On an ordinary day, Mac Guillory would blend in perfectly with the crowd of the busy streets of Leeds, and no one would even bother to look at him twice due to his fairly unremarkable physical appearance and ultimately quiet, subdued personality.
Yes, on an ordinary day this is what would have happened. However, that Thursday afternoon was anything but ordinary and, no matter how much one tried to not notice him, it was hard not to do so and, even more, impossible to look away after the first impression kicked in.
He was walking hurriedly with bloodshot eyes and a mouth full of meaningless, incomplete sequences, his movements completely out of synch as if he was no more than a puppet whose strings were being pulled in all directions simultaneously by a terrible puppeteer.
Despite the impeccable suit and clean-shaved face, the rest of the package screamed "mental delusion" out loud and no one knew for sure if the errancy of his behavior was not a ticking bomb very close to exploding. The truth is no one was really interested in getting to the bottom of it and, though the gawking was frequent, the heads that turned were not followed by conscious bodies and minds willing to see if he needed any help.
It all changed when a woman appeared from behind him to touch his left shoulder ever so slightly. Sensing the strange contact, Mac reacted viciously, all of his muscles twitching in an animalistic display of raw self-preservation. The woman, on the other hand, showed no reaction other than a sympathetic wide smile as she said:
"You are clearly not feeling well. Please, come with me."
Standing just a little over six feet tall due to the heels, she appeared to be somewhere in the range of early-thirties, her golden brown hair framing a face of subtle angles that stood somewhere between a sense of undeniable softness and strict resolve whenever the situation called for it. He couldn't see her eyes as they were hidden behind a pair of very dark lenses. Strangely enough, he didn't have to see them to know they were of an indefinable color, sometimes green with specks of grey, sometimes blue with hints of green, and many other variations of the chromatic spectrum.
"I... no... I..." he mumbled falling back into the land of gibberish whilst his body tried to force him to walk mindlessly all over again.
"I said: Come!" the woman insisted, this time with a prominent edge that could be qualified as the crack of a thunder under the sun. The sharpness, however, was not meant to evilly intimidate him, but rather make him spring to attention. His mind was clearly defocused and, unless Reason exteriorized itself before long, the end of his day was not going to be pretty.
Also as expected, Mac's subconscious reacted first, random thoughts coming together to issue actual orders to the rest of the body. When he glanced at her once more, she turned his back on him and walked to the right, traveling as further away as possible from the confusion of rush hour. She could hear his irregular breathing as he tried to maintain a steady pace, his lips now keeping the mumblings to a minimum, clearly imbued with a different sense of awareness, altogether.
How long he trailed behind her is something that cannot be said for sure, because his physical steps did not exactly coincide with his mental ones, and the perception of the flow changed the more he kept on moving. After that indeterminate period of time though, he found himself inside an apartment, with a set of flickering lights being shot into his eyes, her voice becoming richer, much more curious and exhilarating.
"I want you to tell me everything that has been plaguing you, and how long have your ordeals been going on," she instructed. "I want you to be completely honest and that you do not omit any important detail so I can give you all the assistance you need. These lights will help you organize your thoughts into a cohesive story. Trust the lights and trust in me. You know you can trust me, so act upon it. Trust me... trust me... trust me and begin by telling me your name."
Mac's attempts to protest and resist the enthralling combination of soft lights and silky voice were short-lived and, almost effortlessly, the blissful trance-induced state became a reality. In good honesty, he was no stranger to those experiences of the mind, as it soon became evident the moment he started telling her everything she wanted to know.
He confessed how he earned a living by working in a shady law firm whose clients weren't exactly the most respectable kind upon the face of the earth. He wasn't very pleased with it but, in a time of global crisis and major recession everywhere, he couldn't really complain and afford to lose his only means of livelihood.
Afterwards, he told her about Deborah Denning, one of the top figures in the company hierarchy and how she got herself a reputation of being a wonderful tease, but also a bitch like no other when things went south.
For many months, she had played both silly and dangerous games of seduction with him, with lots of x-rated phone calls taking place inside and outside the firm, as well as written message exchanges that could make even the kinkiest of souls blush unexpectedly. She was a force to be reckoned with in the ways of pure covetousness, and liked to play things her way, set up the stage, keep the rhythm, and make everything unfold according to a master plan of complete control.
In the face of these truths, it was obviously a mistake when, one day, he admittedly revealed to her his yearning desires of sexual submission. An even greater mistake was to allow her to use that information for a series of researches about his habits and mental patterns, for it unleashed a resourcefulness that could only spell doom if not handled properly.
Using her various charms and a series of surreptitious techniques she learned here and there, soon Deborah gave free reign to her own sadistic inclinations. She started dominating him forcefully on every conceivably inappropriate occasion, using strings of humiliation to keep most of his thoughts in check. Then, without any sort of firm directions, she slowly enveloped his mind in nebulous states of half-consciousness, pumping subliminals onto his computer screen on a constant basis, creating and combining addictive triggers that cemented the authority she wanted to establish and maintain without dispute. Mac's submissiveness was heightened but also distorted as it was swept along by enslaving routines that were an outrage to his original intent.
He was dulled to the point of responding only to mere automatic encodings, like a living computer program manifesting itself to the outside world under the guise of a sack of flesh and bones. Instead of stopping when he was already completely under her thumb, she kept on pushing things further, looking for additional ways to spoil even more something that was already rotten from inside out.
The onslaught of controlling schemes eventually caused something to snap, and Mac became subject to all kinds of visual and auditory hallucinations brought about by the disrespectful tampering of his brain. His work skills were irrevocably compromised, and reality became a fluctuating mess of physical pain and mental anguish.
On that day, the path of madness had been so inviting that he couldn't resist walking along its trails, mumbling half-sentences and broken words to everyone that walked past him. Deborah haunted him with tantalizing instructions and would have no doubt claimed his life sooner than later if the mysterious lady hadn't intervened.
As she looked at his slightly vacant expression, the woman felt Mac's aching distress almost empathically. She was truly going to help him with his ordeals, but that meant another approach, followed by an inevitable confrontation. Her resolve was so adamant though that she only had to ask this once:
"So where exactly can I find this Deborah?"
* * *
If there was something Deborah Denning hated more than anything else in life, was dealing with people that were undeniably beneath her, kind of like her new female secretary who had no idea how that blonde woman had walked into her office, or how long she had been waiting there in the first place. The haziness the young woman evoked as a cause of such a strange event felt like a pathetic excuse, and pathetic employees deserved the boot without remorse.
"You can start packing your things as I won't be requiring your services any longer," Deborah said, making a tremendous effort not to scream like an angry banshee.
Afterwards, her six inches stiletto heels dashed to meet the well-dressed stranger that, despite looking friendly enough, was still an uninvited guest in her world.
