Chapter 5

Roberta collected the dishes from breakfast to transfer them to the dishwasher. The dishes clattered in her shaking hands and utensils slipped and fell short of their intended baskets. She straightened up and slammed the dishwasher door shut when she was finally done.

She raised a trembling hand to her cheek and took several deep breaths to steady herself. She left the kitchen and stepped into the dining room before her shaky legs would take her no further.

She should not have let Gina take a walk that morning. Perhaps it would have been safer to keep her in the house. She shook her head and sighed. Nowhere was safe, not if he were already in town.

Roberta wrapped her arms around herself. She had sensed his presence, growing stronger with each minute. He would not go for Gina right away. He had business with Roberta first. Her knees felt weak, as if unable to support her heavy burden of guilt.

She jumped when the doorbell rang.

Her heart pounded. For a moment she was paralyzed, save to cast her wide-eyed gaze at the door. She whimpered as she drowned in a tidal wave of guilt. It should never be a moment of fear but of joy in having another chance to obey and do her Master's bidding.

The doorbell rang again. Roberta rushed to the door and pulled it open. Her breath caught in her throat. She again forgot herself, and stood immobile.

Victor reacted as if no one were there. His eyes focused on nothing in particular, he stepped over the threshold. His hands were thrust into the deep pockets of his trench-coat, as if he were still taking a stroll down the side of the road.

Halfway into the living room, he stopped and waited. He had yet to acknowledge Roberta's presence.

Roberta's eyes had remained fixed on him since he entered. Now they shimmered and grew dark, desirous, and wanting. By the time she finally closed the door, her breath was a light pant, and her stride made the growing moisture in her sex ooze into her panties.

She unbuttoned her blouse as she came around Victor. Each step she took closer to him was another wave of sexual heat washing over her trembling body. Her blouse fell away as she stood before him, then her jeans slid down her legs. She stepped out of them, her breath heavy and husky.

Roberta moaned as she slipped off her bra. Her breasts spilled from the cups, nipples hard and tingling and begging to be touched. She peeled her soaked panties from her slit, letting them fall to her ankles. Her pussy ached and glistened. She stepped out of her panties and sank to her knees, then to all fours. She panted hard as her pussy rose in pleasure by itself in anticipation of submitting to his will.

Victor cast a mere glance at Roberta, impassive and indifferent. A full minute passed.

"You disappoint me," said Victor.

Roberta gasped, and her body jerked. Someone seized her hips, holding her in a vise-like grip. Another hand caressed her backside, probing and squeezing, as if testing her flesh for just the right spot. She trembled, her fingers curling into the carpet.

"You do not even remember your place right away."

"Ung!" Roberta croaked as the unseen hand slapped her ass hard. She uttered the same sound two more times before she corrected herself. Nevertheless, she had to bite her lip to silence herself as the spanking continued until ten blows were struck.

"You resist even now. You do not let yourself immerse fully."

Roberta dropped her face to the floor as the spanking was renewed, each slap against her tender flesh louder than the last. Out of the corner of her eye, her surroundings shimmered.

"If I need to push, Roberta, you will most certainly not like where I will push you."

Something finally let go in Roberta's mind. She was no longer prostrate upon a carpeting living room floor, but upon a cold, hard, concrete slab. When she tried to lift her head, the chain about her neck yanked hard. Her ankles and wrists pulled against similar chains, which clinked against the stone.

Victor turned and stepped to the side. His boots echoed against the concrete. "Better."

"Uhn! ... Ung!..." Roberta cried as her punisher struck more blows against her backside.

Victor looked down upon his slave. He could hold both images in his mind. He could see the reality of Roberta squirming on the carpet, limbs unable to move against chains that were not there, her body twitching in response to the nonexistent blows of an invisible disciplinarian. He could also see the altered reality of her perceptions, of the chains and the hand that spanked her backside raw.

"Stop."

The spanking ceased. Roberta whimpered, her rear stinging with punishment.

"Be grateful for this, Roberta."

Roberta's pussy rose and crested. Her orgasm flooded over her, nipples throbbing along with her cunt. She gasped out her pleasure, falling limp to the concrete as her chains strained.

As her climax faded, so did her manufactured reality. She panted on the carpet, the pain in her ass gone. Only the lingering glow of her orgasm remained. She wanted more, even if it meant more punishment.

"Stand up and face me."

Roberta struggled to her feet. It was a few more seconds before she could raise her glistening eyes to his.

"I still see lingering fear. Perhaps it is because you realize that no punishment I could inflict would be sufficient for what you have done? Or more precisely, what you have failed to do?"

Roberta's eyes slowly widened. Fear became terror.

"Perhaps you are no longer my slave."

Roberta let out an anguished whimper. Her eyes blurred, and she fell hard to her knees. "Please, Master, no ... please, no..." Her head bowed, and tears dripped to the carpet. Her heart thumped as if it were about to burst. It might as well, were he to disown her. She could not live if she were not his.

Victor nodded. "Good. You are not completely gone. Very well. You will remain my slave."

Roberta cried and her pussy gushed, splashing on the carpet and running down her thighs. Her orgasm plunged her into an abyss of sexual ecstasy. The pain of her punishment was already forgotten.

Victor sat on the sofa. Once she had recovered from her climax and could open her eyes again, he gestured. She crawled on her knees until she knelt between his legs. She looked up to him like a puppy looking up to her master. Victor reinforced the perception, and now Roberta felt the leash about her neck, with Victor holding the other end.

"But you will explain to me now why you have disobeyed me, and why you have jeopardized the single most important task of my adult life."

Gina was grateful for her allowed walk. Her mother had seemed eager to shoo her out of the house. She hoped having more time to herself would help her sort out her muddied thoughts.

She liked walking in the snow. Barely an inch had fallen the night before, and she wanted to see it before the morning clouds cleared away and it succumbed to the sunlight. It lay as a smooth blanket of frosty white, pristine save for the remains of her footprints from the day before, their edges blurred and indistinct.

She followed the same path. She wanted to leave as much of it as pure as she had found it, dotted only by the occasional footfalls of animals.

Her mother had not spoken to her about sex again since the morning before, but Gina thought much about it on her own. She dreamed about it. Just before waking, she dreamed that a boy from school had followed her home and would not leave. He started touching her, ignoring all her protests, until she was so horny that she could barely breathe. He had stripped her and was about to have sex with her when she woke up.

Gina let out a breath she did not realize she had been holding. It came out as a husky sigh, her sex tingling. She shook her head. It wasn't like that, was it? A boy couldn't just come up to her and expect her to be so willing to give herself to him.

(Sex is meant to be given)

Gina stopped walking. The only sound was the whistle of the wind through the treetops.

It wasn't like that. She never saw any of the girls at school doing anything like that. They did sometimes flirt with the boys, but she could not recall any offers of outright sex.

She started walking again and approached the intersection with Old Fairview. The faded remains of her footsteps from the cemetery traced an erratic curve into the middle of the road before sliding to the side. She shivered at the memory of her skewed perception of the cemetery of the day before. It had started just as she met the stranger...

(You can trust me)

Gina blinked. Had she heard something ... or... ?

(You can always trust me)

Gina shook her head. Could she trust someone that she barely knew? She fought to believe otherwise, but it was a losing battle. The idea that he could make her see something that was not there was a silly notion anyway.

Nevertheless, her gait slowed as the edge of the cemetery loomed. She craned her neck, each step more reluctant than the last. She caught sight of a fallen section of wrought iron fence and relaxed. It looked as it was supposed to look.

The wind abruptly fell, and an odd odor wafted to her, the stale smell of decay. With her next breath, the wind rose again and it was gone.

Her heart thumped as she started forward. The wind died once more, and she sought that smell again. It did not materialize, but something else did: a faint sound from inside the cemetery.

Music.

Gina could not recognize the tune, the crunch of the snow beneath her feet masking its tinny sound. She could only tell that it was coming from inside the cemetery

Gina stepped past the trees, and the cemetery opened before her as she expected it: old, dilapidated, and forgotten. The new layer of snow had muted its stark appearance a bit, a few of the tipped headstones looking more like misshapen boulders than markers for the dead. Only one thing was not covered in snow, and that was the bench on which she and Victor had sat the day before.

Sitting upon the bench that morning was a girl.

She seemed oblivious to Gina's presence. Gina edged forward and saw why. Her eyes were closed, her head swaying to the rhythm of the song that blasted into her ears from her headphones. Curly locks of dark-blond hair bobbed before her eyes. Her slim, lithe body was wrapped in clothing inappropriate for both her age and the weather. A halter top stretched tightly across her petite breasts, and a short skirt clung to her hips like a second skin. Black stockings covered her legs, and knee-high leather boots enveloped her calves. Her light jacket paid only perfunctory heed to the cold, open in the front.

Gina's eyes traced the wire from the headphones, expecting to see something like an iPod at the girl's hip. Instead, she saw something far larger and bulkier that she had not recalled seeing before. She squinted and could just make out the word "Walkman" on it.

The girl smiled as a new song began on her player, and she mouthed the lyrics, bits of fog drifting before her parted lips. Her eyes slipped open, then snapped wide, her lips forming an "O" of surprise as her gaze fell upon Gina.

She yanked her headphones off her ears, and for a few seconds, Gina could hear the music.

" ... are living in a material world, and I am a material..."

The girl clicked a button on the player and silenced the song.

"Oh, um, hi!" the girl said in a bubbly, if somewhat sheepish voice. "I didn't expect to see anyone else. Um ... do you live around here?"

Victor paced the living room from one side to the other. He seemed oblivious to Roberta, who still sat on her haunches before the sofa. Behind her back, her wrists were crossed, wriggling and pulling as if bound by tight ropes.

In Roberta's mind, they were.

The house had again become a cold, concrete-floored dungeon. Ropes bound calf to thigh and pulled her ankles to the sides, forcing her legs apart. More rope restrained her wrists, so tight that her fingers were pins-and-needles. A vibrator was held against her pussy by more ropes about her waist and hips.

Roberta shivered from the cold air and hot lust. Her hips squirmed as the vibrations drove her to brink of orgasm, then relented and let her fall back. She moaned when the pleasure rose and whimpered as it fell.

Victor observed and sighed. She could not break free of his manufactured reality, but he could sense her efforts to do so, even as feeble as they were. "Tell me, Roberta. Was I foolish to allow you some freedom and a bit of my power to accomplish this task?"

Roberta lifted her head. "N-no, Master, i-it was ... I ... ohh ... uhhhn!... nnngghhh!"

Roberta was brought to the absolute straining edge of orgasm, only to be denied once more. She gasped and went limp against her imagined restraints.

"I gave you this generous morsel of my ability to mold your daughter into her predetermined destiny," said Victor, every word delivered with uncanny calm. "I expected to come here to find a girl ready -- even eager -- to step into her role as a slave."

Roberta panted hard, her body shaking. Her pussy, swollen and unsatisfied, dripped into a wet spot on the carpet.

Victor folded his arms. "The ceremony on Halloween is to be but a formality. Simply a bone I would throw to the cult so they could revel in their hedonism and uphold their fealty to me for another year."

"I'm sorry, Master!" Roberta croaked. Waves of unrequited lust crashed over her. "I t-tried ... I did what you wanted at first ... I..."

"At first?"

The vibrator stopped and changed. Roberta whimpered as something long and hard extruded itself into her cunt. Her eyes closed as slave instinct took over and she humped the imaginary cock in her pussy.

It gave her only as much pleasure as the vibrator had. Slave instinct would not let her stop. She had to hump and hump until either the cock throbbed or she did. Even if her muscles cramped or she grew weak from exhaustion, she would continue to hump.

"There is no 'at first, ' Roberta," Victor said. "This was your commitment. This was your duty. This was my experiment. I know the theory is sound. But now you saw fit to allow her independent thought. No, it was not just what you did recently. You've been slipping for some time. Such independence cannot happen with only a single month's failing. That is why I am so angry with you."

Roberta cried out and fell like a rag doll to the floor as the rug of her artificial reality was pulled out from under her. The sudden shift was so shattering that for a few moments the ghost of the ropes still pressed against her skin and the phantom cock still swelled in her pussy.

The maddening ache in her pussy, however, was very real.

Victor sighed and turned away. He had allowed Roberta too much freedom of action. He had let her develop feelings for Gina above what was necessary for her task. Roberta had not been his first choice as the vanguard of this bold new vision, but she had been one of his favorite slaves, one of the few he had kept for himself rather than sell on the market. Sentimentality rather than logic had made his decision.

But his anger would be no match for that of his benefactor, and it cared nothing for Victor's agenda. He sensed it was on edge. It had met with defeat and hurt since his last visit, and further failure would not be tolerated.

I will handle it, he told it as it seethed at the edge of his perception. I have already pledged to you that I would. Do not concern yourself.

A pause, then a sense of ease. He let out a slow sigh through his nose.

Words and promises would not placate it for long, and he faced a bigger task in Haven this year as a result. He hid his irritation. He did not need this burden atop the one Roberta had given him.

It needed more energy. It strained to keep control of what it had. It could spare no more resources for him. No matter. He did not desire its direct help, not if he wanted to avoid its taint.

He turned towards Roberta. "Get up."

Roberta pulled herself to her feet, still trembling from unrelenting sexual need. She cast two desperate and lustful eyes at her Master.

Victor smiled and cupped his hand under her chin. Roberta whimpered and moaned as renewed waves of desire swept over her. Her nipples throbbed in a parody of orgasm. "No, my slave. You will not be allowed to cum just yet."

He waited, patient. Roberta's mouth opened and closed as she struggled to hold words against the raging torrents of lust. "You ... you know what's best for me, Master ... thank you..."

Victor stroked her cheek. Roberta tensed, as if expecting to be slapped, or to experience yet another excruciating climb towards denied release. Instead, waves of simple delight washed over her and filled her head with misty bliss. She sighed into his hand before planting soft kisses on each of his fingers.

"No more punishment," said Victor. "My anger has sufficiently abated. Control, Roberta. That is what I practice, even over myself. That is what you should have taken to heart when I gave you some of my power. Control."

His hand fell away. Roberta swallowed. "I-I tried, Master. I did. I wanted to do as you wished. I..."

Victor raised a single finger and touched Roberta's lips. She silenced at once.

"I am no longer angry, but that does not give you permission to speak your mind. There is going to be only one mindset from this point on, and that is mine. Now, it is time to reeducate you as to the ways of your little world and what must be."

He swept his arm before him, and the living room changed.

"Let's take it from the top..."

Gina was too surprised by the girl's presence to respond at first.

Her eyes darted towards the rest of the cemetery. She still puzzled over her prior visit. Why would she think this place would be pleasant and inviting? Or had she only imagined that?

She looked back towards the girl and blinked. For a moment it seemed Victor sat there once more, beckoning in invitation. She stared hard at the girl, and the vision of Victor disappeared.

The girl recoiled. "Hey, stop staring, you're weirding me out!"

Gina flinched. "Oh! Um ... I'm sorry, I thought..." She shook her head. "Never mind."

The girl tilted her head. "You from around here? I don't remember seeing you."

"I live at the other end of this road," Gina said, pointing.

"What, that little two-story deal on the corner there?"

Gina nodded.

"What's your name?"

"Gina Caligano."

The girl looked surprised. "Really? Huh. Didn't think she had an older daughter. I'm Stephanie Fowler. I live just down the road this way." She pointed north.

"Oh?" Gina said, looking behind her. "I didn't think anyone still lived on Old Fairview Drive."

Stephanie giggled. "Old? Yeah, I guess that road is kind of looking its age, huh?"

Gina's skin prickled, but not from the cold. She wasn't sure from what.

Stephanie glanced at her watch and leaned to the side. She glanced south down Old Fairview. "Look, um, I'm supposed to meet someone here soon, but..."

The girl looked up. A warm breeze washed over Gina, her skin tingling at its touch. The wind brought the odor once more, the smell of something stale and old, like dusty heirlooms hidden in an attic. It was gone in the space of a breath.

Stephanie sighed. "Well, I guess I got some time, if you wanna stick around and talk or something."

Gina's reluctance to accept the invitation matched the tone in which it was offered. Nevertheless, curiosity won out, and she started forward.

Stephanie made a face. "Wait, what are you doing?"

Gina froze. She was just about to lift her foot over the fallen iron fencing. "Huh?"

"Use the gate, silly."

"But..."

The cemetery shimmered. The fence was whole again, the headstones orderly and neat. She blinked and the vision vanished. Warily, she looked down. The fence still lay at her feet in rusting pieces, yet she felt that it would be wrong to just step over it.

She approached the gate from its proper path. The padlock and chain still held it closed. She pushed the gate anyway, and the chain came apart along its most rusted links. The corroded hinges made a horrible screeching noise as she pushed it open.

Stephanie tilted her head again as Gina picked her way through clumps of dead weeds and bits of stone. "You're really strange, you know that?"

Gina sat down on the bench. "Sorry."

"Anyway, since you're here, you can tell me what you think."

"Huh? Think of what?"

Stephanie grinned and stood up. She twirled about once. The skirt hugged her rear as the top held her breasts, molding her ass cheeks into two ripe mounds. A crescent of bare skin curved along the edges. "Like it?"

"Um, like what?"

"My outfit, silly!" Stephanie said. She smirked. "Course, it gives my mother fits, but not like I bother to listen to her anymore, you know?"

Gina's eyes widened. The very thought of such open defiance to her mother was alien to her.

"Hey, I figure, I got a great bod, I can go show it off if I want."

Gina nodded, and her lips curled into a ghost of a smile. Stephanie tread on familiar ground with Gina now. A sexy girl like Stephanie should let others see her body. Gina imagined that was what her own mother would be telling her do next. It felt like the next logical step.

She wondered what Stephanie was thinking at that moment, whether she wrestled with the same problems that Gina did.

"Well, aren't you gonna say something about it?" Stephanie demanded.

"Oh, um, it looks great."

Stephanie beamed.

"Are you going to have sex with a boy as well?"

Stephanie gasped, her eyes saucers. "Who told you?!"