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?!"

"Uh ... what?"

Stephanie rushed back to the bench and slid close to Gina, her eyes burning. "Don't you dare tell anyone, Gina, and I mean it! Don't breathe a word of it. If my mother finds out that I had a boy fuck me, she'd go apeshit!"

"I won't!" Gina said. "I mean, I didn't even ..."

"We're gonna do it tonight," Stephanie said in a husky voice. "My friend told me about the perfect place where Jerry and I can go to do it and no one will know. I'm, like, all nervous about it, but I'm really excited, too."

Gina wanted to be happy for her. Stephanie was doing what Gina's mother said Gina herself should consider. But the edges of her vision wavered, as if the cemetery again were trying to remake itself. The vision vanished when she turned to look at it.

Stephanie sighed. "Okay, look, you don't hafta pretend you're interested," Stephanie snapped. "Yeah, first you reveal you know about me and Jerry and then don't even seem to care about it."

"Oh, I didn't mean that, it's just ... well ... um, isn't there something a little odd about this place?"

Stephanie frowned. "What, the cemetery?"

Gina nodded.

Stephanie shrugged. "I mean, yeah, I thought it was kind of a strange place to meet my friend, but it kinda has a charm to it, you know?"

Gina didn't, but she nodded anyway.

The girl glanced at her watch. "God, when is he gonna get here? I'll be late for school." She shook her head and looked up. "Hey, um, it was nice chatting with you, even though you're kinda weird, but if you got someplace else to go, you might wanna get going. Hint hint, okay?"

Gina nodded and stood. She started towards the edge of the cemetery, intending to step over the fallen fence, when she remembered herself and turned around at the last moment. She uttered a tiny gasp as her eyes fell on the bench.

Stephanie was gone.

Gina's eyes swept the cemetery once more. Nothing shimmered at the edges of her vision. The odd odor did not manifest. The cemetery was quite ordinary once more.

Gina's fear was not rooted in the superstitious fright of a mysterious figure in a cemetery. The past two days had unraveled the tapestry of her sense of self that

(her mother)

she had been weaving all her life. She could not tell what was real and what wasn't inside her own head, and no one could help her discern the difference. A mouldering old cemetery was all that stood as any kind of link. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps Victor ...

(you can trust me)

... perhaps ...

(you can always trust me)

"No ..."

Gina shuddered and staggered to the side. It made no sense. She had only just met him. She could not ...

(you can always trust me)

... trust him so ...

(you can always ...)

"Stop it," Gina declared. "I can hear it. I know it's there."

(you can ...)

"Stop it!"

(...)

Gina steadied. Something had snapped in her mind, like a rubber band stretched too far. She looked back at the cemetery. She tried to fix in her mind the vision as it really was before she turned and headed away.

Victor and Roberta stood at the end of a hallway that continued into an indeterminate distance. Lockers lined either side, broken at regular intervals by classroom doors. Teenagers milled about, standing at the lockers or gathering in small groups.

Roberta felt self-conscious standing naked among these teenagers, though none took notice of her. Victor sensed her consternation and shook his head. "You have drifted further from me than I thought was possible. Interesting. No matter." He swept his hand down the hall. "Observe."

Now another student was walking towards them from the distance. Roberta's eyes glistened when she recognized the girl as Gina, but only by her face. The rest of her was a Gina that never had been.

Tight, shiny leather shorts hugged her hips, riding high on her thighs. Her midriff lay bare below a top that covered little more than a bikini would. Her feet were squeezed into high-heels, her legs and hips swinging in a sensual glide as she walked.

Boys turned their heads to admire her. Girls gave her jealous looks, save for the few that betrayed lust. She smiled at them, her lips a sultry curl as she greeted them in return.

She stopped by one group of boys. One of them groped her behind. She leaned into it, closing her eyes, a soft moan escaping her lips. She gave the boy a look of raw lust and whispered something into his ear. The boy's eyes grew wide, his cheeks glowed, but he nodded eagerly.

"This is where Gina should have been, say, six months ago, just after her sixteenth birthday," said Victor. "Very comfortable with her own sexuality, willing to flaunt it as much as she desires. Now ..."

He gestured. A teacher stepped out of a classroom. She stood and watched Gina flirt and subject herself to obvious sexual advances. Her face was one of equanimity, even boredom.

Victor gestured once more to get Roberta's attention. She was reluctant to take her eyes from her daughter. Her heart ached, and she had to fight the desire to tell Gina to be careful and not rush herself.

Roberta finally took note of the teacher. "You see, she thinks nothing of Gina's appearance or actions," Victor said. "And that is because Gina is so ingrained in this behavior that she believes it to be perfectly normal, therefore everyone around her believes it as well. Now, tell me, my slave, is this where she is now?"

"No, Master," Roberta said. Her eyes were drawn back to Gina.

"Does she have clothes that come even close to that? Or does she at least have the right attitude, willing to let others look at her sexy young body?"

Roberta closed her eyes and hung her head. "No, Master."

Victor uttered a single, measured sigh. The scene shifted, and they were outside in the dimness of evening, the skies of the waning summer a deepening velvet twilight. Crickets chirped in the grass along the side of a deserted gravel road somewhere in the woodlands west of the town. Lustful sighs and deep moans drifted to them on the breeze from just the other side of a parked car.

Victor led them forward. The grass was cool against Roberta's feet. She steeled herself as they came around the front of the car.

Gina was here again, but her clothes now lay in a haphazard pile off to the side. She was sprawled on her back, naked, her legs spread for a teenage boy. He might have been any one of the jocks at Haven High. Chiseled features, tight muscles, and lean of body, he lay between Gina's inviting thighs, his cock pounding into Gina's willing pussy.

"Her date," Victor said.

Gina moaned and wrapped her legs around him, lifting her hips to his.

"This is where every one of her dates should have led her over this past summer. This should be the end of a long and thorough exploration of her sexuality."

Roberta bit her lip as she stared. Arousal teased her pussy, as if envious of Gina's enjoyment of the young teen's cock. Yet her eyes shimmered, and she squeezed her arms around herself as if to hold herself back.

Victor observed in silent calculation. They turned at the sound of tires crunching against gravel to see a second car pull up. Another teenage boy had arrived out and dashed into Gina's midst.

"A friend of Gina's date, one that he called shortly before he took her here."

The second boy cast an impish grin at his friend as he waved a greeting, and proceeded to strip. Roberta trembled as the boy straddled Gina's head. Gina opened her mouth and let him dip his cock past her lips. Her moans became muffled grunts as she worked him with her mouth with the same vigor as her date worked her pussy.

"She simply accepts it," Victor said. "It is normal for her. And thus, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for the boys she associates with."

Roberta tried to see it as Victor wanted her. She tried to see this as what was proper and expected. Her eyes widened, a husky sigh escaping her parted lips. Pleasure rose, and she shivered with growing desire.

Victor felt a buzz against his hip. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, where a text message was waiting for him. One eyebrow twitched upwards when he saw it was from Terri Hollis.

He returned his attention to Roberta. "Better. You are starting to think as you need to. I hate to resort to such crude methods of reward and punishment, but you give me no choice. Now, Gina should have been spending this past summer like this. Sex should come to her as easily as breathing. Does it, Roberta? Has she even dated a boy, let alone had sex with one?"

"N-no, Master," Roberta whimpered. She tried to avert her eyes. Her head turned as if to do so, but her gaze remained locked. She could not look away. Her own daughter being used as a sex toy, and yet her pussy buzzed with arousal.

Victor nodded. "Yes, you understand now. Perhaps you did drift from me, but you'll come back the more you remember your purpose. The more you understand that a lifetime of loyalty cannot be undone by a mere year's absence by me."

The guilt suffocated her like a blanket, and she gasped as if needing air. "Please, Master, I-I never intended to turn away from you ... I never intended to defy you! I couldn't! I just ..."

Victor cupped her chin and spoke to her in soft tones. "Shh. I know, my slave. My anger was simply to emphasize the importance of this work."

"Everything you do is important, Master."

Victor smiled. "Much better. Yes, I know, Roberta. Perhaps part of it is not your fault, at least not consciously." His hand dropped away. "There is something else at work here. Things are not right in Haven. It is much like tossing a stone into one side of a pond. You will not get splashed if you stand at the other end, but the ripples reach all shores."

"I don't understand, Master."

"You need not concern yourself. There is only one thing that matters for you. Now, come along."

Victor started away. As Roberta followed, the grass under her feet became plush carpet. The transitions became natural to her again. She accepted her shifting reality as the way things were.

They stood in a living room once more, but one far removed from Roberta's. This one was much larger, and far more elegant, as were the people that occupied it. Men stood in suits, pressed and neat; women in long, formal dresses, where gossip ran as fluid and bubbly as the champagne they sipped. An air of satisfaction hung over them, as if this were the topper of a dinner party. A sense of eager anticipation also floated among the guests, edging over into impatience for some as they waited for the surprise that was to be revealed to them that night.

Victor took a step back and read his text message from Terri: If you're in town by now, please see me today, it's urgent.

"A glimpse into the future, Roberta," said Victor, slipping his cell phone back into his pocket. "A future that may have been yours, had I not decided to take you as my own to further my grand vision. But this is a future that must be for another."

Before them a tall, slim man with a balding pate and gray fringes stepped away from his excited compatriots and stood before his guests, calling for their attention.

Victor gestured and said to Roberta, "Observe."

"In a way, you have all seen my little surprise already," the man began, his eyes glittering with relish at the rapt attention from his guests. "You have seen my little nubile young maid, who was only more than happy to cater to your every need. She even looked like she was quite enjoying it, as if serving you was the center of her very existence, as if catching your eye and making your gaze linger on her was itself as pleasant an experience for her as it was for you."

Hushed whispering spread among the guests. Victor turned to Roberta. "Do you sense the curiosity? The excitement? Oh yes, a few are troubled. Why would he have such a young girl not even out of her teens as his maid? Why would she parade around like a little strumpet? But none turn away. None reveal their reservations. All are eager to know more."

Roberta's heart pounded. She knew what was going to happen, and what she would see. Maybe once she held to the small hope of a different future for Gina, but she could no longer find it. Her own feelings became those of the dinner guests: wary, but curious and excited.

"There is much more to her than meets the eye," the man said with a sly smile. "And much more of her to see. As I have hinted to several of you, she is a very special little maid. She can serve in additional capacities."

There were a few audible intakes of breath, some incredulous whispering, and a few shocked looks. Victor pointed them out. "And yet, they stay. They are still too fascinated to turn away. They know what they want, regardless of how they hide it."

Roberta swallowed. Her pussy felt hot. She wanted to see as well. She wanted to experience it. Nevertheless, she trembled and felt a brief compulsion to look away.

"And now, let me call her into your midst, and I can show you what I mean. Gina, come here."

A quavering sigh from Roberta followed her daughter entering the room. Her young body was poured into a tight, frilly French maid outfit. It rode high over her hips and ran narrow between her legs, only enough to just cover her delta, her mound pressed in perfect relief against the thin material. Fishnets painted her legs, ending in black, stiletto heels. She walked with a perfect swing to her hips, her eyes dark and sultry.

A hush fell over the assembled guests. Even those that had reacted with shock earlier now looked on with increasing interest, even if a troubled look lingered in their eyes.

"Imagine what some of them are thinking," said Victor. "She is only sixteen! She is too young to look like that! Yet they look. And they want. Oh, yes, they want."

Roberta did as well, like a gentle wave of heat flowing around her. Her own daughter trot out as a wrapped present, yet it filled her with perverse excitement.

The host knew he held everyone rapt to his every word. With a smug smile, he turned to Gina. "Remove your shoes and stockings, Gina."

Without hesitation, she obeyed. Leather and silk slipped from her body in movements both eager and sensual. Her breath quickened, and her bosom swelled against the lace. Everyone watched, the reluctant becoming more interested, the shocked more curious. By the time Gina had removed off the last stocking, two hard bumps stood on the swell of her breasts. More than one guest pointed and whispered.

"They know what's coming," Victor said. "They can't look away. Their normal sensibilities mean nothing, not with what is about to be presented to them."

Roberta could feel it, a tangible twisting of her emotions, pulling at her desire. Pleasure rose hot and slick in her pussy, as if someone were teasing her folds.

The man spoke again. "Isn't she a beauty? Doesn't she have such pretty legs? She is even excited by it. And don't we all grow excited? Don't we all want to see more?"

No one denied him. Several men shifted their weight or executed a discreet tug at their belts. Several women lay a hand against a flushed cheek or squeezed her legs together. One woman snapped open a fan and waved it at her face.

"Maybe some of them don't know why they are becoming so aroused," said Victor. "But you know the answer, don't you, Roberta?"

"B-because ... because Gina is excited. Because this arouses her."

"Good girl."

Roberta moaned as her pleasure spiked, her pleasure rising to a strained peak but offering no relief.

"Gina," said the man with a wicked grin. "Open your dress and show us your breasts."

One man's eyes widened. A woman raised a hand to her mouth and uttered a weak gasp. Another woman frowned and folded her arms. Yet no one protested. No one left. And when Gina's dress was pulled away, her nicely rounded breasts bouncing free, no one looked away. Her nipples rose and fell with her breath, two hard points erect against milky, soft flesh. Her hands trembled, as if eager to let the dress fall from her body completely. Her hips squirmed, and those who were drawn to the movement saw that the fabric clinging to her delta was damp.

"She is quite comfortable, even eager, to expose herself," Victor said. "So they are just as comfortable and eager as well."

Roberta shook, this time not with desire but with conflict. A powerful, primal emotion struck from the depths of her mind and staved off complete submission. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as she longed to pull her daughter to her, to escape Haven and take her somewhere far away, some place Victor would never find them.

Yet Roberta did not have the resolve or the courage to make this spark of resistance blossom into flame. It sputtered and faded before drowning waves of sexual bliss. She moaned and fell to her knees, her pussy begging to cum, overwhelming one raw instinct with another.

The man knew he need not encourage his audience any further. He had them right where he wanted them, right at the edge. Now he would push them over. "Gina, remove the rest of your dress."

Gina let go of the dress even before the command had completely passed his lips. As it fell, it peeled from her pussy with a faint wet sound, leaving her folds hot, bare, and glistening. Gina brushed the dress aside with her foot when it crumpled to the floor, so no part of her was hidden. She panted in earnest, her body flushed with desire, eyes dark with need.

Shock and disapproval had vanished. All eyes remained on Gina, silent and wanting. Everyone stood in quiet anticipation.

"There is no turning back now," Victor said. "Not for them, and not for you, Roberta."

"She fulfills my every desire," the man said. "In every capacity. She is not just my maid, she is also my slave. And I give her to you for the evening. Ask what you want of her. Do what you want with her. She will do it, willingly and eagerly."

Roberta's hands clenched. Her pussy felt molten. Liquid heat tricked down the inside of her thighs, inflaming her own desire until she was an inferno of lust. She envied the man's guests, having free use of this wonderful, sexy little slave girl.

Nevertheless, a pause followed as the guest played out their final reservations. One of them finally stepped forward, a man with a bulge in his pants so obvious that it would have been obscene in any normal context. He fondled one of Gina's breasts until she panted and the insides of her thighs grew damp.

He led her to the sofa and sat down. Without being told, she dropped to her knees and undid his pants, taking his cock into her mouth with an ease and eagerness that drew a surprised but pleasant gasp from her patron. Others approached behind her, touching her, stroking her bottom, probing her folds.

"Even the women," Victor said with a smile as one nearby woman fingered herself as she watched. "They, too, will come forward for a chance to have Gina's skilled tongue at their intimate gateway."

Roberta moaned and fell to her knees. She gasped for breath as intense lust bathed her in furnace heat. Her pussy strained until she thought it would burst.

"And now, Roberta, do you finally understand? Do you finally see what Gina will become? What she must become? What you must help me bring about?"

"Yes, Master," Roberta moaned.

"I wanted someone I could take easily. A few words from me, a tweak of her perceptions, and she would be mine, ready for market. But now I must resort to cruder methods. I have only a week. It is usually not enough time, but I am counting on what work you have already done with her. I am counting on the merits of my theory, that the perfect slave can be bred better than she can be taken."

Roberta stared at Gina. All other concerns and worries fell away. Only her Master's reality mattered. It became her reality, as much so as if she had conceived of it herself.

"And you will help me. You will do everything you can to make it happen for me. By Halloween, I will have Gina as I had intended. And you will be happy for it."

"Yes ... Yes, Master, I will ... I ..."

Roberta tilted her head back and uttered a shrill cry. Her orgasm swept over her like a tidal wave, flooding her mind with sexual bliss and drowning whatever lingering fears and hesitation she still harbored. When the throes of pleasure abated, a contented sigh followed, Roberta now safe and happy in the knowledge that she had regained her Master's trust and affection.

"Stand."

Roberta let out a soft moan at the lingering gentle pleasure, filling her head with a hazy euphoria. Victor waited until this passed. When she looked at him again, standing once more back in her own living room, the uncertainty and fear in her eyes were gone.

Victor cupped her chin. "Much better. I had hoped that all you needed was a reminder. Now I will tell you what you need to do to help me."

Roberta smiled. She felt good again. She was immensely grateful to him for exorcising her anxiety. Her love for Gina had not vanished, it had been changed. Because she loved Gina, she wanted Gina to fulfill her destiny and be happy and filled with pleasure for the rest of her life. She wanted Gina to be placed with a Master that would appreciate her and use her as she was intended to be used.

Victor smiled and felt some of the same elation. Roberta would no longer be a hindrance to his plans for Gina, leaving him time to devote to dealing with his other task.

As if sensing his moment of personal triumph, the Entity made its presence known in his mind.

All is in hand, Victor replied. I have my situation under control. Rest assured, I will retrieve that artifact for you. Before I leave Haven, you will be safe, and you will have the energy that you need.

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