The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Virencian court of law is sacrosanct. Free of any and all influence, it stands in the center of the capital with its marble walls and domes polished as perfectly as the law is immutable. You can see it from anywhere, gleaming pure white in the day and lit by magical sconces all night long. It’s a bastion of order and justice, the only place where the poor and the rich can be treated the same, and where the ordinary wield just as much power as the most exalted.

It’s a place that needs protection: security, ensconcement, and isolation for the many independent jurors. They can’t be biased, as justice is blind, and so they can’t be exposed to the public except from afar, for verification of course. They can’t leave until their case is decided, and the cases themselves are kept very secret. Some jurors have been here through months of deliberation, others mere hours. All of them understand how this sacred duty must be upheld to the highest standards, for they hold in their arms the balance of a nation.

It should have been a quiet night, simply keeping watch while the jurors all slept soundly.

But from afar, I could feel that it wasn’t. I didn’t have to hear the footsteps to feel the soft thump of each one. They were soft soles, cloth? Someone was trying to keep quiet. Close to my heart, beneath my breastplate and my gambeson and my other thick layers of protection, my enchanted talisman was alive and rumbling with energy: for something was out of place. I was up from my seat and marching toward the disturbance without even thinking about the maze of passages that made up the courthouse’s dormitories.

I was smiling, I can remember that much. Whoever was responsible for the disturbance still, quite thankfully, had their cuffs on. Everyone had them, regardless of magical talent, even myself—the heavy rings of steel both clinked in time with every other piece of metal on my body, as I took a right turn and another left. The cuffs suppress any sort of sorcery, except for the guards’ simple searching talismans. The owner was trying hard to hide themselves, squeezing out the tiniest bits of magic they could manage to mask their errant footsteps. It was impossible to ignore.

I could feel the other talismans, each far away from me. They guards wearing them would have known I was going to the source to handle it, just as I knew that they’d be keeping their posts unless trouble arose.

Which it won’t, Irienne, I reminded myself. You’ve done this before. Just a juror sneaking around for a late-night rendezvous. Sexual liaisons between jurors were strictly prohibited. I’d broken up enough of them in my time, and this would be no exception.

So, with all of that in mind, you should understand why it was no surprise to see a dark-haired woman, clad in a brown cloak, walking down the hall as if she were the quietest mouse in the pack. I kept a hand on my longsword’s pommel. The least threatening ones could always be the most dangerous. You’ve done this before, I told myself again, and followed for five steps before clearing my throat. “Miss?” I called down the corridor.

She froze instantaneously. Trembling like the flame of the candle in her hand, she turned around slowly. Though she was more than five yards away, and her face was lit only by fire, I could make out her jade-colored eyes, her smooth, tan, and… fairly fetching features. As though only now realizing where she was, she straightened up and put a smile to her stiff lips. “Madam,” she responded, inclining an even stiffer bow.

I began to walk closer. “It is after the jurors’ curfew, milady,” I informed her, and the look we shared showed both of us that she already knew it.

“Oh, is it?” she said coyly, despite that. “I must have lost track of the time… er, what time is it?”

“Time for you to come with me, I believe.”

She took a half step backwards. I smiled. “I think that I can find my own way back to my room, madam,” she said quickly.

“Then you won’t mind my escorting you there, yes?” I continued forward, as she took another step, my own pace never slowing.

“Oh, that’s really fine, I think I can—”

“I insist.” Five steps away from her now. Still smiling, still very much in control. You’ve done this before. No sudden moves.

She nodded, then, and closed the gap by a step. “I will… gladly have your company, then, I would be honored!” Her false smile grew brighter and wider from a head below me.

I nodded in turn. “Then I shall, on one condition…” Reaching around to the back of my waist, slowly looping my gloved fingers around the chain that would lock her cuffs together.

The woman swallowed. “And that is?”

I took a step, and started to reach forward. “You’ll have to wear this, if you could please—”

She took a deep breath. The talisman above my heart started vibrating so strongly that I could hear its whine. My left hand threw the chain forward, snapping her cuffs together with magical force, while my right started to draw my blade out of its sheath. But she didn’t flinch. I only faintly realized that something had gone wrong, then

she blew her breath out, through her lips and through the candle’s flame that had come between us, making it flutter, dance, shudder and spring with new heat, new energy, so much of it that it leapt up, and leapt out, and one tiny flame grew into three, in a triangle, warmth and light drawing my eyes to the center as it turned. And turned. And grew, as she blew, as it turned, into five points around those three, connected by a geometry of light that I still cannot understand. A spell, for my talisman was as loud as a teakettle, and I can hear its ringing even now. And ringing. And singing, as she blew, as it turned, into eleven points in a broad, whirling ring.

And the ring floated higher, closer to my face, while the triangle burrowed deeper toward the candle. And deeper. And ringing. And turned. And turned. And turned. And grew, only grew in beauty, because

“You’ve done this before,” she whispered in my ear.

Yes, I whispered, though I could not hear. I’d done this before. I’d seen this before, but now it was like new. New heat, new ringing, new turning, new singing, new shapes and rings and twists coalescing from flame before my wide, unblinking eyes. She held the candle and the shapes close, close enough to feel their warmth casting all over my face, over my slackening jaw and hollow mouth and open eyes and

“Theeere’s the woman I remember,” she cooed so softly. “I’m happy to see you. Aren’t you happy to see me, too?”

Yes. I was happy. So very happy again. It was as familiar as it was foreign. As friendly as it was refreshing. And I could not muster any fear, any trepidation, nor even any resistance in the face of such beauty. How could I possibly? Beautiful rings. Beautiful flame. Beautiful voice. Beautiful

“Hold this and hold still a tick, won’t you? I’m exhausted.”

Yes. Hold the candle, hold its warmth, feel its power. So small. And so bright. Hold still, frozen in heat, stiff and slack while she reached beneath my collar, her hand so cold against my beautifully blazing skin, singing and ringing while stiff and slack and I couldn’t

“Let me just take this… slot it into this… hm, what’s the special word for this, again? To make these things shut off, but not so noisily?”

Alabaster. Even in my beautiful daze I knew I was never meant to say that word aloud… but I did. I’ve done this before, I told myself, as the singing and ringing went quiet. I heard her sigh, she sounded so happy, so beautiful, so

“Much better, thank you, my dear.”

Better. Much better. It always feels better and better each time. I knew it then. I know it now. But I don’t know how. When I think of it, everything is a blur, or gone completely, or

“Hey, meltyface. Quit standing around and follow me.”

Follow her. Every time, and every time before, her words cut through the spinning fire and into my spinning mind. They fill it up, swirling around like a whirlpool, no matter where I am, when I am, what is happening. I asked myself that then, and every time before, while my legs were moving on their own and my hands were cradling the candle so gently, as if it were a babe and not the powerful source of magic with its grips on my mind and its tendrils in my

“Keys, please?”

Yes. They were found off my waist with the same precision as the light before me. I would draw it now, but I fear what would happen to my mind, should I try. Or perhaps I crave it. Every time. I think of its spinning and I lose my wits and my words. I have tried to write this line seven times and each has

“Hello there, Maureen… oh, you know who I am? I’m flattered, truly… I do agree. There is so little time for us to get acquainted—I have a busy schedule, as I’m sure you’ve guessed… who, her? Ah, just my little partner in crime… she can’t understand a lick, so I wouldn’t worry at all about what she might hear of the Kiries case. Meltyface?”

Yes. My legs carried me closer, with the candle held reverently outward. I tilted it, as I was bid to do, and while its glow still blinded me I could no longer see its enrapturing shapes in their beautiful precision. I saw them in profile, in a whole new direction, while the juror in her bed saw them at their face, for the very first time. I knew that it was so from the wonder and awe in her eyes, in her open lips, in the soft gasp that she gave while the intruder moved behind her and pressed her hands to her nightgown and spoke just to me

“Eyes shut, now, no peeking.”

Eyes shut now.

“See the pattern of flame in the dark of your mind. Watch it spin. Let it melt you even deeper.”

I saw it. I felt it. I knew it, so deeply, I had memorized it as deeply as it had mesmerized me. Even now I close my eyes and I see it and I do not know how long it has been. I saw it and I heard her, and her words for the juror, though they could mean as little to me as the symbols in the flame, even as familiar as the words were. And I heard the juror, and her words, and her sighs and smiles and moans and cries. And this did not trouble me. I’d done this before.

“I see you’ve been patient, and keeping your word. Good girl.”

My heart sings as loud as my talisman had.

“You like that, hm?”

Yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I

“Perfect. Eyes open, then, and follow me.”

And she went. And I followed. And this happened five times more. I know this because that is the number of jurors in a trial. I know that because it was my duty. There were three women and three men. The first two came easily. The men were glad to a number to stare where she beckoned, to see the glowing flame spinning out over her bare flesh. To obey her words and forget each one.

And every time I saw, I stood, I stared, and I melted even deeper.

One woman tried to fight. She was a sorceress, I knew, for she spoke words of power but they were dampened, neutered by the cuffs. While she only needed to snap her fingers to move me to action. I remember the struggling torso that I bound in one arm. I remember the biting mouth and the cries I muffled in one hand.

And I remember the light before her. I remember the fast breaths going slow. I remember the body growing limp, heavy. I remember when my arms could not hold any longer for I had stared too deeply and melted too deeply and grown too heavy to do anything but stand and stare and listen not to the soft mewling and strong commands as her struggling was turned to gladness.

No cries for help. No pleas to ‘fight it,’ to remember my duty, to remember my place. For when I see the light that is my duty no longer. She told me, and I cannot remember when, that I am a guard. But not of the court, not of Virence. For her. For she sows more truth and clarity and beauty than the swing of a gavel could ever spread. Hers is a light that shines full and true and illuminates every crease of my melting mind while I stare and sink and do not listen to any of the things she tells her captives. They are learning, just as I do, each time. Every time. Every

“Aaaand it looks like that does it. You counted seven, yes?”

Yes. Seven, I told her.

“Perfect, thank you, miss… er… hm. You know, I’ve gotten so used to just calling you ‘meltyface.’ It’s accurate, obviously, but… what was your name again?”

Irienne Kiries, I told her.

“Oh… oh. Oh, I see it now. You have their eyes… ugh, now I’m going to feel all guilty. At least tell me that you’re only a cousin, not a noble daughter.”

Yes, I told her.

“Thank the gods. And you haven’t heard anything about what’s gone on, tonight?”

No, never, I told her.

“Good girl. Very good… you know what, remind me next time I’m here. I’ll be paying a visit to your superior, so we can help you recoup some, after… well, you know. Or, rather, you don’t yet. But you will be better off for this outcome, even if your extended family will be the opposite. Trust me.”

I did. And I do.

“Perfect. So until then… a little something to tide you over, I think. Follow me. I think I remember where your room is.”

I did. And she did. And when it is done, and when I have forgotten, and when I have remembered again in my own time, I remember it again. I feel it again, I melt again, I feel her touch again, and

I forget again.