Chapter 7: Scissoring to the Bimbo Beat
The sun through the floral curtains cut the guesthouse bedroom into bars of gold and shadow. Diana woke curled into Lisa’s back, her nose pressed against the scent of last night’s sweat and expensive shampoo. Her body felt different. Loose. Used. Blissfully hollow.
The loop had stopped sometime in the night, but the words were still there, a phantom track playing behind her thoughts. Suckle, serve, obey.
Lisa stirred, stretching like a cat. She rolled over, her eyes meeting Diana’s. No morning-after awkwardness. Just a quiet, knowing assessment. “Hey,” Lisa said, her voice rough with sleep.
“Hey.” Diana’s smile came easily. “I had the weirdest dream. That we… and Sasha was… talking in my head.”
“Wasn’t a dream,” Lisa said. She propped herself up on an elbow. Her thumb stroked Diana’s bottom lip. “It was better. It was programming.” She said it with a tech-geek’s pride. “You’re rebooted. Running on a cleaner, simpler OS. No more nagging wifeware. You’re just… a good girl.”
Diana blinked. The words should have been alarming. They weren’t. They felt like a diagnosis that finally made sense. All that loneliness, that low-grade anxiety about Marcus, the vague sense that her life was a showroom no one visited… it was just messy, inefficient code. Sasha was the engineer.
“I feel clean,” Diana whispered. It was true. The guilt was gone. In its place was a warm, obedient stillness.
“That’s because you are.” Lisa swung her legs out of bed. “C’mon. We have a job today.”
“Job?”
“Sasha texted while you were drooling on my shoulder.” Lisa tossed Diana her robe. “We’re going to the main house. We’re helping Marcus… declutter.”
The main house smelled of lemon polish and stale coffee. Marcus was in the dining room, surrounded by teetering stacks of paper. He wore a pair of grey sweatpants and a faded t-shirt. The collar was absent, but a faint red line circled his neck, a ghost of it. He looked up as they entered. His eyes skittered from Lisa to Diana, then down to a spreadsheet.
“Mommy says you need help,” Lisa announced, not bothering with hello. She picked up a credit card statement from 2019. “What’s this? Five hundred dollars at ‘The Gentleman’s Closet’?”
Marcus flinched. “Suit rental. For a… a wedding.”
“Whose wedding?” Lisa pressed, leaning over the table. Her robe fell open slightly.
“My… my cousin’s.”
“Did you look good?” Diana asked. She wasn’t accusing. She was genuinely curious, leaning in to see the statement.
Marcus looked at her, confused by the tone. “I guess.”
“Probably spent the whole night pretending you were important,” Lisa mused, dropping the paper. “A big man in a rented suit. Pathetic.” She said it like she was noting the weather.
Diana giggled. “A big, spendy man. With a little, weak cock.”
The room went very quiet.
Marcus’s face flooded with color. His mouth opened, then closed. A tremor went through his hands.
Lisa’s eyebrows shot up. A slow, approving smile spread across her face. She looked at Diana as if she’d just recited perfect poetry. “Damn, girl. You’re getting it.”
Diana basked in the praise. It felt better than any compliment Marcus had ever given her. It was a token of membership.
Sasha entered, carrying a fresh pot of coffee. She’d heard. Her expression was placid. “Accuracy is important in our new economy,” she said, pouring a cup. “We name things by their true names. No more lies.” She handed the cup to Marcus. Her fingers lingered on his. “Isn’t that right, baby? The truth feels better.”
He nodded, his throat working. “Yes, Mommy. The truth… the truth is I’m a pathetic man with a weak cock who wasted all the moneyies.” The baby-talk register was back, fortified by public shame. He said it to the floor.
“Good boy,” Sasha said. She turned her smile to the women. “Your task. Every non-essential personal item of Marcus’s goes into boxes. Clothes, books, golf clubs, the stupid framed jersey in the office. We’re selling it. Liquidating his former identity to fund our future. Think of it as archaeology. You’re excavating the tomb of a failed man.”
It felt like a game. They started in the walk-in closet. Diana pushed aside her own modest collection of blouses and slacks to reveal Marcus’s side: rows of stiff button-downs, polos with tiny logos, khakis in three shades of beige.
“God, it’s like a uniform for a person who doesn’t exist,” Lisa said, pulling a blue oxford off the hanger and letting it drop into a black trash bag.
Diana ran her hand over a rack of ties. Silk, stripes, ugly patterns. Symbols of a daily performance. “He played dress-up,” she said, the realization dawning. “Every day. To go be the manager. To come home and be the husband. It was all a costume.”
“And the costume was boring,” Lisa stated. “Bag it.”
They worked methodically. Lisa was ruthless, tossing shoes, belts, a box of old cufflinks. Diana was more deliberate, holding items up, studying them as artifacts. A concert t-shirt from a band he didn’t even like. A pair of hiking boots with pristine soles. Each item told a story of aspiration, of a hollow man trying on different skins.
She found a small, velvet box buried on his top shelf. Inside was a silver money clip, engraved. To Marcus, All My Love, Diana. Our First Christmas.
She stared at it. The memory was flat, like a pressed flower. She’d been so proud of that gift. She’d saved from her receptionist pay. He’d hugged her, said he’d use it every day. He never did.
“Find something?” Lisa was beside her, looking at the clip.
“It’s nothing,” Diana said. She snapped the box shut and threw it into the bag. It landed with a soft thud. The gesture felt like pushing dirt over a grave. There was no sadness. Just a final click of a lock.
They moved to the home office. The leather chair. The framed jersey. Marcus’s bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Lisa took the diploma off the wall. “This is worth less than the frame,” she said, pulling the cardboard backing off. She slid the parchment out and, without a second’s hesitation, tore it in half. Then into quarters. She let the pieces flutter into the bag.
Diana watched, a thrill shooting up her spine. It was an act of pure blasphemy against the old world. She loved it.
Marcus appeared in the doorway, holding a stack of folded sweatpants. He saw the torn diploma in the bag. He stopped. A muscle twitched in his jaw. For a second, the old Marcus flickered behind his eyes—the man who’d worked sixty-hour weeks for that piece of paper, that validation.
Lisa saw it. She walked up to him, took the sweatpants from his arms, and dropped them into the bag on top of the diploma. “Problem?”
He stared at the bag. His shoulders slumped. The flicker died. “No, Mommy Lisa,” he murmured. “It’s just paper. For a boring man who doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Exactly.” She patted his cheek, a condescending tap. “Now go strip the bed. The master bedroom sheets smell like your old, anxious sweat. We’re burning them.”
He shuffled away.
By late afternoon, the dining room held ten bulging black bags and four sealed cardboard boxes. The physical evidence of Marcus Cole had been condensed into a sad, lumpy mound. The house felt lighter, echoes bouncing off newly empty closets.
Sasha inspected their work. She used the tip of her boot to nudge a bag of shoes. “Excellent. I’ve listed the high-value items online. The rest goes to consignment tomorrow.” She looked at Marcus, who was kneeling by the boxes, attaching shipping labels. “Does it hurt? Seeing your past in garbage bags?”
He thought about it. His face was eerily calm. “It feels… right, Mommy. Like a big poop. It was inside making me sick, and now it’s out.”
Diana laughed, a bright, unchained sound. Lisa joined in, leaning into Diana.
Sasha didn’t laugh. She smiled. “Perfect analogy.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “Your reward. A new file. For all three of you. A family meditation.”
That evening, they gathered in the stripped-clean master bedroom. The old king bed was bare, just a mattress. They sat on it in a triangle: Marcus, Diana, Lisa. Sasha stood before them, her phone connected to a small Bluetooth speaker.
“This is about integration,” she explained, her voice taking on that melodic, resonant tone. “Synchronicity. Breathe with me.”
The audio began. It was a complex, layered track. Underneath a soothing ambient hum, three distinct vocal lines wove together. One was Sasha’s voice, soft and maternal, speaking to Marcus: “You are my sweet, empty boy… your only job is to follow… to want nothing but my smile…” Another was a firmer, more instructional tone, aimed at Lisa: “Your leadership is a gift from me… you channel my will… your satisfaction is my design…” The third was the warm, honeyed whisper Diana knew from the ‘Bimbo Sluts’ loop: “You are the heart of the nest… your devotion is the glue… your pleasure is our ritual…”
The voices overlapped, never competing, creating a harmonic choir of submission, dominance, and devotion. It was impossible to listen to just one. The brain tried to follow all three, and in the effort, it let go. It stopped trying to parse and just… received.
Marcus’s breathing slowed, his eyes glazing as the “empty boy” refrain looped.
Lisa’s posture straightened with pride at the “leadership” line, her hand finding Diana’s.
Diana felt the “devotion” words seep into her bones, warming her from the inside. She looked at Lisa, then at the prostrate form of Marcus, and finally at Sasha, who watched them all with the serene focus of a composer hearing her symphony played perfectly.
The audio track built, the voices merging into a single, powerful suggestion: “Together… you are my system… my beautiful, functioning system… each part serving the whole… the whole serving me…”
When it ended, the silence was profound. No one moved. The hierarchy was no longer just understood; it was felt, physiologically, in the relaxed set of Marcus’s limbs, the possessive curl of Lisa’s fingers, the blissful surrender on Diana’s face.
Sasha broke the silence. “Lisa. Take Diana to the guesthouse. It’s time for her nightly conditioning. Use the new file I sent you. ‘Nectar.’ It’s… more advanced.”
Lisa stood, pulling Diana up. Diana followed, pliant, her eyes already searching Lisa’s for the next command.
Sasha waited until the back door clicked shut. She looked down at Marcus, who was still on the floor, his head leaning against the bare mattress.
“You did well today,” she said.
“Thank you, Mommy.”
“I have a special task for you. One only you can do.” She walked to her purse and pulled out a small, sleek digital voice recorder. She placed it in his hand. “I want you to go into the guesthouse. Quietly. Through the side window—it’s unlocked. I want you to place this under their bed. Then come straight back. Can you do that?”
He looked at the recorder. A tiny red light glowed. “Record?”
“Yes. I need to monitor their progress. To make sure Lisa is guiding her properly. It’s for their own good.” Her voice was all reason. “You’d be helping me take care of your girls. That’s a daddy’s job, isn’t it? To help Mommy keep everything safe?”
The word “daddy” hit him like a drug. It was a title, but one stripped of all authority. A utility. A helper. His fingers closed around the recorder. A sense of purpose, dark and servile, flooded him.
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Go now. Be my good spy.”
He moved through the dark backyard like a ghost. The side window to the guesthouse bedroom was, as promised, unlocked. He slid it open, the sound masked by the muffled, rhythmic beat of music from inside—a new track, with a deeper, pulsing bass. He could hear sighs. A low, encouraging murmur from Lisa. A hitched, desperate cry from Diana.
He didn’t look. He crouched, felt under the bed frame, and stuck the recorder to a slat, clicking it on. The tiny red light faced the floor, invisible.
He retreated, closing the window, and hurried back across the lawn. His heart hammered, not with fear, but with a twisted pride. He had a job. He was useful.
Sasha was waiting in the kitchen, sipping water. She didn’t ask if he’d done it. She saw it in his face.
“Good boy,” she said. She took the empty glass from him and set it in the sink. “Now come. The mattress is bare. But you don’t need sheets. You just need to kneel by the bed and watch the video. The one where I call you an empty vessel. I want you to watch it until your eyes won’t stay open. I want those words to be the last thing in your head before sleep.”
He went willingly. The screen glowed in the dark room. Her face appeared. Empty vessel.
In the guesthouse, Diana arched her back, her mouth open in a silent scream as the ‘Nectar’ file poured into her ears. Lisa’s mouth was on her breast, suckling hard, exactly as the voice instructed. The sensation was unbearable, a direct line from her nipple to her core, hijacking every nerve.
The voice sighed in her ear, “This is your purpose… to be the well… to be drunk from… your nectar is for us… for her… for me…”
Diana sobbed, clutching Lisa’s hair. She was the well. She was the nectar. It was all so simple.
Under the bed, the red light of the recorder glowed steadily, a silent, unblinking eye, capturing every gasp, every whispered obedience, every breakdown of a self that had once been a wife. It stored it all as digital data, another log entry for Sasha’s files, another layer of control in the beautiful, functioning system.
The red light glowed for another forty-seven minutes, capturing the slow, whispering aftermath of the ‘Nectar’ file, before its memory card filled and it clicked off. Dawn was a grey suggestion behind the floral curtains when the pounding started.
It wasn’t at the guesthouse. It was a hard, impatient fist hammering against the front door of the main house. The sound cracked through the neighborhood’s quiet like gunshots.
Marcus jerked awake from where he’d finally crumpled on the floor beside the bare mattress. His neck was stiff. The tablet had gone dark. The words empty vessel were a faint echo in a mind now ringing with alarm. He scrambled up, his sweatpants twisted.
Sasha was already in the hallway, tying a silk robe closed. Her movements were swift, but her face was different. The placid control was gone, replaced by a taut, calculating alertness. Something else flickered beneath it—apprehension.
“Get the door,” she said, her voice low. It wasn’t a Mommy-command. It was an order from a lieutenant.
Marcus stumbled to the front door, peering through the sidelight. A man stood on the porch. He was tall, with the broad, solid frame of a former athlete now running to thick muscle. His hair was cropped short, his jaw shadowed. He wore a dark work jacket and jeans, and he looked like he’d been driving all night. His expression was not curious, not friendly. It was intense, expectant, and deeply irritated.
Marcus unlocked and opened the door a few inches. “Can I help—”
The man pushed the door open, brushing past Marcus as if he weren’t there. His eyes scanned the sterile living room, the empty hooks where pictures had been, the boxes of Marcus’s life stacked by the wall. His gaze landed on Sasha.
“There you are,” the man said. His voice was a dry rasp, devoid of warmth. “Took me twelve fucking hours. You stopped pinging the towers near campus three days ago.”
Sasha’s posture changed. She seemed to shrink, just a little. Her shoulders rounded slightly. The angelic face softened into something pleading. “Brad. I was going to call.”
“Yeah?” Brad took a few steps into the center of the room, a dominating presence. “Your phone’s been going to voicemail. Professor Eamon is pissed. You missed two labs.” He finally looked at Marcus, a quick, dismissive up-and-down. “Who’s this?”
Marcus felt his mouth go dry. This man’s energy was a physical pressure. “I’m… this is my house. I’m Marcus.”
Brad’s eyes narrowed. He looked back at Sasha. “What’s the play here, Sash? You squatting?”
“It’s not squatting,” she said, her voice taking on a light, girlish quality Marcus had never heard. She took a step toward Brad, her hands fluttering nervously. “It’s a… a dynamic living situation. I was going to tell you. It just got complicated.”
“Complicated.” Brad let the word hang. He walked over to the boxes, toed one labeled ‘Marcus – Office.’ “You collecting strays again? Is that the thesis project? The fuck is all this?”
“It’s… we’re liquidating assets. For the household.” Sasha was wringing her hands slightly. “Brad, I can explain everything. I’ve made real progress here. You’d be so… you’d see the potential.”
Marcus watched, stunned. His Mommy was gone. In her place was a nervous young woman seeking approval from this bristling, angry man. The foundation of his new world gave a sickening lurch.
Brad grunted, unimpressed. He walked up to Sasha, looming over her. “You look tired. You eating?” He cupped her chin, not gently. It was an inspection.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, leaning into his touch.
“You’re not fine. You’re off-script.” He dropped his hand. “Pack a bag. You’re coming home. We’ll square the professor. You can finish your notes there.”
“Brad, I can’t just leave.” Her protest was weak, automatic.
“You can. You will.” His tone brooked no argument. He glanced at Marcus again. “What’s his deal? He’s just standing there.”
Sasha followed his gaze. For a second, the old Sasha flashed in her eyes—a cold, assessing intelligence. Then it was dampened, folded under Brad’s presence. “Marcus is… he’s part of the environment. A subject. He’s been very compliant.”
“Compliant,” Brad repeated. He stared directly at Marcus. “You the owner?”
Marcus nodded, his throat tight.
“And you just let some college girl move in and sell your shit?” A contemptuous smile touched Brad’s mouth. “Pathetic.”
The word, coming from him, was a hammer blow. Marcus felt himself flush with a shame more profound than any Sasha had engineered. This man saw him instantly, saw through everything, and found him worthless.
“He’s… useful,” Sasha offered, a weak defense.
“I bet.” Brad walked over to the dining table, littered with the remaining financial papers. He picked up a statement, glanced at it, snorted. “You’re auditing him? Christ, Sasha. This is small-time. This is noise.” He dropped the paper. “Where’s the real data? The biometrics? The sleep tracking? Or are you just playing house?”
Sasha’s composure cracked slightly. “The methodology is sound. The conditioning is layered. I have audio logs, behavioral shifts, a full psychological transfer in the secondary subject—”
“Spare me the undergrad presentation.” Brad cut her off. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look. You’re brilliant. You’re also nineteen and your judgement goes to shit when you get obsessed. This…” He gestured around the beige room. “This is a dollhouse. Come back to the lab. The real work is there.”
The back door from the kitchen swung open. Lisa stood there, frozen, wearing one of Diana’s robes. Her hair was messy. She’d clearly been drawn by the voices. Diana hovered behind her, eyes wide.
Brad’s attention snapped to them. His intensity didn’t waver, but it changed focus, becoming analytical. “More subjects,” he stated, flatly.
Lisa found her voice first. “Who are you?”
“Brad. Sasha’s husband.” He said it like it was obvious, a fact of nature.
The word husband landed in the room like a physical object. Marcus felt the air leave his lungs. Lisa’s jaw went slack. Diana just blinked, processing.
Sasha flinched, ever so slightly. “We’re separated,” she said quickly, to Brad, not to them.
“Legally? No.” He turned his gaze on Lisa, looking her up and down with a cold, professional interest. “You’re the proxy, right? The dominant secondary. She always uses one. Lets her keep her hands clean.” He took a step closer. “How’s the coding taking? You having dreams in her voice yet?”
Lisa took an involuntary step back, bumping into Diana. Her façade of cool leadership evaporated under this man’s disarming, brutal perception.
Brad smiled, a thin, humorless line. “Yeah. It’s taking. And this one?” He looked at Diana. “The receptive. The blank slate. She’s probably writing poetry about Sasha’s eyes by now.” He shook his head, a teacher disappointed by a simple experiment. “It’s a cute little triad, Sasha. But it’s kindergarten.”
Sasha looked stricken. Her need for his approval was a naked, vibrating thing in the room. “It’s a foundation. The control is absolute.”
“Is it?” Brad challenged. He walked right up to Marcus. “Hey. Marcus. Look at me.”
Marcus looked. Brad’s eyes were dark, utterly focused.
“If I told you to get on your knees and bark like a dog, would you do it?”
Marcus’s mind went white. The command didn’t come with the seductive warmth of Sasha’s voice. It was a cold, hard challenge. His body, trained over weeks, began to fold. His knees trembled.
“Don’t,” Sasha said, the word sharp.
Brad held up a hand, silencing her without looking. He kept his eyes on Marcus. “Well?”
Marcus’s knees hit the polished hardwood. A small, pathetic whimper escaped his throat.
Brad watched, nodded once. “Basic operant conditioning. Praise and shame. You built a reflex.” He turned back to Sasha. “See? He’d do it for anyone who pushes the right buttons now. That’s not control. That’s just breaking something. I thought you were beyond breaking things.”
Tears welled in Sasha’s eyes. They weren’t manipulative. They were real, brimming with a frustrated, desperate yearning. “You don’t see the whole picture,” she pleaded.
“I see enough.” Brad’s voice softened, just a fraction. It was the first hint of something that wasn’t sheer intensity. “You’re wasting your talent here, kitten. This is beneath you. Come home. Your real work is waiting.”
He called her kitten. The infantilizing pet name hung in the air, and Sasha leaned toward it, toward him, like a plant toward the last sun.
Marcus knelt on the floor, forgotten. He watched the woman who had unraveled him and rebuilt him as a pet now herself unraveling, seeking validation from this terrifying man. The beautiful, functioning system had a designer. And the designer had a husband.