The office building’s exterior was utterly nondescript, almost indistinguishable from its neighbours - which was exactly how the owners liked it. They didn’t need any unwanted attention. Only a select few knew exactly what went on behind the tinted glass doors, and Rowan counted themself lucky to be one of them.

Approaching the entrance, they swiped their ID card through the reader by the door, which slid open with a barely-audible whirr. The lobby was empty aside from the receptionist behind the desk, who recognised them, waving them through with a genial smile.

Rowan passed the elevators and staircase leading up to the main part of the building, instead making their way to a different, more secluded set of stairs, concrete rather than varnished wood. The stone steps took them down to the sublevels, where they had to use their card again in order to access the laboratory. The chamber was illuminated by strip lights across the ceiling and had tables lining the walls, upon which various kinds of technology were heaped. Being something of a gamer, Rowan recognised many of the devices and components, but some of them had been assembled into unfamiliar configurations, and a few were totally unfamiliar, presumably being the company’s own creations.

The main attraction - one of them, anyway - was the padded leather orthodontic chair in the centre of the room. Behind it, in the far corner, a young woman in dark grey sweats sat in a revolving office chair, studying her computer. Her straggly black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her face was showing the distinctive pockmarks of acne. Despite this, Rowan felt a stronge surge of desire as she spun around to face them, her saucer-like eyes fixed on them from across the room. “Hey, Rowan,” she called out, giving them a gleaming white smile. The young programmer never seemed to take much care over the majority of her appearance, but her teeth were always immaculate.

“Morning, Lee,” Rowan replied cheerfully, trotting across the lab. “What’s with the early summons? I thought you didn’t need me ’til this evening.”

“Change of plans,” Lee announced, watching as they perched on the edge of the central chair. “Our janitor, Henry, called in sick...”

“The old dude I’ve never once seen smiling, or heard say anything other than a grunt?”

“That’s the one,” she chuckled. “Say what you will about him, he’s a good janitor. Always gets everything done super efficiently. I mean, I’m a genius coder who practically built this whole process single-handedly, and yet I cannot figure out how he gets around this place so fast!”

They laughed. “So, I’m guessing you need a new Henry for the day?”

“Exactly. Process should be a lot quicker than normal, since I’m not doing a total rewrite and creating a new persona from scratch - we’ve got a memory print from Henry already, so it’s just about tweaking it, adjusting his memories and perceptions to fit your brain. Ballpark thirty minutes, I expect.”

“OK, well, don’t rush it,” Rowan smirked. “Remember what happened the first couple of times, when you got overexcited and missed out some key details? I mean, I don’t remember, but the footage of you trying to explain to ‘Brad’ where his dick went was fucking hilarious.”

Lee smiled ruefully. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Trust me, I learn from my mistakes. If I need to spend longer than half an hour on it I will, but I don’t expect I’ll have to.”

“And then you’ll set me to work?”

“Yep.”

They grinned self-consciously. “The irony of turning me into a janitor... You should see the state of my dorm room. My roommate’s no better, either. Two gamers living together is just a recipe for squalor.” Their eyes lit up. “Ooh, hey - maybe you could leave a little Henry in when you’re done, so I’ll be better at cleaning up after myself?”

“Y’know, that’s not such a bad idea,” Lee mused. “I’ll see what I can do, babe. Now, can you lie down for me, please?”

“Do I have a choice?” Rowan sniggered.

They saw Lee smiling indulgently at the well-worn joke as they lay back on the comfy black leather. It was funny because it was true.

Rowan had first met Lee six months earlier, towards the end of their first year at college. Short of money after buying a new gaming system, they had seen an ad by a third-year coding student offering a hundred dollars to help test her new apparatus, and the VR game she’d designed to be played on it. They’d jumped at the opportunity - getting paid to play a video game seemed too good to be true.

As it turned out, it was. The ‘game’ was actually a collection of disorienting sights and sounds, with a layer of subliminal messages underneath, that quickly rendered them dazed, docile and suggestible, enabling Lee to start altering their mind. It was only after the process had finished, when she’d been sure that it was a success, that she’d admitted she was recently offered a job by a covert organisation named Estro, Inc. As a final test to prove she had what it took to become one of their programmers, she was asked to take techniques and methods they had already developed and repurpose them into a prototype brainwashing system, capable of altering or completely erasing someone’s mind and even implanting a new personality. Having devised the system, all she’d needed was a test subject.

Rowan had sat and listened to the explanation placidly, aware that under ordinary circumstances they would probably be horrified to learn of what had just been done to them, but unable to feel even a glimmer of outrage now. In fact, they’d felt totally content, even pleased, with what had transpired. They were fascinated by the notion that their personality could be ‘reprogrammed’, and deeply curious about how far it could be taken. The knowledge that these feelings had been put in their brain by Lee without their consent didn’t make any difference.

Lee had been hired by Estro, Inc. as soon as she graduated and given a mandate to complete the personality reprogramming system. Having been conditioned to crave conditioning, Rowan was only too happy to keep letting her test the technology on them, altering their mind however she wished, and often installing an entirely different persona for a short time. They were perfectly aware of how deeply unethical Lee’s experiments were, and how nefarious and dangerous Estro, Inc. must be if they were developing this kind of technology. They knew they should report the company to the authorities before they did this to anyone else.

There was absolutely no way in hell they were going to.

Apart from anything else, they’d been brainwashed to love getting their personality augmented. They found it amazing, thrilling, to know any aspect of their character could be modified to specifications chosen by Lee, entirely at her disrection. They wanted to keep doing it, and that wouldn’t happen if she and her employers were locked up in jail. They knew it was wrong, that their consent had been completely violated, that Estro, Inc. were using them as nothing more than a body, a blank slate for them to fill with whatever they chose... but they didn’t care. And they didn’t care that they’d been programmed not to care. And they didn’t care that they’d been programmed not to care about being programmed not to care...

Besides, their life had hugely improved since Lee had been reprogramming her. Their mental health had been in the toilet for much of their teenage years and their first year at uni, causing them to surrender entirely to the agoraphobic gamer stereotype and remain hidden in their dorm room whenever they weren’t in class. Now, they felt so much better about themself as a human being. They felt such deep gratitude to Lee for flushing the darkness out of their brain (and they were sure she’d done so of her own volition, since they didn’t think it was likely the Evil Organisation of Evil had instructed her to do so). It was cheaper than therapy, or antidepressants. They’d started taking better care of themself, their health and their appearance. They’d gone out to clubs and parties. They had an actual social life - friends with human faces and names, whom she hadn’t met through playing Overwatch.

Plus, Lee had paid them that hundred bucks the first time. Although they were sure that was just to make the ‘VR game test’ all seem above reproach, in case the college investigated. Rowan had quite happily gone unpaid for every subsequent reprogramming session, and Estro, Inc. had offically added them to their list of regular volunteers - which, they gathered, was growing longer all the time. They imagined a lot of the other ‘brand ambassadors’ had been hoodwinked in similar ways to themself. Lucky them, they thought, half-ironically and half-sincerely.

Lee had also told them, in basic terms, how the reprogramming system worked, and kept them fully informed of everything that was done to them and with them. Rowan appreciated being kept in the loop, knowing how easily she could have reduced them to an oblivious, complacent plaything - or wiped their mind completely and kept them as a blank drone, stored away in this clandestine facility unless she needed them. This gave the illusion of a cooperative venture, which they liked.

She loomed over them now, holding a headset consisting of VR goggles and noise-cancelling headphones in one hand. “Comfy?”

“Yeah, I think so,” they replied, wriggling a little to make sure.

The programmer slotted the headset over Rowan’s head, plunging them into sudden darkness as the goggles slid in front of their eyes. Then she gave their boobs a quick squeeze through their navy blue shirt. “Dude, you only had to ask,” they giggled, barely able to hear their own voice through the headphones.

A few seconds later the goggles flared to life, filling their field of vision with swirling, sparkling spirals. At the same time the headphones began to emit a low thrum, along with a soft hiss that they recognised as the whispering subliminals. They made no attempt to decipher them, knowing they were being absorbed into their subconscious, just like the messages flickering before their eyes, interrupting the spirals at a frame rate too fast for them to consciously perceive. Again, knowing what was happening to them didn’t reduce the effect at all. If anything, it accelerated the process - knowing that they couldn’t resist it, that they would succumb just as they always did, that their brain had been trained to accept any and every byte of information uploaded into it, made them surrender even quicker. Perhaps that was why Lee kept them so well-informed...

By the time the spirals had slowly changed from luminescent pink to black-and-white, not much more than a minute later, Rowan’s mind had been scanned, copied into the Estro, Inc. mainframe, and then completely erased. They lay sprawled across the dentist’s chair, their limbs and jaw slack, their breathing deep and regular as if they were sleeping. Taking a moment to admire the blissful expression on their test subject’s face, Lee turned back to her computer and resumed rapidly typing, transmitting data into their vacant brain, weaving the flood of information into the flickering subliminals.

26 minutes later, Lee removed the headset. Henry lurched upright and looked around blearily, brushing strands of his pixie cut out of his face and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Thank you for helping me with that, Henry,” she said pleasantly. “You can get on with your work now.”

He grunted in response, not meeting her eyes as he stood up from the chair and tottered towards the exit.

“One sec, I’ll buzz you out,” she called across the room, darting back to her console and pressing the dark green button that unlocked the lab door.

Henry grunted again, left the room, and shuffled away to the janitor’s closet, to change into his overalls and start his day of work.

***

Hours later, Henry returned to the lab, knowing that he needed to help Lee with something else, even though he wasn’t sure what. Some tech thing he probably wouldn’t understand. Why she wanted his help rather than someone more scientifically-minded, he didn’t know. Probably because he was just the janitor, not one of the big brains that worked here - she thought he’d just do whatever was asked of him. Of course, he would, because Estro, Inc. were paying him well enough.

He’d changed back into his blue shirt and tight black jeans, making sure to wash the traces of dirt and oil off his hands first so as not to ruin the clothes. Upon his return to the lab, Lee asked him to lie down on the chair again and let her put on the headset. The sullen custodian did as he was told, despite his reluctance to stay at his workplace for any amount of extra time after his shift. His wife would soon be wondering where he was.

It was the work of a mere five minutes to erase Henry’s persona and re-upload Rowan’s. Dazed and disoriented, they allowed Lee to remove the headset once again, smiling up at her dreamily. They felt like they’d only just arrived at the facility - like it was still morning - but knew, from plentiful experience, that it must be much later in the day. “Hiii,” they sighed, shivering happily as they felt their thoughts settle back into place in their brain.

“Hey, cutie,” Lee beamed, sitting back down in her seat. “I gotta say, I much prefer you to Henry. You’re much more talkative.”

“Nn - not feelin’ so chatty right now,” Rowan admitted, their eyes rolling slightly as they curled up on the chair, lying on their side with their arms wrapped around themself.

Lee let them recuperate there for a few minutes while she set up the next program on her computer, making some final checks. “Alright, I think we’re ready to go,” she announced at last.

“Who’re you turning me into now?” Rowan asked, sitting up, their energy and mental coherence replenished. “You’ve got this event tonight, haven’t you? I’m guessing it’s to do with that...”

“Guessing right,” Lee replied casually. “It’s a shareholders’ dinner, and the bosses want as many brand ambassadors there as possible. We’ve got plenty already, but it never hurts to add another.”

“So, you’re gonna turn me into a bimbo slut, like those other girls?” Rowan got up and strode across to Lee’s corner, perching on the desk next to her computer and staring down at her with their arms folded. “Whore me out to the shareholders - have me be arm candy, flirt with them, fuck ’em and suck ’em?”

Lee shot her a malicious smile. “Precisely, m’dear.”

“Sounds like fun,” they said nonchalantly, their mouth twitching into an ironic smirk. “What’s my name gonna be?”

“Paige. Named her after my ex - who was also a total slut, by the way. Just not one I had any control over,” she said bitterly.

Rowan grimaced sympathetically. “Ah. I bet this’ll be cathartic for ya then.” They grinned mischievously, raising an eyebrow. “Going out on a limb here - I’m assuming you’re gonna want to roadtest Paige, before you send her off to please the shareholders?”

Lee laughed nervously. “Aha - yeah, I might do...”

“One of these days, you’re gonna let me remember when we fuck,” they chuckled, winking at her. She blushed, mumbling incoherently. They found that adorable. She literally had absolute power over their mind and body, and definitely took full advantage of it - but the slightest bit of teasing about it reduced her to a flustered mess.

They started to walk back to the chair, but paused and glanced back at Lee. “Hey... How did Estro, Inc. get in touch with you in the first place, offer you the job?”

She looked surprised by the question. “Uhh... they reached out through an email, offered me an interview out of the blue. I guess they had folks keeping an eye on the college to see if any ace coders showed up. When I got there, they told me about all the shady shit they were up to, and asked if I wanted in.”

“And you said yes?”

“They told me I could brainwash a cute enby and use them as my guinea pig, turn them into whoever and whatever I want. You’re damn right I said yes!”

As she laughed, Rowan narrowed their eyes. “And you’re sure that’s what really happened?”

Lee blinked in confusion. “Uh - yeah. Pretty sure.”

“But how can you be? I mean, I know I don’t remember it, but an hour ago I was convinced that I was a 58-year-old man. Estro, Inc. could have changed your mind, your memories, your personality, just like you did to me...”

She looked uneasy at the inference. “No - this tech, this process, is brand-new. I built it myself, with pretty much no help.”

“But it was based on stuff they already had, right? The spirals, the subliminals - they already had those... Maybe they used them on you - maybe only changed you a little, enough to get you working for them...” They arched their eyebrow again. “How could you ever know for sure?”

Lee swallowed hard, looking disturbed by the suggestion. Then she glanced up, and caught the grin spreading across Rowan’s face. She burst out laughing. “Oh, you jackass!”

“Hey, turnabout’s fair play, amirite?” they giggled. “My brain’s being rewritten however you like, I gotta get a little payback...”

“Shuddup and get in the damn brainwashing chair, you jerk,” she spluttered.

“OK, OK,” Rowan hooted, raising their hands in acquiescence as they slid back onto the leather seat. “Just think of that as my tiny act of revenge, for controlling me without my consent and erasing my free will.”

Still tittering softly, they watched as Lee approached with the headset again. “Hey, I am just messing with you - you know that, right?” they assured her. “You’re obviously not the same as me - you’re here by choice.”

It was Lee’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? How d’you know that?”

“Simple. They wouldn’t sequester someone as pretty as you down here in this dark basement, when they could turn you into one of their brand ambassadors.”

“Aww!” She put a hand over her heart, looking deeply flattered. “You think I’m pretty? Like, brand ambassador pretty?!”

“Oh, absolutely!”

She shifted her weight from one foot to another awkwardly. “’Cos, I’ve kinda got some acne issues...”

“There’s makeup for that,” Rowan said dismissively. “Trust me - one shower, a layer of decent foundation, and some more flattering clothes, and you’d fit right in with Paige and the other hoes, impressing all the rich fuckers upstairs.”

“You’re so sweet,” Lee mumbled, sounding genuinely pleased by their compliments. Then she grinned wickedly. “I’m gonna wipe your brain now.”

“OK,” they giggled, lying back on the chair. “Guess I’ll see you some time tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Lee nodded, lowering the headset onto their head. “Assuming none of the shareholders decide they wanna keep Paige for themselves.”

Rowan’s eyebrows rocketed upwards, vanishing behind the goggles as they slowly slid down their forehead. “Does that happen?”

“Not often, but yeah, sometimes. One of our best investors took a girl called India home with him recently, and apparently we’ve not seen her since.”

“Oh.” They shrugged. “Well, I’d better say goodbye while I have the chance, then.”

“Bye, Rowan,” Lee said with a small smile. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

“It’s been nice knowing me, too!” they snickered, as the lenses moved into place before their eyes. Within a minute, they were happily plummeting into oblivion once more.

A short time later, Paige let out a soft little whimpering sigh as her headset was removed. She squirmed in her seat, her eyes closed, biting her lip and giggling lightly as she noticed how horny she was. It was her first and only thought upon waking up, as usual.

“Oh my gawwd, my pussy’s so wet,” she gasped in the voice of a stereotypical airhead, her tone much higher and her accent more drawling than Rowan’s. Rubbing the crotch of her jeans with one hand and groping one of her boobs with the other, she opened her eyes at last, to see a pretty girl standing over her. She giggled again, recognising her expression of barely-suppressed lust. “Hi, sexy,” she teased, making no attempt to stop pawing at herself.

“H-hello, Paige,” Lee stammered, a smile spreading across her face. “D’you know why you’re here today?”

“Ummm...” Paige thought for a moment, which was difficult for her dim brain. Then the memory came to her, and her eyes lit up. “Oh! The company’s throwing a party, right? An’ they want me to come and flirt with the guests, be their slutty little brand ambassador...”

“Exactly,” Lee nodded.

Paige wriggled a little, noticing her clothes for the first time even as she continued to touch herself through them. “Umm... do you guys have any better clothes I can put on? I don’t really like dark colours...”

“Oh, don’t worry - HR have got some clothes and makeup for you. You can go up and see them in a minute.”

“Ooh, did they get me a pretty dress?” Paige asked eagerly.

Lee grinned down at her. “They got you a short pink skirt, and a pink crop top. How does that sound?”

“That’s perfect,” Paige sighed. “I looove pink.” She gave yet another brainless giggle. “I hope they don’t make me wear panties, though...”

“Precious little chance of that,” Lee sniggered, returning to her swivel chair in the corner. “They’ll want the shareholders to have easy access.”

“Aw, good. I hate wearing panties.” Paige raised an eyebrow, unknowingly copying Rowan’s look of mischief. “I want people to be able to get to my holes, an’ use them as much as they want...”

She could see the effect she was having on Lee. The programmer was breathing heavily, visibly blushing, gazing at her with transparent desire.

“You wanna use my holes, ma’am?” she asked in a tone of mock innocence, smiling playfully. “You wanna touch me? Taste me? Finger me ’til I cum all over your hand...?”

Lee didn’t answer for a few seconds, practically panting as she leered at the slut on the chair. “Well... I did tell Rowan I was gonna roadtest you...”

Yet another bubbly giggle escaped Paige’s lips. “Who’s Rowan? They sound hot. Do they wanna fuck me too?”

The coder seemed to struggle to figure out how to answer that, her arousal obviously not helping. “Don’t worry about it.”

“OK,” Paige shrugged, easily putting any thoughts of this ‘Rowan’ person out of her mind. She wriggled in her seat again, grasping at her jeans. “I better get these tight pants off so you can get to my hot little pussy...”

Lee let out an audible moan. “No time... I’m gonna use that slutty tongue of yours instead. Get over here.”

Paige grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

Sliding off her seat, she dropped onto hands and knees on the hard floor. The concrete was cold against her palms, but she didn’t care. All her limited focus was on the horny programmer sitting a few feet away, hurriedly yanking down their sweatpants and boxer shorts to reveal her glistening cunt. Paige crawled forwards eagerly, and was burying her face between Lee’s legs in no time at all.

“Ohhh, fuck, yes,” Lee cried, grabbing her armrests tightly. “God, uhh - f-fuck, Rowan, nngh -”

Paige didn’t know why Lee had called her by a different name, but she didn’t much care. The cute nerd could call her whatever she wanted. She doubted the shareholders would remember her name, either, and she expected they’d call her a lot of different things instead. She was there to fuck, and suck, and be used and filled and gotten off to, on or in. Her name really didn’t matter.

She tenderly licked Lee’s entrance, probing her pussy lips. The coder seized her short hair and shoved her head further in, squashing her mouth and nose into her delicious cunt. “Yes, that’s right, you brainless whore,” she growled. “You dumb little slut, get that tongue right inside me...”

She was humping Paige’s face now, hard, showing no regard for her air supply. Paige wasn’t making too much effort to breathe anyway, too busy doing as she’d been told and plunging her tongue deep inside Lee.

“Fuck, yes - I made you - I can make you wh-whatever I want - I control y-yoou - you’re mine - you’re - mine -”

Lee let out a shriek, squirting directly into Paige’s waiting mouth. Gulping the juices down, the brainwashed brand ambassador continued to eat her programmer out passionately and skilfully. She wouldn’t stop until she was told - she knew she had to give the best experience possible. It was for the company, after all.

“They’re gonna love you,” Lee whimpered, sinking down in her chair, relinquishing her grip on Paige’s hair and surrendering to her ministrations. “They’re gonna take turns fucking you, passing you between them... using you as their sex doll - uhnnh... but I got the first taste,” she chuckled feebly, giving her homemade slut headpats. “I get you first, ’cos I made you.”

Paige had no idea what Lee was talking about, but once again she didn’t care, as it wasn’t relevant to her objective of bringing the technician to a second orgasm. Wrapping her lips around Lee’s cunt and waggling her tongue inside, she gazed up at her with doe-like eyes, submissive and clueless. She was a vapid, horny, slutty little bimbo for Estro, Inc. She was there to bring pleasure to their guests, to promote the company the only way she knew how.

It was what she was made for.