The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

He balanced the coin on its edge between his cast and the table and flicked it. It wasn’t even; it didn’t make an entire rotation before it toppled and rattled flat next to the napkin. It landed crown up. The face was worn but the thorns of the laurel could still be seen. It should’ve been in the lacquer box, in its red felt recess but he needed to have his hands on it.

“Hey, same as always?” Liz smiled with her hand leaning on the corner of the booth. She held her tray on her hip. The simple blue blouse and short black skirt looked incredible on her. Her nametag hung above her large breast. She had always liked him, though she needed a few moments to recall his name. He came in with his girl most every week. He tipped well and was as charming as he was harmless. She wondered about the girl not being there, but uncommon wasn’t out of the ordinary.

“I think just the beer for the moment.” He looked up. He looked more tired when he smiled. She was lovely, he decided. He picked up the coin again. It was just bigger than a quarter.

“Cool, Darlene’s already pouring it. Now, give me your hand.” She reached out with her left. He raised an eyebrow and reached out with his left for an awkward handshake.

“Not that one.” She shook her head. “Let me sign the cast.”

He chuckled and lit up. He laid the plaster on her palm. She tugged and he inched further out of the bench to meet her unspoken direction.

“How’d it happen?” She asked as she picked a thin tipped marker from her apron. “Let me guess, fight club?”

“Well, I can’t talk about the fight club.” He answered happy to have an easy joke to make. He crafted a warm smirk. “No, my senile grandfather closed his front door on it.”

“I hope you got him back.” She played along. “Good revenge?”

“Oh yeah, he’s dead now. I even have his pirate treasure.” He flashed the coin on the table. She stopped writing.

“Oh my God! I’m sorry.” She went white.

“No, it’s alright. He was a hundred and six.” He laughed. “It wasn’t painful. Plus he would’ve loved that joke.”

“Alright then,” she grinned. She finished her name by dotting the I with a heart. Darlene, the other waitress, a cute mid-twenties brunette with very attractive curves brought over a big glass of amber beer.

“Me next?” She asked as he said thank you. She pulled him from Liz’s hand and scribbled her name over the thumb. “Let me guess, fight club?”

“Yeah, fight club.” He answered. “Thanks for the beer.”

“Of course,” Darlene beamed. “You still haven’t got his order Elizabeth? He’s not really a difficult customer.”

“Nah, he’s easy.” Liz nodded. “Go on, the next table looks like big tippers.”

“Oh the Johnsons? And they brought the toddler? Yay, me!” Darlene kissed her name and returned his hand.

“You going to be waiting on your girl?”

“My what? Oh, Janice? The woman I’m usually here with? No, no, no. She’s my cousin. My only family in town really. She’s still out at my uncle’s place cleaning up after Grandpa.” He laughed. Maybe he was trying too hard to be upbeat?

“Cousin, huh? Well, I know someone will be happy to learn that.” She said, thinking of Darlene. He grinned feeling like she was flirting with him. He looked down on his wrist. Darlene had written: “To my favorite customer, Darlene.” That was sweet.

Liz had written, “If we don’t find you handy, we can at least find you handsome.” Her writing stutter was apparent in the word least. She signed her name Elizabeth. Heart and all. He was really certain she was flirting now. He was overestimating what was friendliness, genuine cheer, and customer service. She also loved dotting her i with a heart and had so few opportunities to do so anymore. When she was signing her name now, it was on a form. Sometimes for the government. Worst part about being an adult.

“Yeah, I was just given the box at the hospital getting my carpal bones fixed.” He waved the cast. “We were going to clean out his house but I was told four and a half sets of hands wouldn’t get the job done any faster than four. I got sent back. Still got the week booked off before work expects me though.”

“Nice! And the coins are cool. They worth anything?” She asked. She looked around. Her last table waved from the doorway as they headed out. She had a breather. She pushed off her chore list to keep talking with him.

“The appraiser said they’d be about a 180 bucks a coin.” He shrugged. “There’s twelve of them, but there’s eighteen more seats. Grandpa must’ve sold a few along the way.”

“They’re very cool. You going to keep ’em or sell ’em?” He let her roll the uneven circle of silver between her thumb and forefinger. The head side was an eroded Roman guy and the tails a roughed out bird. She laid it back into his left palm.

“Oh yeah. I just got to figure out what to buy with them.” He laughed at an inside joke. She smiled along with him at an aim for a better shift and a larger tip. She wasn’t totally mercenary, but she was a little morose he hadn’t commented on her classic Canadian reference.

“Well what are you missing? What do you really want?” She conspired.

“I think it’s more what I’m wearing out.” He waved his hand. “I’m clearly running this body into dust. I should get a new one. Yours looks good? You ever think about selling your bo...dy...”

Realization hit him as the words came out of his mouth just after he figured out the double entendre. His face went red like it had back in high school. Her smile looked unsteady. As she thought of the words to turn down his little flirt, he blurted out his.

“Sorry, that was a bit crass.” He took a heavy drink of his beer. He managed not to awkwardly throw it down his throat and cough up a lung. He wasn’t used to drinking left handed.

“It was crass but it was sweet. Thank you so much, really brightened up my day.” She smiled as she prepared to tell him about her boyfriend. He shook his head.

“So, how about the usual and I wallow in awkwardness for a minute by myself?”

“You’re on.” She grinned. “Get better soon... Owen.”

He picked up the coin again. Grandpa had been alive and spry this time last week.

“You just going to ignore her the whole trip home?” Janice asked. “Little divorced high school fling? Give her a bit of positive attention I bet she’d beg for a drilling and make you breakfast after.”

Owen laughed off his hippy free-love green-haired pot-enclouded cousin. He looked across the street where his old flame had moved back in with her mom. “I wouldn’t want to deal with that. Besides, I only flew back for Grandpa, you know?”

“Really? I never much cared for him.” Janice shrugged. “But I had company to travel with, so a Christmas back home didn’t sound too bad.”

The pair sat in silence, sipping hot chocolate on Janice’s parents’ couch. Owen’s Dad and Mom had arranged themselves a getaway over the holiday before Grandpa had called his grandson. It was strange. Owen had that house to himself. The boredom and loneliness and nostalgia had piled up. He had taxied over at midnight and slept right on the couch they were sitting. His uncle had a fridge full of beer and his aunt never left the stove all Christmas season. It was the right place to be.

“So I’m going alone?” Owen stood up. It was the day before new year’s. “Hard to believe a hundred years old and he’s still livin’ on his own.”

“You’re only as young as the woman you feel.” Janice sipped from her mug. “Last Grandma put him at what? Sixty?”

“About that,” Owen chuckled at the idea of calling the most recent of his Grandpa’s cycle of girlfriends Last Grandmas. Good on him, Owen truly believed. The old man had been a widower for twenty five years.

He carried his cup to the kitchen sink and rinsed it out. He kissed his aunt good-bye and drove the rental car up the hill to the three story home that hadn’t seen use of the top two floors in at least a decade. Owen walked in the side door. The front door was for unwelcome filthy knockers.

“Hey, Owen! Good boy.” Grandpa spoke sharp and loud. You knew to speak loud back. He grabbed his grandson and shook his hand. He wasn’t a hugger. The man was thin and old looking but his steps were quick and he only ever used the cane Owen’s mom had bought him to poke visitors out of his Lay-z-Boy. “You ever think of your inheritance?”

“Everyday, but this place doesn’t have a basement and you won’t go up the stairs anymore for me to push you down ’em.” Owen joked. Grandpa let out a happy whoop.

“Nah, I ain’t going out a chump.” He snickered. “C’mon. I’m going to show you what’s yours. Can’t just hand it over blind, y’know?”

Owen followed him through the kitchen, beyond the living room turned master bedroom, and into the little library at the end of the hall.

“Most of the money’s in the house.” He said as Owen waited for him to go over to the old hickory desk in the corner. “Some of these books are first editions. Not the Cervantes, looks old but hardly any collector would be interested, but some of them are worth a penny. I figure Janny would be more into those.”

“Not unless the pages are good for rolling up ganja with.” Owen used his grandfather’s slur for cannabis. He liked poking at Janice, but she really would like the books.

“And now it’s gone legal.” The old man shook his head. “What’s next?”

“Probably magic mushrooms or ecstasy.” Owen shrugged. It was fun riling the old man up but Owen figured all drugs would be better off legal. Grandpa? He had old thoughts. Owen believed Grandpa was pissed that his eye doctor had prescribed him reading glasses let alone anything from a pharmacy.

“Well, shame I won’t be around for the world to burn.” He laughed. “Anyway, thing is, you might be wondering how I fathered your mom and Janny’s dad so late in age.”

“I just assumed you were a charming son of a bitch.” Owens mirked.

“That too.” He laughed. “That too.”

He shook his head. “I spent some time in Africa during WWII.” He announced. “Spent most of the time in Egypt. Had a gun on me every second of the journey. Never fired a shot. Lucky.”

“Yeah?” Owen didn’t want to ask him for details. He had never opened up before. As far as the grandson knew, Grandpa hadn’t fought for Canada or any of The Allies. He had never been a soldier.

“Yeah, I was tasked with looking out for this old guy. Hated the crass piece of shit. Scooped up them moslem girls like they were candy. I just got stink-eyes and threats.” He laughed. “Well he wasn’t so careful, and he wasn’t nothing like lucky.”

Grandpa lifted a lacquered wooden box out of the top drawer of the desk. “He used to hand these out. The girls would go wild and they’d bring ’em back. Squirreliest shit I ever saw. Imagine, a woman paying you back?”

His laugh was chaotic and crazy. Owen waited patiently, disturbed by the laugh. Grandpa spun the box and opened it up. There were two layers that folded out on risers. Each layer had three rows of five recesses. A dozen silver coins were resting in a patternless scatter. He looked at Owen sharply. There was still fire in his dark blue eyes. Owen walked over and reached for one. Grandpa smacked his hand with the cane.

“I ain’t giving you a Goddamned wooden nickel, boy.” He sneered. “Inherited, it’s the only way.”

“What? OK, I wasn’t taking one. I just wanted a look.” Owen rubbed his knuckles. He was more startled than wounded. Grandpa hadn’t the arm strength to do much more than shock his grandson.

“It ain’t about a look, son,” he said. “These aren’t nothing. These were Judas’s coins.”

Owen frowned. Maybe some part of Grandpa’s mind was gone. It was hardly likely that every synapse was still there. A hundred odd years and nothing gone? A bit hard to believe.

“It took thirty of these to buy the life of Jesus. How much do you think yours would cost?”

“Thirty three.” Owen answered flippantly.

“Smug prick.” Grandpa laughed. “That’s the thing about these coins. They got two sides. You can’t just buy one life. Thirty for Jesus. Thirty for Judas.”

“Spend ’em and die?” Owen asked.

“They ain’t so cursed, but they definitely got a curse.” Grandpa shook his head. “You give ’em too young, and you wouldn’t spend them on nothing but love and tail. You’re old enough to be smarter than that now. I got ’em just shy of thirty. Love ain’t enough, or it’s too much. Only ever give one for something tangible.” He poked Owen in the chest with the cane.

“Fine! No hookers!” Owen laughed he dodged back a few steps from cane’s reach.

“I bought fortunes.” He said. “I don’t mean luck, that would’ve been a nightmare. Money, that’ll get you somewhere. Damned second side.”

“What? So you’re saying you give someone a coin and you get what? All the money they ever earned. What’s the second side, their debt?”

“Nah.” He lifted one coin, kissed it, and put it back in another recess. “You get what you pay for. You get it from the one you buy it and from their enemy. Thirty silver for the life of Jesus, thirty silver for the life of his betrayer.”

“So I buy something tangible with them?” Owen asked, assuming it’d just be the cash of an appraiser.

“You don’t trade them for things.” He sighed. “That’d make it easy.”

“And just twelve remain?” Owen asked.

“I told you, you get them back, once you’ve used up what you paid for.” Grandpa said. He had a tear in his eyes. When Owen stepped in to see if he was OK, Grandpa flashed his eyes up and stormed at him. “I ain’t buying crap from you. I couldn’t live with it.”

“I ain’t sellin’.” Owen smiled but Grandpa pushed him off telling him to go home. Owen was shuttled to the front door. More than a couple of cane prods and bad words led him out. If he had this much in him, Owen figured, why not take him out for dinner or at least down to his Uncle’s for a home cooked meal. He caught the door frame, meaning to turn back around and in. Holding onto that doorjamb was the most pain he had ever felt in his life.

Owen laid out a twenty and a ten for the beer and the chicken fingers. Liz was busier and busier as the supper rush started. He’d ordered the same thing enough times he didn’t need to wait for the bill. He hated the box of coins on the table. Grandpa had gone out with a bullet and a smile. Even filmed the damned thing so “The half-competent police wouldn’t go blaming it on no one else.” The lawyer delivered the box and the papers were a bitch to sign left handed. He was glad to be gone.

He hadn’t believed word one of the Jesus and Judas nonsense. The man was old, tired, and senile. He picked up the coin he was twirlin’. He dropped it on the cash. He’d go back to the appraiser and offload the rest.

“Shit!” Elizabeth’s half had the free table when the Tipless Dykes came in. Darlene’s name for them but after eight months of twice-weekly tables for five and less than twenty bucks in total, Elizabeth was willing to go against her sensibilities and use the slur. She forced her smile, grabbed five menus and headed to the door.

“Hey, it’ll be just a minute for me to clear off the table and get you seated.” She turned.

“Fucking cunt’s making us wait two weeks in a row?” They were all bad but the youngest always had to get the first barb in. She was pretty, only just inducted into whatever the others were. She prided herself on being snarky and hung off the arm of the only other fit one in the group.

“I know! This place is shit managed.” Said the biggest one. Elizabeth ignored them as she hurried over to Owen’s now empty table. She smiled at the cash on the table and blanched at the coin.

“He fucking didn’t.” She shook her head and picked up the coin. He must’ve just left and—

“Where the hell are you going?” The snarky one, she was tiny, probably a freshman or sophomore at the university over the hill. With just the one piercing in her nose and no visible tattoos, she had a long way to catch up to the girls she hung around with. Her teeth glittered with braces and her hair was streaked with blue. “We’re waiting for our table.”

“Sorry, the last guest left something—”

“Then he can come back for it,” The girl scowled. “Go back and get us seated.”

The girl slapped Elizabeth’s ass as the waitress turned around. She hurried away. If it had been a guy, she could call the cooks and chase the bastard out of the restaurant. It was a pixie of a girl. They wouldn’t know what to do and they’d be too scared to tell her off let alone touch her if she wasn’t willing to be escorted out. She wouldn’t have gone without a stink. Elizabeth was best off stomaching it and making sure the rest of her tables got her best. The next hour and change were going to be hell. The silver coin clicked against her marker and settled into her apron. She wiped up the table. She grabbed new utensils, laid out the menus, spelunked for her smile and found it way down deep.

“You’re table’s ready, follow me.” She led them to the booth. The heavier girls in the party whined. “It is the best we can do.” The whole restaurant was booths. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“We come in all of the time and you don’t know what our drink orders are?” The little one huffed.

“Chocolate milkshake, Coke, Chocolate milkshake with a shot of whiskey, diet coke, and tea if it’s cold outside but it’s a been a little nice this morning, so diet coke?”

“Tea.” The other skinny one said.

“It’s fucking freezing out. It’s January.” The snarky bitch said. “Why do we put up with her?”

“Because I’m bringing you food.” Elizabeth grinned.

“Don’t be funny. You’re not funny.” The bitch said. “You know what we want. Go get it.”

Elizabeth turned and walked stiffly into the back. The worst part was the rest of the bitches were laughing and egging the cunt on. Elizabeth didn’t get tears in her eyes like she had months ago. She did white knuckle the ice cream scoop when she was pounding into the over-frozen, needed a replacement from cold storage, bucket to scoop up enough chocolate ice cream for a shake.

“You gave me the Johnsons and you got The Tipless Dykes?” Darlene leaned over and hugged Elizabeth from behind. “Hey, Carlos we need another bucket of chocolate.”

“On it!” The cook flipped a burger and ran off to the freezer.

“God he’s good.” Darlene said.

“I got some good news.” Elizabeth stood up. “Owen’s single.”

“They broke up!” Darlene looked shocked. “No, they were so natural together they were like—”

“Family? They’re cousins.” Liz said. “Thank you so much Carlos. I’ll throw out the empty one.”

“Thanks.” He nodded and got back to the grill just in time to throw the burger he had flipped onto a bun.

“Oh my God!” Darlene said. “You should’ve told me while he was here!”

“He’ll be here again on Wednesday.” Elizabeth said, patting down the coin in her apron. “I need to see him again too.”

Something was eating at her. The idea that she wouldn’t see him until Wednesday seemed laughable. She topped off the last milkshake with a shot of whiskey when Darlene showed up.

“Did you spit in any of them?” She asked.

“Gross!” Elizabeth said. “I don’t like them but they can ruin my day, not my job.”

“Because you’re such a good person, I’ve never done it either.” Darlene frowned. “Well go on then. I’ll bring the tea over so they don’t complain about you melting their milkshakes.”

“Thanks,” Elizabeth smiled as she loaded up the tray and headed through the kitchen doors back to the dining room. She forced her smile, which kept up appearances. She started laying down the four drinks.

“And what? Zera’s gotta wait? What kind of moron are you?” The bitch said. Darlene was coming right out of the back as Elizabeth was attacked.

“You’re lucky you’re hot.” Said Zera, the other attractive one waiting on her tea. Oh look she wasn’t waiting on her tea anymore.

“Chicken tenders. Club wrap. Poutine with baco—” Elizabeth started rhyming off the orders they always got.

“What are you doing?”

“You come in every week and it’d be rude if I didn’t know what you liked by now.”

“Well, I’m not feeling like a club wrap today. If you had just asked first you might earn a tip once in a while.” The bitch growled. The fat girls nodded along. The last girl just sipped her tea imperiously. The young one had once grabbed Elizabeth’s ass but it was the other skinny one that really seemed to focus too hard on the waitress. It was so much easier to turn down men.

“Alright, let me get your order—” She reached into her apron for her pen and notepad. The silver coin was resting against the bottom of her pen. It popped out as she drew the pen. It bounced, twice, before it landed spinning in the middle of the table. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Let me—”

The bitch’s hand slammed down flat onto the table. The coin underneath it she pulled it to herself.

“What the hell is this?”

“That’s what the last customer left at the table.” Elizabeth said.

“Hmmm…” And the bitch had nothing to say. That froze Elizabeth for a second too long. The girl smiled with her braces showing.

“Can you give it back in case he returns for it? Please?” She asked after a long moment.

“Come and get it.” The cheeky little co-ed flashed her braces and dropped the coin into her top and into her bra.