Cat got your tongue?

For weeks, months, Rocketgirl's conscious mind sat restlessly in the geranium, watching her comatose body lying impotently in the hospital bed. Seasons changed as Rocketgirl watched her body victimized by her tormentor.

Ms Kyoto would occasionally announce that she'd updated the hypnotic subliminal recordings being pumped through the noise cancelling headphones into the helpless heroine's subconscious. Sometimes the content of the hypnotic messages was obvious: Rocketgeranium watched as Melissa's **** body squirmed, rubbed her legs together, felt her breasts, or pumped her pussy. Rocketgirl never got used to being disembodied, and watching her body perform these acts completely unbidden terrified her. When this was all over, what would Ms Kyoto be able to **** her to do?

Or what if this would never end? What if Rocketgirl's consciousness was never reunited with her body?

Ms Kyoto surely anticipated this line of questioning racing through Rocketgirl's mind. One day, after watering her, Ms Kyoto declared, "It's done. The lead has saturated every bone and internal organ in your body, so you should slowly decay with the effects of lead poisoning. Your subconscious has been through all my programming. Your hypothalamus is producing world record-shattering levels of oxytocin, so your body will easily become -- and, I hope, forever remain -- sexually aroused. But of course an orgasm -- a real orgasm, not just a chemical reaction like what your body experienced with that classmate of yours -- is impossible until your conscious mind is aroused, too. I'll give your body some time to build up right to the precipice and then keep it simmering there for a while. Then I'll plug your mind back in. I'll turn you on, if you will. That's right, Rocketgirl. I'm giving you back your body."

Could it be true? After all the horrors inflicted on her body, would Rocketgirl at last be reunited with herself? Could she finally begin undoing the damage wrought by her mortal enemy?

"But don't think you'll be able to escape the everlasting effects of what I've done to your body. I'm only reinserting your brain into that luscious but wasted body of yours so you can experience the psychological trauma of being my complete and utter ****. You will rebel -- of that I'm certain. But you'll be absolutely helpless. Your muscles will have severely atrophied over the last several months -- not to worry, we'll get you on a rigorous physical training regimen. But you'd find it quite impossible to control your own body regardless. Between all that lead weighing you down and the strict confines of your new subconscious -- one totally subservient to me -- you won't be able to act for yourself. Oh sure, your conscious mind will be free as a bird, but you'll remain captive in your own body, completely under my control."

Rocketgirl knew then that Ms Kyoto had miscalculated. She hadn't accounted for one thing: she could get help. She may not be able to escape on her own, but once she was back inside her body, she would scream down the doors until someone came to her rescue. They'd imprison Ms Kyoto, Rocketgirl would tell them everything, and even if it took years, she would get the help she needed -- psychologists to help her subconscious recover its independence, doctors and specialists to remove the lead from her body. Rocketgeranium bloomed, swelling with hope.

But Ms Kyoto bloomed, too. "There's just one thing left to do before I can put you back," she said, smirking. She drew a hypodermic needle from her pocket. "I can't have you telling people what I've done to you. It would be such a shame to ruin all this hard work with such a simple oversight. So I'm going to dose your body, over the next seven days, with this neurotoxin. This will effectively scramble your ability to communicate. It will cause your tongue to swell to triple in size and make your fingers spasm with uncontrollable jitters. Try as you might, you'll be completely unable to speak, write, or sign anything."

No. No! Rocketgirl's mind silently screamed as she watched Ms Kyoto inject the toxin into the IV pumping into Melissa's arm.

"I think you've had about enough water and sunlight, Rocketgeranium," Ms Kyoto said, lowering the window shades and plunging the room into darkness. She flicked on a small light above the comatose Melissa's head. "Without those essential nutrients, that plant you're in will gradually wither away and die. And just as you feel yourself fading away, I'll put you back in your body. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place!"