The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

THE ATTACHMENT

Chapter 18b

by Abacab

Jim located Elizabeth’s phone, charging on the side table next to the sofa. In a panic, he picked it up and turned on the screen. He suddenly remembered, from Wednesday night’s follies, that Elizabeth had a lock code on the phone. He closed his eyes, swore under his breath, started trying to recall anything he knew about Elizabeth, anything numerical in nature, that might gain him access and help him get rid of Julia before she could reach Elizabeth. He wasn’t coming up with much.

On opening his eyes... no, wait... there wasn’t a lock screen on the phone. Maybe Julia had simply made Elizabeth think the screen was locked the other night. Jim had to admit it was remarkable; that goddamn woman thought of everything.

He easily swiped his way into Elizabeth’s phone and braced himself.

Hi, Elizabeth. Haven’t heard from you in a couple days. Is everything OK? Call me when you get time. Love you!

Sincerely,
Mom

Jim breathed a sigh of relief. That’s so adorable, he thought. Her mom writes texts like she’s writing a letter or an email. My mom totally does that too.

He put the phone down and went back into the kitchen to finish making the coffee.

As he poured the fresh grounds into the basket, thinking about how he’d been totally unable to make an educated guess toward a personally-meaningful lock code which didn’t even exist, he remembered that he still had a great deal to learn about Elizabeth. He still desperately wanted to know more about her, know everything about her.

Maybe her phone could tell him a lot.

...No, that was just wrong. He wouldn’t want her going through his phone.

...Actually, now that he considered it, he realized it wouldn’t have mattered much to him if she did. There was really nothing in there that he wouldn’t want her to see. And Elizabeth surely had much less to hide. After all, they probably already knew each other’s darkest secret—what Julia had done to them.

So: fuck it. No texts, no call logs, just a quick glance through her photos, that’s all. He’d learn more about Elizabeth from her photos; that was perfectly innocent, and that’s all it was about. He only wanted to know more about her, and what he might find on there surely couldn’t hurt. He knew her well enough by now to know that.

* * *

Julia finally closed her laptop, letting out a long sigh, running her fingers through her hair, attempting to recline more comfortably in the uncomfortable chair for a moment.

She looked at her watch.

She brought her index finger to the watch.

Now looking across the table at something else, she pressed at the side of the watch with her finger.

She pressed again, harder, longer this time... then again.

“...Goddammit.”

She angrily unstrapped the watch and yanked it off her wrist, set it on its face. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a small toolkit, extracted an even smaller screwdriver from therein, and quickly removed the back of the watch.

Setting the caseback aside, she peered into the watch’s innards, squinting. Not satisfied, she grabbed the opened watch by its strap, brought it over to the bedroom lamp, inspected it closely in the light.

“...Oh, for fucksake.“

* * *

Not much of interest in Elizabeth’s photo gallery. She didn’t seem to take pictures of much. Jim was glad; he’d have hated himself if he’d begun falling in love with someone who Instagrammed pictures of their every meal.

Some pics from their past Tuesday night at the bar; those might make for interesting memories down the road, if only Julia weren’t in the pictures too. Jim wondered how difficult it really was to learn Photoshop.

Then: a few more photos of recent-past company gatherings he barely remembered. Jim noticed he was still present in a surprising number of the photos. That was actually kind of sweet, maybe. He couldn’t know for sure if his in-frame inclusion had been at all intentional on Elizabeth’s part.

A short, three-month-old video of a litter of kittens in a cage. Maybe Elizabeth had gone to the local humane society, thought about adopting one of the kittens at one point. Jim made a mental note to inform her that, while he genuinely liked cats, he was quite allergic.

Scrolling back, still not much of interest. Pictures of furniture, possibly for purchase consideration. Jim recognized her coffee table in one of the photos, pictured in a totally different setting. Multiple shelf tags for who-knew-what at retail stores, probably taken for consumer-research purposes. A fair number of pictures of shoes on display, a fair number of pictures of shoes actually on her feet. Jim wondered if she’d taken those pictures for herself, or taken them so as to send to a friend for fashion consultation. Maybe she’d even sent them to Julia at some point. He couldn’t tell.

A thumbnail for another video. Elizabeth was in frame in the thumbnail. The video was even older than the kitten video; her hair was shorter, done up a little differently. It looked like she was smiling, like she was indoors, like she might have made the video alone in her home office.

Jim wondered what this could possibly be about. A greeting to a friend? Maybe a video for Youtube or something, maybe a video-blog thing? Nah, Elizabeth didn’t seem like she was terribly into social networking. Maybe it was something instructional, something regarding a hobby that Jim didn’t yet know about. Jim realized that he really, really wanted to know about Elizabeth’s hobbies.

He pressed play.

* * *

“...Yeah, Gary? It’s Julia.

“...You’re damn right, I ‘don’t sound happy.’ Your latest magnum opus went completely fucknuts on me last night.

“...Yes, fucknuts. Started sending out start-stop signals every couple of seconds for no fucking reason. And then it just stopped dead, stopped transmitting to the base altogether. It’s still dead now. Dead as a doornail.

“...Well, you know what, I have the remote open, and I think I see the problem. Because I’ve seen cleaner soldering jobs on Chinese toys from the dollar store.

“...No, seriously, it’s right here in front of me, and the work you did here really is that fucking sad. What the hell were you thinking, releasing this kind of horseshit into a production environment? For crissake, Gary, your amateur-hour rush-fuckery here could’ve cost me a job.“

* * *

“Um... hi. This is Elizabeth Jantzen, client for Daniels Consulting and Arbitration.”

A voice on the other end, maybe coming through Elizabeth’s laptop speakers. It sounded familiar somehow. Jim couldn’t quite make it out. Elizabeth clearly could.

“...Nice to finally speak to you too.”

And there was the voice again. It was really hard to hear. Jim looked around on his coffee table, found a set of headphones, plugged them in, rewound.

...The voice was Julia’s. Still very hard to make out, but unmistakably Julia’s voice, coming through the laptop speakers.

“I must say, Ms. Jantzen...”

“Oh, um, please... please call me Elizabeth. It’s really kind of weird being called ‘Ms.’”

“OK, Elizabeth. I must say, now that I can see you in person, that it’s hard for me to see any obvious reason why you’d need to employ our services.”

“Uh... why’s that?”

“You’re young, and... well, you’re also fairly attractive. I have to say, we just don’t see that particular combination very often.” Jim heard Julia laughing.

“Well, uh... thank you, I guess.”

“Are you sure you don’t have other means of working out your differences with the third party? I’d just hate for you to spend so much money and time on this process if you have other resources you can easily tap to achieve the same result.”

Elizabeth looked down.

“Did you hear me, Elizabeth? I’m not breaking up, am...”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you fine. I guess... I just don’t really have another way to do this. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried. I’m just not good at this. Or maybe I’m just not what the ‘third party’ is into,” she said, drawing air quotes. “I don’t know. I’m probably just terrible at this and always have been.”

“OK, well, if you’re sure you want to proceed...”

“I am. I hate it, I totally hate myself for it, but... I am.”

“Alright, well, I brought you here today so I could personally see what we’re dealing with, and put the finishing touches on our mediation plan after we’re done talking. There are lots of approaches we could try, lots of approaches we’ve used with good success rates...”

“...Mmm-hmmm.” Elizabeth nodded, still looking down, sadly.

“...but seeing you now, I have to say... I think the approach that would work best would involve using you as an incentive to bring the third party to the negotiating table.“

Elizabeth looked up. “What... what do you mean? How would that even work? I... I mean, I can’t get his attention at all as it is. That’s why I hired you.”

“It may be best to leave the planning of the forthcoming arbitration to us, Elizabeth. It might be better if you don’t know exactly what I mean just yet. But... oh, I forgot to ask, are you filming this on something like I asked?”

“Yeah, I have my phone running. I have it on a little tripod too, just like you asked. Had to order the mount online. So... why are we doing all this again, anyway?“

“OK, Elizabeth... now, what I’m about to ask of you is going to sound strange, maybe even pretty awful. But to take the approach I’d like to take, we will need footage of you masturbating on camera.”

* * *

“...Well, no, it didn’t cost me the job, asshole, or you’d owe me a hell of a lot more than a free set of replacements and an apology.

“...Of course I’m still upset. Of course it’s still a big deal. So what if I still completed the work? No thanks at all to you and your five-dollar soldering iron with its original tip from 1982, I should add, but...

“...You know what, Gary, fuck you, and yes, it was worse than it sounds. It was a lot worse. Finishing the job isn’t always everything. You really have no idea what kind of incredible setback this slapdash piece of shit just delivered me.“

* * *

“What... what? No. I... I, just no. Why? Why would you ever need that footage? Is this a joke? Some kind of trick?“

“It’s not a joke or a trick. You gave us your deposit, you talked to your referral... you know we are for real.”

“Yeah, yeah... and how many of you are just sitting over there, just waiting to see if you can make me diddle myself on camera after giving you five grand for the privilege?”

“...OK, listen, let me make this a bit clearer for you: I am for real. I am the whole company. The royal ‘we’ is a rather useful thing for small, high-risk businesses. But honestly, there’s nobody else here on this end, nobody but me. There never will be. And I promise that nobody else will see this, ever... not until the third party sees it.“

“Wait... what? You think you’re going to show this to him? Are you fucking crazy?“

“Look, Elizabeth... I know it sounds crazy, sounds awful. But you just have to trust me on this. When we finish, he won’t even know it’s you.”

“How? How will he not know it’s me? I mean, what... what the hell would you even do with this, showing it to him? How is that going to achieve anything? No, no... this has got to be a trick.“

“Alright, Elizabeth, please calm down. Please calm down and just listen.”

“Oh my god, you’re... you’re just fucking crazy.“

“OK, are you listening now?”

“Whatever... whatever. Ohhh, this ought to be good.“

“So the footage will be designed, will be used to entice and quickly bring in the third party for mediation. It will be used only for his education, just like you have been educating yourself with our materials. He won’t ever see your face. He won’t know it’s you, not for a long while. But he will quickly learn to strongly associate the image with wonderful feelings, with intense and irresistible arousal. And when he finally learns it’s been you all along...”

“Oh, well... great. That’s just... just fucking great. You can’t do this another way? Really? All this experience you’ve got, all this money, and the only way to get him interested is to show him my pussy first thing?“

“There are other ways to begin the arbitration, yes. But this method works incredibly well, incredibly fast. And, yes... I know it still sounds awful. Men are frequently awful creatures, and...”

“No, this one isn’t. I know he isn’t. I wouldn’t be doing... well, all this for someone awful.“

“Well, be that as it may... you’ve probably heard the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. That adage is a middle-minded euphemism at best. Look around you, look anywhere at all, and it’s completely obvious: the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his dick.”

Elizabeth sighed, putting her hand to her forehead.

“...You really think you’ll get him to look at this? You really think it will somehow interest him?“

“I don’t care who he is or what an upstanding citizen he might be, Elizabeth. I know people. I know men. Knowing men, knowing how to control men, is pretty much my whole job. I’ve done this before. I know I can get him interested right away with this. It is a remarkably potent and efficient approach, when it can be used. And in this case, it can absolutely be used... but unfortunately, for this to work, it’s got to be you. It’s really just got to be you. I’m sorry.“

“Fuck. I... I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’ve actually talked me into doing this.”

“Again, Elizabeth, we can do something else, we can try something else, but—and I say this based on years of experience—it’s a sound and efficient approach; it delivers results. I honestly wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought there was a better option in your case.”

“...Fuck... alright, but Julia, can you... can you maybe just make me, like, forget all this somehow when we’re done? I just... I just never, ever want to remember any of this.“

“Well... I probably can, but it might take a little more education.”

“’Education...’ oh, whatever. Whatever it takes. Just make me fucking forget it, forget it all. This shit just... Christ, it makes me completely sick to my stomach.”

* * *

“...Well, what the fuck do you know about any of this, Gary? Your job is just to build this shit on spec, and build it right the first fucking time. You don’t have to know what I do with it or why it should ever matter when it fails. I just pay you to build it, build it for me to actually use it, and when I go to use it, I expect it to fucking work.

“...Yes, Gary, of course I need it fast. I’m going out on the next job. I need it by Friday. And believe me, I will be checking your soldering work this time. You should have plenty left over from what I sent you the first time to at least buy a decent fucking iron... or maybe take a basic electronics course at the community college so they can teach you some actual technique, you useless fucking hack.“

* * *

The phone’s camera now angled down, aimed at the masking-tape “X” that Julia had made Elizabeth place on the seat of the chair. Jim couldn’t see Elizabeth now. He could only hear her crying, somewhere off-camera.

“I just can’t do this, Julia. I can’t. I can’t.”

“It’s OK, I promise, Elizabeth. We’ve got the camera set perfectly now. Nobody will ever know it’s you, not even when you sit back down. And this won’t take long, I promise. Have you... have you taken off your pants and underwear, at least?”

Elizabeth must have been purposely standing off-camera from the laptop as well.

“I... yes, but... oh my god, please don’t make me do this. I’ve never done anything like this. I never would. This really, really isn’t me. I’m way too shy, way too weird about my body...“

“The reality, Elizabeth, is that you’re going to have to be very comfortable being naked in front of me when arbitration begins...“

“What? ...What? Why?

“...oh, please, don’t even worry about that right now, Elizabeth. It won’t be a problem for you by then at all.“

Jesus fucking Christ... what have I signed up for here? What the hell are you...“

“No, shhhh, Elizabeth... it’s all going to be fine. Your friend did this before, and she’s fine now, and very happy with things, now isn’t she? So don’t even worry about any of that stuff right now. You’re going to be perfectly OK, I promise. It will all be OK. I’ll help you. And honestly, this won’t take very long. We just need to get it overwith.“

Elizabeth said nothing, simply sobbed... sobbed harder.

“Alright, Elizabeth... let’s maybe try something here. Did you put all those UCEP files onto an MP3 player like I asked?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth’s voice was high in pitch now, horrifyingly sad, bound up inextricably with her tears.

“OK. I really need you to use that MP3 player right now. Go get it. Bring up the file called ‘RAPID-2’ and give it a listen. OK?”

Jim heard Elizabeth storm out of the room, returning 45 seconds later. “Alright, I’m... I’m listening now.”

“Don’t talk, Elizabeth. Just listen. Restart it. Come back to me when you’ve listened to it.”

Sixty seconds passed. Jim heard Elizabeth’s now-infrequent sobs and more frequent sniffles slowly dying away. He heard her muttering a few words, but couldn’t tell what they were.

Soon she sat down in the chair, wearing nothing as promised. Her hands, with her immaculately painted fingernails, rested on either side of the chair. Jim could see her breathing had slowed, gradually slowing to the pace he’d first beheld Tuesday evening.

Another silent minute passed.

“...O... OK. I’m... here now.”

“Good. Are you feeling better, Elizabeth?” Julia’s tone was now remarkably different; Jim suddenly felt his head get a little fuzzy.

“...Yesssss.”

“Yes, yes, of course you are. It’s all going to be alright now. Now, let’s finally get this done, and then you can just drift off to sleep. Can you take off your headphones for me? I can see the cable running across your stomach.”

* * *

“...This is absolutely non-negotiable, Gary. I need it Friday. This is your hapless fuckup to bear. I don’t care what else you have going on. This takes priority. Unless you’re, y’know, already getting bored of Cynthia’s company, because you know full well I can take care of that problem for you. How is your darling Cynthia doing, by the way?

“...Well, that’s great, that’s really great to hear. So, anyway: chop, chop. I’ll text you the address when I know what it is. Text me back with the tracking number the very fucking second you’ve shipped the pieces.

“...And remember, Gary, put the focus on quality this time. I fully expect this thing to still be working perfectly when I finally find a way to get back here and fix the goddamn problem you’ve just created. That’ll probably be ages from now at the current rate of business.

“...Well, because I can’t just fucking ‘fix it now,’ dipshit. It’s... it’s complicated, and... you know what, Gary, all you need to know is fuck you.“

* * *

“That’s right, Elizabeth. Follow my finger’s circular motion on the screen. Slow, slow circles, just like that. Slow... in a rhythm... and right... in time... with my voice... in time... with my finger... on the screen... that’s it... just right... so slow... so slow... that’s right... so good... keep going... keep going... so slow...”

Jim heard Elizabeth distantly moan a little. It surprised him to hear it, even through the thick fog now filling his head.

“...See, now... Elizabeth?... This isn’t... so bad... just go... so slow... so slow... that’s right... keep going... so deep... feels good... too deep... to care... feels good... keep going... just a little... little longer... that’s good...”

Elizabeth moaned again.

“OK, Elizabeth. You did a great job. I think we’ve got everything we need. Just send me the file and we’ll see how it looks.”

“Mmmm, so... we’re done?”

“Did that feel good at all to you, Elizabeth? It looked like it felt good.”

“...No, well... it felt... good, but... really weird...“

Elizabeth’s words came now in unconsciously cyclic bursts, like her still-circling fingers, both still entrained to the same rhythm that Julia had firmly established.

“...so weird with... you there... still weird... but the rhythm... rhythm helped... did feel... kinda good... I guess.“

“Would it feel better for you to finish, Elizabeth? Because I might be able to make some use of that too.”

“I don’t... don’t know. Maybe we... we could if... I go... go deeper... much deeper... and maybe... might finish... if you... call me Lizzie.”

Jim heard Elizabeth giggle mischievously. Then he saw her abruptly burst into tears again.

He stopped the video.

* * *

Julia hung up the phone, putting it into her bag, along with her laptop, toolkit, and boarding pass.

Grabbing her suitcase by the handle, she began rolling it along with her to the door.

She looked at the couch as she passed it. She stopped, took a longer, longing look at the couch, sighed deeply.

She looked back at the table, narrowing her eyes.

She returned to the table, pushed in her chair, picked up the watch, the caseback, the screws, and the timer. Returning to the door, she tossed the whole lot from her hands into the garbage can.

She spat into the can, lifting both middle fingers high in its direction.

Fifteen seconds later, the hotel-suite door closed behind her.

* * *

Jim stood in the bedroom, standing over Elizabeth, holding his chin, holding the edge of a finger to his nose.

He kept looking at her.

She was so beautiful.

He’d been standing there at least ten minutes. He’d tried, tried his very hardest. But he’d found that he just couldn’t see her any other way now.

Now he also found he just couldn’t hold it in any longer. A lone, tightly clenched sob emerged from him, followed quickly by another.

He put his whole face in his hand. It was really starting to pour out of him; he couldn’t stop now. He just hoped she wouldn’t hear.

She heard.

“Jim...?” Sleepily at first.

“...Jim.” Eyes open, looking at him, recognizing the situation. She was not so sleepy now.

There was no point in trying to hold any of it back now. Jim simply let it all out. There was nothing else for it.

“Jim, sit down... sit down or something. What’s wrong?”

He collapsed next to her just as she had suggested, but couldn’t respond to her questions. There wasn’t enough air.

“Jim, please. Please talk to me. What’s the matter? What’s happening?”

“I... I think I...”

“It’s OK, Jim. You can tell me. It’s OK.”

“I just...” Jim sniffled. “I was hoping you could... I was hoping you could... maybe show me the circles.”

She looked at him.

“You know. Your circles. I want to see them. In person. I want them to make me dream. Because... right now, I just want to dream. That’s all I want.“

“That’s... that’s why you’re crying, Jim? You want to see... that, and that’s why you’re crying?“

Jim sighed, gasped, let himself drain a moment, wiped his eyes.

“No, listen, it’s not... I just... fuck, it’s just been so much, Elizabeth. It’s been so much, all of it. It’s been too much. I try and understand it, I try over and over, I... I just can’t. And right now, I just want to... I just want to forget everything, everything that’s happened.“

She sat up. “I know, I know. But it’s OK, Jim. It’s over. We’re together now. We’re so good together, remember? Now we can take care of each other. That’s all that matters now. It’s all going to be alright, all going to be alright from here on out. I promise.”

Jim sniffled, looked down.

“Jim... would it maybe help if I held you? If I held you or something?”

Jim looked back at her, hesitating.

“...OK. Hold me. And then, please... make me dream. I need you to make me dream, right now, make me dream deeper than ever...”

“O... OK, Jim, I can only try. But I’ll try.”

“...And once I’m dreaming, just erase me... make me forget absolutely everything... except that I am completely yours. That’s the only thing, the only thing at all, that I want to be left remembering.“