Familiar Taste of Poison

"Hey, hi, come on in, neighbor!" Chuck flung the door open wide, heedless of the wave of stinging cold that blasted into the front hallway. "Just take your boots off right there and come on into the kitchen with me. I just made some hot cocoa, you can drink it and warm yourself up. It isn't drugged this time, I promise." He grinned mischievously, and Anna rolled her eyes at the familiar old joke. She awkwardly wriggled out of her thick, clunky galoshes and padded on wet stocking feet into the comforting warmth of Chuck's ramshackle old house.

Chuck closed the door behind her quickly, following her down the hallway into the tiny kitchen in the back of the house. "Whoof!" he exclaimed, rubbing the goosebumps out of his pasty arms where they were exposed to the icy winter air. "It's a sharp one out there today, huh? They said it was going to be cold out, but you know how the weather forecasters are. They always predict the worst, then they can just say, 'Oh, we dodged a bullet with that one!' when it turns out sunny. Anyhoo, cocoa's in a mug on the table for you. Go ahead and get yourself warmed up, you had quite a walk out there."

Anna wanted to reply, but her teeth were still chattering a bit too hard to speak. Even with a thick parka and three pairs of long underwear on under her snowpants, she was feeling the cold by the end of her mile-long trip to Chuck's house. She'd thought about driving, but the inconsistent plowing this far out in the country meant that even with four-wheel drive, she was more likely to get stuck than she was to make it up Chuck's long, steep driveway to the top of the hill where he made his home. She was sure it was worth it for the view, but she didn't understand how he managed to get out of his garage in the winter.

Anna doffed her coat and sat down at the table, where a big mug of steaming hot chocolate waited for her. "Drink it all up, and then we can talk about why you came over," he said, heading over to the stove where a whole pot of the stuff awaited his attention. "Make sure to get it all, the poison sometimes sinks to the bottom." He snorted in amusement, picking up a wooden spoon and stirring the thick brown liquid.

"I thought you said this batch wasn't poisoned," Anna said wryly through stiff blue lips, her fingers wrapping around the mug and soaking in the warmth of the ceramic surface. She thought about pulling off her knitted cap and letting her long auburn hair out, but that would mean taking her hands away from the heat for a moment. She wasn't quite ready for that yet. Maybe once the cozy kitchen thawed her out a little, once the hot chocolate warmed her up inside as well as out, but it could wait. She wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

"Oh, right, right," Chuck said, arranging his features into an expression of theatrical innocence. "It's not. Scout's honor. Perfectly safe to drink it all down, no drugs in there at all." He moved the pot of cocoa off the stove and onto a hotpad. "Just good old fashioned hot chocolate that's perfectly safe and ready for you to drink. You can trust me, right? I'm your neighbor." Despite herself, Anna shook her head in amused resignation. It was always the same gag, every single time. She took a grateful sip, her lips quirking in a half-smile at Chuck's familiar antics.

And she spluttered as a bitter, medicinal taste filled her mouth. "Why do I always fall for that?" she muttered, squirming her tongue around to try to get rid of the unpleasantly familiar flavor. She probably shouldn't have swallowed, she realized just a moment too late, but it felt somehow rude to spit the liquid back into the cup right in front of the man who prepared it. Even if he did pull the same gag on her every single time. And even if Anna fell for it every single time.

Wait. Every... time? That-that couldn't be right. She knew he wouldn't do that, she... she always trusted him to give her something good to drink when she came over after her daily writing was done. And he always told her that it wasn't drugged, and she always believed him. A mug of hot cocoa, or some iced tea on hot summer days, or lemonade or coffee or, or, or... Anna's brain froze up, trying to reconcile her absolute certainty just moments ago that Chuck was joking with her almost-comfortable familiarity with the exact opposite outcome.

Until Chuck spoke. "Because I always tell you to," he said mildly, taking a seat next to her at the kitchen table. "I always remind you to trust me and believe me, Anna, and you can see how well it works because you always forget what's in your drink until after you've already swallowed it. That's what makes this whole little friendship of ours possible." He looked perfectly calm and friendly while he said it, his bald head nodding encouragingly and his deep brown eyes twinkling with merriment. Anna had to remind herself three times that he was talking about drugging her.

"I... no," she said, her voice thick with puzzlement. "No, I wouldn't... I wouldn't just swallow poison, just because you told me it was safe. That doesn't... that doesn't make sense." She could feel the pieces trying to fit together in her head, seeming disjointed and incongruous no matter how she tried to make them click. She knew she recognized the taste-it was unmistakable, like wormwood or star anise. She knew that every single day, Chuck told her that the drink wasn't drugged, and that was such an absurd thing to say that of course he had to be making a joke, because why would someone blurt that out unless they had something to hide?

But nobody would hide something that badly, that obviously. So it had to be a joke. Chuck was kidding, lying so blatantly about not drugging her drink that of course he was confessing to drugging her drink, which meant that he wasn't drugging her drink because who would confess to drugging someone's drink if they wanted them to drink the drug? So it couldn't be true. The logic twisted like a spiral staircase in her head, but every step felt sure. The drink was safe. But if it was safe, why did she taste poison? And why did it taste so intimately familiar on her lips?

Chuck's calm, mellow voice broke into her confused thoughts. "Of course you would, sweetie. You're doing it right now." Anna almost choked when she realized that somehow in her distracted, woolgathering state, she'd once again put the cup to her lips and was swallowing down gulp after gulp of the thick, bitter liquid. She'd almost finished half the mug without even noticing. Quickly, Anna placed it back on the table and forced herself to pull her hands away.

"W-why?" she said, her voice sounding bewildered and terrified in her own ears. "W-why, why am I... I..." Anna trailed off into silence, not sure how to even describe her own actions. She didn't notice. That was the part that kept breaking into every train of thought that began to form, shattering her every effort to make sense of events as it hit her over and over and over again. She'd just been drinking poison, drinking poison that she knew was poison and that someone had just finished telling her was poison, and she didn't even notice that she was doing it. That was... that was fucking impossible. But she'd done it.

"Because I told you to," Chuck said smoothly, his voice filling the silence with calm, confident implacability. "I told you to drink it all up, and a little part of you deep down in the back of your head remembered that you always do exactly what I tell you to do. So you ignored all the other voices in your head that told you it wasn't such a good idea, just like when you decided to come over here today. My commands are just that much stronger than your free will. It won't be even a minute before you pick up that mug and start drinking again."

Anna's eyes widened in shock. Not at the suggestion that she was going to finish her mug of poison-she had bigger things on her mind than that nonsense. She was stuck on the stunning, almost overwhelming implications of the words 'just like when you decided to come over here today'. Because she suddenly couldn't remember what exactly brought her through the mile of snow and up the steep hill to Chuck's house. She was sure she had a good reason, she knew there was something very important that she needed to talk to him about, but... but every time she started to think about it, it simply evaporated in her brain like morning mist. "I come over every day, though," she murmured, her voice sounding lost and bewildered like a little girl.

Chuck nodded, patting her hand condescendingly. "Yes, you do," he said, smiling at her like a slow learner who'd just managed to solve a very simple math problem. "Every day you come over, every day you drink your drugged drink, and every day I remind you of every other day this has happened. And every day, you're surprised all over again. You're very beautiful when you're surprised, Anna. Those wide, confused eyes look so pretty on you."

Anna's eyebrows went up even higher as she stared at Chuck in utter bemusement. "But... why?" she asked, not even sure where to begin unraveling the whole impossible scenario Chuck had described. "Why would you do... all this?" She started to gesture, but realized at the last moment that her hands were once again holding the mug of hot chocolate. She didn't remember picking it up. She couldn't seem to make herself set it down again. The sound of the clock on the wall, ticking off the seconds, suddenly seemed very loud. She was somehow certain that less than sixty of them had passed since she'd set the cup down on the table.

"Because it turns me on," Chuck said matter-of-factly, as the bitter taste of the drug once again filled Anna's mouth. "Oh, I could just tell you to stay here with me every night, keep you nice and groggy and suggestible all the time until there wasn't a thought left in that pretty little head of yours. But where would the fun be in that? No, it's much nicer to watch you sink into that sweet, sleepy mist inside your head as the drug takes hold of your brain and makes you empty and obedient. I can always tell you to forget what happened if I need to. You'll do anything I tell you while you're doped up like this. Even after the drug wears off."

Anna tried to deny it, to insist that she couldn't be turned that easily into a mindless, suggestible puppet with no will of her own. But when she attempted to speak, she realized that her lips were once again wrapped around the rim of the mug, swallowing the last thick, dark dregs of the poisoned cocoa. Helplessly, she watched herself tip the cup back and drain the final few droplets into her mouth. Only then was she able to set it down on the table and stare blankly at the ceramic surface in front of her.

The mug said, 'You Just Drugged Yourself Into Obedience Again'. How had Anna not noticed that before now?

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Chuck said, pushing his chair back a little and spreading his legs wide. "You see what this is doing to me? God, just watching your brain melt down into sticky goo like that is making me hard as a fucking rock, girl." Anna stared down at the bulge in his trousers, her mouth suddenly watering so badly she could barely keep herself from drooling in excitement. She felt instantly warm underneath her layers of thick clothing and long underwear, the chill banished abruptly as if it had never existed as her pussy thrummed with wet, sticky heat.

Anna slid off the chair, dropping to her knees on the kitchen floor without even realizing she was doing it. She didn't notice herself crawling closer and closer in rapt fascination to the tent between Chuck's legs, any more than she noticed the slick drool dripping from her slack, vacant mouth. To her, it simply seemed like the rest of the world was diminishing, fading around the edges as the bulge grew larger and closer until her entire field of vision was filled with Chuck's mesmerizing, barely-concealed cock. "I... ohhhhh..." she sighed softly, her hand reaching up to caress his shaft through the denim fabric.

"That's right," Chuck said, pushing the knitted cap off of her head to tangle his fingers through her hair. "You remember this part now, don't you? Every time you see my erection, you can't help wanting to touch and nuzzle and play with my cock." Anna knew that his words were reinforcing her programming, wrapping around the base of her brain and nestling into the soft space in the back of her head that always made obedience feel so much better than thought, but she also knew that he was absolutely right. She undid his fly and tugged his shaft out, leaning in and closing her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his warm, stiff flesh as she rubbed it against her cheeks.

"That's a good girl," Chuck purred, guiding Anna's mouth onto his cock. "That's a good, obedient girl. You're always so happy to suck, so totally overjoyed to have that long thick shaft in your mouth fucking your thoughts away. Every thrust makes you blanker and more obedient, doesn't it, pretty girl?" Anna couldn't answer. She couldn't even open her eyes anymore. The drug had swept all her thoughts away on a warm tide of vacant, sleepy pleasure, and all she could do was bob her head up and down on Chuck's erection and lick away the little droplets of precum that gathered at the tip. The slick, salty flavor felt intimately familiar to her, as familiar as the poison that coursed through her veins and made her weak and vulnerable and suggestible. And just like the drug, Anna knew she wanted more.

"G-good girl," Chuck groaned, his hips rising and falling in time with Anna's bobbing strokes. "Oh, yes. That's it. M-make me cum, pretty girl, and then I'll give you some more of your special cocoa and fill that empty little head of yours with happy thoughts. I'm going to fuck your goddamn brains out, pet. Do you want that?" Anna nodded her head up and down, up and down. She didn't know if she was agreeing, or just sucking her Master's cock like he commanded her to. She didn't care anymore. Her mind was a blank, blissful void of perfect compliance, and her only will now was her Master's will.

Anna reached up and teased Chuck's balls, lightly scratching with just the tips of her fingernails until his moans became a loud, strangled grunt of pure orgasmic release. She tasted his semen, gushing onto her tongue in spurt after thick, gushing spurt until she could barely swallow it fast enough and tiny drops trickled out of her mouth and down onto Chuck's cock until she licked them away. This taste, too, was suddenly and delightfully familiar to her... and Anna's programming reminded her that a good girl never wasted her Master's cum.

THE END