It was the dead of night. It seemed to Adele that something had changed just now, just a moment ago, but the memory of what was already flown. Like a sound got turned off that you didn’t know you’d been hearing. She was outside. There was a tree overhead, dim streetlight filtering through it. She was staring down at a strange man’s hand holding her by the wrist.

Some empty suburban enclave. Some unplace true crimes happened in. She waited for herself to move, to scream, something, and wondered that she hadn’t. A vague terror of paralysis shuddered through her; but then it passed and Adele felt perfectly calm. She’d come to a decision about the hand, she understood: that she wouldn’t be removing it. She was taken, whatever that turned out to mean, and her only play was to tread lightly. Make it easy and don’t make a fuss.

It didn’t necessarily feel like her decision. She felt weirdly matter-of-fact under the circumstance, not at all like she'd have expected: maybe he’d roofied her, or hypnotized her or something. Something that took away your instinct to fight. If you think about it, she heard herself telling some interviewer, he never really gave me a chance. Although you also heard about victims who went numb with shock, got split off from themselves from trauma. Maybe she was that type. Adele noticed a mild flutteriness in her chest, a sense of extra space, not uncomfortable; her body had nothing else to say about it. Maybe she just wasn’t the spitfire she’d always imagined herself.

The guy didn’t look like anything, once she thought to look at him. He looked like every corporate retail manager she’d ever known,— paunchy, early-onset balding, glasses, rumpled polo. Like he’d just got home from running inventory at a big box. He certainly wasn’t bowling anybody over on charisma.

He saw her scrutinizing him and gave her a big, patronizing wink, like it was a caper and they were both in on it. “Women just naturally gravitate to follow my lead,” he said.

Where am I even parked. It made sense to Adele if she was here to deliver, but she wasn’t in uniform and also, she recalled after a jolt of schedule anxiety, she wasn’t on tonight. She’d been on. She had a specific memory of calling in sick not much before shift and getting chewed out over it. Didn’t feel sick though. She couldn’t think what made her bail like that.

She was just turning her head to scan for her ride when he released his hold, turned his back on her and marched abruptly off. Not a word. Adele stood with her hands on her hips watching him go, all the way up the walk to the set-back small castle they were in front of, fuming. Smug motherfucker. He didn’t once look back at her, just pushed the front door open when he got there and disappeared inside.

It was a clear, moonless night. A dank chill rose off the grass. She’d come out in just a halter and denim cutoffs for some reason, and it wasn’t really summer yet. Wind clattered through the leaves and Adele shivered in sympathy. She felt a deep suburban desolation leaching into her bones.

Nothing that happened here tonight would count, she resolved to herself. She tried to think how many hours till sunrise yet, till the world would be restored.

This is not me “gravitating,” asshole, Adele growled, and started up the walk. Cussing him out in her head was good, it made her feel more herself. And that fucking door better not be locked when I get there either. Because he’d be the type, guy like him. Prankster. Make her stand outside freezing pounding in the stillness of whatever ungodly hour it was a.m. for him to let her in, think it was all a big joke.

He hadn’t even fully closed the door. The house was big and mostly dark inside, at first glance empty. Her steps in the entry made an echo and Adele cringed like she was intruding. She crept ahead to the nearest place there was light showing, a living room just past the front stairs. It was outfitted, but in that temporary way that made it seem emptier than bare: tacked-up blackout paper for drapes; wall TV mounted a touch off-kilter; Ikea-type couch and table and a couple mismatched overstuffed armchairs. Game console. Two bored-looking girls sat on the couch, one blonde one brunette, absorbed in some racing simulator. Both naked. The nearer girl, the brunette, acknowledged Adele with a quick nod. “Hey,” she said.

Reinforcements, Adele thought sardonically. She decided it wasn’t time to bother herself yet about how extra girls factored in. Tapping away on his phone, the dude drifted over by the windows. Adele glared at him till she caught his eye. “Should I …” she asked, gesturing toward the couch. She didn’t remotely feel like undressing in front of them but figured, when in Rome. He stared at Adele blankly for a beat, as if he’d forgotten why she was there, then flashed her a thumbs-up. Still fixated on his phone he opened a door at the other end of the room and walked out.

“Mister politeness,” Adele muttered under her breath. But her shirt was off and she was halfway out of her shorts by the time it registered that she was stripping. She got a queasy feeling when she started sliding her panties down her hips, but then they were gone and it was actually borderline cool, finding herself naked with the naked chicks; it felt like joining a club. The blonde glanced wryly at the sad little pile at Adele’s feet. “Why’dja even bother wearin em, huh,” she said. The brunette, glued to the game, told her “Pick em up, he don’t like messes.”

Adele dropped the clothes onto an armchair. The blonde leaned forward, eyeing her narrowly. “You eighteen at least, jailbait?” she asked. “I just look young,” Adele said, nodding. The brunette took her hand off the controller to flash a thumbs-up of her own.

“Sit,” she said, patting the empty space on the cushion next to her. Adele pushed the clothes to one side of the armchair and flopped down there instead.

“You’re gonna wanna shave that you know,” the blonde said in the direction of Adele’s crotch.

“Yeah,” the brunette chimed in, “he’s got a thing about bush. Not right away though, wait’ll he tells you. He likes to supervise.”

The girls started a new level and for a few minutes forgot all about Adele. It was like being at someone’s house you didn’t know while your date was off scoring drugs. After the blonde won a round she put the game on pause. “Hey, you are pizza delibery, right?” she asked.

Adele said “What?” and the brunette snorted 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 laughed, “you can’t say delibery right. Wait.” The blonde’s face lit up. “Neither can you!” she said, punctuating it with a slug on the brunette’s arm. The brunette winced and seemed to deflate.

“It’s one of his dumb games he plays, he fucks up how we say something and sees how long till we notice,” she told Adele half-apologetically.

“I’m not, uh,” Adele stammered, “yeah I haven’t got any, pizza to bring.” It was awkward avoiding saying deliver. “Last time though,” the brunette said. “The other night.”

“I liked that pepperoni,” the blonde added.

“The other night,” Adele repeated. It was like trying to coax back a dream. “Late. Uh-huh.” That’s where I know that front door. Three-pie order, decent tip. Had to be the same guy, but she couldn’t put a face. Weird the girls had been around then too.

“Yeah, he said you’d be on by. 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. Slumped back against the couch, she absently moved the game controller off her belly. “You sound so fucking stupid when you say it like that,” the brunette said. They were staring hard into each others’ eyes. She licked her lips. “You sound so fucking brainwashed,” she said, and then she was straddling the blonde pushing her tongue down her throat.

Adele decided she wasn’t comfortable in the armchair so she slid off onto the floor and squared up facing the TV. I’m not being a prude, she explained to someone. They were cute enough girls and this was probably the least of it she’d have to deal with but she wasn’t going to ogle them while they were making out; she hadn’t even introduced herself yet. Couldn’t help hearing how they were enjoying it though. She wished there was anything at all going on on screen. Maybe next time they came up for air one of em would toss her a controller, help her take her mind off.

But then they went straight back to racing and Adele was forgotten once more. That was the thing about tagging along on a drug buy: it was theoretically crime-adjacent, but mostly you were just edgy and superfluous and bored. Adele kept to her thoughts and let the loud inscrutable action swirl about her. Where in all that dark house the guy had got to, if he was even still around, she had no clue. She had the same sense she had before, of her body dissolving into the waiting night. She almost wished for him to show back up just to break the monotony.

“Yo, Pizza.” Adele, seeing the screen on pause again, realized she’d been zoned out. The little blonde hussy was leaning her boobs across her friend’s legs, a wicked gleam in her eye. “You gay yet?”

“Jesus, Cart,” the brunette said, swatting her partner on the back of her head. “She hasn’t been here an hour. We’re not gay,” she told Adele. She emphasized it like someone speaking to a foreigner. “She’s not hitting on you.”

“Hit on whoever I want,” the blonde pouted, sitting up and rubbing the spot. Wrinkling her nose, she told Adele, “We’re not gay, we’re just super into pussy lately.”

It wasn’t her thing, but Adele couldn’t care if they were gay. It’d be his thing though. It struck her then that that’s why he’d scrammed: leave them to marinate a while together naked, naturally the straight girl’d get bored and end up doing some kind of lesbian three-way. Like that was his basic theory of female sexuality. Keeping tabs on her on some monitor somewhere. She almost pitied the dude’s lack of imagination.

“So how long um, how long you guys been at this?” she asked, glancing towards the screen. They’d obviously been waiting on her awhile. Maybe he’d already had his fun for the night. Maybe he was already sleep.

The two of them knitted their brows at each other. “See, pizza was which night?” the brunette said. “Was that day two or day three?” “Asking me dude, you were here first,” the blonde said, and then for a minute or two they bickered fruitlessly between them about what they’d eaten when and how much time it was since which of them had been taken.

Days was the only thing Adele really heard. Her heart sank. “And no one’s missed you yet,” she broke in. Immediately she regretted the phrasing.

The girls didn’t seem to take any implication from it. “He hides our phones,” the blonde pouted. She had herself wrapped around her half-reclined parter, snuggling her cheek against Dash’s chest. “I haven’t checked mine in forever, who even knows who’s in my notifs.” “There was that one call I took,— can’t remember what about, when he put me under to coach me?” Dash mused; “and you know he’ll like, have us text excuses here or there, but …” She considered a moment. “Seems like he’s got it under control.”

“Can’t even take pictures for ourselves,” Cart grumbled.

Adele remembered her bag. Where her phone was, and her keys and her ID. She could see herself taking it off her arm and holding it out to him right when he walked up, without him even asking. It seemed to her she ought to have some feeling about that, but mostly it just made her tired. But she’d have to factor it in she wouldn’t be going anywhere on her own any time soon.

Cart brightened and poked her head up. “We quit our jobs!” she said, switching to the plus side. “Interfered with the new hobby,” she added smugly, with a side-eye at Dash. The brunette huffed and looked off into space.

After all it’s not like I got someplace else to be, Adele thought, not right this second. And they were so cute together! Such a cute energy between them. You wanted to see what they got up to next. Cart especially, that sassy kewpie-doll mouth on her,— kiss her and she’d taste like a Granny Smith. The thought made Adele’s mouth water and she shook her head. Don’t be weird, she scolded herself.

“So then you guys’ve just—“ Adele balked at where the question seemed to be taking her, but it was all she could think of. “I mean, since he uh …“

“Since we been kidnapped?” The word gave Adele a turn. Dash stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “Gaming ordering in and fucking, pretty much,” she said. “Not him,” the blonde added. “No,” Dash hurried to agree, “no him we don’t fuck. He likes us fucking though. Or you know, masturbating, spanking each other …”

“I’m not sure he’s even into sex,” Cart said, lowering her voice.

“Titty massage,” the brunette countered. “Likes that. And we have blown him a few times.” “Call those blowjobs,” Cart said. “Have you ever really even had his dick in your mouth? We make out,” she told Adele, “and he just sorta, gets up in our business for a while till he nuts.” The blonde looked at her like she was appealing for a ruling. Dash shrugged the question off.

Adele wondered if they’d be going back to playing anytime soon. She looked around for a dimmer switch. The room was too bright for an orgy, dude couldn’t even get that right. No mystery. Ideally, she thought, you’d want the screen your only light source. Sit on the floor in the dark like a little mouse, all but invisible, watch the endless track wind itself round and around in their eyes. Watch it loop in screenglow across their skin, carts and tracks and leaderboards shimmering and distorting with the curves of their smooth thighs, their swaying melons.

“Bet you guys are getting real good at racing by now, huh,” Adele said.

Dash scoffed. “It’s not about the games,” she said. Cart looked at Adele like she thought the girl was slow. “Dude,” she said, gesturing towards the TV. “How else do you think he keeps us brainwashed?”

“AAARRNNGHHH—“ 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 crowed, throwing a quick look Adele’s way. “You know the rules! Pay up.” The blonde was blushing furiously, the redness extending over her chest. “Scuse me,” she muttered to Adele, not meeting her gaze, and sprawled herself forward onto the floor between Dash’s legs.

“First one to use the b-word tonight has to eat the other one out,” the brunette told Adele. She closed her eyes for a second and cooed at whatever Cart’s tongue was doing. “Which is a harder game than it sounds, cause we fuckin love brainwashing.”

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

“Yeah well, she didn’t call it,” Dash said. “Hear that?” she asked, grabbing a hunk of Cart’s hair and shaking her with it. The blonde moaned. “Shoulda callt it bitch!” Dash closed her eyes again and tilted her head back and rode her pussy harder against her friend’s face.

There was a wet-sounding interval, then the brunette sighed: a short, heavy sigh, and gave Cart a head tap to make her stop. She looked back over at Adele and her eyes widened. She singsonged an “uh-oh” and tapped again, more urgently. “Check it out,” she said, and the blonde, her eyes vague and her mouth smeary, finally lifted herself off of Dash’s pussy. She grinned wolfishly at Adele’s lap. “Aww yeah,” Cart said, “Pizza in the house!”

Adele looked down and saw herself stroking her fingers all up and around her violently pink slit. And keeping on doing, which was kind of a surprise. The one boy she’d ever tried masturbating in front of she’d been too self-conscious to go more than a couple minutes. But she couldn’t have made herself stop now if she wanted to.

Yes and, motherfucker, Adele thought. She locked eyes with Dash and got up over her knees and slid two fingers inside, slow, deep as they’d go. She was so wet she barely had to push. She ran her tongue over her lips all lewd at the brunette and moaned and started fucking herself for real, and never once gave in to the urge to look away. She’d taken improv. She knew about commitment. If you were gonna have to play this out, Adele told herself, this dumb incel fantasy, then for your girls’ sake you better goddamn play it out.

“Come on Peetz,” Dash said, leering at her and rubbing the couch cushion with her palm, “she’s gotta do you too.” Cart scuttled a couple feet over to get in position. “Come on sit up with the big girls.” Once Adele was on the couch her fingers went automatically back to her snatch, but the brunette grabbed her hand and took it to her mouth and started licking the juices off her fingers instead.

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 held herself still at first. She wanted so bad to grab the blonde by the scruff and grind against her hot mouth like she’d seen Dash do, but did she really know her like that. Would it make her stop. Adele heard herself moan, felt her hips roll, then something cold bumped up against her ear and she startled.

Dash shushed her and held up a pair of earbuds. “Just a lil white noise,” she crooned. “Keep ya nice and fuzzed out.” She fit a bud into Adele’s farther ear and pressed a wet, molten kiss into the near one. “Brainwashed girls are the hottest girls, Pizza,” she whispered, and Adele’s head filled up with smoke and cotton candy.

She sensed movement after a bit, and saw it was the dude come back. He was standing over them like a goober with his dick in his hand, because of course he was. Dude likes his delibery girls, she snickered to herself. Or was it delibery? The question bounced around Pizza’s head enough that when he spooged on her tits she wasn't ready for it, and had to stifle a laugh.