The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Hello there. My name is Ann Jackman, and I have been asked by Auntie to put together this little tale for you. I say “put together,” because, save for these few opening lines (plus one or two at the end), you will hear no more from me in our saga (at least, directly). Others, at Auntie’s behest, have done the writing; and I will act in the role of editor. I’ve never been an editor. I rather like the idea. It has a literary flare, does it not? Editor. Yes, I like it immensely.

(By the way … a word about those lines at the end: I REALLY like chapters that leave the reader hanging … and since I AM the editor, that might just happen. If this thing is posted in segments, and you come to what you’re worried might be the end, remember: it ain’t over until this skinny bitch has sung! Know what I mean? In other words, you might have to “tune in again next week.”)

This is (as Douglas Adams would put it) part four in a trilogy, which a few of you may have found in the more esoteric corners of the internet, entitled: THE ADDICTED NATURAL. The first part of that particular chronicle introduced Fred and Brenda Fielding (Brenda being the real heroine in the entire series … as she is in this segment, as well). The second part of the story tells of the lovely Dee, who was so confused in her former life, she did not realize, at first, that her only road to true happiness was through complete physical and emotional surrender to someone she loved. And in the third piece of the tale, you met little Willie, who I had the pleasure of raising as if she was my own daughter here on Auntie’s Island … until she was so savagely taken away from us. If you have not read this series, I’m afraid I must insist that you peruse it as an advanced reading assignment. I hope you do not find it overly dull. I loved it … but then, I’m a randy old broad who truly knows how to appreciate a dirty book.

The four people I just mentioned comprise the major part of our staff of writers. It will be MY mission to choose which rendition of a certain event is most clearly presented, depending on whose perspective was most accurate and which parts of their written narratives are germane to our plot.

However, before I turn the stage over to them, please allow me to briefly outline the purpose of presenting the experiences chronicled herein. This will be about destiny … whether it exists; why we most often choose not to believe in it; and what we can (or should) do about it if we do. It is about the extent to which a woman will go to surrender herself, her body and her soul. And, it is about change … for we all change. Oh my, how we can change! And virtually everyone in our tale does. Dramatically.

Our story has a tinge of mystery. For Auntie’s Island harbors a deep, deep mystery of its own. It always has. Always. I know what it is, of course; and, as is the case in all good mystery novels, I will present certain clues to the reader as we progress. Some of you will figure it out before our tale is done. Others will be so disbelieving about the whole thing, that the nature of the mystery will be lost on them entirely. But belief is something that you either choose or not.

And lastly (unlike Douglas Adams), there will be no part five in our trilogy. This will be the end.

Live with it.

DEE:

Willie was like a bouncy little girl, and once again, I had to question whether we had been correct in our assumption of her true age. She couldn’t sit still, and once or twice since our plane had landed, as we were waiting for the taxi, waiting for the ferry, she stood and bounced up and down, hopping like a little girl, clapping her hands, squealing in girlish laughter. Unable to contain her pent up energy, she once again launched herself upward into Fred’s arms, clutching at his neck, holding him, kissing him.

Brenda looked tired, but stoic and happy for her young lover. Our young lover. She had taken a turn with little Lizzy, taking the baby into the ferryboat’s dingy lady’s room to change her, rocking her tiny three-month-old body in her arms until she slept a little. But now she was fussy again, and Brenda plopped down on the long outdoor bench and handed her daughter … my daughter … our daughter to me, and took a moment to look around at the scenery that was so exciting Willie.

Barbados was hot, humid and breathtakingly beautiful. I couldn’t tell if the water was especially shallow or especially clear, or both, but the bottom always seemed to be visible. The fish that swam around us were like the fish you buy for an aquarium, bright and colorful. Seagulls flocked around the stern of the small passenger ferry, squawking and screeching, swooping and diving. The air was clean and wonderful. A large man wearing some sort of seaman’s uniform sat heavily on the bench facing us, leering openly at us. His eyes swept up and down Brenda’s body, shifted to my breasts, back to her again.

Willie flung herself onto the bench between us, kissing Brenda on the cheek with more than chaste affection. “We’re almost THERE!” she squealed. “I can see Daddy Jonathan’s boat ahead in the marina!” She kissed her again. Lizzy started crying.

The man’s eyes were all over us. He practically started drooling at the sight of Willie, and to my awe, he rocked himself onto one ass-cheek, stuck his hand down the front of his trousers, and adjusted his obvious erection before he put his arm back to his side and relaxed. His gaze settled once again on my breasts.

“I think you should feed the baby, Dee,” Brenda said calmly.

I glanced nervously at her. She was staring at the man across from us.

“Um … okay. I’ll take her into the washroom,” I replied nervously.

“No, here,” she said, never taking her eyes off the man.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Finally, it struck me that she intended to humiliate me in front of this awful sailor. “Oh, Brenda,” I pleaded. “Please let me ….”

Her lips drew up in a sinister smile. Willie, finally realizing that something was happening, looked questioningly between the two of us, at the man across from us, then back at me. “Go ahead, Dee,” Brenda said gently. “Do as I tell you.”

I felt myself blush crimson. I reached up with one hand and undid the bow holding the harness straps of my sundress, pulled one side down, fully baring my right breast, and drew the crying Lizzy to my nipple. She immediately sucked it into her voracious mouth, reached up with her tiny little hand, grasping the side of my large breast and hugging it, as her cries subsided into pleased little rhythmic grunts while she fed. I looked up at the awful sailor. He was staring, goggle-eyed at the scene in front of him. I suddenly realized that I was breathing too deeply. My embarrassment was having a familiar but unwelcome effect on me, along with Lizzy’s greedy little sucking mouth on my tit. I shifted in my seat, hoping desperately that the moisture I felt between my legs wouldn’t leave a spot on my dress. No one spoke for the longest time.

“Willie, go get Freddy and ask him to bring us the stroller, please. We’re almost there,” Brenda ordered softly.

Willie seemed to become cognizant of her surroundings again with a start. But before she moved to obey, she turned to me, a hand on my bare arm. “Are you okay, Dee?” she asked, concerned.

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I said huskily, looking at her, thankful for her concern.

She cast another glance at the leering man, then leaned upward toward me, and before I realized her intent, she was kissing me fully on the lips. Then she was up and moving toward Fred. She was skipping. Like a little girl.

Fred came back from the front railing pushing the stroller, his brow wrinkling when he saw what I was doing in so public a place. But he took in the scene and nodded, his eyes settling on Brenda for a long moment.

“I don’t think we’ll need the stroller for now, Freddy,” she told him flatly. “If you can take it and the other things, we’ll follow along with Lizzy.”

“Sure,” he answered. He nodded a sort of friendly/serious greeting to the man across from us, then picked up the diaper bag and his large backpack, and started walking toward the gangway, which had just been lowered. Lizzy was finally asleep, and as I rose, Brenda turned me so that she could tie the straps of my dress again.

The leering man stood, too. “I’m gobsmacked!” the man said in a deep cockney accent. “This is jus’ unfair, this is! One bloke and three gorgeous ladies! Ain’t fair!”

“You’re absolutely right,” Brenda told him emphatically. “It ISN’T fair! We’ve all BEGGED him to get another girl so we could get some rest, but he won’t listen!”

Willie threw back her head and laughed merrily, slipped her hand through my free elbow, and arm-in-arm-in-arm, we flounced off the boat, leaving the leering sailor in our wake.

BRENDA:

Willie ran up to the strong, dark man in the large boat shrieking “Daddy John! Daddy John!” and launched her lithe young body into his arms, burying her face into the side of his neck as he lifted her off her feet and twirled her.

He favored each of us with a quotation as Willie introduced us. For Dee:

For me:

And lastly, Freddy:

Freddy laughed, shook his hand and said: “This is not Venice, sir, and I am no Merchant,” and Jonathan was clearly pleased that someone had correctly placed his chosen quotation.

“Daddy, stop!” Willie cried, laughing, and then turned to us. “He never says anything of his own if he thinks the stupid ‘Bard’ said it better!”

“She speaks poignards, and every word stabs!” he declared dramatically.

We settled in for the long, two hour boat ride across the calm, sparkling sea south of Barbados to the place Willie had continuously been calling “Auntie’s Island.” (It was with amazement that Dee had finally found the small speck on an online maritime chart and discovered that was the actual name of the place.) The baby was asleep in her stroller, securely buckled in and surrounded by life preservers, which had been tied to it in case of emergency. Willie and Freddy were up front with Jonathan, pointing, gesticulating, laughing. Dee lounged in a deckchair beside Lizzy’s stroller. I sat in the rear … the stern … in a plastic chair, and I put my feet up in the seat and wrapped my arms around my knees, thinking.

Something was not right.

Perhaps it was my own mood, which had been swinging rather dramatically of late. Maybe it was just runaway hormones. I’d been off the pill now for three … no, going on four months, but of course I still wasn’t pregnant. It was much too early to start thinking dark thoughts, but a girl thinks them anyway, I guess. Maybe my grumbling nerves were a reaction to something Freddy wasn’t providing … and I don’t mean sex … although, it had been a few days since THAT had happened, too. He hadn’t hypnotized me. That could be my problem. It often was. I needed that. I craved it.

Willie’s giggling laughter made me look up at her. SHE could be the problem. She WAS a problem, of sorts, though it’s very, very hard to describe, and I could NEVER tell HER about it. I’ll try to write it down here. Maybe I can make you understand. You see, there’s something that makes me different from other girls. If someone needs something, I find that I HAVE to help them. And it isn’t the case with just anybody … because, let’s face it, everybody needs SOMETHING! But, that’s how I met Willie. She needed me, and so I helped her. But when her problem was finally rectified, she still needed me … there was still some problem that needed solving … still some need that was left unfulfilled. Sometimes, I can be with a person, talk with a person, hold a person, and it’s as if that person’s problem … that person’s need … just melts away. When that happens, it always seems to leave me feeling kind of drained … but happy, too. It gives me a feeling of satisfaction; sort of a “job well done” kind of feeling.

But I’d done that with Willie time and again over the past six or seven months. And now, she LOOKED happy. She SEEMED contented. And no one could see it except me. No one noticed except me. Willie still had a need … buried deep down inside. There was still something she had to do … no, something I had to do … to fulfill that need of hers. Like I said, if I had tried to explain it to her, she would have denied it. Not even SHE knew it was there. But I did. She had a need. And I needed to help her.

Oh, I wished Freddy would hypnotize me.

I thought back over the past few months. I don’t know why I got online and searched for Willie’s “Auntie” that day. And it had been sheer luck that I had stumbled across the right webpage. Willie had been absolutely certain that her Auntie was dead, absolutely positive that she had watched her die. We had simply taken it for granted. But, there she was, not only alive, but open for business again, helping children who had “psychic gifts” refine and accept their way of life. I had told Freddy first, of course, and asked his permission to break the news to Willie. She had been so surprised, when we told her, that she’d fainted dead away. And there were tears of joy. And there was this trip planned by the whole “family,” though it was not so urgent that we couldn’t wait until Lizzy was three months old to make the trip with us. Willie had talked to Auntie at least once a week while the plans were being made.

Why hadn’t “Auntie” flown up to Illinois to visit? Why hadn’t she come with Jonathan to Barbados to meet us? Was she still hampered by her wounds? It might have helped my peace of mind it I knew what she looked like. We’d never even seen a picture. Willie thought she was beautiful, but then, every child is raised to think that her mother (or lacking a mother, her aunt) is beautiful.

Was she really a succubus? Should I be worried about Freddy? Should I be worried about myself?

No, I was worried about Willie. She needed something.

I decided to think about something else for awhile. The incident with the staring sailor on the ferry still bothered me. Not because he had stared … all guys stare. Rather, it was my telling Dee to bare herself in front of the guy. Dee thrilled at the very concept of humiliation. She thrived on it. She NEEDED it. And so, of course, I needed to help her fulfill her need. It’s just what I do. But nobody ever thinks about MY needs!

Oooh, that sounded so selfish! I took a deep breath. Willie called me empathic. Maybe she was right … not that monikers really matter. Perhaps I felt the desire for subjugation and humiliation so strongly because Dee felt it so strongly. Perhaps this was just some sort of emotional transference on my part. I thought back again to that day three weeks ago. It had been nothing more than a silly game for everyone else … and it SHOULD have been nothing more than a silly game to me, too. But oh! I shivered, despite the hot Caribbean sun. Oh, it had been one of the most exciting days of my whole life!

It was the day Freddy “turned the bunch of bananas over,” as he put it. I had complained to him, on one of my moodier days, that I wished I didn’t always have to be “top banana” in his little harem. That, and the concept of “Naked Dee Day,” which we celebrated from time to time (like I said, just a silly game), gave him the idea to make ME the player in our periodic charade. He had circled the day on the calendar, just to tease me; but neither he nor anyone else had the slightest idea how dramatically the whole concept affected me. I found myself standing in front of that damned calendar … just staring at that red circle around the number 23 with “NBD” in red ink next to it (for: Naked Brenda Day) … letting my imagination run rampant … letting unbidden images fill my head … feeling the moisture between my legs. The night before, it was my turn to go to bed with Freddy, and I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it. My tossing and turning woke him up, and he flipped on the bedside lamp. With a flourish, he produced the pocket watch from his bed stand. So much for a sleepless night.

The next thing I knew, it was morning, and that spectacular day had begun. The girls woke me up with that set of handcuffs that had the long chain in the middle, so that, even fastened behind my back, my arms could hang down by my sides, and then they guided me into the shower stall and crowded in with me; not letting me do anything at all; washing me, stroking me, cleaning me, petting me, touching me, giggling as my orgasm grew steadily, holding me when my knees would no longer support me, as my body shivered, as my body exploded and shook, as I screamed out my helpless, bondage-induced passion.

After the shower, they made me sit on a stool in front of the mirror as they did my hair and fussed over a scant bit of makeup. Dee uncuffed my hands, dressed me in only a short apron, and made me cook breakfast. I’m not a very good cook, but she stood beside me, very close to me, with one hand caressing my back and butt, while she pointed with her other hand, directing me to stir this, flip that, peel and chop and dice and slice, boil and bake and fry and brew. Then Willie was there with the handcuffs again, and they made me kneel at Freddie’s feet while he ate and talked to the others, pretending I wasn’t even there, except when he thought to offer me a bite of his food, which, if I do say so myself, was pretty good.

Freddy had a meeting with his agent about the book he was writing, leaving me with the dishes, which isn’t an easy task when you’re wearing handcuffs. The girls took me for a stroll, down to the lake’s edge, walking slowly, leisurely, Willie with little Lizzy in a cloth wrap-sling, while Dee produced a dog collar from somewhere. I wore that, and nothing else except the short handcuffs which locked my wrists behind my back, and Dee led me by a leash attached to the collar. Maxine, our little dog, raced around me excitedly and thought it was great fun. But when a boat with two fishermen came within view, I shivered with embarrassment while the girls pretended there was nothing at all to be concerned about. They made me sit in the grass by the water’s edge while Dee nursed the baby and Willie practiced her reading skills out loud with a Nancy Drew book. The boat with the two guys kept motoring back and forth within sight … little doubt why.

A couple hours later, Dee went to the store and came back with one of those rubber “hot water bottle” things with a long rubber hose attachment for “feminine hygiene purposes.” But this, they informed me, would be used for the purpose of an enema. They delighted in telling me that Freddy was going to take me anally this evening, and I must be especially clean and ready for him. (To tell the truth, this disappointed me somewhat. I knew it was the time of month that I would be ovulating, and the thought of me becoming pregnant on this … my special day … would have been appealing indeed.) The bag held an awful lot of water. They made me kneel on the cold bathroom tile, my head on a small pillow, my butt raised high in preparation. They did everything methodically, purposefully, with excruciating slowness. I’d never thought of doing this to Dee on her “naked days,” but I wasn’t surprised that she would think of something new and exotic for ME. She’s so intelligent and thoughtful and in-tune with my feelings. Willie had never even heard of an enema, and watched the process with a modicum of awe.

With meek acceptance, I had simply let it happen, let the new feelings invade me, fill me, tantalize me with sweet humiliation and degradation, until the urgency overcame me and made me beg and plead. I felt awful and dirty and gross and excited and wonderful while it happened to me. And then … they made me do it all again. But by now, I was docile and compliant and oh, so turned on, by my feelings of absolute surrender. After that second time, though it took me many minutes to expel it all, I offered no resistance as they knelt me down yet again. But this time, I soon discovered, their intention was to gently, slowly, insistently work a butt plug up my ass. It seemed to take forever, though it was slippery with lubricant, and while I did not cry out or beg, I couldn’t help but whimper as they pushed and pushed and pushed it into me, until, with a sort of accelerated “pop,” it seated itself deep into my colon, my rectum keeping the giant rubber device in place, my bowels full.

Bath time. They soaked me in the hot, fragrant tub, soaping me, petting me, enticing me, making me want them so much that I finally defied their rule of silence and begged, but that only brought giggling laughter from them. They dried me and powdered me and perfumed me and worked again with my hair and makeup. We heard Freddy get home, and Dee left to prepare dinner, after giving Willie instructions for the remainder of my preparations, which included nipple clamps and the dog collar and chain again, handcuffs, and finally a blindfold. I could hardly walk with that butt plug so deep inside me, but I stumbled blindly in the direction of the tugging chain, being brought at last into the presence of our Master, feeling Willie’s hands pose me, standing straight and naked and proud before him.

I heard Freddy’s voice praise the other two profusely on my appearance, and he touched me often, petting me, stroking me, pinching me, but not one of his comments was directed to me specifically; for this evening, I was an object, a piece of art, sculpted by the hands of others. I was made to kneel yet again, and I listened to the sounds of a normal evening; pots and pans, dishes being placed on the table, Freddy playing with the baby, and I thought “my pussy is leaking down my thighs … it’s going to make a puddle.”

The food, as always, was delicious, but I had no appetite, the butt plug filling me uncomfortably. Freddy seemed to sense this, for he fed me very little, his commands to open my mouth for a bite were his only words to me throughout the meal, though I seemed to be the main topic of conversation. How could they talk about an enema at dinner??? But the topic was greeted with laughter by everyone, and I blushed hotly and couldn’t help but smile myself.

I remained in my place while the dishes were done and the baby was nursed and put to bed. At last, Willie came for me, finally removed the blindfold, took my leash without a comment, and led me into the master bedroom, where Dee was undressing our Master. She left me standing, facing them, and then joined them. Freddy leaned against the footboard of the huge bed and stared at me wordlessly, while Willie and Dee slowly stripped him, stripped themselves, petted him, kissed him, loved him, as he and I simply stared longingly at each other. After a very long while, Dee came for me, undid the collar around my neck, put her lips to my ear and whispered: “He needs you. Suck him.”And all I could think was: He needs me.

I fell to my knees, fumbled around his cock with my lips, finally sucking the huge thing into my greedy mouth, and did the best I could without my hands. Fingers caressed my body, lovingly, tantalizingly, maddeningly, and without warning, my own hands were suddenly free. I grasped my husband’s cock immediately, stroking him the way I knew he liked, while also pulling him deeper into my mouth and throat.

But they pulled me free of him, and I, unable to keep a wail of disappointment from my lips as they parted from his throbbing member, found myself being lifted up and up by all three of them working together, and they plopped me down in the middle of the bed on my hands and knees. Willie jumped up alongside me, pushing my head down to the mattress, while Dee’s soft hands pulled my hips upward, so that my ass was presented to Freddy in all its blushing glory. He began tugging at the butt plug, tugging, tugging, harder and harder, and I moaned loudly, burying my face into the bedcovers. But Willie lifted my face upward again. To my surprise, she had spread her legs, flat on the bed, straddling my face, her pussy inching closer and closer to my nose, and she put her lips next to my face and said: “Please, Brenda … I need you. Please ….” And I thought: She needs me. And I began licking and sucking her sweet cunt while Freddy pulled and pulled, and I moaned.

The butt plug jerked free with such force that I rocked forward into Willie’s slippery pussy with my nose and lips, and I yelled my surprise directly into her. The vibrations seemed to shock her, and she threw back her head and yelled with me. The plug was suddenly shoved back into me, and I yelled yet again, rising to my elbows, grasping Willie’s lower lips with the fingers of each hand, spreading them for greater access, and she flopped backwards onto her back, thrashing in ecstasy, while the plug began moving in a most animated manner. It slowly dawned on me that this was no butt plug at all … it was Freddy’s cock pounding into me, filling me even more than the plug had done. Dee began tweaking my nipples. Freddy was breathing hard.

And Willie was cumming. There’s little doubt when that particular event takes place. Willie squirts. My mouth and nose and face were suddenly dripping with her tasty juices, and she held my head in place as I licked and licked, and she screamed and screamed her passion toward the ceiling. And Freddy kept pounding. And suddenly, Willie was gone, my fingers groping for her, my tongue missing the taste of her, the slippery soft feeling of her moist, tender flesh. But my eyes were closed as Freddy pounded. Pounded. And suddenly, Willie was back, her legs beside my head again, but her thighs were slightly plumper and her pussy smelled of talcum mixed with female desire. And I suddenly realized that they had switched places, and that this was Dee; and she bent forward and whispered loudly, so as to be heard above the moans and grunts: “I need you, Brenda. Please.” And I thought: She needs me.

I licked and sucked for all I was worth, while Freddy PoundPoundPounded me with increasing rhythm, and one of his hands was on my hip, pulling me back to meet his blows; and another hand was tweaking my clit; and another hand was twisting and pulling my right nipple; and another hand had two fingers buried SO deep inside my sloppy pussy; and How many hands WERE there, anyway!? But it was Willie, of course, beside me, playing with me, while Freddy PoundPoundPounded; and my mind was screaming: They NEED me! Need me! Need me! PoundPoundPound. And Dee was cumming now, her fingers in my hair, clutching my mouth to her clit, shrieking her lust. And Freddy was cumming now, too. And I thought: I can feel his gushing fluids SO much better in my ass than I can when he cums in my cunt. And Willie was rubbing my clit now. And I exploded. My body. My mind. Lights flashed behind my eyes. I couldn’t control anything. My arms, my legs, my whole body was useless, shaking, shivering, as spasm after spasm shook me savagely. And I thought: They all need me. And I awoke in the middle of the night to find myself the center of tangled arms and legs and sleeping nude bodies.

It had just been a game, of course. Just a silly game. Role playing. Everybody knew that. So why couldn’t I stop thinking about it … reliving it in my mind? Over and over.

And now, I looked at Willie as she pointed toward some dolphins, leaping in unison ahead of us and off to the right. And I thought: She STILL needs me … needs something … something only I can give her. Something she didn’t even know herself … but it was there. What WAS it? I HAD to figure out what it was. I HAD to help her. It was imperative.

There were islands everywhere, rising out of the ocean, resembling a fistful of gravel strewn across a still table of blue. Some were large, others so small that only two or three trees dotted their surface. Some rose hundreds of feet, others were simple sand bars. Some were steep, others smoothly rounded. Houses dotted many; some in clusters … small towns. Some islands bore huge mansions, others what appeared to be single-wide trailers.

It took me by surprise. Suddenly … we were just THERE. At first, I thought Jonathan was simply maneuvering past the large island, but he was rounding the corner of a semicircular coral reef instead, and now we were heading toward a smooth, curving sandy beach with a wooden dock extending into the water at its center. The large, one-story white house sat well above the beach on a plateau which was about a third of the way up the steep hill. Two or three other small house-like structures were spread around it. A large white cistern sat above them and to one side, tucked into the hillside.

A dark-skinned woman was on the dock to meet us, slender, beautiful. I guessed her age to be about forty. She was dressed in one of those huge, colorful scarves that you’re supposed to be able to wrap around yourself in a zillion different ways, but she certainly made it look good. Her hair was in a short afro, and for a moment, I thought her to be a sort of flower child from the 70’s. So this was “Auntie.”

But no, it wasn’t, for Willie was jumping up and down and waving and yelling “Mama Ann! Mama Ann!” And as soon as Jonathan brought the craft alongside the dock, she jumped ashore and the two were kissing and hugging and crying and chattering. Ah, this was Jonathan’s wife. It made sense now, though my first thought was that he was distinctly older than she was.

And now, coming into view through the dense foliage bordering the beach, down a well-groomed trail that obviously led up to the house, came a man and a woman. He had Latin features, black hair, graying at the temples, deeply tanned, rugged, strong. That would be Raul. And the woman with him … well, despite our open stares and unbelieving thoughts … this HAD to be her. And so it was.

Auntie wore a simple white dress that somehow made her look like a princess. Her arms were bare, as were her legs. She was barefoot. Her hair was a mass of red curls that framed her face perfectly. There was a smattering of freckles on her high cheeks. She was absolutely, ravishingly, spectacularly beautiful. And most shocking of all, she was young.

I tore my eyes away for a brief moment to cast an inquiring look at Dee and Freddy, but they continued to stare at her in rapt, open-mouthed consternation. Dee seemed to come to her senses as Jonathan offered to help her onto the dock, and so the three of us strode to meet her as she approached. I had a few more minutes to study her as Willie, bawling like a baby, threw herself into the woman’s arms. She couldn’t have been much older than I was myself … and she somehow looked even younger. I found myself shaking my head in wonder. Willie had told us that Auntie had sent Raul to fetch her in some far-off country when she was still an infant. I don’t know how I had imagined Auntie … but it hadn’t been THIS. Some cosmetic company needed to find out her secret and bottle it. They’d make a fortune!

But now, Willie had recovered, and was doing the introductions. I found myself in front of Raul, who surrounded my hand with his own when I offered it, then bowed deeply and pressed it to his lips. I can’t even remember what he said to me, but I DO remember the rich timber of his voice. I felt suddenly hot. Auntie was shaking Freddy’s hand and saying something to him. Somehow, he kept from drooling. I was close enough to Dee, when she was introduced to her, to hear Auntie’s comment: “You need guidance, my dear. So lovely, and SO powerful. We have much to talk about.” Her accent was deeply British, soft, lilting, exotic.

And now, it was my turn. I stood speechless as she took my hand, openly staring at me, smiling. I heard Willie say my name, but Auntie remained silent for many long seconds. “Brenda,” she said quietly, holding my hand, not letting go. At last, she sighed. “I have waited for you my entire life, Brenda. At last, you are here.” But before I could think of a response, she had let go and turned to the others. “Please, everyone, come up the house. We’ve put together a small luncheon.”

And I could only stand there in befuddlement. I looked toward Freddy and Dee for guidance, but they were following our hostess toward the trail, Willie skipping ahead. And now, I stood in shock. For Willie had changed. No one else saw it, but I did. That … thing she needed … that subtle, deep-set need … the need that only I could see … the need only I could relieve … that need that had been with her since I’d met her, all those months ago …. It was gone. It wasn’t there anymore. But, I hadn’t DONE anything!

Had I?