It wasn't that Anita was really worried about Stephanie. Okay, maybe it was, just a little. Call it her "mother hen" instinct, the same thing that had made her decide on a career as an elementary school teacher instead of looking at the high schools or colleges. Her friends were all used to it by now, jokingly calling her "Mom" when she stopped by with homemade chicken soup or when she asked them if they were getting enough iron in their diets. It was the same instinct that had made her decide to exchange spare keys with Stephanie, just so they could check in on each other if they needed to. Both of them knew that Anita would be checking in on Stephanie a lot more than the other way around.
So this was just another one of those little check-ins, just Anita being the mother hen again. She wasn't really worried. Even though nobody had heard from Stephanie since Friday, when she'd called her softball coach and told her she was too sick to make Saturday's game. Even though Anita had called Stephanie at both the house and on her cell phone, and gotten no response. She was probably just feeling wiped out from a bad cold, and didn't want to answer the phone. If she was really sick, she'd have called Anita for help--unless she couldn't get to the phone, which was silly because Stephanie was as healthy as a horse and there was no way she could get that sick that fast, except that maybe she could, and if she did, she'd just be lying there in her apartment, desperate for help and--
Anita rolled her eyes at her own over-protectiveness as she reached for her keys with one hand while balancing the tureen carefully in the other. She was just worrying over nothing, she knew. Stephanie was probably fine. They'd probably have a good laugh over this. All the same, she thought as she unlocked the door, none of her friends ever turned down her homemade chicken soup.
"Steph?" Anita called out softly as she let herself in. "Steph, you there? It's me, Nita. I brought you a little care package." She didn't want to raise her voice too loud--if Stephanie was asleep, she didn't want to wake her.
She set the soup down on the kitchen counter, and headed back towards the bedroom. As she got closer, she smelled something strange in the air--a scent like strawberries, but with a hint of something else underneath. The under-scent smelled almost familiar, but the overwhelming strawberry smell made it hard to place. Had Stephanie spilled some cough syrup or something? "Steph?" she called out again. "Steph, are you--" Anita broke off as she heard an unfamiliar woman's voice speak.
"Very good, Stephanie," the woman said. "I'm very pleased with the way you're obeying. You know what obedience is, don't you?"
Then she heard Stephanie speak, but her voice was quiet and toneless. Even in the stillness of the apartment, it was hard to make out, but she could just hear Stephanie say, "pleasure..."
"Good girl!" Anita crept up to the door, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rising. Something was really strange about the way Stephanie had sounded just now. She sounded like she was doped up on cold medication or something. And that other woman, the way she was talking to her in that syrupy, coaxing tone of voice...it reminded Anita a little of the way she talked to really little kids, using praise to reinforce good behaviors. But this woman sounded like she was reinforcing 'obedience', and Steph didn't sound like she had her head together enough to think about what she was saying. With a tiny shudder, Anita pushed the door open as quietly as she could.
She was a little shocked at first to see that the other woman was actually a Girl(tm). Anita hadn't led a sheltered life; she'd seen the ads and heard the celebrity testimonials, but somehow she'd never really pictured Stephanie as the kind of girl who needed or wanted a sex toy. She'd never had a shortage of boyfriends, certainly. But there it was, a mint green robot with sleek, feminine curves, standing with its back to the door and showing a literally perfectly-sculpted ass. And in front of it...
Stephanie knelt in front of the Girl, her legs spread wide apart. Her right hand stroked her pussy very slowly, almost mechanically, and her brown eyes stared sightlessly at the Girl's feet while she masturbated. Her dark hair clung to her sweat-slick skin in a tangle that suggested she'd been involved in more strenuous sex not long ago. She had a small, vacant smile on her face, an almost child-like expression of devotion. Anita had never seen her friend look so...so empty.
"And now you're so deeply programmed, Stephanie, so deeply conditioned to obey that just my words give you pleasure." Now that the door was open, Anita could smell the mingled scents even more strongly. It was like they hung in the air in a haze, and Anita recognized the underlying scent as the smell of Stephanie's sex. "You feel such deep pleasure when you obey. Your mind supplies the pleasure because you know that obedience is pleasure, and that feels soooo good, doesn't it, Stephanie?"
"yes..." Stephanie responded again in those same empty tones. It sounded like she wasn't thinking about what she was saying at all, just agreeing with whatever the Girl said. Anita tried to connect the strong-willed, fiery woman she knew with the blank-eyed girl kneeling submissively on the floor, and couldn't do it. The Girl must have done something to her, drugs or hypnosis or...it suddenly occurred to Anita that she'd never heard a negative review of the Girls. Nobody had ever complained about them. Nobody had ever said they were unhappy with their Girl. Not even once.
"Good girl," the Girl said again, and Anita watched as Stephanie quivered in visible pleasure. She saw moisture drip down Stephanie's thighs just from hearing the Girl's praise, and heard an almost inaudible whimper escape her lips. Anita's hands clenched into fists.
She backed away from the door a lot more carefully than she'd approached it. She didn't know how good the Girl's hearing was, but it seemed pretty intent on enslaving Stephanie (and oh sweet Christ, just putting the idea into words sent a sick chill through Anita's gut, it was actually enslaving her best friend, it was actually brainwashing her into being an obedient sex slave, oh God oh fuck oh God...)
Luckily, Steph's softball stuff was right by the door, as usual. Anita picked up the aluminum bat, her guts churning with rage and fear. Anita had never really thought of herself as much of a fighter, but all her "mother hen" instincts seemed to be transforming themselves into "mother bear" instincts by the very thought of her best friend being enslaved by some machine. She literally saw red, her whole vision tinged with a haze of anger as her blood clanged in her veins and she gripped the bat with a white-knuckled intensity. She stalked down the hallway, kicked open the door, and swung the bat at the Girl's head with a wild, furious scream.
Anita half-expected the Girl to spin around and catch the bat mid-swing with some sort of inhuman strength, but all she had time to do was turn her head enough to see the bat as it caught her in the face. It cracked satisfyingly against her nose, the impact carrying all the way up the bat to sting Anita's hands, but she didn't stop. She swung again, this time hitting the Girl on the cheek as she twisted in a futile effort to get away. Anita saw thin cracks appearing at the base of her neck, and she swung again, putting all her adrenalin-fueled rage into it.
The third swing left the Girl's neck bent at a forty-five degree angle, and Anita could see exposed wiring and cables underneath the gaping rent in its flexible plastic casing. Clear strawberry-scented fluid sprayed all over Anita from the damaged robot as the Girl staggered around, her limbs flailing wildly, but Anita didn't let up. She just kept hitting it, screaming out incoherent babbles of fury that she didn't understand and wouldn't remember. She'd gone past anger and into revulsion, that same instinct that made people keep stomping on a spider long after it was dead. The fear of losing mingled with the righteous anger and made her just keep hitting, and hitting, and hitting...
Finally, the last cable snapped under the assault and the head fell clean off the shoulders, landing on its side on the floor. The body stayed upright for a moment, clear fluid gouting from the stump of its neck, then collapsed. Anita stood there panting for a long moment before she let the bat slide out of her numb, stinging fingers and fall on the floor. Her skin tingled all over where the fluid had soaked into her clothes, and she felt like she'd just run a mile.
Stephanie hadn't moved through it all. She'd just knelt there, watching the whole thing with an expression of total shock and incomprehension on her face. Finally, she spoke, but she still seemed dazed and out of it. "I...you...my Girl(tm)..." she stammered, looking up at Anita.
Anita knelt down in front of her, putting her hands on Stephanie's shoulders. "I had to do it," she said. "It was doing something to you, Steph, it was brainwashing you--"
"You killed her!" Stephanie shrieked, lunging at Anita and wrapping her hands around Anita's throat. Not 'was brainwashing', Anita realized. 'Had brainwashed'. She tried to pull her friend's hands away, but Stephanie had the same furious strength that Anita had possessed just moments ago, maybe even more. Anita fumbled around for the bat, not wanting to hurt her friend but not wanting to die either, but already her vision was starting to gray out around the edges and Stephanie's face contorted in rage as she bore down, the pressure an agonizing pain that didn't even leave Anita enough breath to plead with her best friend for her life--
"It's alright, Stephanie," the Girl said, her voice slurred and distorted, but still just as calm and soothing and syrupy sweet. "I'm alright, she didn't kill me. Let her go."
And just like that, Stephanie...there was no other word for it, she obeyed. Anita didn't care, though, she was too busy sucking in great spluttering breaths through a windpipe that felt half-crushed. She'd have bruises for weeks, she just knew it. "Good girl," the Girl said, and Stephanie shivered in pleasure again. She looked like she'd never even been angry at all, much less like she'd just been strangling her friend. "Now, sink deep for me and chant your mantras, while I speak with Anita."
Instantly, Stephanie's eyes slammed shut as she sank back down into that same kneeling position she'd been in before, and she began to slowly and tonelessly mutter to herself, "my Girl(tm) knows best, my Girl(tm) commands me and i must obey, obedience is pleasure and it feels so good to obey, it feels so good to program myself with my Girl(tm)'s commands, the more i program myself the better i feel, the more i obey the better i feel, obedience is pleasure and i know that it will always feel so good to submit to my Girl(tm), my Girl(tm) knows best..."
Anita fumbled her way onto her hands and knees and crawled over to Stephanie. "Steph..." Her words trailed off into another coughing fit as she felt the breath flow through her windpipe like a storm of needles. She grabbed Stephanie's shoulder and shook her as hard as she could. "Steph," she wheezed, "snap out of it, please..."
Stephanie's eyes didn't even flutter. Instead, her hand slowly drifted towards her pussy as she continued to intone, "the more i program myself, the better i feel, the more i obey the better i feel..." Tears welled up in Anita's eyes, but she wasn't sure if it was from distress at her friend's plight or just from the pain in her throat.
"Anita," the Girl said, "we really do need to talk about this."
Anita looked over at the head that lay on its side, staring at her with eyes that flickered crazily from green to blue to yellow to red. "You...you know my name?" she gasped out.
