The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

(Yeager Airport, Charleston, West Virginia. Now.)

Daniel followed Shawbank down the hallway of the airport, towards the car rental stations. He tugged at his new suit, vaguely uncomfortable. Then he shook his head. Had I taken that job with the Advanced American Institute for Democracy, he thought, I’d probably have had to wear a suit anyways. Lose-lose on that front. He looked at Shawbank, who was dressed in a suit of her own, covered with her long leather jacket. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.

“First, car. Second, hunt.” She did not turn to look at him. She had said little on the flight, closing her eyes and remaining motionless for the hour-long hop. “Did you read the report?”

The report. Before leaving, Brisecoeur had transferred a detailed internal report on Specials to Daniel’s tablet computer, and Daniel had perused it before boarding and during the flight. What he had read still sounded incredible to him, even taking into account his own experiences at Darnell University over the previous year. At least then Cindy had suggested that whatever had happened to the girls was a combination of drugs and neurolinguistic programming, as she had called it. But what this report hinted at was something else altogether.

“Magic? Really? You want me to believe in magic now?” He shook his head, grunting. “Tell me you’re joking.” The thought of Shawbank cracking a joke was funny in and of itself.

The report had pointed out, among other things, that Specials were characterized by their ability to affect the decision-making centers of human females, as well as their memory and automatic responses. Some neurological pathways involving the amygdala, the hippocampus, the medial temporal lobes memory structures, and the parietal cortex were described by way of hypothetical mechanism explaining the effect. The mechanism required skin contact, although the extent of the contact, the length of the contact, as well as the depth and strength of the affectation depended on unknown factors that varied on a case-by-case basis. Brisecoeur appended a list of typical cases going back five years, highlighting Specials from the weakest that had to lay hands on a victim’s back for four hours to exert a mild change in a decision that the victim did not feel strongly about to more powerful Specials who could control up to three women at the same time with barely a touch of the fingertip through cloth. Specials had been known to be able to affect animals as well, the closest to the genetic makeup of Homo Sapiens, the more effective their control. Estimates for the number of Specials in the United States at the present ranged between one and five thousand, a number that tripled once latent Specials were included. The estimates for world-wide population were unavailable, but believed to be a lesser fraction of the population.

“No joke. And we don’t talk here,” Shawbank whistled. “In the car.”

They approached the car rental counter, where a timid young man—clearly subdued by the cold tall woman with the striking raven-black hair who was dominating him without raising her voice—handed them their keys and pointed them to a sliding door. Shawbank headed out without looking back, her boots clacking on the hard floor.

In the car—a nondescript dark G6—Shawbank sat behind the wheel and navigated them out of the rental lot and to the airport exit.

“So, magic?” asked Daniel.

“Not magic. Did you read Appendix C of the report?”

“You mean the medical gobbledygook? I’m sorry, but I skipped Advanced Neurobiology at Darnell.”

“Biochemistry, actually. Although there does seem to be a neurological component involved in the Specials’ physiology. In short: a Special’s neurological system—their sympathetic system most likely—seems to undergo a mutation, and to carry impulses that can affect specific biological markers in a victim’s cells. Those markers are responsible for the production of specific proteins that affect very specific regions of the brain.”

“Like a virus, then?”

“Same idea. But much faster. The exact process is still not understood.”

“You realize that sounds completely crazy, right? Someone touching someone and poof—something happens inside someone that immediately affects their brain?”

Shawbank gave a thin joyless smile. “Crazy. Yes. But true. Just wait until you see it.”

Daniel wanted to ask Shawbank whether Cargyle had been a Special. His name did not appear in the list Brisecoeur had given him.

“The report said something about effects on the... the Specials.”

“Insane. The Specials generally go insane.”

“What do you mean?”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “What I said. They go insane. Best guess—the mutation of the neurological system of the Special does actual damage in the long run, and causes a severe form of psychosis. Exact form of the psychotic episodes vary based on the psychological traits of the Special in question. They’re dangerous, Malcolm. Not much better than rabid animals. Always keep that in mind.”

“So are we going to get the police to help us? The feds?”

Shawbank shook her head. “No. Not unless we absolutely have to. Cops tend to... react badly to learning about this. And when they react badly, they talk. And when they talk, people panic. How do you think the plebeians would react to knowing that they have people who can control minds in their midst? The less people know about this, the better.”

Before Daniel could retort, Shawbank had turned to flash him a hard look. “Same goes for you, Malcolm. You do not talk about this to people outside ADCorp, and even then, not even to people outside of IE Division, understood?”

Daniel nodded. “Of course.”

“I’m serious,” she added, a hint of threat in her voice.

When are you not? he thought. “I won’t say a word.”

“Good.”

Shawbank drove in silence, leaving the city proper. The scenery turned agrarian in the blink of an eye.

“So where do we start?” asked Daniel.

“You tell me. You read the data Brisecoeur gave us?”

“I did. Let’s see.” He pulled out his tablet computer, flipped it to the appropriate page of notes he had made. “In the past twelve months, there have been fifty-one first-child births with possible conception on the parents’ wedding night. Analysis projected a total of thirty-five births with those characteristics, with a variance of three point six. Problem is, we don’t know which of those sixteen births are extra.” Daniel impressed himself with how collected and knowledgeable he could sound—he felt he had no real idea what was going on and what was expected of him.

“Good. What’s our first step, then?”

She was testing him. “Well, I guess we go and interview those fifty-one mothers, get their stories. Your theory is that there is a single person—a Special—that impregnated those women—”

“Not all of them.”

“Right, not all of them. Your theory is that a Special impregnated a subset of those women. So we interview the women and find the one man that has had an affair with some of those women.”

“Problem. The Special probably wiped their memory.”

“He can do that?”

“Yes. If he’s got an ounce of sense. If he’s an idiot, he’ll be easy to find. But don’t count on it. They’re cunning.”

“So we need to find someone that has slept with those women and that has... what? blanked their memories of the event?”

“Right.”

“How are we going to do that.”

“Again, you tell me. Who do we start with?”

“I don’t know... does it matter?” He scrolled down the list of names Brisecoeur had provided them, trying to see if any of them stood out. “Oh. The vasectomy. The wife whose husband had a vasectomy. Natalie Grifford, née Maynard.”

Shawbank nodded.

Daniel brought up Grifford’s file. “The child—a girl—born four months ago. Cesarean delivery. They live in... Beckley, West Virginia. Maybe half an hour from Charleston.”

Daniel raised his head just in time to see the sign on the highway flash with the indication that the next exit was Beckley.

They found the house—a small bungalow in the outskirts of Beckley with a large yard and little by way of trees. Natalie Grifford answered the door, and let them in once Shawbank explained they were with ADSec, a security agency investigating a string of unexplained events in the area.

“Thank you for talking to us, Mrs. Grifford,” Shawbank said, following the blonde to the dining room. “I’m Agent Shawbank, this is Agent Malcolm.”

Grifford nodded to Daniel. “Would you like some tea? The water just boiled. I was... the little one’s finally asleep, and I have been craving a tea for the past...” She did not finish her sentence.

Daniel looked at her. The woman looked tired.

“No thank you, Mrs. Grifford,” replied Shawbank. “But please go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Grifford moved to the kitchen to one side of the dining room, and pulled a box of tea sachets from the cupboard.

Daniel looked at her carefully. She was medium height, perhaps five foot six, with a slim frame, and nice curves. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail that wanted to curl up over her shoulders. She was dressed leisurely for a day at home taking care of an infant, with grey sweatpants and a tee shirt. Even in her casual clothes, there was a certain elegance and grace in her demeanor. He tried to look for any sign that she had been affected by a Special, but he saw nothing, if there was even something to look for.

“We will only take a moment of your time, Mrs. Grifford,” said Shawbank, sitting at the dining table. Daniel followed suit.

“Sure. Whatever. It’s just nice to talk to someone who’s not spitting on you every five seconds...”

Natalie Grifford came back with a steaming mug—World’s Sexiest Mom—and sat down at one end of the table, cradling the mug in both hands. “What’s this about?”

Shawbank took control of the questioning. She was serious, and did not crack a smile. Daniel did not know what role he was meant to play in the interview, so he listened while trying to maintain a more pleasant composure to contrast with Shawbank.

“This is about your what happened to you twelve months ago, Mrs. Grifford. Events that led to the birth of your daughter, Chloé Grifford. It has come to our attention that there has been some questions about the identity of the father?”

Natalie Grifford frowned and clutched the mug harder. “What... what is this about? What are you asking exactly?” The tension in the room shot up immediately. Shawbank’s expression changed not at all.

“Mrs. Grifford, what do you know about the man that impregnated you?”

Natalie Grifford’s back straightened and she looked from Shawbank to Daniel and back, moisture forming in her eyes. She had trouble forming words, and when she did, her voice was shaking. “Who... what are you saying? Who... who are you people?” She was starting to stand up, and still Shawbank’s expression never changed—she kept her eyes on Grifford, studying her every movement.

Daniel decided to intervene. “Mrs. Grifford, please. We are... investigating a suspect in a series of cases involving severe sexual harassment and assault, and one of our leads led to you. We are looking for a very bad man, Mrs. Grifford, and we need your help to stop him. Please.”

Grifford, half standing in her chair, stared at him for a long time before sitting back down. “I did not cheat on my husband, Agent Malcolm,” she said, keeping her voice steady.

“We know, Mrs. Grifford,” replied Shawbank. “We have our theories about what might have happened to you. But before we can explore those, we would like to hear your side of the story.”

Grifford looked at Shawbank for a beat before shrugging; her shoulders drooped low, and she held her head in her hands. “I wish I could help you, but I... I don’t know what happened. I mean, nothing happened!”

“Could you walk us through your wedding day?”

Grifford looked up and stared beyond both of them, a gentle smile creeping on her face. “Best day of my life,” she said. “We had the ceremony at this little here chapel in Beckley, where my mother got married, and it was just perfect—there was a question about whether the organist we had hired could make it that day because of a flu, but she did—and then we took pictures and it was like a dream. We had our reception at the Ramada up in Charleston, with maybe a hundred and thirty people, and we danced and we laughed and everybody had a lot of fun.”

“Nothing weird happened during the day?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

“And the wedding night?” asked Shawbank.

Grifford blushed slightly, and smiled. “It went great. I mean, Steve and I... I mean, we weren’t virgins or anything, so...”

“Anything weird happened that night or later?”

Grifford shook her head. “Nothing. This is Beckley, Agent Shawbank. Nothing ever happens here, weird or otherwise.”

“And yet, there you were, nine months after your wedding, pregnant, with a child that could not have been your husband’s because of his vasectomy.”

Grifford blushed again, this time with anger. “Except I did not cheat on my husband!”

“Huh, vasectomies have been known to reverse themselves,” Daniel interrupted. “Do we know for certain that the child is not your husband’s?”

A sad look passed over Grifford’s face, and she nodded. “She’s not his. Steve had a paternity test done when Chloé was born.” Her eyes were rimmed with red now. “That’s when...” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “That’s when Steve threatened to leave—he was so upset...” She paused for a long time, staring off into space.

“Mrs. Grifford,” said Shawbank, “do you think we could have a copy of the report for the paternity test? It may help us identify the father.”

Grifford looked at Shawbank, seeming to come back from afar. “What?” She shook her head. “Oh, yes, yes, of course. I think...” She looked around the room, looking lost for a moment. “I think we put it...” She stood and headed for a cabinet on one side of the room with shelves holding a few books and various pieces of decorated ceramics. She opened a drawer in the lower part of the cabinet and pulled out folders and papers, looking through them quietly.

“Did you make those, Mrs. Grifford,” asked Daniel, to break the silence that had fallen in the room.

Grifford raised her eyes for a moment to see where Daniel was looking before getting back to searching through the papers. “No, Steve—my husband—he’s an amateur potter, has been for a good six years now. That’s how we met, in fact—” she smiled, “when I was looking for a gift for my mother at the local crafts fair two years ago. Ah, there it is.”

She returned with an envelope. “I’m not sure how to copy...”

Shawbank extended her hand. “May I?” She took the envelope, extracted the papers it contained, and laid them on the table. She then pulled out a small camera and photographed them.

“You said... you said you had theories for what could have happened?” asked Grifford, looking at Daniel.

“Yes...” he said, slowly, looking at Shawbank. He was not sure how much he should tell, and suspected that anything close to the truth would completely freak the poor woman.

Shawbank pulled him out of trouble. “Yes. One of our current working theories involve one or more males coating underwear in stores or perhaps in manufactures with semen mixed in with a product to keep the sperm viable for long periods of time.”

Grifford made a face. “Urgh! That’d work? But I wash everything I buy first thing...”

Shawbank looked up while putting the papers back in the envelope. “Did you soak your underwear in bleach for at least twenty-four hours before wearing them?”

Grifford looked taken aback. “No...”

“Washing them with normal detergent in the standard wash-rinse cycle would not eliminate the product, according to our analyses.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s... that’s... that’s disgusting.”

“Indeed, Mrs. Grifford. And we will try our very best to catch the responsible parties. But as I said, it is but one of our theories, and we are exploring all options. Including something that may have happened at your wedding.”

Before Grifford could answer, the front door opened, and both Daniel and Shawbank turned. “It’s Steve,” said Grifford. “Baby, we’re here.”

Steve Grifford, a tall man with short dark hair in a short-sleeved shirt and trousers, stepped into the dining room, eyeing the two agents with a question in his eyes. “Hey,” he said, stepping next to his wife and kissing her on the lips. He noted her reddened eyes. “Are you okay? What are these folks doing here?”

“They’re here to help find the man who... well...”

“Mister Grifford—Agent Shawbank, with ADSec.” She flashed an identification card. “We’re here to investigate the events that led up to the unexpected pregnancy of your wife.”

Steve Grifford made a face, and tried to hide it immediately. Daniel figured that there was still a lot of tension in the couple on that topic. He noted the body language—husband and wife were close, although he sometimes leaned away from her, especially when the topic of the pregnancy came into play. Daniel doubted that Steve Grifford was even aware he was doing it.

“Of course, anything we can do to help. I mean, what happened was just... crazy.”

“Anything you can tell us, Mister Grifford? Anything you noticed around the time of the wedding, anything out of the ordinary? Think back to the ceremony, or the reception. It doesn’t have to be big, or it may seem completely unimportant to you, but it may be a clue.”

Daniel, who was still trying to understand the subtleties of the body language of the couple—the intensive training he had received over the past three months had kicked in, clearly—saw the shadow that flickered over Steve Grifford’s face. He looked over at Shawbank, but her expression had remained as cold and neutral as it always was.

“Offhand, no, I can’t think of anything, no. It was... I mean, it was a wedding. I mean, it was beautiful.”

Natalie Grifford looked at her husband, a smile on her face. “It was, wasn’t it?” She hugged her husband’s arm, and leaned over for another kiss.

A wail to shatter windows cut through the domestic scene. Natalie Grifford jumped, then excused herself. “That’s Chloé, clamoring for her late afternoon snack, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to go. Steve—” she turned to her husband, “should be able to answer your questions.”

Shawbank glanced at Daniel and held his gaze for three long seconds before calling after Natalie. “Would you mind if I head up with you, Mrs. Grifford? I would like to ask you a few questions about the guests at your wedding.”

“Not at all,” replied Natalie Grifford, heading up the stairs. Shawbank followed after her.

Daniel was left with Steve Grifford, who had pulled a beer bottle from the fridge and was pouring it down a tall glass. “Would you like one, Agent...”

“Malcolm, sir. No thank you.”

Daniel had the gut feeling that Shawbank had seen the shadow pass over Steve Grifford’s face a minute earlier, and had left him to explore the meaning of it, man to man.

“Mister Grifford—”

“Steve, please.” Grifford sat down at the table, and grabbed his head in his hands, unknowingly mimicking his wife not twenty minutes earlier.

Upstairs, the cries of the babies had gone one up level.

“Okay, Steve. Huh... Are you okay?”

Grifford replied without looking up. “Ever felt like there’s stuff happening in your world that you have no clue about and that you feel completely unable to control?”

Until a year ago, no, not at all, but I’ve made up for it since, thought Daniel. “It has happened, yes. Sucks.”

“You can say that again.” Grifford took a long swallow from his glass.

The baby upstairs—Chloé—had calmed down, and the house was silent once more.

“Mist... Steve, may I ask you a question?”

“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

“When my colleague asked you about anything odd about your wedding, you made a face...”

Grifford made a face again, this time without trying to hide it.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me?” Daniel glanced at the glass of beer. “Anything would help finding the son of a bitch that did this to you and your wife. The man that tried to ruin your life.”

Grifford’s face clenched, and he looked like he was about to scream or hurl his glass at something. But then an expression of despair crossed his features, and he grabbed his head in his hands once more.

“I don’t know... I mean, it’s all been so weird, you understand? Getting married to this wonderful woman, even though I can’t have children because of a rare genetic disease that would condemn any kid of mine to almost certain misery, and then bang! Learning that my new wife is pregnant, with a kid that cannot come from me! Bang!”

“But there is something else...”

Grifford’s smile was bittersweet. “You know how sometimes someone you love surprises you, I mean, in a good way, but in a way you never expected?”

Daniel nodded, noncommittally.

“Well, Natalie’s been... I don’t know... she’s...” Grifford took a deep breath, followed by a swallow of beer. “It’s crazy, it’s got nothing to do with anything, it’s just...”

“Steve, please. It’s hard to know in advance what’s useful and what’s not. What my colleague said was true: every little bit helps. Even if it looks unrelated. Because it’s not. Everything’s connected. Everything affects everything else.” Great, now I’m sounding like a holistic bonehead. Way to go, Daniel. If that doesn’t shut him up, nothing will.

But Grifford nodded, as if agreeing with the statement. He took another deep breath. “Maybe a month after we got married, before we knew she was pregnant, Nat and I went to a party with friends of ours, and she hooked up with an old friend from high school, a cute little blonde, real sexy. And, to cut the story short, we spent the night together, the three of us. If you know what I mean...”

Daniel nodded. “I take it this sort of thing hadn’t happened before?”

“No. I mean, I wanted it to—fuck—sorry—what guy doesn’t, right? Two beautiful women together. I mean, at some point, I did say that to Natalie, that it was sort of a fantasy of mine, like many other guys, and she’d given me a bit of grief about it. But last thing I expected was for her to make the first move and make it happen. I didn’t even know she... she was into girls, you know? But she’s the one that made the move on her friend, making out with her before coming to get me and telling me that if I wanted to I could do her and Sasha. I thought she was teasing me until she dragged me to the bedroom and there was Sasha, naked, on the bed, with her legs spread, and Nat just took off her dress and lay down between her friend’s legs and just like that started eating her out, shaking her little ass to get me to go behind her and...”

Grifford stopped, realizing what he was saying and who he was saying it to.

Daniel gave a smile and nodded. “Lucky man,” he said to maintain a connection.

“No kiddin’. Best night of my life. Nat was like an animal in bed that night, you wouldn’t believe.” He looked up at the stairs, to see if his wife was getting back down, as if he should not be telling Daniel any of this, hesitating.

“There’s more?” asked Daniel.

Grifford sighed, nodded slightly, his eyes still on the stairs. “It’s been like that ever since, you know? If we go out and I just happen to look at a girl—you know, she used to get pissed at me, even if it was just a casual look, just my eyes flying over—but now she’ll snuggled up to me and whisper in my ear that she looks... you know... fuckable, and she’ll ask me whether I’d like her to join us in bed, and you know, I say no, of course not, but she’ll insist that she won’t mind, that she’ll go and talk to her and try to convince her, her or anyone, and...” His face reddened.

Daniel nodded softly. “As I said,” he smiled, “lucky man. And I take it she was sincere.”

“Oh yeah. We... well... you know, I told her once that, you know, to shut her up, get her to quit teasing me, that yeah, that one girl was pretty sweet, and next thing you know Nat’s off to talk to the girl and fuck me if she’s not coming over for a drink at the house later that night and Nat and her made out right there in the living room and...” He shook his head again, stopped speaking.

Daniel digested everything he had been told, and considered Grifford’s reaction. It was not the reaction of a man that had his fantasy handed to him on a silver platter. It was the reaction of a man who fears he has made a deal with the Devil.

“So what did he have to hide?” asked Shawbank once they were in the car.

Daniel repeated what Steve Grifford had told him as Shawbank drove away from the bungalow. “I think that’s one of the reasons he stayed, why he gave her a second chance, why he accepted the kid even though it wasn’t his,” he concluded.

Shawbank gave a sharp nod. “Sure. Wife’s happy to fulfill your deepest fantasy, over and over again. That shifts the equation.”

“And he clearly loves her,” added Daniel.

Shawbank shot him a hard glance, but did not comment. “So what have we learned?” she asked, instead.

“Well, she seems to have no memory of the event, and I tend to believe her on that account. We do have a DNA test for the child, which can help us narrow down suspects.” He tried to read Shawbank’s expression. “But you think I’m missing something?”

“Yes.”

Shawbank hooked her communication earpiece, and thumbed a button on its side. “Brisecoeur? Do a narrowed search on the women in our target set. Correlate with any change in behavior coinciding with their wedding.” She paused, listening. “Focus on behavioral changes of a sexual nature, read broadly.” Another pause. “Yes. Shawbank out.”

Daniel interpreted the exchange.

“You think whoever did this also made it so that the wife would indulge in threesomes? That’s... weird.”

Shawbank’s lips curled slightly. “You better start getting used to weird, Malcolm.”