Punk Taming

Max looked up and down the street nervously. There was nothing to see but a long row of large, nigh-identical houses, each one hidden behind a towering hedge and a foreboding gate. The suburbs. Max hated it here. It was too damn quiet. Why did all these stupid rich people need to live so far away from each other? Why were they so scared of anyone walking less than a hundred yards from their front door? What were they hiding?

Well, Max knew the answer to that. They were all a bunch of crooks.

Which made it all the more uncomfortable that she was standing there, in front of one of those too-big houses, waiting for someone to open the gate.

"Fuck this," she grunted. "If this bitch is gonna keep me waiting, I'm leaving."

The man standing next to her sighed and reached up to wipe away his brow sweat. "Max, as your lawyer, I very, very strongly advise you not to do that."

"Or what?" Max snarled. She didn't like being told what to do, and she knew when someone was condescending to her.

"Or," the lawyer replied, "Ms. Wexler will file a formal police report, you'll go to trial, and probably land yourself a month or two in prison. We've been over this, remember?"

Max rolled her eyes. She hadn't been expecting much from a public defender, but she'd still been hoping for better than this - than giving into the stupid, power-tripping whims of some asshole CEO.

She didn't regret keying and spray-painting Rosalind Wexler's car. It had been a great statement - anarchist symbols and slogans on a CEO's ostentatious gas-guzzler. She only regretted getting caught. Frankly, it was bullshit that people were making such a big deal about it. Rosalind Wexler was a multi-millionaire. A car was nothing to her. She probably owned a whole warehouse of them. But even so, Max had found herself hauled in by the pigs and threatened with vandalism and property destruction charges. Until, that is, Wexler's lawyer had contacted Max's with an unusual proposition.

"Just remember," her lawyer added. "Two weeks. Two weeks, and you're out. No jail. No record. It's a sweetheart deal, Max."

It didn't sound that way to her.

At that moment, the gate clicked, and a tinny voice sounded from the nearby speaker panel.

"Enter," it said.

Max's lawyer pushed the gate open and beckoned Max inside.

The short walk up the driveway gave Max ample time to gawk at Wexler's house. It wasn't as big as some of the others on the block, but even from the outside, it was clear that it was dripping in every imaginable luxury and amenity. The punk girl idly wondered how much a place like this cost. Five million? Ten? It was obscene.

Rosalind Wexler met them at the door. She was dressed immaculately, in an expensive suit worthy of a CEO, and her hair was up in a tight bun. She sounded pleasant as she invited Max and her lawyer inside her house, but Max knew better than to trust in that. Every CEO had a PR face, it didn't make them any less of a scumbag.

"Thank you for having us, Ms. Wexler," Max's lawyer said. He was annoyingly eager to please. "I'll be on my way just as soon as the paperwork gets signed."

He reached into his briefcase and retrieved a few documents, and handed them over. He offered the CEO a cheap, ballpoint pen, and then looked embarrassed when she plucked a gilded fountain pen out of her own pocket.

"Perhaps we should go over the, ah, details of the arrangement just one more time," he suggested nervously. "Just so everyone is clear."

"Of course," Wexler agreed, scanning and signing the papers. "It's very simple. I waive my right to press charges against Max - provided that, every day for the next two weeks, she comes to my house to perform some chores for me. Nine to five, for fourteen days. I will even pay her for her labor."

Max bristled.

"It's very generous, Ms. Wexler," Max's lawyer said. Max snorted. He'd probably kiss her shoes if she asked.

"I simply believe in the power of rehabilitation," Wexler replied, with a winning smile. "My hope is that, through a little hard work, Max can come to learn that a life of domesticity and hard work is something to aspire to. Rather than, well..." She glanced sideways at the punk. "Besides, I could use the help around the house while I'm at work."

Now, Max's very blood boiled, especially when her lawyer started nodding like a witless donkey. She wanted to spit on something, just to show her contempt. Preferably Wexler's face.

"Max? Is that agreeable?"

Max glared daggers at her lawyer, before swiping the pen he offered and scrawling her name on the contract.

"Excellent!" her lawyer cried, a little too excitedly. His relief was palpable, and it was clear he was keen to leave before Max made another mess he'd have to clean up. "I'll be on my way. Good day, Ms. Wexler."

He saw himself out of Wexler's house as quickly as he could.

"Max," Wexler began, smiling. "Why don't you come with me?"

She beckoned Max into her spacious dining room. Max considered refusing, just out of spite, but she figured she was going to have to make a few sacrifices to get through the next couple of weeks. She stalked after her host and slouched into one of the dining room chairs. The table was a preposterously imposing slab of dark wood, with a strange metal box sitting on top of it.

"I'll talk to you about your duties in a moment," Wexler told her sternly. "But first... Max, don't you have anything nicer to wear? Any dresses, perhaps?"

Max stared at the woman incredulously. "Fuck you."

The corner of Wexler's mouth turned up; she wasn't angered by Max's defiance, just amused. That made the whole situation burn even more.

"Very well. I won't press the issue," the CEO replied. "For now."

Max snorted. This bitch could pry her battle jacket out of her cold, dead hands.

Everyone who saw Max immediately knew exactly what they were going to get: a rowdy punk girl who didn't take bullshit from anybody. Wherever she went she wore her battle jacket, drenched in patches and spikes, and usually paired it with some roughed-up jeans or cargo pants, and a pair of steel-capped boots. She cut her hair herself, hacking at it with a pair of scissors and a clipper until it was a messy, lopsided side-shave that, along with her eyebrow and snakebite piercings, made her look feral and dangerous when she snarled at someone in the street. Max often put that to the test, to make sure she was still having the desired effect.

Here, more than anywhere else, she was going to keep her punk gear on. It was like her armor.

"Second, I have a question for you," Wexler continued. "Do you know what it is I do, exactly?"

Max sniffed. "Steal from poor people?"

"No," Wexler said flatly.

"Jerk investors off at meetings? Cash in subsidy checks? Fire people?" Max was determined to have whatever fun with this she could. "Jerk yourself off at meetings?"

"I'm the CEO of a pharmaceutical research firm," Wexler told her patiently.

"I was right first time," Max snickered.

"Lately, we've been working on a highly experimental new product," Wexler continued. Her smile was undimmed by Max's mockery, and the punk was starting to get the feeling Wexler knew something she didn't. "And I have a sample right here. I'd like to get your thoughts."

Max raised an eyebrow. Despite herself, she was intrigued.

Wexler reached over to the metal box on her table and pulled it closer. She pressed a small, metal button on its surface, and with a quiet hiss of depressurizing gas, it split open down a barely-perceptible seam along the middle. Wexler pried it open all the way with deft, well-practiced hands, and inside was a set of buttons, a small canister, and, connected to it by a tube, something that looked to Max like an oxygen mask, the kind they used on sick people in hospitals.

Max did her best to look unimpressed. "So... what, it's like a new medicine or something?"

"Something like that," Wexler replied. "It's very therapeutic - and I'm hoping it will be very popular. Its effects are quite something, I assure you. In fact, I was thinking you would try it for me."

"Uh... what?" Max blinked. "So it'll, like, get you high?"

"Most definitely." Wexler's smile was blindingly white and wide.

Max took a moment to think. Getting high didn't sound so bad, but there was no way it was that simple. There had to be a catch. She sat back in the chair, spread her legs, and folded her arms. "No way in hell I'm being your guinea pig."

Wexler shook her head ruefully. "Oh, Max. I wasn't asking."

Before Max could raise her hands or fire off a vulgar report, Wexler was pressing the mask against her face.

The struggle, such as it was, only lasted a moment. Max was taken completely off-guard by Wexler's speed and strength, and could only flail and try to pull back as the CEO held the mask firmly in place. An instant later, she reached over and tapped one of the buttons in her strange device. There was the sound of a pump, another distinctive gas-hiss, and then the disconcerting sight of the plastic tube leading to the breathing mask rapidly filling with some kind of strange, pink gas.

"What the fuck?" Max cried out, which was a mistake. Her voice was muffled by the mask, and opening her mouth to scream only resulted in her inhaling a lungful of Wexler's drug. Max's eyes went wider with horror as, out of the corners of her eyes, she saw wisps of neon-pink gas being pulled into her mouth by her breathing.

At that point, it was too late. Within seconds, the drug was taking effect.

Max had heard that when you got put under for surgery, they'd give you the anesthetic and tell you to count backward from ten, and that no one ever remembered anything past eight. Wexler's 'medicine' was just as fast, and just as irresistibly soporific. It didn't put her to sleep, though. It just drained all the resistance completely out of her. Max's arms fell limp at her sides and her mouth hung open, leaving her huffing even more of the intoxicating fumes. But it wasn't merely that she couldn't fight. It was that she didn't want to. The hot red buzz of anger and adrenaline that always energized Max when she was in danger was simply gone, and instead she was bathing in a warm, placid calm that made violence feel unthinkable, even absurd. She didn't care about fighting anymore. She wasn't sure she cared about anything.

"Finally," Wexler sighed. "I've taken more than enough vulgarity from the stupid girl that destroyed my property."

She lifted the mask away from Max's face. The effects of the pink gas did not fade. Wexler's words, dripping with contempt, washed over Max like a warm, spring rain.

"What'ssssss... what'ssss going..." Max trailed off. Speaking suddenly took so much effort, and it didn't seem worth making it to the end of her question.

"'What's going on?'" Wexler guessed, smirking. "I suppose this is the only way you'd ever listen. Not that you're going to understand much."

Max made a half-hearted, useless attempt to pull herself back together. She noticed that her face felt strange and lop-sided. One half of her mouth was utterly numb and stiff; the other hung down in a deep, drooling, stupid smile. Trying to fix it just made her drool more, and make one of her eyes twitch. Wexler regarded her struggles with obvious, sadistic glee.

"Maybe even an uneducated loser like you has heard of pheromones," Wexler sneered. "Chemicals that stimulate a particular hormonal and behavioral response. My company has discovered how to create and refine human pheromones. That's what you've just been breathing in."

Max was listening as best she could. She wanted to understand what had happened to her. But merely following each word was a struggle, and when they started to pile up against one another in phrases and sentences, it was far, far too much. They simply rolled over her as meaningless sounds.

"This particular pheromone is our most outstanding success." Wexler tapped her manicured nails on the canister of gas. The sound felt like a drum beat coming from inside Max's head. "It taps into some of our most primitive, mammalian urges. Domesticity. Pro-social behavior. Pair-bonding. Subservience to a successful provider. But, well, you'll soon learn about all that far more intimately."

All those long words melted into fog before Max could make sense of them.

"So, Max," Wexler continued. "My dear Max. You're the ideal test subject. Anti-social, unproductive, and violent. And, according to my investigators, a lesbian. All the more fun for me." She bent down, putting her sharp, pretty face inches away from Max's. The big, round lenses in her glasses loomed at the drugged-up punk like twin moons. "Listen up, Max. Maybe this will get through your stupid, ignorant head. I'm going to fix you. You're mine now. You're going to be my nice, docile little housewife. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Max's eye twitched more violently. She could feel a vein bulging in her forehead. There's nothing you can do about it. Those words produced a spike of indignation sharp enough to feel even through her drug-addled haze. No one got to say things like that to her.

"I... nnnoooo... fffuu..." Max's hand flailed out to one side, skating across the surface of Wexler's dining table as she tried to find a way to push herself to her feet.

Wexler put a stop to that at once.

"Shhh," she hissed poisonously. Delicately avoiding Max's feeble attempts to strike at her, she lifted the mask again and pressed it back onto Max's face.

The punk girl no longer had the presence of mind to try and hold her breath when Wexler tapped the button on her device.

"There we go," Wexler cooed, laughing. "Nice deep breaths, Max. Fill your lungs up. Get a nice, big dose of your medicine."

The hiss of releasing gas marked Max's defeat. Her already-weak struggles weakened further, and then stopped. Her arms fell back to her sides, and eventually, after a few more seconds of frantic squirming, her shoulders sagged and her legs turned heavy as lead. This second dose seemed to sink even deeper into her. A sense of peace and calm invaded every part of Max, slowing her heartbeat and turning her thoughts into sludge. It was unnatural and oppressive, but it was still peaceful. Max couldn't bring herself to be angry or dismayed. For a moment, she felt like she was going to lose herself completely to the fugue. Her eyes started to flit upward and roll back into her head, and she teetered dangerously on the edge of her chair, about to slip off.

"Hey!" Wexler warned sharply. "Wake up, Max!"

Her words meant nothing, but the sharp slap she delivered to the side of Max's face meant everything. It made the world behind Max's eyelids flash white for an instant, and jolted her back to a marginally higher level of awareness. The slap didn't hurt - nothing hurt, now - but it did make every one of her bones feel like it was shaking and rattling. From deep within her drug-drunk stupor, Max tried very, very hard to bring her head back up so she could look straight at Wexler. She just about managed it, even if her head kept lolling from one side to another.

"That's right, stay with me." Wexler slapped Max a couple more times, more gently, just to make sure she was still awake; first across one cheek, and then backhand across the other. "You've got a job to do, remember?"

Max found herself nodding, and then found she couldn't stop. She just went on nodding and nodding, like a stupid, broken toy.

"Good." Wexler laughed. "God. If you could only see yourself right now."

Limp, drooling, nodding, smiling vacantly. Max could imagine it.

"Now. Stand up."

Wexler snapped her fingers sharply in front of Max's face, twice. Max felt herself being hauled to her feet, and only belatedly realized it was her own muscles doing the work.

"I know you're not used to it, but you're going to pay attention and do what I say," Wexler said in a slow, deep voice, carefully enunciating each word for Max's benefit. "Clean my house while I'm at work."

"Ggghh... uhhh... y-yeahhh," Max slurred.

She wasn't sure what was happening to her. Her body had moved by itself when Wexler had told her to stand, and now, as Wexler gave her more instructions, she found herself unable to refuse. Her drunken agreement slipped out of her lips automatically, and she was struck with the unfathomable impression that Wexler was looming over her. That was impossible - the two of them were virtually the same height - but it felt that way. It felt like Wexler was growing somehow, like her presence dominated the room. Max was suddenly so much more aware of how sharp Wexler's suit was, how expensive her watch was, and how her voice carried the weight of someone who was used to being obeyed. Max felt like she was talking to a goddess; to someone infinitely formidable possessing crushing authority. Someone who couldn't be disobeyed.

"Good girl," Wexler said mockingly. "It's going to be very, very interesting to say how long it takes for the brain chemistry changes to become permanent in such an inappropriate subject." She checked her watch. "But as interesting as that is, I can't let you keep me waiting any longer. I'm needed at work."

She blew Max a kiss as she flew out the door to where her driver was waiting.

***

Max made it through the day in a haze. It felt like she was walking through a dream, with no sense of how many hours had passed. She was only distantly aware of what she was doing, but whatever it was, it was exhausting. She moved around Wexler's house from room to room, sweeping, tidying and dusting. It was strange that she wasn't pissed off about it, and even stranger that she wasn't bored. Max hated cleaning; normally she always half-assed it, and needed to play some loud music just to make that tolerable. This time, though, she worked methodically, cleaning inch by inch and surface by surface, utterly absorbed in the task.

It was early evening by the time Max started to feel truly awake, and even then she only realized how late it was when she heard the sound of Wexler's key in the door. Max scampered downstairs to greet her. She wasn't sure why, exactly - maybe to demand answers from her - but when the CEO appeared in the doorway, Max was immediately cowed, and ended up looking down at the floor modestly.

Wexler sighed contentedly as she stepped across the threshold and looked over at the punk. A smile came to her face. "My goodness," she purred, "you really look the part, don't you?"

At first, Max wasn't sure what she meant, but then she looked down at herself properly and noticed what she was wearing: an apron. A pink, frilly, apron. Immediately, her cheeks turned just as pink. It looked faintly ridiculous, worn over her battle jacket and contrasting with the rest of her punk aesthetic.

"I... uh... I guess I just... saw it around, and figured I should put it on," Max stammered. "At least... uh... I think that's what happened?"

She couldn't remember. She was just realizing that she couldn't remember. Her memories were lost to the haze, just like the entire day had been. The earlier she thought back, the less she remembered. The morning was a complete gap. She arrived at Wexler's house with her lawyer, and then... what?

"I approve," Wexler smirked. "Wear it tomorrow, too."

"Ye- um... s-sure."

Max's confusion was growing. Why was she acting like a nervous schoolgirl? She was muttering and tripping over her words, and she was so... so impressed with Wexler. She had spent all day surrounded by this woman's power and wealth. It made her feel small, but somehow, not in a bad way. In a safe way. The emotion was impossible to process, especially with her head still so foggy. Did... did she have a crush on her? That barely made sense; Wexler was hot but not that hot, and she represented just about everything Max usually hated.