Action!

After the recording session wrapped for the day, the Baroness stopped by her backstage office to check in on her other enterprises.

Her corporate espionage and data brokering operations were humming along smoothly. They generally did, now that supreme detective Vindiatrix was too blinkered by love and lust and loyalty to interfere. Pulling the strings and raking in the profits without having anything traced back to her had gotten much easier these past few months.

Easy access to the latest research and development wasn’t just a way to make money, however. It gave her opportunities to use the special knack that had enabled her rise from petty thief to major player. It wasn’t a “superpower” exactly, or at least it didn’t show up on any of the standard scans for metahuman abilities, but it might as well have been.

Whenever she got a chance to examine some new design or prototype, she intuitively saw ways to reconfigure it or combine it with something else in ways the original designer had never imagined. Her ideas generally worked better than the original designs, but nineteen times out of twenty they were marginal improvements that weren’t worth the extra expense and complexity. Fortunately, she also had a talent for distinguishing the one success from the nineteen failures.

The secret of powerful but undetectable brainwashing was her greatest success to date. It had given her two superheroine porn starlets… soon to be three once the preparations were in place for Ethrienne’s public debut.

That thought reminded her to review the latest progress on that project, She played back the video recording from last night.

“Welcome to Tongue Waggers, I’m Meghan Firrello.”

The “Spandex Soundbites” banner appeared in the upper left of the screen, signifying that this episode would be dedicated to superhero news and gossip. “Later in the program, Quantress will be joining us to introduce her new look and discuss the challenges of saving the city as a solo superheroine.”

Meghan’s smile became a bit more like a smirk. “But first, Ethrienne of ParaPatrol will give us the inside scoop about her controversial connection to Baroness Blackleather’s adult movie studio and her relationship with the two costumed champions who sent shock waves through the caped community by becoming sex starlets.”

The Baroness snickered. Of course that hack was playing up the salaciousness of the story for all it was worth. That made Tongue Waggers a perfect publicity outlet for her purposes.

The psychic heroine walked onto the stage and settled onto the guest couch.

“Thank you for agreeing to this interview.”

“Thank you for giving me a chance to set the record straight.”

“You mean the record of why two respected superheroines suddenly became involved with a rather tawdry business?”

Ethrienne scowled. “People may not approve of it, but there’s nothing criminal or unethical about it.”

“That may be true, but surely it doesn’t make them good role models—”

“Is that really fair?”

Meghan blinked. “Fair…?” she asked in a befuddled tone, clearly not seeing what her guest was getting at.

“Yes, fair,” the heroine replied in a somewhat irritated tone. “Vindiatrix and Shield Lass have saved thousands of lives by stopping tawdry schemes to blow up City Hall or dump mutant viruses into the water supply! If you expect them to do all that and also meet every prissy little scold’s idea of what it takes to be a perfect role model, maybe you should think long and hard about whether you’re asking too much from them!”

The hostess was clearly taken aback by this rant. “Well, I can certainly understand your point of view…” she finally replied, falling back on one of her standard deflections. “However, isn’t it true that just a few months ago you were saying something completely different?”

“You mean the stories about how Baroness Blackleather somehow brainwashed them, somehow hid all the obvious symptoms they ought to show if they were brainwashed, somehow kept them brainwashed for months instead of hours, and somehow left no evidence whatsoever?” Each repetition of “somehow” escalated the “you idiot” undertone of the statement.

“It sounds ridiculous when you say it that way—”

“That’s because it is ridiculous!”

“Well, yes, but it’s what you used to believe. When they first announced that they were becoming adult actresses, you accused the Baroness—”

“I didn’t make any public accusations. All I did was take them up on their offer to submit to a mind scan to get to the bottom of the situation.”

“Actually, your colleague the Palladium Paladin has stated that you initially suggested that the Baroness had brainwashed Vindiatrix and Shield Lass.”

Ethrienne looked exasperated. “I jumped to conclusions before I had time to think things through. When I did think things through, I went looking for evidence. When I got evidence—when Vindiatrix and Shield Lass let me scan their minds—I realized that I was wrong.”

She took a deep breath. “Vindiatrix and Shield Lass chose to come out as lesbians. Vindiatrix and Shield Lass chose to work for the Baroness. Vindiatrix and Shield Lass chose to make porn movies. That’s all there is to it.”

“Do they still feel the same way?”

“They’re completely happy with what they’re doing,” Ethrienne declared. “As you know, I have an arrangement with them and the studio to visit occasionally and scan for any sign that they’re being mentally manipulated. They aren’t.”

“Have you ever seen any hidden doubts in their minds? Any misgivings?”

“No. They like what they’re doing.”

“You sound almost jealous,” Meghan said impishly.

“No comment,” the heroine replied

The hostess raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that you might be taking a more visible position with Baroness Blackleather Productions?” she asked, her tone leaving no doubt as to what she was suggesting.

Once again, the reply was “No comment.”

The show went to a commercial break. The Baroness stopped the playback. She’d seen enough.

Her plan for the psychic superheroine was on track.

When she’d first captured and brainwashed Ethrienne, it had been necessary to conceal her connection to the Baroness so that she could use her psychic powers to “independently” confirm that Vindiatrix and Shield Lass had voluntarily become adult actresses. Now, with the brainwashing of the Trusty Twosome covered up to the point where even the conspiracy theorists had moved on, this was no longer an issue.

For the past few weeks, Ethrienne had been receiving follow-up Remodulator sessions to reinforce her craving for exhibitionistic lesbian sex while dampening the urge for secrecy that had driven her to assist in the coverup. She was almost ready to go public just like her superheroine colleagues, appearing onstage under her own identity rather than hiding it behind stage masks.

Meanwhile, the Baroness had been manipulating public opinion. Ethrienne’s Tongue Waggers interview was part of that strategy. The studio had been planting suggestions that the psychic heroine’s vicarious experience of the Trusty Twosome’s adult actress lifestyle was tempting her to follow in their footsteps. Now, the idea had taken root to the point that rumors that hadn’t been started by the studio had begun spreading spontaneously.

The preparations were in place. It was simply a matter of deciding when the time was right to give Ethrienne a few more nudges and put her onstage wearing her own costume… or at least wearing her own mask.

Not quite yet, the Baroness thought. Soon.

Until then, she needed to come up with another idea to shake things up and attract attention. Trapped by the Trollop Trainer and Spandex Striptease Seduction had brought in reasonably good sales numbers, and subscriptions to the SpandexGirlsex website had been steadily increasing, but she had a nagging worry that as the novelty of superheroine porn starlets wore off the business would start to stagnate.

She needed to know exactly what her customers wanted to see…

Suddenly, the answer was obvious.

Leslie logged on at SpandexGirlsex.com and was greeted by a prominent banner:

WHAT’S YOUR FANTASY?

You’ve watched the Trusty Twosome in steamy adventures. You’ve wondered what’s in store for them in their next erotic escapade. You’ve let your imagination go to work, spinning a sexy story you’d like to see…

Now you get the chance to actually see that story onscreen!

Enter our Fan Choice contest and describe your fantasy… and you might be the lucky winner of:

$1000 cash!

Another $1000 in Baroness Blackleather Productions merchandise credit!

Story credit! (Winner may use a discreet pseudonym.)

A backstage tour of the studio!

…and best of all:

Vindiatrix and Shield Lass bringing YOUR personal fantasy to life in a Fan Choice Special Video Feature!

A click on the “Enter Contest” button led to a page of legal meeble. “Contest participants must be at least eighteen years old…” You had to be eighteen to get an account on the site in the first place, so that seemed a bit redundant. “All submissions are the property of Baroness Blackleather Productions… We reserve the right to modify or reject any contest entry…” Yeah, yeah, that was typical of these things.

Scrolling to the end of the wall of text and clicking “Agree” led to a new screen with the words “I’d like to see Vindiatrix and Shield Lass…” above a text-entry window with “140 characters remaining” in the lower right.

Leslie typed eagerly, slightly overshooting the allowed character count. Hmm… well, it probably wasn’t necessary to specify “submissive nymphomaniac bitch-slut lesbian sex slaves”. Deleting that word got the message just within the limit. It was then just a matter of  clicking on the “SUBMIT” button and clicking again to dismiss the “Submission Received” popup.

With that accomplished, Leslie returned to the SpandexGirlsex home page and navigated to the latest set of subscriber-bonus videos. There were two new items this week. One showed Vindiatrix doing stretching exercises that seemed to defy the limits of normal human athletics. The other was a view of Shield Lass doing jumping jacks on a turntable that slowly cycled her through front, side, and rear views. Both heroines, as usual in these featurettes, wore nothing but their domino masks.

After opening two video windows and setting both to endless-loop replay, Leslie settled back to enjoy the show.