The Brain of Piacenza

Mason's phone rang, and he looked down at it. Monica was calling. Crap.

"What's up?" Mason said, answering the phone.

"Hey, Mason. Did you want to go to a strip club tonight?"

Mason had not expected that to be the reason for Monica's call. "Are you going to bring the brain along?"

"Of course," Monica said after a brief pause. "Why?"

"No reason..." Even Mason wasn't convinced by that answer.

"Look, if you want to give the brain a whirl, you could just ask," Monica said. "Lord knows I've been putting it through its paces."

Mason was curious what she meant by that, but the compulsion he was under didn't care to sate that curiosity. "Okay, where's the club?"

"It's Nitro Club over on 6th. The show I'm interested in starts at 7, so be there a little before then."

"Okay, be sure to bring the brain. I love you, bye."

There was an uncomfortably long pause at the other end. "Bye, Mason."

Mason hung up and sighed heavily. What was he going to do? He needed to find a way around the professor's orders. He looked at his watch. He had two hours before seven. Maybe he could come up with something with the time he had?

* * *

Mason arrived at Nitro Club at 6:50. He paid the cover charge to the bouncer, and walked into the venue. The inside of the club was dark and filled with smoke. The only brightly lit part of club was the stage where Mason could see a naked brunette dancing to some bass-heavy rock music.

Mason tore his eyes away from the stage, and scanned the patrons looking for Monica. He was a bit surprised to see her sitting on the rail, waving a tip intended for the dancer on stage. Mason watched as the stripper gave Monica a short private show in the middle of her performance as she artfully collected the tip. Monica cheered.

Mason just stood watching until the song finished up. Monica was the only girl he had ever seen naked up until now (at least as far as he remembered), and he was transfixed by what he saw.

The DJ spoke as the brunette left the stage. "Thank you everyone. That was the lovely Angel! Be sure to stick around, because our next dancer is the incomparable Crystal!"

Mason took the opportunity to sit down besides Monica at the front of the stage.

"Hey, Mason!" Monica said a little too loudly, leaning in to kiss him.

Mason returned the kiss passionately, and when their lips unlocked he could smell that she had had a few drinks. "Hey, Monica. Where's the brain?"

"You've got a one track mind," Monica said smiling. "Patience. Lets enjoy the show. There's time for the brain later."

Mason didn't like that answer, but he resolved to keep his compulsion under control long enough to enjoy the show. The professor hadn't given him a time limit, but Mason had felt the anxiety of a command unfulfilled in the back of his head ever since he had left the professor's office, and the two hours between Monica's call and arriving at the club had been agonizing. Mason worried what he might be pushed to do if Monica didn't hand the brain over soon.

"Okay, I guess I can wait," Mason muttered.

As he said this, the stage lighting changed, and the DJ again spoke. "Here she is everyone. Let's give it up for Crystal!"

An R&B song started playing as Crystal glided out. She was wearing long high heel boots and a skimpy black dress that had strategic gaps up and down the sides that gave a peek of her athletic body. As she moved, her waist-length silky blonde hair swayed from side to side, and the fabric of her tight dress strained against her perfect breasts and ass. Mason took one look at this gorgeous creature, and forgot about his troubles with the professor.

Crystal twirled around the silver pole like a natural. As she danced, the passage of time was marked by the slow, sensual movement of the zipper of her boots down her legs. When she finished unzipping her boots, she removed them in rhythm with the song. Left, then right the loose articles fell away revealing her long legs. The crowd seemed enchanted by the sight, and she danced like this for a time before she began to work on the straps that held the tiny dress on her body. She finally freed herself from her dress, and cast it away revealing a bikini top and bottom.

Mason watched her emerge cocoon-like from her dress, and gazed at the beautiful butterfly that had been revealed. His cock was standing at attentions, and his eyes scanned up and down her body, trying to take in everything he saw before him. He watched her move and found himself pausing on her toned stomach, and following her legs as they swung through the air around the pole.

He watched in anticipation as her delicate hands found their way to her bikini straps. First one shoulder than the other was left bare, but she held the bikini on waiting for just the right time. The music reached a crescendo and she let the top slide off her body revealing her perky breasts. Now her dancing was punctuated by a mesmerizing bouncing, and this seemed to coincide with an increase in the number of people holding out tips.

Crystal was now clad only in a bottom, and she seemed to enjoy teasing the crowd with its removal. She inched the cloth bit by bit down her waist, and Mason felt his pulse quicken as he watched. Finally, after ten seconds that felt like an eternity, her pussy came into view. Mason greedily gazed at Crystal in her full glory. He had only ever seen three girls naked in his life, and she blew the others out of the water.

Crystal continued to dance, and Mason was so enamored that time seemed to move very quickly. It took someone shoving something in his mouth halfway through the second song for him come (halfway) back to his senses. It turned out it was Monica putting a five dollar bill in his mouth. She mouthed, 'go ahead' and Mason leaned towards the stage with his offering.

It wasn't long before Crystal noticed him, and began to crawl on all fours towards him. She thrust her chest out until the bill was touching her breastbone, and Mason found his face between her breasts. She squeezed her breasts together, and removed the bill from Mason's mouth. This sent Mason to a new plateau of arousal.

The rest of Crystal's set breezed by, and as she left the stage Mason found himself back in reality sitting next to Monica.

"So, what do you say we try to get a couples lap dance from her?" Monica said coquettishly.

Mason was on board with this plan, but a familiar anxiety was returning to the forefront of his mind. "We should definitely do that, but can I have the brain first? I feel like I could use it to enhance the experience."

Monica smiled mischievously. "Tell you what, let's find Crystal, and see if we can't get that private dance. I'll give it to you when we're all alone together."

Mason wanted the anxiety to end, but he knew Monica's words had some wisdom to them. He didn't want anyone else to see him using the relic.

In short order, they found Crystal on the floor, all too eager to give them a couple's lap dance ("But it'll cost, like, twice as much!"), so they walked off to one of the private room together.

Monica sneakily passed the brain to Mason as they walked through the door, and when Monica sat down Mason wasted no time in entering her mind.

* * *

Mason looked around the room he found himself in. It looked like a living room with no windows or doors, and Mason was surprised to see people sitting on the couch watching a movie on the TV.

He examined the people closer and saw that they were actually human-sized dolls. They were all dressed up in 1950's style clothing. There was two parents, and a three kids. He walked around the room, and realized that the furniture was actually doll-house furniture scaled up in size. Everything was cheap wood and cloth held together by glue and staples, and none of it looked remotely comfortable to sit in or use.

Mason searched the living room for Monica's memories, and finally found them on the DVD shelves that formed one corner of the room. All of DVD cases had cover art done in the style of old B movies, and they had titles like "First Day of School", and "Knowledge of Chemistry."

Mason searched through the DVDs, and finally found a DVD case titled "Mysterious Relic." He pulled the disk out and walked over to the TV the family of dolls was watching. He put the disk into the DVD player and pressed play. He watched and was confused by what he saw.

In this video, he was talking to Monica as if he was the one who found the brain. He had trusted Monica with it, and she had quickly abused that trust by implanting memories of a non-existent romantic relationship, removing his memories of finding the relic, and robbing him of his memories of his family so she could keep the relic and Mason for herself. She had arranged Mason's disastrous "reunion" with his father, and proceeded to destroy the mind of a school rival, who Mason recognized with horror as Crystal.

When the video had finished playing, Mason sat in stunned silence for a few minutes. He couldn't let Monica get away with all of this! He remembered the words of the professor - or rather, his dad. 'I assume she's done a number on you - you're free to read her memories and do whatever you want about them.'

This command gave Mason some leeway to handle this situation. He knew from watching the video that the first time he had used the relic he had been able to travel from one mind to another. He imagined a door, and one quickly appeared.

He opened the door, and found himself in a mind he recognized from the video: Susan's.

Her psyche had apparently rearranged itself quite a bit since Monica had been in it. Although the vestiges of the university were recognizable in the room, Monica's additions seemed to be be growing and spreading like an infection. The ground and ceiling around the stripper pole were beginning to look like a stage, the cafeteria was slowly becoming a bar, and the library seemed to be transforming itself into a DJ table. At the rate she was going, her psyche would be completely overtaken by the changes before the end of the day.

Mason looked around the former library, and couldn't find any of the books that constituted Susan's memories. He wondered where they could be. He walked around and eventually found them in the corner of the room which used to be modeled after the biochem building.

It seemed that Susan's memories had migrated to the trashy magazines that Monica had stuffed in this section of her mind. They were in complete disarray scattered around the floor, and this made it difficult for Mason to find anything specific. Sorting through them, he eventually found what he was looking for.

He grabbed the magazines titled "Education," "Vocabulary," "Science" and "Literature" and brought them back to Monica's room. He searched for Monica's DVDs with the same names and replaced them with the magazines from Susan's mind. He then went back to Susan's mind and put the DVDs on the floor with the trashy magazines.

He wasn't sure if this would work, but he was too angry at Monica to really care. He spent the next few minutes moving DVDs and magazines back and forth between the two minds, and modifying them as necessary. (The magazines were easy to edit, but he had to temporarily summon a computer any time he needed to edit the DVDs.)

When he was finished making changes, he decided to see the fruit of his labors. He summoned a door to the outside world and walked through it.

* * *

Mason woke up in the private room holding a DVD titled "Mysterious Relic." Monica and Susan were both there, with a dazed look on their faces. Eventually, their awareness seemed to return. Susan looked curiously around the room with her piercing, intelligent eyes.

Monica on the other hand looked around the room confused. "What were we, like, doing again?"

Mason stepped in, "Don't you remember, Crystal? You were going to give my girlfriend Susan and I a lap dance."

"Oh, yeah." Monica said dully. "But why is Susan, like, dressed in a bikini? And why am I in normal clothes?"

"You guys decided to switch clothes remember? You should give Susan her shirt and pants back."

"Okey dokey!" Monica said brightly, taking off her shirt and pants.

She handed the clothes over to Susan, who put them on. The shirt was little small on Susan, but it made a nice midriff bearing shirt on her, while the pants were a near perfect fit.

With the clothing situation sorted out, Mason and Susan sat down and let the new Crystal do her work. Monica had Crystal's moves, but Mason thought that they worked better when Susan was the one doing them. Monica was attractive, but Susan was a knockout. Still, he enjoyed the couple's lap dance immensely, and he and Susan left the private room extremely satisfied.

Mason knew that outside of that room, no one knew Monica was the new Crystal, so he pulled out the brain, and discretely touched it to one of the bouncer's heads. He jumped from mind to mind, until everyone in the establishment knew the new version of reality.

Having tied up all those loose ends, he and Susan spent another hour at the strip club before walking out together. Mason felt pretty happy with how he had dealt with Monica, and he was eager to get to know Susan better, but he knew he had one more errand to do before any of that could happen.

"So, what did you think about the club?" Susan said, interrupting his train of thought.

Mason thought about it for a second. "You know what, I'm glad you suggested it."