The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The tires crunched over cracked asphalt as Rachel’s cruiser rolled to a stop dead-center on the runway’s faded yellow markings. Sun-bleached weeds jutted through fissures wide enough to swallow a man’s boot. Through the windshield, the control tower’s skeletal remains stood silhouetted against the Arizona sky, its windows gaping like empty eye sockets.

Binning killed the engine with a twist of his wrist. The silence that followed was absolute: no birds, no insects, just the creak of cooling metal and the dry rasp of tumbleweeds skittering across crumbling tarmac.

Rachel unfolded her long body from the front seat of the cruiser and watched as two of her deputies climbed out of the other vehicle. “Don’t look around, ” she instructed, “but what’s your basic impression of this place?”

“Somethin’s tellin’ me this place ain’t worth botherin’ about,” Vernon muttered. He approached a rusted landing light housing. The corroded metal looked like it would collapse like a rotten pumpkin.

Colón adjusted his sunglasses, scanning the derelict hangars with a physicist’s eye. “Yeh, well it ain’t. Just look at it.” His boot scuffed a thick layer of dirt from the edge of the runway. “Ain’t nothin’ been here since the war.”

Rachel’s knuckles cracked as she interleaved her fingers and flexed them. The mid morning sun cast knife-sharp shadows from the skeletal control tower, painting the group in zebra stripes of light and dark. “And yet,” she said quietly, “the Air Force rebuilt everything last year.” Her boot traced a crack in the pavement wide enough to swallow a rattlesnake. “New hangars. New workshops. New structures... even a damn firehouse.”

The wind shifted and Binning muttered. “Smell that?”

Vernon inhaled deeply through his nose; jet fuel, fresh concrete, something faintly metallic. His spine straightened like a hound catching scent. “It’s faint,” he said quietly, “but that ain’t a decades-old stink.”

A crow landed on the control tower’s broken railing. Its head cocked at an unnatural angle as it studied them with one black, gleaming eye. Rachel’s boot scuffed a patch of pavement where the asphalt wasn’t just cracked, it was melted, fused into glassy ripples radiating outward from a central point.

Colón crouched, fingertips brushing the smooth surface. “That would take a directed energy weapon. Maybe plasma-based.” His voice sounded too loud in the unnatural quiet. “This happened recently. Weeks, not years.”

Binning examined a wide crack in the surface: he nudged a chunk of concrete with his boot but there was only soil underneath where there should have been rebar showing or at least some sort of hardcore foundation.

The crow exploded into flight without warning, wings beating frantic circles overhead before vanishing into thin air mid-flap.

Rachel chuckled. “Okay, that’s new.”

The radio in Vernon’s cruiser suddenly crackled to life, spewing static so loud it made their teeth vibrate. Through the white noise, a voice screamed in truncated bursts: “...uck...ey’re...ot re...” Before cutting off with a pop that left their ears ringing.

Colón’s fingers twitched toward his sidearm. “That was Wendy’s dispatch frequency.”

Binning’ pulled his stetson low and used the brim as a sun shield as he scanned the horizon. Nothing moved except heat shimmer distorting the air above the runway. Then a smell hit them: burnt metal plus ozone and something wetter, like old style oilcloth. Rachel’s nostrils flared. She knew that scent. It it was the one that you got when the air was heavy... just like before a thunderstorm.

Vernon rubbed at his arms where the hairs stood upright. “Place feels... wrong.”

Rachel’s boots crunched over glassified asphalt toward the nearest hangar. The corrugated metal sheeting peeled back like the skin of something... something diseased. Even the steel framework was distorted, almost as if something massive had pressed against it from the inside. She ran her eyes over a beam: it looked ancient and pitted like the skeleton of some beached sea beast.

The place looks decrepit... Ancient... She thought, and as the idea formed, the crow popped back into existence and landed on a twisted girder.

Still very much a physicist, Colón crouched by a melted runway light and examined it scientifically, he frowned and then, poking at the rusted fragments with a pen, chuckled. “These fractures aren’t typical oxidation patterns.” He pointed to a twisted metal shard. “See these spiral fractures? That’s consistent with rapid thermal cycling. It looks like someone heated this to two thousand degrees, then flash-cooled it in seconds.”

The crow vanished again as did the tumble weed that was blowing across the runway.

Rachel turned to Binning, her fingers tapping a silent rhythm against her holstered revolver. “Where’s Kaywaykla?”

“At home, Sheriff. He’s on a rest day.” Binning’s voice was steady, but his eyes swiveled to one side; a quick nod of the head toward the skeletal hangars behind them.

Binning’s nod was subtle, but Rachel caught it: the Apache Deputy was here, somewhere behind them, somewhere near the rusted and twisted metal that groaned in the dry wind.

Rachel crooked a finger, calling them in tighter. The deputies formed a loose semicircle, their boots crunching glassified asphalt. “ that fog a few days back?” She murmured. Binning and Vernon exchanged knowing grins, but Montanez didn’t, he’d been chasing cattle rustlers near Dry Gulch when the town vanished under that eerie mist.

“Right.” Rachel’s Stetson cast a sharp shadow across her face as she pointed at the crumbling hangar. “This place ain’t some wartime relic. It’s brand fuckin’ new, exactly how the Air Force crew rebuilt it last year.” She tapped her temple. “Look at it proper and believe.”

Vernon stepped forward first, shoulders rolling like a man shaking off a bad dream. His eyes lost focus for three slow breaths, then widened. The rusted hangar doors shimmered like heat haze, resolving into dull-green painted sheet. Fresh tire marks appeared on the runway, cutting through phantom weeds. “Sonuvabitch.” He whispered, touching the suddenly smooth surface of a landing light housing. “It’s like them magic eye posters my grandkids got.”

Binning let out a low whistle as the illusion unraveled for him too. One moment he was staring at corroded metal and shattered concrete; the next, at a pristine control tower, locked and sealed, but perfect. His boot scuffed not dirt, but fresh hydraulic fluid stains. “Hell. Even smells like JP-8 now.”

Montanez blinked rapidly, fingers twitching near his sidearm. “I don’t...” The physicist’s protest died as Rachel caught his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“Stop thinking with your degree, Colón.” She patted her chest. “Feel it here first. See it with your heart, as Waya would say.”

Montanez grunted, his fingers twitching near his sidearm as his vision flickered between two impossible realities: one where the airfield lay in sun-bleached ruins, the other where freshly rebuilt and painted hangars gleamed under Arizona sun. The two versions alternated like a broken film reel: rusted metal one second, then pristine concrete the next. The crow materialized mid-flight, wings frozen in a stuttering loop of existence and erasure. “This is impossible!” The deputy’s voice cracked as the derelict version stabilized, weeds pushing through cracks that hadn’t existed seconds before.

Rachel stepped into his line of sight, her silhouette cutting through the visual static. “Concentrate, Colón.” Her thumb hooked toward the distant perimeter where chain-link fencing glittered: too new, too taut to belong to any abandoned site. “They wouldn’t fence off ruins. Think of the security cameras they installed last last year. You were there when they did.”

Binning crouched, pressing his palm against asphalt that fluctuated between crumbling and smooth. His stetson shadowed his face as he murmured, “Land re what people forget.” The moment the words left his lips, the runway solidified into its true state... freshly sealed blacktop stenciled with crisp yellow markings. The crow vanished mid-caw.

Montanez inhaled sharply as the illusion peeled away layer by layer: rust became fresh paint, fractured concrete became immaculate blacktop. His scientific mind rebelled even as his gut recognized the truth. “Quantum decoherence.” He whispered, staring at his own hand as it ed through a phantom tumbleweed. “Two superimposed states, one collapsing under observation bias.”

Rachel chuckled, cutting him off before he could rationalize everything back to a ruin. “Yeh, that’s right... I think. If it works for you, hold onto that thought!”

The radios crackled to life with startling clarity;... no static, no interference: just Wendy’s crisp dispatch voice slicing through the desert air like a scalpel. “Sheriff? You’ve got reinforcements en route, ETA in a few minutes...”

As Rachel watched Venon poured himself a coffee out of his thermos. “Yeh, good idea, Steve: ain’t nothin’ else to do at the moment.”

Montanez looked bemused, then shrugged and reached for his own thermos of coffee: with road trips the norm it was second nature to carry a supply of hot coffee.

“Okay,” Rachel said quietly, her fingers curling around the thermos lid with deliberate nonchalance, “act casual ’n we’ll all have a coffee break...” She poured steaming black liquid into a tin cup, the scent of burnt chicory rising like camouflage. “Don’t look around but my cop sense is tellin’ me we’re bein’ watched, an’ it ain’t just Kaywaykla.”

The deputies did as she said and within less than a minute they were drinking coffee, their postures deliberately slack as steam curled from tin cups in the desert heat. Vernon blew across the surface of his brew, the motion hiding his lips as he muttered, “If’n this don’t convince them Nordics that we’re stumped, nothin’ will.” His boot nudged a phantom tumbleweed that flickered in and out of existence, its dry rustle the only sound beyond the occasional sip of too-hot coffee.

Rachel leaned over the cruiser’s hood, her long legs crossed at the ankle as if she hadn’t a care in the world. The tin cup looked almost comically her hands. “Five gets you ten they’re studyin’ our thermal signatures right now.” She murmured, watching Colón pretend to examine his shoelaces while actually scanning the western skyline. His fingers twitched, Rachel recognized the telltale sign of a man resisting the urge to pull out his phone and document impossible phenomena.

The desert air split with the shriek of burning rubber. They turned as one to see a cruiser crest the ridge in a spray of dust and gravel, fishtailing wildly before screeching to a halt mere feet from their coffee circle. Deputy Siobhan Nolan practically launched herself from the driver’s seat, her boots kicking up a small dust storm as she skidded to a stop. “I was heading back from Black Mesa when I heard you might need back-up, Sheriff.” Her chest heaved slightly under her khaki uniform, strands of dark hair escaping from her braid.

From the enger side, veteran Deputy Carl Moffitt unfolded himself with the careful deliberation of a man whose ts ed every one of his seventy-six years. His knobby fingers gripped the door frame for balance as he stepped out, but his pale eyes were sharp as flint. “One last round-up, Rachel?” The old man’s voice carried the dry humor of someone who’d seen enough strange things to stop being surprised. His ancient Colt Peacemaker hung at his hip, an artifact from another time; however, the thing he was holding was modern.

“What on earth you got there, old timer?” Ed Binning asked.

“’lectric cattle prod, son.” The old man chuckled. “Very useful for persuading stubborn critters to move.”

They didn’t have long to enjoy there coffee before a melodic bird song sounded out across the airfield. “Was that a Canyon Towhee?” Montanez, still a city boy at heart, inquired.

Rachel listened as the bird repeated it’s classic five-part call. “Sounds like it to me.”

It echoed across the airfield: once again but Carl Moffitt froze mid-sip, coffee dripping unnoticed from his cup. “That ain’t no Towhee, boy,” he murmured, his rheumy eyes suddenly locking onto Rachel’s face, “is it, Sheriff?”

Ed Binning’s grin split his sun-weathered face as he set down his tin cup. Without hesitation, he repeated the call note-perfect, adding a sixth warble at the end. The sound hung in the desert air like a challenge.

“Not bad,” the old man said as he carefully lowered his tin cup. “I take it that means something?”

Rachel was already moving, her boots kicking up dust as she strode toward the right-hand hangar. “Damn right it does,” she growled over her shoulder. “Now if y’all follow me quietly, we’re heading over to where Kaywaykla’s been watching this whole damn show.”

The group moved like shadows across the tarmac, their footsteps muffled by the same eerie silence that had swallowed the false Towhee’s song. Rachel’s hand hovered near her revolver as they approached the hangar’s side door, slightly ajar, with fresh scuff marks in the dust.

Siobhan’s fingers traced the door frame’s smooth edge, her brow furrowing as she glanced between the pristine hinges and the hangar’s rust-pocked exterior. “This doesn’t make sense, the door looks fresh installed, but the rest...” Her voice trailed off as Montanez launched into an explanation involving “quantum superposition” and “temporal dissonance fields,” gesturing wildly until Binning mimed catching the words midair and stuffing them in his pocket.

Kaywaykla materialized between them like a heat mirage resolving into solid form, his uniform crisper than Arizona dry-cleaners could manage. Binning jerked back half a step. “Christ on a cracker, where’d you...”

“Around.” Kaywaykla said, his eyes never leaving the hangar’s shadowed interior. Rachel caught the way his fingers twitched toward his service weapon, not fear, but anticipation, like a hound catching scent.

“Something’s happening in there.” He murmured. The words hung between them, weighted with unspoken implications. Rachel’s nod was barely perceptible, but Kaywaykla moved as if she’d shouted orders, slipping through the gap with the liquid grace of a man who’d spent a lifetime moving through hostile terrain unnoticed.

The darkness swallowed him whole.

Rachel grabbed the Maglite from her belt with a practiced twist of her wrist, its weight familiar as an old friend. The beam sliced through the hangar’s darkness like a blade illuminating dust motes swirling in perfect geometric patterns that defied gravity. Binning shoved the door wider with his shoulder, hinges groaning a protest that echoed unnaturally in the cavernous space.

The light revealed nothing.

Not just emptiness but a void so complete it swallowed the beam a whole three feet in. Rachel’s pulse jumped as she angled the flashlight upward, revealing industrial rafters that shouldn’t be there. The Air Force specs she’d memorized showed a simple pitched roof. These arched like a cathedral’s ribs, vanishing into shadows that pulsed faintly purple.

“Sonofa...” Binning’s curse cut off when his boot scuffed something metallic. The Maglite dipped to reveal a chicken feeder:bright red plastic, still half-full of corn. The Maglit’s beam caught something that could have been a chicken coup. Fresh scratch marks radiated outward from the feeders in precise spirals, as if something had spun it like a top.

Montanez crouched, physicist’s fingers hovering millimeters above the scratches. “These grooves...” He hesitated. “They’re fractal. Down to the micron level.”

Rachel’s boot nudged the chicken feeder, its red plastic wobbling unnaturally. “Ain’t no chickens in here...” She muttered, eyes narrowing. “Chickens are a cat thing.” The moment the words left her lips, the feeder pulsed violet... once... twice before dissolving into motes of light. The phantom coup collapsed inward like a deflated balloon, its wire mesh unraveling into threads of silver vapor that curled upward toward the impossible rafters.

Siobhan Nolan’s hand shot out, catching a drifting strand. It coiled around her fingers like living smoke before dissolving. “Illusion.” She breathed. “But why?”

A metallic screech cut him off as the hangar’s far wall rippled. Colón staggered back as the corrugated steel peeled away like stage scenery, revealing endless desert stretching into twin sunsets: one sinking behind familiar mountains, the other hovering above an alien skyline studded with crystalline spires.

Rachel’s revolver cleared leather before the second sun finished appearing. “Eyes sharp for whatever’s screwin’ with this place.” She growled.

The desert mirage shuddered. For one vertiginous moment, both landscapes overlapped, sagebrush growing through glowing alien machinery, tumbleweeds rolling across a floor that was simultaneously concrete and polished obsidian. Then the illusion snapped like a rubber band, leaving blackness once more cut only by the beams from their Maglites.

“Rachel, yo’ sure that it’s dark in here?” Moffitt’s voice cut through the sudden silence, his rheumy eyes reflecting something none of them could see.

Rachel blinked. The hangar wasn’t dark and probably hadn’t been dark when they stepped inside. It was illuminated by bright actinic lights, four of them hovering beneath the high pitched roofs like artificial suns.

The hangar’s sudden illumination revealed the Nordic scout ship with cruel clarity: a sleek obsidian disk humming with energy near the main doors. Rachel’s breath caught at the sight of the equipment arrays stretching toward the far wall: pulsating organic-looking machinery that resembled living bone grafted with chrome. Between them, penned like livestock, stood about two dozen naked human women: blondes and redheads mostly, their vacant eyes reflecting the alien glow. Three were partially encased in the machinery, their heads, breasts, and torsos disappearing into ribbed metallic sleeves that pulsed with bioluminescent fluid. One woman’s mouth lolled open as silver filaments threaded into her nipples.

As the deputies watched, her breasts swelled from an insignificant A-Cup until she was bigger than ‘H’ within seconds. The Sheriff knew her by sight: she was a clerk at City Hall in Wide-Awake... Her town.

Rachel’s knuckles whitened around her revolver as the nearest Nordic technician looked up from its work. Taller than any human, blue-eyed, golden-haired and shapely, she regarded them with the disionate curiosity of a scientist observing lab rats. Her companion continued adjusting dials on the console of a device attached to a captive brunette’s spine. Neither showed alarm, only mild irritation at the interruption.

“Sheriff...” Siobhan’s whisper was uncomfortably breathless. Rachel didn’t need to glance sideways to know her deputy’s pupils had dilated, the Nordic’s pheromonal signature hit like a freight train, all icy musk and ozone. A third alien strode toward them with effortless grace, its thigh-high boots clicking on concrete.

“You are not authorized here.” The Nordic’s voice resonated inside Rachel’s skull more than her ears, each syllable polished smooth by centuries of practice. Behind her, Montanez gasped as the alien’s true form flickered at the edges limbs a little too long for a human, although the proportions were close. She was stunningly beautiful, and yet... And yet he was receiving a distinct impression that something was enhancing that beauty and he didn’t think it was makeup.

Rachel spat at the Nordic’s feet. The globule never hit the ground, freezing midair before dissolving into mist. “I’m authorized everywhere in my county.” Her thumb eased the revolver’s hammer back with an audible click. “Specially when someone’s butcherin’ my constituents.”

Rachel clenched her thighs together as warmth pooled between them, her body betraying her with a visceral reaction to their pheromones.

God, you’re beautiful. She thought helplessly, watching the alien’s perfect lips part in confusion. The unwanted attraction curdled instantly into molten rage, these creatures were mutilating her townsfolk like livestock.

“Get your people aboard that ship,” Rachel growled through gritted teeth, “and get the hell out of Dodge.” The Nordic’s sculpted eyebrows knitted together in genuine puzzlement, her head tilting with birdlike precision. Rachel saw the exact moment her colloquialism failed to translate: the alien’s nostrils flared as she parsed the idiom literally, scanning the hangar for someplace called “Dodge.”

Rachel’s boot slammed down hard enough to crack concrete. “I said leave!” Her roar shattered the hangar’s eerie stillness, sending startled echoes bouncing off the rafters. The Nordic physically recoiled, blonde hair whipping back as if struck by gale-force wind. Behind Rachel, Carl Moffitt’s cattle prod sparked ominously, its crackle underscoring her threat.

The Sheriff’s revolver didn’t waver. “Don’t make me arrest you.” The absurdity of the statement almost made her lips twitch. Almost.

While Rachel held the aliens’ attention, her deputies moved with silent precision. Binning ghosted left toward the humming machinery, his fingers already working the release on his tactical knife. Siobhan flowed right, her braid swinging like a pendulum as she positioned herself between the Nordics and their captives. Only old Carl remained rooted beside Rachel, his rheumy eyes tracking every micro-expression on the lead Nordic’s face.

Siobhan’s nostrils flared the moment the Nordic pheromones hit her, a sort of icy musk with a hint of warm pussy and an undercurrent of something impossibly sweet. Her pupils dilated instantly, the breath catching in her throat as her body moved before her brain could protest. With a feral growl that startled even Rachel, the deputy launched herself at the nearest Nordic, tackling the towering blonde with the reckless abandon of a woman possessed. The two women hit the ground with a thud: Nolan being the one on top.

The alien’s surprised yelp was cut short as Siobhan’s lips crashed against hers, her hands had tangling in platinum strands as they tumbled to the concrete. The Nordic’s arms flailed for half a second before wrapping around Siobhan with startling enthusiasm, her initial shock melting into something far more reciprocal. The kiss was messy, desperate, and utterly distracting which was just what Rachel needed.

“Now that’s what I call diplomatic relations,” Binning muttered, already in motion as the other Nordics gaped at their entangled comrade.

Rachel didn’t waste the opening. Her revolver barked once: a warning shot that shattered the humming console beside the lead technician’s head. Sparks erupted as the machinery, or whatever it was, squealed. The brunette captive gasped as the spinal connections retracted with a wet squelch and the device fell away and crashed to the floor.

“Next one’s between your eyes, darlin’.” Rachel drawled, thumbing the hammer back again. “And trust me, I don’t miss.”

It was all buff as the Sheriff well knew that bullets could not penetrate the aliens’ body shields. But may be... Just may be the alien’s confusion would make them forget this.

The third Nordic’s long fingers were buried wrist-deep between the plump blonde’s spread thighs, manipulating some glistening chrome device that pulsed with bioluminescent fluid. The restrained woman’s back arched violently as the alien toy flickered inside her. She moaned, but it wasn’t from pain or discomfort.

Montanez and Binning hit the seven-foot-tall technician like a linebacker sandwich. The probe slipped free with a wet pop as they dragged her down, the device skittering across concrete with a high-pitched whine.

Rachel’s revolver flashed before the first Nordic completed her lunge. The bullet producing a cascade of orange sparks when it struck an invisible barrier fractions of an inch from the alien’s perfect nose. Carl’s cattle prod, however was traveling slowly enough to penetrate. Seventy-thousand volts arced through the Nordic’s thigh with a sound like bacon frying. Her platinum hair stood out as she folded like bad origami and lay twitching at Rachel’s feet.

“Human’s three, Alien scum nil.” Rachel chuckled... However her smirk died as a fourth Nordic emerged when the ship’s side opened. This one clad in form-fitting black garment that gleamed like oil on water. She moved differently to the others: a predator’s grace that made Rachel’s trigger finger itch.

The black-clad Nordic stood on the rim of the ship and surveyed the chaos with glacial calm. Her gaze lingered on Siobhan, now bare-breasted and grinding against her equally disheveled captive, before flicking to the sparking cattle prod in Carl’s gnarled hands. When she spoke through some sort of amplifier that caused her voice resonated deeper than the others, its sub-sonic componants vibrating the fillings in everyone’s teeth. “Primitive. But effective.”

Montanez was thrown backwards as the technician they had tackled suddenly seemed to perform a back-flip and then a forward roll which allowed her to part company with the two Deputies. The probe device levitated back into her palm as she seemed to flow gracefully upright with boneless grace. “They damaged the conversion matrix.” She reported, gesturing to the ruined console.

Then as the black-clad figure was distracted, Kaywaykla emerged from the shadows beneath the scout ship like smoke given form, his moccasins silent on the concrete. He reached up and his fingers closed around the Nordic’s ankle with the precision of a rattler striking: one sharp twist sent her toppling backward into the ship’s interior with a startled yelp. Before the other aliens could react, the pump-action shotgun materialized in his hands as if conjured from the desert air.

The first blast shattered the hangar’s eerie tension. Three more followed in rapid succession: ka-chunk BOOM, each muzzle flash strobing against bulkheads that rippled like disturbed water. Rachel’s breath caught as she realized Kaywaykla wasn’t aiming at the Nordics but into their ship. The shotgun’s barrel poked through the shimmering shield as if it weren’t there, buckshot tearing through delicate consoles and sprays of alien circuitry inside the ship.

Carl Moffitt’s throw was pure geriatric poetry, the cattle prod arcing end-over-end toward Ed Binning, who snatched it midair with the reflexes of the minor league outfielder he had been in his younger days. Binning lunged before the technician could react jamming the electrodes into her thigh with a meaty thunk. Discharge turned her scream into a staticky gargle as she convulsed and draped herself over the ruined conversion matrix.

Inside the ship, the black-clad leader rose with unnatural fluidity, then her head rotated a full one-eighty degrees so that she could scan the interior of her ship. Her horrified shriek echoed through the hangar as she took in the devastation: smoldering control s, sparking conduits, meanwhile a grinning Kaywaykla reloading with deliberate calm. The alien spun around and vanished deeper into the craft just as the entrance sealed itself with a sound like flesh knitting.

The scout ship lifted unevenly, its gravitic drives emitting a sound that made Rachel’s teeth vibrate. It listed sideways and smashed its way through the hangar doors in a shower of corrugated steel, wobbling like a drunkard trying to cross a busy road. At two hundred yards out, the damaged drives failed catastrophically, first a muted whump that pancaked the hull onto the tarmac, then a secondary explosion that sent twisted debris arcing across the airfield in graceful parabolas as it blasted a crater into the reinforced concrete of the runway.

Back inside the hanger, Rachel pried the last glowing bracelet off the Nordic’s wrist with a satisfying snap, the alien alloy crumbling like cheap plastic under her boot heel. The seven-foot blonde blinked dully, her once-luminous blue eyes now just... eyes. Still striking, but human. Mortal. “Well look at that.” Rachel drawled, flicking the remnants of the bracelet into the wreckage. “Turns out your beauty was only skin deep and rented at that.“

Binning wrestled the third Nordic’s bracelet off while she moaned into Siobhan’s collarbone, her long fingers still twitching between the deputy’s thighs. The moment it shattered, her rapturous expression faltered just like a junkie coming down hard. She slumped against Nolan, suddenly just another confused blonde in a rumpled gray jumpsuit,, although hers was torn and hanging open.

“Mother of God...” Moffitt muttered, surveying the two dozen rescued women. Some stood catatonic, their dilated pupils tracking nothing. Others pawed at Rachel’s uniform with clumsy urgency, their breath coming in ragged gasps. The brunette from City Hall, now sporting porn-star proportions, kept trying to rub herself against Siobhan’s thigh.

“Ambulances,” Rachel snapped, peeling the woman off her deputy. “Lots of ’em. And tell ’em we need sedation kits.”

Kaywaykla nodded and got on the radio, explaining the situation to Wendy back at the station. The ambulances would begin arriving soon...

Outside, dust plumes signaled the approaching military convoy. Binning snorted. “Looks like the Air Force is showing up just in time to claim the credit.”

The lead Nordic, now just an exceptionally tall woman with bedraggled platinum hair, tested her plastic restraints with clinical curiosity. “Fascinating,” She murmured in flawless English, no trace of that eerie resonance left. “Your primitive polymers exhibit surprising tensile strength.”

Rachel tapped her boot heel against the hangar floor, studying the captured Nordics with narrowed eyes. The tallest one, their apparent leader, sat cross-legged in her plastic restraints, staring back with unsettling calm. Behind her, another fidgeted in her cuffs while the third still kept trying to lick Siobhan’s earlobe despite being thoroughly sedated. “Well what the hell do I do with them?” Rachel muttered, fiddling with her stetson. “County lockup ain’t built for extraterrestrial people traffickers.”

The hangar air shimmered like desert heatwaves before coalescing into a thousand violet points of light. Rachel’s skin prickled as the lights resolved into four feline silhouettes. Ssstha’rel materialized first, her silver-gold fur catching nonexistent light as she stretched with theatrical languor. ”Rowlll... H allo, Ra-chel, ssweetie!” The alien’s voice curled around Rachel’s name like smoke, her whiskers twitching with amusement as three smaller figures fanned out behind her. Tssi’kha’s tabby stripes rippled when she flicked an ear toward the restrained Nordics, while the two other felines moved with unsettling synchronicity toward the captives.

Rachel’s hand hovered near her revolver as the cats produced palm-sized devices that slithered like liquid mercury toward the Nordics’ throats. The tallest blonde convulsed as the tech adhered to her skin, the metal branching across her collarbones in fractal patterns.

“Stop!” Siobhan cried as she lunged forward, her uniform shirt still hanging open from earlier grappling. “Sheriff, we can’t just...” Her protest died as Tssi’kha pressed a paw to her sternum just below her exposed breasts, the deputy’s pupils blowing wide at the .

Ssstha’rel’s tail brushed Rachel’s wrist, the touch carrying electric warmth. ”Ssix Nordicss and the chickenss means a big profit and no need to take human femaless.” Her purr vibrated through Rachel’s bones as the devices pulsed... the blondes’ panic froze mid-scream, their bodies going slack as the tech temporarily rerouted neural pathways. One Nordic’s thrashing limbs gradually melted into a boneless sprawl, her lips parting in a soundless sigh as the mental transformation took hold.

“Each oness worth more than a thou-sand human femaless on the Pet market!” Ssstha’rel purred happily, ignoring Siobhan’s grip on her wrist.

Siobhan broke away and slipped an arm around the Nordic’s waist like a vice, her digging into the alien’s skin. The deputy’s breath came in shallow gasps, her pupils blown wide with something Rachel recognized instantly: possessive hunger. “Sheriff,” Siobhan rasped, her other thumb tracing the blonde’s pulse point, “I want this one.”

The Nordic whimpered, her once-regal features slack with feline-induced euphoria.

Ssstha’rel’s ears twitched in amusement as she watched the Deputy who was deep into the grip of pheromonal conditioning.

Rachel holstered her revolver with a sigh, stepping close enough to smell the ozone-and-honey scent clinging to the alien’s hair. “Nolan, you can’t adopt an intergalactic whore like a damn stray cat.”

“But look at her,” Siobhan insisted, tilting the Nordic’s chin up. The alien’s blue eyes had gone glassy, her lips parted around shallow breaths. “She’s... domesticated now. Practically housebroken.”

Ssstha’rel’s tail curled around Rachel’s forearm, the fur vibrating with suppressed laughter. ”Poor thing’s been neural-locked tighter than a...”

Rachel smiled as the feline alien’s tail curled possessively around her wrist. “You’re leaving things messy for us again, Ssstha’rel.” She muttered, watching the transformed Nordics sprawled across the hangar floor like discarded dolls. The tallest blonde’s breathing had slowed to kitten-soft purrs, her once-sharp features slack with feline-induced euphoria.

Ssstha’rel’s whiskers quivered with amusement as she traced Rachel’s jawline with one claw-tipped finger. ”Alwayss, Ra-chel ssweetie.” The alien’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, her breath warm against Rachel’s ear. “But you humanss do love cleaning up after cats, don’t you?”

Outside, the approaching convoy’s engines growled like approaching thunder. Rachel’s gut tightened: she knew that sound. “Your timing’s suspicious as hell.” She caught Ssstha’rel’s chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing those vertically slit pupils to focus. “Got a sneaking impression we’ll be seein’ each other again.”

The alien’s happy laugh reminded her of wind-chimes as it rang out in the hanger. ”Count on it, Ra-chel dar-ling! We are your friendss, after all!” Her fur rippled silver-gold as pin-pricks of violet light erupted all around, engulfing the felines and the now docile Nordics in a corona of energy that faded rapidly.

Siobhan lunged, too late, her fingers closing on empty air where the platinum-haired woman had knelt moments before. The deputy’s curse turned into a sob when she realized that the love of her life had vanished for ever, leaving only the scent of wet pussy and warm fur.

Epilogue — Very Loose Ends.

The cats had barely vanished when a dozen or so USAF personnel entered the hangar, their boots crunching over debris. Half fanned out to secure the building while the others, including familiar MP’s, formed a tight perimeter around the Major-General who strode in like he owned the place. His two-star insignia obvious even under the hangar’s flickering lights. He radiated confidence but Rachel noticed the sweat stains under his arms and the way his left eyelid twitched every third step. “What the hell are you doing in an Air Force facility, Sheriff?” He snapped, trying to assert control. He glanced around, nostrils flaring as he took in the women, the alien tech and the lingering scent of ozone and cats.

Rachel adjusted her Stetson with deliberate slowness, letting the silence stretch until Binning coughed into his fist. “Funny,” she drawled, “as far as I know, Wide-Awake County owns this airfield. I believe the Air Force lease expired back in ’21. Probably an oversight due to the Covid emergency, a lot’a things got overlooked then.” She nudged a smoldering piece of Nordic tech with her boot. “Unless the US Air Force has took up intergalactic pimpin’ as a side hustle?“

The Major-General’s jaw worked like he was chewing glass, he knew that legal bullying was out as the Sheriff’s statement contained enough leeway to keep lawyers arguing for months. Behind him, Staff-Sergeant Driscoll’s expression stayed neutral, but he winked. Rachel relaxed her grip on her revolver by millimeters. The MP clearly thought the General was on the level.

An Air Force medical team rushed past to attend to the rescued women, their shock at the victims’ conditions poorly concealed. One paramedic sergeant froze mid-step when she noticed the brunette from City Hall: her enhanced proportions seemingly a biological improbability. The brunette giggling as she traced circles around Nolan’s badge as the deputy hastily adjusted her uniform.

The Major-General followed the medic’s gaze, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Christ. Atkinson swore they were just... studying humans.”

“Studying?” Rachel’s voice cracked as she stepped forward, her uniform shirt still hanging open where a Nordic had torn it during the very brief struggle. She jabbed a finger at the scorch marks where the conversion matrix had stood. “They were turnin’ women into livin’ sex toys!”

Rachel read the name tag “Lacon” stenciled across the General’s fatigues, noting how the man’s fingers twitched toward his sidearm whenever his gaze flicked to the smoldering crater outside. “As you can see,” she drawled, sweeping a hand toward the rescued women being checked by her deputies and Air Force medics. “I was engaged in the hot pursuit of perpetrators and the recovery of abductees, General.” Behind Lacon’s shoulder, Staff Sergeant Driscoll maintained perfect military bearing, but the corner of his mouth twitched when Rachel deliberately adjusted her Stetson to block the General’s view of Nolan’s torn uniform.

Lacon’s nostrils flared as he took in the scene: the scorched hangar floor, the lingering scent of burnt wiring and something faintly floral. His posture shifted when Rachel didn’t budge from his path, realizing the six-foot-two sheriff wasn’t about to be intimidated by stars on a collar... Besides as Sheriff, she wore four while he only had two! Instead he just cracked a smile.“Successfully, I see.” He conceded, thumbing his belt clip. “Saw the explosion from the perimeter. What happened?”

The lie came smoothly, flavored with just enough Arizona twang. “Aliens’ ship must’a bin damaged when we interrupted their little... operation.” Rachel gestured toward the crater with her chin, watching Lacon’s pupils dilate at the mention of aliens. “Exploded when they tried to take off. Reckon they wuz all on board.”

General Lacon’s jaw worked like he was chewing tobacco. “Pity.” He muttered, though his eyes darted to where newly arrived Air Force specialists were already checking Nordic tech with the urgency of archaeologists at a threatened dig site.

The General sighed, rubbing his temple as if trying to massage away a headache that had nothing to do with fatigue. “Okay, Sheriff.” He muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the MPs pretending not to eavesdrop. “Atkinson told me you were damned good at your job. So I think you’ll understand when I tell you what really happened here.“

Rachel braced herself, fingers tapping against her holstered revolver. She could already taste the stale government lies forming on his tongue.

“There were no aliens,” Lacon said with the rehearsed solemnity of a man who’d delivered similar a speech several times before. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Damned good police work here. You and your people foiled a gang of dangerous South American human traffickers. Definitely not aliens.” He gestured vaguely at the wreckage outside. “Their helicopter crashed, probably due to poor maintenance.”

A muscle twitched in Rachel’s jaw. Behind Lacon, Staff-Sergeant Driscoll’s poker face cracked for half a second as it twitched with suppressed amusement.

“Yeah, General,” Rachel drawled, tipping her Stetson back. “That’s exactly what happened: correct in every detail.” She didn’t bother hiding her sarcasm, watching with grim satisfaction as the tic in Lacon’s left eyelid intensified.

The distant wail of approaching sirens sliced through the tension like a rusty blade. Rachel didn’t turn toward the sound, keeping her eyes locked on General Lacon’s twitching eyelid instead. The local paramedics would arrive to find a scene straight out of a bad sci-fi convention: women with inhuman proportions giggling hysterically, scorch marks forming precise geometric patterns across the concrete, and enough residual pheromones in the air to make any two nuns forget their vows.

Yards away, the brunette from city hall, Ruth Montalvo, Rachel ed her name, was currently using her finger to trace patterns across Nolan’s collarbone, murmuring something about how pretty the deputy’ looked in the yellow lighting.

Lacon’s eyelid spasmed again. Behind them, Siobhan yelped haply as Ruth nipped at her earlobe. The sound drew the General’s attention to where Nolan stood with her fingers tangled in the brunette’s hair, her gaze fixed on the woman’s impossible breasts.

“Christ,” Lacon muttered, “how am I supposed to sort this out?”

Then, while everyone else was busy, Siobhan Nolan draped a blanket around Ruth’s shoulders and hustled her out to a waiting cruiser, hoping that no one would notice them drive away. The Sheriff did, however but she had more things to worry about than her deputy’s amorous escapades.

The speed that Wide-Awake returned to it’s normal sleepy self surprised even the Sheriff. It was a week after the incident at the airfield and Rachel was enjoying her normal mid-morning coffee in her favorite booth in Ma Barker’s diner. From here she could see the whole room and the square beyond the window. She was, in her own words, just taking the temperature of the town and if anything it was more ‘Sleepy-Hollow’ than ‘Wide-Awake’.

Things were back to normal at home too with little Mari-belle back from her grandma’s in Texas. She was at school right now as was Melanie: they’d all meet up for lunch right here in about an hour and a half, Rachel’s job permitting.

The Sheriff looked up from her coffee and groaned inwardly as His Honor, The Mayor of Wide-Awake was heading straight for the door to her sanctuary. She glanced around, the place was nearly empty so there was no way of faking being busy... But then it was far too late for that as the man she went out of her way to avoid entered the premises.

Wayne R. Kincheloe bustled up to her table and plonked himself down opposite. “I’ve been looking for you, Sheriff.” He proclaimed.

Rachel groaned inwardly. “Good morning, Mr Mayor, how can I help you?”

He grinned, which gave her the impression that he was about to go for her throat. “I just wanted to let you know how grateful we all are for you efforts last week... The way that you rescued those poor women was outstanding.”

“Just’ doin’ m’ job.” She answered noncommittally, wishing that he would get to the point.

“Also, we’ve just been informed officially that the Air Force are reactivating the airfield just outside town. Which means more jobs for the area. I guess that a big part of that must be down to how well you get on with them.” He frowned theatrically, almost as if he was searching for the correct words. “The Aerospace Threat Identification Program, that’s what they called it.”

Rachel groaned inwardly once more and prepared herself to sit through half an hour of platitudes.

A short time later the Sheriff just happened to glance out of the window and caught sight of Siobhan Nolan stroll past, arm-in-arm with Ruth Montalvo: the two of them had become inseparable since the incident. It was the deputy’s rest day so there were no rules being broken. Towns’ people seemed to have got used to Ruth’s greatly enhanced superstructure even though Rachel doubted that the woman could still through a door sideways.

Rachel and Melanie were lying in bed about three months later...

It was a clear fall evening, but then fall evenings in Arizona almost always were...

After certain prolonged nocturnal activities they were both in that relaxed state between waking and sleeping when Rachel imagined something in bed between them...

Something warm and furry that seemed to be moving against her naked thigh. I did imagine it, didn’t I?

The fur moved...

“Rowl!” A hard to forget voice purred sexily out of the darkness. “Did you misss me, Ra-chell, ssweetie?”