The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Anonymous Caller (Chapter 2)

Amy took a swig of beer and cast an appreciative glance at the fields surrounding them, bright in the afternoon sun. “Wow. This is all yours now. That’s pretty cool.”

“I guess,” Tim shrugged, swallowing from his Corona bottle.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I dunno. Burn it down, maybe.”

“The whole farm? What a waste.”

“Maybe not the whole farm. Maybe just that.”

The gatehouse was in front of them, deceptively cheery in the midday sun. Amy tossed her auburn hair and pouted theatrically. “Not until you’ve shown it to me, I hope.”

“If you insist.” He lifted the chain from his neck and popped open the padlock, then threw back the deadbolt. He leaned against the door to open it, reached inside and turned on the light. “After you.”

She bounced inside and crinkled her nose at the smell. He followed, leaving the door open to air out the place a little. He imagined the machine and everything surrounding it crumbling to dust at the first exposure to fresh air in what must have been decades.

“Wow,” Amy said, sizing up the machine. “That’s incredible.”

“Isn’t it? And it’s older than both of us put together.”

“And your dad kept it running?”

Tim squeezed behind the wooden desk, set down his beer and slid open a drawer, pulling out a leather-bound notebook with dog-eared pages. “I found this,” he explained. “It’s kind of like a maintenance log. Every time the machine broke, or got out of tune, my dad kept notes on what he did to fix it: replacing a tube or a belt, greasing a gear. Lots of guesswork.”

He leafed through the pages, filled with diagrams and crude line drawings of antiquated parts, with notations, dates and initials. “My grandfather did the same thing,” he continued.

Amy touched a rough, spherical competent of indeterminate purpose, tracing a line in the dust with a finger. “Do you think it works? Like your dad said?”

“I think my father must be insane. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

She grinned at him. “Well, one way to find out.” Amy fished through her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She held it up brightly like she was posing for an ad. “Call me.”

“Pfft. I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, scaredy cat. Call me. I’ll put it on speaker and we can hear what it sounds like.”

“Well, that won’t work. It has to be held to the person’s ear. Supposedly.”

“Fine, I’ll hold it to my ear”

He shook his head.

“Tim, from what I know about your love life, this may be the only time a girl ever says this to you. Call me.”

He sighed. “Alright, we’ll try it.”

There was a five-gallon gas container in the corner of the room. He hefted it and walked it to the tank on the side of the machine facing the door. He unscrewed the cap and tipped the container, letting it slosh and chug into the machine, fumes rising into his nostrils.

Above the gas tank, a big red button provided the only splash of color in the room. He held his finger poised. “Maybe you should step outside. What if it explodes or something?”

She huffed, walked over decisively and slapped the button with her palm.

The machine awoke slowly, like a giant. It sputtered and squeaked at the edges, and relays clicked like fingernails from inside. Clacking and grinding noises spun from the machine, then merged into a roar, gaining in volume second-by-second.

Amy frowned and took a step back. Below the cacophony a threatening metallic hum built on the turbines with a sense of restrained weight and power.

Then the noise subsided into a tolerable rumble. The gears squeaked as they began turning, and inside the machine the vacuum tubes emitted an eerie glow.

Amy bit her lip in excitement, then held up her phone again. “Okay. Call me.”

“Maybe we should call someone else first. To try it. What’s your boyfriend’s number? He must pretty weak-willed to be dating you.”

“Fuck you,” she giggled. “Just don’t make me do anything that I wouldn’t do in the back of Bobby’s Mustang.”

He cringed at the image of lithesome Amy with her cow-tipping boyfriend; while kids like Tim had struggled every day in high school, idiots like Bobby Shimkus coasted on redneck charm and corn-fed good looks. Tim pushed out the thought and picked up the telephone receiver. It was an old phone, black and heavy. A rusty dial tone buzzed from the earpiece. “I’m not sure I even know how to use one of these,” he quipped. “Do I press these little holes?”

“Get on with it, already. My will is iron.”

He dialed her digits—a painfully slow process on the spin dial. Finally, he heard a ring in the receiver and the cell phone in her hand played a midi tune.

She read the display and held it up to show Tim—”anonymous caller“—then flipped the phone open and put it to her ear. “Yesss massster,” she said.

“Very funny.”

“What is your bidding, massster.”

He looked at her. “Nothing, huh?”

“You haven’t told me to do anything, idiot.”

“Apologize for calling me an idiot,” he said into the phone.

She pondered a moment. “Hmmm. No, I don’t think so, idiot.”

He shook his head. “Wait, I forgot. Once it’s at speed, I’m supposed to turn that dial up.” The dial was on a mechanical link assembly that jutted from the machine to within arms reach of the desk. He cranked it clockwise about a quarter of the way.

The turbines sped, and blue plasma began glowing around them, suddenly erupting into a violent arc of electricity that bridged the turbines, crackling and popping. Tim dropped the phone receiver and jumped back. “Holy shit!”

He heard Amy inhale sharply, and turned. She was holding her cell phone to her ear and staring dumbly in his direction, her mouth hanging open. She let out a soft whimper.

“Are you okay? Amy?” He squeezed out from behind the desk. “Amy?”

She didn’t respond—just stared impassively, swaying slightly in place. He waved his hands in front of her eyes, her brown irises glassy. Her breathing was deep and regular. He touched her smooth cheek. She didn’t move.

“Fuck this.” He scrambled back to the desk and slammed the telephone receiver down on the cradle. Amy let out a cry and dropped her phone to the wood flooring. She stepped away from it as though it might jump back into her grip.

“Are you alright?” Tim turned down the dial and the sparking subsided. He made his way to the side of the machine and pressed the red button again, and the whole apparatus moaned to a halt.

By then, Amy was gone. Tim scooped up her cell phone and followed her into the sunshine. “Amy?”

She was staring across the field. “I—I’m fine. Everything’s okay.” She turned to face him and shook her head, smiling weakly. “That was just... really weird.” Her eyes seemed lit again.

“What happened to you? You looked frozen.”

“I couldn’t put down the phone. It was like... I don’t know. It was like there was some sound I could almost make out on the call. Something that I really, really had to hear.”

He handed her phone back; she studied it, then put it in her bag.

“I didn’t even tell you to do anything,” he said.

“Yeah, thank God. That wasn’t fun after all. I don’t think you should mess around with that machine.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I made you do it. I think maybe it’s dangerous.”

He nodded. “Let me lock up, and we’ll go back to the house.”

“That’s alright. I’m just going to go home.” She smiled again. “It’s not your fault. I’ll see you later.”

She started in the direction of the house.

“Amy,” he called after her.

She turned. The wind blew her hair in front of her face, and she pulled it back.

“Don’t tell anybody, right?”

She snorted prettily and showed her palms. “Who’d believe me?

* * *

Back at the house, Tim picked up his beer—number five—drank deep and returned to his drawing, crosshatching Amy’s parted lips to convey their texture, then filling in some detail on the cell phone at her ear.

Tim had set up his sketchpad on an easel in the spare bedroom, turning it into a studio. He was grateful he could finally work without his dad interrupting him with chores, lectures and other demands on his time. But he had to admit, the empty farmhouse was eerie at night, creaking and settling as it was buffeted by the wind.

He stood back, pleased with the results—he’d perfectly captured the blankness of Amy’s stare. “It did something,” he murmured to himself. “That’s for sure.”

Tim pondered the sketch, then made a decision. He put down his pencil.

He bundled up and brought a flashlight with him out to the fields. The gatehouse was just as foreboding in the night as when he was a kid; knowing what was inside did nothing to dispel its dark aura. His key jammed in the padlock, and for a second he flashed to his failed childhood incursions, irrationally certain that he would never get in the gatehouse again. Then he realized he was using the wrong key.

A moment later, he was inside, with the door locked behind him and the florescent light casting monstrous shadows from the equipment onto the walls. He poured a second can of gasoline into the beast, sat at the desk and stared at the fuelled machine for a long moment, listening to the wind whistle through the rafters.

Who to call?

He pulled a phone book from the shelf, and four others fell down with it. He picked out the book for Roosevelt, two towns over. Safe, anonymous. The directory was five years old, but included Yellow Pages. He shuffled through the listings for a business that would be open at night, and settled on the pizza delivery section.

He pressed the red button, then returned to the desk while the machine went through its ritual of loud fury giving way to reluctant calm. He dialed seven digits.

One ring. Two. Then, “Heartland Pizza.” It was girl’s voice, bored; likely his age.

“Umm, hi. I’d like to order a pizza?”

“What kind?”

He turned the dial to the one-quarter setting he’d tried on Amy, and the turbines spun. “Pepperoni, I think. No. Pineapple. Do you have pineapple?”

“We have pineapple,” she said, annoyance creeping into her voice. “Anything else?”

The blue glow formed around the turbines. “No.”

“What size?”

“Large.”

“Thin or thick?”

“What?”

“The crust?” she sighed. “Thin or thick.”

“Thick.”

“What’s your—”

The pizza girl stopped mid-sentence as lightning clashed suddenly between the turbines.

Five seconds passed in silence. Tim covered his free ear with his hand to blot out the popping and crackling, and the girl’s breath came to him over the phone. A cash register bell rang in the background, mixed with voices and the clatter of pizza trays and plates

“Are you still there?” he finally asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, pressed free of impatience.

“Aren’t you going to ask me my address?”

“Your address? I... was going to, I guess. But I...” She trailed off.

He swallowed. His mouth was dry, and he took a bitter swig from his warm beer.

“What’s your name?”

“Charlene.”

“Sing to me, Charlene.”

“Okay. What song?”

“The ABC song.”

She began singing, in a sweet, girlish voice devoid of irony. She took the melody at an unhurried pace, hitting just the right emphasis on the G, speeding up to get the staccato of the l-m-n-o-p. Every note true.

The normal noises of a pizza restaurant began to subside in the background. Someone laughed.

Tim hung up.

At the pizza parlor two towns over, a tired pizza chef, two delivery boys and a table of college students stopped what they were doing and listened, bemused, as the young cashier poured her heart into the Alphabet Song, finally asking the dead phone line what it thought of her.

* * *

Tim turned the dial back down on the machine and stared at the phone. It worked. It really worked.

He knew what he had to do. In a way he had no choice. If he didn’t make the call, he’d always wonder.

Amy answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi Amy.”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Tim, stupid.”

“Tim? You sound strange. Where are you?”

He spun the dial up to quarter power again. The machine hummed and whined.

“I’m in the gatehouse.”

“What? What are do—” The machine crackled, cutting her off mid-sentence.

“Amy?”

“Yes.” She sounded dazed. “Sorry. I was asking... something.”

He stood, his fingers poised over the dial, ready to turn it back down. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

“Where are you?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He settled back onto the stool and strummed his fingers on the desk. “I know I said I wasn’t going to use the machine again. But I tried it, and it works. My dad wasn’t crazy.”

“Your dad wasn’t crazy,” she repeated.

“I’ve always had a crush on you. Did you know that?”

“Yes.” A pause. “I feel so strange.”

“I need you to understand. You’ve known me forever. You know I’m not a bad person.”

“You’re not a bad person.”

“I just think we could be... more than friends.”

“Oh... Tim. No.” She finally got it. “You don’t want to do this. Not to me.”

He exhaled. “The next time you see me, I want you to...” He trailed off. What if she laughed? He steeled himself. “You’re going to fall in love with me.”

“No,” she said. “We’re friends. We’re best friends. That means something, Tim.”

“You’re going to fall in love with me.”

“Stop it. It’s not working. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“You’re going to fall madly in love with me.”

“In your dreams,” she said defiantly.

He reached reluctantly for the dial, then took it in his hand and cranked it up nearly to the halfway point. He heard Amy inhale sharply. “Wh—what did you do?” she breathed.

“I turned it up a little. How do you feel?”

“Weird. Like your voice is in my head. Stop it. Please.”

She’d never forgive him for this, but he was already past the point of no return. “Amy, you’re not going to remember this call. As soon as I hang up, you’ll forget your phone even rang.”

“I’ll forget,” she said. “But you’ll remember. How are you going to look me in the eye knowing you did this?”

“And the next time you see me, you’ll fall in love with me.”

“I’ll... This isn’t fair!”

“C’mon,” he said, frustrated. “Why is this such a big deal? I’ll bet I treat you a lot better than Bobby does. Haven’t you ever thought of kissing me or anything?”

“Only when I’ve felt sorry for you for being a virgin.”

“What makes you think I’m a virgin?” he sniffed.

“It’s not exactly a secret, Tim. I don’t know why you never asked Kathy Henkes out. I told you she liked you.”

“I don’t like Kathy Henkes. I like you.”

“You’ve never been realistic. That’s your problem.”

He twisted the dial clockwise some more. Amy gasped.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Silence.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said. It was still her voice, but as colorless as a watermelon sucked dry through a straw.

“You sound different. Does it... hurt or anything?”

“I feel... empty.”

“I think we’re almost done now.”

“Almost done.”

“The next time you see me, you’ll fall madly in love with me.”

“I’ll fall madly in love with you,” she agreed in a monotone.

He trembled with excitement. “And you’ll, um, want me. Badly. You’ll want to have sex with me. You won’t be able to get enough of me. You’ll want to fuck me, and give me blow jobs, and everything you do with Bobby and more.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“I’ll want you badly,” she recited. “I’ll want to have sex with you. I won’t be able to get enough of you. I’ll want to fuck you, and go down on you, and do everything I do with Bobby, and more.”

“Good. Very good. And you don’t want to see Bobby any more.”

Silence.

“Right?”

“I... love Bobby.”

“No, you don’t. You’re through with him.”

“I... don’t want to be. He’s nice to me.”

He eyed the dial. It was slightly over half power, and the machine was shaking with the effort. If he turned it higher, he might really hurt her. What did his father say? It could crack someone’s mind open like a walnut? He didn’t want to crack open Amy’s mind. He just wanted her to be his girlfriend.

Tim thought about it, and settled on a different tack. “Okay. Listen carefully. There’s something you need to know about Bobby.”

* * *

When Amy returned to the farm house she found Tim disheveled and bleary eyed. He squinted out at her and the hostile sunlight through the screen door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen you around in two days,” she said, wrinkling her nose. He hadn’t showered since the last time she saw him, she thought. “Nobody’s seen or heard from you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He grunted and pushed the screen open. She followed him to the kitchen, declined a beer, and accepted a glass of water. Dishes were piled in the sink.

“The place is a mess, I know,” he shrugged. “I’ve been a little overwhelmed. My dad left things in a bad state, and I don’t know the first thing about running a farm.”

She smiled sympathetically. “I bet.” She moved to the sink and started the water running; locating a pair of rubber gloves, she pulled them over her fingers and lifted a cheese-encrusted plate from the top of a pile. “Mmmm, pizza.”

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Really. I’ll take care of it.”

She ignored his protest. There was a window over the sink: a cloud moved across the sky outside. She scrubbed, and asked with strained casualness, “Been using that machine?”

“What? No way. I thought about what you said. I don’t want any part of that thing.”

“Hmm.” She moved to the next plate, tainted with the remnants of take-out fried chicken. “About that...”

* * *

On the walk to the gatehouse she filled him in on her change of heart. He seemed disappointed, even surprised, that she hadn’t come by just to visit him.

“If you think Bobby’s cheating on you, why don’t you just dump him?” he asked.

“I don’t know that he’s cheating on me. It’s just a feeling I’m getting. He’s being secretive. I want to find out.”

He shook his head as they approached the door. “If you don’t trust him, that means your relationship has problems, no matter what the truth is.”

You’re giving me relationship advice? Really?”

He laughed and turned a key in the padlock, another in the deadbolt. “He’s not good enough for you anyway.”

“You never think anybody is good enough for me.”

She smirked as his face flushed. He pushed the door open and led her in. The dim interior somehow seemed less oppressive than before, the machine less sinister. Tim had it purring within a minute, and he gestured for her to take the seat of honor behind the desk.

The ancient stool creaked as Amy eased into it. She picked up the receiver, the dial tone hummed in her ear.

“Just dial his number,” Tim said over the noise of the machine. “Ask him whatever you want.” He moved the dial and the turbines glowed.

Bobby answered on the second ring. “Hi, you!” she chirped, too enthusiastically. She was prepared to make small talk until the machine was ready, but then the turbines popped and electricity began arching near the rafters.

“Bobby?”

“Yes.” His voice was flat.

She fought the urge to hang up—how could she do this to her boyfriend? Then jealously flared in her chest. “I want you to tell me something. And tell me the truth. Are you seeing someone else?”

No hesitation. “Yes.”

She looked up at Tim. Her pain must have been written on her face, judging from the sympathy on his. ”Who?” Her voice trembled.

“Tiffany Miller.”

“That bitch! I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

Silence.

“Are you fucking her?”

“Yes.”

She blinked back tears. “You asshole! I thought you loved me. Go jump off a fucking bridge!”

Amy sobbed, dropped the phone and ran for the door, stumbling on the leg of the desk and skidding onto the floor. She righted herself and fled the gatehouse, while behind her she heard Tim leap for the discarded phone.

“Bobby? Bobby!” he yelled into the receiver. “Do not jump off a bridge. Do you understand? Don’t.”

She paused outside the door. What have I done? Inside, Tim calmed. “Good. Now, forget about this phone call.”

A moment later the machine died down. Tim came out and began locking up in silence.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said, sniffling. “I wasn’t thinking.”

He shrugged. “No worries. I’m sorry your boyfriend is such a jerk.”

They wandered wordlessly around the farm in the cooling late afternoon. When they reached a gnarled oak tree, she sat, curling her legs beneath her and pressing her face into her hands.

She felt him sit next to her and drape a lanky arm over her shoulder. Poor, sweet Tim. She dropped her hands and leaned into him, grateful for the support.

“It’s just—I gave him everything,” she cried through her fingers. “And he was just using me.”

“Yeah.”

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, then looked up at him. He was always so nice to her, with his cute little crush, and she’d so often been callous in return. She smiled at him sadly.

He looked back at her with a level, unflinching gaze that she hadn’t seen before. He seemed uncharacteristically self-possessed now. Confident. Even handsome, with his long face and tussled brown hair. She wondered if his father’s departure had somehow given Tim the space to grow into his own skin.

It was curious. Her smile faded, and she felt herself stretch up to him, just a little. A few inches. Enough to put her mouth against his lips and graze them experimentally. They were rough and dry, and he smelled bad. But the contact sent a jolt through her, like the thunderbolt of the machine in the gatehouse, and she pressed tighter against him and opened her mouth to deepen the kiss.

He didn’t breath, as though he was afraid to disturb whatever magic moved her to kiss him. She reached a hand behind his head and held him hard to her, pushing her tongue into his mouth. To her surprise, an excited tension knotted in her stomach and moistness swelled between her legs. Still kissing him, she coaxed him onto his back, the long grass crushing against her knuckles behind his head.

She broke the kiss to pull back and look down at him—a reality check. He swallowed. His erection tented his jeans.

Tim. Skinny, awkward, artistic, funny Tim. He was everything Bobby wasn’t. That, she realized, must be why he was suddenly so attractive. Could her best friend also be her lover? Isn’t that what everyone wants?

Biting her lip, she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it from her shoulders, then reached behind to unhook her bra. The air caressed her breasts sensuously.

“Amy...” he said, trailing off. I don’t want to take advantage of you, his eyes seemed to add.

“Touch them, idiot,” she whispered. She lifted his hands and pressed them over her breasts. Her nipples stiffened into the softness of his palms, and her pulse quickened. It was getting hard to breath. She rolled back and kicked off her shoes, then unbuttoned and peeled off her jeans, flinging them onto the grass. Tim shuffled into a sitting position and pulled his shirt over his head.

Within minutes, they were both naked under the tree, exploring each other’s bodies with their hands and mouths. The tension between her legs tightened unbearably. She brushed his erection with her fingertips and he gasped.

She’d always made Bobby use a condom, but she doubted Tim had any, and she had to have him inside her. Without a word, she positioned herself over him and slid him easily inside her.

Her thighs flexed as she bounced up and down, slowly, panting, watching his face as he stared at her. She sped up, until a wave of pleasure built inside her and exploded.

She screamed in abandon as she crested, Tim’s animal, guttural cry joining her as he spent himself inside her. It lasted forever.

When forever was over, she curled up next to him and nuzzled his ear under the azure sky.