Telos Ch. 04

"How long?" asked the woman. She sounded suspicious. "Months? Years?" She paused. "Centuries?"

Master waved a noncommittally at the list. "A long time."

"And now you want to talk to me about it."

"Yes."

"What if I tried to leave this room?"

"Right now, I would stop you." He stroked Grace's hair. "Close your eyes, slave girl. You will be my little object lesson. Listen. Feel. Stay silent." He pulled her into a more comfortable position.

Grace felt her thoughts turn warm and soft as she obeyed.

"Why shouldn't I make the whole world like Grace?" she heard him ask. "She is happy, now. She's happier than anyone else in the world. Happy and safe. All she had to give up was free will that she hardly ever used." He touched her hair. "The world is full of people who make themselves suffer but Grace will never make that choice."

His fingers walked down her belly to her sex and pushed themselves inside. She gave a little whine of pleasure.

"I can make her suffer," he said, "but it will never happen without purpose." His lips brushed her ear wordlessly. Through the hazy pink fog of pleasure Grace knew something was coming. She moved her body in time with his. "Suffering should happen for a reason." Her master's fingers vanished. An instant later he twisted her hair painfully and the fog vanished. "She can be content knowing that this is happening in order to show you why life is better than death."

Grace made the most piteous expression she could but stayed silent. She could barely remember feeling pain before. Tears well up in her eyes.

"Watch," said master. "Grace, do you like being hurt?"

"No, master, I . . ."

"Are you happy right now?"

"Yes . . ."

"Why?"

"Because . . . um . . ." Grace wriggled about in her master's lap, trying to escape the pain or bring his fingers back to her sex. "Because obedience makes me happy."

"Good girl. Now tell me what you want. I can give you anything in the world. Do you understand that? Tell me what you want."

It was hard to think about what she wanted. Her hips bucked involuntarily. She moved her head from side to side. Every motion made her predicament worse and raised the tension inside of her. When she released it a natural answer poured out of her. "I want to be good."

She was rewarded with freedom from the pain and a finger curling up inside. "Good girl."

Grace moaned and her toes curled. Her breathing almost stopped. She was greedily eager for more. Her self control almost failed but she kept herself on the edge. Happy and eager.

Obedient.

Always obedient.

"You don't want the whole world to be like Grace, though," said the woman as the fingers were pulled out of Grace's sex. "You know she needs you every moment of every day in order to function. I'm not sure how I know that but it's true, isn't it? The others use them as bribes or sex objects. You want . . . good citizens?" The woman rose from her seat. "How do I know these things about you? I know your name but you've never mentioned it to me even once and I think . . . I think you'd kill me if I ever said it."

Grace's master was silent for a long time then he took Grace off of his lap. "You've been a good girl for me, Grace. There's a new book in your room for you to read. Go now, I need to speak privately."

-)(-

Laura spent a long time in the white room. It was a strange place, utterly devoid of change. She was brought meals at regular intervals. Grace excitedly brought all manner of things to eat but the man in clean shaven man always entered with a glass dish full of reddish-yellow fruits.

She spent her time learning to touch people's minds. Although she found she could affect change in the girls' bodies the man seemed uninterested in teaching her about that. When she refused to do anything the man simply waited until she agreed. There wasn't anything else to do in the white room and Grace and Amy always seemed happy to participate. She felt as though she ought to be more resistant to the idea of manipulating people's minds but the feeling that came with doing it was irresistible.

She explored different states of consciousness. Awake even Grace, who seemed infinitely eager and accepting, coiled up her thoughts in fear. The resistance could be defeated with sufficient effort but their reactions discouraged her much more than the difficulty. After a short time he stopped asking her to do anything to the girls while they were conscious. In their sleep the girls had only a subconscious resistance to change. Changing the nature of that resistance was more effective than pushing through it. She could alter what they wanted with ease. Gentle movements let her weave together new thoughts and desire without ever breaking a thread. There was a drug called Bliss that the man showed her a few times, did more than strip away normal resistance. When Grace took the drug her mind obeyed almost before Laura touched it. The threads of unwound themselves and took new shapes with hardly any effort.

With experience she found great differences between the two girls. Amy's mind was elaborate, full of memories and emotions. Following one path lead to a thousand places. At times it was impossible to pass through a knot and understand every part. Grace's mind was simple. Large empty spaces existed between the threads and there were only a few places where they came together. Those mildly more complex thoughts invariably regarded the man in the suit.

The man sent her Grace less and less as time went on and Laura began to enjoy the time she spent controlling the girl. Amy was pliable but not mindless. Every moment of the interaction was a struggle that the detective had no chance of winning. It seemed as though she fought back merely to feel herself lose control.

Laura found herself teasing the girl while she experimented with her abilities. She dragged out the last moments as long as possible. The release of emotion that came when Amy's will gave in to her was addictive. She tried to keep herself from doing it to no avail. The girl was so happy and so eager when she was forced into obedience. More than once the detective worked herself to orgasm while her mind was bending.

It went on for weeks. The room blurred her sense of time from moment to moment but the routine allowed her to mark the days. Laura spent most of her inside the minds of the two girls. She gradually saw less of Grace and more of Amy. She learned remove things and add things, how to twist and manipulate the threads. She learned how to open Amy's mind without using her powers at all. Any emotional opening was enough. Anger. Fear. Arousal.

Over time she learned that with great care she could shape the girl by barely touching her mind. A bit of acceptance in one place and a bit of resistance in another. Offers of pleasure were enough to make the threads of Amy's mind untwist and retie themselves almost of their own accord. Punishments weakened the girl's resolve until she begged to serve. Those changes always lasted longer than the ones Laura forced on her.

She told herself every night that next time she would refuse to do anything more but every morning Amy knelt at the foot of her bed. There was nothing to do in the room that didn't involve Amy. When she tried to simply talk she found her hands creeping up to touch Amy's mind. When she did manage to control herself Amy seemed disappointed and Laura wanted to fix that bit of sadness.

It would just be a single touch. One little change.

She could wipe away the sullenness to make Amy happy and eager again. So she did and the flutter of the girl's heartbeat made her smile.

One day she fell asleep with Amy in her bed and awoke to find the girl still beside her. The clean shaven man was standing by the door.

"We are done," he said. "Now I would like to see what you will do with what you know." He nodded to the sleeping girl. "Take Amy with you when you go."

"You don't trust me?" asked Laura.

The man smiled. "On the contrary, doctor, I trust you to do exactly what you think is best."

"And when I try to stop this?"

"Then you will fail," he stepped away from the door to motioned for her to leave, "but your cooperation is immaterial. I simply wish to see what you will do."

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