The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

After class I wandered down to the cafeteria to wait for my next class, because it was now too chilly to sit outside for long. I got coffee, sat at a table, and perused my English Lit text.

But though I appeared to be skimming the book, I wasn’t really comprehending anything. My mind was dancing around this new discovery, trying to put it in a context I could understand.

There were things I needed to learn and now I had a quicker way to learn them. I’d have to come up with a method to peek into the experts’ minds without arousing suspicion. Until I knew more, it would be better to take this slow.

That, somehow, brought me back to the concern I had about becoming a mental voyeur, happening upon people’s hidden secrets and private embarrassments. I would hate if someone were doing that to me. Who’s to say there isn’t already somebody else out there walking around with my capabilities and chanced to look inside my head? I gave a little mental shiver at the thought.

What would life be like if we all had this ability to read everyone’s thoughts and memories?

How drastic would the societal change be? Some part of me believed that the ability to keep our thoughts private was one of the things that made society function.

What if the person for whom you worked could see that you didn’t really respect them, or actively disliked them? What if the person to whom you were attracted could suddenly see all your hidden fantasies about them? Would it send them running in the opposite direction, possibly short-circuiting a future relationship that might have turned into love?

On the other hand, it would be really difficult to be a criminal in such a society, because someone, maybe the police, maybe your next-door neighbor, would be able to look in your head and see what you’ve done. I guess the police would be mostly reduced to handing out parking tickets and catching speeders.

Governments would love it because it would be impossible to hide your opposition from the current rulers. Depending on the kind of government you lived under, you could be killed, jailed, exiled just for thinking that the current government had a flaw or might require some changes. The other side of that coin was that, in a democracy, it would now be extremely difficult for candidates to lie to the electorate. We might actually find an honest politician! The problem would be in finding a second one.

What if some bright chemist somewhere came up with a pill that would mask your thoughts from others? That person would become stinking rich for starters, because there would be a huge black market for that kind of protection from open mental trespass. The ability to keep a secret would be a new kind of currency.

I toyed with the idea of writing a science-fiction book with that premise. It had a lot of promise, but I think I’d dread working through the litany of problems that would arise, that it would ultimately be depressing and leave no way out for the people who lived in that fictional world.

I was saved from sinking further down the drain hole by my next class, which would start in a few minutes. A few minutes later found me in the second row, where I could see the instructor, Prof. Calvano, and she could see me. I opened my notebook as she dropped her books on the desk and opened her lecture notes.

“Let’s see,” she said, “where did we end?... Oh, yes, we were just about to start with Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress. This was part of the assigned reading, so you should all be familiar with the work. Now, let’s figure out what he’s trying to say.“

A voice from the back said, not quite sotto voce, “He’s trying to get laid.” There were some giggles and a few groans.

The instructor said, “You’re not entirely wrong, but I’m asking you to analyze how he’s going about it. You brought it up, so why don’t you start?”

Oops. The wit in the back of the room had just laid himself open and was fumbling for something intelligent to contribute so as not to appear a fool. I smiled, and the instructor caught it and suppressed a smile too. And for that instant I had her focus and grabbed the thread and stepped into her epicenter.

Like the Chem TA, her ’desk’ was also organized, with explanations of each stanza neatly laid out. I looked over her virtual shoulder and saw how most literary critics had analyzed the various sections of the poem. And as soon as I had done so, I could feel how my understanding of the poem had changed. It was now not just a collection of rhymes in archaic form, it carried a meaning that I had not seen before. I even saw the places where there were opposing schools of thought as to what Marvell had meant in a specific line.

I actually felt a little lightheaded for a moment, as the insight overwhelmed me. I steadied myself and remembered that I was here for a purpose, so I examined the surroundings and looked for the place she stored her memories.

But no doors were to be seen. Was my supposition of how memory was stored and accessed wrong? There had to be a way to bring out facts and ideas that were needed, so where...

I was blank for a moment, then gave myself a mental slap at trying to make every pathway have a door. It was just a hologram, for want of a better word, and each person ’built’ it in a form with which they were comfortable. I looked around again and noticed that she, unlike others, had an epicenter with built-in shelves and cabinets. That made some kind of twisted sense, I suppose, her life was books and journals and papers, so she would be comfortable storing them in their metaphorical substitute.

The ’bookshelves’ appeared to contain various reference works for her field, tomes she must have spent years reading, and now as close as old friends. They were here because she referred to them frequently in her mind. In fact, here was the textbook we were using, the Norton Anthology of English Literature. So where were her other memories, her knowledge about other things?

I opened one of the cabinets built in to the ’wall’. There were several of them, this was just the closest. I needed to prove my thesis, that I could call up any of her memories. I mentally forced myself to amend that to ’her memories related to the subject’ to remind myself that this shouldn’t devolve into eavesdropping.

I tried to remember the syllabus for the course. I knew we’d do Shakespeare later, but I wanted something less familiar to me. We were going to be reading John Milton’s Paradise Lost next week, if I remembered correctly, so let’s see if I can find that.

I stood in front of the open cabinet and tried to visualize the poet’s name and the specific work.

Harder than it sounds, since they’re abstract things and don’t lend themselves to imagery well, but I gave it my best effort.

The cabinet remained inscrutably blank. Okay, no reason to panic, I don’t know how she organizes things, it’s probably somewhere else. I closed this one and opened the next, and repeated the query. Nope, nothing. On to the next. This time something happened, as if the air in front of it shimmered like it were rising from a hot beach or a desert.

I almost cried, it was as if this whole section of English poetry had been poured into my mind.

It made my head spin for a moment, as I looked at what I now knew. What she had learned about Milton over the years of studying, reading, teaching it and discussing it with colleagues was now mine.

Suddenly, I felt almost dizzy and knew I had to leave, so I closed the cabinet and stepped out of her epicenter. I was back in my seat now, listening to her talk, and of course I already knew it because I now had that knowledge, too. I forced myself to look at her closely, to see if I could find some external clue that my incursion had affected her in some way, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She was speaking and acting as I had become accustomed to in previous classes.

She was engaging with another student now, who was trying to prove her wrong, that his analysis was correct. She was having none of it. But while they sparred, I thought about the almost physical blow I had felt when I borrowed her knowledge of Marvell, and the greater blow when her knowledge of Milton passed to me. It really was quite staggering and I had felt like I was going to faint.

There was a warning there, I thought. Facts and ideas have to be stored, neurons connected, chemicals involved with short- and long-term memory produced. The mind can assimilate new ideas, store them, but it takes some chemical and electrical energy to do so. When we learn things, we usually learn them slowly, at a pace which won’t tax the mind.

I had done something quite different. I had taken a huge store of detailed knowledge from someone, a store accumulated over many years, a little at a time, and I had moved it en masse from their head to mine! I’m a bit surprised that I didn’t collapse in my chair and fall on the floor. Even now I felt a little dizzy.

There’s always a dark side to every gift. So it seemed that I couldn’t just walk into someone’s mind and vacuum up all their knowledge of their particular field of expertise. If I was going to do this and still retain my health and sanity, I’d have to approach this in a more methodical fashion, taking smaller ’bites’ so I don’t choke on them.

On the other hand, I now had a much greater appreciation of John Milton’s genius.

Wednesday was my busiest class and activity day, so by the time I got back to the dorm, I was bushed. I was hoping to take a quick nap before I went to eat. On the door I found a note taped.

“Carter, Gail wants your bod. Call her.” This, if you’re taking notes, is sophisticated wit in the dorms.

But on the off chance that she really did want my bod, I called her. It had been almost two weeks since I saw her last, both of us busy.

“So he lives after all? I was beginning to have my doubts.”

“Was I supposed to have called you or something, Gail? I’ve been wrapped up in classes and papers. Sorry if I messed up.”

“I’m just pulling your chain, Carter, because it’s so much fun. I was thinking it’s about time for another art history lecture. Truth is I just want to hang out at the museum for awhile and this is a good excuse. I told you I like to do that, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did, and even if you hadn’t I’d probably have figured it out. So when would be good for you?”

“Same day, same time, I think. That works well for me, and I’ve got the weekend to catch up on my class work.”

“Okay, that time works for me, too. I’ll look forward to it.”

“Right. You’d better cram for the quiz. I told you about the quiz, right?”

“I think you may have forgotten to mention it, but I’ll study up. Wouldn’t want the teacher to rap my knuckles with a ruler.”

“See ya Friday.”

It’d do me good to get out of the grind for awhile. She was fun to be around, even if we didn’t have sex, so I really was looking forward to it.

I went off to the food factory and had a quick dinner. I was revising my opinion about institutional food. This had turned out better than I had anticipated. I was pretty sure my expectations had been set by middle and high school lunchrooms, and college dining may have been that bad once, but they’d upped their game as the competition for students and the students’ parents’ money had intensified in recent years. So amenities were important.

I was caught up on all my reading for Thursday’s classes, and a good thing, too, because once I got back to the room I was about ready to drop. So I shrugged my shoulders and said “Why not?”

I was asleep within minutes of pulling the blanket up.

I was fortunate in not having any really early classes, and today’s European History class didn’t start till ten, so I had time for a leisurely breakfast and a chance to review the reading and notes.

I thought back to my recent forays into people’s memories. Now that I knew it was possible to pull out most anything I wanted, the temptation to do so was intense. But the physical effect it had had on me made me temper my enthusiasm. I was going to have to force myself to take this knowledge in smaller pieces so as not to overwhelm myself. Maybe once I had done this for awhile I might learn how to take in larger segments, but for now I’d take a more prudent approach.

So I headed off to class a little before time and took up a seat toward the front where I could more easily grab the instructor’s focus. I decided to concentrate on understanding the most recent lecture topic and any related items. Given that it was history, there were probably a lot of those, but we’ll see where this goes.

Our lecturer arrived, opened his old-fashioned leather briefcase, and pulled out several books and his lecture notes. You’d probably know him, as he was one of the savants that the media called for interviews when something important was happening in European politics, so I’ll just make up a name, say, Professor D.

He was probably getting close to retirement, but historians hardly ever retire, they just go on to teach graduate seminars until they become undeniably senile, or keel over dead. He had a few years to go yet, and was still sharp. I wondered idly why he was teaching a first-year class, since the academic stars seldom did that, but some of them liked to do it. Maybe he was one of them.

Today we had advanced to discussing the Thirty Years War in central Europe, its causes and its immediate and long-term effects. He began by talking about the efforts of the Holy Roman Empire to maintain its dominance in the region. When the German Ferdinand II was elected to lead the Empire, he broke one of the conditions of the Peace of Augsburg and demanded that everyone adhere to Catholicism. Large parts of Europe demurred, preferring to keep their own religion.

Some of the Bohemian nobility made a statement to that effect by throwing Ferdinand’s official representative out a palace window in Prague. That’s an historian joke, and he smiled at the humor.

He was on a roll now, and there was a lot of facts being thrown at us, so I made myself look particularly rapt and waited for him to glance my way. Teachers are always on the lookout for the students who seem interested. It makes them feel like they’re doing their jobs. And there it is. As soon as I saw him glance in my direction, catching the interest on my face, I felt his connection and was able to walk it up to his epicenter. He looked back toward the room and continued talking.

I think this must be an academic thing, where their epicenters are neat and tidy, everything organized, in its proper place. There was a ’tabletop’ on which he had neatly arranged his facts, in the order of presentation, and he was methodically cycling through them. Clearly, this was a comfortable subject for him, all extraneous material out of sight, to be summoned as needed.

I looked over his virtual shoulder and saw the details in front of me, and again I felt that sense of exhilaration when I suddenly saw the thing as a whole, how the parts were connected, how this thing affected that, and the terrible result that came about. It really took my breath away, and I could appreciate how a person could get so caught up in the awful inevitability of those decisions.

As before, when I saw the thing laid out, in its framework, I understood it. And not just from the perspective of memorizing a set of facts and when they happened. Now these things were part of a colorful story that had had a lasting effect on history and in the countries in which it had occurred. I stepped out of his epicenter and found, as I listened, it was as if hearing an old story, told many times before, but no less fascinating as a result. As he stated each fact, I found myself thinking, “Oh, yeah, and that caused this other thing to happen, and we know what that meant.”

My mind wandered back to my musing what would happen if everyone could see into anyone else’s mind, how it would have all these societal implications. What if, instead, we had the ability to transfer this depth of knowledge to each student, so that they understood history, and politics, and math, and literature? If they had that level of understanding about the world, would they not become better, more thoughtful citizens and politicians, perhaps helping us to avoid many of the bad decisions we’d taken as a country over past years?

Maybe. But it’s still human nature to look for an edge, to take care of number one. Understanding history and politics won’t turn us all into Mother Theresa. A problem to be solved another time, perhaps.

We were winding up, getting toward the end of the class, and I could see Professor D building up to his grand finale, which would leave his students anxiously waiting for the next installment.

But I knew what it was, ’cause I’d seen it in the facts on the ’tabletop’ in his epicenter.

He sent us packing with a reading assignment and a warning not to wait till finals before reviewing everything we’d covered so far. Actually a pretty wise admonition.

I had almost two hours before Chem class, so off to lunch, even it I’d already had breakfast recently. While I ate I thought more about my excursion into Professor D’s epicenter. I tried to examine how I felt about assimilating that quantity of information, whether I was feeling any effects from the effort. And I had to confess that I didn’t. I seemed to have internalized it easily, and I couldn’t observe any lasting effects, as I had when I tried to siphon up the contents of Professor Calvano’s knowledge of John Milton, rather than just his poem Paradise Lost.

I looked again at what I’d just learned about the Thirty Years War and it still seemed complete, my understanding of it just as encompassing. I did the same thing for Calvano and Milton. It had been a day, but as I reviewed what I’d learned, it seemed just as fresh, as firmly embedded as if I’d studied it for years. I poked in some corners, looking for obscure details that weren’t covered in the lectures or the text, and found some of those, too.

I might never need those, but they were there, now part of my own memory. This was really quite extraordinary, and made my knees a little weak thinking about it. I wondered what the capacity of the human mind was for facts and concepts. Was there a limit? Could I take in too much information? What would happen to my ability to think for myself if my mind was constantly stumbling over possibly irrelevant facts? Another reason to take this slow. Until I knew for sure.

I read some of the chemistry text, and also reviewed what I’d picked up from the TA, McCarthy, about stoichiometry. It was still there, too, at least to the level that he had understood it. Eventually it was time to go, and I packed up and headed off to the lecture hall.

I won’t bore you with the details here. I was able to get into the instructor’s head and assimilated her understanding of what she was trying to teach us. I’ve gotta say, this sure made learning a lot more fun, and interesting, too. I could now see what got her so excited about chemistry, the beauty that she saw in it, and absorbed some of her enthusiasm for the field. I refrained from trying to absorb too much, because I’d also taken chunks of information from others over the past two days, and I wanted this process to go slow until I mastered it and knew what the limits were.

After the class ended, it was immediately off to the chem laboratory section, where we tried to perform simple experiments that demonstrated what we’d been hearing about in lecture. It was straightforward stuff, the steps all carefully printed out for us, and no real need to peek into the TA’s head. We recorded our observations and results in a notebook and passed them in to be checked by the TA. We’d get them back next week.

I finished early and went off to Psych Club across campus, which wasn’t all that interesting this week, but which allowed me to wind down a bit. And when that was done, I was free for the weekend! Except for reading, class assignments and worrying about final exams which were now uncomfortably close.

I wasn’t particularly worried since I had a pretty good understanding of all that I was supposed to know—and more. This was, I think, more of a learned response picked up in high school where exams were a constant worry, an ax suspended over your head by a thread.

So I forced myself to relax, did some reading, had a late dinner, and even spent some time writing a long email to Karen, then went to bed.

Larry came in late. I know because he woke me from a sound sleep as he prepared for bed. I hope he was pacing himself, partying only on the weekends.

When I finally woke, I saw it was late. Well, after nine, anyway. But I had nowhere I needed to be, so shower, shave, off to breakfast, and then some reading till it was time to go to the museum.

I left enough time to grab a sandwich before I had to leave.

It was quite cool now, cold enough for snow, though we hadn’t had any to speak of yet. Everyone was bundled up, including me. I’d traded in my light jacket for a parka. And gloves. I stood on the steps with my hands in my pockets and waited for her, and wondered if perhaps I should wait inside the entryway, where it was out of the wind. But there she was, right on time. Actually it was hard to tell, because she was bundled up, too, with a quilted winter jacket, a long, colorful scarf around her neck, and a wool knit hat pulled down over her ears. I recognized her because her auburn hair stood out like a signpost.

“How come you didn’t wait inside?” she demanded.

“Creature of habit, I guess. Let’s go in.”

I paid again, and this time we left our things in the cloakroom and got little numbered metal tags with which to redeem them.

“How’s my favorite student?” she asked.

“Glad that he doesn’t have to think about class or reading or assignments for awhile. Are you going to cut me some slack today?”

“Hah! Fat chance. You think you’ve had it hard with your classes? Wait’ll you’ve been through Conlon’s Art History boot camp, mister. You’ll be begging for mercy.”

“Wait, Has the drop date for this class passed yet?”

“Too late, cadet, you’re mine now. Let’s go.”

She led me up to one of the galleries, then slowed when she found what she was looking for.

“Okay, I think we’d just finished with the Baroque period. That faded when people got bored with the same themes in the same style. So by the time that the late Baroque had come around, early 1700s, some French painters started experimenting, messing around with the Baroque ideas, changing this and that, until it finally evolved into its own separate style that they called Rococo.

“Rococo uses lots of scrolling curves, and white and pastel colors. It’s very ornamental and theatrical. It combines asymmetry, gilding, sculpted molding, and trompe-l’œil frescoes, and uses this to give a sense of surprise and the illusion of motion and drama.”

She pointed to a large photograph showing pretty much what she’d just said.

“So this was really new and exciting and it didn’t take long before it had spread from France all over Europe. And it wasn’t just painting and sculpture, either, but also furniture, silverware and glassware, even music, and theater!

“If you look at it, it looks, well, busy. There’s lots going on, lots to keep the eye constantly moving. Even fashion took on some of those elements, and women’s gowns became almost an architectural statement. She couldn’t get into them by herself, but required several ladies maids to assist her in constructing the facade, because that’s what it was.

“Anyway, I digress. Rococo painting in France used a lot of lighthearted treatments of mytho-logical and courtship themes, expressive and delicate brushwork, a relatively light tonal key, and sensuous coloring.”

She pointed out several examples of Rococo painting and I could see what she meant.

“As quickly as people had jumped onto this bandwagon, they just as quickly got bored with it.

Or at least the painters did. It got to be a competition to see who could produce the most intricate time-consuming works. And the artist’s expression was lost in the process. So by about 1760 or thereabouts, painters had begun moving on into something called Neoclassicism.

“That was kind of a fallback to the old themes of classical painting, mythical and religious subjects that hearkened back to ancient Rome and Greece. It was, obviously, less busy and fussy, and was considered more pure and inspirational. Come over here.”

She took my arm and led me further into the gallery, stopping at various paintings to point out how this was different from Rococo, yet still retained a few elements of it, like an echo. Once again, I admired the subtlety of her eye to be able to see those things. Because I couldn’t, until she pointed them out to me.

And so the afternoon progressed. Neoclassicism, she said, lingered on for quite a long time, even as it was being supplanted by something called Romanticism, which started around the early 1800s. This was starting to sound a bit familiar to me, as she mentioned several artists whose names I had heard. Though I wouldn’t have been able to identify their styles.

She was so wrapped up in this, completely immersed in it. I could tell that she loved to revisit this stuff, to rediscover her love for it, and I admired her for it. I really hoped that she found a place that would pay her and encourage her, allow her to follow her passion for this. She’d be brilliant once she got into the right situation.

She was trying to win me over with the excitement of what she was seeing for perhaps the hundredth time, talking quietly but intensely of how the art world fractured and coalesced, broke and reformed to produce something new and exciting. I wanted to share that with her, so I peeked into her epicenter to try to grasp the framework and how the styles were related and how they evolved.

She had it laid out like a map, and she was tracing the various artistic movements and I could see representations of each style and where they lived in the timeline. And like Calvano and Professor D, I understood how this all fit together. I thought, this is the mark of a truly dedicated scholar, someone who dives down deep into a subject, observing it, studying it, trying to understand it.

She could do this, but only if she eventually found someone who would believe in her, give her a chance to contribute to the field.

I realized that she had stopped talking, and I quickly stepped out and found her looking at me.

“Did I lose you?” she asked.

“No, sorry, I was wrapped up in a comment you made about painters using current events in their art to make statements about injustices and inequality, trying to see that in some of the works you pointed out. Did you ask me something?”

“Well, I wanted to see if I had left you behind in my rambling, but from what you just said, I don’t think I did. Anyway, we’ve been at this for a while, and this might be a good breaking point.

Do you want to keep going?”

“I’ll leave it to you. You throw so much at me in these sessions, it really is like a boot camp, there’s so much to learn.”

“Yeah, there is. But you’re doing pretty well picking this stuff up, so a gold star to you. This probably is a good place to stop. I’ll deny it if I’m ever accused of saying it, but there really can be such a thing as too much art.”

“I’m shocked. Shocked, I say! I mean, they could throw you out of the Art Historian’s Union or something if that got out.”

“I trust you to keep my secret. Whaddya want to do? You have someplace to be? No? Something to eat, maybe?”

“Aren’t you full of questions. I guess I could eat something. Let me see how much money I’ve got.” I looked at my wallet. “I guess I’m okay if we don’t get the second bottle of wine. Let’s get our coats and figure out where to go.”

Once again bundled up, we stood outside on the steps and debated the options. She wasn’t in the mood for Italian again, and was iffy about Middle-Eastern.

“What I’d really like,” she said, “is onion rings, and maybe a sandwich. Is that too decadent?”

“Not for me. I like onion rings. What about that diner? What is it, The Parthenon?”

“No, it’s... oh, right, The Olympus. That’s not too far. They’ll have onion rings.”

So off we went and, once seated back in a corner by ourselves, ordered onion rings for each of us, and we split a turkey club sandwich.

“Have I seduced you over to the dark side yet, Carter? Ready to give up your pursuit of psychology or math or whatever and take up art? You seem to have a pretty good understanding so far.”

“It’s interesting, I’ll admit, but to be really successful at it I’d have to have a better eye and an appreciation for color and design. I lack those, and no amount of study will give them to me. I’ll leave it to those who are better suited to it.”

“Ah, well, I suppose I should look at the bright side. There’ll be one less person competing for the too few jobs available.”

“Glad to do my small part in helping you get a job.”

Our food arrived and she tore into the onion rings with a kind of hedonistic pleasure. It was fun to watch her. I wasn’t that hungry, still digesting lunch, and this would be enough.

I looked up from my coffee cup and found her appraising me. “Do I have mayonnaise on my lip or something?”

“No, I’m just thinking, Carter. The same puzzle I talked about last time we were together. Boundaries, fears, that sort of thing.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to go on.

“I’m still trying to work through this, Tom. I was surprised at how you were able to push me past my boundaries, I told you that. And those things that had always frightened me, you helped me through them and I discovered that they weren’t so frightening after all. In fact, I kind of enjoyed them, in a perverse way. And after you left, I was in kind of a daze for awhile, because I never thought I’d be in that position, feeling like I’d been kind of silly to worry about it so much.

“I don’t want to make a big deal of it, but it really was kind of empowering, in a way, forcing me to face down the things that scare me. So...”

She stopped a took a sip of coffee while she marshaled her thoughts.

“I’m thinking that there were a couple of other things that scare me, I think I told you about them, some of my fantasies. They’re still fantasies because I might be too afraid to go through with them. And I thought, maybe, well, you might want to help me work through some of them.”

She was looking down at the table top now, brushing crumbs into her palm, because she couldn’t look directly at me.

“Gail, I think that’s really brave of you to want to face those things, the ones that frighten you.

And the answer to your question is, yes, of course, if that’s what you want. I will say that we’d have to look at each one, talk about what you want and compare it to what I’d be comfortable with.

“I can’t remember all of what you said, but I do remember one about trying a threesome with one other guy. I’d have to think about that one really hard, mostly because I think some part of me would have a really difficult time sharing you with another person. I’m not ruling it out, just saying that that’s the first reaction I have, and it may be my problem to deal with.

“There was another one about being tied up and helpless, and still another about role play, and those sound doable. If there are others, we can talk about them.”

She was quiet for a few moments. “Thanks for being honest. I’m still trying to work this out, Tom, so I don’t know what I’m actually ready for, but I’m thinking about it seriously, and I never would have done that before, so it’s a big step forward.”

“Okay. When you think that you’re ready, we can talk more.”

She nodded, and finished her coffee. “Walk me home, would you?”

I paid the check and left a tip, and Gail grabbed the last onion ring from my plate as we left.

As we neared her building, she said, “Would you come up for awhile. Maybe we can talk some more.”

Once upstairs, she pulled off her coat and hat and scarf and hung them up. I didn’t see any sign of the roommates, probably out partying.

“Get comfortable. I think I have some wine.”

I didn’t really want any, but it seemed that she needed it, so I sat and waited. She was back in two minutes. I gave her the ’just a tiny bit’ finger sign, but she gave herself a healthy amount.

She took a long swallow. “I’d have preferred a joint, but I smoked the last one yesterday and I won’t be able to resupply till tomorrow.”

I told her that was okay, I didn’t really need it. She went quiet again.

“What’s on your mind, Gail? It seems like something’s got you unsettled, something you’re wrestling with.”

“It’s just that... No, that’s not right. Carter, I can’t talk to anybody else about this. It’s like you’re the world’s best listener or something. I wasn’t being completely honest when I talked about those things you helped me work through. It was like a weight off my shoulders because I’d been so afraid of what I’d convinced myself was going to happen, then I’d be humiliated and ashamed.

“But that didn’t happen and I felt good that I’d worked through it. And I know I couldn’t have done it without you. No, don’t say it, you really were the catalyst and you were supportive and you were checking in that I was okay with what was happening.

“So after you left, for a couple of days after, I was thinking about fears and how it keeps us penned up. I think I might have to spend some time with a shrink to work through that in a more general, non-sexual context, because I do sometimes let my fears control my behavior, and I’m not sure that’s healthy in the long run.

“Anyway, what I was struggling with in the near term were those other things we talked about, the fantasies. The thing is, they’re mostly still fantasies because I’m still afraid of them, like I was afraid of things in my butt. Some part of me gets this forbidden thrill thinking about them because they’re a little scary and I know I’m unlikely to try them in real life.

“But I think that fear of trying something that might be painful or uncomfortable or scary is what’s causing me problems in my normal life. Does this make any sense, or am I just rambling?”

“If I read it correctly, Gail, your fears about these fantasies are somehow linked with your anxieties about everyday things, schoolwork, your choice of career, that sort of thing. Like that?”

“Yeah, like that. I told you I’m self-analytical, but there were certain things that were like a blank wall when I tried to think about them, like why I’m frightened of taking chances in art, or whether art history is really the right choice like my parents are always saying. And a bunch of other stuff, too.

“I think, but I can’t prove, that those fears—the sexual things and the everyday things—are really two sides of the same coin. After you left the last time I felt, well, really good about myself, like I’d faced some dark beast and beaten it. A little smug, in fact, though I’m embarrassed to admit it.”

She stopped and took another long sip from the wine glass.

“I don’t know why those fantasies are so daunting, so intimidating for me. I’m fine when they’re in my head, but they make me really nervous when I think of doing them in real life. I sometimes think I’m not quite right in the head.”

“Gail, you’re about the sanest person I know. You know what you’re good at, and what you like. Everyone’s got something in their subconscious that they’re afraid is unacceptable, too dark for ’normal’ people. Everyone. Those things we think are twisted, too weird, are usually pretty common fantasies. And that’s not me talking, but people like Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson.

“You told me some of them, and I’ll tell you honestly you’re not the first person to tell me those same fantasies. And when I told you mine, some part of me was afraid that you were going to be disgusted by how crude they were. But we talked through them and it worked out for the most part.

Everybody’s got their own fantasies, and mostly they’re afraid that if they talk about them they’ll be rejected, ostracized. You’re perfectly normal having those fantasies.

“As long as your fantasies don’t involve being hurt or hurting someone else, emotionally or physically, and it’s adults involved, you’re pretty run-of-the-mill, fantasy-wise. The other thing you said, about the fears of acting on your fantasies and how they may be a reflection of what you experience in your everyday life, there might be something to that. You have good instincts, but that’s really a decision to discuss with a psychiatrist or psychologist.”

She thought about that for some minutes while she finished her wine, and poured some more.

“The rest of the week, after you left, I found myself feeling, I dunno, more sure of myself, I guess. None of that hesitation I sometimes get when I wonder if the decision I’m about to make is the right one, I just seemed to know which path to take. And when I did my self-analysis—it really is a curse—I felt that it was connected to having mastered those two particular fears, proving to myself that they weren’t that scary after all.”

She turned on the couch to face me, wine glass in hand. “So here’s where I left it, after my marathon bout of self-psychoanalysis. I think it would be good for me to experience some of those fantasies, if only to prove to myself that the things which frighten me may not always be bad. And by proving that, I think it will have a positive effect in real life, my outside life. That’s what I feel, anyway.“

“That’s a very big step, Gail. I don’t see anything wrong about it, but it’s your decision to make. How do I figure into this, if I do?”

“You’re my guinea pig, Carter. And my caretaker. If I try these things, I’d be a little afraid of trying them with some random guy I go out with every once in a while. Though I’d bet they’d love it. No, I’d feel more comfortable knowing you were checking up on me to see if I was still feeling, what, safe, maybe. Even when you were pushing my boundaries, you’ve never really pushed me to a point where I felt uncomfortable or unsafe. I don’t think I could trust another guy to do that.”

“That’s sweet of you to say that, Gail. So... do you have a preference for a fantasy you might want to start with?”

“I don’t know for sure. The ones about dressing up and doing role-play, they might be fun, but they’re not really scary. The one with me and two guys, well, you said you’d have to think about it, and I don’t even know who the other guy would be or how I’d ask him, so I’ll put that on the back burner for now. The only one that frightens me a bit is getting tied up and blindfolded, of having absolutely no control of what would happen. I can feel my heart racing a little just talking about it.”

“You need to be really sure about this. You could always use a safe word, of course, and stop if you get uncomfortable with what’s happening, but that blocks the goal you’re trying to reach, if I understand it. You want to work through this fantasy, even though it scares you, because you think it might help overcome other fears you have. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m hoping will happen. And for whatever reason, this one makes me feel really vulnerable. That’s why I’m hesitating.”

“I get that. But this must be your decision, Gail. I’m certainly not going to try to talk you into it. I’ll help you if you want to do it, but you have to decide to do it. Agreed?“

She nodded, and poured the last of the wine into her glass before taking another swallow.

“Tom. I think I want to do this. I’m scared, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it? To work through the fear?”

“Okay, Gail. I trust that you know what you need. Tell me your safe word again, so we’re both sure of it.”

“I used ’van Gogh’.”

“Yeah, that’s what I remember, too. Now tell me more about the fantasy. What happens in it?

Is there anything you don’t want to happen?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. It varies some. I’m always tied up, usually on a bed, sometimes face up, other times face down. I’m blindfolded so I can’t see what’s about to happen. Sometimes I’m gagged, too. And the guy in the fantasy can do anything to me. I don’t want to get hurt, like punching or choking or anything that would leave bruises or marks, and I don’t like not being able to breathe. I think that’s it, mostly.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with this, Gail, because it’s bordering on a rape scenario and that really bothers me.”

“In my fantasy, that’s never part of it, it’s more like, well, like I’m asking someone else to make all the decisions so none of the control rests with me. It’s not my unwilling participation, it’s asking someone else to decide what’s going to happen.”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about this once we start. I just want you to know that I might have to use the safe word if it goes beyond what I can accept and still feel good about myself, okay?”

“Fair enough. And thanks for being willing to at least try, Tom.”

And having said that, she now seemed unable to take the next step. She sat on the couch absentmindedly rubbing her thumb against the back of her other hand, lost in thought.

“Gail, last chance to put this off. If you’re not ready, we’ll try another time.”

She turned to look at me for several moments, then stood up and faced me. Now I was having second thoughts. I didn’t really like taking on this dominant persona, but this seemed to be something she needed to do.

I stood up. “Okay. Into your bedroom.” I started moving, but she was lagging behind. I wondered what was going on. If this was going to work for her, it had to follow whatever outline she had planned for this, even if she was unable to verbalize it. She was looking at me from under lowered eyes, so I had her focus and walked up the link into her epicenter.

There was a kind of uneasiness there, no, uncertainty, that’s what it was. And I think it was uncertainty about what was going to happen, rather than uncertainty about whether she wanted it to happen. She was waiting... she was waiting for me to tell her what to do. She didn’t want control!

Oh, she wants it to start now. Okay.

“Gail, I asked you to go into your bedroom. Do what I say. Now, please.”

This time she moved, straight into the bedroom, and stood by her bed, waiting.

“Gail, I’m afraid that you haven’t shown a willingness to follow direction, and that’s too bad.

So I’m going to have to restrain you. You know that, don’t you?”

Again a peek into her epicenter, and this time I feel something like, I dunno, a mixture of relief, excitement, and maybe something like shame that she wants to be controlled. An odd mixture, a combination of emotions. But she wasn’t resisting, she was a full participant. She nodded.

“All right, Gail. Now, I’ll need some things to restrain you, tie you up, and also something to cover your eyes, like a blindfold. What do you have here? Show me.”

Her posture had changed, I noticed. She no longer had that self-confidence that I had noticed, now she was meek, almost subservient. She looked around the room and found a black wool scarf that would serve as a blindfold. My eyes were following hers as she looked around. Gail moved to the crowded closet and knelt down, pulling out boxes and bags and shoes. She reached further in and brought out a coil of rope, maybe ⅜″ wide.

“An odd thing to have in your closet. What was that for?”

She said, quietly, “Part of an art project at the beginning of the semester.”

It’d work well enough. I eyed the bed and then her, trying to estimate the lengths I’d need.

“Do you have something to cut the rope, Gail”

She rummaged in a desk drawer and handed me a Swiss Army knife. I cut four lengths about six feet long, then closed the door. When I looked at her again, she was definitely uneasy.

“Okay, Gail. Everything off. Now. Quick.”

The look on her face was so panicky that I took a quick peek into her epicenter. What I found was surprise at how quickly this was progressing. She had thought it would be more drawn out, but I hadn’t seen any of that when I looked previously. There was no scripted scenario that she was anticipating, so this was a more general fear at how soon the unknowns would present themselves.

She was still hesitating, so I reached out and swatted her ass with an open hand. “Now, please, Gail. Strip. Do it.”

She jumped, she wasn’t expecting that, but it changed the dynamic suddenly, and now she was compliant. Her eyes never left me, as she unbuttoned her shirt and jeans and tossed them on a chair. Her bra and panties followed, off much more quickly than I could have done it.

“You have socks on, Gail. Take them off.”

She did so, and I took the black scarf and placed it over eyes, knotting it in the back.

“Now lie in the middle of the bed.”

She was almost like a little girl, none of that character and confidence I’d admired. It was a little disturbing. She crawled onto the bed and got comfortable.

“Move a little lower, so your feet are right at the edge of the bed. Okay. Now lift your butt.”

I took a pillow from the head of the bed and slid it under her ass so it was lifted off the bed. I moved to the bottom of the bed and tied a length of rope around her ankle. I heard her make a soft whimper.

I found a place to attach the end of the rope to the bed frame and pulled it taut, forcing her legs to open more. I did the same on the other side, and this time when I tugged, forcing her legs wide apart, she moaned, sounding a little afraid.

“Give me your right hand, Gail.”

She raised the hand and I tied a rope end around it, tight enough that it wouldn’t slip off, but not so tight as to hurt her. I moved her arm back above her head and found a place to tie it so her arm was stretched back, then did the same thing to her left hand. She was now completely open and helpless, and I could see her breathing had become quick and shallow.

“Can you move your arms or legs, Gail?”

“No.”

“I think I did a pretty good job of securing you, but I’ll check later to make sure. Now you just lie here and wait for me. I’ll be back presently.

“Where are you...?” I shushed her. “Not really your concern, Gail.”

I peeked into her epicenter as I left and I could detect just a bit of panic. She had wanted to have control taken away, but now that it had been, she was finding it left her worried because she didn’t know what was going to happen.

The roommates still seemed to be out, but I closed the door behind me and walked into her kitchen. I opened the fridge and the freezer compartment, and yes! There were ice cubes. I freed three from the tray and found a small bowl to put them in. I was trying to remember where Gail had put... ah, here it is. A plastic squeeze bottle of honey. I put that under my arm and took the bowl and walked back into the bedroom, pushing the door closed with my foot. I put the items on the end table beside the bed.

There was one other thing I’d noticed, where did I see it? Oh, there, on the coat stand next to the closet. There was some kind of sporty hat with a feather stuck in the hatband. I took the feather. In the dresser, I found where she kept her vibrator and the lube.

I stood by the side of the bed and looked down at her. She could hear me, and her head was following the sound of my movements as she tried to figure out what I was planning. The truth was that I was a bit uncomfortable playing her tormentor. I would not have chosen to do this, but it was something she needed to try so I would play along. At least for awhile.

I picked up an ice cube in my fingers and leaned in to kiss her. She wasn’t expecting it and it surprised her but she quickly got into the mood and added a little tongue. While she was doing that, I reached over and held the ice cube against her left nipple. She gasped and sucked in her breath. The cold would feel almost painful, and I held it there while I kissed her. She tried to squirm away from it, but she was tied down and there really wasn’t anywhere for her to go.

I switched the ice cube to my left hand, pulled off her lips and leaned down to suck her left nipple. The hot tongue on the cold nipple made her moan, and while I was doing that I pressed the ice cube against her right nipple. When it was sufficiently cold, I put the cube in my right hand again, moved my lips to the right nipple and slowly drew the edge of the ice cube down between her breasts. The temperature difference between her skin and the ice would make it feel almost like a knife.

She was muttering something under her breath which I couldn’t make out. I pulled off her nipple and watched as I moved the ice cube lower. Her midriff was twitching, spasming as the ice cube moved across the skin. Just below her navel, I pulled the ice away and heard something like a sigh of relief, but I moved lower and applied it to the inside of her thigh and she gasped again, trying to move the leg away but it was secured fairly rigidly and it was futile.

“Please, Tom, too much.” I didn’t answer her. When I got to the bottom of the leg I pulled it away, then moved it to the inside of the other leg and moved the ice cube slowly higher. It was half-melted now from the heat of my hand, but I kept moving upward. As I got close to her pussy she started making a sound in her throat, almost like a soft cough, afraid of what I was going to do with it, but just before I got there I stopped and placed it quietly back in the bowl.

I realized that I was still dressed, so I pulled my clothes off as quickly as I could, while—kudos to me—remembering to set my ejaculation filter. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but decided on the feather. I was pretty sure she’d hate it, but you never know.

Her head had started moving again, trying to track my location, but I was barefoot now and quiet so she couldn’t tell. I picked up the feather from the table and stood by the side of the bed. I brought the feather down and brushed it against her nipple, back and forth. “Oh, fuck, no, Carter, too sensitive, don’t!”

But the point of this was that she had no control, so I kept doing it. I widened the circle so that it moved around the edge of her breast and now her torso was jumping, and she was quietly moaning, “Oh, no, no.”

When I thought she’d had enough, I dragged the feather across to her other breast and repeated it and now she was really struggling against the restraints. After a couple of minutes I followed the trail of the ice cube and moved the feather down between her breasts, moving slowly back and forth as it trailed down her torso.

Her midsection seemed to be really sensitive now and as the feather approached her navel, she was talking to me, begging, “Oh, no, Tom, too much, stop, please.”

I moved it to the side, over her hip and down the inside of her thigh, avoiding the pubis. When it touched her thigh for the first time her hips arched upward trying to get away, but it was no use.

“Fuck you, you bastard, too much, don’t, don’t.”

“We’re just getting started, Gail. This is what you wanted, to have no control, no say in what’s happening. Do you want me to be rougher? Do you want me to make you afraid of me? I don’t think I can. This is what I can do to you. If you want me to stop, use your safe word. Otherwise I’ll keep going.”

She was still struggling, but I could see that she was also thinking. She was hoping that getting through this thing that scared her would help her deal with other, more commonplace fears.

Gail said nothing, and I couldn’t tell if she was still thinking or waiting for me. So I took control back and moved the feather down lower, past her knee onto her ankle. As it got close to her foot I could sense her visualizing what might be coming. “Oh, God, Tom, don’t, oh, please, too much!”

Grasping her foot tightly, close to the heel to keep her from twisting it, I sucked several toes into my mouth. Then I took the feather and brushed it against the sole of her foot. Her voice changed, got very high and urgent, “Oh, nonononono!” She was fighting me but there was nowhere for her to move.

I couldn’t do that to her for long, mostly because it took a lot of energy and concentration to keep her from hurting me, so I took the toes out of my mouth, released her foot, and moved the feather to her other ankle, starting slowly upward.

I peeked into her epicenter and what I saw mirrored closely what I was sensing from her outwardly, trepidation, nervousness, her wondering if she’d made the right decision to try this. I looked around for her ’pleasure meter’, that interface analog which measured how much she was aroused.

When I found it, I was surprised to see how high it was. What her body had been saying and her voice reinforced was that these sensations were uncomfortable, made her anxious and edgy. What the meter told me was that she was highly aroused, the ’needle’ hovering around eighty percent.

Watching it as I moved the feather slowly higher on inside of her thigh, the needle twitching up by increments. By the time I got to within a few inches of her pussy, it was close to ninety.

Her pussy, I noted, had gotten quite damp and was glistening in the light from the floor lamp.

I could feel her tense. Was I going to move around it and back up her torso, or was I going in directly?

I brought the feather onto the bottom of her slit and she choked down a retort. Her labia were still mostly together, but they were sensitive and as I moved slowly higher I could hear her muttering, “Too much, too much!”

But it wasn’t, I could see that. She was getting really close to an orgasm, she just didn’t like the subtlety of the sensation, she wanted something stronger.

I was waiting for her labia to swell and open up, but they weren’t cooperating so I took two fingers and gently pulled them apart, exposing the inside. When I brought the feather onto the pink interior she cried out, “Oh, Jesus!” I looked at her meter again and it was close to the top.

I didn’t want her to have a big orgasm now, I wanted to draw it out, make it last, so I readied the ever-popular tiny wave on the beach image which would give her a small orgasm, here and gone, to be followed by another.

I brushed the feather side to side, inching higher, and when it brushed across her clit and she convulsed I linkcast her the image. She moaned, “Oh, my God, yes!”

Moving the feather lower again, I teased her until she was begging for it, then moved it up and just flicked the tip of the feather against her clit, no more than a few seconds, then sent another wave. “Oh, again! Oh, yes.”

I did two more, the last one with just a bit larger wave, nothing to knock her down, just to make her rejoice.

Standing up, I stretched to relieve the cramps I could feel forming from being hunched in that awkward position for so long. I was trying to decide what to do next and finally settled on the honey. Gail was still on the bed, still breathing rapidly, still nervous because she knew this wasn’t close to done yet. She didn’t know what was coming and it unsettled her.

I tilted the squeeze bottle above her right tit and let a tiny stream of honey dribble onto her boob and her nipple. When she felt it, she gasped. She didn’t know what it was. I put the bottle on the table, leaned down and licked the honey from her breast. Of course, it’s sticky and it never comes off fully, so you have to keep working at it, licking and sucking. By the time I got to her nipple she was breathing heavily.

When that was as clean as I could get it, I did the same thing to the other boob. She’d figured out what I was doing now, I could see, and was getting into the sensuality of it. It took several minutes to properly clean it off and by that time I could hear a whimper forming in her throat.

I let a few drops dribble onto her stomach just above her hips and licked and sucked the area until it was shiny. I tilted the bottle once more and let a few more drops fall onto the area around her clit. When I brought my tongue in to lick it up she quietly said, “Ohmigod, baby.” I was careful to make it feel like a cleaning operation rather that something intended to arouse.

I prepped a thermal geyser image for her, then moved in and pulled at her clit with my lips, grabbing it and letting it snap back, Above me I could hear saying something, probably not words I was meant to understand, just a conversation she was having with herself, almost conspiratorial.

When I sucked her clit into my mouth and attacked it with my tongue, I linkcast her the geyser image and I felt it roll over her. “Oh, Christ, Tom, I’m cumming, oh, YES!”

I kept pummeling her clit until I could feel her willing me to stop, so I kissed it gently and licked her slit while she moaned.

She needed to be kept in an aroused state. I didn’t want her to get too relaxed, I wanted her on edge. I took the squeeze bottle again and dibbled a thin stream onto my erect dick, then put the bottle on the table. Climbing onto the bed I got astride her, then moved my right foot above her shoulder and onto the pillow so I could lean in. I could see her trying to understand what I was doing.

I placed my cock on her lips and told her, “Clean it off, Gail. Lick it until all the honey’s gone.

And it goes up pretty far so you’ll need to get it in your mouth deep. Do it.”

She was making a sound in her throat now, I couldn’t understand it, but she opened her mouth and took the tip in and wrapped her lips around it. I slid it in and out to help, while her tongue worked the underside. The position was awkward, but she was doing her best.

I linkcast her the Spitshine image so she would get some pleasure out of this, a sense of contentment and joy at making me feel good. And it certainly did feel good. I put one hand behind her head and pushed her head onto my dick. She wouldn’t gag because I’d rewired that reflex and replaced it with a rush of feel-good. I didn’t push too deep, just enough to make her feel like she wasn’t in control.

“There’s still some you’ve missed, Gail, you’ll have to go a little deeper to get it. You can do it. I’ll help.” I heard her groan, but I felt her open wide and let the dick push deeper. Then she wrapped her lips tight around the shaft and sucked, while her tongue darted back and forth.

“Oh, Jesus, baby, that’s perfect. Keep going.”

I pulled out and she gulped in air. I knew she was ready because she opened her mouth wide again and went hunting for the tip, hard to find with the blindfold on. I positioned it on her bottom lip and she moved her head forward until most of it disappeared in her mouth, then closed her lips and sucked. If I hadn’t set the filter I’d be shooting a load down her throat right now. She bobbed up and down, difficult given how she was constrained, but props to her for trying.

“Nicely done, Gail, looks like you got all of it.” I moved off her gracelessly, trying to avoid stepping on her accidentally. She’d been tied up for quite awhile and I probably ought to be planning an end game by now. I’d actually done most of the things I could think of that didn’t involve whipping and slapping and other kinds of abuse. Maybe push her boundaries a little more.

I took the lube and the vibrator and moved to the bottom of the bed. Her ass was raised up by the pillow and her pussy and asshole were exposed nicely. I flicked the top off the lube and squirted some on her perineum and let it dribble down the crack onto her anus. She gasped, saying, “Oh, Tom, are you going to...”

She didn’t finish. I took my thumb and rubbed her perineum, now slick with lube while I extended the second knuckle of my index finger and rotated it at the opening to her ass. She said,

“Oh, fuck, oh.”

I took my pointer and pushed at her asshole and, slick as it was, it slipped right in, and she moaned, In and out, in and out. A little more lube, and I added a second finger to the first, sliding in, not far, just enough to stretch. I twisted them in place and she said, “Ohmigod!”

Her hips were moving now, and I couldn’t tell if she was trying to move away or to push the fingers in deeper. What the hell, why not? I pushed the two fingers slowly in, all the way to the second knuckle and heard her groan. In and out, in and out.

It was time, so I linkcast her the Buttlover’s image. It wouldn’t necessarily give her an orgasm, but it would make a pleasant warmth spread out from her butt throughout her body when things were inserted in her ass. I picked up the vibrator and poured some lube on it, spreading it around evenly with my hand.

I pointed it at her butthole and pushed it gently in with a little twist, going very slowly. “Oh, my God, Carter, stop, don’t.”

“You’ve had bigger things in there, baby. It won’t hurt. In fact, it feels good, doesn’t it?” I kept twisting and pushing until it was almost completely in. Then I flicked the little switch on the end to On. It hummed and she moaned. I slid it almost all the way out, and then in again, several times.

Under me, Gail was now chanting, “Ohmigod, ohmigod.”

I got up and fumbled for a condom in my wallet while I watched her. She was rolling her head back and forth on the pillow, talking to herself. I rolled the condom onto my dick and noticed that the vibrator had worked itself partway out, so I pushed it slowly in again. I linkcast her Rowboat to heighten her pleasure and leave her floating in contentment.

I got on my knees between her spreadeagled legs and watched her. Every once in a while I leaned forward and gave a sudden, unexpected light slap to her pussy and her clitoral hood. It made her cry out. I pushed the dildo in once more, then knee-walked forward and slipped my dick into her pussy.

It came out completely unbidden. I said, “Oh, Christ, Gail, that’s so perfect.” And it was. It was like her pussy was pulsing, throbbing, squeezing my cock. I didn’t know if it was the vibrator that set her off, or the other stuff I’d done to her, but her pussy was like a machine milking me now.

Jesus, amazing!

There was no time for subtlety now, I just wanted to pound her pussy because it felt so spectacular around my dick. So I hammered into her cunt while she whimpered under me. The part of my mind not taken over by my atavistic instincts was calling out, “She should get something out of this, too,” and I agreed with myself, so the part of my brain still functioning linkcast her a medium-size wave, and I felt her arch her back and call out, “Oh, Jesus, yesyesyes. YES!”

Under me I could feel the vibrator poking at my balls and realized that it had worked its way almost out again, so I awkwardly reached under and pushed it back in. I slowed down just to catch my breath, letting my dick slide almost out, then leaning forward to push in again, while I tapped my fingers against her clitoral hood. Each time I could hear her grunt.

With her tied down like this, there really wasn’t any place for me to move, to change my position, and I could feel my back start to tighten up. I’d need to finish soon, and she’d been tied up for a long time, anyway, so she’d need to stretch, too.

I took the tips of my fingers and rolled the hood of her clit under them, not touching the clit directly, but it was enough because she was so aroused. I did that for a few seconds and sent her another medium-size wave. She held her breath as it rolled over her, then let it out. “Oh fuck, yeah, that’s the way.”

Even with the blindfold on I could see enough of her face to appreciate how it lit up with a kind of euphoria and joy. And it wasn’t even that large an orgasm.

I leaned forward, resting on my extended forearms, and started moving into her again. This wasn’t so much making love, this was fucking, me wanting to get off because her cunt felt so wonderful right now, still doing that peristalsis thing like a hundred tongues were licking my dick.

This was it, I was about as ready as I’d ever be, and I prepped Avalanche for her and the Roller Coaster image for me. I was so enthralled by what her pussy was doing to my dick that I almost couldn’t remember how to release the ejaculation filter, but I got it and felt my orgasm pushing for release. I linkcast her the image and kind of forgot to do mine, but it was too late anyway.

She was shouting under me, I couldn’t recall what, because whatever was happening to me, while it didn’t seem to be Roller Coaster, was fantastic nonetheless and I was choking and gasping, trying to remember how to speak.

When it wound down, I lay there trying to find enough oxygen, still barely supported on my forearms, my dick still deep in her twitching pussy. It was so sensitive now I was almost afraid to move, but I couldn’t hold this position any longer so I had to pull out of her. I reached under and found the end of the condom and slid out. I discovered that the vibrator had preceded me and one end was resting on the bed, with the tip still in her ass, humming away.

I backed off the end of the bed without falling down, one hand holding on to the condom. Same problem again: Had either of the roommates returned to see me slinking naked to the bathroom? I was too exhausted to worry about it, so I closed the door behind me, made the brief walk of shame to the bathroom and flushed the condom. I washed my hands and face, and got back to Gail’s room without being seen.

The vibrator still hummed, so I slipped it out of her butt, turned it off, and put it on the night table. I untied her legs, then did the same to her arms, and reached behind her to undo the blindfold.

Her eyes were closed and she looked almost asleep, I couldn’t tell. I lay beside her and put an arm around her waist. I closed my eyes, too.