The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“So, what’s it going to be, then, eh?”

Contessa Helena de San Finzione asked the question of the two men she was seated with. Except that she wasn’t asking the question of both the men at the table; rather the man at the table, and the one whose face was on a motorcycle helmet that encompassed the wearer’s entire head. On a viewscreen across the visor covering the unknown man’s face, Leonard Whyte’s face was being projected, making him the second man she was addressing.

“Oh, I know.” Helen said with mock sympathy. “You did it all wrong, though! I was supposed to come in here all ‘Whyte set us both up! Listen, I’ve got proof!’ I play the recording for Mr. Lee, who pretends to listen and nod at parts. Then you…” She said turning to Lee. “Were supposed to say something like ‘That’s very interesting, but I’d like to hear a different perspective.’” She turned back to Whyte. “And THAT’S when you send Larry Middleman, the Professional Surrogate out, and THAT’S your ‘Dun dun DUN’ moment! I have to ask at this point: Am I REALLY, like, your FIRST Mortal Enemy, Leonard? Was Morgan that good in his youth?”

“The plan WAS something like that before you spoiled it by asking your big Southern Fairy to see if he had a phone signal, Contessa. I figured my jig was up, and... Well, you’re a Contessa. Making entrances is what you do. You understand.”

Helena remembered saying those words to Generalissimo Ramirez after they’d raided the Triad warehouse where all of this began. Mander leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

“S’not him in there, Your Countessness. Northern Monkey like him’d never have the kind of bollocks to talk to me like that if he were in the room.”

“Drop your weapons, everyone! Then don’t move!” Helen shouted out in Cantonese to the warehouse around them. Weapons clattered in the darkness.

She turned to Mr. Lee and back to English.

“Well, to start, that’s the kind of man you and the Elders are dealing with, Mr. Lee. He said he’s got a couple more of those helmets. So, where’s yours? He’s figured out how to get around this thing I can do. So, why not share it with you? On that note, everyone except Mander forget about the helmet. If he didn’t share with you, he hasn’t shared with them, so let’s prevent them getting ideas, shall we? So, now that whatever ambush you had planned isn’t happening, but I suspect Whyte’s will be coming soon, let’s take a moment here; let me figure out your deal. It’s a thing I do.”

Helen crumpled up the cigarette pack on the table and tossed it aside, then took her cigarette case from her purse and lit one.

“Whyte wants Springheel.” She began. “He knew that once I found out it was real, I’d want it, and he knows he can’t outbid me. He could kill me, but then there’s my power to consider. He gets a theory, and sets up your people with the Raymond Chen thing to test it, in a way that leaves me no choice but to reiterate an old message. A message which they didn’t hesitate to acknowledge their understanding of. Hours later, a man whom you probably already know was named Frank Morgan attacks me. Morgan fails, and he dies. A lot more mercifully than he would have naturally; but no less dead, and with far more inconvenience to myself. Whyte threatens the grieving widow into giving me his message and nothing else, just in time for us to speak before the auction announcement.”

Helen took a deep drag before continuing.

“I’ve spent the past month looking for him. I’ve steered clear of anything involving the Elders or Triads, both in the interest of keeping the peace; and because I figured nobody would be foolish enough to try and play The Elders, then go to them for help. But on the way here, I remembered something a friend said about the other warehouse. I DID miss Whyte’s cameras, because videotaping your own slavery operation is so stupid that I never would have even thought to check for cameras. So, I guess that’s one thing you’ve got on me, Leonard: I AM forced to down-shift to think like you.”

She stood up from the table and stepped around to the unoccupied side, so she was facing Mr. Lee.

“So, he comes to you. Maybe not you personally; another Mr. Lee; another representative. His version of the story is, I’m certain, a very different one than mine, but it ends with him needing Springheel to protect himself from me and you wanting it too. But what can he offer for the Elders’ assistance in getting it? For playing them in the first place? My head on a silver platter? No, he’s already fucked that one up. So, what possible deal could he make? And the answer is right in front of us.”

Whyte grinned on the visor’s screen.

“Yes, Contessa. What can I offer them in exchange for Springheel?”

“Whyte Telecom, Whyte Electronics, Whyte Computers; you’ve got all the people you need to reverse-engineer the prototype. And figure out how to make more. You get the first one off the assembly line, and their pre-orders are already in for the next… five? Six? However many it takes to merge to form Mega-Springheel, anyway.”

“I’ll get that quadrillion selling the later models to the right governments and organizations, but the penny has, indeed dropped, Helena. What could I offer them that was better than Springheel? More Springheels!”

“But you see, you have to GET it first.” She turned to Lee. “And he’s not going to do that, because I want it, so that’s what’s going to happen. Here, then, is my counter-proposal to the Elders. Don’t worry, you’ll remember every word of it: Sever all ties with this man. If the hit hasn’t really been called off, do it. That human trafficking ring had to already be in place for someone to have thought it’d be a good idea to stop in San Finzione; I want that gone, too. Any operations they have in San Finzione are to cease immediately. Because once I am done with this man and the Auction, I will be stopping in China to pay a formal visit on the way home. I won’t be stopping in Hong Kong to see them, though. I’ll be going to visit HIM. The one whom THEY call ‘Elder!’ The one who gave me the very special name that had once belonged to another who was special to him, and the reason I knew that this was someone else from the moment I heard the rumor about women being moved through MY country! Because HE returns my respect! Raymond Chen was a misunderstanding. This,” She gestured to Whyte. “Is an insult, and The Viper shall have satisfaction. Now, I suggest you go give the Elders the news before Whyte’s hit team shows up.” She turned toward the man in the helmet. “Because that’s Plan B, in case Lee wasn’t smart enough to shoot me before I said a fucking word, isn’t it, Leonard?”

“I gave the go order while we’ve been speaking, yes, Helena. And Mr. Lee, she’s right. This IS, in fact, a complete set-up, but for her. And unless she permits you to pick up your weapons, which she won’t, then you won’t do it. You and your men are now officially unarmed bystanders in all of this, so, you may wish to start running.”

Lee stood up and called for the others to flee before running into the crate maze, leaving Helen and Mander alone with Whyte’s surrogate. Helen leaned forward, her elbows on the table, cupping her had with her hands, like a girl on a date with a dreamy boy in a 1950s-movie soda shoppe. She sighed at him.

“Have I ever told you that I have a thing for older guys, Leonard? The saddest part of all of this is that right up until YOU dropped a name that you shouldn’t have, the ‘get in my pants’ option was NOT off the table.”

“Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be.” Whyte sang. “But I gave them fair warning per your rules, Contessa. Oh, feel free to finish the cigarette you’ve left burning in the ash tray. Last one and such, only fitting.”

“Oh, no. That’s why I got this pack out, instead.” Helen said, producing a new cigarette from the case and lighting it. “The chemical we coated those ones with makes them taste nasty after the first few puffs. You know, everyone says smoking is bad for me, but this is the second time that they’ve come in really handy in a situation like this in the past year.”

“Hmm.” Whyte Hmmed. “Naughty girl. You’ve got a cigarette case, but you came in smoking from a pack that you threw away without finishing! Some kind of tracking powder on them? Been idly tossing dogends out the window on your way here?”

“Right up to the door. You got one, Leonard, nice work! I figured your jammers couldn’t do infrared as well, so just had to leave a trail that could be followed from the air. The Ultimados were about ten minutes behind us in the helicopter. So, in case Lee wasn’t scared enough before, he’s probably being rounded up by my people, standing over the bodies of the people you just wasted right now. I don’t know if you have any investments in adult diaper stocks in Hong Kong, Leonard, but they’re about to have a good week.”

“Well, I didn’t waste all my people in one go. You’ll get a proper meeting soon enough.” On the screen, Whyte looked down at his watch. “Say, it HAS been something of a long day, hasn’t it, Contessa? What’s say we both get a good night’s rest and pick it up in the morning? Ten-ish? Oh, but wait. There’s two things. The first is the guy in the helmet here. He’s a loose end, who knows what you might get out of him. And second… well, he did take my money, so he’s no longer innocent, is he?”

Fizzing and whining sounds came from the helmet. Mander figured it out and grabbed a leg of the card table. He shoved Helen down to the floor, shielded her with his body, and himself with the cheap folding table, placing it between them and the man in the helmet.

“Damn, the Southern Fairy got it in time! Well, see you in the morning if you live, Helena. Ta-ta.” Whyte said on the screen, before the helmet erupted into a fiery mass, taking whoever’s head was inside with it.

Susan’s log, Stardate: The same one, I guess. We’re somewhere within the nebula of my Subconscious, which just showed us the memory of my first meeting with Helen. The image that appeared next was from my perspective again. It was dark, but in that darkness, and from the way I was moving, I knew what I was doing: Attempting to disentangle myself from Troy & Julie and crawl out of their bed without waking them up. (Their bed was bought with the intention of having multiple occupants, however, we still tend to end up in a bit of a pile.)

“If these are all going to be about Helen,” Sue remarked. “I remember what happens next.”

In the memory, I picked my way through the darkened room to Julie’s bathroom. I grabbed a robe in the dark, and slipped out into the living room. Julie’s laptop was on the living room table. I opened it up and brought up Skype.

As I typed, the memory slowed again. It didn’t pause, but it had done this before. From what we’d inferred, it was my subconscious’ way of getting my attention about something.

“The sleeves.” I noticed, watching my hand slowly mousing over Helen’s number and clicking the phone icon. “Julie doesn’t own any red velvet…”

Suzy-Q voiced the thought as I had it.

“You put it on in the dark. All of Julie’s robes are fancy ones that she stole from hotels; mostly Helen’s. There’s only one red velvet garment in this house that ties around the waist like that, and it’s not a Santa suit.”

In my reflection on the screen before Maria appeared, I saw it: I’d been wearing Propappou’s red velvet smoking jacket the night I called Helen to bitch her out about the gift bag.

“Wow,” Sue uttered. “She is fucking amazing.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to say that about Helen, Sue. Based on… well, most of what you’ve historically said about her. I’d really like to hear more on this.”

She swiveled in Chekov’s seat to face me.

“You obviously didn’t mean to pick it in the dark, but we all know that is no ordinary garment. That is THE fucking sacred holy relic of Byroni Medina that you ‘chose’ to wear for this 3 AM bitch-out call. You don’t know that, of course; but that could only make it come off even harder as ‘Yeah, fuck you, I’m wearing Your True Father’s jacket! What do you think of that?’ And she’s never even brought it up. I’m admiring her restraint! Like, yeah, she’s literally a diplomat and everything, but FUCK!”

We watched as Helen laughed off my threat to kick her ass by telling me what they call her in Africa. Now, though, I was seeing it with the perspective Sue had given me. Seeing, now, how much I had been pushing her before she got to those words that colored everything to me.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about it happening again, Susan, dear. I AM sorry, and I promised Troy it wouldn’t happen again.”

“I didn’t know then.” I said to the other Mes. “That a promise to Troy carried more weight than a promise to anyone else for her. I should have guessed that, though.”

“In that context,” Suzy-Q added. “And having talked more with her since, the comment coming up about ‘laying our tragedy cards out’ sounds like the kind of thing she says when she’s uncomfortable with where the conversation is going and trying to get it back on track. A bit more nicely than we’ve heard her do with Whyte, but the same idea.”

I gave that one some thought. I’ve wondered before what might’ve happened if the call HAD gone that way; if Helen and I had been the kind of people who needed to turn things into a “trauma-off,” and when Troy and Julie woke up hours later, they found us both in tears, still trying to one-up each other with “Who’s had it worse” stories.

“But it’s like she told you.” Sue commented. “You were protecting your family, and she saw that. That’s why she didn’t take any of your bait. She handled it without taking any shit, like she does, but she didn’t really give any, either. I mean, you weren’t telling her to fuck off; you were just telling her that buying your friendship ain’t the way to go. Probably, if we’d dialed it back a bit, she would have been willing to talk everything out right there.”

I sat and thought as the rest of the conversation played out and ended.

“Julie told me that the point of the gift bag was that she was sorry and wanted to be my friend. I thought she was trying to hand-wave my feelings, but she was as deeply sorry as she was the moment she saw the marks. What I’m getting from these so far is that Helen has always, one way or another, been reaching out to me. Troy would point out that Helen doesn’t make a lot of emotional connections with people, so of course, she’d go about it ‘The Helen Way.’”

The nebula on the viewscreen seemed to be clearing. We were still in a cloud of pink gas and electricity, but it seemed like the fog was clearing up. The ship began to move forward.

“I’m not doing anything.” Suzy-Ho said, her hands raised away from the controls.

“It’s part of me, just like you ladies.” I said. “I think it’s trying to help, too. Let’s just go with it.”

We journeyed on.

Mander shoved the flaming card table that had served as their better-than-nothing protection against the fireball away from them and stood up. The body of whomever had been wearing the helmet was now on fire, as were a number of crates around him.

Helen pulled her Ruger LC9 pistol out of her purse, Mander drew his Desert Eagle, and they made their way into the maze of crates, trying to get away from the flames and smoke. Mander checked his phone at the same time.

“Fucking prick put a firebomb on that guy’s head! And his jamming thing’s still goin’. Not getting anything.”

Helen looked at the black smoke rising up to the warehouse ceiling.

“The fumes from the cheap plastic will probably poison us before the fire gets to us.”

She ran through the stacks of crates, trying to recall the path they took to get to the center of them. The fire continued to spread, popping sounds echoing as the flames burned through the wood of the crates and the cardboard boxes inside, packing material within exploding.

Helen thought she heard more popping sounds coming from outside, but then recognized it as gunfire instead.

“Sounds like the Ultimados are here.” She told Mander. “Or Whyte’s ambush. Someone’s shooting out there.”

She found her way to the side door that they’d entered through and slammed her entire body against the bar to open it. Her shoulder reminded her that it’d only just healed recently from her attack as she staggered back.

“Thought they might lock it. Was worth a try.”

The light from the flames growing closer illuminated the shadowy entrance they’d come through before, and now a set of stairs leading to an upper level could be seen against the wall, the Chinese characters for “Supervisor” painted on the wall next to them. Helen pointed to them with her pistol.

“Smoke rises, Your Countessness.” Mander said, crouching; the smoke not yet making him cough, but recognizing that his height may be a disadvantage there.

“Supervisors have offices.” Helena said as she made for them. “Offices have windows.”

She took the stairs two-at-a-time, Mander following, until she came to a plate-glass door. She didn’t bother trying to read the name stenciled on the door in the firelight before turning her head and motioning for Mander to do the same as she pointed her pistol at the door, then fired twice.

Helen heard the sound of the gunfire outside grow louder and took it as a hopeful sign. She stepped through the now-empty doorway, glass crunching beneath her shoes, and checked the room. Behind a wooden desk and chair were a series of windows that almost ran the width of the building. Helen’s shots had put holes in a couple of them already. Mander motioned for Helen to get behind the desk, then picked up the wooden chair and hurled it through a pair of them.

Glass and wood rained down on the back alley below as Mander checked out the window. The alley was dark, with a chain-link fence around the parking lot of another business behind it, and muzzle flashes and gunfire could be seen and heard coming from one end of the building. The rest of the alley continued into darkness. Mander looked down below and over at the people shooting.

“There’s dumpsters, I can lower ya down, but we’re on the wrong side of the shooting here. Whyte’s boys’re between us and the Ultimados.”

Helen flipped the safety on her Ruger, stuck it in her purse, and hefted it onto her shoulder. She looked down at the street below, and began climbing out the window, Mander taking hold of her arms to help her down.

She looked down the alley where the fighting was going on. Six men with assault rifles were taking turns shooting and hiding around the corner to reload. Helen figured that they wouldn’t be able to hear the noise they’d been making trying to escape, but all any of the mercs would have to do is turn their heads to see them.

Helen looked down to see how far she’d have to drop to make it onto the lid of the dumpster. At least three feet, but having all of her weight supported by her arms was making her shoulder injury flare up. She nodded to Mander to let go, bending her legs as she fell, so her knees would take the impact onto the angled plastic lid. As she slid off of it, she heard her dress ripping from twisting and rolling in ways that Vera Wang never designed it to be worn for, feeling tiny cuts from the glass on the ground. She was unable to suppress a yelp of pain as her bruised thigh impacted with the ground, but if any of the mercenaries could hear, they didn’t acknowledge it.

Helen crouched behind the dumpster and thought about the situation as Mander climbed down. She took out her pistol and checked her phone. Still no signal. No way to let the Ultimados know where she was.

Right at this moment, she and Mander had the drop on Whyte’s goons. They had the dumpsters for cover; and it looked like they were wearing body armor, so if she aimed for head or limb shots with her 9mm, Mander’s Desert Eagle might still be effective at this range; if he managed to take a couple down before the others noticed…

Once Mander had joined her behind the dumpster, Helen concluded that any plan involving this many “ifs” was too risky. She needed to get to safety, or at least somewhere with a working phone. She nodded over to the chain-link fence. Mander nodded back.

Helen ran across the alley and started climbing. Mander followed behind, stopping to hoist her up to the top. She was already over when Mander started climbing. He’d just gotten over the fence himself when one of the mercenaries finally turned and saw them. He nudged two of the others, who turned and saw them on the other side of the fence. Helen fired blindly at them once and she and Mander ran behind a car still parked in the lot at this hour of the night.

The first man started climbing the fence immediately. That left his entire body exposed to them. Mander popped up from behind the car and four shots thundered from his Desert Eagle. He fell back off of the fence. The other two took note of this and one opened fire with his AK-47 while the other started climbing.

Mander waved to Helen, leaned around the side of the vehicle, and gave cover fire while Helen sprinted from the car that was rapidly becoming less cover to the only other car in the lot before it opened out into another alley with a row of back doors of shops on the other side.

The first mercenary made it over the fence and provided cover for the other to climb. Helen used her last two rounds to return Mander’s favor and gave him covering fire as he ran to join her, both of them changing magazines once he’d reached her.

She looked over at the alley that was their next place to run. A dark-skinned man who had been taking out the garbage from one of the establishments had paused and was watching the situation in the lot across the street. She didn’t think she’d be able to shout a command to the man to go back inside over the gunfire, so she simply gestured with her gun for him to do so.

He ran in, leaving the door open. When the mercenary who’d been firing reloaded, she and Mander ran into the alley they’d reached, only to find it a dead end. She bolted for the dumpsters where the man had been emptying the trash, seeing that they were the only cover available. They could run into the open doorway, but the man she’d warned off and whoever else was inside would then be in danger. They were in the same boat as a minute ago, but the odds had changed. They were still armored, but there were only two now. Maybe they could fight them off.

As the mercenaries passed the doorway that the bystander had run into, the man she’d seen before, along with four others armed with kitchen knives, emerged. They jumped on top of the mercenaries and wrestled them to the ground, stabbing through the soft spots in their armor repeatedly, until they stopped moving.

The man who’d been watching the shootout stepped forward to face Helen. The sounds of gunfire a block away had ceased, indicating that the Ultimados had taken care of the others. He looked at Helen intently for a moment; close enough for Helen to discern the African tribe from which he hailed.

“My name is Omondi.” The man said in Swahili. He gestured to the men behind him. “We open our restaurant to make enough money to bring our families from the camps in Uongo. You are the witch who killed David Igazi.” He spat on the ground after saying the name. The men knelt. “Our lives are yours.”

Helena breathed a deep sigh and put away her gun. She took out her cigarette case and lit one.

“It’s you who have saved mine.” Helena responded in the same language.

Omondi smiled, then looked over at Mander. A brief look of “oh fuck” crossed Mander’s face, before he returned to stoicism.

“This man,” Omondi said. “Was one of Igazi’s soldiers!” He spat again.

“I could not have rid the world of Igazi…” She didn’t bother to spit the name. She’d destroyed him, after all. “Or the other warlords without his aid. He saved my life and the life of someone I love. I have forgiven him for his past. If I were to give you a command this day, it would be that you find in your heart the ability to do the same.”

She patted Omondi on the shoulder.

“I ask it of you, instead.”

Omondi and the other four men nodded.

“Good.” Helena said with another drag. “If you have a restaurant, you presumably still have a landline phone. I’d like to use it, please, and then I’ll need the names of your families so that I may find and deliver them to you. Anyone else inside, while we’re at it.”

He nodded happily and led her in as the other four men began dragging the bodies toward the dumpsters.

“Oh, just cover them up until my people can get here, please.” Helena asked, taking another drag of her cigarette before putting it out. “They’ll take care of those.”

“I’ll stay back here with ’em til you make introductions, Your Countessness.” She nodded at him.

Omondi entered the restaurant and shouted to the customers in Swahili.

“Everyone! It’s The She-Demon Who Birthed All Witches!”

The crowd cheered.