The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Ciao, Il mio nome è Susan. Sorry, let me try that again.

Hi, my name’s Susan. There, that’s better. Helen was confused about that a moment ago; everyone was. Now I guess I understand why. Apparently, I speak Italian now.

I’d been learning the language since we got back from San Finzione. Since I’m a citizen, I figure I’ll be going back and forth once in a while. We’ve committed to going back twice in the next couple months, so I figured I’d get started after we recovered from the first trip.

My first Italian lesson had involved learning whether a pair of shoes was mine or not, whether they were red or not, how much they cost, and if they were on sale. After a week, I felt confident that If any questions about the ownership and/or price of a pair of red shoes ever came up, I would know exactly what to do!

Now, after the thing that Suzy-Q did, I can tell you that those shoes are cheap knockoffs of last year’s model, that I can get the real thing for only five Euros more than his piece-of-shit hack counterfeiting job with the red paint that’s already started to peel; at a store on the other side of the marketplace, and that it’s not my fault that he was a bastard and that his mother was too busy gangbanging the local Calcio Team to teach him how to pull off a decent fucking penny-ante scam like this one!

Sorry. Did I mention that Helen’s who I learned Italian from? Well, not really learned. It’s complicated, and everyone, including me, just found out about it. We’d all been silent for what felt like a week since Troy pointed it out. I broke the silence.

“Ok.” I said, trying to make a conscious effort to speak English for the first time I could remember. “Please tell me that I’m speaking English now, and my brain’s Default didn’t just switch to Italian.”

“Yes, you are.” Julie said as she came running down the stairs to me. She held up my head and looked into my eyes, then lifted my arms up and released them. “Say something else, please, but...” She turned to Troy. “Go get Dr. Tenente Maisson, Master.” Troy nodded. Julie turned back. “Ok, hon, say a long sentence, please.”

“Julie Equals is checking me for signs of Face drooping, Arm weakness, and Speech difficulties; the FAST test, which leads me to the conclusion that she is worried that I might be having a stroke; however, given that if there were any cause for concern, I would be able to read it on My Girlfriend’s face by now, we need not worry about the Time aspect.”

Julie smiled and stopped trying to examine me.

“Ok, good. Just, you know, there’s stories about people having strokes or going into comas and waking up speaking languages they didn’t know before.”

“This wasn’t like that Julie.” I told her. “Helen’s the one who’s been unconscious both times this has happened, not me. At least I get it now; when she said Rita’s show is ‘Only funny if you know Italian,’ she was telling us the name of the show: ‘It’s Only Funny If You Know Italian!’”

“Yeah,” Helen chimed in. “It’s something that we all need to talk about together. Speaking of which, Julie, I know you and Troy respect the military and ranks and so on, however, they’re gonna be your neighbors for the week. Maisson’s name is Paul. He’s all right. First names will be a step toward undercover practice for them, and fuck do they need that. Like, I’m adding a whole day to the course about not using their native forms of address when posing as fucking Americans.”

“And give them some accent training, Helena.” Julie added. “With everything you know about languages, that just reflects poorly on you.”

I’d been too distracted by everything else before this point to notice the smoke smell when I came in and just then registered that Helen was smoking in the house. It was probably because I wasn’t used to seeing her without a cigarette in general that made me think of it. I must’ve gotten some look on my face about it, because Julie spoke up next.

“Troy said she could smoke in here. It’s just a week, we’ll air the place out. Better than everyone going to the back porch every time she needs to think.”

I shook my head.

“Ok, yeah. Bigger problems, more important stuff. Helen, when’s your meeting with the Elders?”

Helen looked out the window and noticed that the sun had gone down outside. She boggled at it, then checked the time on her phone.

“Three hours. Damn, it gets dark quick here.”

“Susan,” Julie said, turning back to her. “Honey, I couldn’t make out all the words everyone was saying back there, but I heard a name you don’t use in front of people, and from what else I got, this was the second time today that Helen’s asked if you’re… well, really you. You know we’d never…”

I put my hands on Julie’s shoulders and didn’t make her finish saying it.

“I know you wouldn’t, Julie. Helen knows about them. As for how she knows, that’s the part everyone’s trying to figure out. But it goes back to when she got stabbed, and all four of us should be here for this.” I heard the front door open. Behind her, Troy walked in, followed by Maisson with his doctor’s bag. “And, well, having a medical opinion in the conversation might not be a bad idea, either.”

Helen and I sat on one of the couches, Troy, Julie, and Paul sat on another. Mander rejoined us when Helen didn’t come back to the Green house after a while and leaned against the wall. I figured he might as well be in on it, too. Helen agreed, pointing out that it might affect his job.

We told them the story from both sides as best we could. That Helen was having some kind of strange near-death experience that was about to turn ugly when Suzy-Q showed up out of nowhere.

“She doesn’t know how it happened yet, either.” I told them. “One moment, she was with us on the plane, the next, she was there. Her idea is that it has to do with having been needed badly enough.”

“I can see that.” Helen commented. “I mean, when I got ready to fight those things, there was a look in their eyes, like they’d been hoping all along that I’d get sick of it and throw the first punch. And then this last time…”

I could tell she didn’t want to talk about the Springheel part; we’d skipped the sex stuff earlier, too. That was something we needed to discuss alone. I picked it up from there.

“This last time, I needed her, too. I mean, I figured out myself that she must have some kind of secret exit, but I’d checked the painting already and missed the nameplate thing. As for how I suddenly know Italian,” I turned to Helen. “You said that while Suzy-Q was in your head, she had ‘some kind of guest-level access to your thoughts.’ Well, since the first time, I’ve been wanting to learn Italian. Maybe Suzy-Q found it in there,’ and brought it back.”

“If you are able to obtain information from La Contessa’s mind without her awareness,” Maisson interjected. “Then this means that you are a threat to San Finzione’s national security.”

“Oh, yeah?” Helen asked. She turned back to me and waved her hands, wiggling her fingers at me. “Wibbly-wobbly-woo, I grant you Top Secret Clearance. This, I do decree as Contessa, yadd-yadda, so let it be written, so let it be done; Franco goes in where the others have been.” She turned back to Maisson. “We good now?” He nodded. She turned back to me. “There’s actually a little more to it; they’ll print out a form across the street, I’ll go over and sign it, but that’ll do for now.”

Helen turned back to Troy before continuing.

“And Susan had been watching the scene in the hallway on the security monitor, so Suzy-Q told me what was going on.” Helen turned to Troy. “That’s how I knew to hit the stairwells, Troy. And how they were able to make the rest of the Triads flee without any losses on our side.”

“You let them go?” Troy asked her.

“Yes.” Helen lit a cigarette. It still bugged me, but a little less now. “And now Word on the Street is ‘Don’t try it, she brought her whole fucking army with her.’ So, by the time anyone works up the balls to take another shot at me, the Elders’ order will have definitely reached the locals.”

Troy nodded.

“We didn’t look into psychic stuff, Master.” Julie stepped in. “We wanted to know how mind control worked, we found what we were looking for, so we stopped. A lot of the books we read talked about stuff besides mind control, too.”

“We did have a lot of lines to read between to find it, Mistress. I tried to keep us from going off on tangents. But there were lots of references to the Collective Subconscious, astral projection, and so on. Helen’s been unconscious both times this has happened, and some have said that Dreams may be a dimension or spirit realm, existing alongside our own, that we can only access through sleep. Lovecraft, and his inspiration, Lord Dunsany, come to mind immediately.”

“And, of course,” Maisson cut in. “I’m certain that because of this thing that you are all able to do, your brains function differently than the norm. Oh, this ‘we only use ten percent’ crap the movies tell you is bullshit, we would all be dead if it were true. However, I have no doubt that a CAT scan or a few hours of monitoring La Contessa’s, or indeed, any of your neural activity, would prove of interest to science.”

I looked over at him and tapped the side of my head.

“Well, if you’re going to specialize in Neurology, I’m your Nobel Prize right here, Paul. Multiple personalities, mind control, whatever this thing between me and Helen is.”

“Yeah.” Troy said, turning to him. “We kind of work to avoid going to labs, taking tests, telling lots of people; that sort of thing.”

Maisson nodded, sensing that no one was going to volunteer for experiments, and turned back to me.

“I am not trained in Psychiatry, Mademoiselle Bailey, however, from what I’ve read of Multiple Personality Disorder, you do not exhibit many signs. For one, you are aware of the other women in your head. You converse with them, yes? And you do not have memory gaps or lost time when one of the other personalities takes over? You remember all that she does?”

“It’s not quite like that.” I tried to explain. “More like, I’m still me, but I’m sitting back and letting my friend handle something that’s too stressful for me to deal with. When I came up and pounded on the Greens’ door, and demanded they tell me what was going on with Helen, I FELT like Sue, and she was in control; but I knew I could have taken over again at any time, and Sue wouldn’t have stopped me. She gave it back when she was done yelling at them.”

“And you say that their advice tends to be helpful, or at least in your best interests. Cases of Dissociative Identity or Multiple Personality Disorder tend to exhibit self-hatred, or seek out self-harm. You have no history of self-injury, or excessive use of drugs or alcohol. In fact, as a medical professional, but not a psychiatric one; the loss of your parents and your history of abuse are all that would suggest mental trauma to me. You do not speak of yourself in the third-person?”

“Not anymore, no.” I told him. “When I first met Troy & Julie, I did sometimes.”

“But once free of this brute, that, too, went away. So, perhaps these other women, they are not personalities, but how he saw you and made you see yourself.”

Julie took that in and turned to me.

“The only three ways a guy like Chad perceives women.”

“Bitch, whore, and slave.” Helen finished for her. “I regret not meeting him even more now.”

The thought came to me that if we’d been having this discussion as recently as six months before, I probably would have run crying from the room by now. Some of the things we’d discussed had come up in therapy; however, I didn’t talk about the other Mes to many people outside the doctor’s office. Troy & Julie knew, so did Claire and Rachel. Now that I was remembering Helen and Suzy-Q’s conversation, I understood why she hadn’t said anything until now. If I’d found out she knew any other way, I would have assumed she’d either done The Thing and made my therapist tell her everything or had her spies steal my file from him.

It was also the largest group that I’d ever spoken with at length about the other women. It helped that I’d seen more than half the room naked. (Wait, I didn’t see Helen naked, Suzy-Q did. Suzy-Q’s the one who knows how amazing she is in bed, how she tastes, the noises she makes… Yeah, Suzy-Q’s the one who knows all that stuff.)

“I’d be offended if that wasn’t so accurate.” I said. “Suzy-Q no longer fulfils the slave role, though. She’s sort of a ‘free agent’ in here.” I turned to Troy. “I remember the morning after the three of us and Claire were together for the first time, our talk in the park. I’d started out trying to compartmentalize my life, like you said. Chad made me depend on it, until the women I retreated into became real. With the hypnosis stuff I’ve done with you and Julie, and the progress I’ve made in therapy, we all get along in there now. I’ve accepted that they’re part of me, and they’ve shown me that they’re not out to hurt anyone, and do have my best interests at heart. Well, Sue wants to kick some ass sometimes, but even that’s in the course of, like, asserting ourselves.”

“Oui.” Maisson said. “You say ‘asserting ourselves.’ They are part of you, and they are separate from you. I would not so much call them ‘other personalities,’ then. Closer to ‘imaginary friends who have taken on lives of their own.’ You were an orphan, oui? A Ward of the State. I would think that real friendships were difficult to come by and did not last long?”

“No, they didn’t.” I agreed. “The ones I’d kept contact with through all the group homes and foster families; Chad eventually drove away. I wasn’t allowed to make friends. Any man I tried to be friends with was someone I was ‘fucking behind his back,’ and any woman was ‘poisoning me against him.’”

Maisson nodded.

“With your permission, I should be interested in consulting with your therapist some time. As for my own personal observations; it seems to me that you created your friends to deal with the most difficult aspects of your life. I know that the thing the four of you can do is real, so I am willing to accept that there may be other things that I do not understand. I did not mean to condescend when I used the word ‘imaginary.’ You are, without a doubt, an imaginative person, Madamoiselle Bailey. You are well-known amongst La Squadra de Ultimados for your assistance with La Policia’s investigation and your quick thinking today at the hotel today was being talked about when I left. You are, as is said of you often, ‘here to help.’ These friends of yours, I think, they are here to help you. Whatever they might be, I do not think it is a bad thing.”

Everyone agreed with that. Helen spoke next.

“I’m glad we all agree that Susan’s not insane or possessed.” She said with a smile, patting my hand. Couldn’t help smiling back at that. “Now, where are we on the ‘is Susan psychic’ question?” Helen frowned for a second. “Sorry if that came out rude. Just that after this, Mander and I need to go try to prevent my country from breaking out into a mob war. And we woke up at four this morning to begin the caravan trip up from Portland.” Helen had another thought. “Damn, it just now hit me that we can get Rita on a flight home from Portland. Paul, when we’re done, can you tell Gregorio to find out who our best driver is and put her in the fastest car to Portland?”

Troy stood up and looked at her, then to Maisson.

“Maybe, instead of the fastest car, use the safest, most inconspicuous one. And maybe take one or two more Ultimados on the trip. I think I saw a station wagon out there. Another good ‘nobody’ll look for Helen in that’ car.” He turned back to Helen. “And it sounds like coffee time here. Back in a bit.”

When Troy left, Mander came over to the couches and spoke to Helen.

“Might not be a bad idea havin’ someone round who looks like Your Countessness. We don’t know what other shenanigans Whyte’s got planned.”

Helen turned to him.

“Whyte’s seen Rita’s show, he knows who she is. I already blew my ‘being in two places at once’ thing this afternoon, and Rita signed up for parties: champagne, caviar, the occasional quick one with Justin Trudeau on Malcolm Turnbull’s bed; not risking her life in some convoluted quintuple-bluff scheme to lure Whyte into the open.” She leaned over to me. “Oh yeah, Justin can tell us apart, too.” She turned back to Mander. “Still, good call on waiting until the guy who would’ve absolutely said no left the room to mention it.”

Troy returned.

“Coffee’s going. I miss anything?” He asked.

“Only why Canada and San Finzione have so many mutually-favorable trade deals.” I told him. I turned to Mander. “There’s something I can do to help with the tiredness, if you trust me.”

Mander looked at Helen.

“Do you trust her?”

Helen looked at me.

“Yes.” She said.

“Then I’m being paid enough to trust ya, too.” He answered. Troy went back across the room to sit with Julie as I stood and offered Mander my spot. He took the seat, and I looked him in the eyes.

“When I tell you,” I commanded him. “You’re going to take a five-second nap, then wake up feeling like you’ve had a full-night’s rest. Now!”

He was still wearing the sunglasses, but I saw his eyes close behind them. A few seconds later, they opened, and he looked at his watch.

“Fuckin’ amazing, that is!”

“Yeah, it is.” I told him. “But you should have that coffee anyway, and still be careful. I can give your mind a quick rest like that, but your body’s still going on whatever it’s got since you last slept. It’s not something to keep doing, and if you push it, there’ll be a hard, sudden crash when physical exhaustion catches up with you.”

“Yeah, we found that one out the hard way.” Julie said, smiling and patting Troy’s knee.

“That’s… REALLY good, Susan!” Helen said, sounding sincere with the impressed-ness. “The special training that I give the Ultimados requires conditioning and reinforcement, but that’s a pretty good start.”

Mander stood up and offered my seat back. I sat down.

“Thanks. And I have to say, Mander, you seem to be taking all of this very well. I know you’ve got to keep the ‘always on duty, ma’am’ thing going, but you were there today. You’ve got a voice in this, too.”

“Well,” Mander said as Troy offered him another chair, where he could see Helen and the doors. “It would not be the first time that knowing ‘Er Countessness has caused me to question everythin’ I believe. I know that there’s four people in the world who can control minds; one of whom hears voices that have names and personalities; but she’s not crazy and might, in fact, have some psychic connection to ‘Er Countessness. Luckily, all of ‘em seem to be decent people. Or, they could be complete prats who’re just makin’ me think they’re geezers, but if they were doin’ that, I’m sure I wouldn’t even consider it.”

We all had a laugh at that, because he had a point. Not a big one, though, because, you know, he had a point.

“I should see how they’re doing up there.” Troy said, looking up the stairs, at the hall to the library and Julie’s studio. “I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be like the movies, and they’d instantly produce some ‘DamningEvidence.proof’ file, but I really have no idea how long hacking takes.”

Julie heard the coffee pot finishing and went to the kitchen to get it.

There was a moment of silence before Helen leaned over to me again.

“Wanna see something that’s cute, sweet, and disgusting all at once?”

“Um, ok.”

Helen raised her voice.

“Hey, Troy, Julie; why do you always sleep in that same position?”

“Because it makes the world make sense!” They replied simultaneously, from opposite ends of the house.

“That was everything you promised.” I replied.

“If I did the whole ‘bucket list’ thing,” Helen said, lighting another cigarette. (I hadn’t even noticed the last one had gone out. To be fair, though, it’s not like I tell you about every drag she takes.) “An item that would be up at the top is ‘actually vomit on those two, rather than just thinking about it.’”

That got a giggle from me.

“Have they always done the donut thing, too?” I asked her, referring to Troy & Julie’s habit of dunking their donuts in their coffee, taking a bite, then trading donuts.

“They still do that?” Helen asked. “And it’s a chocolate-covered old-fashioned and a blueberry cake donut every time, isn’t it?” I nodded. “Yeah, see, the blueberry’s Troy’s favorite, and the old-fashioned is Julie’s. But they both like the other, and neither wants to seem like a pig and have two donuts all to themselves, so they trade off like that. Always have! One of their many endearing ‘ok, so you CLAIM you two have never fucked and aren’t into each other that way, but you do stuff like that without even thinking all the time’ rituals.”

“Well,” Julie said, returning with coffee for everyone on a tray. “It’s the way we’ve always done it. Also, fuck you, Helena; we CAN hear you in here from the kitchen. Troy was just being nice before.” She set it down and changed the subject. “There’s still one person who’s got a part in the discussion that we haven’t heard from.” She set the tray on the coffee table and sat next to me. “What does Suzy-Q have to say about all this?”

That gave me pause. The other women in my head had been here, paying attention the whole time; however, they weren’t used to being discussed openly like this, and had been quiet for most of it. I’d never tried to just bring one of them out to speak for herself before.

“That’s… a pretty good idea, Julie. I guess I’d have to go take it up with her.” I took a sip of my coffee, then set it down. “Sorry, this is something that’s happened in front of others, but usually when I’m getting overwhelmed. I’ve never done this deliberately, like, ‘for’ people before.”

“If you’d like some privacy, Sweetie…” Julie started to say before I interrupted.

“No, hon, that’s ok. All the shit with Whyte aside, this seems to be a day for getting things out in the open. I haven’t timed it before, but usually, only a few seconds pass in the real world. I’ll be right back.”

I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes.

Suzy-Q opened my eyes.

I was still there, on the couch, in the living room, but there was a feeling of distance; like I was running some kind of shop, and I’d gone into the back to look for something while Suzy-Q talked to the customers. I could see and hear everything going on out front. Sue and Suzy-Ho were back here with me. They were too interested to say anything, either.

“Hi,” She said with my voice. “I’m Suzy-Q. Nice to see you again, Helen. Been a while, Julie.”

“Hey, Suzy-Q.” Julie replied. “I admit, I’m more used to talking to Suzy-Ho than you or Sue.”

“She usually has a lot more to say to you and Troy.” Suzy-Q admitted. “And I’ve been shy until recently. But, we pay attention; because we all look out for Susan. You want to talk about how I’m able to get into Helen’s head. The truth is that I’m not certain either. Now that it’s happened a second time, I can tell you that I felt… not a pull, more like a tug. A sense that she needed help. And then I was there; in the TV studio the first time, and in the dining hall at the castle the second.”

“You and Susan both needed it this time.” Julie added. “They wouldn’t have found the escape hatch without her coming to you.”

“That’s true.” Helen thought. “If we can figure out how to do this consciously, even if it’s just a thing Susan and I have, that’d be really useful.”

“Hey!” Suzy-Q said. “You know what else has been the same both times? Helen, you were hit by a car, right? In front of Troy & Julie?” She nodded. “So, it wasn’t just Susan concerned about you; Troy and Julie were worried for you, too. Susan thought something might’ve happened here at first, when the phone cut out. And I didn’t come to you last time, until she was with them, and they knew you were in danger, too. I’m not saying it’s some kind of ‘Power of Love’ thing, but the four of you ARE connected; and your minds share a powerful secret that nobody else, that we’re aware of, knows but you.”

She laughed my laugh before continuing.

“You know, thinking about it, Susan created us in her subconscious… we’re a bit less ‘sub’ than normal, except Suzy-Ho, of course. But hasn’t the subconscious been your guys’ playground all your lives? Susan already had friends here when you invited her in. And apart from the age gap, we’re definitely something that wasn’t there when you and Troy learned it, Julie. Or when they taught it to you, Helen. I was reluctant to learn, for personal reasons, but we were there when you and Troy were helping Susan along with parts. And “going on tangents,” as Troy put it, IS most of our job. We don’t go snooping, but some of it’s probably kicking around Susan’s subconscious. It could’ve ‘crossed some wires’ and sent me to Helen. I’ll look into it, if it’s ok with Susan.” I gave my approval. “She says yes.”

“Ok, get a message to us if you find anything out, Suzy-Q.” Julie said. “Now, if you don’t mind bringing Susan back; as always, it’s nice to talk to one of you ladies, but at the same time, none of us can really help the fact that it also gets creepy quick.”

“We all get that.” She hesitated. “Wait, that was creepy too, wasn’t it? Sorry. Susan’s coming back.” She turned to Helen. “See ya in your dreams.”

She closed my eyes.

I opened them.

Everyone stepped forward to see if I needed any help.

“I’m fine.” I told them. “It doesn’t hurt or make me dizzy. It feels more like I was laying all the way back in a recliner, and everything was going on ‘over there.’” I gestured toward the middle distance. “Then I pulled the lever and sat back up, and here it all is.”

“So, what now?” Julie asked.

“I… guess Suzy-Q’s going to poke around in my subconscious and see if I learned something else while studying What We All Do. I don’t know what, if anything, I could do to help her with that. Go to sleep, maybe? I don’t know if I could at this point.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Susan. Or at least, a trance state might be helpful. Julie can do something about that.” Helen said, standing up. Julie nodded affirmatively. “I’ve got a meeting to get ready for.”

“The Subconscious IS my playground, you know.” Julie said, taking my hand with a smile and leading me up to my room.