James had decided it was Jill. She almost didn't want it to be Jill. James didn't want to think the sweet southern belle from next door could have ever turned out so creepy, so scary. Still, a stranger would be even harder to get a handle on and she didn't know who else it could be. The medallion had been left in Jill's apartment when Mama had come to take care of James after the accident that had robbed her memories. It could be one of that Matt creep's friends, but why would they want to use James's orignal body? He didn't have any tattoos or piercings. Or at least the old James hadn't ever felt the urge to mortify her flesh in that way. Of course, the new James, the one with Jill's blonde hair and beach bunny body, she had a tattoo, brand spanking new and still stinging like hell. Jill eyed her closely and James gave her an encouraging nod, a mute promise that she would not only obey, but put out as well.
Jill seemed satified with that. So what if James had not yet called him master? There was time yet. She had called him James and that was the first step. Rikkie had been something of a trial run. James would be the final test. If he could break her, force her to make love to her own body, make her suck him off and call him master, make her acknowledge him as the true James, then she could use the medallion to control anyone. She stood up abruptly, the sudden movement making James and Rikki cringe in unison.
"Rikki," Jill snapped in a cold tone of command, the voice of someone accustomed to prompt and perfect obedience, "Come."
Rikki immediately sprang to her feet, not even bothering to stub out her smoke or close the laptop. Jill turned and stalked off into the shadows, a bobbing candle in his hand marking their trail. James was a little unnerved to see how passive the young woman was. She followed at his heel like a well trained dog. Against her will, almost afraid of what she might see, James got up and tip-toed after them. Jill halted a little way into the unfurnished gloom outisde the well-decorated interior of Jill's warehouse loft.
He stood next to a stout looking pipe which ran from the concrete floor below to a shadowy and unseen ceiling above. There was a small pile of blankets and a single pillow at the base of the pipe. Jill leaned downward and came back up with something in her hands. It was attached to the pipe by a short metal chain. He motioned Rikki to come closer with a sideways movement of his head and she complied. A horrfied understanding dawned in James's eyes. Leaning forward, chin up, Rikki accepted the collar about her slender neck. It closed with a click. Jill kissed her on the lips, long and deep, his eyes on James rather than the goth girl.
"Good night," Jill said in a curt dismissal. He walked away without waiting for a reply, which Rikki did not offer. The candle and the weirdly animated face it illuminated made a bobbing return to the egde of the lit area, a place beyond which James did not have the courage to venture. Things were rapidly spinning out of control. James had promised herself she would no longer be a victim, but the mind in her old body, Jill or not, was some kind of monster. Jill set down the candle and retireved the still burning cigarette Rikki had left behind.
"There," Jill clapped his hands together as if dusting them off after a dirty, but necessary chore, "Now we can get down to business."
"Oh, Jill, do we have to?" James began to whine, "This is too weir- -"
"James," Jill growled, overriding her through sheer volume, "If you ever want to be a man again you'll call me James. Understood?"
"Yes," a long pause, James wet her lips with her tongue, "James. We do it your way, okay?"
"Strip," Jill said, barely letting James finish. One word, quiet, but a command for all that.
James weighed her alternatives, tried to come up with a new plan, and came up blank. Even if she could overpower her old body she didn't know where Jill had the medallion hidden. She was doing better playing Jill before he had decided to chain up poor Rikki. Jill's brief contact with his leather-clad slave seemed to have reignited the smoldering fires inside behind his eyes. He was no longer just eager for a fuck and easily led, Jill was hungry now and wouldn't be denied. James took a deep breath and began to strip, quickly at first, until she realized how avidly the man that used to be her was watching. Granted, she didn't have much on, but James sensed an advantage to be had here and began to drag it out. She teased him a little, pretending to go for her top and then removing the sporty jogging pants, feigning unfamiliarity and even frustration with the female clothes, struggling to get out of the panties and halter top. Soon James was naked as the day she was born or, more properly, the day she had woken up in Jill's body and without any memories.
"Beautiful," Jill leered and twirled a finger, indiciating he wanted a full 360 degree view. James obeyed, frightened by her growing passivity and yet unsure of how else to get a man to do what she wanted. Jill nodded in appreciation, "I even like the tattoo. I approve."
James wasn't sure how to respond. She hadn't the tattoo. She hated Matt. If she ever got out of this that little bastard would pay double for the tattoo. Instead, she said in a demure voice, eyes down, "Thank you - - James."
"Good girl," Jill said with obvious satisfaction, "Come."
He turned and began to walk just as he had with Rikki. It took him a moment to realize James was not following him. He turned back, irritation attooed on his forehead by the arch of his eyebrows, but his face soon softened when he detected the subtle trembling along her limbs.
"Oh, look at you," he said it in that way reserved for puppies when they were being cute, "You're scared."
"Do you blame me?" James hissed in a defiant little voice, "This place. That girl. You! Of course, I'm scared."
"No, I don't blame you," Jill looked thoughful for a second, as if entertaining some long ago memory, "But you don't really have a choice either. I hold all the cards."
"So I guess this is just strip poker then?" James laughed in spite of herself, her nakedness, her anger at yet another defeat. Every time she thought she wasn't afraid anymore somethign or someone broke her down. And every time she came back, still trying, still hanging on, still thinking she had a chance.
What else could she do but laugh at herself? How many men ever wound up on an adventure like this? The whole thing was ridiculous.
Then Jill did something, a simple thing, just a tiny gesture, but one that made James hope Jill had not yet lost all contact with her humanity. He smiled and held out his hand. A request. An invitation.
Jill didn't expect her to blindly follow him into the darkness like Rikki. He would take her into the shadows by his side, holding her hand, offering her some small comfort. James might have become Jill in body, even partially Jill in her mind, and even though Jill obviously hated herself, his old self, he did not entirely hate James.
Or did he? James tentatively reached out to him and Jill's hand brushed by her own to rest possessively on his wrist. Jill pulled James's naked body toward his, laughed when she had to hurry on her tiny feet to keep up with the hand encircling her wrist, and went in search of the bed. "Oh," James made a soft wordless cry in response to his callous grip, but something primal stirred inside her. There was a warmth in her belly and her nipples hardened with each step, breasts jouncing in time.
James was going to try to enjoy this, though she would never admit that to Jill, much less herself.
