She’d said she was done. Natalie hung up her phone as it once again went to Sofia’s voicemail. Sofia had promised Natalie she was done with that whole mess. Natalie called her again, pushing her phone away from herself as it rang through on speaker.

“You’ve reached Sofia. Leave me a message if you think I’ll call you back,” the recorded message played, followed by the beep.

“There were easier ways to get my attention,” Natalie said, quickly hanging up before she started rambling. She was already losing confidence. What if it hadn’t been Sofia? What if she’d kept her promise, and the only reason Natalie had called her up months later was to accuse her of a crime she hadn’t committed.

The truth was, deep down, part of her hoped the art gallery robbery in the news had been Sofia. How often had she seen the art thief since Sofia had promised to go clean? How long had it been since she’d talked to the sticky-fingered girl? She still thought about the cat burglar, on lonely nights, but their, well, whatever it was that they shared, hadn’t really survived without the Romeo and Juliet element. The art thief and the security specialist weren’t meant to be. At least not when the art thief went legit.

Natalie read the article again. Some new art gallery in Detroit had been robbed. The gallery owner hadn’t disclosed what had been stolen. Perhaps she should give him a call. Even if it wasn’t Sofia, she could do it as a professional courtesy.

A little digging on her laptop and she found the owner, one Anthony Brentwood. She couldn’t find much on him, probably some trust fund kid with more money than he knew what to do with. She tracked down a number and called it. It was late, but she had a feeling the gallery owner would be up.

She was about to hang up after it kept ringing without going to voicemail, when finally, a male voice answered.

“Hi. My name is Natalie Rafferty. I’m an independent security consultant. I was just reading about your recent break-ins and was hoping to talk to Mr. Brentwood.”

She listened, twirling her pen between her fingers.

“Yes, I was hoping to meet in person. I can be on a flight out to Detroit in the morning.”

She listened again, jotting down notes in the margins of her magazine.

“Absolutely, Mr. Brentwood. I’ll be in touch.”

Natalie hung up and considered calling Sophia again. She stared at her picture of the raven-haired beauty on her phone, her thumb poised above the dial button.

She’d wait. Whether Sofia was involved or not, Natalie was going to investigate the robberies regardless. Leaning over her laptop, she dove into her research.

Less than twelve hours later, she touched down in Detroit, and less than an hour after that her Uber dropped her off in front of the gallery. She hadn’t let Mr. Brentwood know she was there yet; she wanted an opportunity to check out the space by herself, unchaperoned.

She made note of all the security cameras as she entered, the pull down gates over the massive windows at the entrance, the metal detectors lining the doors. They weren’t new installations either, prompted by the recent robberies. Whoever had hit them had been good.

She made her way inside, stopping at the first exhibit. It was a painting, on a massive canvas stretching nearly all the way to the high ceilings and almost as wide as it was tall, done in thick oils that looked like they were still slowly dripping down towards the floor. It looked like a dark sea, comprised of a roiling mass of elongated arms seeming to reach out of the painting for her, broken up by disembodied mouths open in silent screams of horror.

“What do you think?”

Natalie jumped, startled by the voice behind her. She hadn’t even noticed someone approach her. The consultant turned, quickly composing myself. “It’s… not my favorite style of art,” she quickly backpedaled, not trying to insult as she realized whom she was speaking to. “But it is very… evocative.”

Mr. Brentwood was older than she’d guessed. From the pictures she’d found online she’d have put him in his late twenties, but seeing him in person he looked to be at least forty. She thought for a moment it was maybe the proprietor’s father perhaps, but he had that exact same self assured, half smile that he’d had in all the pictures. His salt and pepper hair suited him well though, and if he’d dyed it to appear older, as was becoming fashionable in certain art circles, he’d done an impeccable job.

Mr. Brentwood chuckled. “You don’t have to pretend to like it. The wonderful thing about art is that it’s not for everyone.”

It could have been pretentious or even insulting, but his tone did not convey that. “I’m sure there are other pieces more to my tastes. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I had arrived, Mr. Brentwood.”

“Please, call me Anthony.” He extended his hand. “I spotted you the second you walked in the door.”

“Natalie Rafferty,” she introduced herself, shaking his hand. “Pleasure to meet you. And if I stand out that much, perhaps I’m in the wrong line of work.” He’d obviously done a better job of researching her than she had of him.

“I’ll keep that in mind when the time comes to cut you a check for your services,” he said with a wry smile. “I’m glad you came though. Thieves and vandals come with the territory, regrettably, but anything you can do to help me would be greatly appreciated.”

“Hopefully I can help. From what I’ve seen so far, you’ve invested heavily in security.”

“What did the old guy in Jurassic Park keep saying? ‘I’ve spared no expense’?”

She nodded, assuming he didn’t realize what an ominous comparison he was making. “Your art isn’t going to get loose and try to kill us, is it?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“God I hope not, that would be just a little bit worse than some break-ins.”

“Just break-ins?” Natalie asked. The gallery hadn’t disclosed what, if anything had been stolen, but from what she’d read it had heavily implied that there had been theft. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was stolen?”

“Nothing was actually taken, but a few pieces were damaged in the attempts,” he said, staring back at the painting.

“How many attempts?”

He glanced around. The gallery floor was empty save for them, but she could still see the security guard at the front entrance. “Perhaps this is a conversation better had in private.”

“Of course,” she replied, following his gaze. “And if possible, I’d like to see what was damaged.”

“Of course. Right this way.” He led her to the elevators. Natalie was impressed to see a thumbprint reader, and Anthony provided his before discretely punching in a password, and the elevator began to descend.

“How many people have access to this floor?” she asked, noting the camera in the elevator the emergency hatch in the ceiling.

“Including me? Just one.” The elevator came to a stop. The LED reticle displayed B-2, but Natalie felt like they had descended more than two floors down.

“Your security doesn’t have access to this level?”

“I’ve found it best to only let people see what they absolutely need to see.”

Her unease grew. He’d given her plenty of warning signs that something about this whole thing was off, but this was a big red flag. “You play your cards close to the vest,” she replied, keeping her voice level. She still wanted to see if there was any evidence of the thief. Of Sofia.

“Of course. You can never be too careful.”

The temptation to heed his advice and stay on the elevator was strong, but Natalie followed him into a hall. The walls were lined with objects of varying shapes, all covered in black cloth. “Are these more art pieces?”

“Yes, a few items that don’t fit with the current layout of the gallery,” he explained casually, continuing down the hall.

Natalie glanced up, noting a lack of cameras in this hall. Now that she was looking, the walls and ceiling were conspicuously empty, not even an emergency exit sign or sprinkler. “Would pieces like these be targets for thieves?” she asked, slowing down as she passed a taller object. The black cloth draped over it didn’t come all the way to the floor, and she could just make out the bottom inch of whatever was hidden underneath. It looked like a shoe. A black high heel, from the brief glimpse she got.

“These, no. At one time, yes, but their value has diminished greatly.”

Natalie reached for the black cloth, her fingers hovering centimeters away. Her curiosity was battling away against her better judgment. Anthony had his back to her, still walking ahead down the corridor. She pushed her right hand back down to her side with her left and quickened her pace to keep up with him, her own sensible heels clicking on the floor as she hurried to catch up.

Anthony opened the single black door at the end of the hall. “After you,” he said, holding the door open for her.

“What is this?” The room was pitch black, and the woman couldn’t make out anything beyond about two feet inside where the dim light of the hallway illuminated a matte black floor.

“What you came all this way to see.”

If it was his attempt at being charming, she really didn’t appreciate the cryptic remarks and vague hints. Still, telling him off would likely cost her the job, and more importantly, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Sophia was somehow connected to all this.

Natalie stepped through the door, and began feeling around on the wall for a light switch. Anthony chuckled and pulled out his phone. A couple quick taps and swipes later, the lights came on, illuminating a large, square room, with high ceilings. Natalie squinted, making out several sizable objects spread around the room. Her eyes zeroed in on the largest object, in the dead center of the room. It was a bed, a king sized, four poster bed, its wrought iron frame carved in the likeness of thick, writhing tentacles, grasping upwards towards the heavens. Natalie noted the chains attached to the four corners, slipping out from between the intertwined appendages, with manacles at the ends. The mattress was covered not by sheets or blankets, but slick, black PVC.

“Is this an exhibit?” She’d seen a lot of weird art in her time, most of it that didn’t speak to her own tastes, and she was really, really hoping this was one.

“Of course,” Anthony said. He had crept up right behind her again, practically standing on top of her, and she jumped forward towards the bed in spite of herself. “It’s not quite finished yet. This one is more of a private piece.”

Sofia or no Sophia, that was her breaking point. “I’m sorry, Anthony, I really must be going. I didn’t realize how late it was, my associates are waiting for me,” she lied quickly, turning back towards the door.

“Don’t leave so soon, Natalie,” he said, grabbing her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me.” The security expert specialized in her own security as well, and Natalie grabbed his hand. She almost faltered, taken aback by how moist his previously dry palm was, but her training was ingrained, and she twisted his wrist back and shoved him away from her. Rubbing her hand on her pants, she backed towards the door while taking out her phone. Deep in the basement, she had no service, but still she got ready to dial 911.

“Feisty,” Anthony said, rubbing his wrist. He was following her, slowly as she backed towards the door.

“What the hell is this?”

“Come see for yourself. You’re overreacting, I promise.”

“You say exhibit, I see a creepy sex dungeon.” She backed up to the door, fumbling for the handling, never taking her eyes off of him.

“So narrow minded. Why can’t it be both?”

The door opened with a click, and she bolted through it, throwing it closed again behind her as she took off in a sprint for the elevator. She had no idea what he planned, but she had no intention of finding out. Natalie skidded to a halt in front of the elevator and began rapidly punching the call button. She spared a glance back over her shoulder. The hallway was empty, save for the drape-covered figures. Her mind went back to the shoes she thought she saw under one. Statues, maybe but they couldn’t be figures. She jumped as she thought she saw one of them move. “I can see you, you bastard!” she shouted, brandishing her phone like a weapon in front of her.

There it was again, a different staue this time, just the faintest fluttering of the black cloth.

She fumbled with her phone turning on the flashlight. The security specialist wiped sweat off her brow while she swung the light around, the shadows looming up all around wildly.

With a ding, the elevator door opened, and Natalie threw herself inside, praying she didn’t need his fingerprint and code to go back to the main floor. She slammed the “1” button, and the light around the button turned green. Swinging her light back towards the open door, she waited for the doors to close.

Something was moving out there.

Something weird.

Something not… human.

She grabbed her phone with both hands, steadying the light beam, but just as she focused on the amorphous black shape, the elevator doors closed.

Natalie collapsed against the back of the elevator, taking a huge sigh of relief. What the hell was that thing? The security specialist felt sick. Something was wrong; the whole situation was more than just off, it was…

She stared at the black screen of her dark phone. The shiny surface showed her reflection, and something above her, slithering across the ceiling.

Screaming, she spun around and pointed her flashlight up.

There was nothing there.

“Get it together, Nat,” she whispered to herself, slowly skirting the perimeter of the small metal box, eyeing the emergency hatch warily. She remembered the elevator taking a long time to go down, but it felt like it had been climbing even longer. “Come on,” she muttered, punching the button again and again. “Come on!”

She nearly dropped her phone when it started vibrating in her hand.

It was Sophia.  Sophia was calling her back.

She slammed her phone against her ear, keeping a wary eye on the hatch. “Hello? Sophia?”

There was no answer on the other end of the phone. The elevator door opened and Natalie dashed through, hoping it was just a weak signal. “Sophia! Hello!!!”

Heavy breathing came through the speaker into her ear. She knew that breathing, from the many times the thief had laid against her, their sweaty bodies pressed together amidst Natalie’s silk sheets, her breasts rising and falling with each husky pant.

“Sophia!!! Can you hear me!?!” She was running down the gallery floor towards the door. The lights were out, just the intermittent emergency lights illuminating the displays. Other than her, the massive room was empty. She smashed into the security gates pulled down in front of the doors.

“Sophia, stay on the line!” she banged on the gate, looking back and forth between outside the gates and her phone, wishing she remembered how to put a call on hold. It was broad daylight outside; there was no reason for the gallery to be closed. She could see people walking on the sidewalk outside, but the gates were at the top of a short set of stairs. They wouldn’t see her, trapped on the other side of gates, banging and screaming, but she tried anyways. “Hey!!!! Help!!!!!”

The pedestrians kept walking, oblivious. Turning her attention back to her phone, she tucked it back in between her shoulder and ear while she grabbed the gate with both hands, shaking and trying to lift it, but it didn’t budge. “SOPHIA!!!” she tried again.

Natalie fell silent, slowly letting go of the gate. Another noise was coming from her phone, drowning out the breathing.

Heavy, wet, slurping sounds. Visceral licking coming in over the breathing that was now rising in pitch.

“Going somewhere?”

Natalie turned slowly, and the room seemed to keep spinning when she stopped and stared at Anthony, standing at the far end of the gallery.

“What do you want?” she asked. Her phone wasn’t on speaker, but the lapping sounds had gotten loud enough to hear even as she lowered her phone to her side.

“You.”

Natalie ran. Her legs felt heavy and sluggish, but she forced them to move, putting one foot in front of the other as she bolted down the empty gallery floor. There had to be another way out, an emergency exit, a back door, something. There were safety codes put in place by the Fire Marshall for Christ’s sake.

“Where are you going?”

She could hear him behind her, but she didn’t dare look back to see how close he was on her tail. Something was wrong with her, and it took everything she had just to keep her legs under her. The security consultant risked a glance at her phone, knowing she needed to call for help. Sophia would have to wait; she was the one in immediate danger. The screen seemed to swim before her eyes. She swiping her thumb for where the end call button seemed to be, but the front of her phone felt wet and slippery under her touch. Still the slurping noises continued, the low moans growing louder. She tried again, but it was as if her thumb wasn’t responding. The tried adjusting her grip, but the phone slipped right out of her suddenly clumsy fingers, clattering to the floor behind her as she kept running.

“Shit,” she cursed, stumbling as she gave her phone one last glance behind her before she kept running, grabbing the wall for support. The wall felt slick and oily to the touch, and she furiously rubbed her hands on her skirt once she’d regained her balance. What in the world had she stumbled into?

“Natalie?” Anthony’s voice sounded distant, distorted, like she was underwater, but still she didn’t look back, running as fast as her increasingly unsteady legs would carry her.

And then she stopped.

She’d gotten a pretty good feel for the layout of the gallery when she came in. That was her job. There was no way she’d misjudged where she was so badly, even in her panic. There was just no way she could be back in front of that painting.

It loomed in front of her, the edges seeming to stretch out beyond the borders of her vision. The inky black tentacles seemed to reach out of the canvas, the viscous tentacles stretching towards her. She felt lost in a sea of nightmare appendages, adrift in a fathomless eternity of eldritch horror.

“Do you have a newfound appreciation of it yet?”

Natalie screamed as something wet and heavy grabbed her neck and shoulder. Damp, greasy fingers tightened around her. Her clumsy duck and floundering, blind shove behind her was a laughable imitation of the perfectly executed self-defense maneuver she’d executed earlier. Natalie stumbled forward, spinning to face her attacker. She lost her balance as she looked back see Anthony standing behind her, and she braced herself against the painting. Her hand slid across the surface, smearing through the thick layer of wet oil paint.

Anthony smiled, holding up his hands. He tugged back his sleeves and adjusted the thin, translucent gloves he was wearing over his hands. She hadn’t noticed those before. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Natalie looked at her hand, smeared in black paint. Her eyes widened as black tendrils sprouted from the paint, slowly spreading and crawling outward, enveloping her hand and moving up her wrist. “What— what is this?”

Anthony watched her stare at her hand. He could only imagine what she was seeing, but if she was anything like the others, it was tentacles or goo of some sort. The imagery put the idea in their head, and the strong hallucinogenic drugs coating his gloves and mixed into the paints did the rest. “It’s beautiful, is what it is,” he said, slowly advancing on her.

Natalie tried to dart away, but her movements were too sluggish, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her back against the painting, pressing the back of her neck against the drug-laced paint.

“Get off me!” She recoiled in horror as she saw his fingers elongate and blacken, wrapping around her. Her skin crawled in revulsion.

“It’s deeply erotic.” He held her against the painting, her struggles smearing the wet, inky mass behind her. “It absorbs through the skin. Just the briefest of contact, and it gets in your bloodstream, and then into your head.”

The wet feeling at the back of her neck tugged on her flesh. It felt like it was sucking her in, merging with her flesh. No, making her merge with it. “No!!!” His other hand, stretch and elongating before her eyes, grabbed the front of her dress, tearing it down.

“Your little cat burglar friend mentioned your name,” he smiled, casually tearing her clothes away from her writhing body.

“Sofia!” she cried, not caring what details she might be divulging.

“Ah, yes, that was her name. I almost forgot, but in my defense, I doubt she even remembers her own name anymore.” Too much exposure to the drugs had some pretty devastating effects on the mind. But he wasn’t interested in them for their minds. The effects it had on the body, on the other hand, that he quite liked. And so would she. “But she remembered your name.  Natalie,” he purred, doing an impression of Sophia’s thick accent.

The rational portion of Natalie’s brain was aware she was being drugged. She knew she was in trouble, that this man was easily overpowering her and things would only get worse if she didn’t escape. But little by little, the tentacles she could see in the edges of her vision, creeping in from behind her, from that awful painting, were slowly enveloping her, dragging her deeper into some unknown, unfathomable pit of darkness. A loud, euphoric scream came from her dropped phone, and she clung to that sound, a familiar voice in a sea of awful, echoing squelching. “Sophia!!!!”

“She kept screaming your name,” Anthony said, with one savage yank ripping her bra off. “Just like that. I’ll admit, I was curious, but I just had a first name. Imagine my surprise when you called me. It was fate!” He ripped through one side of her skimpy black panties, leaving them dangling off one hip, her pussy exposed. It took all his willpower not to take her right then and there, but he would wait. There was no need to expose himself to this much of the drugged paint. A little bit to enhance the act was one thing, but he didn’t want to end up a broken, tormented shell like all his playthings.

Natalie couldn’t even make out Anthony anymore, not as anything remotely resembling her human attacker anyways. A tangled mess of pulsating appendages tangled together in a barely humanoid shape was holding her naked body. A maw formed in the center of the creature, filled with too many tongues. “Would you like to see her?” a deep, gravelly, alien voice boomed.

Natalie screamed. Her mouth opened, allowing the tentacles to slither down her throat.

Anthony shook her as his newest toy started making choking noises. Perhaps he had given her too much drugs off the bat. He didn’t want to completely break her, at least not yet. Anthony pulled her away from the painting; her entire back side, from her upper thighs, her shapely buttocks, her nicely toned back, her feminine shoulders, to her slim neck, was painted black, the viscous, oily gel slathered thickly on her pale skin. Careful not to get any of it on his exposed skin, he hoisted her over his shoulder, and carried her back towards the elevator.

Natalie was in the grasp of the creature. Wet tentacles pulled at her back, but her front felt like it was being torn asunder by sandpaper, her hypersensitive flesh rejecting even the fine fabric of her captor’s suit. She would have done anything to feel the comparatively comforting embrace of tentacles sucking at her back.

Anthony couldn’t help himself, grabbing a handful of her paint-covered ass in his hand, not caring that his wrist was exposed to the hallucinogenic oils. He’d built up quite a tolerance to the stuff, and just a little would help him experience what his newest toy was feeling, to share in the new world he’d plunged her into. As the elevator began its descent, he could feel his perception distort. The four walls stretched out around him, and his stomach tensed as the shift in gravity heightened. He stopped groping her butt long enough to tear off one glove with his teeth, and then he really started kneading at her ass, feeling the power flow through his fingertips as they sunk into her supple flesh.

“I looked you up after you called me. When the cat burglar screamed your name I fantasized that you would be gorgeous, but the pictures didn’t do you justice.”

Natalie shuddered weakly atop his shoulder, a low moan escaping her wet lips. His five fingers on her butt felt like a million powerful tendrils, grabbing, squeezing, toying with her soft girl flesh.

“Maybe I’ll show her to you.” It took every ounce of self-control he had to keep his fingers out of her dripping snatch. The drugs often doubled as a potent aphrodisiac, and while her body was noticeably aroused, her hard little nipples digging into his back, stabbing him like tiny little spikes with each bounce her mild struggles produced, he knew from experience that the such a potent exposure to the drugs in that way would likely melt her poor little mind. Perhaps later.

The ding of the elevator was to her like the boom of thunder, and a massive gate opened behind her. Tentacles reached through, beckoning her closer towards their waiting clutches. “No!” she screamed, finding the cognizance to form that singular word of protest. But it fell on deaf ears. The abyss cared not for her opinion, and her captor carried her through the barrier into the inky black.

Anthony took her to a special room, occupied by two chains dangling from the ceiling and a single showerhead positioned above a drain in the tile floor. Natalie thrashed weakly as he locked the manacles around her wrists, letting her dangle beneath the showerhead. He grabbed her chin, looking into her eyes. Her pupils were fully dilated. “Oh, to see what you must be seeing right now,” he lamented.

“Gaaaaahhh!” she choked out a hoarse scream, the chains clinking as she reeled back, her bare feet toes dancing across the slippery floor.

He grabbed her left tit with his paint covered hand, leaving a perfect, black handprint over her jiggling globe of flesh, before smearing it immediately as he couldn’t help but grope her.

Natalie tried to pull away from the tentacle latched onto her boob. It felt like it was sucking, draining her, milking her of her very life essence. “Don’t!” she managed, her voice breathy. Whatever it was pulling from her, that void inside her was quickly filled by something else, a growing, desperate need, deep in the pit of her stomach. Those tentacles had ravaged her exterior, but she yearned for something more, to be penetrated, taken, consumed.

Anthony turned on the water. Immediately his plaything recoiled, screaming as cold water cascaded down on her naked body. He watched, his eyes momentarily torn from her perfect body to watch the paint swirling around the drain, a spiral that beckoned, growing in strength and power. He kicked off his shoes and tore his socks off and stepped into the water. Immediately he could feel the energy, running up his legs. He stepped under the cold shower, soaking his clothes even as he stripped out of them.

The monster before her appeared to be shedding its skin, the tentacles peeling back to reveal an unknowable being beneath them. Blood red lips curled back to reveal an infinite smile of blindingly white teeth. “Do you see me?” the mouth questioned, showing its impossibly long tongue.

Natalie tried to look away, but her eyes fixated on a drop of saliva at the tip of the creature’s tongue. She watched the drip slowly extend from the salivating muscle, extending slowly downwards, where she saw the creature’s other appendage rising as if to meet it. Thick, phallic, radiating with unearthly power, the growing yearning between her legs aches for it even as her mortal mind trembled in fear.

Anthony stroked his throbbing erection. The cold water felt like lava pouring down on him, but the sizzling pain only served to make him stronger. He’d never been so hard in his life, and his dick felt like it was ready to explode. His plaything looked even more exquisite as the barrier between water and paint and her flesh seemed to melt before his eyes. He grabbed her thick thighs, lifting her legs and spreading them. Two rivulets of black water ran down her hips, converging over her pussy, drawing his focus. He thrust into her, the residual drugs washing over their genitals at the same time. The feeling was electric.

For a moment, Natalie’s mind was clear. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to keep them closed. She still saw her rapist as an eldritch horror, but she recognized that what she saw was a product of the drugs, potent hallucinations that a man had given her. She could feel him inside her, this man who had kidnapped her friend, surely done similar, unspeakable things to her, and was now doing the exact same thing to her. She couldn’t trust her senses, but she could still escape if she just managed to keep her wits about her. All she had to do was stay focused.

Natalie opened her eyes, just in time to see that great, wide mouth open in front of her, its long, thick tongue snaking out, waggling before ramming into her own mouth. Her screams were muffled as the tongue pushed down her throat, pulsing, licking, slurping. All thoughts of escape were pushed out of her mind by the new invader. Natalie was lost to the creature.

Anthony ravaged his new plaything, time seeming to stretch out before him as he plowed the helpless, dangling mass of wet, female flesh before him. When he finally achieved climax inside her, the experience was spiritual, and for a moment in the euphoria he transcended his mortal form. He lived for those moments, a discovery he’d made in college when he’d raped his first victim, his art professor, high on mushrooms, and had visited another plane of existence. Since then he’d been perfecting his craft, experimenting with new drugs, kidnapping more and more women to take with him on his journeys. The art thief had been good, but at the apex of his transcendence, the cat burglar had called for this woman, and he’d known he needed to have her. Fate had brought her right to him. He’d reached across the cosmos and summoned her to him. It was meant to be.

Anthony turned off the water and sat naked on the cold floor, sitting cross-legged before his Natalie. He mediated, letting his mind level out while the unconscious girl dripped dry. He had great plans for this one. Perhaps he’d even reunite her with the cat burglar. A day ago, he wouldn’t have thought the poor thief’s broken mind would be able to recognize anything, not sealed away in her vacbed, drugged out of her skull, subjected to an automated licking machine, a devious invention of his own design, but now, he wasn’t so sure. There was something special about this new girl. Perhaps together, the three of them could reach new heights of ecstasy.