The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

A Bargain With The Devil

by connie k

Chapter Two

Jerry Herman was reading a fitness magazine on the couch when Josie came home. He could tell something was wrong. She avoided looking at him as she crossed the room.

“Hey, Jo. You’re late. I thought we were gonna head on over and check out the new gym equipment. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“So ...”

Josie Cade barely reacted, then turned to him slowly.

“Jerry,” she said softly, “I think it may be a good idea if we didn’t see each other for awhile.”

Jerry looked confused as he stood up. He was confused. “Awhile? How long is that? You’re still coming to the gym, right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

“This? What this?” His hands went out to her. “Jo?”

Josie’s expression was blank, distant. “I just think you need to go. Okay?”

She could barely believe the words she was saying. Maybe she thought she was trying to spare Jerry the pain of loss if something happened to her. All she knew was that she needed to be on her own in this. Not daring herself to think about whether he would be there in the end.

Jerry was motionless for a long moment, then dropped the magazine on the coffee table and headed to the bedroom, muttering over his shoulder, “Fine.”

Josie hadn’t moved an inch five minutes later when Jerry returned, his gym bag stuffed full. He grabbed the magazine dramatically and placed it back in the rack, hoping his fastidious girlfriend would notice.

“I didn’t get everything. I can pick it up, you know, later.”

Josie’s eyes were focused on nothing. Jerry headed to the door.

“Jerry?”

He turned, and for an instant he didn’t see the tough, kickass girlfriend. He saw a lost little girl.

“Yeah?”

She shook her head and looked down. When her eyes returned to his she was distant again.

“Take care of yourself.”

Jerry grimaced. “Always do.”

He walked out quickly. The sudden numbness of loss only made her feel worse.

* * *

Capt. Deke Smithers couldn’t remember the last time he was this angry.

Could have been last month when he found out his daughter owed $2,122 on her credit card. Could have been last week when his son put a nice new nick on the fender of his Chevy. Could have been yesterday when his wife told him that he better take a vacation soon ... or she would.

But right now he was fuming.

Josie hadn’t said much more than hello since he picked her up. If he didn’t owe her a hundred times over for all she had done to bring safety to his city he would never have agreed to this. But she wanted to go back to Century Plains Penitentiary to see Zandilla again. He reluctantly agreed.

Now, he was having second thoughts, and Josie wasn’t helping ease his concerns. He yanked the wheel, pulled the car over to the side of the road and got out. He paced in front of it with his hands on his hips, his jacket flapping in the stiff breeze. Josie couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses but she knew how they looked.

She had to tell him.

Slowly she got out of the car and walked up to him, fighting the impulse to look down.

“Zandilla agreed to help me,” she said. “I’m going to let her into my mind, take me back to the memory of that day at the bank. Every detail. Some clue I missed. Something I’ve forgotten. But mostly ... she’s going to help me remember their faces. They weren’t wearing masks. But it was so long ago and I was so ... so scared. I can’t remember exactly what they looked like anymore. And I need to. I need to remember.

“I need to find them.”

Smithers sighed heavily.

“I already know that, Josie. I let you meet with her because she has that ability. It’s what turned her into a criminal. And now a prisoner. What I need to know is what she is asking in return. From you.”

“I’ll tell you. When it’s all over.”

“If you even can!” he barked.

He spun away from her and paced some more. Then he stopped, looking up at the sky. Thinking of what to say.

“Josie, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone.” He looked at her with a hard seriousness that made Josie’s back stiffen. “You saw the case files on Zandilla. I tangled with her 20 years ago. I know what she is capable of. What you don’t know, what’s not in that file, is what happened to me.”

The pain on Smithers’ face widened Josie’s eyes.

“She raped my mind.”

* * *

Officer Pete Coolbraugh had just finished calling in his update to the dispatcher when he felt dizzy. He and his partner had reached the house in question, a possible break-in. Marv had knocked and entered the house alone, while Pete had checked the perimeter. It was 2 a.m. and all was quiet.

He tried to get up to join his partner when he felt ... weird. Like he was drunk. He tried to get out of the car again but lolled back, his head against the seat, fighting the onset of a case of the spins. Then he felt the touch of a woman’s cool hand on his forehead, down his cheek.

He had a memory. The wild drinking binge with his buddies the day he joined the police force. That crazy night at Dewey’s bar. Then flopping into his bed wasted. And the deep sleep that followed. Twelve hours.

Coolbraugh passed out.

Det. Deke Smithers had heard the call on his way home after another long day and pulled up behind the black-and-white, its “cherry top” flashing. He got out and, after a quick scan around the yard, approached the car. He leaned down to look at the young officer in the passenger’s seat. He checked for a pulse. The officer was dead to the world—even a firm shake didn’t budge him. Smithers drew his weapon and headed toward the house.

The house was dark, the door unlocked, but the moonlight illuminated it enough to be able to look around as he walked in. It was dead quiet, soundless. Then he heard a moan.

He entered what appeared to be a den decorated in fishing trophies and prints on the walls. He flicked the wall switch. On the couch a second officer was sitting wide-eyed. His body was shuddering, then he relaxed. His eyes slowly closed before popping wide open again and he moaned. He shuddered.

Smithers stood above him, his hand reaching out. The officer relaxed again, his eyes lidding. Then the sudden jolt of his eyes widening again, the moan and the spastic movements.

Officer Marvin Dunsen didn’t see Smithers there. He was a million miles away.

Smithers put his hand on the young officer’s shoulder when he heard a voice.

“Don’t worry,” the female voice said. “He’s doing fine. In fact, he’s having the best moment of his life.”

Smithers spun around quickly. Before him stood a beautiful woman—tall, perhaps six-foot-two, with luscious blonde hair, golden skin and full lips. Lips curled into a playful grin.

Smithers straightened, he kept his weapon at his hip.

“What’s the matter with him? What do you think you’re doing?”

The woman almost flowed across the room, her eyes never leaving Smithers.

“He’s reliving the best orgasm of his life. On a loop. Over and over. See how happy he is?”

Smithers impulsively turned toward Dunsen but quickly looked back at the woman. He fingered the trigger on his weapon. “Put down the goodies.”

In her hand was a bag filled with jewelry and other valuables found in the house. She looked at it and back to Smithers, amused.

“We finally get to meet face to face, Det. Smithers. Congratulations on the new arrival by the way.”

“What?”

“The baby? And a boy too. So nice for you. One of each. Your wife is going to be springing that little tidbit on you tomorrow night at Luigi’s, but I just couldn’t contain myself. And you thought she was just gaining a little weight. Really, you men do need to be more observant.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“Oh, I wanted to know who it was who has been dogging me for the past eight months. The intrepid detective. So I paid a visit to your lovely home while you were both asleep. Oh, the dreams she dreams! You really should spend more time at home and not at work. Your cute, young wife is getting a little ... annoyed.”

Smithers raised his weapon. “Drop the bundle, hands behind your head.”

The woman smiled. “Coming from you that would be a pleasure. A pity you’re not into kink. But that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

Smithers suddenly found himself lying down. He was on the bed in his old grad student dorm room. The face of the cute sophomore above him. The one who had shyly invited him to the sorority party that night.

“Bonnie ...?”

She took his flaccid penis in her hand and frowned. She started stroking him slowly, squeezing tightly, until he began to grow. She took him into her mouth. Smithers groaned and fell back on the pillow—the hands so familiar, yet so new. He was fully engorged when she climbed on top of him, looking down.

“Oh, Derrick, I want you to be the first.”

Smithers groaned again, barely able to mumble out, “Deke. Call me Deke.”

She brushed him against her wetness and sat down slowly, sinking as his body rose up. He was caught in this moment in time when all he wanted, all he ever wanted, was this beautiful girl. Right there.

She rode him, his hands grabbing her thighs as she bounced, her breasts heaving and falling, the look on her face one of pure joy. They were linked in this moment, the moment that would outlast all the others, and their bodies and minds held the other so tightly that they might burst from the pleasure.

They came together.

He was suddenly aware that his hands were gripped so tightly on her thighs that he felt the pain shoot up his arms and worried he might be hurting her. He looked up.

Straddling him was the woman, an evil leer on her face. Smithers pulled at her waist and threw her to the floor.

He jumped up.

He was in the dark. In the den. The young officer on the couch beside him groaning, awakening slowly.

And the woman ... gone.

* * *

Warden Quick was only slightly more aggravated to see Josie and Smithers in his office again. But things had gone smoothly the day before and all it took was to see Smithers’ firm nod against his protest to relent.

The same four guards surrounded Josie’s body—they were already on high alert in front of the prisoner’s glass cell. Josie’s mind, however, was somewhere else.

Zandilla was sipping iced tea in an outdoor restaurant on a perfectly beautiful spring day. It was a day Josie remembered well. The day she told her mother that she was in love.

Josie looked down and smiled seeing herself in the same patterned sundress she had worn that day. She was bursting with energy, never once concerned that her mother would be appalled at the notion that her only daughter was in love with another girl. She hadn’t been.

Josie looked up at Zandilla almost sheepishly.

“Well,” she said, “you certainly can pick ’em.”

Zandilla smiled back. “I wanted you to feel comfortable, Josie. What we are going to do—what you are going to do—will not be pleasant.”

She took another sip, and Josie couldn’t resist the temptation of popping one of the strawberries in the bowl in front of her into her mouth. It tasted delicious.

“By now, you know that I can read people’s minds, their thoughts and emotions. I can steal their memories and take them back there. Like that hotel suite.” She smiled devilishly. “Wonderful bed, by the way.”

Josie almost shrugged in embarrassment.

“I can manipulate what they see, to a degree,” Zandilla continued, casually waving her hand across the patio as proof, “but I can’t change what has been nor can I alter their perceptions of those memories. I can’t take us both to the moon to make love in a crater full of pillows. But Amaria can. She can make you die of suffocation up there—beg for it—and leave your body here just as dead.”

Josie nodded. The memory of being a mindless fucktoy for Zandilla again quickly smothered by the danger she knew awaited her.

“Amaria and I used to be very close. Eventually, she tried to control me but my mind was too strong. So we became allies, then lovers. I thought I could change her, steer her away from the blackness that covered her heart. By then I had tired of manipulating others for my own gain. Perhaps if I hadn’t done all the things I had done I could have convinced her to change her ways. But I was wrong. And in the end she turned on me.

“Amaria has a strong mind. But there is something else, something she never allowed even me to see. Without it, she and I are of a kind. But with it, she can wield terrible power. There is no one to stop her now.”

“So why did you do what you did to the assistant warden? If you can’t—”

“He was a pig. He’s cheated on his wife 17 times in the seven years they’ve been together. He’s selfish, often cruel. He only married her for her money. So I culled every terrible event in his life and slammed them together at once ... then twirled my finger around in his brain just enough. He’ll recover, eventually. Maybe he will be a changed man. Maybe not. I’d like to think that his experience with me will make him view the world differently.”

“What about—”

“Capt. Smithers? I can read that you two are very close.” Zandilla sighed. “I was young then. And I could have done a lot worse. It’s a shame he never took my advice.”

She was powerful. No thought was safe. How was she ever going to be able to take on Amaria DeStehl?

Zandilla leaned closer to Josie. “I’m not telling you this for sympathy or understanding, Josephine. I deserve to be in a glass cage. I’ve done many terrible things and probably would have done many, many more. But Amaria is a cancer. An unchained evil that needs to be stopped. And, if that’s done, if you agree and are able to stop her, I will be at ease.”

Josie tried to take it all in. How much was truth and how much was lies? This was a heavy price. Yet she had always trusted her instincts. And her instinct now was to trust Zandilla ... with her life.

“I don’t think I can stop her, Zandilla. I’m a regular girl. Maybe a little smarter, a little stronger, a little less fearful than most. But I’m not—”

“A superheroine? Oh, my dear, but you are! Being able to fly or bend steel or turn a pop-gun into a cannon doesn’t make one a superheroine. Besides ...”

Zandilla reached across the table and placed her hand on Josie’s forehead, closing her eyes. “I will be there with you.”

* * *

Josie packed hurriedly, stopping only to look at the still-made right side of her bed as she tucked in the corners of the left. She ate a full meal, not knowing when she would eat again. It was going to be a long drive.

The middle of nowhere was literally in the middle of nowhere in the high desert. But she knew where she was going. She turned off onto an unmarked dusty trail of a road. The ruts were so deep and dried that it was evident that nothing had disturbed them since the winter rains.

The long, winding dirt road led Josie to the top of a hill, surrounded by brush and gnarled trees and molehills. The carrion for the birds of prey which circled above frying in the sun.

It was hell on earth. One of the few places, Josie thought, that not a single soul would ever find.

The trail had turned to rocks, so Josie stopped the car and walked up the rest of the way. Just beyond the apex of the hill was a deep recess, as if it had been carved out of the hill many years before. At its center was a large cement block, like a gray monolith, perhaps 15 feet high and 10 feet square.

Josie couldn’t tell how long it may have been there as she walked around it. The walls were smooth, but the edges were chipped from age and desert winds and rain. On the far side was a door. Unmarked. There was no handle, no lock, no way to get in. Josie walked around the block again, noting that the only footprints noticeable around it were her own.

She pushed on the door, tried to pry it open with her fingers, then took out the Swiss army knife from her belt and dug it into the crack. At that very moment, the door opened, sliding into the wall.

She took the small flashlight from her belt—a gift from her friend, Techna, the superheroine gadgeteer—and shined it inside. Although no bigger than a cigarette lighter, it gave off a powerful beam of light. Josie expected to find an elevator, but instead saw a winding staircase.

Before entering, she undid her belt and dropped it to the ground. She emptied all the compartments sewn inside her costume pants. Everything. The knife, rope, pepper spray, the flashlight ... and even Jerry’s Techna-enhanced laser.

As she descended the stairs she only had a moment’s thought as to why she would disarm herself. But that thought gradually passed with each step down she took.

At the bottom of the stairs was a large, empty room. It was dimly lit, but Josie couldn’t see the source except for the soft glow above her from the doorway 20 feet overhead. No doors. No dust. Nothing.

“Good day.”

* * *

Josie spun around, but there was nothing. She couldn’t be sure if the voice was real or in her head.

“Well, well,” the voice said, “Josie Cade. Of all the people in all the world who could have found me. I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you.”

Josie called out, “So you know me then?”

“The masked vigilante? Yes. The one who beats up shoplifters and breaks up bar brawls? Patting yourself on the back when you managed to subdue some penny-ante drug pusher? You must think you are something special.”

“Special enough to find your ass,” Josie spat out as her eyes cased the empty room. “With your reputation, I would have thought you’d be expecting me. You don’t know shit.”

“Ahhhh.” There was the slightest hint of a laugh. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Cade.

“I know everything.”

Josie felt a vice-like grip around her head. She tumbled to the floor, rolling back and forth to loosen it. She managed to get herself upright, sitting back on her heels. Kneeling.

The pain was gone.

“What an intriguing mind you have, Cade. So brave ... and so afraid. So determined, yet unsure. So strong. And so very weak.”

The figure that stood before her was young, no more than 18, and she wore a simple black slip, unadorned. Her features were sharp, angular, with short black hair and dark eyes. She was beautiful, yet fearsome—there was no warmth in her. She was pure ice.

Amaria DeStehl looked Josie over like a wolf stalking a rabbit as she circled slowly.

“Now that you are here, what do you propose to do?”

“If can you read my mind, you should already know.”

“I don’t need to read your mind. I’d much prefer you try to read mine.”

Josie only twisted slightly as Amaria walked around and around her.

“That’s not very hard. You know what I can read? I can read a woman hidden away in this bunker. Apart from the world. Hiding. You can’t even enjoy the spoils of what you’ve stolen. All the people who have ever gotten in your way are gone, and so are all the people you could have shared your life with. No companionship. Nothing. By the way, do you get cable here?”

Amaria laughed, but Josie could tell it was false.

“Do go on.”

Josie forced herself up to face the witch. “It’s like the story of the man who wished he could have anything. Once his wish was granted, he realized it was all worthless. If you can have everything, then nothing has any value. A diamond is as precious as a rock. A victory the same as a defeat. And love, Amaria, becomes the same as hate.”

Amaria stopped in front of Josie, her eyes chilling. “It wouldn’t take more than a wave of my hand to turn your mind to dust, Cade.”

Josie stepped even closer.

“I know that. But you won’t. You could kill me. Right now. Like all the others. You don’t know me. You could destroy me and not give me another thought.” Josie locked her eyes on Amaria. “Another thought. That’s the one thing you don’t have, Amaria. Outside this tomb every cop, every judge, every ‘Super’ is waiting for you. You can’t walk outside among the living. Not anymore.

“You’ve lived off the thoughts of others. And now you have no one to listen to but yourself. My thoughts are the only other ones you’ve touched in a long time. I don’t think you want to lose that.”

The Mind Witch spun on her heels and walked back a few paces, then turned slowly.

“Very good. Very, very good. You did well. You used the only weapon at your disposal. You tried to appeal to my humanity. Unfortunately, for you, I left humanity far behind long ago. You tried to make me feel how you would feel.”

She smiled wryly.

“Now, shall you put handcuffs on me and lead me away?”

Suddenly, Josie felt her wrists and ankles bound tightly.

“Have me locked up, the key thrown away?”

In a blink, Josie found herself in a feudal dungeon. Primitive. Her hands now cuffed above her head as she hung from a beam or hook, legs dangling. The cuffs bit into her wrists sharply.

Amaria approached her.

“Strip me of all that I have?”

Josie was instantly stripped bare.

Amaria looked deeply at Josie’s face, at her mind.

“Oh, Josie,” she said. “Thank you for saving my life! Twice!”

It was the face of Kate Trainor.

Josie struggled a smile. “If you change into my mother I might even applaud,” she said, straining slightly to look up at her bound hands. “If I could.”

Amaria nodded with a hint of respect. She reached down and cupped Josie between her legs, forcing a finger roughly between her labia. Josie gritted her teeth as the witch’s teeth gleamed.

“I would have been disappointed if you didn’t come mentally prepared. But there are other memories. A lifetime’s worth. I could pick out the very best. Have them run over and over again in your mind. Every tear, every pain, every sorrow. Replaying them on end. Keep you here for the rest of your life. Until you ... just ... die.”

Josie was focused. She couldn’t allow herself a moment’s weakness. This was a war of minds against an adversary who held Josie’s in her hand. Held Josie’s sex in her hand. But she could not yield.

“You could do that,” Josie said firmly. “But I lived them. I experienced them. I felt that pain once. I’ve made mistakes. I have regrets. I’ve had losses. But I lived through them, Amaria. There’s nothing you can use against me that I haven’t already faced. This room, this dungeon, even that false face you’re wearing now. It’s all an illusion. You don’t want me to see the old hag you’ve truly become.

“Your power isn’t yours. It comes from the minds of the people you’ve hurt. Well, this is one mind you can’t shatter. I’ve been trying to shatter it myself my whole life.”

Amaria purred.

The cruel finger inside her turned soft. The breasts that now pressed against her were warm. The face she saw ... beckoning. Josie tried to shut her eyes and found they could not close. She was touched gently, carefully, at her hip, her neck, her thigh. Josie couldn’t prevent the sigh that passed over her lips as she began to swim in a multitude of sensations. Every one striking a chord of desire.

Josie moaned.

Of all the pleasures she had ever felt, none compared to the ones she began to experience. Every inch of her body was stimulated. She felt her mind, her consciousness, melting from the sensual touches—there and there and there.

A freight train of an orgasm was steaming toward her, its smokestack churning out thick black clouds of lust in her mind. Closer and closer. The sensations multiplying, her need unbearable.

But just as it was about to reach its peak and send Josie headlong into bliss ... it receded. It had moved far in the distance, miles away down the track, so far that it looked like the snuffed out tip of an extinguished matchstick.

Then it roared forward again, chugging and surging. Josie could feel her wetness dripping down her legs, the fire once again spreading from between them down to her toes and up to her aching nipples. But, again, it receded. Josie let out a panicked moan. Again and again. Five times. Twenty times. Each time charging faster toward her then yanked away just as quickly.

Josie was being denied.

She could hear laughing, but Amaria wasn’t even touching her now, although the stimulation to her ears and neck and belly and thighs grew even more sensual, more maddeningly erotic. Amaria had stepped back and through glassy lust-filled eyes Josie could see the witch fondling herself with sinister amusement.

Again and again and again. Closer, faster, harder—the climax so near she could almost taste it on her lips, wet with drool. Then pulled away so suddenly that Josie’s body shook as it tried to chase after it again.

Josie’s mind began to shut down. Her body twitched, by now anticipating the near-miss of the orgasm before it had even died down.

“Say it.” Amaria said coldly. “Say it.”

Josie answered before her mouth even opened.

“P-p-please ...”

Amaria purred again.

Josie’s body stiffened at the sudden loss of the barrage of sensations that had pummeled her body and her mind. There was nothing. She hadn’t cum. Josie shook herself fully awake. Amaria stepped close.

“You go straight to hell!”

Josie felt the sting of the slap across her face and it startled her. Another and another and another.

“I don’t need to shatter your mind,” Amaria hissed. “I only need to tear it a little. Bit by bit.

“But there is that one memory. Yes, one in particular. The one upon which all others rest,” the witch said, an evil smile on her lips.

“The day you killed Audrey.”

To be continued ...