Alone in the hallway, I immediately turned and went down a side hallway, running my hands through my hair. Jordan! What had this bitch done to me that I could have forgotten her so easily? What sort of monstrous things were put in me — in my mind?
You didn't forget her, though, a voice deep inside my heart said. Remember? In the shower, you may have been fantasizing about Svetlana, but what was in the background?
"Guitar music," I whispered to myself. "Aerosmith."
Her version, at least, the voice said. Now, before it’s too late, reach out to her.
Spurred on by the voice in my head, I knew I had to act fast. Whatever it was that Svetlana was pumping into me, I couldn't trust that my clear-headed state would last. If they’d broken me so quickly the first time, what would happen with more exposure?
Looking around, I found a set of stairs. I headed up them, hoping to find something that I could use to contact the outside world. I had yet to see a telephone or a computer of any kind, but they had to have them somewhere, right?
I found myself in a long hallway, with open doors on each side of the hall. Looking in, I saw that I was in the staff's quarters, at least based on the beds and the clothes I saw in the first two rooms I stuck my head into.
I didn't have much time, checking each room I could. In the next to last, I found what I wanted, a laptop computer that appeared to be connected to the internet. Hoping that it wouldn't be password locked, I opened the cover and hit the power button. I was in luck, as the screen flashed to life to reveal a standard Windows desktop.
I couldn’t read Russian, but Windows configurations are all the same, and the system was easy to figure out. Like Chinese and Japanese keyboards that I'd grown familiar with, the main keys were laid out in the standard English alphabet, with a subset that you could activate as you wanted. Switching between the two was done through a simple function keystroke, and I switched over to the English alphabet. Pulling up the web browser, I started typing. The numeric address was very long, and just the first stage of a last ditch security system that I'd had for years.
After the address was input, I typed in my username and password. The password was actually one of a series, thankfully sequential enough in nature that I could still remember it despite the tendrils of fog in my mind. I could feel them creeping in again, trying to drain my will, to make me want to go back to my lovely Mistress . . .
I slapped myself across the face hard. It helped enough, and I opened another tab, pulling up Youtube. I needed something to keep my mind focused where it needed to be. With effort, I typed in One into the search bar, pulling up the Metallica song. The guitar riffs started, and the fog retreated from my mind again with the thought of Jordan.
Going back to my messaging tab, I finished my password. The beauty of it was that it never would work again, and unless you knew the encryption key, you couldn't guess the next password in the series. Hitting enter, I hoped I had a few more minutes. Just a few more.
The screen pulled up the messaging tab, and I remembered that Vladimir told me Francois had sold me out. I couldn't message him, so who could I trust?
"A boy can always trust his mother,” I whispered as I typed out my email quickly.
This is Felix. I’m being held captive by a man named Vladimir and a woman named Svetlana. Not good, at the thought of her name, I could feel the fog start to wash over me again. Russian Mafia? I’m being held in . . .
Wait a moment, where the hell was I? I opened another tab and did a quick IP address ping, giving me at least a city and country. Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Please, they’re brainwashing me. I need your help. Cannot trust Francois. I don’t know how long I can hold on.
The control Svetlana had instilled in my brain struggled to reassert itself as the music faded, and I fought back, chanting to myself. "Jordan . . . Jordan . . . Jordan . . .”
Tell Jordan I love her. And that I want to hear her play for me again.
With the last of my will, I closed the tabs, and set the computer back. If someone gave the computer a cursory once over, they wouldn’t know what I'd done, not without going into log files that I didn't have the time to erase.
Closing the laptop, I hurried from the room. I was halfway down the stairs when a voice came up to me. "Pet? What are you doing up there?"
"I'm sorry, Mistress," I said. "I had to find a toilet."
My lie wasn't convincing enough. "No Felix, you were up to something else. What were you doing?"
I struggled, and only by repeating Jordan's name to myself was I able to not tell her. I knew once the fog of her control came over me fully again, I'd not remember that well anyway. All that was important was Mistress Svetlana, and that I'd been a bad pet. I only had to hold out a few more minutes. "Nothing."