1.
What made Gemma smile was, it was February and the street outside her apartment was doubtless iced over. Her neighbours’ cars were being towed to make way for the snowplows, but she was a thousand miles away. At the resort it was 30°C at ten in the morning, and the sun, not even at its height yet, was glaring down out of a perfect blue sky, warming her honey-coloured hair and the back of her shoulders as she waited in line for ice cream #1 of the day.
This vacation was exactly what she needed after the last year and, with the deal Rachelle had gotten her, ten days at Sun Dreams Resort had been an easy decision. The guy ahead of her in line flirted with the pretty girl manning the ice cream stand in nothing but a white bikini with the resort’s logo on the left breast, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that made her look even younger than she was. Gemma didn’t even care about the delay. For what seemed like the first time in forever, there was nowhere she had to be. Aside from the “Meet you at the ice cream stand at 10 and show you around!” text from Rachelle, no one expected anything from her, and that alone was relaxing.
Well, ok. It was relaxing for a minute or two, but then the holdup started getting to her, even through the bliss of having traded snow for sunshine. Come on, Gemma thought at Flirting Dude, Take your shot and let the rest of us get our ice cream.
At the thought of “the rest of us”, Gemma looked over her shoulder to see if a line was forming with whom she could commiserate, but no one else was after ice cream this early in the day. Yeah, yeah, Gemma rebuked her internal scold about unnecessary calories, But I just got off a plane, so fuck you.
And then Ice Cream Girl lowered the wooden canopy of her little stand, and Flirting Guy wandered off, leaving Gemma staring at the word “CLOSED” stenciled on the sun-faded green wood.
“What the hell?? Um, hello?”
Flirting Guy paid no attention to her and Ice Cream Girl was nowhere to be seen. With an exasperated sound, Gemma considered if his shot had been so successful she’d run off with him then and there, and shook her head at the idea. But a voice calling her name drew her from thoughts of investigating.
“Gemma! Ohmigod, HE-EYYYYY!”
Rachelle, dark-skinned and shining in the same white bikini Ice Cream Girl had worn, her gleaming smile perfect as always, ran up the steps from the beach, her flip-flops smacking the hot pavement as she pounced on her friend.
“You made it! How was your flight? Was the weather horrible coming out here? I was so worried you’d get delayed or cancelled or something! Isn’t this great? Come on, I can’t wait to show you the whole resort! I can totally get us in places the guests aren’t allowed. Come on!”
Having given each other a squeeze, Rachelle already had Gemma by the hand and was leading her to the beach before she could even mention the weird thing with the ice cream stand. The tanned, dark-haired woman hardly let her friend get a word in edge-wise as she talked all about Sun Dreams, how cool it was to work here, how much fun Gemma was going to have, how great the rooms and amenities were, how there was free wifi on the beach and there were even curated playlists you could stream while you tanned, which she knew Gemma would just love, because… and on and on.
Gemma rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling at Rachelle’s enthusiasm; the girl hadn’t changed at all since college. She’d always been fun to party with, and when she’d told Gemma she’d landed a job in promotions for this far-flung resort, Gemma hadn’t been surprised. Rachelle was even more of a sun bunny than she was, and had never seemed to belong in a city that had four different seasons.
After an hour of catching up over complimentary daiquiris, Rachelle left her to tan. Gemma found a free lounge chair away from most of the others and settled herself on the blue canvas. The chairs were as well thought-out as the rest of the resort’s amenities seemed to be: they were very wide, and even someone much larger than petite Gemma would have no trouble hitting every spot they wanted to tan. Gemma started on her back. Having already applied her tanning oil, she pulled her phone out and made sure it was on the resort wifi, then opened the link Rachelle had sent her. She rolled her eyes when it wanted to download some third-party app instead of just linking to a Spotify playlist, but whatever. She wasn’t in a hurry!
The sound of the mellow surf washing the beach and the gleeful shouts of people playing in it were nice enough background noise until she could turn on some music and tune the rest of the world out, as she loved to do while tanning. There was nothing more relaxing than lying there in the sun, letting the warmth slow your thoughts into a drowsy haze, with nowhere to be and no one to bother you. But the right playlist was what made it perfect. Gemma hoped Rachelle knew what she was talking about with this “special music” the resort had devised. Gemma had plenty of her own playlists, including ones for tanning, but her friend had been so excited, and it couldn’t hurt to indulge her.
At last, the downloaded finished—at least the app was simple to use. There was just one playlist. According to Rachelle they updated it on the regular, and all Gemma had to do was tap the button and let it go. She lay back and shut her eyes behind her sunglasses. Her earbuds weren’t noise-cancelling, so she could still hear the surf behind the chill electronic beat that faded in, but that only made it more relaxing.
The music mixed really well with the sound of the ocean, which made sense if the resort was going to the trouble of getting their own music made; they knew their audience, after all. Gemma drifted away much more quickly than she usually did when she tanned and wondered if she’d fall asleep—maybe she should have set a timer to make sure she rolled over onto her front; it would suck getting burned on her very first day.
But then a chime sounded in her ears and a gentle female voice said, “It’s time to turn over.”
Gemma smirked. They had thought of everything, hadn’t they? But she checked her phone. Had it really been… yes, it had been fifteen minutes already! That was crazy. She could swear she just turned the music on moments earlier… she must have zoned out almost immediately. It made sense, though: she was tired from the long flight, and, now that the excitement of arriving and meeting up with Rachelle was over and she could just stretch out on the beach, all that tiredness was catching up with her.
Gemma rolled over onto her chest and felt the sun warm the skin of her shoulders. It felt so good, almost like a massage, and the notion of being massaged by sunlight, visualizing the light dancing over her shiny, oiled skin, fluttered around in her head. It was a strange fancy for her, but very enjoyable. Gemma drifted deeper into profound relaxation, unaware she’d slipped from daydreaming into a different sort of dreaming—not asleep, but not quite awake, either.
Soon, another chime sounded and the gentle female voice returned: “Time to take a break.”
Gemma raised herself up on her hands and blinked heavily. She’d fallen asleep! That never happened… or almost never. She looked at her phone and was once again surprised to confirm another quarter of an hour had flown by; once again, it had felt like only minutes. She appreciated the friendly voice—and it was funny to think of a disembodied voice recorded on a playlist as a friend, but felt warm feelings towards it all the same—and had a strange sense that the woman had been speaking to her the whole time, underneath the music that had played while she’d slept.
Maybe there were lyrics in the ambient sound, though Gemma couldn’t recall any. What else would the voice have been saying to her?
2.
Rachelle had invited her to a special staff event that night, where she’d get to meet the owners of the resort. Her time in the sun had tired Gemma out more than she’d expected, so she figured a late nap before getting ready for the party was a must. Gotta be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to meet her friend’s employers.
Almost as soon as Gemma lay on the bed, she slipped into strange dreams.
Erotic dreams.
After waking, Gemma couldn’t remember many specifics, but was aware her dream had been unusually sexy; her naked body was still flushed with arousal, and she teased her sensitive places until she was squirming in the big hotel bed, seeking the release she craved.
As she masturbated, the disjointed remnants of her dream floated through her mind. Something about a powerful man, or maybe several men, and several women, and she was wearing a bright white bikini just like Rachelle and the other women employed by the resort wore, and… there was something underneath the bikini top, something she felt she must keep hidden, yet longed for the mysterious man to uncover…
The hidden thing, whatever it was, was not just her nipple, though she tweaked and twisted that now and bit her lip so her moan as she came wouldn’t escape the walls of the room.
Showering off, the details of the dream slipped away, but erotic dreams were unusual for Gemma and she wondered about it. And about the connection to the resort. The dream must have been another symptom of the mixed stress and relief of travel. As the hot water poured over her body, she found her arousal had not gone away, as though her orgasm had only partially quelled her lust. With any luck, she thought, there would be some hot guys at this party, and she could spend the night in another room at the resort, with more than just her dreams.
The party was not as exciting as Rachelle’s enthusiasm had promised, though there were no shortage of good-looking people there, of all genders. No surprise a high-end tropical resort would have attractive staff, but the women in particular, all outfitted in those same white bikinis, were an unusually striking collection when you had them all together in one room. Everyone Gemma talked to was just so excited about working at Sun Dreams, and how great the owners of the place were, that she was a little dizzy before she’d even finished her first drink. It was a little like attending a meeting of your local cult.
“Gemma, come on!” Rachelle was pulling her along not a moment after she’d picked up her second cocktail. “I want to introduce you to Ty.” Her friend led her to a tall, handsome middle-aged man with his arm around a familiar face: the girl from the ice-cream stand who’d earlier in the day abandoned Gemma in her moment of need.
“Ty’s one of the guys who runs this place! He’s great. Aren’t you, Ty?” Rachelle said flirtatiously, but Gemma thought nothing of the tone she took with her boss—Rachelle was like that with everyone, and the resort was hardly an environment of uptight professionalism… Gemma thought Ty and Ice Cream Girl were touching each other with an awful lot of familiarity for a boss and his employee, though. Well, she figured, what happens at the staff party stays at the staff party…
“Sure, Rachelle, sure.” Ty seemed to only be half paying attention to Rachelle’s chatter. He greeted Gemma politely, but there was something impolite in the way his eyes lingered on her even as he bantered with Rachelle. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy and was obviously successful if he owned this place, but his look, and the way he kept one arm draped over Ice Cream Girl, combined with Gemma’s strange dream and lingering arousal to give her a weird vibe. She excused herself and Rachelle, and was glad when the staff bar’s small dance floor lit up, so she had an excuse not to make any more conversation with the boss.
It was almost three in the morning and Gemma had put away six cocktails (and the bar staff mixed them strong for their own) by the time she and Rachelle stumbled back to their rooms. They went arm-in-arm, laughing about which of the staff either of them would have taken home. Gemma admitted she had been in the mood to hook up, and Rachelle encouraged her.
“You could have totally had your pick tonight! You’re the new out-of-towner and you look great!” Rachelle took a step back, wavering, and looked Gemma up and down. She made a lewd expression, and they both broke back into laughter.
“I know, I just…” Gemma didn’t want to admit to her friend, who was so excited about the place, that the resort was giving her a weird vibe. “I guess I’m just tired from the trip down, you know? Rather just go to bed.”
“Oh… Bullshit!” Rachelle yelled, and they broke up laughing again.
They carried on down the well-lit promenade, lined on both sides with the sleek doors of the luxury suites, each one like a miniature townhouse. Someone was walking up the promenade towards them.
It was a young man in linen slacks and a camp-collar shirt half open to reveal bare chest underneath. He came right up to them, and Gemma first thought he was going to scold them for making so much noise so late at night—the promenade was otherwise deserted and silent, and, when the drunken friends weren’t hollering at each other, only the sound of the nearby surf could be heard.
But the guy walked up, gave Gemma a curious look, and leaned in close to Rachelle, whispering something to her that Gemma couldn’t hear.
If she’d been less drunk, Gemma might have noticed a strange subtle change come over her friend at the man’s words. Rachelle stood up a little straighter, and a blank expression flowed over her face… replaced after just a moment by a dazzling smile.
“Yes, of course!” She said, with excitement that seemed somewhat exaggerated. She turned to Gemma, who saw Rachelle was now holding the man’s hand.
“Gemma, I’ve got to go. Have a good night, okay? I’ll check on you tomorrow for brunch!”
Rachelle and the guy went off together without another word.
“Uh… Okay… So, like, you two know each other?” Gemma spoke loud and quickly, not sure what was going on.Rachelle just decided to go home with this random guy? Had they made plans earlier, and she hadn’t told Gemma? That would be totally unlike her not to brag about hooking up, but…
“Yeah, sure, of course!” The guy said, too loud, over his shoulder. “It was nice to meet you, uh, Gemma? See you around!”
He put his arm around Rachelle in a way that reminded Gemma of Ty and Ice Cream Girl at the party, and the two went away down the promenade. Gemma was stunned. And drunk.
But not too drunk to follow them at a distance. She didn’t want to fuck up a good thing for Rachelle, if that’s what was going on; it didn’t seem like her friend was going away with this guy against her will, but… it was strange, and made the weird vibe Gemma had felt all evening even weirder.
She tailed the couple, who didn’t seem to notice her, to a suite further down the promenade, not far away from Gemma’s own room. The man showed Rachelle inside and shut the door. The lights stayed on inside the townhouse, but the blinds were down and they let through only a diffuse glow. Gemma, feeling like a spy or a burglar—or at least a voyeur—crept up close to the suite, crouching near the window with her ear against the glass. She didn’t hear any talking. After a few long, tense minutes, however, in which she was sure someone was going to catch her eavesdropping, she did hear… a woman’s moan.
So Rachelle was getting hers tonight. Well, Gemma thought, good for her. I guess. Probably.
Back in her room, Gemma lay in the dark, worrying about her friend. The warm buzz of the party had worn off, though the cocktails still left her with the unpleasant feeling of floating on a boat on rough seas. There was nothing wrong with Rachelle going off to fuck some good-looking tourist if that’s what she wanted to do, but the whole thing just felt wrong in a way Gemma couldn’t define. The wrongness lay on her oppressively and kept her from sleeping.
At last, knowing there was no rational reason for her fears, she got out her headphones and put on the second track of the tanning playlist. The first had done such a good job at knocking her out on the beach she hoped it would help her get to sleep.
It did.
3.
Gemma woke up the following morning, felt how hungover she was, drank a glass of water, shut the blinds and went back to sleep with the covers pulled over her head.
By the time she felt okay enough to be vertical again, it was noonish. Rachelle hadn’t texted her, and she hoped her friend was ok, but couldn’t remember why she was worried. The previous night was a blur after about cocktail #3 at the staff party—Gemma was half surprised she’d woken up in her own bed. And she’d woken up wearing headphones, like she’d decided to listen to music once she’d got back to her room. Ah, well, whatever. She’d done way stupider things after a big night.
Now the day was getting away from her, and, hangover or not, that wouldn’t do. The beach was waiting, and she wanted to get her tan on. It was another perfect sunny day as she climbed into one of the big canvas chairs, though the beach was busy and she couldn’t get a spot as far from the bustle as she would’ve liked.
Before she got too comfy, she checked her phone. She’d sent Rachelle a couple more texts, just to make sure, and her friend had finally replied.
Awesome time last night!! Thanks for coming!
Ok, then. Gemma let go of the nebulous worry she’d had about Rachelle and got serious about her tan. She opened the resort’s special music app, remembering how enjoyable their mix had been the first time… and was surprised to see it was on Track 6 of the playlist, when she’d only tanned to Track 1 the day before.
She thought back to the headphones she was still wearing when she’d awakened that morning. It seemed a waste to have listened to music meant for tanning while she slept through the night indoors, but there were fifteen tracks on the playlist. She could always go back to the ones she’d missed if she wanted.
Gemma hit Play on Track 6 and lay back, eyes closed behind her sunglasses, letting the warmth and the music both soak deep into her body.
She was drifting in a strange, erotic dream. Was she still on the beach? She could hear the surf and voices, but they didn’t matter. What mattered were the bodies—hot, naked men’s bodies—and how they were touching her, and how she was touching them. How their cocks felt thrusting into her and how it just felt so right to suck and fuck, and how she couldn’t help touching herself all over when she thought about serving and pleasing these men. Men who had no faces or names, but she knew, with the nonrational certainty of dreams, that they were Owners.
And Owners were important. Owners made the rules. Owners were the focus of all her desire.
And she had so much desire…
Gemma came to when the voice told her it was time to turn over, and she realized what she’d been fantasizing right there on the beach. She grew hot with embarrassment on top of the heat of the sun and the heat… elsewhere. As she flipped onto her front, she could tell she was soaking wet under her bikini bottoms and once again cursed the fact she couldn’t find a more secluded spot to tan in. Of all the bad times to have such a sexy fucking dream…
It left her horny like dreams rarely did, too. Lying on her front, as the music flowed over and through her, was a sweet sort of torture. The most sensitive parts of her body were now pressed against the rough canvas and it was all she could do to keep herself from humping the fabric… how would that look to the other tourists on the beach? But she was so close to just arching her ass up so she could reach between her legs and take the edge off.
The thought of masturbating in public, especially in such a vulnerable pose, should have chilled her arousal. But it didn’t. In fact, another realization took precedence, far more frightening. And it didn’t cool her down, either:
Gemma couldn’t move.
It wasn’t just that she wanted to avoid rubbing against the canvas or fingerfucking herself in public; she tried to adjust her position and found her body was locked in place. It simply wouldn’t listen to her.
What the fuck is going on??
In a moment she’d gone from desperate not to be noticed to wanting to call out for help, but she couldn’t speak. She was trapped in her own body, and only the throbbing arousal interrupting her thoughts kept the terror that filled her blunted.
Gemma struggled, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at her. For a moment the music in her ears loomed into the centre of her awareness, and just as she was wondering if it could somehow have something to do with her sudden paralysis, she felt an orgasm build between her legs and explode up through her whole body. That body, however, hardly twitched, and no one could have heard the tiny moan that escaped.
And Gemma failed to be embarrassed by this involuntary climax, because, as soon as she came, her mind went utterly blank.
She woke in her bed, with no memory of how she’d gotten there, for the second time in 24 hours. This would have worried Gemma, but the only thing she could think about was the pulsing between her legs. She forgot to recollect her time tanning and the strange paralysis that had gripped her; all that mattered was touching and squeezing and rubbing her naked body. She’d ditched her bikini near the door of the room. The first orgasm came quickly, but that wasn’t enough for her, not today. She slid two fingers into her cunt, driven even deeper into squirming lust by the sound of how wet she was, and she didn’t care if the neighbours heard her moan as she threw her head back on the pillow and fucked her hand til she came again.
And it still wasn’t enough. She got on all fours and stuck her ass in the air, wiggling back and forth like she was begging an Owner A what? Ohhhfuck… that’s so good to grab her and ram her from behind. But all she had were her fingers, her travel vibe was still in her suitcase and damned if she was going to stop touching long enough to get it.
As she approached the next orgasm, Gemma buried her face between the pillows. The wired headphones in her ears ran down to the resort’s music player, and its screen now read Track 10.
Gemma woke the next morning feeling blissful. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply and so well.
She couldn’t remember being paralyzed and tormented by strange sexual fantasies while suntanning, either. The past few days had blurred together into a pleasant haze of vacation. Gemma dug the music player out from between the pillows and made her bed, humming happily to herself.
It was another perfect sunny morning and she couldn’t wait to get her tan on. Only a ravenous hunger convinced her to stop at the breakfast buffet before she hit the beach.
Today’s lounge chair was nice and secluded and she lay back, her skin slick with tanning oil and already warmed by the tropical sun. The music player was offering a new playlist, which it claimed had special selections just for her, though she assumed it told that to everyone. Gemma shut her eyes behind her shades and sank into the music, plunging into the delicious dream of heat that wasn’t just the hot sun on her body. Another fire, this one of arousal, was already growing deep inside her and she gave herself up to it with a little moan.
If anyone on the beach could see her squirm, or surrender to the need to slide her hands under her bikini and rub in time to the bewitching music, Gemma was far too deep in her trance to care. The music transported her far away, to an indistinct dreamscape where she knelt and posed and squirmed on a huge white bed, while men admired and ogled and photographed and touched and handled and fucked her.
She couldn’t see any of their faces, but it didn’t matter. Lost in a haze, she cared only for their hot muscular bodies, warm, hard, lusting, needing her. She’d never felt like such a sexual object in her life, and it was beyond wonderful.
Her bikini bottoms were soaked by the time she rose from the canvas lounge chair and drifted like a sleepwalker towards the promenade of townhouses where the guests, staff, and Owners stayed. Her obvious arousal would have embarrassed her, but, also like a sleepwalker, she thought of nothing but her erotic dreams. Her eyes were wide and glassy behind her mirrored sunglasses, the music whispering promises of pleasure into her receptive brain.
4.
Gemma entered the unfamiliar townhouse without a thought in her head—a thought like, What am I doing here? The door was unlocked, and the interior was posh, luxuriously decorated in a way not even the most expensive guest suites were. She knew without it reaching her drowsy consciousness that this must be an Owner’s house and this was where she belonged. As she crossed the threshold of the doorway, she also knew she was crossing another sort of threshold, one she could never return from, and part of her was giddy, excited. And wet.
How much time passed before the trance lifted? Gemma didn’t know. She didn’t remember kneeling on the floor at the edge of the plush throw rug in the middle of the big living room. Her mind felt soft and dreamy, and she understood the music she’d been tanning to for days, the music Rachelle had given her, was somehow to blame. Where was Rachelle, and what the hell had she gotten Gemma into? She wasn’t just dreamy and horny. Somehow, the music seemed to choke off her free will. She hadn’t chosen to leave the beach, hadn’t chosen to come here, certainly hadn’t chosen to kneel on the floor, but she couldn’t resist the compulsion to do those things and, worse, couldn’t muster up the strength to do anything else.
Like stand up.
Like get out of this room and shut the door quietly, hoping whoever lived here never noticed her trespassing.
Like hire the first cab to the airport she could and get the fuck back home. She could always buy new clothes; she’d just grab her passport and go.
Someone was coming down the stairs. It was a man: tall, dark, muscular tattooed arms in a simple white t-shirt, swim trunks, barefoot. He was wearing sunglasses, fresh from the upstairs balcony. He came down the stairs, looking Gemma over like he had all the time in the world, knowing she wouldn’t run or scream or even complain her legs were getting sore. Somehow, Gemma knew she wouldn’t say a word until she was told. Inside her head, she whimpered in despair.
The guy stood on the rug looking down at her, curling his toes in the plush material as if to rub it in that she was kneeling on polished concrete. He took off his shades, hung one arm in the neck of his shirt. He had arresting eyes, Gemma saw, in a chiseled face. She felt her body respond to him and hated herself through her confusion; she should be terrified of this guy, not turned on, no matter how hot he was.
He kept looking at her like he was drinking his fill, then pulled a phone from the pocket of his trunks, dialled, and held it to his ear. After a moment, he spoke, looking away over Gemma’s head.
He knew she would not move. And though she tried, or thought she was trying, she didn’t. Her body felt heavy, tingly, drugged. Was she drugged? Had Rachelle given her something, somehow, along with the music? It was crazy to think sound alone could hijack her like this…
“Yeah, the new material’s come in. Meet me at the place and we’ll make sure it’s the stuff we want.
“Yeah, Number Seven’s friend. Bring her along, too.”
Number Seven? Does he mean Rachelle?
The guy crouched down, so he was eye level with Gemma, only a foot away. He looked awfully fucking pleased with himself, and she wanted nothing more than to stick her thumbs in his eye sockets. Through the haze of inappropriate arousal the music, or drugs, or whatever was pouring into her, a chill of fear went down her spine when he spoke to her.
“You must be pretty confused right now, cutie. Try to relax. Your friend’s gonna be here soon, and she’ll help you. This is like a job interview, kind of, but don’t worry, you’re gonna do great.
“I’m Sonny, by the way. My business partner’s Ty. He’ll be joining us soon, too. This resort is our place and we kind of have to do all the ‘interviews’ ourselves. Just a quirk of our hiring process, you know?” Sonny smiled at what was clearly some sort of inside joke. But Gemma wondered. Did this guy Own this place? Like, not just the condo, but the whole resort?
She considered him. Couldn’t be that much older than she was, but he was an Owner? A surprising shiver hummed through Gemma’s body as she thought that word. Owner. What the hell was happening to her? What the hell was this guy doing to her, since he seemed to know exactly what was going on? It drove her crazy that she couldn’t even ask the fucker how he was controlling her body like this.
Sonny rose to his feet, went to a cabinet, and took out a pair of headphones. Unlike the little wireless earbuds Gemma had almost forgotten were still pumping music into her head, these were big and sturdy, over-the-ear headphones in a muted champagne colour. They looked heavy, expensive. He crouched in front of Gemma again, holding the headphones up between them.
“I’m gonna swap out what you’re listening to for something a little stronger. It’ll help pass the time until Ty and Seven get here… and it’ll help after that, too.”
Gemma tensed, as much as she could within the strange paralysis. Was he going to take her earbuds out? He’d have to, to put the big headphones on. She assumed once those big cups were firmly over her ears, whatever hold they had on her would get even stronger. Her heart was racing, and even though it was in part because Sonny’s closeness made her pussy wet, she also knew this was her one chance. If the silence released her from the music’s hold for just a few seconds…
“Now, you’re gonna behave while I switch out your headphones, right, babe? Just stay perfectly still, like you are right now. You gonna do that for me?”
She could feel the rage hot on her cheeks. She wondered if he could see it in her eyes, hoped not. It would be better if he didn’t see it coming. She prayed she could take him by surprise, just for a second, knock him on his ass…
“In fact, you’ll do what your Owner says, won’t you, cutie?”
The words thrummed through Gemma’s head, louder than the music. More important. Nothing could be more important.
“Yes, Owner.”
Did I really just say that? It was a strange sensation, hearing herself speak without even thinking of what to say.
“Good girl. Don’t move.”
And Gemma knew, her heart sinking even as her pussy tingled, that she would do as she was told.
There was a moment of quiet—blissful, thunderous quiet—when Sonny took the earbuds out. It should have been the sweetest sound Gemma ever heard, the moment where she made her move, escaped this goddamn place and whatever the fuck was going on here.
But she didn’t move. She did as she was told. Her own words—“Yes, Owner”—echoed in her head, making her feel helpless and humiliated.
Then there was the tight closeness of the headphones as the soft pads closed around her ears. The total silence of active noise cancellation, as even the rustle of Sonny, as he made sure the headphones were secure over her hair, faded away.
Gemma didn’t move, just like he’d told her. And then it was too late.
The new music wasn’t loud, but it was deep. The headphones were excellent, the sound much richer and more complex than what her earbuds could produce. The midrange tones captured her attention, and, moments later, she felt the building throb of the bass coursing through her body. What had been like a strange paralysis, a lack of volition, became a deep and profound relaxation, like she was falling asleep with her eyes open. Sonny was walking away from her, she hoped to occupy himself with something else until the others arrived. Gemma was aware of him receding across the room, and then her mind went completely blank.