Chapter 2: Finances

Sierra was still sleeping when Mark came back from a morning trip to town. He was about to wake her with a kiss, but she smelled the food he'd brought and roused.

"Mmm, smells good." she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Mark put the bags on the bed. In one bag was a quartet of sausage and egg biscuits and some pigs in a blanket. In another, fresh-baked Krispy Kreme doughnuts. The third was a much larger Wal-Mart bag with clothes and hygeine products. "Aww, I have to wear clothes?" she joked, digging into the food.

"'Fraid so, hon." he said, grabbing a biscuit and a pig in a blanket for himself. "I'm not planning on staying sequestered here all week. For one thing, you'd get bored if I left you here alone if you weren't asleep..."

"Or hypnotized." she filled in. "I kinda like that."

"And for another," he continued, "I've got the most beautiful girl in the incoming senior class at my beckon call, and I intend to show you off." She blushed at that, and they finished off the rest of their breakfast together. When she came out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth, she saw something shiny out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to look. It was her necklace, shining in the light from the bathroom. She was about to ask why he didn't just use her trigger, but she was already slipping, and it really didn't matter.

Mark was pleased that she slipped into trance more easily this time than the last time. Then again, it wasn't too surprising. After all, she'd been hypnotized before, and enjoyed it. This was only an exercise to reinforce earlier instructions, and implant new ones.

While in town, Mark had slipped into his room and picked up another induction device, one he would use in phase two, one he had painstakingly built for himself during his training, like a Jedi builds his lightsabre. He wanted his own source of income, not one controlled by his father, and a summer job was decidedly undesirable. Luckily, he knew of a lonely local donor who would be happy to help, with the proper motivation.

"Bye, Mom, I'm off to day-camp!" Hsu called from the door.

"Have fun, honey!" her mother called back. Li Hua sighed as her daughter left. Li Hsu wasn't stuck-up like other girls from rich families--Hua counted her blessings on that one. Hsu was friendly, outgoing, kind, and pretty. Living in America most of her life had spared her the expectation to have children early. This gave her the time to graduate high school with the rest of her class, and volunteer at a day-camp for underpriviliged kids who weren't quite old enough for full-blown summer camp yet. The diploma hung proudly on the wall. If only her father had lived to see it. said a depressing little voice in Hua's mind. The voice stole across her like a shadow presaging the pangs of loneliness that crept across her every time she was alone, which had become more frequent since the death of her husband, Li Tsao. She would give up anything, the palatial mansion, the financial security, the majority share she'd inherited in her late husband's company, anything, to make the loneliness go away.

The doorbell interrupted her moping. She brushed a strand of dark hair out of her face before answering it. "Oh, hello, Mark. What brings you here?"

"Hi, Ms. Li." Mark said. "I was wondering if you needed anything. I brought my dad's truck..."

"That's sweet, Mark." Hua said, smiling. "Come in." She led the young American boy inside. Young, but at just a hair under six feet, he was taller than her by almost a foot and a half. "Do ... do I look old to you?" she asked him.

"You?" Mark asked. "You look better than my mom ... um, don't tell her I said that." Hua laughed. It felt good, so she kept at it until she figured it was pushing the bounds of acceptibility.

"She'll never hear it from me, son." Hua said. "I guess you Americans don't think I look old enough to have given birth to an eighteen-year-old daughter, do you?"

"I know values in other countries are different." Mark said judiciously.

"Smart boy. Most people say something to the effect of 'us Commies' having babies while we're babies. But ... I was just shy of my fifteenth birthday when Hsu was born, and my eighteenth when we came to America."

"You're still young, Ms. Li." Mark assured her.

"I don't feel it." Hua said sadly. "My husband's gone, my daughter's grown up ... where does that leave me?" He turned her around, and sat in a chair so they could see face-to-face.

"I hear that where you come from, they use the same word for crisis as for opportunity, Ms. Li." he said. "We've been friends since back when you all lived next door to us. Your husband was a good man. I spoke at the funeral, remember?"

"I remember." she said, as he wiped a tear from her eye.

"What happened to him was unfortunate, and very unfair, but his killer has paid for what he did."

Yes, she thought, I remember watching the execution. In China, they wouldn't have used a needle, though.

"I know it won't bring your husband back. Revenge never accomplishes anything, but Tsao wouldn't want you to dwell on his death." Mark pulled her gently into his lap. She knew she shouldn't be sitting in his lap, but his embrace was so warm, so comforting. It had been a long time since she had let a man hold her. She'd forgotten how good it felt. He let her cry on his shoulder, until she was finished. No rushing, no pressure, no demands, only relief; she cried herself out, and he dried her eyes with a paper towel. "Feel better?" he asked when she stopped.

"Y-yes." Hua said. "I feel much better now."

"Here, look at this." Mark said, showing her some kind of watch. He opened it up, revealing a glow-in-the-dark face with a moving spiral background. The glow was soft, not at all unpleasant. A small crystal in the center threw light pleasantly all over her face. Holographic foil on the face created the illusion of a second spiral floating above the first one, and spinning in the opposite direction. She felt strange, as if she were floating away from her body, being drawn into the spirals.

Where are the hands? asked some detached part of her mind, to which the rest of her paid no heed. Mark was speaking. She couldn't make out the words, but she agreed, without question. His voice was soft and soothed her wounded soul like aloe vera on a sunburn. Mark was such a nice guy. He was so mature, so caring. He knew she was lonely, was here to help. He was only fifteen years younger than her. There were couples she knew of with bigger age differences. He was attractive. She was attracted to him. Yes, she realized, she was very attracted to him. She'd give anything if he would take away the loneliness, the awful, awful loneliness.

Sleep.

When Hua opened her eyes, she was naked, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was Mark's voice. Obey Mark's voice. Obey Mark. She remembered something. She remembered telling Mark she would give anything if he would take away her loneliness. He had agreed, and Hua was ready. The spiral was in front of her now. Her lips moved. She barely felt them. It was time. What would she give to be free? Anything. Everything. The decision was made. Hua agreed to give herself to Mark. Everything she had, everything she was, would be his.

She slept again. The last thing she was aware of was her own voice saying "I am yours ... Change me."

Hua opened her eyes again. Hsu was due back from day-camp any minute now. The door opened. Hua smiled and embraced her daughter.

"There's something different about you, Mom." Hsu said.