The Control App Chapter 3 (Part 2)

Finally finished up this section of the chapter! It'll have a public release in not too long, in the meantime, enjoy!

---

It was a brisk morning – hoodie weather. Ronnie’s favorite. Chilly enough for a sweater but not to the level of freezing your balls off. Not to mention plenty of crunchy leaves to stomp on and get that sweet, sweet dopamine hit. He’d elected to leave Linda behind for the time being. It was nice having her around, a tiny little servant he can knead into his insole, or scurry around his cock as he pleased. But her utility was severely limited out of doors, and otherwise she could blow his cover, advertently or inadvertently.

An icy wind blew off Ronnie’s hood, and his hair was frazzled in the breeze. Ronnie clutched it and pulled it back in front of his bangs, shading his eyes… for some reason, he wanted a bit more anonymity for this next job.

That’s exactly what he was thinking as he pushed through the coffee shop double doors.

“Hey, Ronnie!”

Ronnie froze in place; the counter was empty. Rather, the call came from a corner where Sam was sweeping a broom back and forth to gather up a pile of spilled beans. She was a freckled redhead, short enough to be Ronnie’s height and somewhat plump – charmingly so. She gave Ronnie a sweet smile, and continued, “I’m still opening up, so it might be awhile before you get your usual.” Sam flipped a switch, and the smooth atmospheric lantern-esque pattern of the café’s lights flickered on, dousing it in a relaxing vibe. Jazz music drifted through the speakers.

“It’s okay,” Ronnie nodded. “I’ll wait.”

Ronnie took a seat at his usual table, and he stuffed his hands in his sleeves. Suddenly… Ronnie began to wonder if this was a good idea. Sam was always good to him – a college student at the local university, she’d taken this job to help pay her tuition after a family tragedy suddenly rendered her father unable to work. Sam had confided this in Ronnie casually in drip form, over more than a year of his constant trips hopping out his mom’s car to order her coffee. Somehow, Ronnie thought, they had become… like friends.

Ronnie pulled his phone out of his front pocket and fiddled with it in his hand, without turning it on. He leered askance at Sam, organizing the cellophane-wrapped pastries at the front counter. It was a hard sell…

Ronnie looked around the coffee shop. They were alone. And they would be for at least another 30 minutes. This was exactly what he wanted – anonymity. The next opportunity he’d have for a hit like this would be… tomorrow. Morning. At this very same coffee shop. Sam was a sitting duck; nobody else would give him a clearer shot.

Ronnie sighed deeply. Would it really be so bad to live with him? She’d have lots of fun! Just as long as she… behaved. And made him happy. Ronnie would be more than willing to let her stay with him forever if she was a good little girl.

“Alright, then!” Sam chirped. Ronnie glanced; she was standing behind the counter. “What can I get for you?”

Ronnie stumbled to his feet. “I’ll have ahh –”

“Coming right up!” said Sam, punching a few numbers into the register. Ronnie’s order showed up perfectly on the outfacing computer. “I think it’s burned into my brain with how often you’ve ordered it. And an apple fritter, right?”

“Yeah,” Ronnie said, walking to the counter. He stuffed his mom’s card into the slot.

“Got it. I’ll have it out for you momentarily,” Sam said, smiling as she turned to prepare the drinks. The steady drip of coffee into a cup started not long after, as did a microwave preparing the warm pastry.

Ronnie’s heart raced. Previously, it’d been a fluke. He hadn’t even known what he was doing. It was far easier to shrink someone when he hadn’t taken the responsibility for it. But now?

Ronnie paced in a circle, glad that Sam’s back was turned. He turned on his phone and scrolled to the Control App. His index finger hung over it ominously for a few moments before he pushed.

“YOU HAVE ONE (1) CREDIT.”

Sam jumped and looked over her shoulder a bit oddly. Ronnie felt the need to save face.

“Oh, it’s a mobile game I got.”

“Oh! I like games.” And Sam went back to mixing in his mom’s additives.

Ronnie sighed. The white void wasn’t very populated right now. Early morning on a Saturday was a bustling timeframe. But as Ronnie waved the phone around, there was one giant red human silhouette only a few feet away. It shifted, and turned. Ronnie peered over his phone – Sam was looking at him strangely, holding a coffee cup and a brown pastry bag. She set them on the counter. “H-here’s your drink! Are you… filming me?”

“N-no!” Ronnie denied. “No?” he repeated, a bit more softly. “It’s, like… one of those AR games.”

“Ah… can I see?”

An interesting request to see the instrument of her captivity, even though she didn’t know it yet. Somehow, the irony tickled Ronnie. He nodded, smiling slightly, and he leaned over the counter, displaying it to her. Of course, the camera was aimed at the ground. There was nothing to look at in the void.

“I’m… not sure I get it,” Sam said, shrugging. “Don’t see anything.”

“Really?” Ronnie said, aiming his crosshairs at Sam. Her eyebrows raised as she gazed unwittingly in Ronnie’s lens. “Because I see you.”

“H-hey,” Sam said, looking behind her. “Please, can you not point that at me. I don’t want to –”

Sam disappeared.

Well, no. This time, Ronnie knew exactly what happened to her. There was no confusion in him this time. Rather, there was assurance. Ronnie looked at his phone, and saw through the white and through the invisible counter on the display, a tiny red speck, trembling in place. And Ronnie knew that this was no fluke, had never been a fluke. His phone had power.

No.

He had power.

Ronnie planted his hands in his pocket and sauntered to the revolving gate that led to the counter. As he got closer… he could hear her screams. Tinny and shrill, they were, but he could hear them. And somehow, they sounded even better than he thought they did. The fact he, Ronnie, the least threatening human being in the county, had inflicted this level of sheer terror and confusion on someone… it wasn’t going to get old anytime soon.

The mouse-like squeals were already hitting his ears. It wouldn’t be difficult to spot her; a whitish, red speck on the black tile floor. But there were still plenty of nooks and crannies to dark into and underneath. Someone had spilled coffee beans recently. That was probably where Sam was planning on sweeping next.

“Sam?” Ronnie called out, knowingly, cruelly. “Where’d ya go?”

“OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD…”

“What’s that?” Ronnie said with a smirk. He crouched into a squat, searching for the voice.

There, underneath the awning of the counter, was Sam. She was sprawled on the ground, having crawled there in a mad dash once Ronnie’s footfalls began to shake the beans around her into a rattle. Her body and apron were coated in cobwebs and other gunk. Her eyes were beyond panicked.

She let out a wheezing, hoarse scream, one that seemed to cut off and die after only a moment.

Ronnie blinked. “Let’s get you out of there, shall we?”

Ronnie reached his hand in, and the screaming resumed. “No, NO–”

Her mouth enclosed by Ronnie’s hand, she could only scream into his fat, thick fingers. Ronnie stood back up, feeling all the joy and satisfaction of a small child who had just captured a particularly interesting praying mantis. He rotated his lightly-clenched fist in space, turning it around, and over. Her shouting, though muffled, was ever-present. Experimentally, Ronnie shook his fist rapidly. The shouting leapt to a crescendo and suddenly stopped.

The Ronnie opened his fist, palm up.

She was sprawled out. Sam took a great big gulp of air, flopping onto her back to take a good look at her captor, yet all she got were speckled, mottled colors. Her brain was addled, and her vision was still repairing itself.

“W…what… what did you do to me…?” said Sam with great effort.

“Ah, well,” Ronnie started… then stopped. He really wasn’t sure exactly how to explain to the waiting girl that her life as she knew it was over.

“Uhhhh…” Ronnie tried to fill space, knowing Sam’s impatience and terror was only increasing the more she was left out of the loop. He didn’t mean to drag out her terror; he simply didn’t know what to say to her.

But one thing he did know: his hand felt filthy. The cobwebs and grime that had collected across her frame were now deposited on his palm. It felt sticky and dry all at the same time; very unpleasant.

“Ronnie?” Sam asked as he began moving his hand toward the sink. “Ronnie? Ronnie don’t–”

The water came out like a high-pressured jet cannon. It spurted out with an incredible amount of force, meant to eat away at the stuck-on dirt of superheated coffee grounds and microwaveable pastry trays. It was enough to noticeably pinch the skin of Ronnie’s palm where it hit, causing him to cringe. Sam’s face became a coughing, choking fit, every orifice on it filling with water, drowning. She gasped for breath, but only more water would answer her prayers. Her eyes went dim, black. White again. Light. The water was as inescapable as the fingers within which she was clutched. But even more unexpectedly, the driving force of the water jet managed to split Sam’s clothes apart. They became a jumbled mess of tatters and seams only after scarcely ten seconds beneath the beam. After twenty seconds, Ronnie felt now was probably a good time to stop.

He turned off the water. Sam didn’t move.

“Oh, dammit, I –” Ronnie looked left and right. Did he just kill her? Well, no, hopefully not. Maybe. But, she wasn’t moving. He didn’t mean to kill her! She was his friend after all. And besides, that would be a waste of a credit!

Ronnie brought Sam’s limp body in front of his face. His heart was pounding. He didn’t want to waste a shrink on nothing! He took executive action.

Ronnie kissed her.

He planted his massive, full lips on Sam’s unconscious face, and he sucked.

His tongue quested across her head and facial features, lightly, gently, as he did. But on the whole, it was a sucking maneuver. He gave light, brief inhales, attempting to perform some type of mouth-to-mouth on the diminutive girl, extracting any excess watter that may have found its way into her lungs. Ronnie quickly fell into a process: one-two, one-two, each time accompanied with Sam’s body jerking in the prongs of her fingers. Ronnie didn’t know how long it had been until suddenly, with one suck, he seemed to be extracting her very scream from her body, and Sam gasped, awake, alive, virile.

Ronnie disconnected. His saliva was dripping in an arc around her face, terminating at her chin.

“I-I-I… I–”

Ring-a-ding!

Ronnie shoved Sam into his jacket pocket. Who the hell comes to a coffee shop this early besides him!?

“Hey Sa… oh, sorry!” said the new customer. She was wearing heels, a pantsuit, and a pair of wired earbuds. “Wow, they changed the schedule up on me or something?”

Ronnie froze. He looked up at the customer; tall, ebony-tinted skin, hair that seemed to be only beginning to gray at the roots. Dark glasses.

“I’ve never seen you here before. What’s your name?”

“I… uh…” Ronnie heard Sam’s squirming in his sweatshirt pocket. He feared a rebellion, so he stuck his hand inside and gave her a nice squeeze. That shut her up. “Ronnie.”

Shit. Idiot, idiot, idiot!!!

“Ronnie, huh? That’s an interesting name for a boy.”

All of Ronnie’s frustration flowed away.

“Anyway, I’ll take my usua– oh yeah, we’ve never met. You don’t know my usual.” She let out a kindhearted chuckle. “It’s just a Pike’s Place with a croissant.”

Ronnie somehow had made this woman think that he worked there. Being the only person behind the counter tended to do that. Good; better to think he belonged there than to be suspicious. “Right… that,” he said, and he shuffled over to the computer. It was easy enough. All the items were labeled. But despite the ease of access, despite this woman’s apparent kindness, despite her patience as he fiddled with the controls, he still felt horribly, unconquerably scared.

Ronnie gulped and tried to look her in the eye. He only made it to chest level; she was well-endowed, so this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “T-t-that’ll… be –”

“$8.30, right?” The woman dug into her purse and pulled out a card. She stuck it in the slot and waited.

The screen showed just one button to press to complete the transaction, but even that almost felt insurmountable to Ronnie. He stood there, paralyzed, trying to give the impression he was doing something worthwhile. Could he run? Maybe, but that’d just give her a reason to be suspicious. Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe everything was a mistake. He should’ve never even touched the stupid app, now here he was in a place he didn’t deserve to be in, talking to someone he didn’t know. The jig would be up before long. Ronnie would be in jail, or worse. He sucked in a shallow breath, taking an involuntary step back that raised an eyebrow on the woman. He stuck his hands in his pockets defensively…

And he remembered Sam. He felt her. Her vibrations were relaxing. He stroked the tiny woman lengthwise, and the beat of his heart began to abate. He took a breath, a deep one. In, and out.

Ronnie tapped the button and completed the transaction. The machine whirred as it spat out a receipt “Do you want your receipt?” asked Ronnie. He’d been asked that same question a million times. The woman chirped in the affirmative, and Ronnie tore it off and handed it to her.

A few minutes later, she waved as she left the building, Pike Place and croissant in hand. “See you around!”

As soon as the door jingled closed, Ronnie wanted to collapse. He trudged drunkenly from behind the counter before realizing he’d forgotten his mom’s beverage. He backtracked and swiped it from the counter, turning back again after a moment to put up the Register Closed! sign. He kept one hand firmly on Sam as he poked his head out the main doors, giving her a few gentle squeezes every so often. Each little tug sent her vibrations into his hand. It was nice, especially since she was already a rather plump girl, and had a bit of give to her. It was like she was a plush stress relief toy.

The streets were lukewarm and still not terribly populated. So, Ronnie slipped out and made his way back home, excited beyond relief to be able to soon introduce his itty bitty pet to her new friend.