The Case Files of Dr. Randall Herringwick
The Case of the Abducted Nudes
Chapter Three - The Slave in Charge
CASE FILES - PERSONAL NOTES - PATIENTS 187 & 188 - DAY THREE - CONTINUED
How come, when you're faced with some of life's greatest problems, it's the smallest things that take up all of your time? In my case, it was the damn pickup truck, which was still in Jersey and needed to be in Rhode Island. I mean, we couldn't just leave the thing there. Somebody ... meaning me ... had to drive it back home. That was the little problem. The "big problem" was now sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, because there was no way in hell she was going to get on an airplane and fly back with Loretta and the doc and let me make that trip home alone.
I didn't want my small dilemma to get in the way of the Doc's big one; and right now, he only seemed to be able to think about Loretta. He was totally blowing off all other major choices as if they were no big thing. And ... maybe they weren't. They certainly weren't in HIS mind. When the detectives all groused about what to do with an active crime scene, he just informed them that it WASN'T a crime scene ... it was just a house where an unidentified, incapacitated man happened to be lying on the floor. An anonymous tip to the authorities would eventually result in him being institutionalized. End of story. He'd wait a day to report Loretta's return, telling the cops and FBI that she had wandered home, disoriented but safe; and after awhile, the case would just cease to matter to anyone.
But my problems were different, I argued. I was going to be driving up some really busy highways with a nude kidnap victim. Once again, he just shrugged. No, he pointed out, a missing person was NOT a kidnap victim ... especially when there was absolutely no one else on earth who wanted to be with me more than SHE did. He did have the grace to apologize for not having more than (he dug through his wallet) eighty dollars, which he handed to me along with another of his credit cards for tolls and gas. He wrote down his "billing zip code" for use with self-serve gas pumps. And then he left with an airy wave of his hand and the single comment: "See you at home this evening."
"Bambi" was ecstatic. Alone with her master at last! What could possibly be better than THAT!? Immediately, she asked me if she could give me a blowjob while I drove, but I denied her (and myself) that pleasure. How the hell was I going to explain all this to her? How much of her memory had been erased by the asshole who had kidnapped and brainwashed her? How much of "Lauren" was left in that magnificently pretty head of hers?
Within two minutes of starting our trip, I swerved into the parking lot of a Goodwill store. She recited three sizes (which was all the information my tired brain would hold), and I strolled inside while she waited in the vehicle. I was back in ten minutes, and she shrieked with delight as she pulled a blouse out of the plastic bag I'd brought back. Before I could utter a protest, she'd stripped off the jacket, and she was momentarily bare-ass naked before donning the garment. I frantically looked around the parking lot, but miraculously, no one had seen her. The shirt was a little tight on her, and her generous breasts strained against the fabric, especially when she shimmied her hips into the blue jeans. They, too, were tight, but she proclaimed them "just the way I like them." Slip-on canvas shoes were the only other part of her new wardrobe. The extremely simple clothing made her look like something out of a movie ... like a standout actress in plain attire. She looked fresh and healthy and wholesome and pure. Oh, fuck. I was falling in love. I couldn't do this! I couldn't!
Everything was exciting to her ... everything made her smile. Her laugh was genuine and infectious. She pointed and exclaimed, and sometimes she even bounced up and down on the seat in her excitement, which did marvelous things to her breasts. She talked and talked, and she asked a thousand questions about the things around us. She told me that she remembered the bridge across the Hudson at Washington Heights, and she said that there was a wonderful little restaurant just on the other side, in Beacon. I bemoaned the fact that we were down to forty-five dollars, but she thought that would be enough, so we stopped there for lunch. Over our burgers and fries, we somehow got on the topic of architecture, and how it had changed so dramatically with the onset of computerization.
On the road again, she spoke about literature and classic authors, and the ones she enjoyed, and the ones she didn't enjoy, and why. It seemed to be okay as long as we spoke about the topic in general, and not about how she had come to believe these things. She was very obviously an English major ... but she couldn't be reminded of her past. When I asked specifically where and when she had learned the ideas she had, she would develop a sharp headache and immediately change the subject. I was definitely her favorite topic of conversation.
I eventually understood the timeline. Did she remember her last two months with Doctor Prokonov? The answer was apparently yes ... at least, to some extent. She had spent some indeterminate period in the state that Loretta was in now, and it had been a seemingly unending nightmare, the days and nights blending into each other. When he had weaned her from the drug and began her "brainwashing treatments," she had welcomed them with unmitigated joy. Anything was preferable to being "dead inside." Anything. With the threat of returning to that horrific condition hanging over her, she was more than eager to be turned into someone who was absolutely the best slave a master could ever want. "And I AM, Master! I wish I could prove it to you right now! Are you sure you don't want me to give you a blow job?"
She must have told me a hundred times that day that she loved me.
We stopped for gas in Hartford. Somehow, she'd gotten hold of a rubber band, and when she came out of the restroom, she'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She wore no makeup; but she'd scrubbed her face, and she looked fresh and clean and innocent and radiant. I bought her a diet soda and myself another power drink.
It wasn't long after that we encountered our first major problem. I had again told her that I didn't want to call her "Bambi," and when she told me once more that I could name her anything I wanted, I suggested the name "Lauren." She clutched her head and cried out in genuine pain so intense that she doubled over in the seat and sat there, whimpering. Carefully, I made my way over to the shoulder of the road, turning on the emergency flashers and stopping. I unfastened our seatbelts, and I gathered her into my arms, shushing her and telling her that I'd obviously made a bad choice, and that she should settle down and relax. Slowly, slowly, she did so; and when she again looked up into my eyes, she kissed me ... fully and openly and passionately ... and I seemed powerless to keep from returning that passion. Finally, I pushed her away from me. We were both breathing deeply.
"Please, Master! Oh, please let me suck you now! I have to do it! I HAVE to!"
"NO!" I screamed at her so loudly that she shrank back from me, visibly frightened.
I waited until my pulse had returned to some semblance of normalcy, and then I purposefully, carefully started the truck again and got back onto the interstate. We were only about thirty miles outside Providence when I began my sad tale. She laughed out loud at it ... I mean, I guess it IS funny ... to everyone except me. But then she figured out what it had done to me ... what it all meant to me ... and she sobered, and eventually even started crying. We were negotiating city traffic before she finally put her hand on my shoulder tenderly and asked: "But Master, how does any of that affect US? I mean, I can understand how you might think that sex is off limits for you with other women ... but I BELONG to you. I LOVE you. Oh, Master, I want you so much! Can't you allow yourself to want me, just a little, in return?"
"I DO want you ... desperately! But ... you're not YOU! And what's more, you know it! Deep down inside, you KNOW that you are no longer the woman you were two months ago. Right now, you don't think it matters; and I get that. What you don't get is that if I can't have the girl you really are, then I don't think I want ... um ... that kind of relationship. We'd be living a life that's been dictated by somebody else; and somebody who was a real asshole, to boot.
She was about to answer that, but was suddenly shocked into silence as I put the truck into "park" and set the hand brake. She looked around uncertainly. "W ... Why did we stop?"
"We're home," I declared. I jerked a thumb in the direction of the apartment building.
"Home?" She stared across the street at the place. "This is where we live?"
"This is where I live," I corrected. "I'm the building superintendent. I'm the handyman. I'm the janitor."
