Just before the experiment briefing, Quinn had been on her phone in the lobby, slowly panning her camera around the other students there assembled. “I don’t know most of these people,” she said into the phone mic, “but the people I do know are true BGOC. So when you share this, hashtag BGOC before you do anything else, right?”

Erica gave the camera a quick, flashing grin. Whenever the camera wasn’t rolling, Quinn got the silent treatment or even just shut out of the conversation from Erica Carrow, but if there was any chance it would be recorded, campus’ biggest party girl made sure she was shining brightly. Keeley actually waved, smiling naturally, and blew a kiss at the screen. Felicity stayed carefully behind Phoebe, keeping as much of herself hidden as she possibly could.

“I’ll tell you what the experiment was like when it’s done,” she said, then uploaded the video while she was seated at the computer, waiting for things to begin.

Despite many queries from her followers over the next three or four days, she never did upload a follow-up video discussing the experiment, and didn’t even reply to the requests.

Over time, her followers would stop asking, watching the content she was producing and starting to ask other questions instead. Quinn, meanwhile, would be surprised to find herself looking at several new sponsorship offers from organisations that would probably never even have looked at her before.

In the interim, her boundless enthusiasm carried her through the various challenges of life. Almost everything she did was on camera, and that didn’t change with the passing of the experiment. She had other things to be doing; sporting events, nightclub outings, and always the opportunities for product placement. Quinn had lined up a suite of sponsorships from companies looking to attract the student dollar, and there was always something new to be tried, videoed, and ‘reviewed’.

The moment that would change all that came in a little over three weeks after the experiment. Perhaps because her life was so public, Quinn hadn’t been high on either Nick or Joey’s list.

*

Rosalyn attended the experiment with every indication of deep amusement in her expression. It was almost patronising, in its way; she was actually a little surprised that Joey didn’t seem to be fuming just because of the look on her face. He usually was when she was passing assignments back out after her professor had graded them.

Really, she hadn’t wanted to take part; she’d been much more interested in showing up and claiming TA privilege to observe, but there hadn’t been room for an observer. She might just have walked right back out if Nick hadn’t intercepted her before Joey ran his mouth too far. Honestly it was clear that they needed as much data as they could get; everyone who went through with the experiment was going to be important if their hypothesis looked like it was confirmed.

That would mean a much wider scale experiment, after all.

She settled down in front of the computer with a bemused half-smile. The equipment they’d got certainly wasn’t departmental standard. It had to have been funded somehow, and she didn’t think either Joey or Nick were wealthy enough to buy several computers at once - specially not ones that all had what seemed to be great graphics rendering capability. The fancy headphones were unusual too.

Rosalyn often wished she wasn’t just a TA, that she had the kind of connections in the university her professor did. That was especially true here. She’d love to know where this funding had come from. If anyone in the department did, it’d be Professor Blake. Although there was every chance Blake wouldn’t know, or would know but hadn’t bothered to commit it to memory, which was just as bad.

She rolled her eyes in the general direction of the experimenters before she put her headphones in place. At least, she reminded herself, this was interesting work they were doing. The mechanics of memory were either, depending on who you listened to, a solved problem or one of the biggest puzzles in the living brain. Rosalyn would love to see Joey stuck with a disastrous, expensive project hung round his neck like a millstone, but the part of her that still loved the subject (and which she knew would grow stronger again once she was past her TA stint and doing the academic job she had her sights on) wanted nothing more than success here.

As she listened to the strange tones in the headphone and saw the screen start to flicker in interesting ways, she pursed her lips primly and shook her head. She felt strongly, seeing this, that she wouldn’t be seeing an expanded experiment looking to confirm results. This just wasn’t how you stimulated memory. It seemed much more like some kind of subliminal suggestion.

Which also don’t work, she thought pointedly. She really hoped whatever corporate sponsor was backing this experiment would turn out to be fiercely litigious if it became clear their money had been wasted. She hoped even more that Joey’s name was the one on the grant application, not Nick’s.

The odious little toad was past due some comeuppance, and she’d be only too happy to watch it up close and personal.

She stared at the screen. Yes, she thought. This was definitely some kind of subliminal suggestion they were trying.

Ridiculous, of course. Subliminal suggestion didn’t work, she reminded herself, licking her lips. Her thighs parted slightly and she shifted in her seat, sinking down in it, scooting her butt forwards. This whole experiment is going to be a waste of my time. Her hands came up to her chest, closing around her top and her bra in a needy grip. She squeezed, gently tugged, released. Did her best to massage her tits through the thick padding of her bra. I think I can actually see the words they’re using. These have nothing to do with memory. This is just… ridiculous.

She bit her lip against a moan. That’s strange, she thought. These stupid fake subliminals are telling me to get horny just when I’m naturally getting hornier. What are the chances of that?

At the same time she reached down with one hand, grasped the hem of her shirt, and drew it up. The hand which had stayed on her tits released its grip only just long enough to let the cloth pass before clamping back down. Even with the bra’s padding, the sensation and the pleasure seemed to have both spiked just through that one action. It’s a good job I know what to look for, she thought. Most people here probably can’t see these subliminals. They don’t know what those two chucklefucks are trying to have them do.

Once this was all done with she should probably tell them, she thought as she pulled one tit out from under her bra cup, heedless to the semi-public nature of her situation. It wasn’t going to work, but they still deserved to know. How Joey had talked Nick into this BS was beyond her.

*

When they’d first put the list of potential keywords together, it had been under surprisingly low scrutiny. Now that the experiment was actually done, now that results were coming in, people other than their handler were reading them more carefully.

It was, however, still their handler’s job to communicate any of these questions and uncertainties and get answers.

“So,” he said. “Obviously some of these terms are more directly useful in military and intelligence based operations. Others might be flexible.”

Nick held up one of the fingers of his hand, keeping it below the pickup of the laptop camera, to indicate to Joey he probably shouldn’t speak for the moment. “Right,” he said.

“And then there’s some which just don’t help,” the handler said.

“Such as?”

“Well, let’s start with one someone imprinted on, shall we?” the handler asked. “That way if I’m missing something you can supply us with proof. Sound good?”

“Definitely.” Nick smiled.

“So.” His eyes flicked down from watching them on the screen, presumably checking his notes. When he next spoke there was a tone of clear distaste in his voice. “I believe we have someone who imprinted on this one,” he said. “How does your government benefit if someone imprints on the term ‘Domesticated’?”

“Which one has that?” Joey muttered quietly. Equally quietly, hoping they were both below the range of the microphone pickup, Nick said “I think her name’s Quinn. The influencer.”

“Wait, shit, seriously?” Joey whistled. “I hadn’t realised.”

“This is the concern, gentlemen,” their handler interrupted. Shit, Nick thought. “Some of these terms seem to be there just for your own enjoyment. Which is going to raise concerns when this project is submitted for expanded funding review and a wider committee has to sign off.”

Not exactly cheered by this news, Nick nodded slowly. After a moment he said aloud, “I think perhaps you should come down for a visit.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Far easier to show you why we have that term in there than explain over a call.” He smiled. “Far better too.”

There was a long period of quiet as their handler stared at them both. Nick wasn’t sure what the guy was thinking, but he was pretty sure the deal would be done. There was no downside for him, after all.

“Right,” he said finally. “I’ll be there in two days. Be ready.”

Nick nodded, and the call ended. Nick exhaled.

“Dibs,” he said to Joey.

“What?”

“I’m calling dibs on Quinn. No messing with her. Not until, at least, after this.”

Joey pouted.

“I have a plan to get us out of this, OK?”

A look of relief. “That’s real good, man. I figured they were gonna let us slide on this…”

“We both did,” he said, and sighed. “We need to remember that just because these guys are willing to stoop lower than we are doesn’t mean they think the way we do. They just stayed focused on the applications they care about, and we thought that meant we could do what we want besides that.

“We didn’t check we were right on that. Maybe we should have.”

Joey nodded and stood. “OK. Thanks for sorting this, man. Need anything from me?” But by the time he asked he was most of the way to the door.

“Nope. Just keep a low profile.”

“Spend my time in one of my womens’ bedrooms?” Joey grinned. “Can do.”

*

Rosalyn didn’t think about the experiment too often. She tried to always have an excuse for any class where Joey or Nick (or both of them, more commonly; they seemed to be joined at the hip though she truly didn’t understand why) might be, so that she didn’t have to run into them. She wasn’t sure what had happened at the meeting - not sure at all - but she remembered having the thought that they were using subliminals, and she remembered realising much later that evening that her panties were sopping wet.

Maybe, she had concluded, subliminals weren’t as BS as all that. And what did that mean?

Well, that she was a lot less sure of, which was why she tried not to have any reason to think about it. Dwelling on something semi-threatening was bad enough if you understood it and could use the time to prepare. That wasn’t exactly an option here.

She wasn’t foolish; she’d kept an eye out, as best she could, for the other women who’d been at the experiment, and when Beatrice had started dating Joey, very publically, in the days immediately following the experiment, she’d known to put her head down and hide.

And that had been going tremendously well until she’d decided to distract herself with a new trash novel.

Trash was Rosalyn’s escape from the world; losing herself in a self-indulgent book was the way she relaxed and unwound. She didn’t discriminate; she was just as likely to read a tale of slutty vampires as a cheap sci-fi thriller set on an ersatz Enterprise as an ancient dime novel Western as a tale or war dreamed up by a middle-class milquetoast who’d never left the city where he was born.

But if she had a favourite genre, it was definitely trash romance, where you knew the story formula before you even picked the book off the shelf; where you knew the villain would make his advances but eventually be defeated by the purity of love; where someone was definitely getting their shirt ripped open or off in the only part of the book that was reasonably equal opportunity; and where someone was probably a billionaire or a local baron, depending on the setting.

Rosalyn probably got through thirty or more trash romances in a single year, in amongst the other escapist reading she gloried in. It had only gotten worse since she’d found out how cheaply they were to be had as digital downloads.

Four weeks after the experiment, three days before the follow-up was due (and in no small part as an effort to avoid thinking about that), she opened Done with the Duke for the first time. According to the back cover, this was set in ‘regency England’ though as Rosalyn knew Edinburgh was in Scotland, not England, she wasn’t filled with confidence for historical accuracy. But then, that wasn’t the point.

She had a mug of steaming coffee with a little dribble of vanilla syrup to hand. Her home assistant was playing her favourite reading playlist softly in the background. She’d showered and put on fresh new pyjamas and a warm towelling dressing down, satisfyingly ready to not go out for as long as it took. She curled up in the corner of her sofa, legs tucked underneath her, and began to read on her tablet.

…Fiona was shocked deeply and she stumbled back from the clutching hands of the Duke’s wily son. “Sir,” she said firmly, “there must be some misunderstanding, and I demand that it cease.”

But Stuart Carlisle was not so easily daunted as all that. With a smirk he advanced again, and Fiona fell back another step but, a haybale being behind her and Stuart between her and the only door out of the barn, she found she could go no further.

There was no question in her mind, as she saw the same lascivious smirk his father had worn all those many years ago dawn upon his face, that…

The last few words didn’t register for her at all. The page was already simply a blur. Something in the last sentence had caught her attention, snagged her thoughts, and she had been stopped in her tracks as surely as if her coat had caught on the doorhandle as she tried to leave her home.

She was developing tunnel vision, the area on the screen she was able to see shrinking moment by moment until her whole existence was focused in on a single word.

lascivious

Rosalyn squirmed where she sat, biting her lip. A soft growl of predatory desire escaped her all the same; the need was on her and the need filled her.

Her eyes were watering from staring. She blinked her tears away and her vision cleared with it.

What was she doing dressed for staying indoors? She got up and hurried to her bedroom, ready to change into something a little less comfortable.

Rosalyn, she reminded herself firmly, was a lascivious woman. She should acknowledge that.

She should glory in it. And, when she found the man or woman she wanted to bring home, she would do.

*

Nick knew full well that once he was seen in the company of the military after their handler arrived on campus, that would become part of the gossip. There were always student activists opposed to Defense spending; he’d opposed that much spending himself himself, if a little too laid back to actually be an activist about anything, let alone this.

He’d have to admit that his attitude to defence spending had massively changed since he became one of its many beneficiaries. Not that he didn’t have doubts, but… well, how else would he ever have got this whole scheme up and running?

The fact of the matter was that being part of campus gossip wasn’t a worry any more. He and Joey had what they needed now; the tools were there, the money was there, and enough people were already under their influence that if they didn’t lose control of the women they already had, they were going to be absolutely fine. That made bringing their handler into view the much less risky choice.

He didn’t really care that he might be ostracised so long as he still had Felicity and some of her friends.

The day before the handler was due, he went looking for Quinn. She was going to have to prove to the handler that the line of crap Nick had to feed him was true. Which it would be, retroactively, if he could make it work, or so he told himself.

He’d neglected Quinn up to that point, in his perspective. He’d neglected her because she was already kind of a campus superstar, and even beyond campus - she’d put in heavy work on her social media, and on top of that she’d got some lucky breaks, gone viral a couple of times and had good enough content to follow her virality that she’d kept a lot of those new viewers.

He wasn’t at all sure what the effect on her content would be, so he’d steered clear. And would be still now, if not for the handler’s choice.

Which… well, it had to be random, Nick hoped. If it wasn’t random, someone had presumably just noticed that included in a top-secret off-the-books trial was an influencer of growing popularity, and that was definitely going to raise some concerns.

He found Quinn only after he went off campus; she was eating at McGregor’s, which really should have been his first guess but hadn’t even been in the top ten. McGregor’s was nominally a sports bar, but an owner with delusions of grandeur had wanted to deliver meals that might mean people would take their dates there too. In finding a chef to create them, he’d overdone it - and to the surprise of everyone except possibly the chef himself, the halfway-to-gourmet menu had caught on rather than fizzled out in favour of sliders, pizza, and wings. The owner had responded by sending his bartenders to cocktail classes for drinks that weren’t just highly alcoholic but which instead were flat-out beautiful.

McGregor’s had in this way ended up as a student-affordable bar offering food and drinks that drew well on Instagram. This despite frequent denials from the owner that he even knew what Instagram was.

Quinn was eating something that had started as a bowl of cheese sauce and a salad, but which had definitely got other ingredients in it now - not that Nick could have guessed what. Just by her hand was a long-stemmed cocktail glass containing something pink that didn’t sparkle so much as glitter. Nick felt decidedly out of his depth, but that didn’t exactly make him nervous.

Not when he knew something about Quinn even she didn’t.

He was still relieved to see that she was eating alone, although it did make sense; he’d vaguely got the impression when he’d spotted her around campus that Quinn didn’t hang out with people that much unless she was creating content that needed them. Watching her eating alone now, barely glancing at the games on screen, he suddenly realised how lonely her life was.

He figured she didn’t plan on spending the rest of her life that way, but it still seemed awful to him. He’d always figured his time in college would be about having fun and making friends, networking, with the degree he’d always intended to get being a bonus more than anything else.

Not only did she intimidate him but, in short, he didn’t understand her either.

Let’s make this quick, he said to himself. Walking up quickly, he sat himself in the chair in front of her and put on his best smile.

Quinn looked up at him with an expression of mild confusion, then sighed. “You don’t look like my main demographic,” she said. “If you’re going to tell me you watch my content, please don’t tell me what part of my body you stare at when you do.”

This wasn’t what I expected. Nick cleared his throat. “Quinn, are you domesticated?”

He watched her expression run the gamut of confused reaction before settling into a broad smile so gentle it was almost eerie. “Yes,” she said, but so breathily quiet that he almost couldn’t hear her at all. Watching her lips move had been more use.

How did he get the trigger to last long enough to prepare everything?

“Do you want new content ideas?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said slowly.

Nick grinned. She was good, he told himself. It’d be one or two videos. She could bounce back from it - quickly, even. “Then listen closely,” he said quietly. “I have a challenge for you. You have to carry it through to completion, but you can only show the preparation…”

*

It was wrong, Rosalyn knew, to do this. The people who did were the villains in her novels. You weren’t supposed to want to emulate them. And besides, she was underequipped for it; she wasn’t a duke, wasn’t even a professor. Her authority was borrowed and small, and her wardrobe was not full of the beautiful, wonderful things expected of lascivious superiors.

She was making do as best she could; one of her two pairs of pretty lingerie, her tightest skinny-fit jeans, and a strappy top she’d found in a no-name shop three years ago that despite being cheap somehow disappeared the curves she was unhappy with and magnified the curves she loved. She was in her highest heels, too, having hoped the extra height would give her a little more confidence. She hadn’t allowed for the wobbling; really she should practice this sort of thing more often. How else was she supposed to indulge her lascivious inclinations.

She knocked on the door in front of her then shifted position, one wrist up above her head resting on the doorframe, hips cocked to the other side, her other wrist against her hip, smirking to herself.

When Marcus answered the door, his floppy black hair hanging low over his forehead, Rosalyn gave him a wanton smile she hadn’t known she was capable of.

“Room for one more in there?” she asked, nodding over his shoulder at his bed, just visible in the corner of the room.

“Muh-muh-Ms DeSanto?” he managed. Well, she thought, I haven’t been daydreaming about him for his brains.

She brought her hand up off her hip and planted it firmly against his chest, flexing her fingers just enough for him to feel her long nails through his cheap CHVRCHES T-shirt. And then, smiling like a powerful duchess, she started walking forward. Marcus was a gymrat and a half, and had to be at least twice her size, but he gave ground just against her confidence. She kicked the door shut with her heel and grinned again. “Now, Marcus,” she purred, “I’m sure you’ve noticed your grades haven’t been great.”

“Uh - well…” He was still backing up, so she kept following him. “I’m sorry?” he offered, bewildered and nervous. “I’ll study hard-”

“Oh, I want something hard from you,” Rosalyn grinned. This was easier than I thought. I should have been doing this for years, she thought, and then: this is wrong.

But that wasn’t going to stop someone as lascivious as her. “Take your shirt off,” she demanded. “Let me see you.”

He seemed nervous still, uncertain, although there was an upwards turn at one corner of his mouth; she thought he was finally catching on, and wasn’t likely to complain. She relaxed her grip on his chest as he reached down and started hurriedly pulling off his shirt, and since that meant his hands were nowhere near his waist, she stuck her hand down the elastic waistband of his joggers and caught hold of his cock.

“Now then, Marcus,” she said coolly. “You and I are going to have fun together. I’m going to call the shots, and you’re going to be a good boy about it. Understand?”

“Y - yes, miss!”

“Oh, you can do better than that,” she as she felt him harden in her hand. “Call me Duchess.”

Marcus was starting to recover his composure, if not any semblance of control of the situation. “Kinky,” he said, and grinned. “I like it.”

She pushed him again, and as the backs of his knees were against the mattress, he fell back onto the bed. The sound of wood beginning to crack went unnoticed by them both as she followed him down.

*

Quinn, not Nick or Joey, answered the door to the Colonel. She’d curled her usually straight hair. In place of her trademark halter top she’d found a blouse that clung around her breasts, which jutted out high and proud on her chest in her uncomfortable vintage bullet bra. Her skirt was knee-length and layered, and its pastel pink offset the cream of the blouse. She wore heels indoors, and her cherry red, glossy lips were fixed in a glamour magazine smile.

She could have stepped out of a 1960s TV show and, as Nick had hoped when he’d seen the ensemble she’d put together, it had an immediate and visible effect on the Colonel, who would have grown up seeing women like that in reruns before he even knew what sexual attraction was.

Hell, it was having plenty of effect on Nick and Joey both, and neither of them had that same level of priming. The delicious aroma wafting through Quinn’s apartment wasn’t exactly a negative, either.

“Welcome, Colonel,” Quinn said, and if Nick didn’t know who he’d triggered for sure, he wouldn’t have believed that breathy, happy, light voice could come from the same woman who reeled off her product sponsorships with confident precision. “May I take your coat?”

The man seemed, for the first time since Nick had met him, taken aback beyond the merest moment of surprise. “Ah… yes. Thank you.” He shrugged off the heavy greatcoat and handed it to her, and Quinn bustled away to hang it up. “I’ll be back shortly, Colonel,” she said. “Darling,” and Nick was surprised to feel so thrilled to be addressed like that, “could you fix the Colonel a drink? We have Scotch, vodka, gin, and seltzer. You know where the ice is.” The last word was delivered as she disappeared around a corner in a bustle of skirt.

Nick picked his jaw up off the floor and smiled. “Well,” he said. “Can I offer you-”

“Scotch,” their handler cut him off. “Double. No mixers.”

“You look like you need it,” Nick said with a smile.

“I guess I do at that.”

Quinn breezed back into the room, this time bearing a large plate on which a roast chicken rested. She set it on the plate and favoured all present with a bright smile. “Dinner will be on the table in five,” she said. “Please, Colonel, make yourself at home.” And with that she was gone again.

“…My God,” the Colonel said faintly.

“Takes you by surprise doesn’t it?” Nick asked. “The intensity of it, I mean?”

The Colonel nodded, just about holding back an answering smile. As Quinn made it back into the room he let out a low whistle; Quinn half-curtseyed, half-bounced in appreciation.

“So,” Nick told him, “the whole idea with the domesticated keyword,” and he pretended to ignore the shudder and the blissful moan that escaped Quinn at that, “was less about intelligence and more kind of a persuasive element for the top brass.” He let the implication sink in, not wanting to be the one who said it openly.

“You’re talking about… what? Bribing top officers with…” The Colonel, it was clear, didn’t wish to say it either.

“Oh, not bribery. But resources can be allocated where they’ll do most good. And making sure officials are rested and stress-free on leave has positive knock-on effects all the way down, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does, at that…”

The Colonel took a seat, and Quinn bent down from behind his chair to serve him. Not a single person in the room thought it was accidental that her breast stroked firmly against his cheek, that her perfume filled his nostrils.

The Colonel chuckled. “Just how far do we take this, gentlemen?”

“Well, sir, that depends on you,” Nick said. “I am prepared for Quinn to be very… accommodating. Should we talk terms?”