Afterwards, nobody who had been there could tell you why it had happened, or how it had happened, or how it had started. Afterwards, they shamefacedly hid the fact that all their recordings for that day had been erased under the Chief Superintendent’s login, and that all notes made on the computer system had been erased. There was talk, for a while, of bringing someone in who’d be able to recover the data, but it was agreed by the Chief Super and the Chief Inspectors that if they did, the town would get to hear of it, and none of them wanted that.

So the only person who really knew what had happened - and, more importantly, why - was Hannah Taylor, who had only been in town that weekend in any event to perform her magic show at the Beachfront under the name of Madame Mystique. Hannah had no reason to tell the story, but she remembered it well, and for the rest of her life she would sometimes, if she had been sitting alone and silent with her thoughts for an hour or so, chuckle quietly to herself in memory.

*

Hannah favoured diners for breakfast while she was on tour. Her experience of hotel breakfasts was that they varied significantly in quality, but there were always places she could go and sit while eating good food at a reasonable price. Eating a heavy meal before the show never went well; she had to make breakfasts her most important meal as a direct result.

She was most of the way through a slow breakfast when two uniformed officers walked in. Taking seats at the counter, they started chatting to the waitress. Except, Hannah thought, chatting wasn’t really the right word. She’d never chatted with anyone in a way that had that level of underlying menace.

Hannah didn’t actually mean to start listening to the conversation - this wasn’t her town, the problem wasn’t hers - but sometimes you just couldn’t help it. It became clear, as she ate and listened, that the two officers hadn’t just decided to have breakfast at the diner, they’d also decided it should be free.

She snorted at the wrong moment. Later, that would be the thing that stood out to her; that all she’d really done was make a noise, and get noticed for doing so. At the time, she found herself looking up from her seat at two police officers standing over her. “Name?” the woman asked.

Hannah reviewed her options mentally. Not cooperating was risky. Rolling over and capitulating could be a problem of its own. Making a joke of it wasn’t a risk, it was a recipe for trouble.

At the same time, she didn’t like the situation at all. In the few moments she had to make a decision, the answer she landed on was “I can show you my ID?”

The two officers exchanged glances. “A smartass,” the man said. The woman nodded. Hannah was seized by the sudden conviction that anything she said could only make things worse; at the same, she felt like she had to try.

“I don’t mean to be,” she managed, and got no further before she was being pinned against the diner counter, listening to the metallic rasp of handcuffs snapping into place.

She had committed no crime and was under no suspicion of doing so. Her mistake had been to slip, just audibly enough, and to want to preserve some shred of dignity when they chose to make an example of her. As frustrated as she was, she couldn’t blame them.

Sullenly, she fell silent until she was delivered to the desk sergeant for processing. A part of her wanted to file a complaint the moment she was released. Not that it would matter, of course.

She wondered idly what it would be like to live somewhere where the authorities didn’t disillusion you.

“You get one phone call,” the desk sergeant told her. His eyes flicked toward the departing beat officers, then back to her. “First time?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Maybe don’t use your call immediately, then,” he said. “Take a few moments to think about who can help you most, then ask. You might not need your lawyer, you know? But even if you do, you might want to get your husband to call him for you, because if you tell your husband he can probably sort out more stuff for you. He can call your job and let them know you might be delayed, say.”

Hannah had already heard that you always wanted your lawyer with you when dealing with the police, even or especially if you were innocent. It was advice given frequently by retired cops, and that fact made it stand out as likely to be even more reliable. So advice even to delay contacting them seemed to her like it might be biased, even if she couldn’t confirm that.

The biggest problem was that her lawyer was back in her home town, in a different state, and might not even be qualified to practice law here. The secondary problem was that Hannah didn’t much like the assumption she had a husband when in fact she had neither husband nor wife.

She simply nodded. At this point, direct opposition seemed like it would go badly. Left alone to think - she’d imagined the holding cells were always busy, but that morning things were quiet, at least when she got there - she started to think about the phrase ‘direct opposition’.

So what forms of opposition might go better? And was there an alternative to opposition that could actually be effective for her?

*

The two officers who’d arrested her left her in holding for about an hour before collecting her. Hannah allowed herself, briefly, to hope that they were going to let her go immediately; they definitely had nothing to charge her with that would stick, and wouldn’t want that coming to the attention of anyone outside the police.

Instead she was taken to an interview room. It was, at least, a reasonably pleasant one, at least compared to the fictional versions she’d seen on TV; the desk and chairs were sturdy and cheap but not uncomfortable.

She settled down on one side, folding her fingers together while she waited for them to start. The woman was busying herself with the audio system.

Hannah couldn’t imagine that they planned to do anything with the recording but delete it. All the same, it pushed her to a new level of vigilance. She hadn’t really realised - hadn’t honestly ever thought about - the lengths a pissed off police officer might go to just to mess with someone, but she couldn’t believe that this was going to end with charges pressed, if only because there had been witnesses in the diner.

“Interview commencing,” the man said. “Time is 10:13am, Thursday May 28th. Present are Officers Trevor Packham and Victoria Ashford.” He looked across the table to her. “Please give your name for the recording.”

“Hannah Taylor,” she said.

“Do you know why you’re here, Mrs Taylor?” Officer Ashford put in quickly. The effect was disconcerting, something Hannah knew a thing or two about from her stage act; she realised that pushing that question so fast was exactly the kind of tactic she might use with a volunteer when doing some of her more psychological routines.

The realisation made something shift inside her. Abruptly she felt back in her element, balanced again after being off kilter for so long. Her composure flooded back. Hannah sat up straighter in her chair, shifting slightly.

So long as they were playing the cops’ game, she was at a disadvantage. But now mind games were explicitly on the table, she thought, it was time to show amateurs how the pros did it.

Well. Maybe a professional would be a little less petty than she suddenly intended to be. “I’m from out of town,” she said. “So I assume that I’ve broken a local ordinance I just didn’t know about. Obviously, ignorance is no excuse, but sometimes I know it does get taken into account.” She looked between the two of them, meeting both of their gazes in turn.

She was perfectly calm and confident now. She knew the results she had decided on, and she knew how to achieve them. The only difficulty was going to be the transition from what they thought was happening to what she planned do do; she needed to find a way to make that shift without them getting annoyed, and ideally without them realising she was doing anything until she was ready to spring her trap. “I think,” she continued, “whether or not that happens is all about your relationship with authority.”

The two detectives were quiet for a few moments. That had felt like a fifty-fifty shot; it was going to be either a moment of silence or bluster, just because the answer she’d given was nothing they would have expected.

“Right,” Packham said, a little uncertainly. She met his gaze for a moment and he faltered; she looked across at his partner, meeting her eyes in turn. Cold reading was a hard skill to learn, but the more practice you had, the more you could get out of an expression. Of the two, she thought, Packham was the weaker link and would fold more easily.

She looked back and met his gaze again, speaking before he could find a way to pick back up that he was happy with. “From what I’ve seen of you both,” she said, and her voice was now low and soft, and the pace of her words had changed and slowed, “you understand the importance of authority.”

Packham had leaned slightly forward after she dropped her voice; Ashford hadn’t, but she was still listening as intently as her partner. “And that’s good,” she continued. “That’s right. You’re law enforcement. You are a channel for authority.”

At this point she was busy seeding concepts. She liked to give each one a pause when she was doing a show, whether it was a mentalism trick, a misdirect, or a force, so that there was a chance for the seed to take a little root. The difference was that in her show, she could be assured of silence from her audience.

The same couldn’t exactly be said here. She was talking slowly so that the occasional slightly longer gap might not be interrupted and the point could be made. “I do actually think that’s an important role,” she said. “I’m sure you get some who hate it. But someone in authority has decided on rules that must be followed and obeyed, and you make sure that people do just that. This is important.”

They were, she could see, thoroughly wrong-footed by now. “I can imagine it’s a very satisfying role, as well as an important one,” she continued. “You listen to authority. You hear the decisions of authority. You follow, obey, and enforce those decisions.

“It’s easy to tell when you’ve done well or badly. It’s easy to measure your success. We can watch you and see your reaction to authority. We can watch you and see how well you follow and obey. And you do not need to think about it, you do not need to question it, you do not need to consider. You listen, follow, obey and enforce authority.

“That matters, so nothing else matters. It must be very satisfying, and it must be very reassuring to just let go and follow and obey.” She did pause for a little longer, now, both to let the seeds settle in more firmly and for a quick assessment. She slid her gaze back toward Ashford, just for a moment, just long enough to notice the softening in her expression, a sort of smoothing over that made what she might be thinking less legible; this was enough, and her eyes flicked straight back to Packham, catching and skewering his gaze just as his head had been starting to dip; instead, his head straightened back up with a jerk.

His eyes were unfocused and glassy. Perfect, she thought.

“And as you listen to me,” she went on, “you continue to hear the decisions of authority. My authority.

“My authority means you do not need to think. My authority means you do not need to question. You only need to listen to me, then follow, obey, and enforce my authority.” She paused. “My word is your law, Officer,” she went on, staring firmly into Packham’s helpless, glassy eyes. “Do you understand?”

His lips moved. No sound escaped, everything that was Detective Packham sinking so deep that attempts to speak were lost in the depth.

Hannah took the motion of his lips as enough. “My word is your law,” she said again. “Sleep for me now, Trevor.” There was a heartbeat of hesitation, but then his eyes slid upward, his eyelids slid down, and his head flopped forward.

With a satisfied smile she looked across to Ashford, whose almost-empty expression held just the faintest traces of concern struggling to make an impact. “And you, dear?” she said, “my word is your law too. You will also sleep.”

Victoria made a soft sigh as her eyes closed, the tension dropping out of her shoulders as her head sagged backward against the chairback.

Hannah smiled, then stood up and reached across to the recorder, where she hit Pause.

*

“Vicki, dear, open your eyes.”

Still listening, Victoria followed and obeyed, her eyes opening to take in a few of the ceiling. It was the first awareness she’d had that she’d moved since the woman in authority began talking. A slight stiffness in her neck suggested that she might have been unaware for a short while, although why she would be unaware, she wasn’t sure.

“Sit up straight, Vicki.”

She followed and obeyed, head lifting off the chair back as her spine straightened. Her hands came to rest on her thighs, the cheap polyester of her uniform trousers familiar beneath her fingertips. She wasn’t entirely sure where they had been before.

She was now looking directly at the woman in authority.

“Now, then,” the woman said to her. “What do I represent?”

“Authority,” Victoria answered. Her words came sluggishly, as if she were somehow slowed down. She thought about that for long enough to notice that her thoughts also came rather slowly. That explained it, she thought, and was content.

“And what do you do?”

“Listen, obey, and enforce,” Vicki said.

“Excellent. Now, dear, I have been admiring your figure when you were unconscious. Thank me.”

“Thank you,” she answered, surprised but grateful.

“Yes. So, unbutton that shirt of yours and pull it back.”

Victoria followed and obeyed, wordless and thoughtless. She was absolutely present in herself, but she still imagined that she must feel the way people felt during out of body experiences. It was definitely her who unbuttoned her shirt, who drew it back to reveal her body and her bra underneath, gazing forward all the while at the woman in authority.

“That’s very good,” she told Victoria approvingly. Victoria smiled, a small, slightly shy smile. “I’m glad to see you understand how things work. Of course, I was busy explaining it to your colleague Trevor, and I imagine you heard a little. And it’s good, isn’t it, that you already resonate so well to my voice that you can listen even when your mind is asleep? That’s not a question that needs an answer, dear.”

Victoria sat quietly. The woman in authority, she thought, must talk in part for the pleasure of talking, and she was nobody to deny her that pleasure. Trevor was probably still nearby, she thought; however, she had not been told to look, and her gaze fell on the woman in authority, and so she would not turn her head.

Even so, now that she was again thinking of her partner even a little, she felt suddenly sure she could hear him; nothing out of the ordinary, just a steady, repetitive deep breathing in an even cadence. It was a sound she had heard a few times when her adrenaline was up, at the end of a pursuit; it was not something she had ever expected to hear in the station; the sound of a man who has been exerting himself steadily for some time, even if he still has stamina left in the tank.

“You know, Vicki,” the woman in authority continued, “I really do enjoy the way your tits look. But I’d like a better view. Stand up and lean forward.”

Victoria had listened, so now she followed and obeyed, rising easily and bending at the waist, almost bowing over the interview table, though she stopped when she judged her breasts to be at the woman in authority’s seated eye level. Her arms, which had dropped limply to her sides the moment she stood, still hung down; the backs of her arms had been stopped as she leaned forward, but without an instruction to give her reason to, she did nothing with them, and so they hung against the desk, limp but supported.

The woman in authority slowly licked her lips. She reached out and up with one hand, trailing her fingers over Victoria’s bra padding, then tucked the same fingers inside one cup and pulled it down quickly. Victoria’s breast popped free; she saw the woman in authority grin wide and bite her lower lip, and noted at the back of her mind that clearly she should be pleased, even if she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to wonder why.

“Delicious,” she purred. “Yes, Vicki, that’s quite lovely. And I imagine it feels very good to show them off. Your uniform, it’s not as sexualised as you’d like.”

Neither of these were thoughts that Vicki could remember having before, but now that she listened to the ideas from the woman in authority, she was very aware of the feeling she got showing off her tits. It felt very good.

It was a shame, she thought, that her uniform wasn’t sexualised enough. Practicality was boring.

But the woman in authority was still chatting away. “Of course, there is one part of you that gets showed off properly when you’re wearing that uniform. As a matter of fact I got to make a short study - not nearly as long as I’d have liked - of it while you were leading the way to your car after arresting me, and again when you took me to processing. Turn around, dear.”

Vicki followed and obeyed. She remained bent forward, leaning at the same angle, until turning further while in that pose would mean her shoulder connected with her chairback, at which point she straightened up so she could face directly away from the woman in authority.

She heard the woman in authority give a low whistle of appreciation. “Those uniform pants really do make a meal of that ass, don’t they?” she asked. “Just a shame they don’t cling to the rest. I bet your legs are delightful.”

Vicki had no good answer for this, except that she certainly thought it was a shame her pants weren’t tighter. That was just one way it could be more sexualised.

There was an image in her head - to call it a thought or even something that occurred to her would be to give her mind too much credit - of a fetishised police uniform. They showed up surprisingly often on the periphery of her work, especially when disturbances called them out to strip clubs.

Would that be better for her? The heels would be an issue in pursuits. Of course, they would also make her ass stand out more. Vicki was pretty certain the woman in authority would prefer that.

“Pants down, Vicki,” the woman in authority said, almost as soon as she had reached that conclusion. She hadn’t thought of the conclusion. Thinking was no longer within her capacity. Not really. Instead her mind simply provided her with results, with no ability to direct or steer them.

Vicki followed and obeyed. She bent forward slightly as she did so - had to - and briefly her face was buried in her own chairback. It was only for that reason that she straightened up again afterwards.

“Mm. Yes, that’s better. But it’s out of reach, and I don’t see a need to get up. Trevor, dear, take your free hand and spank Vicki’s ass.”

She listened. She had nothing to follow, nothing to obey. But some part of her, while she waited, mentally prepared to enforce, if Trevor was to fail in his duty. Happily, though, it didn’t take long before his hand met her buttock with a satisfyingly audible sound. He had not failed in his duty, and she was relieved.

“Spread your legs, Vicki dear,” the woman in authority instructed, and she did so, as much as she could without trying to get her pants off while still wearing her shoes.

“Trevor,” the woman in authority continued, “just reach under there and run your fingers under her panties. Tell me if she’s wet.”

Moments later she could feel his fingers against her, brushing firmly, probing dutifully. “She is wet,” Trevor said. His words came out in a kind of sing-song.

“Well, later on you’ll have to remedy that for her,” came the answer. “But since you’ve been stroking your cock for so long, Trevor dear, I think it’s time we saw how well you can satisfy a woman. Vicki agrees, don’t you, Vicki?”

“Yes,” Vicki answered. It wasn’t entirely clear to her what the woman in authority meant, but she would follow and agree.

She heard the chair on the other side of the desk scrape back, listened as the woman came around the desk. “Hand off your cock, now, Trevor,” she said firmly. “Good boy.”

After a moment she said “Trevor isn’t permitted to cum without my say-so, Vicki. Not until after this weekend is over and authority transfers. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And you will enforce?”

“Yes.”

“Keep stroking her pussy through her panties, Trevor,” the woman in authority said. “And Vicki, you are not permitted to cum without my say-so either. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Trevor, you will enforce that, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

Vicki had no idea what enforcement would consist of, but was nonetheless aware that instructions would make themselves known if needed. Trevor’s fingers were uncertain beneath her, but she was enjoying it.

A woman’s hand rested on her shoulder; there was a sound of satisfaction, and the hand went away. Vicki understood without conscious analysis that the woman in authority had used her shoulder to help her mount her partner, whose cock, evidently, had been ready for some time. That would surely have been why his breathing had been firmer and steadier than usual.

He had been told to do this with her in the room, and she had not understood.

And now, by the sound of things, the woman in authority was fucking him. Vicki was accustomed to think of fucking as what the cock (or the dildo) did, but there was no question here that it was the rider, not the buck, in charge.