The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Lady of the Spring

by Bad Penny

Talan relished the assignments that took him far from home. The wilderness outside his normal network of cities was wild and magnificent. Even the desert had its own harsh beauty. On the horizon, purple mountains shimmered through the heat. Talan squinted at them, adjusting his hat to cut the sun’s glare. He could just make out his destination ahead—Mirage, an aptly named town given the way it wavered in and out of focus.

A gust of hot wind stole his breath. He understood why Ava welcomed her position in Mirage. To have such an active hand in taming nature! He was almost jealous, but his position allowed him to watch people like Ava work. Watch, analyze, report, move on to the next of assignment. It was satisfying work, especially when it took him away from the comforts of civilization to investigate rumors.

Towns failed on occasion, either because the State tried stretching its resources too thin, or because it chose the wrong governor for a new town. And sometimes, new towns prospered too quickly for their neighbors’ liking. He hoped that was the case with Mirage for Ava’s sake. He’d allow himself his concern for Ava until he arrived in town and had to assume his role as auditor.

He arrived in Mirage at nightfall and was waived through the gate by a sleepy watchman. His five-day trek from Horizon hadn’t given him enough time to adjust to the extremes of the desert. There was no real dusk, just day and then rapid night as the sun dipped behind the mountains, dragging the heat with it. Talan was shivering by the time he reached the town square.

Ava was waiting for him, backlit by a row of streetlamps. Talan studied them for a moment. “They’re not gas.”

“Candles. You think we have gas out here?” She laughed. “Water is more abundant.”

He felt the moisture then, subtle and gentle, like the memory of an old lover. He tilted his head back and took a deeper breath. The air soothed his throat as it slid down into his lungs. “This is much more pleasant than I thought it would be.”

Ava laughed again. “We considered naming the town Oasis, but that would have brought you sooner, yes?”

He frowned. His surprise had given Ava a chance to get too familiar with him. “Not me specifically.”

“No, not you specifically.” She took his arm and tugged him towards one of the adobe paths. “But for tonight, we can pretend, yes? It’s too late for work. You can come be Talan, and I can be Ava, and in the morning, we can be auditor and governor.”

He withdrew from her grasp. “It’s not proper.”

“It wasn’t proper at university, either.”

“Ava.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll take you to the guest rooms.” She backed up a couple of steps and turned fast enough to make her skirt flare around her knees.

The cut of her skirt wasn’t proper, either, but Talan kept that comment to himself.

“You’ll like the rooms. They’re austere, like you.” Ava said without looking back.

“You must hate them, then.”

“I don’t give them much thought.”

He laughed to himself as he followed her to his lodgings. His room, as promised, was austere but comfortable enough. He was glad to have a bed.

Ava stayed long enough to see him settled. She hesitated in the doorway on her way out. “I meant what I said. It is too late for work, but if you want a proper meal, Mellie at the pub will make sure you get one.”

A proper meal was tempting. Perhaps tomorrow evening...if he remained in town. “Thank you, but I’d rather sleep.”

She sighed. “As you wish. I’ll be back for you in the morning, yes?”

He nodded. He stood in the middle of his room until the sharp click of her footsteps faded. Then he closed the door and undressed quickly. The sheets were stiff and scratchy, but he was too tired to be bothered by them. However, he wasn’t too tired to bothered by Ava. She wasn’t the same, but he couldn’t pinpoint why she was different.

The Ava he knew wouldn’t laugh so easily, wouldn’t wear a skirt cut to dance with her movements. The Ava he knew would have been governor to his auditor right from the start. The Ava he knew...he fell asleep in the middle of his thought.

Morning came too soon. Talan wasn’t fully awake when Ava strode into his room, whistling a vulgar jig. Her whistling trailed off when she saw he was still in bed. “Well, you did need sleep. Here, drink this.” She set a glass down on the bedside table.

Talan blinked, looking from her, in a flowing red skirt and a white cotton blouse that was not at all proper, to the glass, wet with condensation. He reached for the glass and took a cautious sip. It was chilled mint tea, and it bit right through the tacky taste in his mouth. He gulped it down. “Thank you.”

Ava nodded and produced a basket of flatbread. “You’ll want to get started right away, yes? Take time and eat while you get dressed, or the heat will get you.” She smiled and set the basket down in his lap. “I’ll be in the square.”

She withdrew before he noticed the plump strawberries in the basket. Where had she gotten the fruit? Mineral and Horizon still had to import most of their fruit, and none of it looked as fresh as the strawberries.

He tried one, shocked by the burst of sweet juiciness. Mirage couldn’t be this far ahead of schedule. Ava had to be playing a prank.

The Ava he knew wouldn’t pull such a prank until after his audit was complete, though. He left the rest of the fruit untouched and just ate the bread, brooding. He still couldn’t pinpoint why Ava was different, or why he was so bothered by it. It was something he’d have to analyze later.

Talan dressed quickly, careful to tie his sash properly. Ava could claim the heat allowed her liberties with her dress. He would not make excuses for himself.

The sun was bright enough to make his eyes water. Talan spent a few moments in the shadow of the boarding house, letting his eyes adjust. He took a few extra minutes to watch the people in the street. Like the other towns he passed through, the citizens of Mirage were deeply tan. He was almost pale in comparison. It would be an enjoyable novelty if he wasn’t so distracted.

Ava’s smile was as bright as the sun. She took his arm and started to guide him down one of the winding paths. “I’ll show you the school first, yes? Then we’ll move on to the gardens and spring.”

Talan nodded. Ava’s hand was cool on his arm. He told himself that was why he didn’t draw away.

The path snaked between rough buildings. Talan frowned. Towns should be geometric and tidy, a reflection of the order humanity imposed on the world. Mirage was not geometric, tidy, or orderly. He glanced down at Ava, who was still smiling and filling the silence with wasteful chatter about nothing.

One of the townspeople made a comment as they passed. Ava tilted her head back and laughed. Her face and neck and throat were pale, too pale for someone in this environment. Talan’s frown deepened. The Ava he knew would be out shoulder-to-shoulder with her laborers. She should be as bronze as everyone else, but her skin was as pale as moonlight, her hair too dark.

He studied the people around them more carefully. Mirage was the third town in the desert and the one furthest from civilization. That should matter, but unlike the people in Mineral and Horizon, everyone in Mirage looked content.

No, blissful. He didn’t see any of the thirsty desperation he had seen in Mineral and Horizon.

It had to be the spring. Or rather, the rumors. “Ava,” he said when she paused to take a breath. “Tell me about Our Lady of the Spring.”

Her mirth evaporated. “I suppose it was too much to hope that word of Her hadn’t spread.”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “I should have known. You’re much too important to perform a routine audit, yes?”

“Yes.” He wanted to say more—the worship was illegal; she ruined her career; she’d go to prison if all the rumors were true—but the words stuck in his throat.

“You saw the people in Mineral and Horizon. It’s hard out here. Our Lady of the Spring makes life easier.”

“Ava—”

“At least let me show you. You can give me that much, yes?”

He nodded.

The earth surrounding the spring was too lush. Then again, the whole town, including Ava, was too lush. Talan realized that was what bothered him. The spring didn’t fit. It wasn’t natural, and it was too early for Ava and her engineers to have created one. Nature didn’t surrender so easily. If it did, Mineral and Horizon would be different.

Still, the spring was beautiful and wonderfully cool. He could understand why they had considered naming the town Oasis. He knelt and stroked the grass.

Ava’s skirt rustled as she knelt next to him. She dipped cupped hands in the spring and raised them to her mouth to drink. Some of the water ran down her chin and neck, soaking the top of her blouse so it clung to her breasts.

He quickly looks down at their distorted reflections in the water. “This shouldn’t be here.”

“It was here when we came.”

The ripples in the water faded. Ava looked down with him and met his eyes through their reflections. “I reported it,” she said, watching him carefully. “Though I didn’t report how everything just burst to life once we started building. It was like...” she reached down and poked the water, disturbing their reflections again. “It was like the spring was waiting for us.”

She was mad. Talan shifted to look at her, careful to keep his eyes from wandering down to her breasts, visible through the soaked fabric of her blouse and larger than he remembered, nipples hard and inviting. He could taste her in his memory, sweet and soft.

He let out a slow breath. “I’ve read your reports.”

She leaned forward, planting her hands in the grass next to his so their fingers almost touched. “You have to understand. It’s hard out here. I know it’s supposed to be, but knowing and experiencing are different, and as governor, it’s my duty to make things easier, yes?” Her eyes matched her tone, open and pleading.

She was right. Knowing and experiencing were different, but in his current role, he didn’t have room for sympathy. Talan rose smoothly, drawing the trappings of his office around him. “As governor, it is your duty to bring order.” He turned so he didn’t have to look down at her. “I have enough for my report.”

“No!”

He heard Ava surge to her feet, saw her shadow lurch after his. He realized too late that she was holding something. It connected with the back of his head. He was unconscious before he finished falling.

The heat woke him. Or rather, the press of sun on his chest, thighs, and groin filtered up far enough through his awareness to make him realize he was naked. That knowledge prodded him awake.

His head throbbed. The white-hot sunlight burning through his eyelids did not help the pain. Talan tried to touch the base of his skull, but his hands were bound.

So were his ankles. Something cool wound up his legs, halting as his thighs. Talan felt a shadow wash over him. He opened his eyes.

Ava loomed above him, but it wasn’t the Ava he knew. It was the pale Ava with moon-kissed skin, loam-colored hair, and too-full breasts. He looked down, unable to hide his shock. Her legs, or what should have been her legs, were coiled around him, pulsing in time to his heartbeat.

“You’re not Ava,” he said.

Her arms faded to a shimmering blue. She threaded them around his waist and criss-crossed them over his chest, binding him like one of the women in the books he used to sneak from his father’s library and peruse with Ava.

“No, not entirely,” she said. Her voice was richer than Ava’s, older.

She slowly tightened the coils around him. Talan struggled to breathe, tried to throw her off him, but he didn’t have the leverage.

He met her eyes briefly before sinking back on the stone she had bound him to. Death was one of the risks of his jobs, but he never thought he’d meet it at Ava’s hands. Or rather, at the hands of something wearing Ava’s face.

She stopped tightening the coils. Talan opened his eyes again and searched her face for an indication of her intentions. She smiled, hard and sharp, and pressed her hips against his so the folds of her sex slid along him.

Ava used to do that. Talan responded as he used to, though he tried to fight it. He managed to hold back his moan, but not his hardness. She fell into a teasing rhythm, pulling his legs apart so he was spread wide. He felt a flat coil slide down between his legs to caress his balls. A thin coil crept between the cheeks of his ass.

His hips arched on their own accord, seeking her wet warmth. He bit back another moan. Focus. He needed to focus. She was an impediment to progress. He had to defeat her.

Her shoulders and neck dissolved into the same shimmering blueness as her arms. Tiny bubbles surged through her in time to his heartbeat.

“You wanted to meet me,” she said. And then she pressed the thin coil into him.

Talan couldn’t watch her anymore. He tilted his head back. He wasn’t surprised they were out in the desert—he couldn’t taste the moisture like he could back in town—but he was surprised to see stone pillars, pitted by sand and wind, flanking what had once been a stone path leading to a domed structure.

“My temple,” she said, sounding a little smug.

Ava’s reports had not mentioned a temple. Neither had the rumors. The initial survey reports for Mirage may have. The thin coil thickening inside him made it hard for Talan to remember everything he had read in preparation for his investigation.

The coil was too distracting now. Talan groaned. A jolt washed through him, one that swept away the almost-pain and left pleasure behind.

Focus. He needed to focus. He looked back up at her, watching the bubbles in her neck. Her entire body was translucent now, and if anything, it made her more beautiful.

More beautiful and more alien. He could focus now. He licked dry lips and tried to ignore the ragged need in his voice. “What are you?”

“I’m what can’t be tamed.” She laughed and surged around him, still human where their hips met. The contrast of wet heat pulsing around his cock and the moist coolness thrusting in his ass had him close and wanting release.

But wanting wasn’t needing. Talan clung to that thought. It kept him whole. “Everything can be tamed.”

“Not everything, little man.” She withdrew suddenly, leaving him frustrated and empty. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

Talan looked away as she coalesced into Ava again. He closed his eyes when a cool hand stroked his forehead.

“I wish they had sent someone else.”

Talan chose to believe it was the Ava he knew who spoke. Sorrow bit at the back of his throat. He let it die there.

Not-Entirely-Ava came to him the next day, the day after that, and the day after that. Eventually, he stopped trying to keep count. Their encounters were always the same, always left him on the verge of release, always left him aching for more.

Wanting wasn’t needing. That was important, though he wasn’t sure why.

“You’re even more stubborn than this vessel.”

He opened his eyes and stared at the creature riding him. The slick coils squeezing his chest made it hard enough to breathe, let alone talk, but he managed to ask, “Did you...do this to Ava?”

“For five days.” She caressed his cheek with a tentacle. “You people are so fragile and so strong.”

The tentacle slid into his mouth. He sucked on it, drawing what little water she allowed him out of it. She smiled and licked her lower lip. He experimented with his tongue, pleased by her encouraging moan. Perhaps he could still defeat her...somehow.

She withdrew the tentacle from his mouth. “There’s no shame in being fragile.” She leaned over him, filling his vision. “Some of the most beautiful things in the world are fragile.”

She kissed him, filling his mouth. He arched against her, spreading his legs as wide as his bonds allowed. At the last moment, he remembered wanting wasn’t needing and regained control of himself.

She withdrew, smiling. “So stubborn. But I have time.”

Ava came to him that night, and in the moonlight, he could forget that her skin was too pale, her hair too dark, her breasts too full, her touch too cool.

“It’s not bad,” Ava said. She curled around him, almost human. “Everyone in the town is happy.”

“Happiness isn’t real unless it’s earned.”

“You’re too stubborn.”

He wanted to say she hadn’t been stubborn enough, but he was afraid she’d leave. It was nice having her nestled against his side. He knew she wasn’t his Ava, but for tonight, he could pretend.

When he woke in the morning, it wasn’t Ava curled around him.

“You won’t win,” he said as she slid into position. The comment would carry more weight, he knew, if he wasn’t already hardening in anticipation.

“So confident,” she cooed. “So was this vessel, but she crumbled.” She leaned down, and her hair fell around his face like a veil. “Crumbled like you’re about to.”

Her eyes were green like the grass around the spring in Mirage. It was a deeper, wilder green than the perfectly manicured lawns in the cities. He couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to.

He could see the truth. She was untamable. And older than he could imagine, though she’d been dormant for centuries, waiting. And then Ava came. Ava with her hopes and desires, strengths and failings. Ava, so eager to make Mirage thrive at any cost, a perfect choice for a vessel.

And he? He was nothing...just another being to bend to her will. And she knew just how to do it, stretching him wide and riding him slowly. If he closed his eyes and ignored the coil of tentacles around him and in him, he could focus on the slick warmth around his cock. He could pretend she was Ava.

But there was no ignoring the tentacles filling him, no ignoring his need for release.

“Please.” He trembled against her.

She kissed him, filling his mouth until he thought he’d choke, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Her eyes washed through him. He was in them, watching her and her kin wake and slumber as civilizations rose and fell. She wasn’t alone. There were others like her scattered throughout the world, waiting for the right vessels.

He couldn’t be her vessel, but he could do her will. He let her fill him, emptying his mind of the voices that screamed at him to tame her. She was part of the world, and everything in the world could be tamed.

Everything except her...and her kin. He found his release then, and it seemed to last forever. For a moment, he saw Ava in her eyes.

The moment passed. Then his Lady loosened his bonds and helped him to his feet.

Talan rubbed at his chafed wrists. “What do you ask of me?”

“Return to your people and file your report. There is nothing odd at Mirage, just rumors spread by jealous governors at Mineral and Horizon. Recommend that they be replaced for attempting to spread discord.”

He bowed his head. “Yes.”

She touched his cheek. “Then see that you’re sent to the mountains in the north.” Her touch became firm, so he lifted his head to meet Her wild eyes again. “I have a lover in need of a vessel.”

He couldn’t help his shiver of anticipation. “Yes.”