Bread and Honey

Rich raised his hands in the air." Be my guest."

Joe was the nearest thing Rich had found to a friend in the year he'd been here. But he really didn't know very much about him. There seemed to be an unwritten law in Hive not to talk about your past life.

As Joe worked on Rich's laptop with a screwdriver, he spoke to him." You know, it's not cool that you get so stressed. It's not Hive, man. We came here to get away from that shit."

Rich exhaled." Yeah, yeah. You're right. It's this fucking job. I'm dealing with the outside all the time, with banks, lawyers, I'm half in half out the whole time."

"You and me both, man."

"You? When do you have to deal with outside the Hive?"

Joe eyed him, deciding whether he could take him into his confidence, but said nothing.

He put down the screwdriver." Hey. Wanna get high?"

"What? Is it fixed?"

"No, but it's a small job. Wanna get high though?"

"I don't think it's allowed."

"Sure it is. The Queen's cool. She knows the difference between the bad drugs and the good drugs. Coke, chemical stuff, alcohol is out. All the addictive shit. But weed is cool. I have a worker grow it for me, over by the river."

Rich hadn't smoked weed since he was a student." Okay, let's get high. But you will fix my keyboard after? I mean you won't get too stoned?"

"Hey, look at me. What do ya think?"

Rich looked at him. He was a cross between Jerry Garcia and Hagrid." We'll find out, I guess."

The weed felt strong, maybe because Rich hadn't smoked it in so long. The back of his neck felt numb, and the windows seemed to be made of honey. He laughed at the funny honey windows.

Joe sipped on the last of a roach, held the hot smoke in." So, what are you in for?"

Rich laughed." Murder. Isn't everybody?"

"Murder? I guess so. No, really, what got you in here? Drugs? Because you don't look the 'back to nature' type."

"Sex. I had a sex addiction."

"Me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. So I figured I was either going to end my days in San Quentin, or here."

Joe and Rich sat, idly, each lost in their own stoned thoughts. Joe decided to tell Rich more about himself, although Rich hadn't asked him.

"Yeah, man. Chicks... You don't feel it, man, because you're a guy and you're straight, but I have this magnetism."

Joe checked to see whether Rich thought this amusing, but Rich was staring vacantly at the corner of desk through red, heavy-lidded eyes.

"Mainly little chicks, who like a big guy, a guy who knows how to dominate them. Sometimes I don't know who was dominating who. There was this one girl, Lara. She was always pushing me to take it further. She liked it when I slapped her ass, real hard. You know, big red hand-shapes on her ass. Then she got so she started begging me to slap her face.

Rich stirred." And did you?"

"That was just the start of it, man. It got real dark. I cut her titty with a razor blade once. I was doing coke off of it. Blood everywhere. I freaked, but she fucking loved it man.

"I kept her locked her up the basement of my place. Jesus H Christ if the neighbours knew... I'd take her dog food, and she had eat to eat it out of a dog dish on the floor, same as my dog did.

"I'd watch TV and strum my Strat, and she'd be on all fours, with my dick in her mouth. The whole fucking night. I'd wake up in the morning, and she'd still be down there with her head in my crotch, sleeping,, with my dick still in her mouth. A big mess of her drool and my joy-juice, all over the floor. She got more of a kick out of it than me.

"After a while, I got bored with her and threw her out. I drove her all the way to her parents place in Austin and just threw her out the car outside their house, and drove home.

"But even though I got rid of her, I musta somehow got this reputation, ya know? This aura, that chicks who were into that just latched on to.

"One time, three girls came over to my place, groupies from the band I was working for at the time. They got naked, lay down on the floor in a row like three sardines, and you know what they wanted?

Rich stirred." Er, no. I don't think so..."

"They wanted me to piss on them. Piss in their mouths, piss all over them. Some kind of fucked up bet, or I don't know.

"I hope you'd had a few beers..."

"You bet. So I peed on them. Then one of them begged me to take a dump in her mouth. That was it. That was fucking IT, man.

"Too far?"

"I realised I was just outa control. I'm telling ya, I was pretty close to blowing my brains out. I knew a musician. A pretty big name, I don't want to tell you, you'll call me a namedropper. But he told me about Our Queen here. So I saw her. And brrrrp! Just like that, she fixed my head.

"But after that, you felt empty, right."

"Right. Yes indeed, you know what I'm talking about. Empty. So I checked in here. And liked it. In fact I love it here, man."

"What did you think of The Queen? I mean when you saw her?"

"She was five fucking aces. I thought at first she was a dyke, because I felt nothing from her, you know, sexually. But now I know it's because she's just beyond it man. She's up there." Joe stretched an arm up.

"Yeah, she's up there, all right."

There was a lull, while The Queen floated in their stoned brains, up there.

"Wanna see how lucky you and me are to be here?"

Joe heaved himself out of his seat." C'mon. Take a look."

Rich followed him into the next room. The control room, where only Joe was allowed. He had an array of four giant monitors on his desk.

Joe tapped rapidly on the keyboard." Check this shit."

And then Rich saw them, through the webcams the Hive had installed in their squalid little apartments, all the honeybees, all the slaves, in their little cells, all round the world, buzzing, buzzing, making all that honey for The Hive.

Joe walked out of the room." Hey, Joe, where are you going? How do I get rid of this on the screen? Man I feel sick. Joe? FIVE!"

"Gimme five minutes. I'm just fixing your keyboard. Keep looking if ya like. Those are the guys who pay for all this shit."

The Pretender

Cat typed rapidly, with two thumbs, on her iPhone.

"outside lee sanders house nobody here and no doorbell wtf pls let her know im here"

She ran through her cover story again in her head. She wondered whether Lee had bought it; from what Cat knew of her, probably not -- Joanne had spoken of Lee as though she were some kind of goddess, rather than a psychotherapist.

Cat edited the message before sending it to Lee's office in Los Angeles, deleting the "wtf" as it was too un-"nun-like". Thank God her appointment was in the evening, when hopefully there would be someone in the LA office at that time to receive it.

While she stood in the street, waiting for a reply from the office, she checked out her blog "CATS TALES" for new comments. Only five in the last hour. Just wait till her next post.

A slender, athletic girl in Lycra riding gear rode up on a bicycle. She dismounted, right by Cat. She removed her sunglasses and helmet. She wasn't a girl.

"Hi!" Said Cat, slightly taken aback at the unexpectedly youthful looking Lee. Cat had seen images of her on her web site, and while she had found her very attractive, she certainly didn't expect her be so, so hot as she looked in real life.

"Hello, you're Catherine! I'm so sorry if I've kept you waiting."

"Only a few minutes."

"Let's go in."

Once inside, Lee led her to the living room. Lee perched on the arm of her settee, slowly waggling one shapely blue Lycra-clad leg over her knee.

"You know, Ms Sanders --"

"- Lee."

"Lee. I don't mind waiting, while you change out of your gear."

"No, no, we only have half an hour, and them I'm going to do some Yoga, I'm not going to change until after that."

Lee gave her Cat one of her intense gazes, then reached some sort of conclusion in her mind.

"Well," she said brightly." Joanne was very taken with you, Catherine. So you're an ex-nun now I take it, judging by your attire."

"Yes. I've left the order."

"Okay. Okay. Right. First things first- " Cat's phone buzzing interrupted her.

" - Please turn your phone off. No, not silent, please turn it off."

Cat complied, churlishly.

"Thank you. It's a house rule. Now, first things first: If you want honesty and truthfulness from me, I think you should begin by telling me a bit more about you, without making up any more feeble, and quite frankly, ugly lies. You took advantage of poor Joanne, but don't you dare try that with me."

Cat opened her mouth. She quickly decided her best option was to tell Lee the truth, because for some reason she was being given a second chance.

"Okay. I'm an online blogger. I write a blog called Cat's Tales."

Lee was taken aback at Cat's instant admission. Lee had hoped to start the meeting by putting Cat firmly on the defensive.

"I see. And you want to know about The Hive, so you can publish a sensational story on your blog."

"Yes."

"So you played a nasty trick to get inside The Hive. Why?" Lee's tone was neutral and calm, but Cat felt the menace in it. She started talking quickly:

"Okay I was on holiday in Somerset, visiting a friend of mine, and she told me about The Hive. How it's a sort of mystery with all these stories around it, because you can't visit it, and you have to be invited by someone from there. So I -- I had a nun's costume, and decided... Look, it was only a bit of fun, I didn't think Joanne would go and fall in love with me."

"But she did. After, what, three or four visits? My, you must have been very charming."

Cat wasn't sure whether Lee was being sarcastic or flattering her.

"Sorry. Tell her I'm sorry."

"No, I'll leave you to face her. But you haven't answered me to my satisfaction. What exactly made you curious?"

"Well, I suppose it's because it's so private. It makes me think that..."

"...That there's something to hide?"

"Well, yeah."

"There isn't anything to hide, but I think most people have very mixed up ideas, and wouldn't be able to understand it. They'd misrepresent it. Especially the newspapers. And bloggers too, no doubt."

Lee stopped speaking, and gazed at Cat. After a moment she resumed, "But in your case - and don't ask me why - I'm going to make an exception. So I will tell you about The Hive. But not yet."

"Okay, thank you so much. Please, please can I use my phone? Just for notes?"

"No, use your brain. Anyway, before we talk about what I do, I want to know a bit more about you: How old are you?"

"I'm twenty."

"A young beauty. I'm not surprised Joanne fell in love with you. You probably get that all the time, people falling in love with you."

"Me, a beauty? Gosh no, no I think you're amazing looking. I'm just,"

"Just what, Catherine?"

"I'm just - I just get attention. It's not like you. I mean proper beauty."

"Oh, you have 'proper' beauty too. You'd make a wonderful model."

"What sort of model?"

"The sort, darling, that could sell anything."

Cat met Lee's stare." If you were a bloke, that would sound really creepy."

"Well, what if you were selling something you really believed in? Like, I don't know: What do you believe in?"

"I believe in the truth."

"Do you now? You're very adept at lying for someone who claims -"

"- yes, but it was because I wanted to get to the truth about The Hive."

"I see. So the end justifies the means."

"I don't know, it depends on what the Hive really is. Like maybe some sort of weird stuff happens, there. So what does go on there? You said that people wouldn't understand it. I don't get that: What is there to understand?"

Lee was again unnerved by Cat's persistence and cheek." All right: You need to first understand what's making people unhappy in this world. I mean in the rich world. Not in places like Syria and South Sudan."

"I don't agree, I think most people are happy. I'm happy."

"It depends what you mean by 'happy'. For me happiness means true contentment, a lack of want. Not the happiness you might get from drugs, or from an orgasm."

Cat blurted, "I wouldn't know."

"What, you've never taken drugs, or you've never had an orgasm?"

"Neither."

Lee was unsure whether she was being lied to. This disturbed her. Why was this young girl so hard for her to read? Was it because she reminded her somehow of herself?

"Have you tried?"

"Well, I've had sex, if that's what you mean."

"No, I mean masturbating."

"Of course I have. And my boyfriend -- my ex-boyfriend and me used to do it in front of each other a lot. I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"Neither do I. Maybe you're just flirting. But I think there's something more..."

Lee had been speaking half to herself.

"You claim to have never had an orgasm. I'm not sure I believe you, but if it is true, well, that's a problem you share with a lot of other young people. You know what causes it, don't you. Pornography."

Cat almost felt pity for Lee with her outdated ideas." I really, don't think so."

Lee saw that she needed to explain herself: "You have no idea how much I know about it. Young men are taking Viagra because they have erectile dysfunction. It started as a recreational thing. But not any more. They wank themselves stupid in front of their screens, and reality can't match up to what they see there."

"My boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend I mean, didn't have any problem."

"Lucky him. But I'm sure he spent more time online than on you."

Lee continued her lecture: "You need to unplug yourselves from the wanking machine. All of you. You're living in a made-up world, blind to real life, because you're not being allowed to live a real life any more."

"Basically you're saying I need a tech detox."

"Oh, shut up with all that rubbish! Don't use those stupid phrases. 'Tech detox'. Ugh. You need to change -- your -- MIND. Oh, darling, you don't know how sad I get when I see this lost generation of yours, seeing you, a beautiful princess -"

Tears suddenly welled up in Lee's eyes. She stopped, and shook her head slowly.

"Lee, you don't need to worry. I get it. I do. That's what my blog is about. There are a lot of people my age who are fed up with social media. We're not all stupid zombies."

"No, darling. And I'm sure you're not one. I'm sorry. It's just, I can picture how it could be, I know what needs to be done. It's so sad, what's happening to the world. It's just..." She broke down again.

Cat rose from her chair and took Lee's hand in her own, like a daughter consoling her widowed mother.

Lee smiled gratefully. Then she kissed cat, lightly on the lips. She kissed her again, lingeringly, gradually turning up the passion. Cat felt light-headed. She breathed in Lee's perfume, mixed with her erotic-smelling sweat.

Lee and Cat stood locked in embrace, enveloped in each other's arms. Lee's fingers ran slowly and lightly up and down, up and down Cat's back. Cat stroked the back of Lee's firm thigh. Lee turned Cat around, gently but irresistibly, and pressed her body onto Cat as she held her tight. Cat felt Lee's hard nipples against her shoulder blades. She moaned quietly as Lee sucked softly at her neck, her earlobe.

"I'm going to pat your little pussy, until you're my little pet pussy cat..."

Lee's right hand patted Cat's belly quickly and lightly, pat-pat, pat-pat. And lower and lower down her fingers travelled, inexorably, now to Cat's lower abdomen, pat-pat, pat-pat... with her middle finger she played with Cat's pussy through her jeans. Deftly Lee undid Cat's jeans buttons and pushed the top of them down, bringing her panties down with it. Now Lee drummed her fingers on her pussy lips, rapidly, ever more rapidly. Cat mouthed, 'please stop... please...'

"Give in to it, darling. You can't fight it, I'm too strong for you..."

Cat opened herself to Lee's invading middle finger... "Please, please..." Deep inside her it went. The finger trembled and vibrated, Cat's body tingled and convulsed... she moaned and sighed.... Lee's other hand was busy with Cat's breasts, clawing and devouring them, plucking at her nipples, scratching them. Cat wriggled; Lee's assault was too intense, too powerful to resist... Cat submitted. Lee felt Cat give in to her, which aroused Lee's own passions. Now she had her at her mercy. Almost spitefully she continued finger-fucking her, violating her, torturing her, overwhelming her, faster, faster... "Stop, please, please, Oh my God..."

Cat arched her neck, staring blindly up.

"Mmm. Now you're mine. Come on, have a shower with me. I'm going to take you deeper."

Pussy Cat

Next morning, as they lay with their legs intertwined on Lee's big bed, Cat groped for her phone on the floor, which had just buzzed.

"I told you to turn it off." Lee's sleepy voice was muffled by a pillow.

"I know, sorry, I had a message in the night. Not important."

"Of course it wasn't important. Silly girl."

Lee opened her eyes and watched Cat's cello-shaped back rippling as she sat on the edge of the bed, tapping on her phone. Blogging. Texting. Messaging. Not being present, here with Lee.

"Darling, come here. Lick my pussy, my little pussy cat."

Cat put the phone down and crawled down along the bed. Lee spread her legs and lowered Cat's head onto to her pussy. She felt Cat's golden hair tickling her thighs." Lick me, little pussy cat. Lick. More. Lick. Don't stop. More. There... Faster. That's right..."

Lee raised her legs in the air and locked her thighs around Cat's head. She held her like this while she climaxed." Mmm, lick it all..."

Finally, when Lee reluctantly released Cat's head from her grip, Cat said proudly, "Guess what!"

"What, darling?"

"I've just got ten thousand followers!"

Lee sat up." Jolly good. Was that true, what you said yesterday, about you never having had an orgasm?"

"Yes, sort of... I mean nothing like with you, anyway."

"So, you were lying. 'Sort of'."

"Yes, well, the end justifies the means, as you said."

"The end being...?"

"What do you think?"

"Me? The end was to get to me?"

"Well, sort of. Lee, I don't really plan these things. I just go with the flow."

"Ok. Well, this isn't the end. This is the beginning, for you. Because I do plan. And I have a plan for you I'd like to tell you about."

"Really? Is it a cunning plan?"

"Well, I think so. But first, tell me about your blog. And your followers, my little pied piper..."

The Brat and the Canary

Ever since Rich had seen all those "money-bees" in Joe's control room, they plagued his dreams. His programmed brain started to misbehave. Doubt and confusion clouded his mind; he was finding it hard to concentrate. He would leave the office, and wander into the orchards, where, feeling that familiar ache in his balls, he would ogle the female Workers, clad in their little shorts, high up on their ladders, picking the ripe apples, stretching up into the leafy boughs ...

Time to book a prayer cell.

By now, Rich knew from what Joe had told him, that the prayer cells functioned as audio-visual communications rooms, connected via The Hive's main hub to a room in Lee's house. From there she could check on and adjust the minds of those Hive members who were showing signs of becoming "bumble-bees" -- de-programmed members who escape the hive.

Rich didn't want to "bumble". He wanted to remain a good Hive Drone. The shame and devastation of losing his place in the Hive still outweighed that small part of his mind that was lapsing into its old ways.

He lay down on the soft carpeting, and bathed in the warm amber glow. He breathed, slowly, deeply, allowing the swirling lights and perfume to take him deep, deep down into hypnosis.

The Queen appeared, radiant, above him.

"Hello, my loyal servant. Let me in, into the depths of your mind. Good."