The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Placebo Effect

Chapter II.

Celeste Kerrigan shuddered helplessly as the lotion she’d slathered on herself took its usual effect. She couldn’t think; she could only react, as the images of her fantasy self danced through her mind, nude, lewd and beautiful, and the pleasure roared through her.

Something new had been added since her second visit to Dr. Peters. Her naked fantasy selves were no longer alone. They had been joined by visions of Dr. Peters, equally unclothed and (somehow she was sure of this) equally idealized. The male and female figures danced around each other, converged, and . . .

Celeste gasped as she felt herself entered. The pleasure pulsing through her soared to new heights. Her back arched; her head fell backward and her mouth opened to release a scream of ecstasy. She saw stars.

Her head fell forward again and she let herself slide limply down until she was sprawled on the cool tiles of her shower. She stayed there, panting, until some semblance of self-control returned.

Afterward, as she rinsed herself off under the shower’s needle spray, she forced herself to face what was happening to her.

The more I use this stuff, she admitted, the more strongly it affects me. It’s like it’s some kind of drug. She laughed sourly. Hell, face it, girl. It’s got to be some kind of drug. Those bastards at Neodyne are turning me into an addict.

She remembered how she’d hesitated during her first session with Dr. Peters. She’d wondered then if she should back out of participating in the product survey she’d signed up for. But it had seemed silly. After all, Aphrodex was supposed to be a harmless beauty product. From what Peters had said, she hadn’t even really expected it to do anything at all.

Well, she’d been wrong. Oh, boy, had she been wrong!

The hell of it was, if all the lotion did was make her look better, there’d be no problem. But the powerful erotic fantasies and feelings which surged in her every time she put it on were clearly another effect; she’d long since stopped kidding herself about that.

It wasn’t just working while the stuff was on her skin, either. She knew she felt sexier these days, less inhibited, all the time. She enjoyed strutting her new, improved stuff on the street, and even at the office. The trouble was, she was getting too horny to focus on her job. She was slacking off, and making mistakes she would never have made in the old days.

I’ve got to stop, she decided. I’ve got to quit now, before it’s too late.

It would mean forfeiting the five-hundred-dollar fee she and the others had all been promised for their participation, though. And five hundred bucks was five hundred bucks, after all.

Celeste had an idea. Dr. Peters doesn’t have to know I’m not using the Aphrodex any more, she thought. How’s he going to find out, if I don’t tell him?

She sighed. There was no denying the lotion really had seemed to improve her looks. If she stopped using it, would she go back to the way she’d looked before? Not that that had been so terrible, she hastened to reassure herself, but it would be a shame to give up what she’d gained.

Still, she had to at least try to kick the habit. One day at a time, she told herself. One day at a time.

It lasted three days.

The first day, everything seemed fine. She congratulated herself on her willpower and braced herself to continue.

The second day, she felt restless and edgy. She was even more careless at work than she’d been recently, and got yelled at by her supervisor. When she got home, she was tired and sore and really, really wanted a shower. But when she had stripped down and gotten into the shower stall, she found herself reaching automatically for the tube of greasy ointment.

No! she told herself firmly. I don’t need this! She pulled her hand back with a noticeable effort and reached for the soap. She got clean, but she still felt unsatisfied as she toweled herself off afterward. Ghosts of the sexy images she was used to seeing plagued her imagination, all the more so because the wonderful feelings which usually came with them were absent. It was the difference between standing outside a great bakery looking in at the cakes and pies on display and being inside eating them.

The morning of the third day, she felt worse. She’d had trouble sleeping; she’d felt horny and frustrated all night long, and nothing she’d tried had seemed to help. She dreaded going to work.

As it turned out, she’d had reason to feel that way. She got yelled at again, and couldn’t keep herself from bursting out in tears. She couldn’t seem to do anything right. Finally, she gave up and went home early.

This will be harder than I thought, she admitted silently as she peeled off her work clothes. I really am addicted.

She set her jaw. But I can beat this! I know I can! Heading for the bathroom, she promised herself that in the morning, she’d call Dr. Peters and tell him she was quitting the survey. To hell with the five C’s.

Naked, she stepped into the shower. Without thinking about it, she reached for the bottle of lotion. Only after she’d gotten halfway through spreading the stuff over herself did she realize what she was doing.

She stopped, one hand raised with a dollop of Aphrodex in it, and swore softly. No, damn it! she thought. I didn’t want to do this!

The hand went to her bare flesh and began slathering the ointment on. The hell with it, she told herself. Just one more time. . . .

The images and sensations were stronger than ever. She couldn’t think, couldn’t stop herself from babbling and shrieking ecstatically as she lost herself in the fantasy. Her hands slid over her slick skin, spreading the Aphrodex everywhere. Fevered fingers even slid into her slit, carrying the cream with them.

Celeste slid shuddering down along the wall of her shower stall until she was sprawled in a heap on the tiled floor. Her body jerked again and again in orgasms as phantom partners penetrated her.

Finally it was over. She slumped bonelessly, resting her cheek on the shower floor and closing her eyes. “Jus’ one more time,” she mumbled. “Gotta quit. . . .”

She drifted off to sleep.

Eventually she awoke, got up and washed herself off. She felt embarrassed for giving in to temptation the way she had. But, a naughty voice within her whispered, it felt so good!

She was ravenously hungry. Still nude, she padded into her kitchen and raided the refrigerator, wolfing down leftovers: half a small roast chicken, some salad, some crackers, all washed down with orange juice.

Finally sated, she drifted into her living room and curled up on the couch, using the remote to click her TV on without any real thought of watching anything in particular. It was enough to lie there, completely relaxed, and let the sounds and pictures wash over her.

Her eyes closed. The last thought to float through her mind before she fell asleep again was, Tomorrow, I’ll call Dr. Peters. Tomorrow. . . .

Celeste slept peacefully through the night, waking up only when the first rays of dawn penetrated her living room.

As she opened her eyes and regained awareness of her surroundings, her first reaction was a flush of embarrassment that she’d spent the entire night conked out utterly unclothed on her couch, with the TV and the lights on full. Anyone who’d been in a position to look through the fancy floor-to-ceiling windows in front would have gotten an eyeful.

That didn’t seem to bother her as much as she might have expected. In fact, as she thought it over, her second reaction was a naughty flash of regret that no one had seen her that way. After all, she had a lot more to show these days than she’d had before! Why shouldn’t people enjoy it?

She got dressed, ate breakfast and headed off to work. She felt much better this morning and looked forward to catching up on some of the stuff she’d let slide the last couple of days. She promised herself she’d call Dr. Peters from the office to tell him she was dropping out of the Aphrodex study.

At noon, when she broke for lunch, Celeste realized she still hadn’t made the call. She sighed. She’d had more work than she’d realized: not only had she had to take care of the paperwork she’d neglected, but she’d had to go back and redo some she’d messed up while she’d been distracted by her . . . cravings. Cleaning up the mess was taking longer than she’d thought, and she still couldn’t seem to focus the way she usually did.

After lunch, she vowed. After lunch, she’d call the doctor.

At three-thirty, halfway through typing up an overdue report, she caught herself and swore. She still hadn’t called!

Maybe tomorrow. . . . But no. Celeste knew where that kind of thinking could lead. If she were going to do this, she’d better just do it and get it over with.

Setting the papers aside, she rummaged through her Rolodex for Dr. Peters’ phone number, then picked up the phone.

With the fingers of her free hand hovering over the telephone’s keypad, she hesitated.

Maybe I’m overreacting, she told herself. Do I really need to do this? She thought it over. The hand holding the handset went down, nearly placing it back in its cradle.

After a few moments, it came back up.

Yes, I do. She remembered vividly how miserable she’d felt after going without the lotion for just three days. She had to quit, while she still could—if it wasn’t too late already.

But a wicked whisper asked: Why? All at once she found herself recalling how it had felt when she’d finally given in and used the Aphrodex last night. The whisper continued: If you quit, you don’t just lose five hundred dollars—you’ll never feel anything like that again.

She couldn’t help it; at that thought, a tiny moan escaped her.

I can’t do it, she admitted. Not yet. God help me, I need this! She hung up the phone.

Celeste sat there silently for a while after that. She couldn’t deny it anymore: she was hooked. She didn’t know what the hell she’d do when the study ended, if Neodyne decided not to market Aphrodex after all.

She had to quit, she just had to!

But it felt so good—and whatever else the stuff had done to her, she had to admit it had improved her looks. She still didn’t understand how a mere lotion could do anything like that, but it had.

And it was still working. It seemed as though every day, when she looked into the mirror, she looked more like her fantasy image of herself. Some of that was the way she dressed, wore her hair and made herself up these days—but only some of it.

She giggled softly. She wasn’t the only one who liked the way she looked now. It turned her on to see how guys reacted to her on the street, in stores, even here in the office. Not that they’d totally ignored her before, but it was a whole new ballgame these days.

She giggled again, and shook her head. She needed to get back to work, but it was hard to focus. Work was so boring! She didn’t understand how she’d managed all this time.

With an effort, she turned back to the papers in front of her. She’d promised herself she’d try to catch up.

By five o’clock, Celeste had pretty much emptied her in box. It had cost her, though: her head was pounding almost as badly as it had been the previous evening, before she’d given in and used the lotion again.

That’s the ticket, she told herself. A nice long shower, rub myself all over with Aphrodex and then rinse off nice and slow, oh, yessss. . . . She was sweating as she punched out before leaving.

On the drive home, Celeste cooled off enough to think a little more clearly. She realized she still had to quit the Aphrodex, no matter how good she felt when she used it and no matter what it seemed to be doing for her looks. The price was too high: she seemed to be turning into someone she didn’t recognize, not just physically but psych—psycho—!

The blonde blinked, bewildered. A word had slipped away, forgotten, derailing her train of thought. She concentrated, trying to get back on track. Oh, yes, that was it: she was changing, not just physically but in her mind. There was some long word she’d been trying to use, but she couldn’t remember and it didn’t matter.

SCREEEEEECHHHHH!

The sound of brakes squealing in front of her jolted Celeste’s attention back to the road. She’d run right through a red light, and a big truck had almost hit her! Shaking, she pulled over to the roadside as the larger vehicle roared past, its driver yelling and gesturing obscenely at her.

She drew a deep breath, collecting herself, and was just about to pull out back onto the road when she heard, coming up from behind, the sound of a motorcycle. She glanced back toward the sound, and swore under her breath—it was a cop!

Just as she’d feared, the officer pulled alongside her car and dismounted. “License and registration, please,” he said.

Celeste fumed. The last thing she needed right now was a traffic ticket. If only there were some way she could get out of it. . . .

She smiled. Maybe there was.

“License and registration, please,” the policeman repeated. Celeste turned away and dug them out of the dashboard cabinet meekly enough. Before turning back, though, she reached for her blouse. The top two buttons were already unfastened; she popped open the next one. Then she swiveled in her seat to face the man in blue.

“Here you are, Officer,” she cooed, batting her eyes and smiling brightly. The man in front of her grinned for a moment in spite of himself as he took the documents. He glanced at them and jotted on a pad before handing them back.

“What’s your name, Officer?” Celeste’s voice was honey.

The cop flushed. “Ah, um, Brian,” he blurted. Then, as if realizing that offering his first name was a bit too familiar, he tried to recover: “Brian Michaels, miss. Officer Brian Michaels.”

“Well, Officer Michaels—Brian,” the blonde purred, “it’s very nice to meet you. You look really handsome in that uniform.” As she spoke, she pushed out her Aphrodex-augmented chest at him.

Michaels’ eyes widened. Just as Celeste had intended, his gaze locked onto her cleavage. “Uh, um, thank you,” he managed to respond.

“I’m sure you’re a very good police officer, Brian,” the woman told the cop. “You wouldn’t be like some guys, who have to show who’s in charge by throwing their weight around.”

“Ulp,” Michaels answered. “N-no. Of, of course not.”

Celeste pressed her point. “Then you can understand how I might have been distracted for a moment and run the light.” She bobbed her chest up and down and was gratified to see the cop’s eyes follow it, forcing him into a nod of “yes.”

“Uh, yeah.” Michaels seemed to be having a hard time getting words out. “Distracted.”

“You wouldn’t want to punish me just for being distracted for just a moment, would you, officer?” Celeste smiled warmly. As if by accident, her hands came up to lightly caress her partially exposed bosom. “Especially since there was no harm done. Nobody got hurt or anything.”

Staring, Michaels mumbled agreement. “No. Nobody got hurt or anything.”

“Then you don’t really have to give me a ticket, do you, Officer?” The blonde driver batted her eyes at the confused cop again. “Can’t we just let it go? Just this once? Pleeeease?

Pop-eyed and sweating, Officer Michaels stared, his eyes following the motion as Celeste kneaded the flesh of her breasts through her half-open shirt. Finally he gasped, “I-I guess . . . just this once. Especially since nobody got hurt or anything. Nnngh. He fumbled with his pad, almost dropping it before he could put it away securely.

He pulled himself together with an obvious effort and tried unsuccessfully to look stern as he lectured her: “Don’t get the wrong idea, miss. Drive more carefully from now on, or the next time, you will get a ticket.”

“Whatever you say, Officer Michaels,” responded Celeste. She fluttered her lashes at him again. “Whatever you say.”

Michaels made a small noise deep in his throat. He tore his eyes away from Celeste’s massive mounds and walked unsteadily back to his motorcycle. He mounted it and roared away.

As the traffic patrolman disappeared from view, Celeste laughed softly. What she’d just done was the kind of thing other women might get away with, but that she never would have dared try—and even if she had, it wouldn’t have worked. She might be hooked on Aphrodex, but her addiction had a definite up side. She was a lot bolder now, and the changes the lotion had made to her body gave her a lot more to work with.

She remembered how she’d considered quitting the study. What was I thinking? she wondered. Why the hell would I want to go back to the way I used to be?

The brazen blonde laughed again, louder, and started her car, pulling away from the side of the road back into the evening traffic.

The experience with the traffic cop had shown Celeste a whole new aspect of the changes she was experiencing. It wasn’t just that she was different now, and still changing; the way other people saw her and responded to her was different, too. And that had uses for more than getting out of traffic tickets.

She stopped worrying about what her supervisor thought of her at work. Oh, she still showed up, still sat at her desk. She just didn’t stress anymore about getting everything done on time and perfect. Why should she knock herself out? There were plenty of guys in the office who were willing to help her out, if she asked them the right way. It was amazing what a strategically timed flash of bosom or thigh could do for her these days.

But she couldn’t get away with it forever. One afternoon, as she sat at her desk polishing her nails—that cute Darryl who sat across the room from her had promised to finish her weekly time sheets—the telephone rang. Celeste picked up the handset.

Her boss’s voice emerged: “Ms. Kerrigan,” it said, “please come to my office. I need to speak with you.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Dubose,” she answered meekly. “Right away, sir.” She took out a compact, flipped it open and inspected herself: her hair and makeup were in place. She stood up, smoothed her clothes and headed off.

Once, a summons like this one would have scared her. Not anymore. She smiled.

Phil Dubose looked up as Celeste Kerrigan entered his office. His eyes widened.

Ms. Kerrigan had been a steady but unremarkable employee. She wasn’t unremarkable anymore. Somehow, she’d blossomed into a blonde sex-bomb he could barely recognize as the modestly pretty girl he’d met when she joined his area.

Not that that ought to influence him, he hastily told himself. For she wasn’t steady anymore, either. He knew she’d been slacking off lately and getting others to do her work for her. That couldn’t be allowed. With an effort, he tore his gaze from the expanse of cleavage revealed by her tight-fitting, low-cut blouse.

“Sit down, please,” he directed, waving a hand toward the guest chair beside his desk.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Dubose.” Celeste sat, crossing her legs. The posture revealed a tempting expanse of flesh, just as she’d intended. Despite himself, her boss stared.

Silence fell. After a minute or so, the blonde asked, “What was it you wanted to talk about, sir?”

Dubose blinked. The faintly glassy-eyed look which had come over him faded. “Yes,” he muttered. “Discuss.” He blinked again and collected himself.

“Ms. Kerrigan,” he went on, “it’s come to my attention that you’ve been slacking off lately here at the office. This won’t do.”

“But Mr. Dubose, sir,” Celeste cooed, fluttering her eyelashes and leaning slightly forward to give the man behind the desk a better look at her Aphrodex-augmented attributes, “aren’t my assignments being turned in on time? Aren’t they being done properly?”

Dubose flushed. He knew he shouldn’t gawk at the woman’s rack like this, but he couldn’t help it. He fought to answer: “Er, ah, yes.” He mopped his forehead, which was suddenly damp. “But you aren’t doing them yourself, are you, Ms. Kerrigan?”

“Well, no,” Celeste confessed. “But that shouldn’t matter, should it, sir? As long as they get done?” She shifted her legs and was rewarded with a helpless little moan from her superior.

“N-no,” Dubose gasped weakly a few seconds later. “I . . . suppose it shouldn’t matter.” Somehow, he seemed to have lost the initiative. He struggled to regain it: “But, but we can’t have you just sitting there looking beautiful while everyone else works. You h-have to—!”

Celeste poured herself out of her seat and across the rich paneling of the desktop between her and Philip Dubose. “Why, thank you, sir, thank you so much!” she cried.

“F-for what?” Dubose felt himself coming erect and the blood pounded in his ears as the gorgeous girl flowed off the desk and into his lap, twining herself around him. This was wrong, a voice insisted within him; he should push her away, at once.

But he didn’t. Instead, he repeated his question: “Thank you for what?”

“Why, for calling me beautiful, of course,” came the reply. “That was ever so nice of you.” One long-nailed female hand slid inside Dubose’s shirt; the other slithered lower and began a rhythmic motion. “I’m so glad you like me, sir. And I like you, too.” The motion continued, and Phil Dubose’s breathing fell into a matching rhythm.

“Y-you do?“ It came out almost as a squeak. “Ms. Kerrigan, I, I—!”

“Silly,” Celeste murmured, “you can call me Celeste when we’re alone like this. And you don’t mind if I call you Phil, do you, sir, when we’re alone?”

“N-n-no,” Phil groaned. “I don’t, uhhhh, mind. When we’re—alonnnne!“ He shuddered in his seat.

“I’m so glad.” Celeste’s smile was dazzling as her fingers kept up their work.

As if of their own accord, Phil Dubose’s arms came up and enfolded Celeste’s body. “Celeste,” he moaned, “please.”

The blonde shifted on her supervisor’s lap. The hand she’d snaked inside his shirt came out and untied his tie, then started in on his shirt buttons. “Shhhh,” she told him. “You don’t need to say anything, Phil, honey.” She bent close, covering Phil’s mouth with her own in a fiery kiss. Her tongue snaked between his lips.

Somewhere deep inside, she was amazed at herself. But only for a few moments. Then she surrendered to instinct and sensation. She forgot where she was, who was with her; as far as she was concerned, she was deep in one of the fevered fantasies she always had when she showered with the Aphrodex lotion.

Phil Dubose lost touch with reality as well. All he knew was that a beautiful woman was slithering over him, her skillful hands popping the buttons of his shirt. When the last button came open, his body moved automatically to help her slide the shirt off.

Then Celeste’s hands moved to his belt. . . .

Two naked, sweat-slick forms lay entangled on the floor of the office. Neither Phil Dubose nor Celeste Kerrigan really remembered sliding out of Phil’s big chair onto the rug. There remained only the hazy recollection of their bodies moving together, thrusting and sliding.

Celeste spoke first. “Phil, honey,” she purred, “we don’t have to tell anyone what happened in here, do we? It wouldn’t look right.”

“No,” Dubose muttered. “It wouldn’t.”

“We could both get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out,” the blonde went on. “Especially you.” She giggled. “I don’t think this is what they have in mind when they talk about a supervisory conference.”

Phil laughed too, but the sound had a nervous undertone. “No—I suppose not.”

Celeste stretched lazily, detached herself from Phil and got up. She began collecting her discarded clothes and putting them back on. As she did, Phil followed suit. In a few minutes, both of them were fully dressed again.

“Phil, sweetie, now that we’re such good friends, don’t you think you can see your way clear to letting me get my work done the way I’ve been doing it?” Celeste smiled. “After all, as long as it gets done, who cares?”

“I suppose so,” Phil conceded. “As long as it gets done.”

“Oh, thank you,” gushed the gorgeous girl. She kissed her supervisor full on the lips, spun on her heel and left the office.

Only after she’d left did the full meaning of what she’d said register with Dubose. She was right that both of them could get into trouble for this—and right, too, that the hammer would fall harder on him. Screwing a subordinate laid him open to charges of sexual harassment, any time Celeste felt like making them.

She’d trapped him! Now, even if he wanted to write her up for not doing her job, he wouldn’t dare.

Dubose shook his head ruefully. Then he grinned. Hell, he thought, there are worse ways of getting screwed over. So what if he’d have to let Celeste go on having her work done for her? It was a small price to pay for the kind of sex he’d just had. Especially if he could arrange for more “conferences” like this one.