The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Amissum Codex — The Book of Loss

M/f MD MC

Copyright A. Acer Custos © 2005, 2006

5. Stolide — Stupid

I remember driving back from Vegas in a rented red convertible. We were on the edge of the high plains leading to Reno when the headache started to kick in. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive....” I remember thinking that it looked like the sky was full of huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car.

I woke up in what looked like a loft. The air was cool and I could hear the sounds of the bay off in the distance. A beautiful brown haired, olive complexioned women leaned in over me and smiled a small, wan smile. “Ah, at last you’re awake, Carter. We have to talk.”

I got up out of the large brass bed and went downstairs and sat at a small cafe table. As she puttered in the small kitchen making tea, I looked around me and noticed that Natalie was sitting on the balcony. She was watching the bay and sipping coffee.

The dark woman returned with a pair of over-sized tea cups and sat with me. “Carter, there’s bad news.”

“Who the hell are you, and what am I doing here?”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

I Looked closely. She seemed familiar. I probed her and recoiled. “Martin? You’re Martin?”

“No, I’m Martine. I spent my time with you as your preceptor, being a man, because it was easier for you that way. Near the end, it was hard to keep up the illusion.”

“You’ve been a woman this entire time?”

“Yes, Carter.”

She looked no more than thirty five. She was thin and elegant, everything I remembered Martin to be. As I thought about it, it made more and more sense. There had always been something comforting, warm, almost delicate about Martin’s work, his power. The answer sat in front of me. She even smelled like Martin. I liked that.

I shook my head and smiled to myself. “Bitch.”

I expected her to laugh at me and say something like ‘Idiot’. She didn’t. She just looked at me and a tear formed in her left eye and drained down her cheek.

I got really scared. She looked at me and said. “It’s time for you to remember what happened, but I’m not strong enough to force you. Please let me in.”

I allowed her power to enter me, and I began to remember.

I’d pulled the convertible over to the side of the road outside Reno and was mostly passed out. Natalie was worried about me. She didn’t go for help though. We both just waited. Some time later a seven passenger Bell helicopter landed close by.

Three men got out. Two of them were the big hired muscle I’d seen at the Illusions. Between them was a really big, fat man. He had to be six foot four and maybe four hundred and fifty pounds. There were rolls of fat under his red, ugly face. He wore rings on each finger. He was wearing a silk Armani suit. There were sweat stains under his armpits. Together, they walked up to my car.

I was unable to move more than just a little. The big man was a powerful, powerful telepath, and he was controlling me. He walked up, leaned over the side of the car. He slapped me and then spat on my face.

“You fucking piece of shit. Fuck you.”

He hit me again.

“No one fucking takes me, no one takes Vincent.”

Another hit to the face.

“You think you can walk into my fucking town and fuck with me? Huh, you fucking piece of shit? You can fuck with me? You can FUCK with ME?”

I couldn’t think or speak. Natalie sat in her seat and stared out the window, smiling at something. I wanted to ask her to do something, but I couldn’t.

“FUCK YOU, punk. Then you fucking steal this nice piece of ass from me and fuck her head up? You think you can ruin one of my girls and walk away? Your time is up, asshole.”

He slapped me a couple more times. He was red faced and sweating in the hot desert sun. Somewhere distant a bird cried. He paused and collected himself. He took an expensive silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his mottled red face with it. He looked at me and smiled a sick, nasty smile.

“I’m a generous fucking kind of guy though, asshole. All those movies, when the fucking punk dies, what does he always do? A punk, he calls for his momma, doesn’t he?”

I couldn’t move or reply. I knew something really, really bad was about to happen.

Vincent took a cell phone out of his pocket and waited a moment. It rang. He looked at me. “It’s for you.” He handed the phone to one of the goons.

“Clean this up when it’s over, Manny. My money is here somewhere. Bring it with you when you come back.” Vincent and the other guy walked back to the waiting helicopter. As Manny leaned in over me with the phone, holding it to my ear, I could see the helicopter rising in the distance, headed back east.

“Carter baby, this is your momma calling, sweety. I was just calling to let you know that God spoke to me. Jesus woke me from a dream baby. Jesus had a message for me. I got everyone here with me to hear the message baby.”

“Daddy’s here, with Charlotte and Bill and the babies. Everyone came right over. Your brother Mike is flying in, but I don’t think he’s gonna be here in time for Jesus’s message. Pastor James is here with that pretty wife of his too. I’m so happy sweety. I wanted to give you Jesus’s message first. Here it is, here’s what our sweet Lord said to me.”

“Welcome to hell, you piece of shit.”

“I’m taking us all to heaven now, Carter. Bye Bye sweety, see you in the arms of sweet loving Jesus.” I could hear her drop the phone but it didn’t hang up in the cradle. There was a moment of silence, and then I heard distant screams and gunshots.”

My face felt hot and wet.

Manny folded up the phone and tossed it into the car. He shoved me over into the passenger side, and pulled the car back onto the highway. He drove for a long time, out into the empty country side. After a while, we arrived at an abandoned gravel quarry. There was a dark black lake at the bottom of the quarry. From where I lay in the seat, I could see the blue, blue sky and a little of the quarry. Something inside me was screaming. Manny grabbed me by my shirt and dragged me out of the car. He dragged me in front of the car and dropped me like a rag doll where I could see the radiator and the driver’s side.

Then he grabbed Natalie from the back seat, and she came along with him silently. He dragged her out of the car and shoved her up against the hood where I could see. He laughed.

“Hi baby. You’re one sweet piece of ass, you know that?”

She smiled at him distantly.

“I love it when Vincent gives me jobs like this, you know?”

He reached out and tore her blouse open. He smiled at her and jerked her bra up off her breasts. He leaned down and licked her nipples, one after the other.

“Turn around and drop your pants, bitch.”

She began slowly complying, still softly and distantly smiling.

With everything I had I pushed to her. With every ounce of strength, every particle of my being, I pushed to her. I held nothing back.

She smiled at him, turned, lowered her slacks, then her panties. She leaned down to take her pants off her feet. He unzipped his pants and dropped his shorts.

Her left hand whipped up in a blur and smashed into his crotch with an audible thud. He screamed and threw himself forward so hard his face smashed into the hood of the convertible. Pieces of the hood emblem embedded themselves in his face.

She whirled away from him and stepped back from the car. He fell to the ground and shrieked. Natalie threw herself forward and smashed down on the back of his exposed neck with her knee, landing on him with all her weight. There was a sickening crunching sound and Manny started to twitch. I smelled urine.

I could hear her breathing hard. She rolled me over and began pulling me into the car. Some time later I heard her roll something meaty down into the water with a splash. Consciousness dimmed.

Martine cried at the table and said. “I couldn’t find you Carter, I tried. I really tried. I couldn’t find you in Las Vegas. I wanted to stop you. I found your note, but I couldn’t find you.” She got up and walked over to me. Her face was lined with the trails of tears. “I finally found your aura on this girl you were with and had her bring you here.”

“It’s been six days, Carter. You’ve been out for six days.”

* * *

My mom had killed them all and then blown out the pilot light on the stove and filled the house with gas. She waited in the house while it ran and then lit a match. The entire front of the house blew out and the subsequent fire charred most of the remains beyond identification.

* * *

Martine had worked over the San Jose police force pretty thoroughly. There was no report of the murders, only of a horrible gas explosion. She was careful to make sure that Mike was listed as a victim. She found Mike and then altered his memory of the events to match the police reports. Mike thinks I’m dead. He thinks I died in a car crash in the high desert outside Reno. Mike thinks he lost his family in a gas explosion before my mom could tell everyone about her vision from Jesus. I left things that way.

* * *

She had a couple of newspapers around for me to read about it. She told me a little about the work she’d done on Natalie. She told me that Angela was worried sick about me, so she’d calmed her down some. I said I didn’t care and walked out onto Martine’s balcony. Natalie was going to follow, but Martine stopped her.

I stood on that balcony and stared off at nothing. No tears came. I’d been an idiot and gotten my family killed. It would have been better if I had died.

I stayed at Martine’s that night. Natalie tried to come to bed with me and I slapped her and shoved her out of the bedroom. She slept outside my door curled up like a dog.

* * *

“Claudio has asked for you, Carter.”

“Why?”

“This is your Interview with him. He’ll destroy you if you fail this interview.”

“Oh, then we should definitely go.”

“You’re not even going to try to pass the Interview, are you Carter?”

* * *

We met on the grounds of Golden Gate Park. It was Sunday, the 11th of July. Claudio was dressed in an elegant white suit. He wore an old style white panama hat with a red sash. He was a dark skinned Italian with a thin mustache. He was attended by two other telepaths, a man who was clearly Claudio’s lover, and a short chubby woman who was already sweating in the heat of the July morning. I arrived with Martine by my side.

“Good morning, Carter. I’m Claudio, your Inceptor. This is Earl and Jessy.”

Then, just at that moment, I could place him. He was the man from my memory in the cafe. Martine was the dark woman who had been with him. Where was the redhead?

“Hello”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Ladies, Earl, please stay here. Carter and I are going to have a conversation.” He took me by the arm and led me down the hill toward the soccer fields. I shrugged his hand off and hunched into myself. We walked in silence for a long minute or two.

“I know what it’s like to get loved ones killed through stupidity, Carter. I lost my son that way.” He was smiling a wan, thin smile.

“You don’t say.”

“Carter, if you are determined to get me to destroy you, please say so. I’ll spare us both the pleasantries.”

“Just tell me what you want, Claudio.”

“What I want? Well. This should interest you. I want you to kill Vincent and take over Las Vegas for me.”

I stopped and stared at him. “What?”

“You’re very strong, Carter. He tried to kill you and failed. Then he made the mistake of making me angry. He came onto my territory and did violence.”

He turned and looked me in the eye. “I want you to know that if he had been polite and asked for your death, even for your family’s death, I would have done it to preserve the peace between our two Cliques. He didn’t do that. He thinks I’m weak and stupid. He thinks my family, my Clique is weak and stupid.”

“Why not do it yourself?”

“Because this way I get to deal with two problems. I get to aim you at him and claim no responsibility for it. If you go after him, and I think you will, I will call him and let him know you’re coming. If you win, I get Las Vegas and I get to show the other Cliques not to underestimate me and my family, and you will have learned to respect the dangers of this life. If you lose, I lose nothing.”

“Fair enough I suppose.”

“According to the legends, a candidate’s interview wasn’t always an actual interview. We’re told that some times it was a trial by combat. Consider Vincent’s removal to be your interview.”

I smiled at him. “So I’m on my own against his entire operation, his entire... what did you call it, his ‘Clique’ in Las Vegas?”

“No. Apparently Martine wants to go with you. I think she has some affection for you. Bad idea really.”

“I don’t think I want her to go with me.”

“You two will work that out, I’m sure.”

“Couldn’t you make her stay?”

“Of course I could. But I won’t. You see, I’m hoping you win.”

He handed me a business card. It was an elegant vellum. All it had on it was his name and a number. Underneath was a line that read.

“SoulFire Club, SF”

“Call me if you survive.”

“Thanks... any words of advice?”

“Why, yes. Show no mercy.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”