The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Steve squirmed in his chair.

He’d been surprised when his grandfather Hiram’s lawyers had contacted him to request that he be present at the reading of the old man’s will. The two of them had met exactly once, two years ago, and Hiram hadn’t seemed all that impressed with him.

He had no idea what the old man meant to give him. His uncles were surely in line to get everything important. Considering Uncle Ted—not to mention the man’s glamorous but grasping second wife—odds were that if Steve were bequeathed any significant part of the estate, the will would end up in court.

Not that he cared that much, really. It would be nice to inherit a big chunk of change, but he didn’t really need it. Thanks to a generous academic scholarship, he’d managed to make it to his senior year in college without going hopelessly into debt. Sure, his need to keep his grades up hadn’t exactly done wonders for his social life, but (he told himself) it would be worth it in the long run. He’d have time to enjoy himself later.

But the executor—what was his name? Mr. Cheatham, that was it—was speaking. He needed to pay attention.

Philip Cheatham let his eyes pass over the assembled heirs. They were a motley lot, he thought.

Hiram Putnam—nicknamed “Fire ‘Em” by his employees—had made a fortune as an inventor. None of his sons had inherited that interest. Mostly, they’d lived off the old man’s dough as perfect examples of the idle rich.

The one exception had been the eldest, Paul, who’d made a name for himself as a surgeon. Unfortunately, his career had been cut short: a car accident when his only son was eight had left the boy an orphan, who had been placed in the custody of the next oldest brother, Ted.

It hadn’t been a happy arrangement. Ted Putnam wasn’t a bad sort, but he’d had no idea how to raise a child. He’d preferred to spend his time partying, especially after his first marriage disintegrated over his affair with TV starlet Barbi Bonner, who would eventually become wife number two.

The executor let his gaze rest on young Steve Putnam. At twenty, the youth was a lanky six feet three, with undisciplined sandy hair and green eyes obscured behind glasses. He’d done well all through school, at least academically, although what little Cheatham knew suggested he was less successful socially. Certainly he wasn’t the sort of party animal his uncles tended to be.

In Cheatham’s private opinion, Steve deserved a generous cut of the estate. He was certainly likely to use it better than the rest of the family. Unfortunately, that wasn’t his decision to make, and old man Putnam had apparently had other ideas.

Steve waited with waning patience as Mr. Cheatham read off the terms of his grandfather’s will. One by one his uncles were named, and the will granted each of them sizable bequests in money, stocks and property. At last, just as he was wondering what could possibly be left, his own turn came.

“To my grandson Steven Putnam,” Cheatham read off, “I bequeath the following: my favorite watch, which will be found in a brass box in the top left-hand drawer of my desk in my office at Putnam Enterprises.

“May he find it useful, both in telling the time and as a reminder that time enough is the greatest gift any man can have.”

Steve was stunned. Sure, he hadn’t expected old Hiram to shower him with riches, but this? It felt as if he’d been given one of the booby prizes losing game show contestants got.

“Aunt” Barbi didn’t help matters. “Well,” she drawled smugly, “now we know what the old man thought of you, don’t we, kid?” She laughed.

Steve would have loved to get right up and slap her. It wouldn’t have done any good, though. He clenched his fists under the table and simmered in silence.

It was a week before Steve could bring himself to go downtown and collect what passed for his inheritance. He’d never visited the Putnam Enterprises headquarters before. It proved to be a thirty-story glass office tower with a courtyard in front dominated by a bulky abstract sculpture. He had to pass a guard station to get in; as he headed for the elevator banks afterward, he fingered the visitor’s pass now pinned to his shirt.

Hiram Pentium’s office suite occupied most of the penthouse floor. Smaller rooms were arranged around a large central area decorated with a fountain and roofed with skylights which let in plenty of natural light. There were chairs and comfortable-looking sofas, and, next to the door to one of the side rooms, a large desk behind which a gorgeous, well-endowed redhead sat.

“Hello?” this vision asked. “May I help you?”

Steve managed to explain who he was and why he was there. It was a struggle: he had to organize his words while struggling not to stare at the visible attributes of the woman who was—or had been, anyway—Grandpa Hiram’s secretary.

“Oh, of course,” she said when he’d finished. “You’re Steve. Mr. Putnam mentioned you a few times.” She waved at the door. “Go right on in. Hiram left instructions that you’d be visiting here in,” she faltered for a moment, “in the event of his death.”

Steve nodded and went inside.

He found what he was looking for right where the will had said. The drawer was unlocked; it would have been embarrassing to have to ask the secretary for the key.

The box was brass, just as described. Neatly polished, it gleamed in the light from the office windows. Its sides and lid were each decorated with a clock face, each of which displayed a different time.

Steve had a bad moment when he found it seemed to be locked. After a few moments, though, he found that the hands on the lid’s clock face could be moved. He pushed the minute hand around experimentally, and was rewarded shortly with a click as the latch opened.

Inside, the box was lined with soft velvet. A fancy-looking watch sat on its cushioned floor. Steve lifted it out and inspected it carefully.

It showed the correct time, and gave the date in a small window. Looking closely at the watch face, Steve could see that the hands, the numerals and the hour and minute markers were apparently all digital, not painted on or inscribed as they would have been in a real mechanical watch.

There were the usual function controls for setting the time, the date and the alarm. Steve noticed there was one for a stopwatch, too, and idly pressed it. At once, the digital clock face vanished, replaced by one reading “00:00.00.” There seemed to be something wrong with it, though: it was several seconds before the final digit, evidently intended to represent hundredths of a second, changed to a 1.

Annoyed, Steve was about to put the watch back in its container when he saw an impossible sight.

It was a fly. Just an ordinary fly. But it hung suspended in the air as if frozen in amber, its wings motionless.

Or no—not quite motionless, for as Steve watched, the delicate lacework limbs beat, silently and ever so slowly. It reminded him of some of the nature films he’d seen on TV, where high-speed cameras had captured actions normally too fast for the human eye to follow. It was making a strange tricking noise in time with its wings’ languorous flapping: its normal buzz, stretched out impossibly.

The insect continued its slow-motion wing-flapping as Steve reached for the doorknob. The knob wouldn’t turn. It was stuck!

Something occurred to him. He was still holding the watch, and he pressed the stopwatch button again. All at once, the faint background noises whose disappearance had caught his attention were back. The fly zipped across his field of vision, buzzing. And when he tried the door again, it opened normally.

Eyes wide, Steve turned back to the desk and put the watch back in its box. Then, clutching his prize as though it were the greatest treasure in the world, he left the office.

The redhead looked up as he came out. “All done?” she asked politely.

“Yes—yes, sure,” Steve stammered. He still couldn’t believe what had just happened. “I’m all done. I found what I was looking for, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Steve.” The woman behind the desk smiled.

The flustered young man couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he said nothing more as he left Hiram Pentium’s offices.

Back home, Steve took the watch out again and stared at it. Either he was cracking up, or old Hiram Putnam had left him an inheritance worth more than everything else in his estate! Hell, more than anything else in the world!

He turned on his TV, then turned his attention back to the timepiece. He pressed the stopwatch control again. The image on the television screen froze and the sound seemed to go out. Then, as he watched carefully, the picture changed, line by line, like a computer graphic on an early-model PC. As it did, he noticed that the sound wasn’t really out: like the fly’s buzz earlier, it was merely stretched into a background noise which changed slowly as the screen image glacially advanced from one frame to the next.

He pushed the button again, and everything returned to normal. His hands were shaking as he put the watch back in its upholstered box.

Steve sat on his bed for a while, thinking. Always assuming he wasn’t just imagining all this—and he had to assume that, or he might as well give up—Hiram’s gift had some definite possibilities.

Money, for instance. Someone with a device like this could go anywhere, do anything, take anything he wanted and never get caught. All he’d need to do was make sure no one guessed what he was capable of. Recalling some of the stories he’d heard over the years about his grandfather’s amazing “luck” in business, Steve suspected the watch explained a lot. And what old Hiram could do, so could he. It was just a matter of working out the details.

But why stop there? The ability to practically stop time would surely have a lot of other, more personal uses as well. Steve grinned as he stowed the brass box in his dresser drawer.

It was juvenile of him, Steve knew, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Years ago he’d seen an eighties comedy about a teenager who’d gained the power to become invisible, and had used it to spy on his school’s cheerleaders in the shower. Now that he had what amounted to a real-life form of invisibility, he couldn’t resist acting out the fantasy.

There was one girl in particular he wanted to see naked. Candy Patterson was a tall, lushly built blonde who’d always given him the brushoff when he’d tried asking her for a date. He didn’t bother anymore; what was the point? But now, maybe he could get a little of his own back.

He’d have to wait until after one of the pep squad’s practice sessions, then sneak in after them before hitting the button. Once the watch was working its wizardry, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Or out, either—he’d have to come back to normal time right by the door so he could make his escape without being seen.

He sighed theatrically and grinned. Details, details.

He managed. The guys’ locker room was right across from the girls’, so nobody thought anything about his being in the hallway when the squad trooped in, waving their pom-poms behind them. He gave them long enough to get inside and start showering, then opened the door. Propping it with his foot, he pressed the button. “Magic time,” he said to himself.

It was perfect.

As he stepped inside, Steve grinned. He’d timed things just right: the girls were already undressed and showering, giving him a perfect view.

Candy was standing before one of the center shower heads, frozen in what looked like a pose straight out of a men’s-magazine pictorial: balanced on her left foot with her right knee bent, her back arched, head tilted back, arms raised, hands buried in her mass of honey-colored hair (darker at the moment due to the water streaming over it and cascading down her body). Her eyes were closed as if in bliss, and a faint smile played across her lips.

“Oh, baby,” gloated Steve.

He sighed. “Too bad you don’t know I’m here. You look great, Candy.” The sigh was followed by a smirk. “Cone on over tonight and use my shower, baby! Letchman Hall, Room 304.” He wouldn’t have dared say anything like that, of course, if the blonde could possibly hear him—but she couldn’t. As far as she was concerned, he wasn’t even here.

Steve stepped close and let his hands roam over Candy’s immobile flesh. Ohh, that felt good. His breath grew ragged, and he felt a stiffening in his pants. At last, regretfully, he took his hands off the girl and stepped away. He couldn’t really do anything with her, after all. It’d be like screwing a statue. He wasn’t that desperate!

It was time to go. He’d had his fun, and he’d have plenty of time for more later.

He strolled back to the still-open door and pushed the stopwatch button.

Candy Patterson blinked as a brief gust of cool air washed over here. Startled, she turned, just in tine to see the shower room door close.

What the heck? Who’d opened the door, anyway?

She shook her head. Just for a second there’d been a buzz in her ear, as if a fly or something had gotten in and flown past her—but it was gone now. No harm done.

Steve went through the rest of the day as if everything were the same as always. He had a couple of classes, and managed to keep his mind on them well enough. He was still wearing his grandfather’s watch, but he resisted the urge to use its special function again. Something like that deserved to be treated with respect, not just played with at random. That evening, he studied for a couple of hours, then watched a little television. Finally, tired, he was about to get ready for bed when there came a knock on his door.

“Who the hell could that be?” he muttered. He was half undressed, so he threw on a bathrobe before answering the knock. When he opened the door, he was glad he’d tossed on the robe.

“Candy?” Steve couldn’t believe his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

The beautiful blonde blinked big blue eyes at him. “I need to use your shower, Steve,” she explained. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Thunderstruck, Steve stammered, “N-no . . . no, of course I, I don’t mind. The bathroom’s over there.” He gestured, and Candy nodded. She went into the small room and closed the door behind her. In a few seconds, Steve heard the water running in his shower.

He couldn’t believe it. Candy Patterson, Candy the unattainable, was right here in his dorm room! But how?

All at once he remembered what he’d said to her during his invisible visit to the gym. He’d assumed she wouldn’t hear anything—and yet here she was, just as he’d jokingly suggested.

Something nagged at his memory. After a moment, he pulled it up: an article he’d read about subliminal advertising. The article had described experiments in which suggestions like “you’re thirsty” and “eat popcorn” had been flashed on the screens of a movie theater during a show, too briefly for the audience to consciously register. Supposedly, the result had been a big spike in concession purchases during intermission. The same account had described other tests, and had noted that in the end, although not all of them had worked, laws had been passed banning such subliminal messages.

What if this was something like that? With old man Hiram’s watch working, his words to Candy had passed from his lips to her ears in a tiny fraction of a second. What if they’d somehow registered at a subconscious level, their acceleration bypassing the cheerleader’s decision-making faculties the way the movie messages supposedly had in those old experiments?

It sounded nuts. And yet . . . there she was, in his shower.

Steve grinned. He’d put in for one of Letchman’s coveted mini-suites this year because he didn’t like having a roommate or having to share a communal bathroom with twenty other guys. Now he had even more reason to be glad he’d won the room-assignment lottery.

He fingered the watch on his wrist thoughtfully. This was an unexpected development. If people would obey any suggestion he gave them while he was in accelerated time, his grandfather’s creation had even more potential than he’d guessed. But would they really do anything he commanded?

Listening to the sounds coming from his bathroom, Steve laughed. He looked forward to finding out.

Presently the shower stopped running. In a little bit, the door opened and Candy came out. She was fully dressed, but her hair was still damp; she was using one of his bath towels to scrub it dry as she emerged.

“Thanks, Steve,” she said, sounding as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be where she was and to have showered in his shower. “I really needed that.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve managed. “Drop by any time. My God, he thought, aghast, did I just say that? I sound like such a dork! Candy went to his front door. Before she could open it, Steve pressed the stopwatch button. Once again, everything seemed to freeze. He walked over to the blonde and regarded her.

He grinned. “Candy,” he said to the girl, “from now on, things are going to be different between us. Tomorrow, you’ll make sure you’re at home in your dorm room by six o’clock. At that time, I’m going to come by and ask you out. You’ve always said no before, but this time you’ll say yes. You’ll make up some reason why you should say yes, and believe it. While we’re out, you’ll find yourself becoming more and more attracted to me. More and more turned on by me.” He paused. “And Candy, from now on, when we’re alone—but only when we’re alone—you’ll call me ‘Master.’ You won’t notice you’re doing it, but you’ll do it.” Okay, maybe that last bit was over the top, but if she obeyed, it’d prove she’d do pretty much anything. If not, well, he’d have learned something about the limits of this effect. Either way, she wouldn’t consciously remember being given such instructions.

He pressed the stopwatch button again, and watched as Candy took hold of the doorknob. “Good night, Candy,” he murmured.

“Good night, Master,” Candy answered. She opened the door and left without another word, totally unaware of what she’d just said.

Steve managed to restrain himself until Candy was gone. At last, though, he couldn’t hold it in anymore: he burst out in wild laughter. Candy had used the M-word just as he’d commanded, and hadn’t shown the slightest awareness of what she’d just called him. If she continued to follow the script he’d given her, tomorrow evening promised to be very interesting indeed. And that would be just the beginning.

Candy Patterson shook her head in disbelief. What had she been thinking? Sure, she’d needed to take a shower—but what had possessed her to go over and ask Steve Putnam, of all people, if she could borrow his? She had a perfectly good shower in her own suite, for gosh sakes—and Steve Putnam? The nerd had been after her for a date since forever; now she’d never get rid of him!

Well, at least he’d been polite about it. He hadn’t tried to snoop on her, and when she’d finished, he hadn’t tried anything. He hadn’t even asked her to stay. She’d have said no, of course, but she was vaguely insulted that he hadn’t even asked.

The next day, Steve had a much harder time keeping his mind on classwork. His thoughts kept wandering to his plans for the evening. From what he’d seen so far, he had little doubt that when he called her, Candy would agree to a date. The real question was what they’d do together.

After all the rejection he’d gotten from her, Steve wanted to get some of his own back. He’d have to be careful, though, just in case it turned out there were things he couldn’t make her do. One step at a time, that was the key.

The hours seemed to crawl by. At last, though, the appointed hour approached. Steve hurried across campus toward Candy’s place. Arriving at her door a couple of minutes before six, he drew a deep breath before knocking.

One of Candy’s suitemates answered. “Hey,” the girl, a leggy brunette—Karen, Steve thought her name was—cried out, “what’re you doing here, Putznam?”

Steve winced at the nasty nickname. “I’m here to see Candy,” he announced defiantly.

The girl in the doorway laughed. “Boy, you really don’t know when to quit, do you?” Candy’s roomies, of course, had witnessed several of his earlier humiliating rejections by their friend.

“Look,” Steve persisted, sounding faintly desperate, “just let me talk to her a minute, okay?”

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice called.

“It’s Steve the Putz,” laughed Karen. “For you, of course.”

Candy stepped into view and approached the door. She raked Steve with a contemptuous glare. “What do you want?”

“I,” Steve struggled, “I just wanted to ask if you, if you’d go out with me tonight.” Now that the moment had arrived, he found himself as nervous as ever. If the watch’s power didn’t work, he’d have made a fool of himself again.

Candy Patterson frowned in annoyance. Boy, Steve never gave up, did he? What did she have to do to get it across that she wasn’t interested?

She sighed. Maybe the simplest thing would be to just get it over with. Maybe if she went out with him, just this once, he’d be satisfied.

Oddly, the idea didn’t seem as repulsive as she would have expected. After all, he was a nice guy. He’d let her use his shower last night without trying to put the moves on her. And as far a she knew, he hadn’t told anybody about it, either. Plenty of guys would have bragged all over campus.

“Sure,” the cheerleader finally answered. “I’ll go out with you tonight, Steve.”

Her suitemate’s eyes widened. “What?” the other girl gasped. “Come on, you can’t be serious!”

“I can so,” retorted Candy. As pissed as she’d been at Steve only moments earlier, she felt a flash of anger now at Karen. “I can pick my own dates, thank you.” Moving forward, she slipped her arm through Steve’s and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

Steve struggled not to let his glee show in his face. It had really worked! There was no way Candy would have said yes like that otherwise.

He steered her away, reveling both in the feeling of her against him and in the power he now knew he secretly had over her. Here’s hoping she responds as well to the rest of the suggestions I gave her, he thought.

“Where would you like to go tonight?” he asked the blonde. “Your wish is my command.”

Candy laughed. She pursed her lips as she thought. “What about the Castle?” she suggested, naming a fancy restaurant across town from the campus. “I’ve always wanted to eat there.”

Steve winced. The Castle’s prices were really a bit higher than he was comfortable with. The allowance he got from Uncle Ted wasn’t exactly lavish. He thought briefly of pushing the button and “suggesting” Candy pick a cheaper restaurant, but decided against it. He could afford the Castle, at least this once, and it seemed petty to use his new power to cut costs on a date. “All right,” he agreed. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about how he was dressed: he’d put on his best suit for the evening.

Candy looked across the candlelit table at her date. She still couldn’t quite believe she had finally agreed to go out with Steve Putnam. It was turning out to be a pretty good evening, though.

It had been a whim to ask him to take her out to the Castle Restaurant. Set in a small but entirely genuine Scottish castle transported to America stone by stone in the 1920s by an eccentric millionaire who’d ended up broke after the Crash of ‘29, the eatery had a reputation for high-class cuisine and service at equally high-class prices. She’d half expected Steve to say no; his family was rich, she knew, but from what she saw of him, he didn’t get a lot of money from them. If he’d refused, she told herself, she’s have turned him down for a date this time, the same as always.

And that would have been a shame. She didn’t know what it was, but as the evening wore on, she found herself more and more attracted to the bespectacled young man she was with. He wasn’t that bad-looking, she mused: if he combed his hair, maybe worked out a little, he might even be handsome. She surprised herself by picturing the two of them alone together, in her bedroom, naked. . . .

“Are you okay, Candy?” Steve Pentium’s voice snapped her out of the fantasy she’d been drifting into.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. She felt herself blushing. Thank God he couldn’t read minds! “I’m sorry, Steve sweetie. I was just . . . a little distracted.” A moment later, her blush deepened as she realized what she’d said. Sweetie”? Where had that come from?

Steve didn’t seem to have noticed her verbal slip, though. He simply smiled at her as he responded, “That’s all right. As long as you’re having a good time?” His voice rose on the last word, making the sentenced a question, and nervously fiddled with his watch, a pricey-looking timepiece she didn’t remember ever seeing him wear before.

“Oh, yes,” she answered. And it was true. She hadn’t expected to enjoy herself so much on what had started out as basically a mercy date.

But she was feeling too warm now in the tight sweater-blouse she had on. She wished it had buttons instead of being a pullover, so she could open the top one or two for some air. A mischievous image flashed through her mind, of her calmly peeling the hot garment off over her head right there at the table. Her hands actually went to the blouse for a moment as if to do just that.

Face flaming, she waved away their server’s offer to refill her wine glass. “No thank you,” she said politely. “I’ve had enough, I think.” It had to be the drinks, she told herself. Steve, she noticed, had downed only a single glass.

“Perhaps dessert?” her escort hinted. At Candy’s nod, the waiter came to attention beside their table while she and Steve looked over the menu and made their selections: plain chocolate ice cream for him, tiramisu for her.

Finally they were finished. Steve summoned the waiter and went through the whole credit-card ritual, wincing at what turned out to be the final total. He briefly regretted his decision not to use the watch’s power to “help” Candy pick a less expensive place—but no; with old Hiram’s gift on his side, money shouldn’t be a problem for him much longer.

In the car, Candy found herself growing more and more restless. She kept thinking about Steve, imagining the two of them together, and the more she did, the steamier the images became.

What’s happening to me? she whimpered silently. She’d never felt this way about anybody—and now, when she did, it was with Steve Putnam? It was crazy! It couldn’t be real!

But it was. She told herself she had to fight it. She had to keep control. But the pictures kept washing through her brain, and as they did, her body throbbed with growing need. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Master,” she moaned, not noticing what she’d called her date, “please, master, pull over. I need—!”

“Yes?” Steve glanced over at his date, who was squirming on the seat beside him. Unlike her, he noticed how she’d addressed him. With the two of them alone together in his car, his earlier mischievous command had kicked in. “What is it, Candy? What do you need?”

“You,” she gasped. The blonde slithered across to press herself against him. A hand snaked down between his legs, and Steve jumped and gasped, nearly losing control of the vehicle.

“Jesus!” With an effort, Steve managed to keep from swerving into oncoming traffic. Gritting his teeth, he managed to focus on pulling over into the breakdown lane. He stopped the car and turned to face Candy. He opened his mouth to speak.

He didn’t get a word out. Candy’s lips pressed over his own, and her tongue darted forward between his teeth, probing.

He forgot what he’d been going to say. All by themselves, his hands went to Candy’s top, tugging at it urgently.

Candy felt Steve fumbling at her sweater-blouse. Giggling, she helped him slide it off over her head. Then her hands went to his shirt, teasingly popping the buttons open one by one. While she did, Steve fiddled inexpertly with the clasp of her bra, finally releasing it just as the last of his shirt buttons surrendered to Candy’s fingers. He wriggled out of his shirt, dropping the bra in the process.

The rest of their clothes were quickly shed. Candy slithered over into the back seat, tugging Steve after her. Then the two of them thrust themselves at each other, kissing frantically as their bodies twined together and began thrusting in an ancient rhythm. At last they came, almost simultaneously, Candy’s shriek of release mingling with Steve’s deeper cry.

They lay sprawled on their improvised bed for a little while. Finally Steve broke the silence: “Wow.”

“Wow,” Candy agreed drowsily. The girl giggled. “I never did it in a car before.”

“Me neither,” Steve admitted. Now was not the time to admit he’d never done it before, period.

More silence followed. Presently Candy sighed, “I suppose we should be getting home now.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Steve. He glanced at his watch, the only thing he hadn’t taken off. “We don’t want to be too late. People will talk.”

Candy laughed. “Let ‘em.” Then she sobered: “No, you’re right.”

“Then I guess we’d better get dressed.” Steve grinned lazily. “Imagine what they’d say if we turned up late and naked!”

Candy laughed again. She disentangled herself from her lover, clambered back into the front seat and began collecting her discarded clothing. After a moment, so did Steve.

In a few minutes they were dressed again and Steve started the car. They drove along quietly until they pulled into the parking area adjacent to Candy’s dorm. Steve killed the engine and turned to Bandy. “Do you want to go out again, Candy? Saturday night, perhaps?”

Candy had had time to think during the ride back. She couldn’t deny that she’d had a great time. And, she admitted, she felt a powerful attraction to Steve Putnam, one she never would have expected to feel. Still . . . ! “Let me think about it,” she answered.” “Call me Friday, okay? I’ll tell you then.”

“All right,” Steve agreed. No problem. All he had to do was bump into her “by chance” and deliver another dose of high-speed suggestion, and she’d agree to anything; tonight’s events had pretty much proven that. There was no harm in letting her think she had a choice.

They got out of the car. Smiling, Steve pressed the stopwatch button on his timepiece. The world slowed around him in that way he was beginning to get used to, and he walked around the car to stand in front of his date.

“Candy,” he told her, “you don’t have to call me ‘master’ anymore when we’re alone. Just use my name.” That command had served its purpose, proving his total control over her; he’d feel weird leaving it in place, even if it did only work when they were alone. He walked back to his side of the car and hit the button again.

They walked to the door. “Good night, Steve,” Candy said, utterly unaware of what she’d been calling him in the car. Steve answered with a good-night of his own, and the beautiful blonde went inside.

Steve got back into his car and drove away, whistling. Candy was his anytime he wanted her. But she was only the beginning. With the power of the watch on his side, he could have anything he wanted, anyone he wanted. And he wanted a lot.

Idly, he flicked on the car radio. A familiar tune was playing. Even without the lyrics, he recognized it instantly: “This Magic Moment.”

He laughed so hard he almost drove into a ditch.