A Serpent in Paradise Ch. 01

*****

Some of the things Katya did in completing her mission for Albrecht Haller were distinctly dangerous. This terrified the Katie part of her, while Natalia found it exciting and, overall, Katya was succeeding in approaching in a coolly professional way. This reflected the fact that she no longer suffered from any indecision caused by a split personality. It was more the case that Katie was the 'angel' urging her to caution and moderation, Natalia the 'devil' advocating daring action, but Katya could take or leave their advice, weighing things and selecting the most appropriate course of action.

She had developed a formidable ability to assess a situation and act on it almost instantly and without hesitation. Her physical skills had progressed along with her mental attributes, and she had maintained her regime of exercise for fitness, unarmed combat training and weapons practice.

Haller had helped with the latter. It was essentially impossible for a private individual to legally own a handgun in the UK but for the mission she was on tonight Katya was carrying an AMT Backup .45 Autoloader, a small easily-concealable weapon of limited range and power, but still deadly if you knew how to use it well; which she did. It was true the 'legally owned' part was questionable, but that was where having a billionaire backer was useful, and the gun was necessary; her information was that the people she was going up against would be armed.

Most of her work for Haller had not been this dangerous. Her mentor possessed a list of all the people to whom Geoff Mills had sold his mind control method, which Katya suspected he had been given him by British Intelligence as part of some sort of private arrangement. She didn't know any of the details really, but she had gathered the intelligence agencies had been involved with Mills as one point and were probably happy to let Haller clear up the mess that had resulted. And in turn the German businessman had given her the job.

Haller had asked her to check all Mills' contacts and, if necessary, take action. The latter really only applied where there were stocks of Mills' drugs that might be used to create new victims. Mostly this was not the case. Generally people had bought from Mills for a specific reason and with that fulfilled they had no further interest in mind controlling anyone. In a couple of cases Katya had been able to pass anonymous information to the police on that had led to arrests for fraud and abduction respectively, but in others it had been best to let matters rest as they were.

One of the latter examples that still rankled with Katya was the case of Jacob Garner, who had a sex-slave called Lauren. By all accounts, Garner was not a very nice man and Katya had been itching to free the girl, but Haller had forbidden it. Garner possessed no further amounts of the drug, so presented no future risk and as Lauren was enslaved then removing her master would not actually help her; indeed it could be dangerous.

Katya had had to be content with confronting Jacob Garner and terrifying him into treating the girl better. She had told him that unless he did so, she would inform the police of what he had done, but only after she had kicked the shit out of him first. He had seemed convinced; Katya could be very persuasive when she chose. She planned to keep an eye on the situation and if Lauren's treatment didn't improve, she had every intention of carrying out her threat.

However, tonight's mission was in a different league altogether. One of Geoff Mill's more despicable acts had been to sell his mind control method to a London gangster whose plan had been to use it in the course of human trafficking. Fortunately, Geoff's client had been killed in a gangland feud before anything could be made of the plan, but recently Haller's intelligence had indicated that the stock of drugs and the information on how to use them had fallen into the wrong hands and the plan had been revived.

This was unacceptable to Albrecht Haller because it risked exposure of the secrets of mind-control to the world. It was just as unacceptable to Katya for altogether less cynical and more altruistic reasons and, either way, she was here to stop it, once and for all.

The plan was simple enough, Katya would break in to the place the drugs were stored, remove all evidence of their existence and then summon the police who would arrest the gang. There would be plenty of evidence of their involvement in people trafficking, enough to send them to prison for years, without any need for anyone to consider mind control being involved.

The location of the criminal operation was an unremarkable warehouse on an industrial estate in London suburbia, and at one o'clock in the morning the estate was largely deserted. Katya had conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the area by daylight and had carefully planned her route of entry through a rear door. It was locked, but that was irrelevant since she had a key; the warehouse was rented and a hefty bribe to an employee of the rental company had secured her a copy. Haller would be paying her expenses.

Katya was dressed all in black, even to the point of wearing a hooded mask, and she was as stealthy as a cat. She moved swiftly and silently along a back alley to the door. The key worked perfectly and she was inside in seconds. The room immediately the other side of the door was empty of anything save some non-descript cardboard boxes, but next to it was an office. A light was on and she saw movement; it seemed the warehouse was, as she had expected, guarded. But this was a criminal gang, not a military unit, and the sentry never saw what hit him.

Her assault was swift and effective and in seconds the guard was on the ground, breathless. Katya had hit him with an extendible steel baton which she carried for just such occasions. In under a minute, he was handcuffed hand and foot and gagged with tape, all of which she had brought for just such a purpose. Katya searched him. He had no gun but carried a knife, which took to a window, opened it, and dropped into the alleyway outside. Then she dragged the still dazed guard to a radiator and handcuffed him to it. He wouldn't be going anywhere before the police arrived.

A door from the office led into the main warehouse space. Immediately to her left she saw what she had come for. It was a crate she recognised; the sort in which Geoff Mills supplied his drugs. The crate would hold 48 bottles, exactly what the records stated Mills had supplied. That, used efficiently, was enough to permanently enslave almost 150 people; a horrific thought when it was in the hands of these criminals.

Katya was too cautious to immediately start loading the bottles into the backpack she had brought for that purpose. It was possible that there might be more than one guard here and she needed to ensure she had the place to herself before removing the evidence. However, the crate was open so she quietly moved over to it, just to check the identification. One glance told her that she was correct; it was certainly Mills' drug. But it also told her that there were three bottles missing. It seemed the gang had been experimenting or perhaps they had already begun their evil work.

Silently Katya padded through the warehouse. Because of the space occupied by the rooms where she had entered, the main area made a sort of 'L' shape and it was only as she rounded the corner that she saw what else was kept here and found she was not alone. There were three metal cages and in each was a young woman; early 20's maybe. Of more immediate concern was the burly man who was busy unlocking the door of one cage.

Katya realised she needed to act immediately. She drew her pistol but did not use it, instead transferring it to her left hand; she thought that with any luck she could disable her opponent with the baton, just as she had the other man. This one was considerably bigger than her, but she was well trained and had the advantage of surprise.

Katya moved swiftly but silently toward him from behind. It was girl in the cage next to the one the man was opening that gave her away. Seeing the black clad figure approaching, she gave a yelp of surprise. The man half turned to see what had caused her to cry out. As a result, the blow Katya had aimed at her opponent's head only caught him across the left arm, although that was still enough to make him to cry out in pain.

Now he had turned, Katya recognised the man. It was Ricky Moran, the gang boss himself, a man with a long history of criminal brutality. Certainly guilty of murder, although there has never been enough evidence to convict, there was no doubt he had ordered the deaths of many others. Still, even now, Katya thought she could take him; he was big, but slower than her and he was still surprised. But then he did something that changed her calculations.

She realised that he was drawing a gun from his pocket, an automatic of some sort but much heavier than hers, and she knew for a certainty that when he was ready he would shoot to kill. Her life directly threatened, Katya didn't hesitate. Even left-handed she wasn't going to miss from that range. She brought up her pistol and fired one shot, aimed for the head; Moran was dead before he hit the ground.

So, Katya thought, finally it had happened; she had killed someone. Natalia, the would-be vampire, was predictably delighted, but, surprisingly, innocent Katie did not object either. True, she was horrified to take a life, but it had been self-defence and Moran had been a truly evil man. They had just saved not only their own life but those of all his future victims.

Katya became aware of screaming. It was the same girl who had inadvertently warned Moran of her approach. The other girl sat huddled in her cage even though the door was open, obviously in shock. Oddly enough, the third one had scarcely reacted at all. 'Damn' thought Katya, 'more complications'. Still, it was just as well she was masked; at least they hadn't seen her face and couldn't identify her. She picked up the keys and relocked the first girl in her cage.

"Listen, you two," she said, "the police will be here soon and they'll free you. Now try and shut-up. I don't expect you to be grateful but I've just saved you from a very unpleasant fate." Katya surmised that neither was British -- possibly eastern European from the accidents -- but she thought they had at least caught the gist of what she was telling them.

The third girl worried her. She was still sitting docilely in her cage, seemingly indifferent to the drama around her. Katya had a horrible suspicion she knew why; the signs were all too familiar. She used Moran's keys to unlock the cage door. The girl continued to sit.

"I am your new Mistress," Katya said, "Tell me your name and age."

Given an order the girl at once responded. "Yes Mistress. My name is Olivia Hammond and I'm 21."

It was all Katya needed to know. The girl had been mind-controlled. She couldn't leave her here to be found by the police. "Very well, Olivia. You will come with me."

"Yes, Mistress."

"And since you're here, you may as well help. Take this backpack and start packing the bottles from that crate into it."

"Yes, Mistress," Olivia sounded content, happy to be given orders to obey.

Katya sighed to herself. This was all she needed. Tonight she had taken a human life and, even when it was as worthless a one as Ricky Moran's, that was still a big deal. And now she had another drug addled slave to look after. Life never seemed to get any more straightforward.

*****

Fortunately, the rest of Katya's operation went according to plan. She and Olivia departed with the stock of Geoff Mills' mind-controlling formula and half an hour later the police arrived to discover the corpse of a notorious gang leader, a trussed-up thug, and two, by that point rather hysterical, young women trafficked from Romania. The gang was shattered and the murder investigation into Moran's death eventually came to nothing, the police concluding some months later that it was a professional hit, probably the result of some gangland feud.

When Katya got back to her London flat early that morning she had stashed Mills' drugs in her wardrobe, told Olivia to sleep on the sofa, and slumped into her bed. That night it was Stephen's turn to share it, but he was asleep and she didn't wake him. The night had taken it out of her and she needed some rest.

Much later that morning, Katya was the last up. She shared her flat with her two lovers, Stephen Jones and Stacey Denby. They both adored her, and Katya was the first to agree that Stephen was the finest male lover she had ever had and Stacey the sweetest and most passionate of girls. But for all that, there remained the fact they were also her mind-controlled slaves. In theory Katya opposed slavery, and she had to acknowledge her own hypocrisy in that respect.

Knowing she was tired, Stephen and Stacey had let her sleep in but when she finally did leave her bed to discover what might be available for breakfast, she found the pair sat in the small kitchen-diner seemingly fascinated by Olivia. As Katya entered, Stacey looked up and said, "Olivia says that you are her Mistress. Are we going to be allowed to keep her?" The red-headed twenty-year-old sounded excited by the prospect.

"Err ... umm ... I don't know. I haven't decided what to do," answered Katya, somewhat grumpily.

"Oh, Mistress, please let Olivia say. You ought to have a larger harem. Stephen and I are proud to serve you, but you deserve so much more," Stacey gushed.

"Oh, shut up Stacey. I don't even know who she is yet," said her Mistress. "I guess it's time we found out."

And so at Katya's instruction, Olivia told them. It seemed she had been unlucky to fall into the hands of Moran's gang. Like so many young women, it had been a man -- her boyfriend -- who had been her downfall. She was a third-year student from a nice but dull middle-class family. The boyfriend she had made at university introduced her to drugs. It hadn't appealed much to her -- she had smoked some weed, taken a few pills, but never got hooked on anything.

Her boyfriend was different and his various habits had got him deeper and deeper into debt with some very bad people and finally, in desperation, he had sold out his girlfriend to pay back what he owed. He had taken Olivia to a house she had never previously been to and left her there. Shortly after, some of Moran's people had arrived and taken her away.

Once at the warehouse, she had been imprisoned, but fed and given drinks. Moran had talked to her and pretty soon she had realised that he was a wonderful man and she should obey him in every way. She had immediately let him fuck her, in any way he wanted. Katya recognised the pattern; after all much the same had been done to her. Olivia had been drugged and subliminally controlled through ultrasound frequencies in line with Geoff Mills' method, until she was under the mental control of Moran.

Katya had the satisfaction of knowing she had already ensured that he would not do the same to anyone else. This was something she was increasingly comfortable with, given Olivia's story. But also she decided she would pay Olivia's ex-boyfriend a visit sometime and ensure, in a less terminal way, that he understood her displeasure at his behaviour.

However, the problem of the girl remained. She could not be allowed to end up in the hands of the authorities, leading to a lot of complex questions. Nor was Olivia safe in herself; it was hard to break the control once established and anyone trying would go through a lot of mental anguish. Katya knew that only too well from personal experience. In short, there really was only one answer.

Katya looked Olivia in the eyes to get her full attention and said: "You can stay here with us. I'll ensure you make contact with your family and you can finish your college work, but this is now your home until I can find a better answer. I am your Mistress and you will be fulfilled by obeying me." Olivia gave a beaming smile and Stacey a yelp of delight.

*****

It was two months later. When the phone rang Katya ignored it; some things just can't be interrupted and this was one of them. She was naked on her Emperor sized bed -- plenty of room was desirable when you owned a harem. Katie had started with a reasonably fit young body, but two years of hard training by Katya had turned into a superb instrument, strong without being overly muscular and every part finely tuned, and currently that body was being pleasured by all three of her lovers at once; the feeling was sublime.

Katya was lying on her side. Her male slave, Steve, was behind her, his hands wandering over her torso and legs as his fine, hard cock thrust gently in and out of her delighted cunt, not fucking her hard, but letting the pleasure build. Her newest concubine, Olivia, was between her legs, doubtless getting a close-up view of Katya being fucked when she took a momentary breather from tonguing her beloved Mistress' labia and clitoris.

The red-headed Stacey was thoroughly enjoying watching her fellow slaves service their Mistress and had joined in by caressing Katya's breasts and licking and sucking her nipples.

It was fully forty minutes later before Katya was free to check on who had phoned, in which time she had enjoyed two shattering orgasms and Steve had cum inside her, before Olivia had cleaned them both up with her tongue. Katya left Steve lying on the bed casually watching Stacey and Olivia locked in sixty-nine as each sought her own and her harem sister's climax.

When she realised the call was from Albrecht Haller Katya immediately forgot about her lovers. Some things were more important. She returned the call, and was swiftly put through to her employer.

"I apologise for not taking your call earlier Herr Haller ..." she began.

"I do understand Ms Wade. I imagine the latest addition to your household must be proving distracting." 'Damn it', Katya thought, 'how does he always know these things'. She had informed Haller how the raid on Moran's warehouse had gone, but not that she had let Olivia stay.

"However, my call is rather urgent and I will be requiring your assistance. It concerns Geoff Mills."

"Really," said Katya is some surprise. She had met Mills once and was more than a little ashamed of what had happened. She had slept with him and he hadn't needed mind-control to make that happen. He had a domineering way to him she had found oddly attractive and exciting. However, she also knew Haller had Mills safely locked away where he could do no harm. "What's he done now?"

"I'm afraid I have made a mistake, Ms Wade. I underestimated Mr Mills. He has escaped. I will need your considerable skills to help track him down before something terrible happens."

Part 3 -- Matthew Mitchell

Matthew Mitchell was in London, partly on business but mostly planning his wedding to his fiancée, Svetlana (Lana) Bondarenko, when the world -- indeed the paradise -- he had constructed so carefully for himself began to unravel. For the most part his harem of nine hot mind-controlled women was scattered round the globe; only his indispensable PA, Georgia Harding, was actually with him.

Tasha Jones, Ilse Hoffmann, Kanako Yoshida and Nicoleta (Niki) Paulescu were at the properties they managed for Matt in the Caribbean, Tuscany, Hokkaido and the Carpathian mountains of Romania respectively. His Head of Marketing, Megan Cook, was in New York working on his business interests. Blonde Australian Millie Parsons was on leave of absence from her normal post in Fiji, backpacking her way around Europe; Matt had last heard from her in Amsterdam.

His fiancée was in Romania with Niki. Matt was planning to hold the wedding at his castle there. It was close enough to Lana's home in Lviv for her friends and family to attend and once the wedding was over and the guests departed, he and his harem would be free to celebrate in style.