Kiss and Control

Empirically, Sharpe knew it didn't really matter what color she picked. It wasn't like she was defusing a bomb or anything; nobody was going to run up to her just as she was handing over her credit card and scream, "NO! NOT THE PINK LIPSTICK!" and slap the bag out of her hand before diving on top of it. There were no consequences for a 'wrong' answer, here-it was just an aesthetic choice. That was it. A simple, personal decision with no right or wrong answer. All she needed to do was look over the five or six options in front of her and pick the one that made her look the prettiest... for Song Jeong-Hui, aka Shadowstryke. On their very first official date. After months of waiting, and weeks of working up the nerve to actually ask another woman out instead of just looking adorably shy and waiting for them to make the first move. Their first real romantic activity ever, apart from watching Jeong-Hui masturbate in WildRose's bedroom. The first time she made a real move toward a polyamorous relationship in her entire life.

Sharpe set down the pink lipstick. "Um... can I see a couple more shades?" she asked, sliding back into her seat at the make-up counter.

Thankfully, the woman behind the counter looked like she'd seen more than a few indecisive customers in her day. "Naturally," she said, her hand dipping down behind the counter to pull out a velvet red, a bubblegum pink, and a shade of purple that perfectly matched Shadowstryke's hair and that Sharpe knew she wouldn't be able to pull off in a million years. "Would you like to see what these look like as well?"

Sharpe looked down at them, her face a mask of anguished indecision. Was the red too much? Did it scream, 'I'm hoping this date ends with these lips kissing your clit'? Sharpe knew that there was sexual chemistry-between all three of them if she was honest-but she didn't want to act like she assumed that sex was going to happen the first time out. Did it make her look too assertive? She was already being assertive by asking for the date, was adding an assertive lipstick going to lock her into a whole series of expectations that she couldn't possibly match? And oh god, what about the pink? Would the pink make her look like a bimbo? Would the pink make her look like she was trying to look like a bimbo? Was she sending the message that she thought Jeong-Hui only liked dumb girls? Or was she insulting women by equating 'feminine' with 'bimbo'? And then there was the purple. Sharpe didn't even want to think about the motherfucking purple right now.

"Ummmm... let me see the velvet next to the cherry red?" she asked, holding out her hand so that Shari could smear another bright slash of color onto the back of her hand. She wasn't normally one of those people who read people's nametags and thought they were on a first-name basis, but she felt stupid spending twenty minutes on lipstick selection and still thinking of someone as 'ma'am'.

And Shari seemed to have an infinite well of patience, too. "Of course," she said politely, drawing a bright line of cherry red and a dark line of velvet red next to it with deft precision. "And here's the hot pink as well, for contrast," she added, dabbing on a neon slash of color on the other side of the wine-deep red Sharpe was considering. "Just let me know if you want to look at anything else."

Sharpe stared down at her hand, hoping for some sort of clarity to emerge, but if anything she only found herself descending deeper into indecision. Her skin was so pale that just about anything she wore made for a vivid contrast-it was an occupational hazard of spending most of her days in bed and most of her nights lit only by the glow of a computer monitor. (And a Happy Light to help with her seasonal affective disorder.) But which contrast gave off the right impression? Which color would keep Jeong-Hui's eyes on her all night long? The stakes felt absurdly high, and Sharpe felt like she was no closer to making a decision. "What do you recommend, Shari?" she finally asked, defeat making her voice leaden.

But Shari only perked up at the words. It was as though she'd been waiting her whole life for an indecisive lesbian to ask her for advice on cosmetics. "Well, let's start by getting a little bit better idea of the spectrum we're working with. Go ahead and roll up your sleeves-we're going to put a few more of these on you at once, so you can really see what all the colors look like side by side."

That seemed weird and counter-intuitive to Sharpe; she somehow expected that it would work more like wine tasting, where you only wanted a little bit of input at a time to avoid overcorrecting your impressions through contrast. But since she had gone through nine different lipsticks without getting anywhere, Sharpe decided to put herself in Shari's capable hands for a little while. She undid the cuff of her blouse and rolled it all the way up as far as it would go before putting her arm out on the counter.

"There we go!" Shari cooed brightly. It felt a little condescending, but at this point Sharpe needed a little positive reinforcement. She hated fitting the Nerd Girl stereotype this perfectly-why couldn't she be one of those geeky women who nonetheless knew exactly how to dress when the occasion called for it? Why couldn't she pick up complementary colors at age six the same way she picked up Java? It was almost a palpable relief to let Shari take over and paint stroke after stroke of lipstick up her wrist and arm.

"Now, let's see how those look," Shari continued, once all nine streaks were painted on. (Even the purple.) "Are there any that seem to really stand out? Don't just pay attention to the colors, focus on the feel. If you're wearing make-up that makes your skin feel happy, you're going to be more confident and more sexy." She gave Sharpe a conspiratorial look. "This is for a date, isn't it?"

"Um, well, yeah, I..." Sharpe felt herself blushing. She tried to tell herself that Shari wasn't flirting with her, but something about the way that the blonde woman drew on Sharpe's arm felt oddly intimate. She could feel her skin tingling lightly with it, like the way she felt when WildRose whispered in her ear during sex. Sharpe suddenly found herself imagining Shadowstryke whispering to her instead, an intense and erotic curiosity shuddering down her spine as she wondered if Jeong-Hui's breath would feel the same on her skin. "Yeah," she finished abruptly, no longer trusting her own voice.

"Well, that does bring up another... important question," Shari replied, shooting a saucy wink in Sharpe's direction. "Which of these colors do you think would look best on her?" She picked up the velvet red and pulled off the cap. "Let me see that mouth for a moment," she said, leaning in with the lipstick and pressing the tip of it against Sharpe's slightly parted lips. Before Sharpe could even say anything, two quick swipes turned her lips into a deep, rich cupid's bow of color.

"Now, just imagine that I'm your date-just for a moment," Shari went on, a tiny giggle of flirtatious affection in her voice. Sharpe didn't even know what was happening-she was the flat-chested girl with the frizzy hair and the coke-bottle glasses, she didn't get hit on by random women in department stores. She didn't have any tools in her emotional toolkit to deal with being the object of a stranger's affection. It threw her off so badly that when Shari put her hand to Sharpe's lips, she kissed it without even thinking.

"Now take a look for me," Shari said, pulling her hand back slightly so that Sharpe could see the perfect double arch of deep, liquid red over the knuckles. "Just imagine that my hand is your girlfriend's hand. Imagine how good that color would look painted on her skin, over..." She pressed the back of her hand gently against Sharpe's lips, impressing a second imprint of the lipstick onto her skin. "And over..." She ran her finger sensually around Sharpe's mouth until it came away coated in lipstick. "And over."

Sharpe's eyes went so wide that she could imagine them looking like saucers under the magnifying effect of her glasses. She felt her brain scattering in six different directions, and not in the usual good way that happened when she was multitasking. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to picture a trail of kisses down Jeong-Hui's belly, or lean back in and purse her lips around Shari's finger again, or sink into a blissful daydream of Shadowstryke and WildRose finding her with her head buried between Shari's thighs and joining in...

Which was why it surprised her so much when instead, she said, "How did you know it was a girl?" The words came out in a thin, reedy, confused voice, but they still came out of Sharpe's lipsticked mouth. She didn't know why. The part of her mind that normally followed those paths of thought to their logical conclusion seemed to be preoccupied with mental images of nuzzling her lips against Shari's nipples. But she knew it was a really good question. A really important question.

Shari didn't answer it right away, though. She simply leaned in and painted another coating of lipstick onto Sharpe's mouth, a sloppy circle that made Sharpe's make-up look smeared and messy. "Because you look like the kind of girl that likes kissing other girls," she said, leaning in and planting a long, wet smooch right onto Sharpe's lips. "It's hard for you to think of anything else, isn't it? All you want to do is go find your pretty girlfriend and give her a deep, sexy kiss with your brand new lipstick. Like a good girl."

"...a good girl," Sharpe murmured, hearing the dazed quality to her own voice but unable to shake it. She realized what must be happening to her, but she couldn't quite make her brain parse the reasoning behind it. She was always so careful. Nobody knew who she really was. Nobody could lay a trap for her, not when she always seemed so normal. Not when she was so clever.

She didn't feel clever right now. The fog in her brain thickened until Shari seemed to swim in and out of her consciousness. "I... I need to go," she mumbled, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy in her mouth. She staggered out of her chair, a dizzy sensation in her limbs telling her that she was already too late. "I need to." She looked around wildly, realizing only too late that the store had emptied out while she was dithering over her purchases. A sense of panic rose up in her brain, but it was smothered by the tingling pleasure that flowed up from her lips and arm. "Um. Go."

Shari stepped out from behind the counter, her face set in a plastic smile, the tube of lipstick wielded like a rapier. "Oh, but if you leave, you'll never know who's behind all this," she purred. "You'll never know who told me to drug you with all those pretty colors. You couldn't live with yourself if you had a mystery like that weighing you down, could you? Down and down and down onto the floor for me, pretty girl, sitting down and taking off that cute little blouse so I can write the secret on your skin."

Sharpe knew that none of that made any sense. She knew that there was only one supervillain out there who used drugged lipstick, and she was... she was... Sharpe's eidetic memory sputtered and fuzzed, smacking over and over again into the suggestions woven into Shari's words. She wouldn't know unless she stayed. She wouldn't know unless she sank down to the floor and took her clothes off. She wouldn't know unless she watched Shari write on her with lipstick, each letter drugging her deeper into obedience. And Sharpe had to know. She couldn't live with a mystery weighing her...

"down," she whimpered, collapsing to the floor. Her fumbling fingers worked at the buttons, her clumsy limbs pulled off the blouse. She watched Shari lean in, undoing the clasp on Sharpe's bra to give her a full canvas to work with. And she heard herself gasp as she saw each letter spelling out the name of her undoing.

S - A - N - G - R - I - A.

*****

WildRose couldn't think. At all. Anymore. She heard Sangria's words, dripping into her mind like poisoned honey, but they were just sound to her now. All her mind was focused on the irresistible, tingling pleasure that sank into her every nerve and made her mewl like a little kitten as Sangria's lipstick-painted strap-on forced her whole body forward with every thrust. Nothing else mattered in the face of that kind of ecstasy. Not the trail of red scrawling itself across her skin, not the dazed expression on her lover's face as she watched Sangria fuck WildRose into mindless compliance. Nothing.

But she still listened. Because Sangria wanted her to hear how she had been finally defeated. And WildRose wanted everything Sangria wanted, now.

"I know you think your sweetheart is too clever to be caught like this," Sangria purred, her hips moving almost lazily to thrust into WildRose's sopping cunt again. "And on any other day, you might just be right. But when I was on my way to prison last time, the strangest thing happened. Instead of taking me to Lantin, my guards drove me across the border to Rotterdam, then dropped me off outside of a fully-stocked chemical warehouse.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, laughing at the irony of her own words, "but I didn't even touch them. No, this was someone else. Perhaps a friend of yours? They certainly knew you well. They left me a letter with your names, your real names, and a few suggestions I used to tweak my formulas here and there. I made my way back to Samson City, and set up shop somewhere nice and unobtrusive. I didn't want to startle you into doing anything rash, my sweet little pet."

She leaned over, writing 'PROPERTY OF SANGRIA' onto WildRose's back in wine-red lipstick. WildRose felt the sensation, a pulsing tingle of hot red pleasure that mingled with the swirl of arousal pumping through her blood with every heartbeat, but she couldn't connect the motion of writing with words anymore. She only knew lust and obedience now. She swayed back and forth as the fake cock pounded her deeper into pleasure, her jaw hanging slack as she gazed into oblivion and let the drug carry her further along into Sangria's control.

"It wasn't hard to set up surveillance on you-your pretty little thing over there is quite clever, indeed," she said with a gesture to Sharpe, still masturbating as she watched the two of them fuck. "But I have the perfect spy network. My happy girls can be anyone, watch you for a day and then forget they ever saw you. I smeared my lipstick on the soles of their feet to make sure you would never notice them. Even a perfect memory doesn't help when it's never the same woman twice. I learned all your secrets. All your delicious... vulnerabilities." The last word came out in a husky growl of pleasure as she strained her hips deep into WildRose's pussy.

"And when I was ready, I knew just how to strike." WildRose still couldn't parse the words; all she knew was that her lover, her owner, her grand and glorious purpose in life was speaking and it felt so good to hear the words washing over her blank and empty mind. "I knew where your girlfriend shopped; it was child's play to make every girl who worked there a happy girl. Such a pretty sight, all those blank eyes and drooling mouths... but you don't need to be told that, do you, Sharpe?" WildRose heard her girlfriend moan in response. She couldn't hear it as anything other than perfection.

"And then I waited. Sooner or later, your adorable little girlfriend would find me, I knew, and I would be ready. A little dose as she passed the perfume counter, just to make her confused and uncertain, ready for guidance. A little bit of my drugs in each lipstick she tried on, sapping her will slowly until she was ready to follow instructions. I had thought that I might be able to simply slip the suggestions into her mind until she thought that it was her own idea to enslave you, but she needed a bit more... direction, it seemed."

Sangria glanced over at Sharpe, watching Sharpe's fingers dancing away furiously on her own clit. "No matter. She did as she was told, she caught you with your guard down and gave you the dose that made you mine at last. And by the time I'm done programming her, the thought of pleasure and the thought of seducing heroes into my kiss will be one and the same to her. And to you. And you will use all those secrets she has learned to-"

The flow of words stopped abruptly. WildRose heard a loud thump, followed by a long silence. The fake cock slid out of WildRose's cunt, but she was too deeply drugged even to register the desperate arousal that coursed through her body. She simply knelt in place, staring vacantly at nothing, drool dripping from her parted lips. She didn't connect the sounds to anything. She didn't think at all. Sangria's happy girls weren't supposed to think. She just waited for instructions.

After a little while, WildRose felt a warm, wet cloth pressed against her body, scrubbing away the lipstick. She had a dim awareness of the same thing happening to Sharpe, but her foggy, confused mind somehow couldn't connect the action to a person. Almost as if there was nobody there. That must be it. There was nobody there. WildRose was sure of it. Nobody was cleaning them off, nobody was tying up Sangria and gagging her, nobody was doing anything. WildRose could just wait patiently to be commanded. That felt nice. That felt easy and comfortable to her now.

It was almost two full hours before the drug finally wore off and WildRose was able to stagger to her feet with muscles that felt like they were locking up with cramp. "Oh that fucking bitch," she muttered through parched lips, stretching out the soreness as Sharpe's fingers finally slowed to a stop. "That sneaky, fucking... um, sorry, priorities. Thank you?" She looked around, trying to figure out just where to direct her gratitude.

It didn't take long. Shadowstryke's telepathic cloak faded away, revealing the young superhero sitting patiently next to an unconscious Sangria. "I know I should feel hurt that you didn't tell your supervillains that we were dating," she said, a cocky grin on her face, "but I think in this case it was probably for the best." She gestured over at the hogtied woman lying on the floor. "When Sharpe didn't show up for our date, I decided to go looking for her, and found the two of you getting monologued by this asshole. I listened long enough to make sure I knew what was going on, and then I hit her. You weren't kidding about the glass jaw, were you? I don't think she's moved at all."

"Forgive me for not being worried about her health," WildRose said, walking stiffly into the bathroom and filling a paper cup with water for herself and another one for Sharpe. It was only going to be the start in getting properly rehydrated, but it was better than nothing. "We'll get Professor Psyche to make sure she hasn't suffered any permanent damage, right around the time we scrub her brain down to the fucking cortex to keep her from trying this shit again." WildRose was generally against mindwipes, but she was a hell of a lot more against someone trying to get at her through Sharpe. As far as she was concerned, the Professor could turn Sangria into a goddamn Buddhist monk.

"I think mine might need a little rinse too," Sharpe said, once she swallowed down the entire cup of water in one gulp. "I kind of have this weird urge to kiss you both? Not that kissing you is weird, but, like... this is a definite compulsion. Like, I think I could climax just from kissing you." She looked sheepish, like she knew it wasn't her fault but she refused to believe it. WildRose made a mental note to give her extra cuddles later.

But for now... "I got off all that hypnotic lipstick, right?" Shadowstryke asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Sharpe nodded, still looking a bit embarrassed by being caught off guard. "Well then, let's go hang out on the couch and wait for the Utopians to show up, and you can show me how this kissing compulsion of yours works. I know it's not the date you had planned, but... I don't think you're going to mind when I'm done with you."