It was a privilege to be Above and out in the open. It was a great privilege to be in the Quarters of the Cruise Director, kneeling for her inspection and awaiting command. And such a nice surprise that Mother was there! She could show off how much the Cruise had transformed her. When the Director acknowledged Mia in front of her mother and spoke to her and asked her questions she felt a crazy flush of pride. A good girl had been trained to always answer perfectly. She didn’t know what the answers meant, but every time she gave one it made her pussy buzz.

Valerie was in some kind of scanty, floofy nightwear. Mia liked it.  It was blue, like her slut bottoms. She was sure she hadn’t seen it before. She liked how fuckable Mother looked in it. Valerie was hot for her age, she had a hot body, it was good for her to show it off a little. Mia had always thought that.

At some point when they were talking, Mother’s face seemed to cloud over. Like there was something troubling her. She looked much less attractive that way. Mia knew she hadn’t said anything incorrect, but still she felt some uncertainty, and when Mother turned away from her, her unmoored gaze drifted of its own accord toward the Director. The Director was wise and kind and powerful and sexy and a girl instantly remembered what she always did when she looked at her, that she was in her hands. Her breath that had quickened slowed again. Nothing was wrong. Nothing could be wrong. Mother would be calmed. The Director was over all.

Then the Director mentioned her therapy, and Mia understood she was about to say something that would be very true and very very Important. Something really healing for Mother that only her daughter could say.

“Mother,” she called. She waited till Valerie was looking at her again. “Dr. Renate’s technique is one of direct persuasion, Mother. Her Precepts have been written into the deepest fabric of my mind. They correct my desires and stop my wrong thoughts before I can have them. Deviation is impossible. Every day under my Attendant’s guidance I recite the Doctor’s words and practice her Teachings, and every day my mind is clearer and the Precepts strengthen their control. My one focus is to be a good, pleasing, and submissive girl for Dr. Renate, and for you, and all who are set over me.”

Deviation is impossible. Mia loved how her pussy felt when she said that. She had never heard Dr. Renate’s name before but she was proud to be her disciple. All a girl’s loyalty and devotion belonged to her. She saw how Valerie’s face and chest took flush the first mention of the Doctor and wondered if maybe Mother was in love with her too. That would be so healthy for her, Mia thought. She was already looking prettier. She looked like a woman in love. Valerie’s face had lost its tension and her eyes were soft and unfocused and dreamy and far away. She was looking inward, some scene playing in her mind that deepened the flush in her skin and made her breath draw ragged. A girl felt tingly thinking she could be in that scene. Maybe she and Mother both were in that scene and both worshiping Dr. Renate.

Mother sat in a desk chair with her legs crossed and a hand tucked between. She looked vacant and seductive and it was honestly getting Mia kind of wet down there. The hand was limp at the wrist and lay unmoving. Mia had the thought that Mother should be rubbing herself with it. It was frustrating that she wasn’t. She stared at Mother’s crotch thinking maybe she could make the hand move with her mind. Mia wanted to do something naughty to herself with her own hand but she couldn’t, not Above, not without permission. If only Mother would start though, they might let a girl join in! God the two of them would look so hot together. Mia pictured Mother uncrossing her legs, all sexy and slow, rubbing herself real slow, and her eyes would go all the way up those hot legs till she got to the place where Mother was wet.

Therapy had finally given Mia some perspective on her mother. Put all the rest of it aside, at the end of the day what was she really but just another dumb, needy slave whore? Like mother like daughter. What was sad to Mia was, somewhere along the way someone had trained Valerie to feel shame. She was glad that hadn’t happened to her. Imagine being afraid to own your own sexuality. Which you had to! How else could a girl ever be free to just live life and obey?

When they had all their difficulties before, till Mother had to just give up and hand her over to the Doctor, it all really stemmed from them being in such terrible denial about who they were. What their place was. Now she and Mother would be friends again. Mia had the Precepts controlling her now. Deviation was impossible. She would be the model of the perfect slut. Mother would look up to her, and learn from her, and more and more she’d learn to be guided by Mia’s example. That was Dr. Renate’s Way. No more thinking, no more negativity, no more hiding things. Just a happy pair of sluts! Happy horny and brainless, like they were meant to be. And no one would ever make them cover their pussies, Dr. Renate would use them at her will, and they wouldn’t have a care in the world except who she’d be giving them to for their next fuck.

The Director cleared her throat. “Valerie,” she said, “an urgent communication has come to me from Dr. Renate. I think what she has to say will put all our minds fully at rest.”

The only sign Valerie gave of having heard was a short, quiet whimper. A slight nod. Her eyes stayed where they were, but she was flexing her thighs now around her trapped right hand.

“Our records show that you’ve never witnessed one of Mia’s sunbathing sessions, Val. This was an oversight. These sessions are a core part of our therapy. The Doctor’s clinical recommendation is that you take part in the one we’re about to begin with her now. This will let you see your daughter as she is, with her defenses stripped. Truly and completely naked.”

Mia heard Mother whine again, longer, a yearning impatient sound. A girl’s heart had begun pounding. Her skin felt prickly all over, and her head was dizzy. The fierce ocean sun bore down on her; suddenly, meltingly hot.

“Mia,” the Director said. “With your consent.”

After a time a girl recognized she was saying things. She was telling Mother a story about her mind, about how still it was, and how empty. Still like the sea and empty like the sky. And the sun was over all. Mother’s hand had disappeared into her panties and her bottom was squirming. The sodden little triangle of cloth between a girl’s own legs had got pushed aside and her fingers were busy teasing circles around her hole. She wondered if Mother could see her pussy dripping.

Another time she was reciting mantras. A girl had that feeling she always got, of the words saying her. She saw Mother’s lips move, haltingly, trying to say them with her. It made her mouth look really sexy. She pictured her mother’s face once the mantras had her, too, and the girls could watch each other chanting in unison. So blank, so sexy.

Miranda surveyed the scene and considered her exit. Jesus, Val had been all over the place tonight. Now that they’d left off the mantras she was basically just a meat puppet. Eyes hollow, frigging herself metronomically, nothing moving except her hand and a line of drool. She’d probably keep going till Mia was out of view; and Mia was going like she’d forgotten there was a word such as stop. The suspended dronegirl at parade rest behind her was the only thing that registered normal in the scene.

The girl was ridiculously cute though. She seemed lost in an ecstasy: fervent, wide-eyed, her pussy swollen, masturbating on her knees in full view of her mom like it was religion. Natural slave, Miranda thought. It was its own kind of talent. No harm enjoying the show for a bit.

Mia wasn’t really seeing Val at this point even if she was seeing her, and Miranda certainly didn’t need to. She killed the rest of the bottle and biffed the chat window down.

Seemingly without interval Renate’s trailer roared back to life.

Every fucking time, Miranda thought. Why do I keep letting myself fuss with this thing. Still she’d have to watch it sooner or later. The video was a few ticks farther along than she remembered. They were in some kind of makeshift-looking dungeon, the blonde strapped to a fuck bench bottoms-up. Her handler smacked her with a monster dildo while the whore clawed her cheeks apart, pleading tearfully in Russian for the privilege of having her ass raped. The camera walked to the other end of the bench and parked itself where could beg into it. She had pretty eyes. Blue, lost, pretty eyes.

Somehow Miranda had already known. There was a fleeting, almost violent sense of déjà vu. She shut the video down again. Her mind flashed back to the camgirl bedroom, she’d seen it without seeing it: the cathouse lamp on the nightstand, the fringed shade, that cliché red bulb glowing inside.

You tricky cunt, she thought at Renate.

“Do you know Miri, the first good look I got at her, I pegged her for this market. Southern girls have a reputation over there.”

Miranda glanced involuntarily upwards. Of course she was on. The Voice from on high. Submitting to chat on video would have diminished Reen’s mystique. There the whole time, probably. Lying in wait.

“You saw how it went with the mother?” Miranda couldn’t keep herself from sounding terse.

“I only just came online. Quite the pair, these two.” Renate laughed. “Something clearly is running in the family.” Valerie was getting moany in the background. “Maybe there are other female relatives, we can start a collection.”

“I don’t know. Something seems off about it.”

“Off, darling?” Renate was chirpy. “I see only a very beautiful and tender intimacy between mother and daughter which it is a privilege to witness. Surely you don’t mean to denigrate that?”

Mia grabbed her fuck hand at the wrist and started pumping it, making a wet smacking noise at her snatch. For a moment it was the only sound in the room.

“That’s my point. The way they just, fell into this. Barely a nudge. Barely even a preamble. Val was so ready you could all but smell the pheromones.”

“And this is off by you?” Renate chuckled. “I swear baby, sometimes I think you just hate success.”

“Off their training!” Miranda shot back. “This isn’t— this is like, what’s the phrase? Folie à deux. That’s what this is. This is mad, Reen. These women look mad to me. I don’t even know what we’re thinking here. I think we have to pull back, I think—“

“We have been waiting until Mia would come ripe, and now she is ripe. This is what it looks like. For heaven’s sake stop fussing.” There was an edge of more than impatience in her tone.

Miranda pressed her lips together and for lack of a better target glared down at Mia. You think at some point the slut’d at least have to gear down.

“I will be there exactly one week hence to supervise the dear ladies’ reunion. I have no doubt their behavior will be splendid.” For the first time in the evening Miranda heard a cigarette being drawn on the other end. “Look darling, I don’t like pulling rank but we have things to get on with, you and I. There are more fish than Mia and Val. While I, for myself, have an auction to conduct? as I believe you’re aware? And before that has to happen I would like the decks to be cleared here.” She snickered. “So to speak.”

Miranda felt herself smoldering. Relax girl. Nothing to be gained from confrontation.

“So I guess the slut speaks Russian now.” She put effort into making it conversational.

“Acceptably. Within a narrow domain.” Renate let out a short, barking laugh. “She knows a lot of ways to call herself a whore.”

“Doesn’t that kind of fuck with their language ability? If you force-feed them like that?”

“Well, it’s not ideal.” Another pull on the cigarette. “These buyers, though. She has to have Russian, she has to look gonzo, she has to have the this and do the that and it’s a whole laundry list of stuff. Russian’s a top one though, they don’t even look at a girl without Russian. I kind of doubt it matters whether she can really use it, I think they just want to know they can degrade her in their own tongue.”

“And what was that lamp doing there?” Miranda looked down at her leg. Her forefinger was drumming a hard, rapid beat on her upper thigh.

“Oh you saw that! Oh good. I was hoping you’d catch it.

“It was a nice trance focus for her, so I took it with. Not that we needed it on set, just, it seemed like a cheeky bit of fun using it for dressing. An Easter egg, I guess you call it?”

Miranda watched her finger going without her. She wondered if she could make it leave off. “I kept fiddling with it.” It surprised her some to hear herself say it.

“I’m sorry, what darling? What fiddle—”

“The video.” She snatched her hand up from her thigh and stuck it in her armpit. “I kept fiddling with it. Couldn’t leave it alone, onscreen, offscreen, playing it in dribs and drabs every couple minutes, never once meaning to, just like— It just kept finding my fingers, didn’t it? Soon as I set in motion to call Val. I couldn’t fucking leave it alone.”

“Miri, love, I have to tell you you’re not making so much sense just—“

“What the fuck are you playing at, Reen? What was so important about the fucking video you had to trigger me to watch it? What, was that what I supposed to see, the lamp? I’m your partner!” She was fully shouting now. “Trigger me, trigger my fucking slaves, what the fuck is going on in your head? Why can’t you just for once play things straight?”

Renate lit up another cigarette and said nothing. Brainless little Mia had got her attention snagged on the sound of her Director’s tirade: she looked abashed almost, but that just meant she was masturbating a bit slower and a bit quieter.

Miranda tried to calm her breathing. “Jesus, Reen,” she sighed. “And that ‘Dr. Renate’ shit. What was that? That’s when the bottom dropped out. I never trained them on that! I don’t even know how it happened, just drops the name and, boom! there they are. Chanting obedience and jacking off at each other. Bobbsey fuckin’ slave twins.

“Oh goddamnit, Reen,” Miranda groaned. “Goddamnit, you and your backdoors, it was Mia, wasn’t it? You had Mia hypnotizing her? Us? What the fuck ever for? What, cuz you’ve got a plane to catch? Some deadline on your precious fucking auction? What do you think you’re doing with that girl?”

For a long moment Renate held the silence. When she spoke her voice was steely.

“My slaves.”

Miranda felt like she was suspended in midair. She felt like someone just beginning to notice the slide into the quicksand.

“Not yours. Since you continue unclear on the concept. My slaves. Every one. Who I dispose of as I will.”

Miranda watched her anime-to-be slut edging herself, all big eyes and wet slit, and thought, Isn’t she a doll though.  She felt suddenly weary. She felt a sense of loss just the other side of wanting desperately to sleep.

“This was exactly my concern. Time to move on from Mia, and now would we get some, some splashback, blowback, whatever, from the cheerleader incident. Some layer of feeling there I hadn’t quite rooted out yet.”

That’s what she called her. The cheerleader. Miranda remembered some irritation around it. Reen never using the slut’s name.

“I put one or two prudent contingencies in place. To get us past any little trouble. But no, for what it’s worth, nothing for Mia has changed. Home to mommy, she runs the house for us, pals around with her new inseparable friend Beedee. Even if I were so short-sighted, she’d be an inconvenient sort of girl to make disappear.”

Renate sighed heavily. Her tone relented. “Darling, don’t fret, we are going to get you straightened up again. I promise. A week’s time, and then we’ll have a proper sit-down, really sort ourselves out. And I don’t know— afterward maybe a real cruise, huh? You and Beedee, just the two of you, doesn’t that sound nice? I can deputize myself to keep the leash taut with Mia while you’re away.

“But for now, Miri, for now please I want you to attend. I want you to listen hard, and think carefully.”

Miranda’s face was expressionless and still. She came into a sitting posture, just on the edge of the couch, her hands folded in her lap. Renate waited.

At last in a small voice Miranda asked, “What must I think about?”

Remember your little bedroom, child. When you sat there all alone. See it around you. What lamp is there.

—the red lamp

And where does it shine.

—on the blue ceiling

Say it with me, the red lamp shines on the blue ceiling …

She felt raw after Renate signed off the call, for no reason she could say. The whole day she'd been on her last good nerve. Miranda put the blame firmly on Val, where it belonged. She had to admit it, she just couldn’t anymore with the bitch. No better argument that it was time to cut Mia loose, get her back home, let her and Beedee run her mother’s raggedy homophobic old ass. While we await the next unfolding of Reen’s Master Plan.

Valerie’s chat window was still live, Miranda saw. She shut the connection with barely a further glance. Fuck Val, she thought, let her wind herself down on her own time.

She pulled up the slave video. She was surprised the cursor was this far along; it must have been running unattended for a while in the background. At least see it through, she thought. Professional curiosity if nothing else. The last image Miranda remembered was someplace in the titles, the girl on her knees making an ahegao face. One of Renate’s laundry-list items, probably.

Almost the next frame was the main title. She parked the cursor at it. Not a word she’d ever seen before, so she looked it up: “Little Heiress.” A bit of a mouthful, but cute. Miranda assumed it was her slave name. Funny Renate didn’t mention it. A nod to Beedee, not that she’d ever know it. Definitely Reen’s sense of humor.

The real name had been short, she recollected, something with a hard “c” in it. Acacia. Cammy? Obviously not all that memorable.

They led Little Heiress out of her cage on a chain clipped to her nose ring, and that was a fun look for her, but then they took her into a little maze of bondage rigs and Miranda got preemptively bored. You could see how it was all going to unfold by rote. The whore’s yowls when she got hit were convincing enough, but there was no charisma there. Nothing about her that made the action seem to matter.

Just a fake-tit, tat-having, dime-a-dozen Russian pain slut. It soured Miranda’s mood, what there was to sour. How much time and effort had she put in, collecting the dull little twat? There you go Reen, enjoy, congrats. Congrats to all on the impending sale. A real triumph of the art.

Miranda felt a hard edge of something in her that needed to be blunted down. She rapped the empty wine bottle on the floor, twice, loud and hard in the flat silence of the room. Without moving the drone nevertheless seemed to stir into awareness. Over on the floor Mia shivered in her whole body for a moment, and her sticky hands left her crotch.

At a look the girl was on all fours almost pouring herself towards the couch, and when she reached it buried her face at once between Miranda’s legs. Another look ordered the drone to the chifferobe, from which it pulled out a strapon rig.

“Your night’s about to get more interesting,” Miranda quipped at the back of Mia’s head.

She hit play. She’d wring an orgasm out of this mess one way or another. Little Heiress owed her as much. If the only thing that got her there was spite, fine then, she’d come out of spite.

Mia broke discipline and yelped when the drone’s cock found her ass, but only the first thrust. After that Miranda made her squeak like a mouse. Squeak squeak squeak muffled up in pussy. It might’ve gotten old, but it didn’t.