As soon as he took hold of her elbow it was OK.

Near midnight. An empty suburban street in front of a silent house. Adele remembered the place from the other night, but she wasn’t working now. There was no earthly reason to be there. And just as she was wondering what the hell out of nowhere the guy appears.

It wasn’t that she was suddenly reconciled to the situation. His touch felt clammy and it was weird and uncomfortable how close he was, but that bewildered, stomach-clenched fear she’d had a second before was gone, with hardly an aftershock. Like a lid had come down on her. It had to have been something he was doing, Adele thought, something with touching her. But it was OK though. She could decide that. No screaming, no breaking down, running away, none of any of that. No point. He’d control her for a while, she’d do what she was told, and he’d let her go. Simple. And she’d come out just fine.

She was looking down, away from him. Some instinct of self-preservation that had said don’t look at his eyes. That just seemed stupid now. They were normal, just a normal dude’s normal brown eyes, as if they’d have been anything else. He smirked a little, like he knew what she was thinking.

“I have this talent for getting people to follow my lead,” he said. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. She held to her decision and made herself fine with it.

He turned away to head back into the house: an abrupt turn, and Adele stood there for a moment with her hands on her hips, miffed, before gathering herself to walk after him. The front door was unlocked.

The place was big but dark, and it felt empty. Echoey. Adele went into what she supposed was a living room off the front hallway, which was lit and had stuff in it but the kind that only made it look emptier. Blackout curtains for drapes. Wall TV, an Ikea-looking couch and table, a couple overstuffed armchairs. Game console. Two bored-looking girls were on the couch, one blonde one brunette, playing some racing game. They were both naked. One of them nodded her head at her. “Hey,” she said.

Adele looked over at the guy, who’d gone to the other side of the TV and was standing there absorbed in something with his phone. “Should I …” she asked, gesturing toward the girls. She didn’t feel remotely like undressing but she didn’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud either. He looked at her blankly for a second, then shook his head yes and flashed her a thumbs-up. Still fixated on his phone he walked past her out of the room.

She didn’t have on but shorts and a t-shirt, so it was quick work. She’d stripped out of her underwear before even asking herself if she ought to. The brunette glanced at the sad little pile of clothes. “Won’t be wearing those again,” she said wryly. The blonde, eyes glued to the game, said “Put em on the chair.”

Adele dumped the clothes on the nearest armchair. The brunette looked narrowly at her. “You eighteen at least?” she asked. “I just look young,” Adele said, nodding. The blonde took her hand off the controller long enough to flash her own thumbs-up.

“Sit,” the brunette said, patting the empty space on the couch next to her. Adele pushed the clothes aside on the seat of the chair and flopped down there instead.

The blonde, on the far end of the couch, glanced around the brunette over towards Adele. “You’re gonna have to shave that you know.”

“Yeah,” the brunette said in the direction of Adele’s crotch. “Not right away though, wait'll he tells you.”

The girls played their game in silence for a couple of minutes, till the round ended. It was like hanging out in someone’s house you didn’t really know while a friend bought drugs, Adele thought. The blonde put her controller down. “You pizza delibery?” she asked Adele.

Adele said “What?” and the brunette snickered and said “You said ‘delibery.’” “Did not,” the blonde huffed. “Delibery. Deliber— Fuck.”

“You say it,” the brunette ordered Adele, and she did. “Delivery.”

“Dude,” the brunette crowed, “you can’t say ‘delibery’ right. Wait.” The blonde’s face lit up. “And neither can you,” she said, punctuating it with a slug on the brunette’s arm. The brunette immediately seemed to deflate.

“He plays these little word pranks,” she said to Adele, half-apologetically.

“I’m not, um,” Adele stammered, “I don’t have any pizza. To bring.” It was awkward avoiding saying deliver. “Last time, I mean,” the blonde said. “The other night.”

“That was good pizza,” the brunette added.

“The other night, yeah,” Adele said. “Late.” Three-pie order. Good tip. She’d barely registered the guy.

“Yeah, he said you’d be here. DoorDash,” the brunette said, pointing to herself, and gesturing to the blonde, “Instacart.” “Dude likes his delibery girls,” the blonde snickered.

“Delibery girls,” the brunette repeated, heavily sarcastic. “Oh fuck off,” said the blonde. Her game controller was resting on her belly and she moved it absently onto the couch. “You sound so fucking stupid when you say it like that,” the brunette said. They were staring hard into each others’ eyes. The brunette licked her lips. “You sound so fucking brainwashed,” she said, and then her tongue was down the blonde’s throat.

Adele decided she wasn’t comfortable in the armchair and slid off onto the floor, arranging herself to sit cross-legged. It was kind of weird and embarrassing to be watching two naked chicks she’d just met making out heavily right in front of her, and anyway from the floor she felt like she could see the TV better. Maybe they’d throw her a controller when they came up for air. She didn’t really play but at least it’d be something to do.

But then all they did was go back to their game. That was the thing about tagging along with your friend who was buying drugs: it was borderline tense but mostly just extremely boring. Adele stayed quiet and followed the race. She had no idea where in the big empty house the guy had gone or if he was even still there. She almost wished he was back, just to know what he wanted with her.

“Yo, pizza.” They’d paused the game, and the blonde was leaning towards her across her friend’s legs. She had a wicked glint in her eye. “You gay yet?”

“Jesus, Cart,” the brunette said, swatting the blonde on the back of the head. “She hasn’t been here an hour. We’re not gay,” she told Adele firmly. “She’s not hitting on you.”

“Hit on whoever I want,” the blonde muttered, smoothing her hair. She shot the brunette a mocking look and told Adele, “We’re not gay, we’re just extremely into pussy lately.”

It wasn’t a line of conversation Adele was especially in love with. She cleared her throat. “You, uh, you guys been here long?” she asked.

The two of them shared a look. “So, pizza was last night?” the brunette said. “So that was like, was that the end of the second day or the third?” “Asking me dude, you were here before I got here” the blonde said, and for a minute or two they bickered fruitlessly between them about when they’d eaten what and which days which of them had been taken.

When Adele said long she hadn’t been thinking days. “And nobody’s missed you yet?” she broke in. Immediately she regretted phrasing it that way.

The couch girls didn’t seem to catch any implication. “He’s got our phones,” Cart said. She had herself wrapped up in her half-reclined partner’s arms, snuggling her cheek against DoorDash’s breasts. “He fakes a couple check-ins,” the brunette added, sounding blasé, “we like, text excuses to people or whatever, whatever he tells us,— really it’s been pretty quiet.”

He had her phone too, Adele realized. In her bag. She’d handed it to him as soon as he walked up to her, without him even asking. Hadn’t even noticed she was doing it. Guess I’m here for the duration, she told herself. It was hard to know what to do with that.

Cart poked her head up. “We quit our jobs,” she said brightly. She made it sound almost like an accomplishment. Dash only sighed and looked wistful.

They were so cute together, Adele thought. Such a cute energy. She could see why he’d want to keep them around. She found herself trying not to focus on how sexy Cart’s round little mouth was. “So, you guys have just been—“ She balked at where the question seemed to be going, but couldn’t think of another. “I mean, for however long you’ve …“

“Yeah gaming, ordering in, and fucking, pretty much,” Dash said. “Not him,” the blonde added. “No,” Dash agreed, “we don’t fuck him. He likes us fucking. Or you know, making out, whatever.” “I’m not sure he’s even into sex,” Cart confided after a pause.

“Titty massage,” the brunette countered. “And we have blown him a few times,” she told Adele. “Yeah, we, both of us,” Cart said to Dash. “Not like real blowjobs. Basically just us making out and he's got his dick in the way.” The brunette shrugged the question off.

Adele wondered if they’d be going back to playing soon. She imagined their naked bodies glowing in the light from the screen. She wanted to sit there on the floor unnoticed and watch how the game made them move. “You must be getting pretty good at racing,” she said.

Dash scoffed. “It’s not about the games,” she said. Cart was sitting up, looking at Adele like the girl was slow. “Dude,” she said, gesturing towards the TV, “how do you think he brainwashes us?”

“AHHHHH—“ the brunette made a game-buzzer noise. “What?” Cart said, in wide-eyed dismay, “No!” and her shoulders slumped. Dash was shaking her head. “You lose, pal!” she said, throwing a look Adele’s way. “You know the rules, pay up.” The blonde was blushing furiously, the redness extending over her chest. “Excuse me,” she said to Adele, not meeting her eyes, and then sprawled herself forward onto the floor between Dash’s legs.

“First one to use the b-word in front of you tonight has to eat the other one out,” the brunette told Adele. She cooed at whatever Cart’s tongue was doing and put a hand on top of the blonde’s head. “Which is a hard game, because we fucking love brainwashing.”

“I think you said it first,” Adele told her meekly.

“Yeah, well she didn’t call it,” Dash said. She grabbed a hank of Cart’s hair in her hand and the blonde moaned. “Gotta call it next time, bitch!” Dash closed her eyes and rested her head back and pressed herself harder against her friend’s face.

The brunette sighed heavily after a while and opened her eyes again, and when she looked back down at Adele she gave out an “uh-oh” in an exaggerated singsong, and tapped Cart urgently a couple of times on the back of her head. “Check it out,” she said, and the blonde, her face smeared, lifted up from Dash’s pussy to follow her gaze. “Aww yeah, Pizza in the house!” Cart said excitedly, grinning wide and wolfishly at Adele’s lap.

Adele followed her gaze and saw she was fingering herself. She wasn’t stopping either, which surprised her a bit. She was surprised embarrassment wasn’t making her stop. It felt awfully good though. Better than that, it felt right. Adele locked eyes with Dash and got up onto her knees and slid a second finger in, deep as she could, she was so wet it was easy, and she never once looked away. She’d done improv before. She wanted them to see she wasn’t going to hold out on them. She wanted them to see she could be every bit as committed to this fucked-up situation as they were.

“Come on Peetz,” Dash said, leering at her and rubbing the couch cushion next to her with her palm, “come up here and sit with the big girls.” Cart scuttled over to get between her legs. Adele tried to put her fingers back in once she sat down but Dash caught her hand and carried it to her mouth and started licking.

The first touch of Cart’s tongue splitting her pussy convinced Adele that any time she’d spent not getting eaten out by girls in her life had been wasted. She wanted to grind her hips against the blonde’s mouth but she was afraid of moving, for fear it was all some kind of dream. She was about to give in anyway, then she felt something cold bump up against her ear and it startled her.

“Shhh,” Dash whispered. She held up a pair of earbuds. “Just some white noise,” she said. “Helps you focus.” She fit one of the buds in Adele’s far ear, while she pressed a wet, lingering kiss onto the near one. “We’re gonna have soo much fun together, Pizza,” she breathed, and then Adele’s head filled up with fuzz.

She sensed movement, and opened her eyes. The guy had come back. He was standing there with his dick in his hand. He likes his delibery girls, she thought, giggling to herself. She wasn’t sure if it was delibery or delibery, whichever though she was fine with it.