The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I instinctively know something is wrong even before it hits the news.

Connor and I are out running in the park, a Monday evening ritual. We keep a steady comfortable pace together. It feels good to be with him. The evening is warm and pleasant.

“Race you,” I shout, as we pass the monument and head towards the hill. He grins at me, smoothly accelerating away. I start to chase him, my feet pounding as fast as they can against the tarmac.

For the first time ever, I overtake him.

“Chase me, then!” I squeal in unexpected joy, and press on. I know he’ll catch me, of course. He’s faster than me by far. An older couple are standing by the side of the path, looking at me, their mouths gaping. I wave at them as I whisk by, expecting at any moment to see Connor powering past me.

Glancing over my shoulder I see him running behind me as if in deep water, his handsome face puzzled.

You go, girl! I think. I’ve never run so fast, and I’m not out of breath at all when I reach the top of the hill. Just last week I’d have struggled to stagger up the hill in his wake without the ragged catch of breath in my throat. This felt like a stroll. I jump and whoop with delight.

It takes an age for Connor to reach the top of the hill. He stands there looking at me strangely, his brow creased.

“Slowcoach!” I laugh. “What’s the matter with your legs today?”

“Nothing wrong with my legs, Lela. But what the hell’s got into you?”

I push him in the chest, laughing. “Men! You just don’t like being beaten.”

“I’m serious. I’ve never seen anybody run so fast.” Connor is not smiling. “And I mean, anybody, ever.”

Something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is.

I’m out for a drink with Phoebe, and she’s at the bar. It’s standing room only. Phoebe turns away from the bar and towards me, two glasses of chardonnay in her hands. She is edging slowly through the crowd, when a guy in a suit shoves past, bumping Phoebe as he passes.

He doesn’t do it on purpose; he’s distracted, not quite looking where he’s going, because he’s staring at my chest. I flash him a quick reflexive smile, noting that he is moderately attractive but no Connor.

I observe in my peripheral vision that Phoebe is stumbling. The collision has unbalanced her in some way. The glasses are wobbling in Phoebe’s hands.

In slow motion, I see Phoebe’s let go one of the glasses, and it’s floating slowly up into the air. It’s full of wine, and a cascade of tiny droplets is floating now, airborne, shimmering in the light. It’s beautiful. For a fraction of a second I admire the tiny rainbows glinting on the surface of the drops.

But this moment can’t last. Nothing so beautiful ever lasts. The glass is going to fall, if somebody doesn’t do something, and then it will smash to pieces on the floor. Without even thinking about it, I whip out my hand and snatch the glass in mid-air. It is so easy.

Phoebe’s jaw drops.

Connor is in no hurry to get up this morning, and I watch him shift languidly in his sleep. He reaches out for me unconsciously, slowly stroking me into arousal. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it, I think. I press myself against him and bring him to life with my hand.

It is beautiful, slow, languorous, tender, loving; nothing is hurried.

“Whoa,” he murmurs afterwards. “You’re a wildcat this morning! The very definition of a sexual frenzy, Lela. I’ve never seen you come so quickly…”

“It’s all you, Con,” I say.

I glance at the bedside clock. There must be something wrong with it; it seems to be running slow, the second hand stuttering and crawling. I make a mental note to replace the battery.

I nuzzle warmly against him, while an unknown trepidation tickles at the base of my skull.

I finish work early, all projects complete well ahead of schedule. It’s a satisfying feeling.

There is a strange atmosphere on the high street that afternoon. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Knots of people are standing idly around, others appear to be walking so fast as to be almost running. Around them moves a slow tide of shoppers. The traffic is crawling.

I’m looking idly into the window of a shoe store when in a sudden flickering blur, from nowhere a young red-haired man is standing in front of me. He grins, reaches out one hand, and squeezes my left breast. For a long surreal second I’m too outraged to do anything; I open my mouth to yell at him, but he simply vanishes. I turn furiously in the street, looking this way and that, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

I phone Phoebe to tell her about it. She tells me to slow down; she says I’m babbling, and she can’t understand a word I’m saying.

Later, back home, Connor tells me he feels tired, that city life suddenly seems to be moving so fast around him. He’s worried about getting old. He says he’s worried he can’t keep up with things at work; he had to stay in the office until ten o’clock last night, and every evening this week it’s been getting later and later. He’s worried he can’t keep up. He talks about giving it up and moving back to the country. He’s worried he can’t keep up with me.

I ruffle his hair, and tell him silly, you’re only thirty-two. I kiss him and tell him he’s been working too hard.

Something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is.

Connor and I are sitting on the couch. It is late Sunday evening, and the news is strange. It is on all the channels. The male presenter is wired with the excitement of it, practically gabbling, and his co-presenter—a forgettable blonde—seems to be drawling, almost slurring her words. It’s an odd combination.

They introduce an expert, cutting to another studio. The expert is showing a graph of some kind. His name is Madison, and he’s a physicist. He too seems slightly drawly, but not so slow that he’s incomprehensible.

The horizontal axis of his graph is labelled ‘subjective speed of time’; the vertical axis is labelled ‘percentage of population’. There is a sharp narrow vertical spike in the centre of the graph.

“We’ve always known time passes at slightly different rates for different people,” says Madison, “but as you can see from this graph the measurable difference has always been marginal, a very narrow normal distribution, with 95% of people perceiving time in a way that is almost indistinguishable.”

Connor nods, slowly, pondering this. He’s always been good at math.

“There are people who perceive time very slightly slower, and they seem to move through the world a little faster. Quick thinkers, perhaps; martial arts masters, top athletes… and in the other direction, those for whom the world is just a little too fast.”

He points to the right hand side of the graph, where the curve tails rapidly down to zero. “Very occasionally, we may see real outliers, for whom clock-time seems to pass so quickly that the world is a blur. People in catatonia, for example, may not actually be unconscious at all. It’s just that relative to the norm, everything about them is in-cre-di-bly sloooow. But in general, everyone’s perceptions are close enough to the central mean to make no difference.”

He pauses, coughs.

“But things seem to have changed.” The graphic is replaced by another, significantly fatter bell curve. “The general level of variance has grown, in just a few weeks. And it is continuing to grow…”

“What’s causing this?” interjects the fast-talking newsreader. The slow blonde woman is staring at the bell curve, mouth agape, trying to keep up with what is going on. Idly I wonder how on earth someone so dim ever got the job in the first place.

“Nobody knows,” shrugs Madison. “All we know is that the curve is getting gradually broader, flattening. There will be more slow people, more fast people, and they will gradually get ever faster and ever slower.”

Connor is staring blankly at the television now. He looks half asleep. I shake him gently. “Hey. Slowcoach. Are you okay?”

Very slowly he turns his head to look at me. Too slowly, agonisingly slowly; I feel a dawning chill of dread. Ten seconds later, he begins to almost imperceptibly open his mouth to speak, and that’s when I scream.