Watch the Tapes

The shot changed to a video of a woman jogging toward the camera, wearing a tracksuit and a pair of headphones. This shot didn't look like stock footage; it looked like it had been shot with whatever the giant clunky equivalent of a hand-held video-camera was back in the early 80s. "And in the event that passive mode proves insufficient for a particular purpose, select individuals will be able to enable 'active mode' through the use of a targeted key phrase."

The jogger stopped as a man stepped out from behind the camera. He walked up to her and said something, but his back was to the camera and there was no sound. The woman stopped dead, her face going slack and her glazed eyes staring straight ahead. "Active mode allows for direct control of the subject, rendering them completely open to verbal commands for as long as desired. At this time, it usually takes over seven hours of exposure to the subliminal signals for maximum effectiveness, but we anticipate that by 1995 this figure will be cut in half."

1995. Erika would have been ten in 1995, listening to Mariah Carey and imagining herself as a rock star. These people had been around her whole life. They'd been influencing elections, controlling cultural movements, shaping all of society...

And that, she thought angrily to herself as she watched the jogger in the video strip out of her tracksuit and finger herself to orgasm while the man sat on a park bench and masturbated. These people had been getting their rocks off for literally decades, picking any woman they wanted and turning her into a blank-eyed fucktoy for their amusement. Piper was just the latest in a long line.

The screen cut out into a wash of static that slowly rolled back down to reveal Saul and Piper again, but Erika was too furious to pay attention to the next installment of 'Sex Slave Follies'. She was already planning her next move.

*****

"I'm here to see Mister Saul Compton," Erika said through tightly clenched teeth. She tried to keep the rage out of her voice, but she suspected that all she was doing was focusing it. "I'm afraid I don't have an appointment."

"Well," said the receptionist, "Mister Compton is a very busy man, I'm afraid, but I will tell him you're here." She tapped a button to activate the intercom.

"Tell him Doctor Carol Wyman sent me," Erika interjected before the receptionist could speak. She'd done a little homework in the airport while waiting for her flight. Sure enough, Doctors Wyman and Morris were real, if obscure, professors in the field of neurology. Very obscure-they'd published a few minor academic papers and retired in 1978. She'd married him a month later.

The receptionist furrowed her brow slightly, but did as Erika asked. She furrowed her brow even further when she heard the response. "Um..." She didn't even try to hide the confusion in her voice. "You're in luck," she said. "He just happens to have an opening in his schedule right now. Um, you can go on in?" Her hesitation made it clear that this didn't happen to anyone shy of the Pope. Or possibly Springsteen.

Erika walked into the office to find Saul sitting behind his desk, smiling diplomatically. Piper Laramie was sitting in a chair in the corner listening to music, her head bobbing slightly to some unheard beat through a pair of state-of-the-art headphones. Erika restrained her urge to keep walking until her fist connected with Saul's nose, and stopped right in front of the desk.

"Don't even think about it," she said before he could say a word. "I saw the tapes, I know all about your Wyman-Morris System, and I have an article ready to auto-publish if I don't hear exactly what I want to from you. Do you understand me? I know everything. I know what you're up to, you and your cronies. That girl over there? I know what you did to her. So let's just get the bullshit out of the way right now, because I know the truth."

Saul nodded, his face contemplative. It worried Erika. She was expecting him to panic, to beg her not to spill the details all over one of the biggest gossip sites on the Web, but instead he looked like he was thinking about whether to go with the brisket or the corned beef for lunch. "You did see the tapes, then. I was kind of wondering. 'Cause, y'know, videotapes, they're for old guys like me. I thought maybe you didn't have a VCR or something, but then I thought, nah, you can buy one for ten bucks at Goodwill, right?"

"Um...five," Erika admitted, her anger twisting into confusion. "You sent the tapes?"

"Yeah," Saul said with a smile and a nod. "I read your site all the time, you do good writing, and I thought, this is a young lady who knows what's what in music. She has great taste. I bet a lot of people listen to what she has to say. So I figured I should get you on board with the whole thing."

"Get me on board?" Erika shouted. "You think I'm going to...to help you with this shit?" The anger was back even bigger than before. "Maybe you don't understand, Mister Compton. I watched both tapes. All the way through. I have an article all ready to go."

"Uh-huh," Saul nodded. "And what's this article about?"

Erika glared at him. "It's about Piper Laramie's new album, sir," she said. "I wrote a piece about how hard it is to write good studio material while constantly touring, and what it's like trying to build a fan following one appearance at a time." Something felt wrong about the words coming out of her mouth, but Erika couldn't quite make the connection.

Saul seemed pretty happy about it, though. He said, "I guess you really did watch those tapes all the way through, huh, sweetie?" He rolled his chair away from the desk a little, and Erika could see that he was rock hard inside his designer slacks. "Go on, tell me what you're gonna do, now that you know it all."

"Whatever you command, sir," Erika replied. She couldn't hear any anger in her voice anymore. It had all melted away into quiet, heady bliss. "I love to be an obedient good girl for you, sir. I will obey your instructions." She couldn't believe how happy she sounded. She couldn't believe how happy she felt.

"I already have my next three articles ready to go." The words felt unfamiliar in her mouth, like it wasn't really her saying them. Like there was a second Erika talking, while she just relaxed and listened. "You told me earlier that you had three other labels that you released through, so I should be able to keep directing people to your artists for some time if I'm not obvious about it."

Erika wondered when he'd told her that. Maybe it was on that second tape, after he said...said...he'd said something to her, something important. Something absolutely vital, she knew, but the words just slipped away into the back of her mind as she tried to think about them. She knew it had something to do with his whole brainwashing conspiracy, but she was fondling her nipples through her clothes and that was making it too hard to think. Maybe if she stripped naked it would be easier.

"Very nice," Saul said as she unbuttoned her blouse. "That's the thing about this business, darling-all the girls are practically skin and bones. It's so nice to see a girl with some curves on her every once in a while. You, honey...wow. You got tits like fucking mountains."

"Thank you, sir," Erika said, blushing. She eased her way around the desk to where Saul was taking off his own clothing. "I'm so glad I can please you, sir."

"Oh, you are definitely pleasing me, champ," Saul said as she lay down on the floor. He straddled her chest and began sliding his cock through the valley of her cleavage. "And doesn't that feel nice?"

"uh-huh," Erika whimpered, her voice suddenly unsteady. It felt like she had a river running between her thighs all of a sudden, and she understood exactly what made Piper moan in those videos. She pressed her breasts together around Saul's cock, flicking her nipples as she did so and feeling surge after surge of mindless, vacant pleasure flow through her body. It reminded her of something, something she'd seen recently, but she couldn't think of it. She couldn't think of anything. She didn't need to think, not when she could follow instructions instead.

"Good girl," Saul said, his tone thick with arousal, and Erika moaned in response. It felt good to be a good girl. Even coming here was part of being a good girl, just like she was being a good girl when she thought that it was her own idea. Everything Saul told her felt so good to do, and everything he wanted was exactly what she wanted now. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Piper approaching them, stripping naked and kneeling between Erika's thighs, and even that felt perfect. She wondered when she'd be allowed to shave between her legs like Piper.

"Oh, oh fuck, good fucking girl, good fucking...gnnh!" Saul's thrusts became irregular for a moment, then Erika felt wet liquid splattering all over her tits. She couldn't help it-the second she felt him cum on her tits she felt a massive orgasm explode through her whole body, bigger than anything she'd ever experienced before, washing away all of her resistance and leaving her utterly blank.

Piper leaned over her, and Erika knew that her vacant, glassy stare matched the look in Erika's own eyes. And as Piper leaned down to lick her tits clean, Erika realized just how wonderful that really was.

THE END