Priya had offered her hand very professionally as I opened the door for her. "It's nice to meet you Mr., uh- I'm afraid Anna didn't mention your last name."
I had smiled warmly at her in return. "Just call me Benjamin." I took her hand and gave it a single rise and fall before releasing it- motioning for her to enter. I had dressed as professionally as my wardrobe allowed at the time. No suit to speak of yet, but I did have a nice pair of black dress slacks and a button up shirt in dark purple that I normally reserved for rare events like marriages and funerals- or invitation only dress rehearsals. Still, I had been told I looked good in them. Maggie even going so far as to tell me that I
'Always did clean up pretty well.'
"Please forgive the domestic appearance- I'm afraid I'm nowhere near ready to get a more professional store front yet. It's still very much a
work from home
type of service."
She nodded, returning the smile as she stepped inside. I gave her a few moments to get acclimated to her surroundings before I drew her any deeper into the trap. I had to admit, Anna had done a very thorough job of cleaning and organizing my apartment in order to make it look as professional as possible for just this occasion. I almost didn't recognize it myself.
It had taken a bit of convincing over the past week, but eventually Anna had succeeded in piquing Priya's curiosity enough to overcome her natural instincts for self-preservation. It was enough to get her in the door, but I wanted to minimize the chances my prey would be spooked by something I would have considered innocuous and end up bolting out the door.
I could have forgiven Anna for being upset at my request- relegating her in an instant to the status of domestic maid. Such absolution had thankfully proven completely unnecessary. She had started cleaning immediately without so much as a word of complaint for what it would likely do to the outfit she had been wearing upon her arrival- a neat little number that was considerably more revealing than anything she would have chosen before I had warped her mind into a sexual deviant. Don't worry- I had her strip out of it before I let her do anything particularly damaging. The memory of her dutifully scrubbing the counters and vacuuming the floors with her hair and makeup so prim and proper, all while wearing nothing but her underwear, hosiery, and heels could almost make me understand people who fetishized house cleaning. Almost.
Still, the effort seemed to have paid off. Priya had turned, looking around the apartment- presumably for any signs that Anna had been wrong and I was, in fact, an axe murder and not to be trusted. Having found nothing specific enough to trigger her fight or flight response, her gaze finally settled back on me.
"Shall we get started, or would you rather sit and discuss the procedure first?" I asked her.
"I'm told its fairly straight forward. Can you describe it while you get me ready?"
"Of course. The machine is just through here." It took no time at all to get her seated and prepped with the new EEG headpiece. It had arrived earlier during the week. With a bit of trial and error I had managed to integrate it into the machine, replacing the wire-mesh helmet that was now safely hidden in the closet.
I gave her the same vague description of the machine and how it worked while I changed which training file I had loaded. I told her about the fragments- the safe ones at least. The radar screen. Which button would start the procedure. And a brief pep-talk about not over thinking it or trying too hard. "Just relax and focus on solving the problems. There's no particular trick to it. Once you pick it up, the blip will naturally tend towards the center of the screen. That's the goal. Everything else just comes naturally."
It wasn't until she was about to hit the button, starting the process that would irrevocably warp her mind and twist her into whatever I desired, that she finally allowed her anxiety to breach the surface. The innocence and irony of that moment only made me savor it that much more. It was a good thing I was seated at the control station- the table between us concealing how much her sudden apprehension on the edge of corruption aroused me.
As fate would have it that was also when Maggie made her first attempt to reach me that day. The sound of her ringtone was softly audible through the still open doorway. Thankfully, I had made it a point to never bring my cell phone into the bedroom with me when I was going to use the machine. Since I discovered the rather potent risk of exactly such an interruption, that precaution had become law.
"Do you need to get that?" Priya asked me politely, her discomfort reaching for any opportunity to escape the anxiety slowly chipping away at her confidence.
"No. I know who that is. I can call her back once I get you settled in."
She nodded quickly. "Anna mentioned the first session is going to be just some word problems. But if I like it and they stick, we could mix in other things too, right? I was thinking maybe work on learning a second language- like Hindi, or something?"
I tilted my head, amused at the sudden expression of anxious energy. "I hadn't thought of using it for language development," I told her, adding that to the list of lures I could to ensnare others moving forward. "Vocabulary certainly. Grammar and syntax would be a bit more challenging. But I suppose it could be done, yes. With a bit of work."
Priya smiled, her frayed nerves still plain on her face. "If all goes well, maybe I could help with that." Her expression warmed, a glint of mischief flickering here and there as she forced herself to calm down. "As long as you give me credit for anyone else that uses it after me. We can work out the royalty payments later."
I'm sure something can be arranged," I said smoothly, trying to hide the hungry, predatory gaze lurking behind my eyes. "Ready to begin?"
She took another moment, her eyes glancing between the training screen and my hopefully safe and welcoming face. She smiled at me- nodding as she reached for the keyboard. "Let's do it."
I watched as all of that anxiety and anticipation slowly drained from her face, leaving it relaxed. Calm. Peaceful. And utterly vulnerable. Distantly, I heard Maggie's ringtone a second time- but I was too distracted with the vista in front of me to care. Priya was a fast learner. It hadn't been 15 minutes yet and she was already hovering within the zone long enough to trigger her
real