The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Louis,” Elle said to her husband Louis, “have those poached eggs in some odd way displeased you? You are looking at them as if they were your mortal enemies.”

Louis, standing over the simmering pan, shook himself as if startled. He reached into it with a slotted spatula and dexterously slipped the eggs onto English muffins. “Oh, no, sorry,” he said. “I am just feeling frustrated about this chapter I’m working on and it’s distracting me.”

He set Elle’s plate in front of her. She looked up at him from the stock tables in the morning TRI-COUNTY TRIBUNE, then down at the table. After a long moment, she snapped her fingers. “Salt and pepper?” she said.

“Oh, God, sorry, my love,” Louis said. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to the stove to fetch the shakers.

“You really must be worrying about something,” Elle said. “It’s not like you to neglect your duties.” She took the salt and pepper without a word and began seasoning her eggs.

“Can I talk to you about what is happening?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, casting a somewhat wistful glance at the business section. Elle was attentive to Louis’s occasional creative travails. She did find his imagination fascinating (and sexy)—and beyond that, she enjoyed the money he had begun making from his books now that he was writing under her influence rather than that of his own rather brooding soul. “I’m all ears.”

“Well,” he began, “I am getting toward the end of the book and this is a big scene.” Louis’s new project was an adult mystery called THUNDERBIRD, set in the mythical town of French Bend, a prairie community at a bend in the Mississippi north of St. Louis and south of Minneapolis. His detective character was an ex-tech worker named Charles Winter who, without quite understanding how or why, found himself in a new career as a private investigator specializing in the world of the occult. “You know, the villain is this guy who’s been sort of hiding in plain sight—the kind of person no one would suspect of anything worse than drinking milk from the carton. He’s called The Orthodontist. Charles figures out that he’s connected with the disappearance of the missing girls, so he goes to his dental-supply warehouse down in the old riverfront district. But it’s a trap, the Orthodontist and his hygienists are there waiting for him. It looks bad—but then Milagro appears. Not only does she get him out of there, but this is the scene where he puts it together that she really is a witch—and that he is insanely in love with her.”

“Fascinating, darling,” Elle said. She had started drumming her lacquered nails against the breakfast table, but, with an effort of will, she stopped them now. “It all sounds wonderful.”

“But I am absolutely stuck,” he said. “I can’t figure out how Milagro knows to come there—so the plot doesn’t make any sense. And that’s driving me crazy, because without that scene Charles won’t know where the girls are really being held so he can rescue them. I was up half the night worrying about this.”

“You know, I have a lot of confidence in you, Louis,” Elle said. “I am sure the answer will come to you if you just relax and let it simmer.”

“That’s the problem!” he said. “I can’t! I start worrying whether my plot makes any sense and then I start worrying whether the damn book is any good at all and then I just look at the screen and I can’t write anything. My deadline is in a month—this is serious.” He stopped for a moment and looked at his wife with an appraising glance. She was quite a sight, dressed for the day in her usual work uniform of pencil skirt and silky blouse, with sheer dark stockings and a pair of cream-colored Louboutin pumps (he had a dim memory of buying them for her a few months ago, handing the amused salesman his credit card without taking his eyes off Elle’s feet). “Elle . . .” he said uncertainly.

She had followed his eyes, and now just for fun she dangled one pump off her toe, knowing it would drive him wild. “Yes, darling?”

“I don’t suppose there’s some kind of, you know—super-type hypnosis you could help me out with, is there? Like a super deep trance that would just break through this block so I can finish the book in a few days or a week?”

“What do you mean? I’d just take you so deep you’d have no choice but to write, without thought, just the words that came through your fingers to the screen?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“Some kind of hypnotic state where your conscious mind would be completely blank and only my will and your unconscious mind would be active?”

“That sounds great—can you do it?”

“No, silly boy,” she said, picking up the business section again. “It’s not possible.”

“Oh.” His face fell.

“I mean, I couldn’t possibly . . . .”

“Possibly what?”

“It’s not happening, really, I am sorry, dear.”

“What’s not happening, Elle?”

“It’s not something I could do. I mean, do lightly.”

“Elle, what are you talking about?”

“Nothing, darling, forget I spoke.”

“Oh, okay. May I clear?”

She waved a hand in the air, and he began to clean up after breakfast. “It’s probably a myth anyway,” she said.

He stopped suddenly, a plate in each hand. “What is?”

“Well—you were talking about the Valdemar state, weren’t you?”

“The Val- What are you talking about?”

“I studied it in school, of course, but really, I am not sure it is quite as powerful as they say.”

“Elle, what are you not telling me?”

“Well, there is some research showing that—but no, you wouldn’t have the time to spend the day working on it, would you?”

“Elle, I am desperate—of course I would if you think it could jumpstart the writing.”

“I am warning you, it’s powerful—you know, like the Machine in PRINCESS BRIDE. ‘I’ve only had it up to two so far . . . .’”

“Do you have time today? I am ready.” Louis, of course, enjoyed it when Elle put him into trance. The idea that there was something deeper and more powerful than what he was used to was exciting, if also a bit alarming. But he really was desperate.

“Well, hmm—I suppose I could work around my schedule if you can block out the morning, then.”

“Done. I was planning to just write, so the time is free already.”

She rose decisively, wiped her mouth, and smoothed the pencil skirt down her hips. Louis’s eyes followed her hands. It wasn’t hypnosis—any man’s eyes would have done the same.

“Meet me in my office,” she said. “We can get started after you’ve finished the dishes.” She left without a backward glance.

He scrambled to his feet and began cleaning up. She liked the kitchen spotless.

He entered the office to find her studying her day planner. “Sit down in the client chair,” she said, without looking up. The “client chair” was a recliner that (Louis secretly thought) must have been designed by sinister brainwashing conspirators—once a client sat in it and settled into the cushions, the chair slowly reclined until the client was almost reclining flat and almost feeling weightless. Louis was delighted by the chance.

“Now, unfortunately, I have to be on a call in a few minutes, so I won’t have time to do the special deep-trance induction right now. Why don’t you just sit back and relax for now? Don’t worry about anything, just enjoy the chair.”

Louis settled back. “If it’s going to be a while, maybe I should go try to write.”

With some difficulty, he started to rise from the chair, but she stopped him by placing one lacquered nail in the center of his forehead. “Oh, no, darling, don’t go. I don’t know when I will be done and I’d like to get to you as soon as I can. Could you bear to just relax a little?”

“I guess,” he said. “I am just so worried about this chapter . . . .”

“Of course you are,” she said. “I can imagine that worry. Why don’t you just look at it for a while until I can get back?”

“What do you mean, look at it?”

“Well, sometimes I imagine I can see my worries floating in the air. They can look like birds, or fish, or whatever . . . . Can you imagine that? Look up there!” She gestured to the air above him.

“Yes . . .” he said. “A fish.”

“Just look at the fish—imagine all your thoughts are fishes—oh, damn! That’s my phone, darling, just watch the fish and I will be back as soon as I can.”

Louis settled back in the chair and imagined the fish circling in the air above him. It was amazing how much relief he felt when he thought of the chapter as a fish and let it swim away. He heard Elle’s heels click as she left he room; it was relaxing to know she was nearby. Then the silence was even more relaxing. He realized that he could see the fish circling above him whether his eyes were open or closed; in fact, he could see them slightly better when he closed his eyes, and when he closed his eyes his body melted even more heavily into the chair, and the fish came into clearer focus as it did.

He wondered again whether he should go write rather than waste this time. Maybe he would in a minute. But that idea turned into a fish too and swam away, swimming behind the others. There was a school of fish above him now, the striped ideas, the long, sleek memories, the darting, needle-nosed worries, and behind them in the distance the dim fears, long and dark and menacing as sharks, all circling and wheeling in the air above him in a colorful pattern, a strange curved geometry like the flights of starlings against a blue sky, and he relaxed more and imagined that he could float up in the air like a worry or like a bird or a cloud and watch the colors above him and then look down and see the colors beneath him, as a bird in a colorful flock must look down to see the colors of the trees in autumn, the reds and yellows and oranges and beneath them the deep brown and green of the land and then in the distance the iron grey and white of the snow-capped mountains and as he drifted like a cloud he passed over the dark blue of the sea, where he could see the colorful fish wheeling like birds and he followed them down and down into a deep dim green region where there were the ancient fish who lived their lives in darkness and shed their own light and then that light faded and it was dimmer and dimmer and then dark and darker and . . . .

“And THREE! WIDE AWAKE! Feeling wonderful, Louis, feeling great!”

His eyes opened to see his wife looking down at his as he relaxed in the chair.

“What . . . what happened, Elle?”

“You don’t remember, darling? Oh, well, perhaps it’s just as well—the Valdemar induction is actually sort of a secret after all.”

“You used it on me? When? I don’t remember!”

“No, I’m not surprised,” Elle said. “But you went under so nicely and so deep, I am sure the changes will be powerful and permanent. Speaking of which, don’t you have some writing to do?”

He jumped out of the chair. She was right. It was time for him to get to work and . . . wait a minute . . . was that an idea swimming by?

At 6:30 that evening, Elle left her home office to find—as she expected—her husband standing in the living room, wearing his chef’s apron and carrying a silver tray on which was a cocktail glass containing her favorite cocktail—a bourbon Old-Fashioned. “Thanks, darling,” she said, taking the drink. “You may get back to work.”

He hustled back to the kitchen to fix dinner. She sat down comfortably and went through the mail he had stacked on the coffee table. In exactly half an hour, he came back and said, “Dinner is served.”

On the table was an ordinary weekday meal—swordfish steaks with basil butter, sautéed green beans, roast new potatoes, and a salad of romaine, tangerines, and candied walnuts.

“This looks edible,” Elle said coolly. She took a bite and tried to control her expression of pleasure. She tried not to over reinforce Louis; in her view, that kept him on his toes.

“So,” she said as if idly, “how did the rest of your workday go?”

“Great!” Louis said. “I don’t know what you did, Elle, but as soon as I sat down to write I realized that whole block thing was just because I was confused. The solution was right there in front of me all along—I am not sure if you remember Chapter Six, when Louis is tracking the Orthodontist at the George Mason High School Fun Fair?”

“Of course, darling,” Elle said, around a mouthful of fish. She gave every sign of enjoying her meal, though Louis, so deep into the story of his writing, hardly seemed to notice.

“Remember when he thinks they may spot him, so he ducks into the ‘Gypsy Fortuneteller’ Booth, and that strange woman reads his palm?”

“Yes,” she said. She did, because she read every chapter Louis finished as soon as he finished it. She was a wonderful editor; but beyond that, seeing her smile was really the only reward Louis asked for from writing. If she approved of his work, he didn’t mind—or, really, even notice—signing over the royalty checks his books earned.

“Didn’t you think that episode was a little lame? I mean, even when I was writing it I wondered where this character was coming from—it seemed kind of random.”

It hadn’t, to Elle, but she held her tongue for the moment. “And . . . ?”

“Well, after you woke me up, I realized why that episode was there. Elle—that ‘Gypsy Fortuneteller’ wasn’t random—it was Milagro! He didn’t recognize her because she’s—well, she’s a witch, and she was using a glamor to disguise herself. And when she read his palm she actually found a way to put herself in synch with him—so later, when he goes to the warehouse, she knows he’s there and she knows he’s in danger—and she has to show him that she’s a witch so he will follow her out of there when she shows up to save him from the Orthodontist—you see? It wasn’t random at all! I’d written it into the story without realizing why! It’s like it was sitting there in my mind waiting for me until you did that—what is it, Voldemort?”

“Valdemar,” Elle said.

“Anyway, the whole thing is clear now—Charles realizes that Milagro is a witch but he also sees that her heart is good—and he’s in love with her. So he sets out to bring down the Orthodontist on his own because he wants to protect her, see—“

“Yes, I do, Louis,” said Elle, wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin. “You know, this dinner really isn’t bad at all.”

A huge smile spread across her husband’s face. “You like it?”

“Oh, yes, darling, you can make it again if you want. But—“ here she stood up—“I am done. You may clear and go.”

“Great,” Louis said. “After that, I am going to go back and do a little more before bedtime.”

“Marvelous,” she said. “I will see you later. But I want the kitchen spotless before you go back to your study, understood?”

“Of course, my love,” he said, and again a smile spread across his face as if he were a smitten teenager.

Two hours later, Louis entered the master bedroom. Elle, dressed in a short silk robe and a pair of pale-pink high-heeled sandals, was poring carefully over the latest issue of VOGUE.

“Elle!” Louis said. “Elle, guess what?”

“What, darling?” Elle asked languidly, without looking up from a feature entitled THE CLASSIC BLACK DRESS REINVENTED.

“I finished! I finished the book! I’m a week ahead of schedule—it’s like it just came pouring out, I could hardly stop it until it was done—and I think it’s good, I really do! Elle, this Waldo Mars thing—“

“’Valdemar,’ Louis,” she said. “It’s called ‘Valdemar.’”

“Right, right—anyway, Elle, it’s amazing—you just blasted through my resistances and blocks—and I can’t remember a thing! Elle—look—tell me, what did you do. Can you tell me what it is?”

At last Elle looked up at her husband. She smiled a lazy smile, then carefully folded down the page of the magazine with the spread on classic wrap dresses and put it aside on the bedside table.

“Well, yes, about that,” she said. “Tell me what you remember about it?”

“That’s what’s driving me crazy!” he said. “I don’t remember anything after you told me to look at the fish. I guess you reprogrammed me and told me to forget, huh?”

Improbably, Elle began to giggle like a schoolgirl. “Oh, Louis, you really are the silliest boy,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were an English major, weren’t you? What does the name ‘Valdemar’ mean to you—and I don’t mean Harry Potter?”

“Valde—. . . Valde . . . What a minute! It’s . . . it’s Poe, isn’t it—‘Facts in the Case of – “

“Monsieur Valdemar, yes! In which they place the dying man in a deep trance so they can stay in touch with him after death.”

“Ouch,” Louis said. “That’s creepy that they named this procedure after that—“

“Again, Louis, you are silly. Don’t you get it? There IS no ‘Valdemar state’—it’s just something I made up!”

“What? Okay, now I’m confused—what did you do to me then?”

“Okay, let me spell it out, Louis. I. Did. Nothing. I just told you to relax, went off and made some calls, and woke you up after an hour or so. That’s all.”

“What? Why? How did—I mean, I went off and finished the book—“

“Of course you did, darling. The book was inside you all along, and you were so nervous about finishing you’d blocked yourself. I just let you get out of your own way—and the story came out just the way it should have. You didn’t need anyone to break down your blocks. It was you all along.”

Louis was standing like a poleaxed steer as he stared down at his wife. Suddenly all the moments of the day—the worry and despair of the morning, the deep relaxation of his “hypnosis” in Elle’s office, the exhilaration and pleasure of finishing his book, and the surprise of discovering what had really happened—combined into one powerful rush of pleasure and intensity. It was as if a switch deep inside him had suddenly flipped. He was flooded with a deep, aching combination of love, admiration, and . . . rock-hard lust.

“Elle,” he whispered. “Elle—do you have any idea of how much I adore you?”

He crawled into bed next to her and eased her out of the robe. He began kissing the back of her neck, then slowly worked his way down her back until he had covered it thoroughly and reached that delightful indentation just above the buttocks. Elle had closed her eyes in pleasure.

Struck by a sudden thought, though, he stopped. “Elle?” he said.

“Yes?” she responded languidly.

“Am I doing this because I decided to or because you told me to?”

“Does it matter, darling?”

Louis thought for a second. Did he actually feel overwhelming sexual desire for his wife, or did he just think he felt it? Did that actually make a difference? Did he want to make love to Elle because he wanted to or because she wanted to and he wanted to want what she wanted? Did the question have any meaning?

“Elle,” he said. “What do I want right now?”

“I’m a gypsy fortuneteller too,” she said. “And the spirits tell me that right now you want some vanilla ice cream.”

She took his head firmly in her two hands and guided it between her legs. “This is what you want. It’s the best thing in the world.”

He did not say a word, just fell to enjoying his dessert. After a long feast—Elle orgasmed at least three times—she whispered in his ear, “Now, Louis, the vanilla is all over my body and you don’t want to leave any of it. Get to work!”

A sound like purring filled the bedroom as Louis began at her feet—sucking the sweetness of each toe, then licking her soles—and worked his way slowly, slowly up each leg, then teasing and savoring each nipple and the hollow of her stomach.

“Good boy,” she whispered, stretching luxuriously.

She snapped her finger next to his ear.

“Oh!” he said, stirring. “What just happened?”

“It’s still happening,” she said. “I was just thinking what the Valdemar state would be like if there were a Valdemar state.”

“But you said there wasn’t,” Louis said.

“Of course there isn’t . . . really,” she said. “But you’re an imaginative writer—what if you want to write about it for your French Bend stories? What would it be like?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to think about a state of blankness, of having no will . . . it would be . . . pure experience, I guess. No thought, no names, no concepts . . .”

“Thoughts, names, concepts—those are the things that you can turn into fish, aren’t they, Louis? Turn into fish and watch . . . See them, Louis?”

His eyes slid shot. “Yes,” he said. “I . . . can.”

“They are so many, so bright, so beautiful. They swim around you, on all sides, they surround you, they are your world, they are your thoughts, they are your will . . . See them?”

“Yes.” His voice was soft as wind.

“And they swim away but then they come back, don’t they?”

“Ye-es . . .”

“But what if they slowly swam back and forth, and then each time they swam there were fewer of them, for as long as it took, back and forth, each time fewer, back and forth until there was only one, one bright thought, one idea, one memory, one will . . . and then that was . . . gone too . . . and there was nothing left.”

She was silent for a minute, watching his chest rise and fall silently. Then, in a much different tone of voice, she said, “All right, Louis! Stand up! On your feet! At attention!”

Without opening his eyes, she seemed almost to jump to his feet, standing in a pose of military somnambulism, ramrod straight, chest out, shoulders back, his face . . . which seemed to be floating on a sea of blank contentment . . . quite incongruous above the tense rigidity of his body.

She rose from the bed and stood in front of him, naked. She cupped her hands in front of her as if holding a large, invisible globe or round ripe fruit. “Now, open your eyes, Louis.”

Without stirring a muscle, his eyes opened. “Look,” she said, holding up the invisible object. “See what I have here? See it? Nod your head if you see it.”

He nodded. “Do you know what this is, Louis? This round, juicy object? It’s your will, Louis. It’s everything that makes you you. It’s your thoughts, it’s your hopes, it’s your desires. I own them all, they are in my hands. Now I am going to take your will with me and I am going to have a bath. You are going to stand here at attention until I come back.”

She turned and walked into the bathroom.

For Louis, there seemed to be no passage of time. Time was an idea. Time was a thought. Elle had taken it. There was just blank, content, waiting.

After a long time—or a short time—or no time—she was back. “Open your eyes, Louis,” she said. “Look at me. I just took a bath and you know what I used for my bath oil? I used your will, Louis, I bathed it, it is on me, it is in my skin, Louis, I am your will, I am your only thought, your only idea, your only desire. Nod, little puppet.”

He nodded.

“When I snap my fingers, Louis, your body will be more aroused than it has ever been. And your blank and tiny mind will have only this thought that I am lending you. That thought is: Make love to Elle. Here is the thought. Now! Aroused and focused!”

Without a word, Louis moved toward her, scooped her off her feet, and carried her to the bed. Hard as a rock, he entered her, indeed, seemed almost determined to slit her in half. “Oh!” she said, falling back against the pillow. “Oh! Oh, God, Louis, yes, Louis, yes!”

When her vision cleared she found herself looking into her husband’s motionless face. It was entirely blank, devoid of any sign of thought or feeling. She caressed his cheek with one hand.

“Louis, darling, I think you’ve earned your will back.” She snapped her fingers and at once expression flooded into his face.

“What just happened?”

“You remember, darling,” she said.

Then he did. “My God, Elle, it’s real. It’s a real state?”

“Is it?” she said. “Does it matter if its real or imaginary?”

“I—I guess not,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “But whether it’s real or not, remember one thing, darling.”

“What?”

“Either way, I own your will now. I’m just lending it back to you. Now, if I’m not mistaken, you still have the energy to make love to me again. Do it.”

The celebration went on into the wee hours.