The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Accidents are awful things. The accident near Belleville Park was one of those the response teams could do nothing more about than clean up. Bent steel and aluminum, broken glass, the smell of spilled gasoline, broken axles, and flat tires with the more unpleasant rubber odor filled the air. The mess sprawled all over the street. Immediately, it cost three lives. Eventually there was the possibility it could take two more.

The ambulance crew arrived quickly but had to call it right away, leaving the mess for the coroner’s people to clean up. The officers on the scene were sad to have yet another set of the citizenry tragically dead. One of them wept over the youngest of the victims. When another tried to console him by pointing out the obvious, these things do happen, they both ended up in tears.

Mr Myer had been putting on a serious afternoon drunk. Mrs Myer had booted his ass out the door this morning after he’d come home late with more than the usual number of sheets to the wind. Rejecting her enraged complaint about his ability to show up when expected, along with her demand he remain sober he wasn’t about to change his habits.

Since he had the day off anyway, he went to McGinty’s. Before he left he put away a prodigious amount of hard liquor. Had the bartender known he’d driven, the bartender would have confiscated his keys. He probably should have as soon as Mr Myer had his second drink. So when Mr Myer hit the road again he was once more so toasted any reasonable cop would have taken him in for drunk and disorderly charges. If only he had encountered an officer before getting into the car.

The other man who was in the blue dodge was driving along as he approached the park, saw a young woman or mid-teen girl perhaps, start to race across the street. Fortunately he’d spotted the ice cream cart on the other side of the road so was being cautious in case there were kids. He came to a dead stop with at least four or five yards to spare. He had smiled at the youth’s exuberance. Childhood being precious to him, he enjoyed the thrill she appeared to have. For as long as he could.

In contrast, Mr Myer did not see her until the last moment.

He tried to slam on his brakes. Of course.

Being so flat out drunk he couldn’t tell left from right, up from down, back from front, his foot came down fiercely on the wrong pedal. Instead of hitting the brakes, he slammed his foot on the gas and in doing so caused himself to panic even more.

He tried to turn the steering wheel so the car would swerve around the youngster he had spotted zipping out into the street. His intended correction made it worse instead of better.

The girl died, pretty much instantly. She never stood a chance. If she had seen the car speeding her direction she might and probably would have waited until it passed to cross the street. No one knew for certain if she’d looked either direction before starting her dash for the ice cream vendor. It no longer mattered after Mr Myer had accelerated rather than braking.

The man in the blue dodge looked on in horror.

At a dead stop he had nothing he could do to prevent the next event after the girl was swept into the disaster. If slowed down for an observer, the man leaned forward on seeing Mr Myer’s oncoming vehicle. Mr Myer’s car slamming into his car so hard his head struck the steering wheel. Seat belt stretched forward so he could lean while watching, it was unable to do it’s job. His head struck far too hard. Perhaps it he had not leaned forward due to the anxiety he might have survived, crippled but alive. But he did not.

Mr Myer might have survived himself if his car hadn’t been so cluttered with junk, both in the back seat and the front. When they pulled his remains from the vehicle they found that a screwdriver had embedded itself in his neck. They never bothered to work out the physics of how it happened. It wasn’t worth the time since it was apparent he had been driving under the influence. To them, he had obviously caused the accident.

Mrs Myer was not surprised when they told her. She did not have a great deal of grief to deal with. She’d already let her emotions let go of the man she had married.

Donald Gellar’s wife May was distraught by the news. She did not take it well. She cried out her lamentations. She tried to bargain with the universe to bring her husband back. After the initial shock she became despondent. Her malaise went far beyond the usual gloom of bereavement and straight into complete docility. The docility of an empty soul.

Her teenage son held her hand. He tried hard to comfort and console her but she seemed to be unable to deal with anything in the world. She missed the funeral though he did not. It became a steady thing, he brought food to her bedroom, gave her sponge baths, cleaned up the messes she made because she refused to take her body to the bathroom.

It was hard on the young man. Her despair was brutal and unrelenting. After a couple months, she lost enough weight to look like her skin might soon be the surface of her bones. By the time half a year had gone by, Mr Myer’s car took its fourth victim. This time it wasn’t the violence itself causing the demise but what her family all attributed to a broken heart.

May was laid to her rest along side Don. The gathering family talked a great deal about what happened, mostly with a melancholy sorrow. Problems were discussed. Solutions to problems were proposed. Decisions were made. The boy’s uncle Samuel was made executor of the estate.

Sooner than he was ready, the young man was saying goodbyes and farewells to his cousins and grandparents. It had been decided he would go live with his Uncle Samuel and Aunt Polly for the duration. He heard the word ‘duration’ and wondered just how long it really would be before he was on his own.

Within a year when the young man came to visit the earth was covered in wild flowers. The caretaker swore up and down they trimmed the plots carefully but the flowers just kept coming back.

Their son was pleased about the flowers. He asked the caretaker to let them grow.

Two utter strangers entered the women’s college dorm. One with jet black hair but shy, the other with dark blond hair who was a little wild.

They introduced themselves and got along very well, very quickly. They would soon became an integral part of one of the more popular cliques and study groups on campus. The black haired beauty was interested in some of the guys in the group, but not enough to try to chat them up. The other young woman had been interested in her roommate at first, but quickly decided to stick to boys and girls who were not her roommate.

There was an occasional argument. The black haired girl would regularly back down before the other. She was not particularly contentious for most things. One might take her for being a bit easy to boss around until someone tried. Yet breathing fire in response was not in her set of skills. Should the bossy individual fail to take hints to stop, she would avoid them completely. She simply cut them out of her life until they apologized. This prevented a number of attempts to get her to go on dates. So many of those trying thought they were doing her a favor. The male students started referring to her as the Ice Queen.

She kept her dresser tidy, neatly placing her clothing in the drawers with a cautious careful alignment and always maintained the same pattern with the items on the top of the dresser. The brush had to be on the far right. The jewelry, which she had very little of, was aligned in order from left to right in accordance with purpose and size, earrings, necklaces, bracelets.

The dark blond girl wasn’t as short as the black haired beauty, being at least five foot seven inches tall. The dark haired girl was only about five foot two or perhaps maybe five foot one and half inches. She insisted it was five foot two and no one was going to measure. The blond though tended to take up more space in their room, by a noticeable enough amount to be considered a little pushy perhaps. Though she was a fairly normal size for a woman she still managed to spread things out. She was also reckless about where things went. She wasn’t slovenly or a slob by any measure. She just wasn’t the sort to keep things neat.

Elaine, the black haired young woman could not be considered exactly athletic but she walked a lot regularly. No one would look at her and think she needed to work out. Her frame was slight but she carried a sightly hourglass figure with pretty much ideal sizes to her hips and bust line.

The other girl, Prudence, was trying to keep her hair long. It was quite fluffy most of the time, framing her face like a heart shaped halo. She too had an hourglass figure but a little bit top heavy. Her bust line was substantive and got the attention of many of the boys who wanted to rest their heads between the pillows. The way she displayed her cleavage would make anyone wonder just how many flies she was trying to attract with that honey.

She was content to have it attract boys. But on a regular basis she was happy it attracted other girls. She dated both sexes but seemed to average out twice as many women than men she ended up going out with. Elaine was constantly stepping out to the lounge to let Prudence entertain a guest for an hour or so. After which Prudence would look all aglow and stuff. Still, she was happy to have her roommate back in the room with her.

School was not a breeze for either of them but they both were very sharp. They got good grades in classes other students struggled with.

Still. They skipped out on classes together regularly for shopping expeditions, to do day trips to the beach, or just because they wanted to hang out. The professors tried to scold them. And still again. They were among the top students those professors had. The professors constantly were trying to talk them into going into the field of study they were teaching.

Neither Prudence or Elaine had any intention of sticking around for a masters degree at the time. They both graduated in the top dozen or so of their classmates, then celebrated with a trip to Hawaii together. By then they bonded as though they were siblings.

Prudence got a job with a consulting business in the city first, getting an apartment downtown. Shortly thereafter, Elaine managed to get a position with a premium accounting firm. She found an apartment not far from Prudence’s own. They shared a few gleeful moments together over the fact they still could turn to each other.

So their friendly association continued past the end of their educations. The school was where they met but since then they collected a bunch of other young professionals they hung out with. They’d go to wine tasting, see the triple-A baseball team’s games, visit the art fairs, do pub crawls, sometimes even drive out of town to see one of the state’s renaissance fairs.

Prudence got involved with a young lady named Abigail. Abigail was bisexual too, but at the moment her interest closely narrowed down to Prudence. They were quite cute together, public displays of affection and all the sugary nicknames that goes with it.

The two were such a hot item, their entire circle of friends thought they’d be moving in together. Abigail was a little jealous of Prudence’s friendship with Elaine, but not horribly so. She realized Elaine was straight. If she and Prudence were going to hook up they would have done so in college.

They would go for a week or two before they’d be in the same place at the same time, jumping up and down at seeing each other, happy to flounce about with yarns about what they’d done since seeing each other last. Their friendship drifted as their social lives separated due to Prudence’s love life. It slipped slowly from the intensity they had in the last year at school, but continued to remain strong.

Elaine was an attractive young woman. Probably it is more accurate say beautiful when she wasn’t being withdrawn. A genuine article natural beauty with something of a tendency to keep to herself. She spent more time at home reading than going out without Prudence available to do things with. She hadn’t been the driving force of the two of them to socialize. She had always been a loner by nature.

When she told Prudence she’d met a man she was going to go on a date with, Prudence was both surprised and delighted. She wanted her friend to find someone who would love her. They spent about two hours talking about Elaine meeting the guy. Abigail just sat on the edge of the conversation grinning. For her, it was wonderful to see the Elaine find someone of her own, altering the dynamic sense she was Abigail’s competition.

Elaine came by Prudence’s apartment a couple days after the big date and told her where they went, what they ate, what was said. She seemed pretty happy to Prudence. She did not have a specific time for a second date yet.

Then. Without any clue what happened...

No one heard from Elaine.

After a month, Prudence went to see her. Elaine not only wasn’t home, the name on the buzzer at the door had been removed. When she asked the super, he told her Elaine had moved out. There was no forwarding address. Nothing. She checked at Elaine’s job and was told she’d left their employ. They told her they were not allowed to tell her anything more.

Prudence felt like she lost someone, a wave of sadness flowed over her. She reacted as though going through grief. It was a grief that only lasted so long. She had someone who held her at night and felt good to hold. Abigail was worried about the way her partner had sunk into depression but did what she could to comfort her.

After a while, it slipped her mind she hadn’t seen Elaine for a long time. It bothered her when she did think of it, but she was trying to live her life. Between paying bills and keeping up with work, the social activities she became less and less with other people. It was mostly becoming limited to her girlfriend.

But they didn’t move in together. Nights were spent alternating between apartments, and not in just one. Abigail liked her place. Prudence liked her place. They were unable to settle on either of them as a place to live together. They did talk about finding another place to live.

It became another part of the city breathing around everyone. Part of the life Prudence was living.

He had been seen.

There was a scrambling dash sound from the hallway behind him. He only realized it in time to turn around. He didn’t see anyone so he had no idea who had seen him commit his idiotic flub.

Edward avoided screwing up since high school. Until now. He certainly had not since mom passed away. Dad had been very firm about slip ups like this before his accident. Mom only lasted a year after Dad before she faded into passing away too. Mom had been so upset when Dad’s accident happened, he felt almost as if he caused it. He vowed he would keep the entire thing under tight control.

He’d hid the talent the best he could, just as his parents had tried to teach him. Especially once they were gone. Aunt Polly and Uncle Samuel checked periodically. The family rules prohibited him from using it on people without talent. It still was different from having Mom and Dad to talk to about it.

It was hard not to use. Every day there would be temptations. Today though wasn’t temptation, it was self preservation. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the continuing education seminar on home brewing. The little class was the reason he was even at the community college tonight.

Two lanky fellows in scruffy clothing tried to mug him. He was sure the taller of the two was going to stick him with a knife. He’d reached out with the talent and froze both of them. Making sure they’d gotten something from him so he could report the mugging, he turned over his wallet. Minus a couple things critical to him. Then he did some adjustments in their memories so they’d think they’d gotten away clean. As an after thought, he decided to make one of them drop their school id on the floor where this happened.

Although he overlooked it until after the two walked away under their own steam bragging to each other how they’d roughed him up, he noticed someone watching. Rolling his eyes at himself he let out a deep sigh. He couldn’t chase them down and cover this up any way he could think of just now.

So he called the campus cops. They wanted him to just walk in. When he suggested he could call the city police instead, they sent someone to him. After giving the man a thorough description of the two and saying one had called the other Jack, he kind of helped the campus cop to find the dropped id. All he had to do was state it looked as though one of them dropped something and he wasn’t going to mess up the scene so hadn’t looked himself. It turned out the two must have been doing this regularly because the campus cop was delighted to have a name to go on.

That was enough. He left for home after the interview with the campus cop lead the school to call real cops in. It seemed to him the city police should have been involved from the outset, but he was trying to be non-controversial with the school itself.

He had to treat the incident as though there was no hint anyone had seen him. He had a really bad feeling about it when he got to his apartment. It took longer than usual to fall asleep.

There had to be dreams.

The monitoring dream came. He expected it would. Mom and Dad had planted a wee little governor, a mental construct, in his head to remind him not to use the talent. Whenever he did, the little construct would pop up like a traffic cop to scold him. The construct faded over time and all he had now were occasional dreams in which he’d get a scolding for being naughty. Mom was the one popping up when he didn’t eat well enough. Dad’s avatar had another set of lectures for poor behavior.

He was strong enough to banish the little construct completely. But it was one of the few ways he could still interact with his parents. He almost treasured the thing. Probably it was time to send it to the parts of the mind only visited when he was being nostalgic but he really liked the idea it would pop in like an old friend.

This time the little thing appeared as Dad wagging his finger saying, “you know we’ve talked about this. You know better.”

After it had faded away, he still thought about the memory of Dad. He just stayed in the bed’s warmth and felt emotions flow softer now than before. He’d been a teen back then and Dad was larger than life. Dad had tried to teach him how to deal with others who could use the talent. He’d told him to avoid them if they weren’t part of the family. He tried to squeeze in some self defense lessons, but Edward had been young then.

Back then school acquaintances were not exactly friends. They were people he had to interact with in class and on the grounds of the school. As far as he knew, his parents only used the talent with each other, making sure they were a check on possible abuse of it. He remembered a soccer game he got scolded at for causing one of the opposing players to not see where the ball was. He’d been in such trouble.

Mom took him home afterwards and made him clean all the bathrooms. Every week for the next couple months.

The cousins were the closest things to friends he had and they had to go through similar training. He never experimented with the talent with any of them.

Since he really couldn’t keep secrets from his parents, until they passed away they had made sure to audit at least once a week to see if he used the ability. When he’d move to his Aunt and Uncle’s place, he thought they would do the same. Only they didn’t. They just went through a weekly reminder session and let him choose if he would admit doing anything. He had not since before Dad died. Until last night. It seemed so much to him as he was responsible for the accident because he struggled with what they taught him.

It just. It was hard. He wanted to be responsible though. Dad had been responsible. He wanted to be so himself.

It registered on him he had to go to work. He didn’t need to work, technically. It kept him busy though. Working, even as little as he did helped give him purpose. So he got up, started moving, and with increments of growing energy he got through breakfast, and a shower. Heading to the bookstore he tried to focus on keeping steady within. As usual.

Mid-afternoon a young woman about his age walked in. She wore glasses and her brownish hair was in a librarian bun. That’s how he thought of it when women rolled their hair up on top, librarian. He supposed he could think ballerina but it just didn’t work out in his head that way.

The frown she wore on her face made it hard to tell what she really looked like, so his eyes slid down her form a bit. She had on a modest floral print dress flowing down to her knees, knee length white socks and very plain looking women’s black flats. Slender as she was, there wasn’t much other than her waist curving into shapely hips amplifying her gender. She couldn’t be much taller than five foot two or three inches.

Before he could greet her, she slipped in among the shelves with the books. Thus taking herself out of sight except for the presence in the overhead mirrors. He thought nothing of it, sitting on the stool at the front desk, reading a book about the bootlegger era criminals.

A few minutes later he was aware the woman had come up beside him.

“Are we the only ones in the store?,” she said. She seemed a little nervous but he wasn’t sure.

“Looks like it, what are you looking for, maybe I can help.” He closed his book, setting it aside. He assumed she was trying to find something and needed help.

“I saw you last night.” What did that mean, she saw him last night? She was a little twitchy.

“You did? I was at one of the continuing ed classes at the community college. Were you in the class?”

“Not really,” she half-way smiled, which lit up her face nicely. He could see her black rimmed glasses did not exactly highlight her eyes. The thinness of the glass indicated at most a very weak prescription. There was little if any distortion in looking at her gray eyes. There was a twinkle of intelligence in there, yet she seemed to be on edge. “I was in one of the study rooms. I came out and saw the two guys who tried to rob you.”

“Really?,” he tried to imagine what to do about this, “how did you find me?”

Her chin dropped a bit as though embarrassed to have to explain. She looked up at him through her glasses.

“I talked to Petey.”

“Who’s Petey?”

“The school security guy. He thinks I’m cute. Honestly though, he’s a bit creepy. He wants to be all super cop and all he can really do is the security guard thing.”

“I see. So he gave you my address here at work?” Where would the campus security guard get his work address was another good question.

“No. He didn’t. He told me one time he saw you working in a bookstore. He knew just that much about you. I don’t know why. But this was the only one I could think of close to campus. Other than the school store, but I didn’t think that was likely.”

“Okay Nancy Drew, you found me,” smiling he shook his head. Not exactly the most clever security guard, failing to realize the kind of thing she asked about was probably private. She seemed very sweet though. “What of it?”

“How did you stopped the muggers?”

“I didn’t. They took my wallet.”

“Yes, I saw. I mean,” she paused, this time looking over the top of the black rims of her glasses. He noticed the delicate thinness of her eyebrows. “They were going to stick you with a knife. At least, the big one was. Then they both froze in place. And you gave your wallet to one of them. The other one pulled a card out of his own wallet and dropped it. And they turned and walked, not ran, walked away. As they walked they were starting to go through your wallet. I saw you turning so I ran away. I didn’t want to be a witness. I couldn’t have dealt well with it.”

“I see. So what do you think I did?”

“It looked like you hypnotized them. Yet it sure didn’t look like you did anything to do it. So I’m guessing you sprayed them with something, or else you have some kind of mesmerizing abilities far beyond the ability of any hypnotist I’ve heard of.”

“That’s a lot of...”

“Please, please. Don’t mess with me, please. I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I just want to know. I want to see if you can help me with some issues I have had. I promise, that’s all I want.”

“Help you how? I’m not a hypnotist.”

“I kind of guessed. No one has ever been able to hypnotize me. I’ve tried. I’m hoping whatever you did might work with me though.”

“If you can’t be hypnotized,” he was puzzled, “wait a second. What do you need to be hypnotized for?”

“I need to know if you can do it. I don’t want to talk about specifically what if you can’t do it.”

“You’re going to have to. How would I know if I can do anything to help if you don’t tell me what you want?”

“I don’t know how to talk about it.”

“So. Probably I can’t do anything and you just imagined it all.”

“No. I saw what happened. Those two guys turned into zombies for a couple minutes before walking off rather as if you weren’t there anymore.”

“Seriously. You imagined it.”

“Seriously. No, I didn’t.”

He took a deep breath.

“Tell me what you want help with. I have no idea if I can.”

“I have a really bad fear.”

“What fear is that?”

She looked around and kind of stalled about saying more by fidgeting.

“Come on. It can’t be so bad you can’t mention it at all.”

She whispered, “Agoraphobia.”

“Agoraphobia? Isn’t just simply like, the fear of open spaces? It doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

“Not for me. For me it’s far more serious,” she muttered softly, “Sometimes I can’t leave the apartment. Even a hallway, like where I saw you can be too much.”

“Yet you were in the hallway last night. So no one can help you?”

“I take two anti-depressant drugs and a panic reduction drug to get out normally. I had to take an extra of the little pink panic pills before I could walk in this store,” she opened her purse and pointed out three amber hued medicine bottles, “At this instant I think I’m high as a kite. I don’t know how else I’d be able to talk to a total stranger right now.”

“I see.”

Her face scrunched up as though in pain. Struggling to find better persuasive words it seemed. She looked like someone who might actually be desperate.

“Please. I’m begging. I need help. So I can do normal things like a normal person.”

“I don’t know what you think you saw. I’m not sure I can help.”

“I just want you to try what you did with them. I’m willing to try almost anything.”

Edward held up a finger. The pleading was hitting his soft spots. Holding himself still a moment, he thought about it.

Inwardly he sighed. What could it really hurt to talk to her? He stood up, and went to the front door. He looked around the store then locked the door and put the ‘back in ten minutes’ sign up.

“Come on. You might feel better talking if we talk about this somewhere we are less likely be seen.”

She turned, the floral print spinning rather oddly, as though in slow motion to him. She stepped aside and let him go first.

He led her past shelves of dust covered books to the back office where stacks of books to be sorted were on trolleys and notes, some yellow from age, were piled up on the desk. The room had a single window high up on one side wall covered with a faded set of curtains, the door in, an old bunny ear antennae TV, and a threadbare area rug. Motioning her to the single plush chair in there, he sat down at the desk.

The room had the aroma of old dust.

Despite all indications of age and lack of use, she found the chair comfortable. The rolling desk chair he sat in seemed to be the one current piece of furniture in the room. Clearly the room was not entirely abandoned. He straightened a couple more modern looking books on the desk to one side while meshing his fingers together before looking at her again.

“Okay, if you are so heavily medicated, already I note, why should I try to help.”

“I don’t know. I only hope you can and will.”

“You don’t really even know what happened last night.”

“You stopped them. With something like hypnosis. You didn’t hit them. You didn’t talk to them. You just must have done something to stop them,” she said urgently as though trying to give an extra ounce of that sincerity he might think she lacked, “You could have just walked away without giving them your wallet. You’re decent enough you didn’t want them to get away with it, did you? You didn’t want anyone to know. You seemed to work out a way to have them caught later. I’m sure that’s why one of them dropped a note there. Maybe you have something experimental. You’re right I don’t know. But something happened. I’m willing to be a test subject.”

Edward lowered his head to the desk and drew a breath. She sat patiently while he was giving it thought. He sat up again and shook his head.

“I shouldn’t. I’m going to get visited by my parents again,” he muttered in barely intelligible tones.

She wrinkled her nose.

“What does this have to do with your parents?”

“It’s not simple,” he wanted to explain this would cost him in some way. But he realized she knew it wasn’t just a simple case of giving in to the thread of being stabbed. “They’re both gone and have been since I was about fifteen. It’s a family thing, what you saw me do. I’m not supposed to. I’m not supposed to do it at all.”

“What is it really? And why shouldn’t you use it?”

“I just shouldn’t use it. If people know I can do this, someone will come after me. They’ll also go after members of my family. The last time people caught on, there were lynchings, bonfires with people in them, other things. Most normal people think it’s witchcraft.”

“Is it witchcraft?” She seemed willing to accept anything it could be.

“No. It’s a genetic trait. As I understand it’s passed on usually from one of the parents.”

“If it only has to be? wait, what is it, really?”

“Some sort of mental power. My parents both had it. They were adamant I should be very careful. I was told to use it only for interaction with others who have the ability. People I know who have it.”

“Had it? They don’t have it now? Or they’re coming to visit you to tell you you were a bad boy? That seems silly.”

“No. They’ve been dead since I was around fifteen.”

“Oh,” he could see her pull in on herself as though to make herself smaller than she already was. She was a bit unsettled, feeling she’d been a little callous. That there was no way for her to know. Not knowing didn’t seem to matter for saying the wrong thing. “So...”

“Doing it triggers a little reminder artifact in my mind. I am old enough to get rid of the mental cop. But it lets me still see their faces and hear their voices.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She wanted to shrink a bit more. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m over them passing away. Honest. I just keep it around for that.”

“So your parents put little constructs in your head to remind you to behave? Does that mean you could do something similar for me, only that like, you know, shuts down the fear?”

“Possibly. I probably shouldn’t. It would be controlling your mind, altering who and what you are. I had it pounded into me people shouldn’t be manipulated mentally. It’s viewed mostly as a kind of mental rape. I can see that,” he motioned dismissively with his right hand, “I only used it last night reflexively to avoid being stabbed. Once used, I had to cover it somehow. I didn’t make them stop being the people they are, they’re still muggers. They still make their own choices. I just made it seem like they had gotten away with it.”

“And yet I saw. You could just make me forget I saw it?”

“Yes. I could. I easily could make you forget you saw it. Make you leave me alone. Protecting life is supposed to be acceptable as long as no one is permanently harmed. But this. I can’t just make you forget without doing the very thing I’m trying not to do. Trying to fix your problem is also messing around the way I should avoid.”

“Kind of like a Prime Directive thing? A rule you try to consider absolute but it if you justify it properly you can break?”

“uh.” He looked at her. He supposed he should have guessed she’d be into science fiction the way she dressed. “You do realize I’m not in a position to turn to any good higher authority, right? I’d only be able to find someone to consult on it. They might even have been taught a far strict version.”

“Look at it this way. If I’m consenting, it isn’t rape, right?”

“We’re not talking about sex here. Rape is an act of violence. This might even be worse.”

“I wasn’t speaking of sex but the same logic applies, doesn’t it?”

“This isn’t a TV show. I don’t usually go near too many people. It’s a habit my parents kind of got me into. You do realize we haven’t even exchanged names yet, right?”

“I was just thinking that. My name is Lexi. Lexi Carmichaels.”

“I’m Edward Gellar. Nice to meet you Lexi. You really are stubborn.”

“Okay, now we’ve settled that; about my little problem. I can’t even go on dates or anything. How would I dare, if someone found out I was constantly popping anti-anxiety pills?”

“Could be a problem, true.”

“Well? Are you going to help me?”

“I’m thinking about it. It’s not a simple thing to me, you have to get that.”

“Yes. I do. You could just make me forget you afterwards too, you know.”

“You don’t know what that means.”

“Yes I kind of do. I kind of do.”

“In a way, you’re a little crazy, ya know?”

“D’oh.” She looked at him firmly. “Obviously.”

“All right. All right. Settle back.”

“Is this good enough?” She tried to take up a position comfortable enough so if she passed out she wouldn’t fall out of the chair.

“You’re not going to sleep. I just want you at ease. Oh yeah, and can you explicitly ask me to change you to deal with the Agoraphobia?”

“A say it twice thing? Okay. I’m asking you formally, with consent and knowing just what a risk it is to go ahead in altering my mind so I no longer am afraid of open spaces or leaving my home,” she grinned, “and for the record because it affects me, I understand you are worried. Honestly, I am consenting to this even if you feel a need to make me forget.”

“To make you forget? I’d still be controlling you. Let’s do one thing at a time. Shall we?”

“Okay. I do consent for you to help me lose the Agoraphobia. It is really a problem.”

Just as he had with the two muggers, he reached out mentally to run a touch over the edges of her mind. Soon he worked through a few surface thoughts, not meaning to read really, but finding for some reason his talent made him intensely exciting to her. He almost stopped to explore the notion but felt he was already intruding.

Trying to avoid the conscious part of what she had on her mind about him, he started to follow pathways towards the part of the brain fear starts in. He knew from trying to study the mind to figure out how the power worked he was slipping into her amygdala. Not having poked around in someone else’s thoughts so deeply before, he was not entirely sure what he to look for in here. Of course, while he knew the approximate place physically he was probing, what he saw or felt was not the physical location so much as a series of images, colors, and a lot of smells.

He found himself facing the image of a young girl in her teens. The image clearly wasn’t interacting with him or aware of him.

He tried to study the presence carefully. The young girl here was clearly not Lexi. She couldn’t even be a self image. She was connected strongly though. She seemed to be going through the motions of opening doors, climbing steps, at one point she started moving back and forth as if she was on a swing. If this was the fear center, what was she doing here? Why here instead of simply being in Lexi’s memories? Was Lexi afraid of this girl? He felt or sensed rather than hearing her name, Jenny. Jenny? what? Jenny...Carmichaels. A sister?

He sought out her eyes in the physical world and could see a similarity. Yes, probably a sister. What was this really about, he wondered.

Memories are spread all over inside the brain, he knew, so if he was to find out what happened, he’d have to open wider and look for other things about her. He started to pull at various parts to draw on memories. It was necessary to sweep through a fairly extensive part of her mind to find the pieces behind Jenny. Except for this thing in the fear center, they were pretty well submerged.

It seemed Jenny was an older sister who used to be the person who took her out of the house to do things. Ah. There it was. A day at the park. A gentle weather day with the aroma of cinnamon. The two of them had been at the regular playground. For some reason the park seemed familiar to him. Jenny was leading her towards the sidewalk to go home. They spotted an ice cream vendor across the street. Edward reeled mentally as he saw and felt the speeding car strike Jenny. Then the sequence restarted back where he had first met Jenny, in the fear center.

As gently as he could, he excised the memories from the fear origin of her brain, moving them to places the memory wouldn’t be so harmful. It would still be painful but at least it couldn’t trigger as easily or, he hoped, as severely. With care he put Jenny’s demise in a place she could be mourned without being destructive. Once he was satisfied Jenny was no longer in the fear center, he went back to look around.

None of the other fears appeared to have the staying presence of Jenny’s death. Lexi’s thoughts were more focused on other things, so fears were little flashes which came and went as quickly as they popped up. Little things like heights which apparently got her heart racing a bit but clearly she could deal with.

He drew back and looked to see if he’d left any marks or scars somehow. Not that he knew how to be sure, but he checked to see if she felt altered. She both did and didn’t. He felt it because he knew exactly what he’d done. He wasn’t at all sure anyone else would.

“Okay.”

“Okay? You’re done? Already? I only just told you I consented.” He smiled, he knew there was time involved for him, that’s how his mind worked when he did these things, but there would be hardly any time involved for her, if any.

“Yes,” He reached out and touched her hand. “You should be able to remember Jenny now without being scared and afraid.”

She gasped. “Jenny? This was about Jenny? I couldn’t go outside because...” A tear formed in her eye, starting to roll down her cheek.

“Because you associated outside and leaving home with doing things with Jenny, and because of your memory of that one particular day.”

She drew a gasping breath as she started to respond to the memory. Her eyes popped open wide as she found the memory complete, as if it had happened recently. It was clear she was experiencing it from a new emotional place.

Both her eyes were pooled up and letting the tears roll down over her light make-up. He hadn’t expected a sudden response to the memory. She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress. The smear it produced wasn’t too rough on her looks. Her heaving as she tried to breath through the impact of her sudden wash of memory was building up a lot stronger.

In a few moments, she was sobbing. It was as though she’d never mourned her sister at all. She was pretty upset.

He got up, walked around to where she was. Drawing her to her feet, he sat down, pulled her into his lap to comfort her. Consoling someone, he felt required to touch and hold. She didn’t even seem to care who he was and butted her head against his arm as he held her. She kept gasping in deep breaths but it did not seem to slow the sobbing.

“Probably, the reason you couldn’t be hypnotized was a fear they’d take her away from you for good. She’s still there,” he tried to point out gently, “You can still remember everything about her. Think of the odor of cinnamon. If I have to, I’ll get some for you and it will help those memories come out so you can look at them.”

She was wracked in her unexpected grief. She tried to nod, but she just kept holding him tight and cried into his shirt. He was certain it would be soaked with tears and marked with her makeup. But that hardly felt important. This kind of thing was probably another good reason not to poke around into other people’s heads. He felt awful he’d effectively forced her to remember her sister but he thought this was far better than the way fear was controlling her with the memory.

He rocked her in his arms.

Calming down about twenty minutes later, she still clung to him. He noticed the flowing waters thing had ceased. She looked pink in the cheeks and flush down her neck. She wasn’t frowning but she wasn’t smiling yet either.

“If you’re doing better, I can get up and go back to my own chair.”

“I’m doing better. You’re snugly and I was rather liking that.”

“Oh.” What does one say to that, he wondered.

“You also are good at being in charge I think.”

“Ah? What does that mean?”

“It means I?” she looked up at his eyes, “I’m not sure what that means.”

He struggled to his feet with her still in his arms. She let slip a small smile, “Strong too.”

As gently as he could manage under the circumstances he put her back in place in the chair. He knit his fingers together in front of himself once he had seated himself back at the desk.

“Normally I charge millions for this kind of psychiatric treatment,” he said wryly.

She managed another little smile.

“I remembered she died, just not how. I never really once realized I connected her with all the places I couldn’t go without being so afraid.”

“Now you can mourn her properly though. I have an odd feeling that’s what the tears were all about. Not a surprise if you think about it. Mourning her. I could feel the pain. I am so sorry to bring out such pain for you.”

“I asked for help. You gave it. It’s all good.”

“Oh?”

“I already feel a difference. The gripping fear is gone. It may take some time to get used to not being so filled with anxiety but it’s good. Probably good for the heart too. I may still be a little high though. Drugs, you know.”

“I should re-open the store. If you want, you can sit in here for a while until you’re composed enough to go out.”

“That’s very kind of you. I will, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem. It’ll be hard to leave without seeing me, so see you shortly.”

He left her in the office to adjust herself and put her glasses back on. Now though he had a good idea what it felt like to hold her and those curves were so comfortable to press against.

Snuggly? Huh.

She’d fallen asleep, he found. Wondering around closing time why she hadn’t come out, he went to the office and found her curled in the chair breathing in the steady somnolent way indicating she simply dozed off. She clearly cleaned herself up but never made it to leaving the room.

Rather than wake her, he locked up and brought his book to the office, put his feet up on the desk and continued reading. It wasn’t as if he had anything to do and she clearly needed recovery sleep.

Her glasses had fallen off again and he had a better look at her face than before. She had a slightly roundish face with a gentle softness that gave her slightly puffy lips a frame making them look very delectable. For someone he didn’t know until today, she was oddly comfortable around him. Then again, until he’d altered her fear trigger, she probably couldn’t knowingly sleep before anywhere but at home.

Her eyes eventually fluttered open. Seeing him nearby she smiled, though her face looked flushed and pink.

“Hi there,” she whispered.

“Welcome back from the land of nod.”

“Sorry about that. I thought I’d just close my eyes a minute and conked out.”

“It’s not a problem. I’ve closed up. I was waiting to see you out but couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.”

“You shouldn’t have stayed on my account. You ought to have woken me up,” she said.

“What? And lose a pretty girl decorating the office? It was better to let you sleep.”

He couldn’t tell if she blushed again or not, but she gathered herself up and looked around.

“See me out then?”

“Sure. I’m going to be locking up so let me get my stuff.” He found his backpack and shoved the book he’d been reading into it. After picking up the keys he led her to the front door.

They stood outside the door. He did the locking the door thing and she remained standing there.

“What, you’re not gone already?”

“I wanted to say thank you again,” she leaned up, gripping his arm to pull him down just a bit to where she could kiss his cheek. “You’re my hero.”

He didn’t know what he could say to that. He just looked down at her and said, “thank you.”

She wandered away on the sidewalk but as he watched, she kept looking over her shoulder back at him, smiling it seemed. When she turned the corner, he snapped out of his reverie and turned to go home himself.

He wondered if he’d ever see her again.