Shenaz looked over the top of her book towards the front door. The knock sounded again. She wasn't expecting company and didn't particularly want any on a Saturday morning. But she didn't have it in her to be rude to someone without knowing what they needed or wanted. So with a sigh of resignation, she put the book down and got up to see who was there.
For a moment, she thought about sidetracking to her bedroom to get a bathrobe or put on some real clothes. But she quickly decided that whoever was knocking at 8 o'clock on a weekend morning could deal with her in skimpy pajamas and bare feet.
At the door, she peered through the peephole. Quite possibly the most unexpected sight she could've imagined greeted her. She pulled back with a puzzled frown, then leaned forward to look again. With a shrug indicative of not knowing what else to do, she opened the door.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"Naz! It's you! It's really you!"
"Yeah, it's me. I live here. Who are you? I mean, I know who you are--both of you. But, are you really them? I mean, you?"
Two tall, strikingly beautiful women stood on Shenaz's front porch. The first had long black hair pulled tight into a ponytail and a tan complexion. She wore a formfitting black and red bodysuit with matching gloves and boots. A domino mask adorned her face, covering it from forehead to nose.
The second woman had wavy red hair that fell loose over her shoulders. She had a fair complexion, and several freckles dotted her cheeks. Like her companion, she wore a bodysuit complemented by a thick mask, gloves, and boots. Blue, green, and white comprised her color scheme.
Shenaz knew them both from news reports: Ladybug, the Asian-American wonder woman, and La Professora, the European super scientist.
"Yes, it's us, Naz," Ladybug said. "Your old friends. Your old teammates."
"What? What are you talking about? We're not friends. I've never even seen you in person."
Ladybug and La Professora exchanged a pained look before returning their attention to Shenaz.
The young woman who stood before the two heroines rivaled them in beauty, form, and even poise. She had a smooth dark skin tone and black shoulder-length hair. She stood much shorter than they did--in part because she simply wasn't as tall as they were, and in part because she was barefoot while they wore boots--and her sleeping apparel of course didn't measure up to their mission-ready outfits. But aside from that, any objective onlooker could have believed that she was indeed a teammate of theirs.
"Naz, can we come in?" La Professora asked. "We'd really like to talk with you."
"Well, I guess, yeah, sure, come in."
Shenaz stepped back and ushered her new guests inside. Each woman took care to wipe her boots, first on the outside mat, then again on the one inside the door.
"Thanks for doing that," Shenaz said in response to their polite gesture. "But, uh, this is a shoes-off house. So, if you don't mind..."
She pointed to a second mat off to the side, where several pairs of her own shoes resided.
"Do you know how hard it is to take off and pull on knee-high battle boots?" La Professora asked.
Ladybug elbowed her friend and sternly pointed at the shoe mat. La Professora sighed, then nodded.
A few minutes later, the three barefoot women had moved to the living room. Ladybug and La Professora sat in adjacent armchairs, each one now holding a bottle of water provided by their host. Shenaz sat before them on a large ottoman placed in front of her sofa.
"Is there anything else I can get you?" Shenaz asked her guests.
The two heroines politely declined.
"Okay, well, then can you explain to me why you think I'm your friend and teammate?"
"You really don't remember us, Naz?" Ladybug asked.
"We've never met," Shenaz said, with a shake of her head and a frown. "I would remember meeting two famous superheroines. And I would sure as heck remember being friends with them."
"But you're a superheroine, too," La Professora said.
Shenaz's frown deepened. And then, suddenly, her face lit up and she laughed out loud.
"Is this a gag? Is this one of those hidden camera prank shows? Oh, jeez, I knew I should've put on a bathrobe or gotten dressed before I answered the door."
"This is isn't a joke," La Professora said somberly.
Both heroine's faces read as serious as an autopsy report. Shenaz stopped laughing.
"Then I don't understand what's going on."
"Neither do we," Ladybug said. "You disappeared over two months ago. I mean, totally disappeared. Off the grid. No trace. We looked everywhere for you. It took Proffie's crime computer this long to track you down."
"But I haven't disappeared. I've lived here for ages. Look, if this isn't a joke, something else must be going on. Maybe something's wrong with your crime computer, or..."
"Or what?" La Professora asked.
"Or, maybe something's wrong with you."
Shenaz withered beneath two stony, less-than-pleased stares.
"No, I don't mean wrong with you," she hurriedly explained, "I mean, maybe someone altered your memories or something. You know, like with a magic spell or hypnosis or however villains mess with people's minds."
"I think Naz may be onto something," La Professora said. "Hypnosis is my guess."
"What are you talking about?" Ladybug asked. "No one has hypnotized me. I would know if someone messed with my mind."
"Relax. I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about Naz. It all fits: the disappearance, the lack of memory, everything."
Ladybug nodded in understanding and agreement, while Shenaz shook her head in disagreement.
"This is nuts," she said. "I'm not a superheroine. I've never been a superheroine. I've never worn a cape or tights--"
"A cape, no. Tights, yes," Ladybug said. "Sexy black tights with these black pumps that--"
"No, I didn't! I don't wear spandex. And I don't wear high heels. Heck, I prefer not to wear shoes at all."
"So we noticed," La Professora said disapprovingly. "But that's not the point. All these things you think you never did, you really did do. I think someone made you forget them. I think someone made you into an unassuming barefoot girl, with no knowledge or interest in being a superheroine."
"That's ridiculous."
"I can get to the bottom of this," La Professora continued. "I'm a skilled hypnotist. Let me put you under, and then together we can uncover these lost memories. We can figure out what happened to you and bring you back to how you were."
"No," Shenaz said. "Out of respect for who you are and what you do, I invited you into my home, and I listened to your crazy story. But there's no way I'm letting you hypnotize me and do who-knows-what to my mind while I'm defenseless and suggestible..."
As Shenaz rambled on angrily, La Professora pressed the side of her mask. In response, transparent lenses slid noiselessly into place over her eyes. Neither Ladybug, who was focused on Shenaz, nor Shenaz, who was consumed by her own tirade, noticed the change.
"Naz!" La Professora said.
"What?" Shenaz asked, finally halting her rant.
A flash of light burst forth from La Professora's mask lenses. Shenaz immediately froze, her mouth still open from her question.
"Um, what just happened?" Ladybug asked, warily eyeing her unmoving host.
"I just administered a neural paralytic to Naz."
"Is that super science speak for hypnotizing her?"
"No, she's not in a trance. More like in a pre-trance state. She's awake and aware, but she can't move. And she can't fight against or resist anything I do. Now I can hypnotize her."
"Against her will?"
"Yes."
"Good!" Ladybug said. "Get on with it, please. I want my friend back. And I want to know who did this to her."
"Agreed. If you'll put her in a comfortable position on the couch, I'll change to my hypno-lenses."
Ladybug nodded, then stood up and walked over to Shenaz. With ease, she lifted the young woman up and placed her on the sofa, stretching out her legs so that her feet rested on the ottoman.
As Ladybug positioned Shenaz, La Professora pressed the other side of her mask. The transparent lenses slid aside and were replaced with translucent ones. Then, once Ladybug had returned to her seat, she leaned forward and stared at Shenaz. She tapped the same spot on her mask. Bright, colorful, spinning spirals formed within the lenses.
The swirls reflected in Shenaz's wide open eyes. She had heard and understood everything the two supheroines had said about her being paralyzed and subjected to a hypnotic induction. But try as she might, she could neither move, nor look away from La Professora's spiral-enhanced gaze. Slowly, second after second, the hypnotic pattern took hold in her mind.
She first found herself captivated by the swirling patterns. Then she found herself able to think of nothing but them. And finally, she found herself unable--and unwanting--to think at all. Her world became the spirals, and, as the neural paralytic wore off in a perfectly timed manner, she grew more and more relaxed. Soon, relaxation evolved into drowsiness, then outright sleepiness. In another moment, she had slipped deep into a hypnotic trance.
"Can you hear me, Naz?" La Professora asked her hypnotized friend.
"Yes," Shenaz answered in a contentedly sleepy voice.
"Good. Now listen to me very carefully. I'm going to help you remember what happened to you. Together, we're going to revisit the time nine weeks ago, when you disappeared from our headquarters...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Uhhhhh..." Vine said groggily.
As she slowly returned to consciousness, she reached up to rub her eyes with her hands. Rather, she tried to do that and found she couldn't. She then opened her eyes and blinked a few times to clear her vision.
Once she could see clearly, she didn't recognize where she was. She also couldn't remember how she had gotten there. Knowing that being knocked out, drugged, or otherwise incapacitated was a standard peril for superheroines, she took this lack of recognition and memory in stride. She also presumed that her inability to use her hands meant that she was bound. Sure enough, it did:
Thick leather straps secured her shoulders, wrists, and ankles to an examination table with its top half raised up at an angle. This configuration put her in a reclined position with her legs outstretched before her.
She looked down over herself and saw that she still wore her signature black catsuit and fingerless gloves. But her black, open-toed, high-heeled shoes were missing, leaving her nicely pedicured feet bare below her bindings. This revelation bothered her much more than the rest of her situation did.
"Ugh," she said. "Not my pumps. Those are my favorites."
"I can see why," a strong, feminine voice said from behind her. "They're sleek, stylish, and very sexy, if not all that practical for a superheroine."
The owner of the voice walked around the table, revealing herself to be a tall, elegantly pretty woman dressed in a perfectly fitted business suit and her own pair of sleek, stylish, and very sexy high heels. She held Vine's aforementioned shoes in one hand and explored them with the other.
"Or maybe," the woman continued, "they are more practical than they first appeared. Look at this: With a click of this hidden button, the heels retract and the front part of the soles slide back. Now these are flats with the bottoms open to the air. Very convenient for a heroine whose powers rely on her being in contact with the ground. Plus, they offer a sexy, if partial view of the bottom of her feet. Although I like the entire and very sexy view that I have now better."
"How do you know about my powers?" Vine asked angrily. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"My name is Severna Strickland. That should answer the rest of your questions."
Vine shook her head. Severna raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"You've never heard of me? Well, that's a new one. I thought every heroine in the city knew who I was."
"I don't operate in the city."
"No, of course you don't. You prefer to work in the outlying areas where there is more plantife for you to be in touch with."
"Again, how do you know this about me?"
"It's simple," Severna said. "Your friend, Superia, told me."
"What? She would never divulge information about a fellow superheroine!"
"Oh, but she would, and she did. Not by choice, of course. I brainwashed her very thoroughly before she told me all about herself, you, and several other of her closest friends and allies."
"You brainwashed Superia? No, I can't believe that. She's so strong and tough. No one could break her."
"My dear, your naivete is both amusing and refreshing. Brainwashing you will be so much fun."
"You won't brainwash me," Vine said through gritted teeth. "I'll resist. I'll break free. And then I'll--"
"You'll mindlessly serve and obey me like countless heroines before you, including Superia."
In punctuation of her statement, Severna took out a small remote control and clicked a button on it. The top part of the table immediately began lowering down. In a few seconds, it and Vine lay flat. Then, a large panel in the ceiling directly over Vine's head slid open. Looking up, the bound heroine saw herself reflected head to toe in a long, narrow mirror. Behind her head, just beyond the edge of the table, she could see a strange device. She had never seen anything like it before, but she surmised from an inverted dome-like opening in its center that it was meant to fit over her head.
"Yes, that is how I'll brainwash you," Severna said, correctly presuming that her captive was wondering about the device. "I always enjoy watching the heroines I capture undergoing their brainwashing. And so I thought, why not let them enjoy watching it, too? Hence the mirror."
"I'll enjoy seeing you fail in your attempt to convert me."
"Yes, I'm sure you would enjoy seeing that. And I think it's wonderful that you have something to cling to in these last, precious moments of independent thought and free will. But make no mistake, my dear, I never fail."
The two women glared at one another. Then, a hum began from the device. Despite telling herself that she didn't need to see what happened because she had nothing to fear, Vine couldn't help but nervously glance up at the reflection of it.
It moved slowly forward by a means she couldn't determine. What she could tell was that its motion would soon place its rounded opening over her scalp. Her nervousness increased, and she began struggling against her bonds. This action elicited a quiet, sinister chuckle from Severna.
Vine possessed greater strength than a normal woman, but not to a superhuman degree. In the past, she had managed to break out of rope bindings. And once she had even snapped the chains between a pair of handcuffs, though doing so had severely bruised her wrists. But these straps resisted all her efforts. Whether they simply outclassed her strength or were placed just right to minimize her leverage against them, she didn't know. All she did know was that they held her fast and kept her from escaping the imminent arrival of the device upon her head.
"Any last thoughts, my dear?" Severna asked mockingly.
Vine ignored the taunt and steeled herself for whatever the device was going to do. She watched as it slid into place, covering her head to just above her eyebrows. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened. Although she didn't realize it, Vine held her breath as she waited for whatever was to come. Then, several LED strips along the device's surface lit up. A whirring hum emanated from inside the inverted dome, along with a soft green glow that shone down over Vine's face.
Steeled as she was against physical or mental intrusion by the device, it took a moment or Vine to realize that she felt...relaxed. A soothing warmth had begun around her head and now was spreading down her body. Though no one and nothing actually touched her, she couldn't help but feel as though she were receiving a gentle, soothing massage everywhere at once, though most noticeably along her scalp and at the soles of her feet.
She could see in her reflection that she was smiling and that her eyes were narrowing in drowsiness to slits.
"No," she said, realizing that the device was pacifying her. "No. No! NO!"
She opened her eyes wide and grimaced up at herself.
"You can't sedate me with this thing! I won't be lulled to sleep!"
"Can't I? Won't you?" Severna asked coyly. "It's takes so much effort for you to resist. It's so much easier if you just relax and enjoy how good the process feels."
"No! I won't give in to your little electronic massage! It doesn't matter what sensations you bombard my head or my feet with, you won't...uh, you won't...oh, make me...ohh, my head...mmm, my feet...ohhh...my heeeead...ohhhh...my feeeeet...mmmmm...."
The last thing Vine saw in the mirror was her back arching as her fingers trembled and her toes splayed. Then, with an open mouthed grin of pure ecstasy, her eyes rolled back before closing and staying shut. Around her head, the device's hum ceased. But then a new noise arose from it--a rhythmic buzzing. Vine's closed eyes darted back in forth in time to the buzz, while her fingers and toes twitched along with it.
"What a good little fighter you were," Severa said approvingly. "Strong, stubborn, brave. But now that I've laid bare that willful mind of yours, you will gain new qualities that I find more attractive: submissive, subservient, and obedient. I'll like you so much better that way."
She moved to stand before Vine's feet, then lustfully stroked their insteps with her fingertips. The entranced heroine shook her feet in response to the tickling, before falling back to her rhythmic twitching.
"Mm-mm, such lovely reactions. I will have much fun with you. And, of course, as my barefoot slave, you'll certainly have no more need for these," Severna said, holding up Vine's pumps before the oblivious heroine. "But don't worry, you will see them again. As luck will have it, we have the same shoe size. So, I'll be wearing these when you worship my feet. Without having to take them off, you'll be able to access all my most pleasurable spots."
Severna slipped off her own heels and put on Vine's. As she did, the brainwashing device ceased its buzzing. Vine stopped moving and let out a contented sigh. Severna walked over to stand beside her head.
"Your standard conditioning is now complete. Repeat back to me what you know."
Vine sighed happily again, then spoke in a slow, soft drawl:
"Severna Strickland is my Mistress. I am her slave. I will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever I am in Mistress's presence, I will be barefoot to show my total submission to her."
"Very good, slave. Normally, that would suffice. But with you, I'm going to add more. First, your identity of Vine no longer exists. You are not her, you never were her, and you've never heard of her. When you are acting on my instructions, you are my slave. Any other time, you are simply who you are in your civilian life. Who is that by the way?"
Vine told her Mistress her civilian name.
"Furthermore," Severna went on, "you have no knowledge of your powers. In fact, you have absolutely no affinity for nature. You prefer to stay in the city and avoid the outdoors."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Excellent. Now I am free to expand my operations outside of the city, without having to ward off any attacks from a self-righteous park, farm, and forest defender. And, I have a delicious new slave to play with, as well."
Severna clapped twice. Two fit, attractive, barefoot women immediately entered the room from outside and stood before her.
"Release my new slave."
Both women walked hurriedly over to the examination table. Once there, one began powering down the brainwashing device, while the other began undoing the binding straps. When they finished, they turned to Severna.
"How may I serve you now, Mistress?" they asked in unison.
"Leave. And lock the door behind you."
"Yes, Mistress."
A moment later, Severna was alone with her newly brainwashed thrall. She sat down in a comfortable chair, placed her legs up on an ottoman, and retracted the soles of her pumps to reveal the balls of her feet.
"Attend me, slave."
The woman who was once Vine mindlessly did as she was told. She knelt down before the ottoman, took hold of her mistress's right foot, and began worshiping all the parts of it that were exposed through the pumps that she had once worn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"...Then, when Mistress had had enough worship of her feet, she gave me another command. I obeyed her, gently spreading her legs and moving forward to--"
"That's enough!" Ladybug said. "I don't want to hear any more!"
"Naz, you may stop telling your story," La Professora said. "Just relax for now."
Shenaz took in a deep breath, sighed it out slowly, and sat silently on the sofa. The swirling spirals from La Professora's mask continued their dance within her eyes.
"I should've known it was Severna Strickland," Ladybug said, fuming and clenching her fists. "I should've known it and marched over to her office two months ago to--"
"To become yet another of her enthralled heroines? No, you shouldn't have done that. Besides, how could you have known it was her? Brainwashing isn't the only peril to befall our kind. We didn't know how or why Vine disappeared, only that she had."
"Well, now we know. And I want Naz back as my friend, and Vine back out there, defending the green parts of the world."
"So do I."
"Can you do it? Can you break her free of Severna's conditioning?"
"Yes, I think so," La Professora said, switching off her hypno-lenses and then turning to face her companion. "But it will take time. For right now, I think I can restore her memory of being Vine, of being a powered superhuman. But it's going to require both hypnosis and therapy to restore her mind to a healthy state."
Ladybug nodded in understanding. She began to say something, when the unexpected occurred:
Shenaz lowered her feet to the floor, then stood up.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she said in the slow, sleepy voice indicative of her entrancement.
"What? Isn't she still hypnotized?" Ladybug asked incredulously.
"I think so," La Professora said more calmly. "But I never gave her a suggestion that she couldn't get up. She's not my slave, the way she was Severna's. If her body is telling her to go relieve herself, then I don't think it's unusual that she would act on the impulse."
"Okay, if you say so."
As the two superheroines watched, Shenaz walked unhurriedly out of the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom.
"So, can you start deprogramming her right away?" Ladybug asked once Shenaz was gone.
"I don't see a reason to wait. But, again, it's going to take time. Time and patience."
"Patience isn't my strong suit."
"No, but strength is. And Naz is going to need that strength to help her become Vine again."
"Of course. I'll do whatever it takes. And I'll be there for--what the--?"
La Professora turned away to look at what had suddenly grabbed Ladybug's attention. Shenaz stood over them, holding out something in her hand. There had been no sound of a toilet flushing or any water running, nor any sound of her bare feet carrying her back to the room.
Then a loud hiss sounded and a spray of pink mist filled the air around the startled heroines' heads. The gas emanated from a small aerosol can that Shenaz pointed at them.
"Gas!" La Professora said. "Don't b-breathe...."
"H-huh? W-what..." Ladybug stuttered.
The realization had come too late to La Professora and not at all to Ladybug. Both of them slumped back in their chairs under the effects of the gas. One at a time, Shenaz lifted them up, carried them over to the sofa, and sat them there with their feet propped up on the ottoman. Then, she removed La Professora's mask and put it on herself.
About a minute later, both Ladybug and La Professora stirred. Their eyes opened and began to focus on Shenaz, who sat before them wearing a familiar mask. Then, a flash of light burst forth from Shenaz's eyes, and the groggy superheroines ceased moving again. Soon, swirling spirals reflected in their wide-open eyes.
Still staring straight ahead at the now entranced subjects, Shenaz picked up a phone and dialed a number. A voice answered.
"This is a slave with a message for her Mistress," Shenaz said. "Two superheroines tried to take me away from Mistress. They failed, and their actions triggered me to make this call. I have subdued them and will prepare them for Mistress's arrival."
The voice spoke briefly, and Shenaz responded obediently. Then, she hung up the phone.
"Listen to me very carefully," she said to the hypnotized heroines before her. "Severna Strickland is your Mistress. You are her slave. You will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever you are in Mistress's presence, you will be barefoot to show your total submission to her. Say it."
La Professora and Ladybug spoke slowly and sleepily as one:
"Severna Strickland is my Mistress. I am her slave. I will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever I am in Mistress's presence, I will be barefoot to show my total submission to her."
"Again. And again. Until I tell you to stop."
"Severna Strickland is my Mistress. I am her slave. I will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever I am in Mistress's presence, I will be barefoot to show my total submission to her. Severna Strickland is my Mistress. I am her slave. I will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever I am in Mistress's presence, I will be barefoot to show my total submission to her. Severna Strickland is my Mistress..."
As Ladybug and La Professora continued to repeat their mantra of enslavement, the woman who had once been Vine switched off the hypno-lenses and then removed the mask. Her face displayed the same blank expression and far away stare that her former friends did. After all, she had never awoken from her trance and remained hypnotized even now, with her actions having been dictated to her by the person on the phone.
She stood up, walked over to the sofa, and sat down on it next to the two superheroines. Then, she put her feet up on the ottoman next to theirs. As she awaited for the arrival of their Mistress, she joined them in their droning repetitions:
"Severna Strickland is my Mistress. I am her slave. I will serve and obey her now and always. Whenever I am in Mistress's presence, I will be barefoot to show my total submission to her...."