The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

San Diego County, California

Sometimes several hours of staring at the ocean is just the right thing to bring clarity to a confused mind. The realization that the Pacific was vast while I was tiny was an important one. Even though I’d been tricked into it, I’d achieved the superhuman feat of cheating time for twenty years. The ocean didn’t care. It had been there for tens of thousands of years before I’d shown up and it would be there for tens of thousands of years after I was gone. The achievements of my lifetime were nothing compared to one second of existence for the Pacific.

It was a time for “Honest Abe” to be honest with himself. I’d been blaming myself for things I hadn’t really done. The Temporal Singularity had as much potential for good as it did for bad. I’d never intended for it to be used the way that Harrison had used it. A hammer can be used to build a hospital and save lives. It can also be used to kill. You cannot blame the hammer or the person who invented the hammer for that.

I felt that I might have an inkling of what Alfred Nobel went through in his later years. The popular myth was that Nobel was horrified that people had taken the dynamite he’d invented for peaceful purposes and used it to make war, and that was what prompted him to create the Nobel prizes. The truth was that Nobel owned a military weapons manufacturing company and he knew full well the destructive potential of dynamite. He’d been shamed into his change of heart late in life. Nobel’s brother died and a newspaper mistook him for Alfred. The obituary they printed called Alfred a “merchant of death” and said that he’d gotten rich by finding ways to kill more and more people. When you see that as your legacy, how can you not reconsider your life’s direction?

At the moment, my legacy was that I was a physicist who’d invented something that was going to save humanity from extinction. In a vacuum, that was completely true. The same invention had also been used to help put humanity in danger of extinction, though most of the world didn’t know that and very few would believe it after Harrison’s propaganda storm. Unlike Nobel, I hadn’t anticipated my invention being used for harmful purposes. But like Nobel, I was in a position to make things better. I resolved to make sure the Temporal Singularity was used for helpful, rather than harmful purposes. Given that Harrison had pretty much made himself untouchable, I hoped that he didn’t have any other evil intentions for my device. If he did, I knew that I would try to stop him.

I also admitted to myself that Pamela was probably more interested in my large income from HGT than she was in me. She’d all but admitted it to me the first day I’d met her. It seemed that she would have been a nice, loving wife, but her husband had better have enough money to make her happy. I decided that she had never really been mine. She’d belonged to my money, or at least to her desire for my money. Admitting that didn’t mean that I wasn’t pissed off. I was. She’d lied to me and manipulated me and taken advantage of my love for her. If I had a chance for a reckoning with her, I’d take it. I did decide that I wasn’t going to waste my life trying to chase her down. I needed to become mentally tougher so that I didn’t end up in the same situation again and again.

So what was I going to do with my life? Like it or not, Harrison’s assessment of the situation was correct. With over sixty million people dying every year, the fertile men needed to make babies quickly. The second generation wouldn’t start for another twenty years, when the first generation reached sexual maturity. By then the world’s population would have declined by over a billion more people. If all of the fertile men followed Harrison’s recommendation of 100 children a year, there would be about 2.5 million reaching sexual maturity in twenty years. The population would continue to decline through the growth of the next generation and the one after that, too. Mathematically, what I should be doing with my life was making babies. I decided that I could afford to wait and think about that a little longer.

Dinner at one of the hotel’s restaurants didn’t appeal to me. For the first time I put the Saab on manual control and drove the streets next to the beach until I found what I was looking for. The restaurant had a dining deck on the second floor, overlooking the beach. I watched another peaceful ocean sunset after I ordered my dinner. The lingering purples in the sky were starting to fade to darkness when Ashley, my waitress, returned to refill my water.

“Seems like a quiet night,” I said, gesturing to the empty tables on the deck. I was the only one there.

“Well, it’s a Tuesday night, and that’s never busy. And it’s pretty cold out here.”

“Cold? Seriously?”

“You’re not from San Diego, are you?”

“I’m from Michigan. For this time of year, this is pretty warm to me.”

“Well, if you start to feel cold, feel free to come inside. We have plenty of tables available. It’s a slow night. I’ll go check on your dinner.” She hugged her arms around herself as she started to walk away. As hot as I’d been in the Moroccan desert, that must be how cold someone from San Diego would be on a 62 degree night.

“Ashley?” She turned back toward me. “I think I’ll take you up on one of those inside tables.” There was no need to make the girl freeze, just to serve me dinner. I grabbed my water glass and followed her downstairs and inside.

She led me to a corner booth and asked me if it was OK. I told her it was fine and sat down. With only five or six other parties there, most of the tables were unoccupied. Ashley emerged from the kitchen and carried my dinner to the table and sat it in front of me.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“No, everything looks great. I’ll let you get back to your other tables.”

“Actually, you’re my only table. I’ve been cut, so they’re not going to seat anyone else in my section.”

“So you’re leaving as soon as I’m done?”

“Oh, there’s no hurry, sir. The San-Trans doesn’t stop by here for a couple more hours, so I can’t head home until then anyway.”

“Well I’ll be done long before than,” I told her. “If you’d like, feel free to have a seat. I’d love to have someone to talk to. Is that allowed?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let my manager know.” She headed back to the kitchen as I started in on my surf and turf dinner. A couple of minutes later Ashley returned and slid into the seat across from me.

“Is everything OK? Can I get you anything?” I took a sip of my water.

“Everything is excellent. Thank you.” I reached across the table and offered my hand. “I’m Ben Lincoln.” She shook my hand.

“Ashley,” she said, then she blushed. “Um, you already knew that. Ashley Blanchard.”

We talked while I ate. She lived in El Cajon, which she said was east of San Diego. Though she had a cute “girl next door” look, with long straight brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and big brown eyes, she wasn’t one of the stereotypical “just waitressing until I get an acting job” girls I’d heard were everywhere in Southern California. Then again, that had been twenty years earlier, so maybe things were different now. Waitressing was her full-time job, and she was OK with that. During the summer tourist season she made good money and saved up for the leaner winter months. I asked her if the San-Trans was the public transit system. She gave me an odd look.

“You must have something like it in Michigan,” she said. “How do people who don’t have roadables get around there?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really know. I’ve, um, been away for awhile and I haven’t been able to keep up with developments for quite some time. A lot of this is new to me.” Her eyes widened.

“Oh my God! Are you one of them?”

“If ‘them’ means the guys who’ve been out in the Sahara Desert for the past couple of decades, then I guess I’m one of them.”

Ashley had dozens of questions. What did it feel like? (Nothing, we didn’t really notice.) What did we do while we waited? (We didn’t actually wait, we were just suddenly 20 years in the future.) Were there any women there? (No, just men.) How long had I been back? (A little over two weeks.) What had I been doing since I got back? (Mostly trying to catch up on what had happened while I was gone and eating a lot of delivery food.) Even though I was answering her questions, I still managed to finish my dinner before it got cold. I turned down her offer to get the dessert menu. She pulled an electronic billing pad out of her apron and handed it to me. I added a generous tip for her and pressed my thumb on the biometric scanner to validate the money transfer. She excused herself and took the pad back into the kitchen.

She returned with her apron balled up in her hand. Again she sat opposite me, looking a little tentative.

“Um, Ben… Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Well, um,” she blushed and fidgeted with the apron in her hands. “Am I pretty?”

“I don’t understand, Ashley.”

“Well, the news said that you were supposed to… Oh, just forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I understood what was going on.

“You’re pretty Ashley.”

“Really? You mean that, well, you know… I really don’t know how this is supposed to work.”

“Neither do I, Ashley. You’re actually the first woman I’ve talked to since I got back.”

“Oh wow! I thought that you’d, well, you know, that there would be lots of girls and everything. Aren’t you supposed to be with lots of girls all the time?”

“There’s no ‘supposed to be’ about it. I’m a normal man who can do as he pleases. I didn’t sign a contract to become a baby making factory or anything like that.”

“So, um, would you, um, you know…” I smiled at her and leaned over the table toward her.

“Do you want to take my baby-making virginity, Ashley?” I whispered with a smile. She gulped and nodded vigorously. I stood and offered her my hand. She grasped it and held it tightly, as if she was afraid I’d get away. We walked out of the restaurant and across the parking lot to my roadable.