Yawning and stretching, Mari sat up in bed and smiled broadly. Though her peaceful sleep had been rudely disturbed by the alarm clock, she couldn’t bring herself to be too annoyed. There was very little that could trouble you if you were the CEO of an exclusive tech company operating smoothly at the top of its game, generating a lot of revenue and making you more obscenely rich by the day.

Even less if that company specialised in covert brainwashing, turning ordinary people into mere playthings to be bought and sold.

Not bothering to change out of her transparent, lacey black lingerie just yet, she sauntered out to the breakfast room, where she was greeted by the sight of a curvaceous blonde in their kitchen. She had her back turned to Mari, facing towards the stove, upon which omelettes were cooking. She wore an apron over a vintage dress, white but entirely decorated with flowers of varying shades of blue, with a shortened skirt that only half-covered her pert butt cheeks.

At the sound of Mari’s footsteps, Karulina pirouetted on one of her similarly retro, gleaming white high heels, greeting her with the same ecstatic smile she wore whenever she saw her. “Good morning, Mari!” she cried, looking and sounding as overjoyed as if she were seeing her for the first time in months.

“Morning, darling,” Mari grinned, standing and waiting for her wife to circle the counter and scurry over to embrace her. They shared a passionate kiss, Karulina melting in Mari’s arms, quivering with bliss as the businesswoman forced her tongue into her mouth in a gesture of pure ownership.

They came up for air, arms still wrapped around each other, faces inches apart. Mari stroked her wife’s face, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “How are you?” she asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“Perfect,” Karulina sighed, snuggling closer and resting her head on Mari’s shoulder. Indulging her for a moment, Mari rocked her in her arms, breathing in her strawberry-scented perfume. “Your breakfast is almost ready, dear,” the housewife announced at length, straightening up and reluctantly pulling away.

“Perfect,” Mari echoed, smirking. Karulina gave a girlish giggle in response, and then began to totter back to the kitchen.

Mari watched her go with a look of disbelieving admiration. Even after all these months, she was still sometimes struck by how drastically Karulina had changed since she’d first seen her. Back then, the girl had just been a face on a screen, one of a bunch of Twitch streamers Mari had chosen as a beta tester for their subliminal spiral game, destined to be converted into one of their promiscuous new brand ambassadors. Even then, Karulina - or whatever her name had been back then - had stood out from the rest, with her stoner goth aesthetic, her neon pink hair, and her coarse language and attitude.

Mari had taken one look at her and known she wanted to keep her for herself, rather than whoring her out with the others. The idea of taking this punk and Stepfordising her until she was unrecognisable was just too sexy to resist. Luckily, as the CEO, she need not ask anyone’s permission. And so, mere days after the hypnotised gamer had first set foot in the company’s clandestine headquarters, Mari had turned her into ‘Karulina’, her docile bimbo housewife.

A door swung open behind Mari, and she turned to see a young woman in lilac pyjamas, with long brown hair tied in pigtails. “Ah, there you are, Sorĉa,” the businesswoman purred.

“Morning, sweetie!” Karulina called from the kitchen.

Sorĉa beamed, practically radiating energy and enthusiasm. “Morning, Mommy!” she called back to Karulina, before crossing the room towards Mari. “Morning, Daddy,” she simpered, and then leaned in for a tender kiss on the lips. Then she dropped to her knees, slid her head under Mari’s lingerie, and gave her other lips an identical kiss.

Getting to her feet again, Sorĉa scampered over to give her Mommy her morning kisses, for which Karulina had to turn away from the stove again, and lift up the front of her apron to make herself more accessible. Mari took a seat at the table in the breakfast room, watching her ‘daughter’ make out with her wife’s cunt with a predatory leer.

“I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas,” Sorĉa cried excitedly as she rose from the kitchen floor and rounded the counter again. “I hope I get everything I asked for!” She gave her ‘Daddy’ a cheeky grin.

“Well, you have been a very good girl,” Mari remarked, smiling indulgently. “Perhaps Father Christmas is feeling generous... Only four days until you find out for sure.”

“I’m not sure I can wait that long,” Sorĉa giggled, coming to stand beside the breakfast table, her posture a little slouched, fidgeting with her fingers. “I know there were a lot of things on my list, but honestly I don’t mind what I get as long as I get the new Zelda game. I’ve been so excited for that for so long, and it’s been so hard to avoid spoilers, because it’s so popular everyone’s talking about it online, and I’ve had to avoid all the sites I normally go on so I don’t see something by accide-”

“How about a song to start the day?” Mari interrupted, giving her ‘daughter’ a pointed look. “I do so enjoy one of your tunes first thing in the morning. Maybe a Christmas carol?”

Sorĉa shifted her weight around, looking reluctant. “Uh, I’m not really in the mood for singing, Daddy... I think I just wanna eat some breakfast, and then maybe go play some games on my Swi-”

“Jingle Belle, sing ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’.”

The brunette’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, and then glazed over as she straightened up, standing at attention with her hands clasped behind her back, a big smile spreading across her face. A second later, her voice rang out loud and clear, reverberating around the room. “Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant - oh come ye, oh come ye to Beh-ethlehem!”

The CEO leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling, listening raptly. Her ‘daughter’ really did have a beautiful voice. Mari was seriously considering keeping this one, rather than swapping her out for another Jingle Belle. This was the fourth Sorĉa she’d had - or was she the fifth? Mari kept switching for one with a better voice, searching Estro Corp’s stock for the most enchanting singer she could find. The incumbent, a 26-year-old former wedding singer from Germany - who retained no trace of her former accent since her old persona had been erased - was definitely the best so far, potentially worthy of remaining a permanent fixture.

Then again, Mari made no guarantees. After all, no matter how talented you were, there was always someone better.

Karulina strolled into the room, holding a plate in both hands as if presenting it in a ceremony. “Your breakfast is ready, dear,” she announced demurely, coming to a halt right beside Mari and leaning forwards to set down the omelette. As she bent over, the back of her skirt slid upwards, and Mari promptly took advantage and gave her exposed ass a hard slap, grinning wickedly. Karulina giggled like a school girl as she stood up straight again.

“So’s yours,” Mari snickered, reaching down and lifting up the front of her lingerie. Licking her lips, Karulina got on all fours, pulled up the side of the tablecloth, and crawled underneath, nestling between Mari’s legs. As the businesswoman picked up the knife and fork balanced on either side of the plate, she felt her wife’s first slow, luxurious lick.

“Sing, choirs of angels,” the Jingle Belle usually known as Sorĉa sang, “sing in exultation!”

Tucking into her breakfast, Mari cast her eyes out of the window that spanned one entire wall of the breakfast room, gazing out at the towering skyscrapers outside. It had taken years of hard work and ruthless manipulation, but she’d finally acquired a lavish home for herself - a penthouse apartment overlooking the city she’d grown up in. She felt like she’d been elevated to Godhood. No, she’d elevated herself to Godhood. She’d built a company that could twist, alter and even erase the human mind as they saw fit - she’d gained the power of total control over any human being she wished. Hell, 95% of her staff had been brainwashed, and the majority of them didn’t even know it. Those that did had been made too loyal, stupid and/or slutty to care.

And everyone else? Everyone out there in that urban landscape, and in the cities and countries beyond? They were all up for grabs. Everyone in the world. Mari could pluck any one of them and convert them into her playthings - mostly to sell off to the rich, corrupt and decadent, but sometimes to keep for herself, as with Karulina and the various Sorĉa Jingle Belles. She’d done it to over a thousand people by now - across the US, and in Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and more - turning them into devoted lackeys, wanton whores, empty vessels, mindless jukeboxes, and anything else that served the interests of Estro Corp.

Even past customers weren’t safe, although many of them believed themselves to be, thinking that being aware of the company’s true nature, and having bought some of their exclusive stock, afforded them a certain privilege - a layer of protection. Of course, in most cases, that was true - why would they cut off a good revenue stream unless necessary? And besides, if an investigation into the company ever made any actual headway, their customers were very much guilty by association. So that was often enough to keep them quiet. But there were always those stupid or greedy enough to present themselves as a risk. And a few were, of course, desirable enough for Mari to demote them from ‘buyer’ to ‘stock’.

She didn’t particularly fear persecution by the authorities. There were plenty of cops, feds and politicians who’d bought from Estro Corp in the past, and several others who’d been ‘altered’, so they would overlook the enigmatic company and its publicly opaque objectives and methods. Once in a while, some industrious, moralistic investigator would come along and try to uncover their secrets - but they never got very far. Mari had too many spies everywhere (some of whom didn’t even know they were spies). Sooner or later, whoever posed a threat was snatched and modified, making them much more amenable.

There was no danger that couldn’t be eliminated, no problem that couldn’t be solved. Mari could reshape the minds and personalities of anyone she saw - so, she was in essence, a God. She was the King of all that she surveyed. She was the Master, and every single person she encountered would obey her. She was on top of the world, ruling it from her own personal Mount Olympus, and fuck, it felt good...

“Oh come, let us adore him! Chriii-ist the Lord!”

She came, joyful and triumphant, legs clenched around her wife’s head, ears filled with her Jingle Belle’s melodic singing, eyes staring through the wide window at the cityscape outside.

***

An hour later, Mari slid into the back seat of her private limousine, now dressed in an expensive business suit. “Good morning, Miss Estro,” her chauffeur said politely, not expecting a response and not receiving one. Without another second’s hesitation, they started the car and pulled away from the front of the apartment building.

The chauffeur lived on the ground floor of the same block, along with Mari’s butler and chef, so they were always at the ready when she needed them. (She’d required the butler and the chef less frequently since she’d acquired Karulina). All three had been petty criminals, who once broke into a property owned by Estro Corp with the aim of stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down. Thanks to the specialised security system and the subliminal-filled sounds it produced, they had been stolen by the company instead.

Navigating the city traffic to reach their headquarters took a little over fifteen minutes, which Mari occupied by scrolling through her phone, a half-smile on her face as she saw numerous ads for Estro Corp products. Spiralade was the most common - the soft drink had really caught on among the public - but she saw plenty of their gadgets in the mix, too, which was appropriate given that the company first made its name by making cutting-edge tech. To the world at large, that was all they really were - a tech company that had started to expand into other ventures.

With every set of headphones sold, every bottle of Spiralade drunk, every game downloaded, Estro Corp were worming their way further into the minds of the populace, tightening their hold over their collective unconscious. Mari’s programming team forecasted that they’d be able to implant powerful suggestions and compulsions on a massive scale within the next five years. The thought of that made her want to rub one out right here in the limo. So she did, because why wouldn’t she?

In a mere few years, a mere fraction of her lifetime, she would have unlimited power. She smirked at the turn of phrase, even as she shoved her hand in her pants. Empress Mari, she thought. Now that has a nice ring to it...

Pulling into the private parking garage to which only Mari and a handful of others had access, the chauffeur parked neatly in the closest bay to the building’s entrance, and waited patiently in the driving seat for their ‘employer’ (or more accurately, their owner) to finish getting herself off. It didn’t take long. Mari’s first orgasm of the day, given graciously by her ‘wife’, had been soft, relaxed, indulgent, even romantic. This one was more forceful, almost frenzied - borne of her lust for power and control, and her awareness that she was on the verge of achieving everything she wanted.

Sucking her hand clean, Mari buttoned her pants and climbed out of the limousine, taking only a moment to smooth down her clothes as she straightened up and shut the door. “I’ll need you again in an hour,” she told the chauffeur without bothering to look at them, already starting to walk away from the car as she spoke.

“Very good, ma’am,” the former getaway driver called after her.

Swiping her ID card through the reader on the exterior wall, Mari marched through the sliding doors and into the office’s lobby. “Morning, ma’am!” the receptionist chirped, smiling vapidly at her. Ignoring her, the CEO made her way to the elevator, and was whizzing up to the top floor within moments.

The elevator doors opened onto a wide office filled with dozens of cubicles with pale pink dividing walls, each one housing an employee typing away at a computer. The room echoed with the sound of a thousand clacking keys. Mari strode through the central aisle, unbothered by her own slightly dishevelled state. She was sure anyone paying close enough attention would notice her hair was a little untidy, and might even catch the scent of arousal from her. She didn’t care in the least. Why should she give a shit if anyone knew she’d made herself cum a few minutes ago? She was the CEO of Estro Corp. The Puppet Master. She could literally do whatever the fuck she wanted, and everyone else just had to accept it.

In any event, not one of her employees was paying attention to her - they were all intently focused on their monitors, their expressions equally relaxed and blank even as they worked with furious speed and concentration. The free Spiralade provided to them sapped their willpower, keeping them in a state of dull, euphoric compliance, while the subliminals being piped into their headsets guided them to do what was needed for the company, triggering the parts of their brains necessary for their tasks while leaving the rest blank. The combination was effective with 95% of employees, which was a good hit rate, with the remaining 5% being put through more comprehensive measures to ensure their obedience. The workers were kept as dutiful zombies from the moment they arrived in the morning to the moment they left for the evening - or around half an hour later, anyway, as the effect usually took that long to wear off - leaving them happily oblivious to how their workday had progressed, feeling profoundly grateful to be working for such kind and generous employers.

Mari didn’t need to have dozens of low-level employees with her on the top floor. This could have been office space for the company’s senior employees, managers and executives. But she’d decided to give them the next floor down, because, truth be told, she liked having the worker drones up here with her, visible from her office. She liked seeing their empty eyes, their placid smiles, their diligently typing fingers. She liked to be reminded of how utterly in her thrall they all were. It wasn’t as outwardly obvious with the company’s higher-ranking staff - those among them who had been brainwashed were allowed to have functional minds, so they could help run Estro Corp.

Standing outside Mari’s office was one such subordinate - a young woman in a pink suit, her angular face nicely framed by a short black pixie cut. “Good morning, ma’am,” she beamed, holding out a mug of coffee.

“Morning, Jackie,” the CEO replied smoothly, taking the mug from her. “How are we looking today?”

“Well, it’s Friday, so as usual, I’ve made your schedule as light as possible,” Jackie grinned. “Nice for some, huh?”

Mari raised an eyebrow as she stepped past her assistant towards her office door. “Little sassy there, sweetheart!” she chuckled. “I’m not sure I appreciate the backtalk. I might have to have that programmed out of you.”

“Oh nooo, how awful!” Jackie giggled. Mari’s teasing threat was a familiar joke - she had no intention of stripping out her PA’s insolent streak, and Jackie knew it. She enjoyed a little light banter. The worst she was ever likely to do was bend Jackie over her knee and spank her, which was hardly a punishment.

Mari paused for a moment, her eyes level with the nameplate on her door. She smiled, taking a second, as she did every morning, to enjoy the sight of those words: ‘Marioneta Estro, CEO’.

She’d barely taken three steps inside her office when the phone on her desk rang. She shot Jackie a quizzical glance, to which her assistant shrugged cluelessly. “I’ve no idea, ma’am,” she said apologetically. “Like I said, your agenda’s clear for the day.”

Frowning, Mari stalked across the room. Fridays were supposed to be easy. No meetings to attend, no reports to read, no documents to sign - practically none of the irritating tedium and red tape that was the price of owning your own brainwashed-plaything factory. She had an hour to check her emails, make sure that everything was running smoothly and that nothing needed her urgent attention, and then she was out of here. Who could be calling to disturb her?

As she picked up the phone, she caught sight of the extension number on the readout, and sighed. She should’ve known. There was only one person who would dare contact her without warning - the only one, aside from Mari herself, who was indispensable.

“What do you want, Lee?” she asked wearily.

“Sorry to bother you, boss,” came the programmer’s voice, not sounding remotely remorseful. “We’ve got some new stock that I think you might like to check over personally.”

The CEO arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, a couple of our brand ambassadors were out at karaoke last night, and got chatting with two ladies who apparently had decent voices. Our girls got ’em drunk, seduced ’em, and gave them enough Spiralade to drop a donkey.” Lee’s grin was evident in her tone. “You wanna come down and, uh, review the merchandise?”

Mari’s annoyance instantly transformed into wicked glee. Two potential new Jingle Belles downstairs, just waiting to be commanded and conditioned? Yeah, her emails could wait.

***

The brand ambassadors - Emmie and Indie - had chosen well. One of their two victims was a tall woman with dark skin, eyes and hair, and a rack that Mari very much enjoyed squeezing. The other girl was a shorter, pale redhead, with thick thighs and a toned ass. Both wore dark cocktail dresses that were in some disarray, as if they’d put them on while half-asleep (which they basically had been, with their brains thoroughly numbed by Spiralade). The taller girl’s tit was almost out of her dress even before Mari got hold of it. They both wore dumb, open-mouthed smiles, drool trailing down their chins and falling to the lab’s concrete floor, as they stared ahead through hooded eyes.

Mari had so much fun examining the new stock, she was almost late to leave. She prodded, pinched, flicked and slapped them, smirking as they responded with faint, brainless groans and giggles, swaying on their feet. She had them clumsily strip out of their garments - the tall girl unwittingly tearing her dress as she did so - and throw them aside, never to be needed again, leaving them wearing only their steep heels. She buried her face in their chests, and ran her fingers between their legs, rubbing them while they stood there whimpering before bringing her hand to her mouth and tasting their arousal.

With supreme force of will, Mari eventually stopped groping the soon-to-be-Jingle-Belles, leaving them to be fully mind-wiped and reprogrammed by the company’s basement-dwelling genius, Lee, and her favourite guinea pig and occasional lab assistant, Rowan. Marching up the stone steps to the building’s lobby, Mari was greeted once again by Jackie, who wore a knowing smile. “Were the new acquisitions suitable, ma’am?”

“They certainly were,” the company’s puppet master replied, licking her lips as she reached the top step. “I think they’re gonna make us a lot of money. And by ‘us’ I mean ‘me’, of course.”

“Of course,” Jackie smirked, trotting along at her employer’s side.

“By the way - I’ve picked out the options for your Christmas bonus,” Mari proclaimed.

“Ooh, what are they?” the assistant asked eagerly.

Mari grinned at her excitement. Estro Corp didn’t give financial bonuses - they barely paid their employees as it was, and none of them minded. (None of them had enough mind to mind.) But she felt hard work should be rewarded somehow, so she’d devised some alternative treats for those staff that still had relatively normal cognitive functions. She drew a card out of two different hats for each employee to decide exactly what they could receive.

“You can either be given back a precious memory from your childhood, or you can spend a whole week as the personal sex slave for one of our majority sharehol-”

“Sex slave,” Jackie blurted, “I pick sex slave, please.”

Mari burst out laughing. “I thought you might choose that one!”

Her assistant shared her mirth. “Does anyone ever pick the precious memory option?” she giggled.

“What d’you think?” the CEO smirked.

“Anyway, it’s time you were on your way, boss,” the loyal PA noted, double-checking the time on her phone. “Don’t want to keep your dad waiting!”

“Eh, if I’m a couple minutes late he’ll just have to deal with it,” Mari smirked. “It’s not like the old bastard’s got anyone else coming to visit him.”

Jackie walked her to the front door, and Mari said farewell in her own way, by giving her shapely butt a pinch through her skirt, making her squeak with delight. Without another word, the CEO strutted out of her headquarters and returned to her limousine, still not sparing her driver a glance as she climbed back inside. She settled into her seat with an expectant smile as the vehicle rolled out of its space and set off for its second destination of the day.

She hadn’t really meant her rude remark in the lobby. Truth be told, she was looking forward to seeing her father. They only met once a week, to have lunch on Fridays - part of a small effort to hold onto the one piece of her past that she considered truly precious. After all, she’d never have pulled herself up from the dirt and established her nefarious corporate empire without his guidance. He made her who she was today. If all the old man asked in return was a weekly visit, she was more than happy to oblige.

She might be a megalomaniac with many hundreds of mind-controlled minions, but she wasn’t completely heartless.

***

“I’m here, Dad!” Mari called out, as she stepped inside the sizeable house she’d bought her father. As she’d somewhat expected, he was nowhere in sight. She arrived at the same time every week, and yet he was never waiting in the entrance hallway to greet her. He’d be in his ‘office’ upstairs, as usual. (He didn’t need an actual office - he didn’t have a job. He was living off the generous allowance his daughter gave him.) She couldn’t find it in her heart to be annoyed. It was just his way.

Trooping up the staircase, her hand sliding over the gleaming gold banister, she soon reached her father’s office, knocking politely on the varnished wooden door, with the ornamental brass nameplate that read ‘VERA ESTRO’. “Come in,” came the voice from within.

She didn’t wait to be told twice. “Ah, Marioneta,” her father beamed, as pleased to see her as if her presence was a wonderful surprise, rather than a weekly appointment. “I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you.”

Circling the desk he didn’t really need but greatly appreciated, Mari leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “Hello, Father,” she said with a rare smile of genuine affection. “Merry almost Christmas!”

“And to you,” he chuckled, as she slipped off her expensive shoes and took a seat opposite him, separating them with a few feet of mahogany.

“Will you be joining us for Christmas Day?”

He leaned back in his revolving chair, seeming to consider the request. “Well, I hope to,” he said eventually. “I’d very much like to spend some quality time with you and your lovely new family. I’ve only met them once, and I’m half-expecting you to have a different ‘daughter’ by my next visit!”

“Um, that ship has sailed,” she laughed, shrugging off her suit jacket. “A couple of times actually.”

“My, you have been busy,” her father chuckled. “I shall have to try to meet the latest Sorĉa before you switch to a new model again. How goes the business?”

“As brilliantly as ever,” Mari smirked, idly fiddling with the buttons of her shirt. “Our projections for the new year - and beyond - are very promising. We’re forecasting absolute control over the global economy in as little as ten years’ time.”

“My little girl,” the senior Estro grinned proudly. “So very clever. So very resourceful. I always said, ‘one day my girl is going to run the country’, didn’t I?”

“More like the world,” she sniggered, shifting around in her seat a little to make herself more comfortable. “But then, I’ve always liked to exceed expectations.”

“Indeed,” her father nodded, brushing strands of hair out of his eyes. “And I know you’ve always dreamed of absolute power. We have that in common. I know you fantasise all the time about what it’ll be like to influence, to manipulate, to mesmerise everyone on the planet...”

“Mmm,” Mari murmured, scratching at her collar. Just the thought of it was getting her hot again. Even though the idea of world domination had brought her to more than one crashing climax already that day, just hearing it spoken aloud was still enough to stir her lust all over again...

“Just as you used to fantasise about having that level of control over even just one person,” Vera noted. “Let alone a whole company. That alone is a huge achievement, building such a successful corporation with a legion of brainwashed pawns, all covertly, under the nose of the US government...”

“Those fools,” his daughter giggling, sinking lower in her chair. “Hardly difficult... They wouldn’t n-notice a naked dance troupe if I sent one parading past their fat faces!”

“Quite. I hope you’re grateful, my dear. You’ve got a well-oiled machine made up of all these mindless worker drones, ready and willing to do anything and everything you ask of them, unable to even think of refusing you... That’s real power. The power to erase free will. To unmake someone, reduce them to an empty shell, or mould them into someone of your own design. You can change someone’s entire identity, take away their name and everything that makes them them, and turn them into a devoted slave to your every whim. I don’t know how you don’t think about that all the t-”

“All the time,” Mari gasped. “I dooo, Dad... I think about it all the time. It’s incredible, it’s fantastic, it’s all I think about... I get off on it so fucking hard every hour of every day, I love it so fucking much...”

“Of course you do,” her father said simply. “That’s how you were made. You got it all from me, my darling.”

There was something a little peculiar about his words, but she felt too good right now to puzzle out his meaning.

“Mind you, you seem to have inherited a little less of my self-control. Not a criticism by any means - I’m actually rather glad you feel comfortable satisfying your needs in front of me. It’s rare to be that open with family.”

“What?”

Mari froze as she abruptly realised what she was doing, her fingers halting mid-thrust inside her exposed cunt. She was sprawling in her seat, nude with her legs spread wide, her clothes carelessly strewn about on the floor around her. She’d stripped off and started masturbating while talking with her father, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, her actions never registering in her mind.

It wasn’t as if impulsively getting naked and jilling off was a rare experience for her. She did so all the time, and didn’t much care who saw her, whether they were an employee, a client, or a random civilian. But she hadn’t even realised she was doing it this time. And in front of her father?! Even she had some boundaries.

Not that Vera seemed to mind. If anything, he seemed to be appreciating the spectacle. As she stared across at him, wide-eyed, he leered back at her, his dainty fingers steepled below his chin, his long jet-black hair coursing down past her shoulders and over his blouse.

“No judgement at all,” he snickered, batting his eyelashes almost seductively at his daughter. “We all need to satisfy our feminine urges from time to time, don’t we?”

Mari blinked owlishly as another epiphany was forced into her brain through sheer weight of evidence. “Dad,” she muttered, perturbed by the very words she was about to say because they were completely insane, and yet undeniably true. “You’re - you’re a - a wom-”

“A woman?” Vera laughed, rocking back in his - no, her - chair. “Well, yes, obviously! Dearie me, you are slow today, Marioneta. Is this the brain that’s going to conquer human society within a decade?”

Mari was too busy reeling from the realisations to pay much attention to the condescension. A woman. Of course her father was a woman. She always had been. How had Mari never noticed? Why did she always think of her as a man?

“But back to my point - building Estro Corp, with all its enslaved staff, serving your every need and desire, is a truly remarkable feat, if I do say so myself. It took me a very long time, and a great deal of effort. So, as I was saying, my dear Mari... you should be very grateful to me, for putting you in charge of my company.”

Mari’s mouth fell open in shock and outrage. “Y-your company?!” she spluttered. “I built Estro Corp! Me!”

“You? You didn’t even notice you were fingerblasting yourself right there in front of me,” Vera tittered.

“I’m the CEO! I am Marioneta Estro -”

“Oh, puppet,” the woman purred, a sinister smirk covering her face. “This is my favourite part.”

A couple of seconds after her father had finished speaking, Mari’s eyes widened. She had suddenly realised the woman had not spoken in English, but in a language she didn’t recognise.

And yet, she’d understood her perfectly.

“What? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your Esperanto?”

“My what?” she blurted, in English. This didn’t make any sense. How could she be fluent in a language she’d never even heard of, much less studied?

“Delightful dialect, Esperanto. I’ve always liked it. Did you know it’s only existed for under 150 years? Someone just... made it up. A man named LL Zamenhof saw a need for an international second language, so he went and invented one. That’s an innovative spirit I admire hugely.”

Wait. What had she said? What were the words - the ‘Esperanto’ words? “Oh, Marioneta. Ĉi tiu estas mia plej ŝatata parto...”

‘Marioneta’. Her name. Her fucking name, the same in both languages, of course.

So why had she heard it as ‘puppet’?

“I can see the gears turning,” ‘Vera’ sniggered. “I can see that smart executive mind putting the pieces together. I can tell you’re starting to ellabori ĝin...”

Work it out, Mari translated automatically, her heart pounding faster as if she was on the verge of some grand epiphany, greater than all the other stunning revelations of the last few minutes.

“You’re starting to memoru...”

Remember.

“You’re finally starting to kompreni.”

Understand.

Esperanto. The world’s most successful artificial language, created by an ophthalmologist in the 1880s. Today it had two million users. And it was woven through Mari’s company, her family, her life. Without even being aware of it, she’d given Esperanto names to her fake wife and daughter - ‘Karulina’ meant ‘darling’; ‘Sorĉa’, ‘enchanting’.

Why hadn’t she ever realised before...?

“Maybe you’re even starting to memori vian lokon...”

Remember your place.

Her place? Her place. Her place...

Oh. Of course. It all made sense, all of a sudden. And it was so blindingly obvious, she felt profoundly stupid for not seeing it earlier.

But then, like most of Estro Corp’s property, she’d been conditioned not to. That is, until she’d been put in the circumstances, or given the verbal triggers, that parted the veil, as per the specific programming put in place at the request of her owner.

Mari quavered as the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place, the whole truth abundantly clear to her as soon as she comprehended the meaning of her own name. ‘Marioneta’. Esperanto for ‘puppet’. And ‘Estro’ meant ‘boss’... or ‘master’. So she was ‘the puppet master’ - one of several evocative monikers she’d given herself in the past. But now she understood its true meaning. She wasn’t the master of puppets... She was the puppet herself.

A mere decoy for the True Master. Or, in Esperanto, the ‘Vera Estro’.

Lip trembling, puppet stared across the desk at the woman she now understood to be her owner, not her father, and the true creator of Estro Corp. And now she knew and understood that, the moment her eyes fell upon Master, she was struck by an overwhelming reverence. This was a real Goddess. So beautiful, so intelligent, so powerful... It was obvious, looking at her now, that this woman could only be the Master of all she surveyed. How could puppet have imagined - even for a second, even under the effects of brainwashing - that she came close to comparing with such a deity?

What she felt now for her owner, her creator, went beyond love or lust, and into all-consuming adoration and idolisation. Faced with the omnipotent glory of the True Master, puppet could do nothing but submit. It was only natural.

Falling from her chair onto all fours, she crawled around the side of the desk, approached her Goddess’ feet, plonked her bare butt on her back legs, and waited with bated breath. She kept her head bowed deferentially, feeling unworthy to observe her Master’s divine face, instead fixating on her pristine shoes.

“That’s a good little decoy,” the looming deity crowed, patting puppet on the head, sending shivers through her. “Excellent work as always, keeping my company running for me.”

Puppet beamed proudly. She had played her part well for another week, pretending to be the savvy, ruthless CEO, keeping the True Master’s existence hidden while acting on her behalf. She understood that now. She remembered more by the moment, perceived more of her true nature and purpose every second. She wasn’t a self-made multi-millionaire. She didn’t build Estro Corp from nothing. She didn’t claw her way to a position of unassailable wealth and influence, creating an insidious technological empire with herself as the Empress.

She was just one of the company’s thousands of acquisitions, picked at random from their stock. There was nothing special or superior about her. There was nothing in her brain, no idle thought, no facet of her identity, that hadn’t been put there by Master. Her entire personality was just a modified copy of Master’s own mind, to the point where she’d even picked out her own fake daughter just as Master had done. She was no different from Sorĉa, or Karulina, or any of Estro Corp’s other brainwashed belongings and empty-headed employees.

Her sole reason to exist was to act as a proxy, a puppet leader, a decoy to maintain her owner’s total anonymity. And after a long week of performing that role to perfection, she would travel to Master’s home every Friday, where her false personality would dissolve in her owner’s presence, allowing her to revert to her true submissive slave self. Once she left, her alter-ego would reassert itself, certain of her own supremacy once more, remembering only another pleasant but boring visit with her father.

Master’s finger hooked under puppet’s chin, lifting her face to gaze, awestruck, into her eyes. Her dark irises blended with her pupils to form obsidian whirlpools, holding puppet enraptured, inexorably drawing her in, seeming to suck away what little remained of her meagre mind.

“Time to give you your reward, my darling ‘daughter’,” Master purred, unzipping her own trousers.

As puppet smiled vacantly, a trickle of drool tumbling over her lower lip, an impulse suddenly rose within her - a tiny little crumb of resistance. Not even resistance, actually. Just curiosity, longing, desperation for enlightenment, without any real power behind it. The sensation rose to her lips, which moved and let out whimpering words.

“Who was I?” she pleaded softly. “What was my real name?”

But even as she asked, the desire for answers faded, her mind passing the point of caring and plummeting into pure pleasure and subservience.

“Do you know,” Vera chuckled, as her decoy ‘daughter’ began to plaster her slick cunt with worshipful kisses, “I can’t remember!”