It was not long after lunchtime on a Thursday when Roxanne went out to get the big shop done for the week. The kids were at school, her husband was at work, and town was as quiet as it ever got - not that it was ever quiet enough; she’d had to park in the awkward little corner of the car park, as there weren’t any free spaces ahead of her.

As she loaded her bags into the boot of her car, she heard a voice behind her say “Excuse me.” She barely stopped herself jumping, her attention having been on the ongoing nightmare that is finding the best way to load a half-dozen shopping bags into a relatively confined space.

She turned to see who had spoken. “Hello?”

Close behind her was a tall man, dressed in jeans and a loose hoodie. The hood was up, and he was standing close enough to her that he was out of sight of the supermarket entrance. Something about him made Roxanne wonder where she’d seen him before. “I was hoping,” he said, “you could help me with something.”

Roxanne blinked. “I guess…? What’s the problem?” She smiled, trying to be friendly.

He stepped up closer, dipping one hand into the pouch on the front of his hoodie. “It’s this,” he said, pulling a small white cloth pad from inside the pocket. “It’s my girlfriend’s perfume,” he told her, sounding sheepish. “I accidentally knocked the bottle over and broke it. I’m hoping - it’s a long shot, I know, but I’m hoping you might be able to tell me what brand I need to buy to replace it.”

She looked around, hoping there was someone in sight, but the only person was far enough across the car park that they wouldn’t be able to react with any speed. She saw him take another step closer.

"I... I don't think I'm really an expert. Maybe try inside on the counter...?" She took a step back only to realise, when her thigh bumped against the rear lights of her car, that she was too close to her vehicle for that.

Roxanne had a moment to dart to one side or another, but she met his eyes while she was deciding. She could see he knew his trick had failed, and she let out a short squeal as he lunged forward with both hands, thrusting the pad toward her face. Immediately her nose was assailed with strong chemicals.

Her eyes widened with shock and she raised a hand to struggle, though he was too close, too large for her to easily push away. His other hand came around, cradling the back of her neck in his palm so he could more easily control her head, keeping the cloth close against her lips and nose, unable to twist or turn away.

He was pressed close against her, using the boot of the car to minimise her movement options.

Roxanne breathed in in spite of herself, the scent of the chemicals rich and heady. She found herself thinking of the gas she’d taken when her eldest was born, that same strange lightness of self settling upon her, her knees quivering.

"Shhhh," he said. "It's better if you don't fight this."

She moaned into the cloth, trying to push him away. Her arms felt heavy, moved slowly, were cumbersome things rather than a useful part of herself. Her head was swimming. "Mmmppphh!"

Roxanne blinked slowly. Her feeble attempts to push him away were slowing too.

“God,” he muttered. “It always takes longer than I think it’s going to.” She could feel him tense, exerting himself to force stillness upon her.

Roxanne’s head was spinning. She was, suddenly, so tired, so very tired.

“Don’t fight it,” he urged softly. “Just let go. Let yourself sink.”

Her eyes were so heavy, and his voice was soothing in a way it shouldn’t have been able to be. Roxanne was suddenly, dizzyingly, aware that her legs were buckling beneath her.

He started to lower her backward. Keeping the cloth pressed against her nose with one hand, his other hand began to find ways of tucking her loose, floppy limbs into the boot alongside the half of the shopping she’d already loaded when he approached. "There's no need to fight. Just accept what's coming. Embrace it."

Somehow his voice seemed further away. Roxanne didn’t so much let her eyes close as feel them close against her.

She heard his voice soothingly coaxing, “That’s it. You want to sleep. You want to let go and sleep so very much,” and felt the pad lifted from her lips, but she was too sleepy to cry out.

He lifted her legs into the boot, bending her knees to fit. Roxanne felt herself fold into the darkness and slept. The last thing to penetrate her consciousness before empty black took her was his voice saying simply, “Now that’s a good girl.”

*

Some while later, Roxanne’s eyes opened as she woke. She was seated in an armchair; a comfortable one, but one which still featured restraints around her wrists and ankles, preventing her from standing or moving around.

Around her neck, a simple car travel pillow had been rigged up, its shape keeping her head upright but also limiting how much of the room she could see.

Not that she recognised the room in any case; she could just about see her car through a window to one side, parked on a long gravel driveway, tree-lined to the point she couldn’t see the road beyond it, and she recognised that.

Lined up against the wall of the room that she could see were the bags of her shopping that had been in the boot of her car; nestled on the top of one of them was her handbag. Above all of that was a large screen wall-mounted TV.

The room gave a sense of wealth; a room that had been decorated at some expense, but decades ago. It was probably not a place people spent much time, she thought.

Her head stung and she remembered her last hangover; it felt very similar. She opened her mouth to speak; her throat was uncomfortably dry, but after she cleared it she was able to make herself heard. “Hello?”

She turned her head a little. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Ah, you must be awake.” The voice was behind her, well out of view, but looking around a little further showed her a window on the other side of the room to the driveway, with a little open ground and a statue in the middle of it, and some woodland beyond that. Wherever she was, it was secluded; she thought about the various older houses in the neighbourhood, the ones removed from the towns. The old manor houses and the like. Could this be one of them?

"Where am I? What's happening?"

There was a creak of bare floorboards as the man who had drugged her approached. No longer wearing his hoodie, he had taken the time to change, and now wore a pair of smart black suit trousers and a pastel blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

In each hand he carried a mug, and steam rose from each. One of them had a drinking straw resting in it. "I imagine you're thirsty. I thought a little soothing fruit tea would help. Would you like some?" He held out the mug with the straw.

Roxanne took a first sip without thinking, simply because her throat was so dry after what had happened; the tea was just as soothing as he had said, and delicious to boot, and reflex took over. She drained half of the mug before she even broke to speak.

“Please… why am I here?”

Before he answered he turned to her side and set the cup of tea down somewhere. Roxanne’s mental map of the room expanded to include a table beside her chair, blocked from her sight. “How are you feeling?” he asked. The fact he ignored her question did not go unnoticed.

“I… It’s so confusing,” she managed. “My head hurts a little.”

He took a drink from the other mug before turning and walking over toward the shopping lined up against the wall. Reaching down into her handbag, he extracted a purse, which he opened one-handed, looking at one of her bank cards. If he hadn’t known her name before, she thought, he definitely did now.

"That's all right," he said softly. " We can cure your headache."

"What do you want? Please... Let me go."

"Roxanne, I can do many things but letting you go right at this moment is not one of them. Will it help if I promise you that when this is done you will be free to choose your own path?"

"I don't understand! What are you talking about? When what is done?"

He dropped the purse back into the shopping and turned back to her, lifting his mug to drink from as he moved closer. “Is anyone waiting for you?”

"Yes! My family will be expecting me this evening!"

"And I'm sure you don't want to disappoint them. Am I right?" He came to a halt just in front of her chair. Still holding his mug with one hand, he reached out with his free hand, stroking her hair.

"Yes... I just want to go home..."

" In that case, the quicker we get started, the quicker you will be able to do whatever you want to do. Sound good?"

"I... I guess? Okay." Roxanne nodded, though she didn’t like the way he was talking. She wasn’t sure what he meant, but he was picking his words far too carefully not to mean something.

He set his mug down on the same out-of-sight table as he’d put hers, and his hand came back into view instead holding a remote control.

He pointed the remote at the screen, and with his other hand he took a light grip on the neck pillow supporting Roxanne’s neck and withdrew it.

The TV sprang to life, its screen displaying a vivid, captivating black and white spiral.

If the situation hadn’t unsettled her so badly Roxanne would likely have laughed. “What is this?”

He cupped her chin gently, lifting her head and directing her attention to the screen. “Hush,” he murmured softly. “Questions may not need to be answered.”

Roxanne blinked, looking at the screen while she tried to unpack that with a head that felt like it was thinking slower and slower.

The spiral was very pretty, she decided. Was it a screensaver? Was a presentation going to be part of all this? That didn’t make sense, but then nothing about this made any sense in the first place.

"That's it. Just let yourself stare. I want this to be so easy for you."

At first she thought the spiral was speeding up, but it wasn’t; she was slowing down, somehow, and things happening at a set rate seemed faster by comparison. Roxanne only realised that when she noticed her breathing had slowed down, the spiral expanding as she stared until it was all that she saw.

"Let yourself sink,” he said. "No need to think. Roxanne, the spiral is pulling you in. The spiral surrounds you. The spiral is safe. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

“The spiral is safe. Repeat.”

“The spiral is safe.”

"When you see this spiral, you will feel no pain. Repeat."

"When I see this spiral I will feel no pain."

"You're such a good girl, Roxanne. Well done. Once more please."

“When I see this spiral I will feel no pain.”

"That's very good." His voice was soothing. She sat for a little while in the safety of the spiral while he did other things, with small clinks and other metallic sounds, outside her field of vision.

Then one of his hands took hold of her long blonde hair, gathering it carefully from around the back of her neck and tucking it over one shoulder. There was a loud click from behind her, louder than any of the other noises. Roxanne felt a sting, a jolt, on the back of her neck just below where neck became head.

It was a physical shock, something bulky being punched into her spinal column, but there was no pain. There was no pain in the spiral, just as she had been reassured.

Whatever was injected was now a tingle at the top of her spine.

"I am very proud of you."

She blinked slowly, still staring at the spiral, but she felt herself starting to smile. It was always nice to be praised, and at that moment she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard real praise. Her family loved and supported her just as she loved and supported them, but their skills and achievements were largely taken as read.

No bad thing; just how it often worked in a long-term relationship. People got used to things.

"Now Roxanne, whenever you see this spiral, You will find that you cannot walk away. You will find that you are happy to stare, and not to move. I use the spiral to help train people. I use this spiral to reward people. I use this spiral to help people find a purpose. Do you understand?"

“Yes, I understand.” As he continued to talk, the tingling at the top of her spine had become a pins-and-needles warmth, spreading out from the injection site, down her spine and across her nervous system and even up into her brain.

As her brain began to tingle in its turn, her vision swam for a moment. Very dimly, at the bottom of her eyeline, she saw something like a green installation bar appear. It was only at 3%, but she was already wondering what she would see when it began to fill.

"That's very good Roxanne. You want to be trained. You want to be rewarded. You want to find a purpose. Isn't that right?" It was so hard to think, between the spiral and the heat, but it was so easy just to agree.

“Yes. I want to be helpful and useful.”

"I'm so happy you said that. You're going to be very useful to me, Roxanne. Very useful indeed."

With a flourish he shut off the spiral. Roxanne’s eyes widened for a moment and she blinked rapidly, feeling the increase in the speed of her own thoughts. And that was good; that being said, she had a very clear sense of something else in her head, watching what she thought.

A disturbing idea, and one that had taken some effort to think.

She turned her head a little more, feeling more alert and less distant than before. Her restraints didn’t seem as important.

I could ask him to undo… uh, to release… uhm… to… ah!

“Is there any more of that tea, please?” she asked meekly.

He turned and picked up the mug with the straw, and now, without the pillow keeping her from lowering her head, she could see everything else on the table; a long table, and narrow, laid out with medical paraphernalia including syringes and pills, some kind of hand-held gadget she didn’t recognise, and an assortment of latex and leather strips, all in a deep red burgundy.

Out of the window beyond it she could see, as well as the woodland, an area that looked like a kitchen garden. Standing out in that garden some distance away was an attractive young woman in blue dungarees and not much else, tanned and brunette, gardening.

Roxanne’s eyes strayed back to the table. Just below her focus, the installation bar was somewhere around 20%.

"Tell me, Roxanne, what are you proudest of?" He asked as if it were a triviality, but the moment he’d asked, her mind seemed to know the answer almost without thinking.

“I’m in good shape and I like to be useful,” she said, barely even noting an answer that ignored her two wonderful children. “I like to stay in shape.”

"Very good. We shall make use of that. Because you do want to be useful to me, don't you?"

“Yes, absolutely!” she answered, the other demands on her time simply failing to occur to her.

He picked up the mug of fruit tea and, this time, removed the straw. He offered it back to her. “Drink up for me now.”

She leaned in and drank eagerly, finishing up the mug except for a little spill that ran down to her chin from the side of her mouth; she wasn’t able to catch it all with her tongue.

The last remnants of the chemical hangover fogging her mind seemed to fade away as she finished the drink. Roxanne still wasn’t sure what was happening, but she felt the answer to any question would be complicated. Going along with what he wanted was so much simpler.

“I think it’s time we got you out of your restraints,” he said, and she nodded after a moment; a pause driven by her stopping to realise that the straps binding her to the chair weren’t completely normal.

He plucked a key from his pocket and stepped close, showing her the padlock on the right wrist strap, then unlocking it. Once her right hand was free he took it in one of his, turned it palm-up, and pressed the key into her palm. “Carry on.”

With that he turned and wandered over to the window, standing with his back to her watching - who knew what? The gardener in the distance, perhaps.

For the first time since Roxanne had woken up his attention wasn’t on her. She could unlock her restraints and -

She could run for the door, for her car, and -

Roxanne unlocked her left wrist and then leaned forward, freeing her ankles. She put the key down on the arm of the chair carefully and folded her hands in her lap, waiting for a thought to complete.

The installation bar she saw in her vision sat at 46%.

She had started watching the number crawl upward, waiting patiently, before he turned away from the window and walked back to the chair. He took up his position stood behind her, his hand idly stroking her hair once again. Roxanne found herself smiling more with each stroke; it was soothing, not unsettling, though she wasn’t sure why.

It was silly, really, that she’d been so scared of him in the car park. She’d been confused, of course, hadn’t understood the situation at all, but it was still silly.

He stooped, his lips close to her ear. “Aren’t you a good, obedient girl?” he purred.

The bar reached 55% and something shifted in her head. Roxanne opened her mouth. “Yes, Sir,” she said, and it felt right. The right thing to say. The right way to think.

She could tell when she was thinking the right things now because otherwise her thoughts did not complete.

“Stand up now,” he said. His voice was still gentle and soft, but something had changed; it was evident that if he gave her direction he expected her to obey.

Roxanne stood up automatically. She didn’t even question it.

She could hear him pull the chair back from behind her, and then he made a slow circle around her, hands in his pockets, looking her up and down closely. "You do keep yourself in shape."

“Thank you, Sir,” Roxanne said. She found herself straightening up, but her head did not turn to follow him. She did not shift otherwise.

She felt quite as she had with the spiral in front of her. Almost nothing mattered, and what mattered was his to control, not hers.

Sir, as her brain now identified him, paused in front of her and stepped in close. He put one hand on her shoulder before running his fingers down the loose fit of her sweater to find the swell of her breast beneath, and paused there, cupping it thoughtfully, his eyes on hers.

Roxanne did not move or react. She was almost certain that what Sir wanted was for her not to react.

With his free hand he reached around, cupping a buttock, too, and then he squeezed, slowly at first, with both hands. His eyes never left hers; he was watching for any reaction.

He received none.

"Tell me, Roxanne, have you had a particularly high sex drive before today?"

“No, Sir, not especially.”

"Would you like to?"

“If you think it’s useful, Sir.”

He laughed. "A very tactful answer, Roxanne. You're going to be a very good girl for me."

Roxanne couldn’t help but smile at that. “Thank you, Sir.”

He released her breast, running that hand back up to her shoulder, then her neck, and then the back of her neck. Roxanne could feel his hand moving against the injection site, could hear a mechanical click that echoed up and down her spine.

Above the installation gauge, which had been oscillating between 63 and 64% for the last few moments, a new readout appeared in her vision, this one looking more like a volume slider. The slider ratcheted up with each click until it hit about the halfway mark on the scale before he took his hand away.

Roxanne’s head reeled. Abruptly she was more conscious than ever of his hand on her ass, of his closeness, even of his scent. Her mouth watered.

She took a deep breath, and this time when he squeezed her ass, she moaned. Immediately the installation stopped struggling in the low sixties and jumped up to 68%.

He stepped back, releasing her, and she felt a pang of regret. “Strip down to your underwear,” he said softly.

“Yes, Sir.”

Off came the soft grey sweater, and the loose white tee worn beneath. Both were old, now, but not so old that they weren’t still comfortable to wear, and they were easy choices from her wardrobe, particularly on a quiet weekday which she would usually spend on her own.

The comfortable brown flat slip-ons were stepped out of and the skinny-fit jeans wriggled out of in their turn, and Roxanne straightened back up, hands by her side, still staring fixedly forward as she had not been told to look elsewhere.

"You like exercise, Roxanne. Tell me, do you like horses?"

“I used to like them, Sir, but I don’t really know anything about them.”

“Don’t worry. That’s all going to change.” He was in front of her, so she could see the grin. It might have been a smirk, if the face surrounding it had been harsher.

“Yes, Sir,” she said simply, because there seemed nothing else to say.

"Before we go any further, I want to see you trot. So you are going to trot a full circuit of this room. Your hands must stay clasped behind your back at all times, and when you lift a foot from the floor, your knee must come up level with your hip. Do you understand?"

“Yes, Sir. I understand.”

"Then begin." He clapped his hands.

Roxanne slipped her hands behind her back, holding one wrist with the other hand. She turned to face away from him and began trotting around the room, lifting each leg high in turn.

For something spelled out so simply, it was surprisingly difficult at first. She wasn’t used to raising her thigh so high, and certainly didn’t make it on her first few steps; once she did, she found it hard to keep her balance, especially without being able to use her arms.

And yet her hand never once released her wrist, her arms never moved out instinctively to compensate. Her own instinctive understanding of how to balance was being overridden by the injection.

Perhaps it was also helping her; she found her shoulders shifting more as she stepped, giving the same support for balance at a lower level.

She felt that same tingling in her head as she learned to keep her back straight, her spine perfectly aligned with whichever leg she was standing from, a roll of her shoulders enough to compensate for her steps as she learned to synchronise it correctly.

She saw him out of the corner of her eyes as she circled around him. He was watching how she trotted, but he was, she was sure, also studying how the movement showed off her body, her athletic thighs, a rear end subtly padded by the fattier meals one shared with children, her breasts presented proudly now she was carrying her torso fervently upright.

Sir was clearly enjoying this. The installation was creeping into the 70s, and Roxanne was pleased to be enjoyed - that was helpful of her - but she was startled by how natural it already seemed to be to obey Sir’s words, someone she had barely met before.

It all seemed normal. Fine. But at the back of her mind, somewhere trapped in the tingles, was a little voice that insisted it was unusual, for whatever reason.

But it wasn’t, she thought as she trotted around the room in her bra and panties, surrounded by the debris of her family shopping expedition, her family car abandoned nearby, as if he was having her do anything unreasonable.

And besides, he’d told her so many times how well she was doing…