out too, Brigid. I know that you’re here.”

Brigid’s heart seemed to freeze inside her chest. She was even more afraid of Felicity now. How had Felicity known? It almost seemed like there was something supernatural going on with her, just as there’d seemingly been something supernatural going on in the first place for Brigid to even end up here.

Perhaps her sense of terror was interfering with her capacity to reason, blocking out theories she might otherwise have been able to entertain. She couldn’t think of any other explanation for Felicity’s knowledge.

Nor could she think of any other explanation for her own behavior. She was standing now, even though that was the opposite of what she wanted to do. And putting the curtain aside, stepping past it.

Felicity saw her.

Brigid expected immediate death— not only from Felicity’s eyes, but from her grace and elegance and beauty. Having the focus of such a person trained on her seemed like it might prove similarly lethal. That was if Felicity even was a person.

But Felicity didn’t do whatever it was she’d done with her eyes to kill Hannah. She simply held out an open palm in a gesture, and indicated one of the loveseats. Brigid still didn’t understand her own behavior— but she went where Felicity had directed her to go, and when she sat, she seated herself beside Felicity, who was already there.

Brigid saw candlelight in her periphery, and felt that she was at her own funeral. Brigid saw the black silk hangings and felt that she was in her own coffin.

But still, Felicity did nothing with her eyes. Did nothing besides… sitting there, and looking elegant. Sitting there, and looking beautiful.

“Speak your mind,” Felicity encouraged her.

“You’re… demonic,” Brigid said. She’d expected it to come out in a burst of rage, but it only came out sounding confused.

“You’re demonic and you’re a killer.” Brigid’s tone still sounded unconvinced.

Felicity just smiled with crimson lips. “I’ll just give you a minute to think things over. I had to go quickly with Hannah. She was just a chore that I needed to be done with. You’re the one I really want to spend my time on. So take a few minutes to figure things out if you need to.”

Brigid followed this invitation, too. She would have found it comforting to believe that she was being forced to turn inwards— but she still felt that she was herself, and thinking as herself. That was the disturbing part.

She looked at Felicity, to start. And as she looked at her— that lovely body in that lovely dress— she considered her own response to the sight. When she looked at Felicity, she felt drawn to her. Attracted to her; her presence itself seemed to encourage arousal in Brigid.

And if Brigid were being honest with herself, she had to it that this wasn’t the first time she’d experienced something like this. She’d always noticed girls too, about as often as she’d noticed boys. In her early twenties, when she’d been twenty and twenty-one and twenty-two, she’d thought of herself as bisexual in those days.

But then she had met Dylan, and gotten serious with him, and so decided that it didn’t matter what her identity was. She could settle just for being Dylan’s wife.

Something about the way Felicity smirked at her now almost made Brigid believe that Felicity was either telepathic or all-knowing, and Brigid didn’t know which. Either Felicity had known Brigid’s hidden history, or she’d heard Brigid lay it all out in her thoughts just then. But either way, she seemed to know it now. She was smiling too knowingly not to know.

Brigid could accept that part of things at least. She’d thought of herself as bisexual once, possibly for good reason. She’d been attracted to women before, and Felicity was pretty, so she was attracted to her now.

But there was a more troubling element to this. Felicity was demonic— calling her diabolical didn’t go far enough. She was so without human mercy that it made her seem she really had just emerged from the depths of hell, an escaped denizen of it. She was demonic, and she was a killer, and she seemed almost soulless, as a demon would be… but Brigid saw in herself that she— was attracted to this, too. Felicity’s killing nature, Felicity’s demonic nature— she was attracted to the danger Felicity posed, the evil Felicity did— and the way that she carried it out.

And this was not a feeling that had started in this room, either.

When she’d still thought of herself as bisexual, Brigid had noticed that she was particularly attracted to dangerous women.

When characters like that had turned up in books she’d read or things she’d watched, she’d always found those stories to be the particularly engrossing ones. And she’d fantasized while masturbating— of those characters— of them doing horrible, unconscionable things. She’d never had any dating experience with women at that time, though. And she’d been aware of the fact that other women— who were out there dating women— were experiencing the difficulties of that while she was spared them by not participating. They were out there, dealing with partners who refused to commit, or dealing with partners who took out their own internalized issues of identity on them, or dealing with partners who treated them abusively.

And Brigid hadn’t known what it meant at that time— to be aware of other women dating women and having a hard time of it for one of many reasons— while simultaneously picturing the most evil woman she could and getting off at the thought of her. She still didn’t know what that meant now. But maybe the reason she’d never pursued anything romantic with other women before settling down with Dylan was because she’d been too aware of the difficulties that went on in such relationships… no, she discounted that. It may have been a factor, but it had not been a major one.

The real reason she’d avoided it was her own dangerous tastes. She’d known the kind of woman she’d be drawn to— killers, even if they were less literal killers than Felicity was. And so settling for benign, boring Dylan had almost been a self-protective action. She’d kept her dangerous tastes to her fantasy-life, and declared all identity and label considerations moot— she’d stopped thinking of herself as bisexual because she was with a man and planned to stay with that man for the rest of her life. She was never going to do anything with a woman, so the label had been irrelevant to her.

She could see now, though, that she’d gone to Dylan so she could kill something within herself. So that she could discount her own identity, be able to set these kinds of considerations aside forever and never have to think about them again.

Was she so drawn to killers because she was capable of similar ruthlessness herself? Or because she often repressed that ruthlessness, did she want to see what she’d disowned in herself displayed in someone else? Too bad she’d probably die before she understood anything.

And it was horrible— to be confronted with a real killer, given the direction her tastes tended to follow. And not just any killer, but— the killer of her dreams.

Oh, Felicity’s crimson red lips— if she could only be lucky enough to kiss them, she’d kiss them and die on them if that was to be the cost. And she would let Felicity kill her— let Felicity kill her and love Felicity as she did, as Brigid would never have done for a man. If a man had tried to kill her— she would only have loathed him, fought him to the last moment. But as long as it was a woman— as long as it was Felicity, she’d let herself be killed and sigh in rapture as it happened.

What was it that was wrong with her? Why did she have a “killer” of her dreams and not a “lover?”

Why, in place of where she should have wanted romantic sweet things, did she only want things to do with death and danger? Why did she hang the trappings of romance and sex and then only populate them with death and danger? What was it about her life-history to date, her romantic-history to date, which made this the case? Again— too bad, she’d die before she figured it out.

She loved Felicity, she thought now. She loved her with a very old love— all affection she’d ever held for any diabolical woman she’d come across in fiction seemed transferred now to Felicity. She was the culmination of them all, or Brigid had loved Felicity in them all without understanding that to be prophetic. Maybe she’d always been meant to turn up here.

But Felicity’s lips— if only she could die on them— if only she would be allowed to die on them. She was in her own coffin but she didn’t even mind.

“You’re demonic,” Brigid said again— but her tone sounded more certain now. “You’re demonic and I like it. I’d never let a man kill me, but— I love you as I’ve loved every deadly woman I’ve ever read about. I’ll let you kill me— I wouldn’t let a man— but I’ll let you—”

Felicity seemed to follow Brigid’s meaning perfectly. So maybe she really was telepathic, then. And Brigid understood it had been the draw of danger, the draw towards the deadly which had made her slip out from behind the curtain and come over here. What had it been about her relationship to Dylan specifically though, that had led her here? Had repressing her own more dangerous proclivities for so long, euthanizing them in suburban banality— only strengthened them, assuring that she would be doomed if she ever truly faced a killer, after seeing them so often in her imagination?

That seemed plausible.

“You figured things out very thoroughly, Brigid,” Felicity said sweetly. Brigid was watching her lips move as she spoke— transfixed by the sight.

It was only happening inside but— Felicity was gently guiding her to put her head through a stocks that was below a guillotine. And Felicity could bring the blade down, and put Brigid’s head into the basket below, and if awareness lingered in the brain after it was severed from the body, perhaps Brigid would look up at Felicity— if Felicity would come and lean over the basket. She would only look at Felicity’s crimson lips and wish Felicity would lift her by the hair and kiss the mouth of her suspended head.

But if Felicity only smiled— Brigid would treasure even that. Beloved killer. Beloved killer, even if she was killing her. Killer who knew perfectly well that they were killing, and wanted to— had deemed it should happen— wanted the power, wanted what they could acquire through doing it. Killer and loved-killer; Brigid would never have loved a man killing her this way— only a woman— and she would love Felicity— she already did.

“You’re ready,” Felicity said. “And I just want you to know— this has been such a treat for me. Usually my murder-victims only fear me. To have someone desire me— to have someone love me. That’s a new treat. That’s why I chose you, why I wanted you here, wanted you to see all you’ve seen and understand all you’ve understood. It’s been a treat for me.”

She wouldn’t grant her a kiss— wouldn’t grant her a fuck. Brigid would die denied and still love her— “I didn’t have to compel your thoughts, either— such a treat— that you came to all the conclusions I wanted you to reach— only of your own accord.”

Brigid felt the guillotine-blade was about to swing. She was about to be the decapitated head in the basket looking up at Felicity’s smiling crimson lips— and she would think the sweetness of her smile was like a symphonic major-melody carried to her on the wind, in incongruence with the horror all around her. But she was the one who wanted that incongruence— who kept casting romance in the context of horror.

She loved her and was going to die by her.

Felicity smiled a little more curvaceously— and then her eyes flashed.

Brigid must have seen what Hannah had seen— what all the other victims had seen. It didn’t feel like being guillotined. It felt like she’d been pierced through the heart by a blade— and Felicity was smiling as she held it there. Felicity’s eyes seemed to be boring into Brigid’s head. She could feel her will and mind dissolving.

And there was other sensation, too. She could feel that time had stopped moving— the same moment looped over and over— she was trapped in the instant of seeing Felicity’s eyes flash— trapped in the moment the blade went into her heart. And Felicity smiled so beautifully. And Felicity’s eyes— and Felicity’s smile.

She had already died. Her life was already over. This, now, was a bizarre afterlife. She didn’t know how long her awareness would last in this post-death place. Perhaps— this was like what happened— to those people who saw things after they died. Those people who saw things and then came back and spoke of them. Perhaps that was what she saw now— saw, because the chemicals released in her brain at the moment of death hadn’t completely faded out of her. So as long as they were there, she would still see— but once they were gone, she would see nothing else, and her awareness would completely stop. She didn’t know how long she had— didn’t know. For how many more minutes would she be able to think before her mind went silent forever? Did she have five minutes of thought left? Did she have two?

In this after-death moment, some things were the same: Felicity was still sitting in front of her, and her eyes were still flashing. But everything inside of Brigid felt different. She felt like she’d been a block of ice before, and in death, now, she was thawing, turning into liquid and flowing away— would she run into groundsoil, and water roots and live on in the lives of those things she nourished? The block that had been her— melted. Maybe it had been a block of arctic ice, which froze contemporaneous things inside of it and held those old things there for hundreds of thousands of years. What had she held frozen inside herself? What from a different world had she held contained all this time? Hidden, never seen present in the centuries that followed until finally it was released by melting and unleashed, loosed upon the world.

It felt like pleasure was the thing at the center of her arctic block— pleasure was the thing she’d held hidden for eons— and there was so much of it. She’d died denied as she’d thought she would, but after death, now, there was satisfaction. She was sitting still, immobilized in death. But not frozen, because her block of arctic ice had melted— and the pleasure had escaped it, was everywhere within her now.

And this pleasure was unlike any she’d ever felt in her life. Because when she felt it inside her, it confused her mind. Maybe this was how her awareness would go— just swallowed down by this pleasure in confusion.

But though nothing physically touched her— the pleasure held her, and she felt it moving through her. She was having an orgasm in her perfect stillness— her was pussy was clenching, her breasts were aching— her nipples were tingling. And her pussy wasn’t only clenching. That wasn’t all it did. It was also leaking liquid.

In Brigid’s confusion, she took this as evidence that the block of arctic ice had melted. That that was why there was such wetness there.

Her body kept doing it. Her body kept having the orgasm, and as it went on happening, it dragged her mind with it. Like she’d gone into a cave now, and was being pulled further and further down it. She was seeing all these visions— why? She thought she’d understood the reason before, but now— she couldn’t grasp it anymore. Her mind was going down to where it was deep and dark… what if things collapsed down there, and it was completely buried, never found? But why should she need it anymore? The pleasure felt so good inside her— wasn’t that all she needed? In the darkness below, there was one clear thought— like she’d managed to light a match for a second.

When she’d been dying, she had not felt very lonely— she’d had Felicity’s company in that experience, even if Felicity had only been with her because she’d been murdering her.

But now that she was dead, she felt she was completely alone— having this afterlife experience by herself— waiting for the chemicals in her brain to run out.

And then the match of that idea sputtered out in the darkness, leaving only that. She wasn’t confused anymore. She was a puddle— and her awareness had stopped. There wasn’t anything left. Only the pleasure existed— not consciousness— not anything else. The pleasure achieving itself in an empty place. Nothing ed it. Nothing recognized it. There was nothing.

The thrall’s body changed, unnoticed— curdled— churned— it was becoming butter. Then it was becoming solid.

Tessi looked up at the exhibit she was standing in front of.

One of the wax-figures looked like Brigid. She was sitting on a black velvet loveseat with another wax-figure. The room around them was draped in black silk, making the whole thing look very funereal.

The other figure had black hair— wore a black dress— had pale skin, red lips and red nails. She was looking deeply into Brigid’s eyes— and Brigid seemed even more frozen than just being a wax-figure could for. And yet, though she seemed completely frozen— she wore only a look of utter bliss upon her face.

When Tessi had seen the model that looked like Rowen, she’d had a suspicion. But now, after actually watching Brigid climb up into the exhibit— and then freeze in place— Tessi knew her suspicion had been right. Somehow— and she wasn’t sure how— the exhibits were capturing real people, and forcing them to become a part of what they were portraying— forcing them to become wax-figures themselves.

“Well, that’s not happening to me,” Tessi muttered. She turned briskly from the exhibit— and walked at that brisk pace, paranoia raging in her all the time. And then walking wasn’t enough— she broke into a run, and ran her fastest. She went down corridor after corridor, becoming more desperate to escape the longer that she went on running.

She turned down a corridor that she’d never seen before— had never seen it once in all her hours of running— and when she was about halfway down it she saw that— yes— that was an exit. She was going to make it out— she was going to—

Something seized her— and before she understood what was happening, she was hurtling through the air, and through an opening into an exhibit. She lost consciousness after that, and knew nothing else.

When she woke up, she was strapped to a table. She craned her neck so she could look down and see exactly how she was bound. She had not been bound to the table with rope.

She could see now that metal bands, several inches wide, had been drawn out from the table and put around her so that she remained held in place. There were bands over her upper-arms, and over her lower-arms, and over her wrists. There was a band just beneath her breasts and over her top rib. There was a band over her hips— and then two bands for her upper-legs, one for each leg, two bands for her shins, and two bands for her ankles. She was affixed to the table.

She was, but at least she could still lift her head in order to look around. She craned her neck again, this time to get her head as high off of the table as she could.

This worked well enough that she was able to actually see some of the room that was around her. She took a quick glimpse of it, and saw flashes of silver and chrome and light.

But almost immediately her neck started to ache, so she put her head back down to rest for a minute. She’d take just a minute, here— and then she’d take what she hoped would be a more successful second look.

She could really feel the bands around her body, now. They bit into her, almost, they were so tight. And the band beneath her breasts felt strange especially, like it was almost lifting them, and yet at the same time, giving applying pleasurable pressure to them.

She didn’t like being affixed to the table, though. She would have hated being affixed to anything, because she was not a piece of decor, and being pinned to one spot was not the purpose of her existence.

But she was affixed to the table, and she didn’t like it. All the days of her life where she’d had the freedom to move her body how she liked and take it where she wanted had been wasted days. She’d taken them for granted. And all actions she’d ever taken to move had been wasted actions, as she’d taken them for granted too, because of how simple movement usually was.

She saw now that the ability to walk around freely and decide where she was going was a precious gift to treasure. And she only saw that now because it had been taken away from her.

And now she hated being stuck, hated that she couldn’t simply get up and go anywhere she liked. She had to stay here, and that wasn’t her decision. She had to stay here and adhere to whatever decisions other people made about her, on her behalf. She found she really didn’t like that.

That was enough wallowing for the moment. She decided she was ready to take a second look around the room.

She craned her neck again and raised her head. This time she’d been expecting this position to ache, so that didn’t catch her by surprise. She could brace against it, and endure it, since she’d known it was coming.

And so, with that pain set to the side and, for the moment, ignored, Tessi took a second look at her surroundings.

Everything was as silver and chrome as it had appeared to be at first glance— but she could actually distinguish details from within that wash of monotonous color and material. There was one wall that looked very technological— there were a lot of buttons there, mounted on plastic rectangles and sometimes on clear ones. And there were a lot of tiny bulbs which flashed lights. A general chorus of beeping and whirring was also emerging from that vicinity.

Tessi looked at the other wall, across the room, also parallel to her table. This wall had several tables along it— each table looked like it had a bad chemistry set on it. There were many beakers and vials and glass tubes with each set. Even twisting winding glass tubes that Tessi couldn’t see the purpose of. And many of these were bubbling and hissing away, producing noxious fumes. The whole room looked like a laboratory. But not a good laboratory, where the knowledge of mankind might be advanced or some of its problems might be solved. A sinister laboratory.

Tessi heard the sound of a door opening. Then a figure came into view, and Tessi was no longer alone in the lab. This figure was a woman, but Tessi didn’t believe for a second that she was the one behind this whole thing. She was wearing a chrome bikini— she didn’t look particularly powerful.

She approached Tessi on the table, and lifted her head— then pressed a button somewhere out of sight, and suddenly there was a head beneath Tessi, one which had grown directly out of the table. Tessi didn’t have to crane anymore to see.

This was so convenient that it made Tessi suspicious, and she regarded the chrome-clad woman with distrust once she stepped back from the table.

But all the woman did to address this was say— “You should see us,” and she said this so airily it was clear that Tessi’s look of suspicion hadn’t bothered her at all.

She stepped away to work in a different part of the lab. Other figures began entering, too— all of them beautiful women. Or could they really be called women? Tessi decided she’d watch them for a moment to see.

One in particular caught her attention. The front part of her skull had been removed, and very tough-looking glass had replaced it, allowing one to look directly into her brain.

The back half of the cerebral dome had been left there, fused to that glass where they ed, and this could be seen through the glass too. Her brain had been altered, though. There were lights in there, flashes— her brain had been computerized in some fashion.

Tessi looked away from this disturbingly captivating sight— looked at some of the other creatures instead. Only some wore the chrome bikinis. Some were completely naked. The chrome-clad ones tended to various stations in the lab and that one with the partially de-domed skull seemed to be acting in a supervisory capacity. When one of the chrome-clad ones successfully achieved something they were responsible for, the supervising creature masturbated them to orgasm where they stood, and they only submitted to it.

The naked figures did less than the chrome-clad ones did— they just moved about in a frenzy, fell into pairs or groups, and then fucked. They were insatiable about it, too. Nothing they received was ever really enough for them. Still, though these three different types of creatures were exhibiting very different kinds of behaviors, it was very clear to Tessi that somehow, each thing they were doing added up to some kind of collective effort. And Tessi thought of what the first figure had said to her. She’d referred to this mismatched group as an “us,” clearly considered every member of it to be an equal member, even when they were contributing less. And Tessi wouldn’t say they were women, wouldn’t think of them as women. Some of them were trying to look like it, but none of them ed off the illusion successfully.

The door opened again. More chrome-clad creatures wheeled in another table, and there was a woman affixed to this one, too. Her head had already been propped up, so Tessi could see her face as she came into the room. Just from the expression this woman was wearing, Tessi could tell that she was not a creature yet. Unlike the partly de-domed creature, unlike the creatures in chrome bikinis, unlike the frenzied naked beings who whirled around the room, falling into pairs and groups and fucking: this woman was still a full human being, a woman and not a creature. An independent human being, with her own thoughts and feelings, and her own understanding of the world.

And Tessi could tell even more than that, just by looking at this woman’s face. She was hating the experience of being affixed to a table as much as Tessi hated it. And Tessi thought that if she weren’t affixed to the table— if she were to get up right now, if she were granted the permission to choose where she was going next— this woman would have ideas about where she wanted to go instead. If any of the other mindless creatures here were given freedom, Tessi was sure that they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Wouldn’t know how to form a preference, develop a taste, or discover a desire. They’d just be stuck until someone else told them what to do. Even the supervising de-domed creature would be stuck in that scenario.

But this woman was still her own person— and she clearly knew how to be a person, how to think for herself, how to want things for herself and know she wanted them. She’d get off this table and have places to go— if she could get off the table. But she was affixed to it, and she couldn’t. Just like Tessi.

The chrome-clad things wheeled the table over until it was just ahead of Tessi’s own table, across from it, so that when Tessi looked down from the head- propping her up, she could see the woman lying right there.

The chrome-clad things weren’t done, even once they had the table positioned. They started fiddling with the table’s various components, and then it started to change. The slab that the woman was affixed to tilted down— the end of it tilted down, and the head of it tilted up. The slab kept moving in the same direction, until it was completely upright, and Tessi could see the woman entirely from head to foot. The table’s s had shifted when the slab had gone up, too, to become standing s, so that the whole thing had become a free-standing structure which needed no other structural help. When the chrome-clad things stepped back from it, it was stable enough to remain standing unaided. So they put it out of mind, and went to take up tasks elsewhere in the lab.

Tessi and the woman were left facing each other— Tessi, reclined and looking up at her, the woman standing and bound in place, and looking down at her. Tessi saw the recognition in the woman’s face that she’d already felt herself. They each understood that the other was free, that the other was just as sentient as they were themselves, even though every other creature in the room was more or less unthinking and only automatized, all their thoughts provided for them ahead of time if they even had any.

At this moment, the door to the lab opened again, and now it was a man who came in. Tessi felt a lot more confident this time that she was looking at the person who was responsible for all of this. When she’d seen the first chrome-thing enter, she’d looked at her and doubted that she had enough power to be the one behind everything. But she was having the opposite experience now— the man who’d entered did seem to have been bestowed with power— seemed in possession of it, had enough so that just one glance at him told Tessi he was competent enough to be the one responsible for everything in this room. And now that he was here, there were three people in the room who were fully sentient. Tessi saw other things about him, too— he was wearing a labcoat, but there were a few spatters of faded blood on it— Tessi wondered if those had come from de-doming the supervisory slave; if that blood had come from partly dismantling her skull and replacing it with glass.

And there was a wild look in his eyes that frightened Tessi. This was an unhinged person, with no sense of propriety or morality. This was someone who only cared about his own ruthless ambition— scientific ambition but still ambition— and no set of ethics was ever going to come between him and his goal, or dissuade him from it.

There were other signs that he was absolutely dedicated to his work, even at the expense of himself. His eyes were heavily lined by shadows, as if he almost never slept, and there was a jitteriness to his body that almost made it seem like he ran entirely on caffeine. This was a man who worked and worked and ran his body to rags and still worked past that point— someone who cared more about his accomplishments than his own well-being. That kind of ruthless drive was frightening, too.

But Tessi was also afraid of him because of the things she’d already seen in the lab— things he had done. She’d seen the evidence of his evil intentions already— everything in the room had traced a fearsome outline of him— and now he had come in and filled it. He lived up to the outline that had been drawn of him— even exceeded it. This was an ethic-less, relentless researcher who would destroy even himself in order to achieve his aims. And since he considered it nothing to destroy himself, he clearly had no hesitations in destroying anyone else either. The hardest hurdle to get over should have been self-destruction— but since he’d cleared this hurdle easily, destroying everyone seemed to be even easier than that for him.

The door to the lab closed behind him, and he came over to stand beside the standing-slab that the other woman in the room was bound against. He gave Tessi no acknowledgement— didn’t even look at her, and Tessi was grateful for this. This was not the kind of person that she wanted to draw the attention of. She felt bad for the other woman, though. She was the one who had drawn his attention— the one who had to suffer his gaze, and suffer his focus.

“Good to see you again, Holly,” the scientist said. “You what’s going to happen now, don’t you? From the last time we talked?”

“You did tell me what you were going to do to me that time,” Holly said spitefully. “But it’s never going to work,” she taunted. “I hate both you and what you’re trying to do to me. I’m never going to co-operate. If you want someone who’ll be more amenable to your goals, you should find someone who doesn’t already hate you.“

“You can protest all you like, Holly,” the scientist said. “The others all protested too. But I’ve been through so many test-subjects by now. I know exactly how to reprogram your mind. So again, go ahead and protest. The fact that there are no other free women left in here should tell you something about my success rate.”

“What about her?” Holly asked, indicating Tessi with a nod.

“I haven’t subjected her to my methods yet,” the scientist dismissed. “It’s your turn first.“

He took off his gloves and drew something out of the pocket of his labcoat— it just looked like an unobtrusive, inoffensive jar of skin-cream. He unscrewed the lid of this jar, got some cream onto one hand, and then put everything away again. The only thing he had to show for his efforts was the cream still on that one hand. Now he rubbed both hands together, spreading the cream between them, and turned to face Holly, who was still standing where she was bound to stand.

She flinched and tried to shrink away from his touch, but obviously the bands prevented this from happening. He made with her skin, and then he started rubbing the cream into her everywhere he could reach.

“This is one of my faster acting methods,” he was explaining to Holly now. “Although it can take a very long time if you’re determined. Your fate has become inevitable, though, since I’ve spread this on you. Do you know what this cream does?”

Holly sniffed, closed her eyes and turned her face to the side. “I don’t. You explained other things to me, but you didn’t explain this.”

“This cream absorbs through your skin, and sends signals to your brain— and when your brain receives those signals, it understands that it must heighten your arousal— and encourage docility. And then this starts a loop— the more aroused you feel, the more docile you become. And then as you feel more docile you become more aroused— and as you find yourself feeling more aroused, you become more docile. The cream only lasts a certain amount of time— so depending on how long you resist, it will have a different effect on you. You’ve noticed some of the other figures in this room?”

Holly grimaced. “I’ve been trying not to notice them.”

“But you’ve noticed them,” the scientist decided. “The ones who can’t control themselves— the ones who are incapable of doing anything besides fuck, they were the ones who fell into the loop almost immediately. They had no resistance at all. Their bodies absorbed the cream, and as soon as that happened, they just fell victim to their own arousal. It flooded them, and they did nothing to defy it. So their transformation-process essentially liquefied their minds— all that remains of them are insatiable creatures that need to fuck.

“But you see the creatures in the chrome bikinis, too, don’t you? They’re what remains of the women who did have a little bit of resistance to put up. They fought the process enough at first that they delayed their changes— so in the end the cream wore off before they could be reduced to the level the sex-morons are at.

“They only resisted for a while, though. In all the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve only had one subject who resisted her transformation right until the cream wore off. And she’s the one whose skull I partially removed— she required other methods of subduement— her mind had to be partly computerized.”

Tessi thought of the partly de-domed creature— she was glad the scientist hadn’t referred to it that way— she would have found the situation even more frightening if he’d been essentially speaking her own thoughts back to her, co-opting her way of viewing and understanding the world around her.

“Do you know something, Holly,” the scientist spoke again. “I could make a foolproof cream that never wore off— or I could make a foolproof cream that reduced everyone exposed to it to a sex-moron the second it made with their skin. But I haven’t done that, because it is endlessly fascinating to me to see what kind of mettle each subject of mine has. That’s a process of constant discovery— so I prefer using this cream, the kind that wears off— the kind that leaves it up to the victim just how impacted they’re going to be by it.

“And do you know, my half-computerized slave— she was one of the most impressive discoveries I’ve ever made; I didn’t just use the cream on her once. I must have applied and re-applied it a half a dozen times; maybe more— but she never broke down— never got worn down by it, either. In the end, I saw that the only way I could overcome her was to operate on her brain directly, and install all the necessary circuitry. And even so, she is the smartest slave here, with the highest capacity for thought.

“So I’ve applied the cream to you now, Holly. You’re the one who gets to determine just how much of your brain is going to be destroyed, and just how much of it is going to remain. Let’s see how you do with this. I’ll be sure to log my findings when your transformation is complete.”

Tessi was too caught up in watching to reflect much on what she was seeing. She was, possibly, frozen in shock.

But she saw immediately that the scientist wasn’t going to be fair about what he was doing. He’d spread the cream over Holly, and her body had absorbed it— but he was going to give her something she had to fight against, instead of just standing in front of her and waiting for the cream to have its effect on her. With one hand, he started manipulating Holly’s breast— and with the other hand, he started manipulating Holly’s pussy.

He kneaded and kneaded her breast around— he coaxed and coaxed her pussy by touch. And it became very apparent quite quickly— Holly really had no mettle to her character at all. Almost as soon as she was given this erotic stimulation, she seemed to disintegrate— her mind seemed to be dissolving inside her head, and soon she was only moaning, rocking in time with the way the scientist was stroking her.

After a few minutes, she was indistinguishable from… the other “sex-morons,” as the scientist had called them, that were running around the lab. As Tessi had thought before when she’d looked at them— there just wasn’t anything human about them at all. And now there was nothing human about Holly, either. She had simply become one more creature.

A few of the chrome-clad creatures came over. The scientist dropped his hands from the newest sex-moron’s body. The chrome-clad creatures released the bands from the newly-made sex-moron, and she stepped away— ed the others who were running around, falling into groups, and fucking.

The chrome-clad creatures who were still near the standing-slab fiddled with it again until it was a table once more, and then began wheeling it towards the room’s exit. Then they disappeared through the lab-doors, and continued wheeling it away; Tessi could hear the wheels wobbling and squeaking for some minutes even after they were on the other side of the wall. Then finally the sound died out.

The scientist turned now to face Tessi, and approached her where she was still lying bound to the table.

“It happens that way for subjects, sometimes—” he said, and Tessi found it strange to be addressed by him, given how much he’d been ignoring her before. “When they’re told how dismal their situation is, and everything that they’re about to be up against— they just collapse before they even start. You should have seen Holly when I was speaking to her before— she was quite fiery, then. I think hearing about the doom that was waiting for her quite demoralized her. As I said— I’ve seen it happen that way with other subjects.”

And now Holly was a sex-moron… Tessi pondered the fact that she was referring to those specimens as the scientist who’d created them did. She would have been disturbed to find that scientist co-opting her own terminology for things, if he had said, “partly de-domed creature,” — but she was finding it just as disturbing to realize that she had co-opted some of his language. She was letting him name things in her world for her! But there were so many things to guard against here— so many things to worry about— she didn’t have time to correct her thoughts, or to rip those from her vocabulary that she’d gotten from him.

And she was more afraid of him now than she had been when he had first entered the lab. He was intent on— destroying women. And he’d come up with a whole process to go about doing it, and he’d executed this process over and over again— carried it out just as she’d seen him do it— did it so cruelly just for the sake of his own enjoyment. That made him even more fearsome than the faded blood on his jacket did.

“Anyway, Tessi,” he said, as he loomed over her. Tessi didn’t even care how he knew her name. “It’s your turn now. That explanation I gave to Holly can serve a double purpose now, though. It served to demoralize her, but now it can also help me with you. I don’t have to explain everything to you a second time. You already understand what’s going to happen, because while I was explaining my method to Holly, you heard it too.”

Then Tessi watched as the scientist reached into the pocket of his labcoat again. Once more he withdrew the jar and unscrewed the lid, gathered some of the cream onto his hand. One-handed, he screwed the lid back on and put the jar away: then he spread the cream over both hands by working them together: and finally, he started to spread the cream onto her. Only where the bands weren’t covering her, as he’d done with Holly— but the cream still seemed to have its effect, even though it was only making with her in certain places, piecemeal.

Tessi felt it doing what the scientist had told her it would do— and understood perfectly what was happening to her, since she’d already been warned ahead of time. The scientist hadn’t even started playing with her body yet, but she already felt the presence of arousal within herself. Her breasts felt warm, and she was aware of the emptiness in her pussy in a way that she never had been before. If she were as demoralized as Holly had been to start, then she would have started writhing her way up into the bands that held her to the table. And a minute later, when the scientist did start playing with her body, giving each breast a pull, so that the band directly underneath it bit upwards into it— then she would have started writhing in the direction of his hands.

But she had learned from Holly’s mistakes. Holly had given in immediately, and started encouraging the pleasure, allowing herself to feel it. And that had burned her mind out quicker— so if Tessi wanted to last, wanted to stay herself for longer, than she had to begin her resistance immediately. There was a long stretch of time ahead of her— and the evil of this scientist was that he’d put her in a situation in which there was no possible reward— nothing to look forward to, no reason to hope. Either she’d hold out for a long time, or she wouldn’t. And if she didn’t, then she’d become just as idiotic as those other sex-obsessed creatures who populated the room. But if, by contrast, she did manage to hold out for a long time— what would be her reward? If she held out as long as possible— as long as anyone had ever done it— then all she had to look forward to was having her skull de-domed and her brain computerized. So it was a grim situation: one horror waited for her, or another one did— that was the real evil of this scientist.

But still, even though Tessi only had bad options to choose from, and horrors to face— she felt that she should make the best of her situation. The partly de-domed creature was the creature which had retained the most brain function out of every creature in this room— it was the creature most capable of thought. So if Tessi could hold out long enough to become one of those— then perhaps, even once she was computerized, she would be able to find ways to keep resisting— to free herself after the fact, and then get revenge on this scientist. It wasn’t at a very high likelihood of occurring— but she’d been given a hopeless situation, and she had to turn a bad option into a good one. She had to find her own reason for hoping— and this was it. It was the only way she could even bring herself to believe that a positive outcome might be possible.

So she’d resist for as long as she could— and hopefully become that de-domed creature so she could liberate her mind later, and get both her revenge and freedom. And if she freed herself, perhaps she’d be able to free some of the others later, too. But this was her only real option.

So Tessi wouldn’t make Holly’s mistake. She’d set her mind on what she must do, and now she would do it— would allow for no failure within herself. She was going to achieve her aim.

The scientist was still massaging her breasts down into the under-biting bar. That made them so sensitive. They were already inclined to be sensitive, but he was maneuvering them roughly, and this only increased their sensitivity. Which increased Tessi’s arousal. And when Tessi felt that arousal, she discovered there were thoughts in her head which were encouraging her to go along with it. Just move into the feeling just move with the feeling such a good feeling welcome the feeling. They were such sweetly encouraging thoughts— thoughts she was tempted to listen to, because they had been presented to her so appealingly, and because she’d been primed for them by the arousal that was already in her.

But Tessi ed those sex-obsessed fools. That was what she would become if she gave in— those thoughts were trying to lure her into a trap. So she argued back against that enticing that was happening inside her head— the enticing the chemicals in the cream had put there, signaled to her mind to carry out. No, I don’t want to give in. No, I won’t go along with the pleasure. I’ll never go along with the pleasure! I don’t want to lose everything that makes me myself. I don’t want to become like the other creatures in this room! Her best-case scenario was becoming like one other creature in this room— the partly de-domed creature— but there was no point in acknowledging this reality with her argument.

It was hard, though— it was so, so hard, and Tessi hated how much of a struggle it was. Her body was betraying her— that was the reality at hand. It was filling her with sensations she didn’t want— sensations that gave her discomfort, even if that discomfort was only emotional. She wished as she’d wished before— wished she could leave this situation. She’d wished before that she could get up off of the table and walk away. Now she only wished that the pleasure inside of her would stop. She did her best to ignore it, and held still— refused to move her body in any way that might make her mind believe she was co-operating. She wanted to avoid setting off the loop of consequences as best she could. So she held very still, and when her mind spoke lies to her, she argued back against them. No, I don’t want this, no I won’t do it, no I’ll never do it.

It was taxing because of how tiring it all was. But it also wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, at least for right now.

She went on with the experience, doing her best to survive it. She had no idea how much time was ing either, which also made things worse. But after some interminable interval, she felt it when the cream wore off. The arousal dissipated in her— and that incessant luring commentary in her mind also finally ceased. She sighed, and sagged back against the table.

But the scientist reached into his pocket, and took out the jar again. This time, he only set it on the table. He unscrewed the lid, and left it off.

This said a lot, even without him speaking— he was going to keep the jar open, and accessible— he was going to put her through this again and again— like he’d done to the partially de-domed creature. He’d warned Tessi that this might happen. The only reward for resisting was the chance to resist even more and for even longer. And maybe he’d seen something in Tessi, seen something that told him she was going to fight him very hard. And telling her what had happened to the de-domed creature, even second-hand, through speaking to Holly and letting Tessi overhear— had perhaps been his way of trying to demoralize her.

Anyway, she’d known this was a possibility. She’d known this was what she’d be facing, if she succeeded even for a short time. That still didn’t mean that she liked it. It had been easy to get through the first round, because she’d still been fresh— she’d had plenty of resources available to her to fall back on; and plenty of energy left to use.

But as the scientist spread the cream onto her again, she was very aware of the fact that a second round was starting. And she could feel the way that she was already less fresh than she’d been before— could feel the way she’d depleted some of her energy and now had less to work with. And she looked ahead of herself: he’d said he’d put the de-domed creature through this six times or more. She was only starting on her second round— was she really going to have the energy necessary to go through a full four rounds after this, if she was already feeling this worn down? And what if she went through all six rounds, only to find that he intended to push her even further than that? What if she had to hold out for seven rounds in total? Or eight? Or nine?

She wouldn’t contemplate the possibility of any numbers that were higher than those.

But she told herself again that she wouldn’t make the same mistake Holly had made. This was the kind of trick the scientist liked to play on women’s minds— he’d already said as much. He’d said all that he’d said in the hopes of demoralizing her— demoralizing her so she would dissolve faster, and become one of those thoughtless, constantly fucking things. If she let herself worry about how burdensome this experience was going to be— if she let herself worry about how much effort this was going to take— then she was making the same mistake Holly had, and she was helping this scientist, whom she hated, achieve his goal.

But now the cream was all absorbed in again, and the scientist had gotten back to manipulating her body— this time massaging her pussy with one hand, and her breast with the other. His hand slipped inside her pussy now— was preswards— it hit a spot that she’d never felt anything touch before, and to Tessi’s shock, a stream of fluid shot out of her as she orgasmed. She knew about squirting, in theory, but she’d never done it— and she’d squirted quite a bit for a first time. She half expected the scientist to try and collect her squirt in a vial, but her ejaculate wasn’t what he was trying to test. It was the mettle of her character that he was interrogating.

Tessi really felt she was understanding Holly better. She hadn’t judged Holly for collapsing so quickly, but she had a lot more sympathy for her now than she’d had even in the last round. When her mind whispered to her that she should give in, she saw even more clearly what was appealing about that idea. And when her body screamed its lust at her, demanding her attention and co-operation— she saw even more clearly what would be appealing about giving that co-operation. Holly had considered her situation, and what was ahead of her— and she had despaired, giving in immediately. Tessi saw now why someone might do that. Saw now why that might be smart— at least, in of ending the suffering as quickly as possible.

And she felt that she understood Holly better, too, because she was experiencing just what Holly had experienced. She was feeling what Holly had felt— the pleasure coursing through her body, the thoughts playing themselves out in her head. She hadn’t known what Holly was fully going through when she’d only been watching her. But now that she was going through the experience herself, she knew all that it entailed— and she understood Holly better for it.

Then Tessi scolded herself. No, she shouldn’t be agreeing with Holly. This was just one more method her mind was using to try and trick her. It was dangerous to think about all the reasons Holly might be right— if she weren’t careful, she’d talk herself into surrendering that way— invisibly influenced by the rebellion happening against her inside her body. It was horrible what Holly had chosen to do— horrible what Holly had experienced— and what Tessi was experiencing herself was horrible too. She kept her mind fixed on that idea.

But she felt the pleasure more powerfully this time. It burned hotter in her than it had in the first round, like someone had turned a dial up inside of her— her heart was skittering and wouldn’t stop. And she had no hope of slowing it through deep breathing since the bands were constricting her in so many places. Her heart skittered and her pussy clenched itself as the scientist kept petting her clit— as he kept pinching the nipple he had in hand.

She focused her attention on her own thoughts— the ones she was creating, not the ones being inflicted on her. This is terrible and I don’t like it and I don’t want it, and I want it to be over and I’ll never want it, and I won’t be like those other things, I’ll never be like them, I don’t care how long it takes me, I can do this, I can hold out— I can survive this, I can get through it— I refuse to fail. I haven’t failed yet so far and I won’t start now, I will not accept failure as a possible outcome, I will not allow myself to succumb to it.

This was still only the second round— there wasn’t a lot of exhaustion involved for her yet, but she thought that might come later. It was still only the second round— she had the resolve she needed in order to continue.

She felt it when the cream wore off the second time, too. And the scientist seemed to have this timed down to the second— as soon as Tessi ed that the cream was out of her system, he was reaching into the jar which was still open on the table, and spreading more of it onto his hands— then onto Tessi’s body.

And once the cream was on her, she felt that too. And immediately, she understood: this was the third round now. It was later— during the second round she had thought that she might be more tired later. But now that she was in the third round of her resistance, the third round of her holding out, she was tired. It was later, and she was tired. She was going into the third round now, and she felt how much alteration had already taken place within her mind. Her mindset was already— odd— like all of reality was over-exposed. The details were too vivid. So vivid in fact that taking them in now was giving her a headache.

And those enticing, luring thoughts had started up again. You have a headache so you should just stop thinking completely don’t need to think anymore don’t need to think ever again if you never think ever again no more headache can just go off of instinct can just follow sensation, can just follow pleasure. These kinds of thoughts had been a little tempting the first time, more tempting the second time, and this time, the third time, she was finding them almost impossible to ignore. Yes— if she listened— if she gave in— there would be no more headaches— and having pleasure in her head instead of thoughts would feel better than having pain. How could she argue with that?

But I still don’t want to become like Holly! Tessi protested inside, though she protested more tiredly. I want to keep being myself for as long as I can— until I can’t anymore.

She did feel like herself in those moments where she was fighting, in those moments where she was focusing on her own principles. She felt less like herself in the moments where she was caught up in the events that were taking place inside her body— and the thoughts that were taking place inside of her head.

The fact that there were now entire moments in which she no longer felt like herself was a bad sign— proved things were going in a bad direction. She hadn’t been doing this long enough to feel as tired as she did— if she was already this tired, with hardly anything to show for it, how was she ever going to get the rest of the way through these six tests? She had only newly started on the third one— and if she had three more after those— or more than that—

She was starting to worry again about the impossibility of her task. That made her feel like she wasn’t herself. It was the opposite of how she felt in those moments where she was holding onto her identity.

She reiterated her principles inside briefly. I won’t, I won’t, I swear I won’t— that made her feel more normal. But she was finding it much harder, this third time, to keep fighting, then she had found it either of the earlier two. She could feel tears pricking her eyes. She had not yet been reduced to wailing and pleading— but like the tiredness had come, after her second-round expectation— perhaps the wailing would come after her third-round expectation, even though she was only forming that expectation now.

“Why,” she said weakly. “Why do you have to keep doing it to me over and over? Why can’t you— just give up— it that I’m— as stubborn as the creature you de-domed— and stop?” The scientist’s eyes widened. “The creature I what? De-domed? I suppose I did do that to her skull— that’s accurate nomenclature. Perhaps I’ll— start referring to her that way myself.”

So Tessi would have to see that nightmare play out— see him co-opt some of her own language. There were so many worse things going on that she couldn’t even really get upset about that. And even if there had been nothing else to distract her, she was approaching a level of exhaustion, from all this struggling, which would have rendered her incapable of caring regardless.

“Anyway,” the scientist said. He was playing with both of Tessi’s breasts as he did. “I already gave you all the explanations you need. This is simply a test to me. I must be rigorous in my methods— and if you can’t even reach the threshold set by the last test-subject who got as far as you, then that’s your problem. If you could last six rounds, then I might give you a different outcome. I might stop at six, or I might keep pushing you to see how far past six you could last— in either case, at that threshold and above it, I’d let you be something different, something more than a sex-moron. But you have to get to that threshold first, and I’ll be honest, Tessi. I don’t think you’re going to make it.”

She didn’t think she could last for three more rounds after this, either. She wasn’t even sure that she could last one more round. And her emotions were starting to get the better of her now— they hadn’t even entered the fourth round yet, but Tessi felt she was already becoming a bit hysterical. “You just— want to force me to be a sex-moron! That’s why you’re doing this! Everything else you’re saying is lies! You’ve just already made up your mind on what you want to do to me, what fate you want to see befall me! That’s why! You’re doing it because you’ve already decided—!”

The scientist laughed, and shook his head. “I already told you, Tessi. This is not personal for me. I have to keep giving you the test until you either fail it, or do at least as well as the only person who’s ever ed it. Which means you have three and a half more rounds to go— if you can make it.” Tessi let out a shriek of frustration. Her pleasure was howling inside of her— and the thoughts encouraged by it were a din inside her brain. She didn’t want to talk to the scientist anymore— she already regretted speaking with him for so long.

She struggled against the pleasure. Everything that argued against her inside her own head— everything her body was trying to encourage her to do— all of it was wearing on her. She just… had to hold out. She had to what the cost of failure was going to be. If she failed— she’d become just like those… other things. Those running, sex-obsessed things. She’d become just as stupid and brainless as they were. And her personality would be eradicated. She didn’t want any of that to happen— but that was what would happen if she failed in her aim. There was no chance of becoming one of the chrome-clad things. She ed how the scientist had described the process that created them. They started to fall into the pleasure, but then they fought against it all the way down. She wouldn’t have that kind of response, if she gave in. If she gave in— she would not say “when,” — she would give in completely, and there would be nothing left inside which she could use to prop herself up in her fight. She would be like Holly— she would collapse immediately. So either she was going to hold out through three more rounds of this— or she was going to give in, and then collapse— and then become a sex-obsessed fool, without a brain or a capacity to reason. That was the cost of failure— she just had to keep reminding herself of that.

The cream wore off a third time— and as soon as it had worn off, the scientist applied the fourth coat of it. That meant she was in the fourth round now. And just feeling this new round begin pushed Tessi into a pit of despair. This was only the fourth round— and she was supposed to go two more times after this? Possibly more after that? How was she ever going to summon the energy for that? How was she ever going to pull it off?

The garbage she was being forced to listen to inside her head was seeping into the rest of her being, creeping up on her, surprising her in unlikely places and at unlikely moments. She couldn’t keep constant track of it— couldn’t screen every single thought and feeling she had for its influence. So it was influencing her more and more, and she was feeling less and less like herself. She could that she had to try and resist— but she was so weary that she couldn’t repeat her statements of defiance with any kind of enthusiasm. Couldn’t repeat them with enthusiasm even inside her own head, where she was the only she was speaking for.

She’d wondered in the third round if there would be wailing and pleading later. She’d wondered in the second round if there would be tiredness later— and in the third round there had been. And now— there was wailing and pleading; there was crying. Her third-round expectation had been met in the fourth round, just as her second-round expectation had been met in the third. She was crying now; the scientist was back to pleasuring her body with his hands. Stroking her pussy, sometimes slipping a few fingers into it. When he slipped his fingers inside, he pressed up into the same place, made her feel so much inward pressure— made her whole pussy seem tremble from within— and then she felt she needed to void fluid. But she’d already been squirting out fluid, so how could there still be more to void?

But there was more. This was— ridiculous. It was just too much. How could her body produce something in this quantity? She was still streaming more of it out— shaking because she was tensing as her body did its best to expel what had been called forth from it.

Tessi cried as this went on— even when she finished that particular squirt, she kept crying. And the scientist didn’t seem particularly bothered by her tears— he must have already seen the full gamut of human emotion here on his table— with his other test-subjects. Seen it and then unfeelingly marked it down in his data-log; the suffering of so many women who’d later been destroyed— had only been a data-point to him. And even Tessi’s suffering now was the same— still only a data-point to him.

Still. It was later— and she was crying now. She couldn’t hold the tears in. “Please,” she pleaded to him. “Please don’t make me be a sex-moron. Please. I don’t want to be that— I want— to retain my ability to think, I want— I want to— I want to retain at least a few vestiges of my old personality, of my old identity! Please!” She had sobbed it at him— had almost shouted at him in her vehemence, at certain moments.

But he was unperturbed. He kept playing with her pussy. His fingers were back in there, preswards— she felt the pressure once more. Really? Again? But her pussy was clenching, trying to expel— there was still more fluid inside her— and she was gushing all of it outwards again.

When she was done, the scientist smiled down on her. “That’s really up to you, Tessi. If you really want those things as much as you say— you’ll force yourself to make it through these last few rounds. You just have to make it to the end of this round— and then you have to make it through the round after that— and then the round after that—”

He knew just what to say to demoralize her. Why should that be surprising? He’d known just what to say to Holly. If he knew how to manipulate his subjects, and bring about certain emotional states in them just through use of a little influence— why should Tessi be immune to his methods? She was a subject of his, the way all his other test-subjects had been. There was nothing about her that made her special— she would only have been special if she could have made it all the way to the sixth round. And even if she had done that, her only reward would have been undergoing brain surgery and computerization.

But it disturbed her to think of what was going to happen if… or when… she failed. She would become one of those sex-obsessed fools. And there were other facets to that idea that were even more upsetting than the facets she’d already considered. She hadn’t thought of them before, but they seemed daunting and unavoidable to her now.

If she became another sex-obsessed fool— then she’d act the way they did. She’d run around among them, would fall into groups and pairs among them— would fuck among them. And to anyone observing her, she would be indistinguishable from all the others. She’d just blend in the crowd— it would be impossible to pick her out. Even people who had known her before— even people from her personal life would probably fail to recognize her if they saw her.

So it seemed to her that failing really was going to erase her out of existence forever. It would erase all traces of identity and thought inside of her— but it would also turn her into something faceless and interchangeable, and her mindless body would be lost among the throngs of the scientist’s sex-morons. So lost there that even people who’d known her wouldn’t recognize her— because the spark of humanity she’d once possessed would be gone, blown out like a candle. So lost there that strangers who saw her mindless body would think it was interchangeable with all the other fools it ran and fucked among.

If she let herself fail— if she failed now it would all be her own fault, but if she let herself fail— then her identity would almost be lost to time— would almost slip between the pages of history. Even people searching for her would find their eyes skimming over her if they saw her. So the story of her life would just be that she’d disappeared unexpectedly one day and had never been heard from since— no one would find her, and even if they did, they wouldn’t really be finding her. They’d be finding her hollowed-out shell, but nothing that belonged to her would really be left inside it.

That was everything she stood to lose— and yet— she didn’t even know if she could make it to the fifth round, anymore, let alone the sixth. The sixth round was closer to her now than it had been three rounds ago, but it seemed more impossibly far away than ever. The pleasure was just— too much— it was roaring through her like a wild flame, and she was squirming within the bands that held her, unable to stop— because it was just so much, and she needed relief. Needed relief but she was never going to get that, needed a break but she was never going to get that either— she hated the pleasure and she hated the thoughts it inspired in her mind— or injected into her mind— they weren’t really hers. She hated it. She hated everything— she’d tried talking to her tormentor twice and it had done nothing but make her feel more hopeless— what could she do here?

She was still affixed to the table, so she’d had few options to begin with, and she felt now that she’d already gone through trying most of them. She’d tried to be resolute— and that was gone now. She’d tried to resist all along— and it felt like that was going now too. She’d thought she could do this on the strength of her willpower alone, and that seemed laughable now. She’d been stupid to think she could pull this off. And she was going to be lost to time— so no one would ever know she’d had this experience— thinking that made her feel utterly alone. Which made her sob harder— for a moment she just listened to her own sobs, watched herself cry from the inside, watched this happening disionately. And focusing on that temporarily dragged her out of her thoughts.

But she cried long enough that the sobbing gave way to words again.

“Please—” she said, though this time she was not going to ask for mercy. This time, she was only going to seek comfort in a roundabout way. “Please— you have to tell me— has anyone other than the de-domed creature— ever made it to the fourth round?”

She heard a note of hope in her own voice and hated herself.

The scientist smiled at her, and thrust two fingers into her again. Her body burned hotter in response. “No, no one has ever made it to the fourth round besides her.”

She howled out another sob. “Then why doesn’t it make a difference? Why doesn’t it change anything? Why isn’t that specialness special enough to give me what I want? If four rounds is second place— then change your threshold! Say, ‘only two people have ever made it to the fourth round, so from the fourth round and up, I’ll stop my methods and manually take control of a resistant subject’s mind through computerization techniques!’ Why can’t you say that? I’ve held out for four rounds— I’m one of only two people who have ever done this. Bend the rules for me— make some changes in my favor. Please! Stop what you’re doing and— computerize me— anything, please, I don’t want to be a sex-obsessed fool!”

The scientist clucked his tongue, and shook his head. “I can’t help you there, Tessi. The threshold I’ve set is six rounds and up. I don’t make exceptions. If you really care that much, I’ve already told you what you must do— just hold out for two more rounds.”

Just. Like it was so easy. And Tessi felt the way she’d felt at other times in her life too— like someone had set an impossible, exacting standard, which was located far up above her head— and she was never going to be able to reach it no matter how hard she tried to. He had no sympathy— he was so clinically-cool; even though he was being very unethical by clinical standards, he still had a clinical approach— and Tessi would have done anything for a taste of comion at that moment. For a taste of sympathy.

But there was no one here who could offer that to her. And perhaps it was stupid of her to have wished for it. The kind of man who enjoyed dismantling women’s minds was not likely to be the kind of man who’d bend the rules for someone out of a sense of kindness. But still— if only— the threshold was too far above her for her to go up and meet it— so the only hope had been for it to come down to her level and meet her— but that was impossible.

The fourth application of cream wore off too.

“Just two more rounds, Tessi,” the scientist said brightly. He kept one hand in her pussy, and put the other in the jar of cream— then he began spreading it on her as he continued to finger her vagina. His fingers were inside again— he made her squirt again— that only seemed to exhaust her more.

Her body finished squirting yet again, and Tessi flopped a little harder against the table.

Just two more rounds— he knew exactly how to demoralize her. He’d spoken demoralization to her as he’d spoken it to Holly what seemed like hours ago now. And Tessi thought she’d learned nothing from Holly— Tessi thought that all her struggling had been for nothing. Because she just— couldn’t— the pleasure was burning hotter than it had ever burned, and the thoughts in her head which demanded that she give in were practically screaming between her ears. It was too much— she couldn’t.

So instead, she gave in. It happened the way she’d predicted it might. Her giving in was just a collapse— a complete falling apart. And she felt the pleasure swallowing up what she’d dropped— taking over what she’d abandoned— swallowing up her mind, swallowing up everything she’d ever been or tried to be or hoped to be. Her intelligence was draining from her by the second— it was a steep fall, but plummeting down that way was so quick.

She had already given in— she had already collapsed. And she could feel what was happening to her because of it— along with everything else that was changing inside of her, she was panicking now. She wanted to take it back. She’d made a gigantic mistake— she’d made a terrible decision. She’d done this only in her immediate past, but in doing so she had doomed her future— she had made everything so terrible that it would never be okay again, and everything was just going to go on the same way, go on and on and never get better. This was just what existence was going to be like, from now on.

She tried to start thinking— just to prove she could still do it. Everything had already changed so much, but surely at least this would be the same. Wouldn’t it? I can think. I can think even though it’s so much effort to think and I’d rather not bother. I can prove it just to prove that I’m doing it. I can do it even though it feels like there’s a block of pain sitting inside my skull that I can’t navigate around or get thoughts past. I can think. Look. I can think, I’m doing it now.

But other things were happening in her body too besides thoughts. The pleasure was still in there. It was still happening there— she felt it in her body. But it was different now. She had cum several times before, while she’d been undergoing testing— while the scientist had been relentlessly working her. And that pleasure had felt different than the kind she was getting now. Then, no matter what pleasure she’d gotten, no matter how much she’d felt, it had just kept working her up and up and up, and it had never truly been satisfying.

The pleasure now felt like a celebration. Or, rather, the pleasure itself was a sentient thing, and it was throwing a party for itself in her body. It was just propagating itself— going on and on in an orgasm that didn’t seem to stop. And this wasn’t the kind of orgasm that demanded another follow it— this was the kind of orgasm that was complete unto itself, the kind that filled her so completely she couldn’t imagine ever being dissatisfied again.

The pleasure was celebrating itself in her body— at least something was having a good time— she wasn’t. She was, if she only focused on those sensations. But if she focused on the part of her that was still her— the feelings there were much less cheery. The pleasure made her body feel great— but it strengthened the block of pain that was sitting in her mind, making it harder and harder to think. That made her feel the pain more sharply there.

She was overwhelmed by all that happened inside her— contradictory things were fighting each other there. But she still noticed when the scientist lowered his hand— presumably to press a button underneath the table, like that very first chrome-clad thing had done all that time ago.

And in response to his pressing that button— all the bands that were holding her body opened, and retracted into the table. The head- beneath her head did the same— so she was lying flat against the table’s surface, with her body unrestricted— totally free where she lay.

There was nothing the scientist could have done instead which would have made her despair more fully. He had released her because it didn’t matter where she went now— she could get up and run, and it still wouldn’t mean she could escape. The change had happened inside her— because of that terrible decision she’d made, that horrible mistake. She’d given into the pleasure— and set off that consequence-loop. Her mind had ed that she was going along with the pleasure— and the cream was still in her body— which meant her reaction was going to echo off of itself now until she’d become one of those sex-obsessed fools— until she’d become just like the rest. The scientist had released her body because her mind had already been conquered— and her body was soon going to follow. This reminded her that the decision she’d made had been irreversible. Thus— despair.

She had to keep trying to think. It was the only thing that distracted her from the rest of what was going on inside her body. I… can think. I can think… this… like… think thinky… like thinky… thinky thing… What was that? She’d started trailing off— into nonsense. And what was happening with her body? It felt like the pleasure was coalescing inside of her, coalescing in certain places— and in those places it coalesced, it was making changes. Her breasts felt so good that— they seemed to grow, slightly. The pleasure was even coalescing in her ass— that was growing, too.

She had— to keep thinking. It was so hard to concentrate— it was almost impossible to concentrate. But she had to push through it. Push through it. Push pushy pushy through it— pushy pussy— pussy— pussy pleasure—

She’d started sliding towards gibberish again? Why did that keep happening? The more pleasure there was in her, the foggier her thoughts seemed to become. The foggier, and the more distorted… she had to… still think… had to… still try…

Why couldn’t it be over already? There’d be some relief— once she was a sex-obsessed fool— she wouldn’t have any thoughts left— nor negative emotions, either— and then at least she wouldn’t have to feel the way she did now: trapped between two states. But her anguish made her want to hide within the pleasure— even though that meant snuffing her thoughts out with it— if she focused on that it was a distraction, even if it was a distraction that erased her. She focused on the pleasure— her mind further clouded over— and then more pleasure coalesced in her breasts, and they grew. And more pleasure coalesced in her ass, and that grew too.

She tried thinking again. So… hard to… oooh ooohh ohhhh… so hard t— t— t’ think… t’ think… tuh tuh… tuh tuh… duh duh… duh duh…

What was happening? Why did it keep happening? Why were her thoughts devolving into sounds? Why did her breasts feel so heavy on her chest? Why did her ass feel so swollen below her body? Why was she jutting so far up off of the table, like someone had rolled a ball under hips so that she couldn’t be properly flush up against it? Why? Why couldn’t she seem to understand anything? She’d once understood the world so well…

So much pleasure in her now, though… glowing in her breasts… glowing in her ass… glowing in her pussy. When it coalesced in her pussy, it seemed to make the hair melt off of it… made it hairless… that was better… she was just a dumb whore and so she needed a hairless pussy… and the fact that she could still think of herself at all, even if she could on do so derogatorily, proved how much further she still had to fall. But she also liked what was happening to her… it was nice to feel so much of her body glowing.

What was happening to me… happening to me… happy me… happ happ happ me! Happ me habby blah blah gah… gah guh…. huh— how—

She was starting to lose other things now, other parts of her— the pleasure was burning things out of her— it burned her mind, and the confusion it put out in response was really like the smoke that was coming up off of a fire— and things had been thrown on the fire— things had been thrown onto the fire to burn, and when they burned they created that smoke. The memories of her old life had just gone onto it— all the people she had known— all the people she’d loved— her more general life-history, places she had worked, hobbies she had once entertained herself with.

And other memories, too— her memory of this day— where she had been before she’d showed up at this scientist’s lab— and even what had happened her since she’d entered the lab— right down to the moment she’d collapsed— her first memory now was the first moment after collapse, the first moment in which she’d started to panic— in which she’d felt the changes starting in her. She’d known what they meant, once— what context they were happening in, but that was all part of what was burning. That was all smoke now— it was becoming even harder to locate herself in time, and in context— she didn’t know how she’d gotten here— who she’d been before— that made her confusion intensify. And when her confusion intensified, she ran to the pleasure for comfort. But when the pleasure increased, the size of her breasts did too— and the size of her ass— and the puffiness of her labia— so much pleasure but so much confusion— and so much fire, and so much smoke.

There was a reason she had to keep thinking. There was a reason that it was important to try— but she didn’t know what that reason was anymore. There had been something in her mind before— a block of something— that seemed to be gone now. The pleasure was just sitting there like a thick thing, taking up all the space. A thick and heavy thing— just crowding out everything else— but there was still a reason— a reason why stringing a line of thought together was important— a reason why it should happen.

It felt like she was living in her own little world, now. She was living in her own little world and that world had come untethered from reality and it could never be reed to it— it had drifted free. There was no getting back to how things had been before— the path she’d been on that had led her here— had been kicked out behind her.

Still she— had to try forming a thought. She would… she’d do it… now… it was so hard but she would do it… now…

Ah gah, ah gaaaaaaaaaaaa gah gah gaaaaa gaaaa gooo…. gooo gah guh geeeee gah gaaaaaaaaa…

She moved her hands up, took hold of the huge pair of tits that was now sitting on her chest— she started moving her hands up and down, up and down, making her tits bob back and forth— she started squirming around on her ass, felt her asscheeks rolling behind her— they were so huge and full that they’d propped her hips up high in the air— and she felt arousal streaming out of her, running down her pussy-slit— and then running down her ass-crack… she should have some opinion on this… there must be something left to think… more words to say… but when she tried again— ooyyy oyy ohh oy geee gah… gag gluk gleeeee glut gla babba bagaaa badda teeee tuutttt tooo taaa...

She started laughing, and couldn’t stop. But she was still thinking of herself as a “she,” so that meant there was still something left… some lingering fragment of identity… it all had to go. She believed that now. The pleasure was the most important thing… it needed to be given free rein inside her— which meant she had to be empty. There wasn’t room for anything else in her besides the pleasure— the rest had to be cleared out so the pleasure could fill all her available space— so there wouldn’t even be one spot left inside of her that it had been barred from.

She thought the gibberish on purpose now. Ahh hee ho hooo haggg geeeahh quh— quh— quig— ack ack— sssssssss— ssssssss—

And her body felt so good— she’d lost track of her orgasm for a long time, there, but she caught back up with it now. She was aware of it again. It had been happening all the time, but it had faded to the background. Now it had returned to the forefront— she was cumming— and cumming— and cumming so hard that— yes— she was starting to squirt again.

This was the biggest squirt that she’d produced so far. It was coming out of her in a thick stream— and all the time her body was trembling in pleasure— and her squirt was streaming out of her— and her body was trembling— it was the best thing she’d ever felt.

She couldn’t even think of gibberish syllables anymore— her head was empty. And then— the sex-moron thought— that it wasn’t a she— it was an it— a thing— and then it couldn’t think at all.

The sex-moron giggled; its eyes rolled up into its head, and then down again, and then back up. Drool was pouring freely out of its mouth— it had no ability to control this, apparently. Nothing was trapping it there, so it climbed off the table. In the first moment that it stood freely, both its breasts and its ass jiggled ridiculously in response to gravity. The sex-moron kept drooling. Its eyes rolled up and then down again.

Then the sex-moron began running around with the others, just as naked as they were, indistinguishable from them. It fell into a group of three, all three of them fucking and playing and cumming, where they had fallen near the front of the lab.

And the sex-moron was so dumb that they didn’t even realize time had stopped for them— that they were caught fucking those two other specimens of their kind— that they were experiencing the same moment over and over, and their body was solidifying, turning them into just one more wax-figure.

Tessi had ed the last exhibit— and as she stilled in place in that final exhibit, the curator looked up eagerly at the light-s above the opening in the wall— both light-s that had been illuminated red darkened, and the two light-s that had been darkened lit up green. The empty exhibit had been completed— but that also meant the museum’s entire collection had been completed as a whole.

The curator let out a cheer of joy— he could feel a great shudder moving through the building— and then all the exhibit openings started to glow purple.

Then the figures within the exhibits began moving— they all started climbing out through the openings, and when they crossed through those purple portals, they stepped out into the museum— and then they were real in this world, instead of the worlds they had all come from.

The new sex-moron made it out of the museum, and went down an alley. There was a man there— the sex-moron wasted no time in stripping his clothes and pulling him down to the ground. Then it straddled his cock, and started bouncing in place, riding and riding as the man cried out in response to that relentless overwhelming pleasure.

The bimbo from the meadow made it out of the museum too. She stopped two men who were walking together and took them both out of their pants— stroking one off with her hand while she sucked the other with her mouth.

The newly-made vampire also left the museum— she didn’t keep track of where her creator went off to, and she didn’t much care. She was new, and she was thirsty— she blended into various crowds for a while until she spotted a man she liked— a man who looked tasty. It felt new to her, but she cast out her thrall to him— sent the thought to him that he wanted to break away from the crowd, go somewhere out of the way. He had no capacity to resist her— he wandered into an abandoned building. She followed him there— made him strip for her, made him come over to her and enter her— fuck her as she bit into him— but she wouldn’t make him a vampire as her creator had done to her. She just drank him as he rode her. She would drink him until he died.

The braindead thrall left the museum with a group of other thralls. None of them thought— but they were all dedicated to their mission. They would corner a group of victims and keep them there— until Felicity came.

The sperm-splattered bimbo left too— she also found a man to fuck— she made him shoot all over her instead of cumming inside.

Back at the museum, the curator watched with satisfaction as the rest of the exhibits emptied, and their figures shambled off to begin wreaking their havoc out in the world they’d now successfully invaded.