The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Things eased up as the tour went on. Leslie was a thorn in their collective side all year, but Christy seemed more at peace, less paranoid, and wanting to give her best possible. It showed in the intangibles. Her second single had much more staying power and outlasted Leslie on the charts. She looked happier, but Sasha soon understood part of why; Christy was distancing herself from the trades and all the news that had driven her close to the edge, instead burying herself in her music. But the tour couldn’t last forever. The year was ending, and they had to go back to Holywood, and Sasha knew things were going to be tough once they were back in the pit of snakes.

“Wonder if I should do a nursing home gig. Oh, not like that, but to ask the old folks what it’s like to be replaced like that. I’m not last year anymore. I’m not last decade. Hell, I’m not even last century, but nothing that lives a thousand years would be able to tell me what that’s like,” Christy mused as she looked out at the fireworks from her balcony.

“What do you mean? Yeah, it’s the year 2000. I dreamed about this when I was little, not thinking that not only would I get to see it, but I’d be in the prime of my life as well. And with an icon like you... it’s just that much greater,” Sasha said dreamily. Between the lack of sleep, the champagne, and the ringing of Christy’s music in her ears, she was more than a little altered in her mental state.

“They wrote myths about me, you know. Well, not me personally, unless you’ve been busier than I realized, but about us. People like me. My ancestry since the early Greeks. We’ve been in the classics for almost three thousand years. And now... now we’re like some kind of relic. Natural talent don’t mean a thing. It’s all machines and computers, everything on the world wide web, laced with subliminals so you look at one thing and think seventeen things, and the mindless corporate puppets out front and the oinking piggies behind them.” Christy leaned forward on the railing with a sigh.

“That again?” Sasha said, not realizing she’d said it aloud until Christy turned to her with a half-smile. “There’ll always be those who want you for your talent. So we end up at Fox and Radio City instead of the big arenas, gold instead of platinum. They can’t take away who you are. You can do more with a cheap cover of Leslie Swords’s cheapest crap than she can do with the best of your songs. Hey, there’s an idea. Bet the labels would think you were giving up so badly that they’d give you the cover rights and you’d ace them at their own game. What do you say?”

“I say you’re drunk. It’d be a fun prank, but I’m more mature than that now. You could be right. Maybe we can just leave Hollywood behind, go cut albums out of a place near home, find someone to take care of the most loyal. Lord knows I’ve made enough money to walk away, but... it’s hard for you to understand. I feel like I’d be giving up on the world. Yeah, I’d be giving it up to chase what I love—a simple life, just me and the music and maybe a few people who choose to be with me. That’s the only time I’m at peace. But it’s selfish. What would I be leaving behind? What would be in my place? Pop trash, digital relics, trance music, brothels instead of labels, whores instead of artists—is this the world we were meant to influence? Can you look at me and tell me that you’d walk away and leave a world to become that?”

“I would. But I’m not you. That’s just it. You’re searching for something more than I ever knew. I just thought you needed a friend, but you’re looking for a controller like you. Someone else with... that’s why your song is... what it is,” Sasha said, feeling a headache coming on as she tried to piece together her thoughts.

Christy gave her a sad smile. “You did look at it longer than I was expecting. It’s a lot for... a slave... to comprehend. Damn, I hate using that term. Shakes me to the core, and you’ll never know how bad. But technically it’s correct. You know enough to tell me that. Yeah, I enlist those who can help me like you or Melinda or everyone else, but I always thought there might be someone, anyone, who saw us as more than walking weapons. I figured I couldn’t be the only one born with this power who liked what they did more than what they could do to people. And there are a few who come close. I recall a trip to Syracuse that gave me hope for the world.”

“So there you go,” Sasha said, trying to shake the mood that had come over Christy so suddenly.

“For that one time, I’ve met more than I can imagine who claimed to be pure and good and doin’ the Lord’s work only to create war and pretty hate machines all in the name of God. I don’t even know if what I want is possible. You know what they say about absolute power after all. I do what I can to do the right thing—no secrets for my closest, allowing the tired to leave and rest no matter how long they’ve served or how much I love them, never using someone just to satisfy my own desires like a flesh-and-blood vibrator. Everyone has a purpose, and when that purpose is done, that’s it, and I did the right thing. I pay you well, I care for you, and yet all I see out there is sex and breaking and broken sex. You can’t hardly go on the Internet before you feel something hitting you in the back of your mind, and if you’re lucky, it’s just advertising. And now we’ve got a war pig running for President... what’s next?” Christy threw out her arms towards the sky and asked again, “What’s next?”

Sasha hesitated a moment, not sure if she had the right to say what was going through her head. But Christy made sure there were no secrets between them, and Sasha felt she owed her the same courtesy. “It’s somewhere out there. Not everything can be a shooting star or an exploding firework. Maybe you’re having so much trouble finding it because what you’re looking for is yourself. Maybe you have to be the one to lead the way so other people can follow you and try to use their power the way you use yours.”

“To who?” Christy demanded. Sasha looked at her blankly, and Christy smacked herself in the forehead. “That’s right, you’re too important to me to risk at that damn convention. Yeah, people like me have a convention every year—remember when we were in Phoenix and none of y’all could find me and Hank for a day, and Melinda was calling him every 30 seconds and still was’bout ready to start a three-state manhunt? It used to be a simple conference where you’d see tips being swapped and what everyone was up to, but this year... ugh, it looked like a sex toy show. Disgusting. I bailed after the first day, and I swear what I saw there would scare you to death. You’d know what I know. That’s what keeps me searching. I know it ain’t in the community.”

Sasha hesitated, then looked at her watch and found a way to distract Christy. “Look, midnight. Here’s to a thousand more years of being a legend that no one knows but everyone feels,” she said. Christy smiled and held her close, kissing her deeply as Sasha toyed with her zipper.

The door of the balcony closed behind them as they fumbled with each other’s clothes and stumbled into bed.

“SASHA! We need you!” Hank screamed. “Upstairs now! Christy’s having one of those days again!”

Sasha put down the advance plans she’d been working on with the newest PR person—three in a year and the betting pool didn’t have this one lasting more than three months longer—massaged the bridge of her nose for a moment, then got up and joined Melinda outside her office. “Now what?”

Melinda gave a helpless shrug, which in and of itself was a bad sign. “It’s worse than ever.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“It’s worse than last time. You know I have to be the bad cop these days and I’m not comfortable in there anymore. I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself this time,” Melinda said.

Apprised of the situation and steeling herself for the worst, Sasha walked into the office. It looked like a troop of vandals had been through it and ransacked it from ceiling to floor: award statuettes lay broken on the carpet, papers were strewn from wall to wall, a chair was overturned, and Christy was in the center of it with her arms thrown up to the ceiling and every inch of her trembling with rage.

“Why would they—what can they stoop to next? Why am I here? Why can I do this? Why do I? Why do they? No, just be another cool, calm mistress breaking everything without a thought, that’s it, that’s all that matters,” Christy rambled.

Sasha waited for her to catch her breath, then interjected, “Your minions would like it better. Less stomping. I think the dancers are hiding in the attic fearing an earthquake. I know, I know, the basement would be safer, but you know dancers.” Her face was brave and smiling, but inside she was crying buckets at the sight of Christy completely out of her head and just in need of a kind word.

Christy didn’t calm completely down, but she stopped pacing the small circle she had worn into the carpet, and her arms lowered to her sides. “If you knew what was going on, you wouldn’t be so flip. With all the shit that’s going on out there, you think I’d melt down over the smallest thing? It’s in all the trades. Hell, even the regular papers have it.” She threw the paper at Sasha like an all-star.

Too much experience at catching Christy’s random flings let Sasha snag the paper without bending it too badly. She opened it to the page that was most bent and started reading through the ads. “Let’s see... bimbo, bimbo, siren for sale, piper for sale, bimbo, bimbo clearance sale, bimbo... oh. Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” Sasha said, breaking down mid-thought as her mood swung from condescending to concerned.

“Read it to me,” Christy snapped. “Let me hear that I’m not seeing things. Let me know that this is real and my paranoia didn’t hallucinate it.”

“’Bebe Blake, 16-year-old sweetie pie with...’ ugh, God, Christy, please don’t make me read it. She’s putting out an album. They want the younger kids, so they went younger. Leslie at 18 was enough to get kids so young that you have to wear sunglasses to a mall to avoid being called a pedophile, but this...” Sasha threw down the paper with tears in her eyes.

“It gets worse,” Christy said grimly.

Sasha’s gaze flicked to the next box. “’Cy Tobin, one-hit wonder from 1993, signs developmental contract to activate in 2006 for his lovely...huh?’ Now why would they wait... NO! I won’t believe that! Not even them! Not even Senate, not even Peter, not even the goddamn foreign investors! No one’s that sick. That’s your imagination goin too far. I’ll go to at least 2006 with that!” she yelled.

“I’m not willing to wait to find out,” Christy whispered in her ear.

“What can you do? What can you do? All you can do is put out a better product, be a better artist, lay down better tracks, do better tours, and be the alternative. People will keep coming. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t take the entire weight of the world on your shoulders,” Sasha said, white as a ghost.

“You might be right, but what good would that be? I’ve been to Hollywood, I’ve been to Redwood, I’ve crossed the oceans—what else is there left, Sasha, what else is left? Where else is there?” Christy sobbed.

Sasha tried to hold it together for her, but she too broke down, pulling Christy as tight as she could, her brain abuzz and her thoughts going into overdrive. She knew self-destruction when she saw it—but she also recognized the veiled command because she opened the envelope. Antarctica, she thought, and she mouthed the word to Christy. It was enough for Christy to wipe her eyes and give her a shaky smile.

“Melinda! Can I talk to you for a sec?” Sasha asked, and it wasn’t much of a question when she had her hand around Melinda’s wrist pulling her along.

“Is it safe to leave her?” Melinda asked, looking back at the office.

“Safe as it will ever be. Look, when we found out about Christy’s parents and she showed us her lullaby—the song that really owns us—did you look at it closely?”

“No, I didn’t think I should—why would that matter now?” Melinda asked, thinking that Sasha was going as crazy as Christy.

“Look up the song. Study it now. Understand what it means, please. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but she’s out of gas. She’s tired of running and she’s tired of seeing what the world’s become. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I think it’s going to be serious. Don’t ask me how I know. Something’s nagging at me, something’s stuck in my head, and it sounds and feels like Christy’s doing it,” Sasha said in a torrent of words as she went to her room to pack.

Melinda stood in the doorway with her mouth open in shock as Sasha threw everything into suitcases and bags—whatever would hold something, Sasha threw something else into it. “And yet you’re leaving? When she needs us most? Why would you—there’s more to it, isn’t there?” she asked through tears that she resolutely ignored.

“She’s right at the edge of the cliff, and I think she might be ready to do something that’ll send all of us over if we’re not careful. I don’t know exactly what, but I know how she was driven to the edge. I’m not going to wait a second if it all hits the fan. Christy’s going to need us in some way, shape, or form. I’m not leaving, but I’m being prepared to take this show on the road,” Sasha said.

Melinda shook her head and flopped down on Sasha’s bed. “What can we do?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. But whatever happens... we’ve got to keep searching.”

“Okay, your psychic powers are scaring me. Christy’s belting that song out in the office so loud it’s making me dizzy. What does Neil Young have to do with what’s going on?” Hank asked, sticking his head in the room with a scowl on his face.

“You too?”

“Who doesn’t like Neil Young?” Hank asked with a smile.

Sasha grinned back and hugged him as tightly as she could. “She’s gone past the point of no return. I’m not a controller, not like her. I don’t know a quarter of what’s out there, but she told us a secret that no one... owned... the way we are should ever know, and she did it for a day like this, a day when you have to follow the heart of the person that took you, not the voice and face of the person they’ve become. I pray to God I’m wrong, and I probably am, but there are snippets of random thoughts going through my head, set to her music and to that song, telling me that we’re losing her.”

She looked at Hank, then at Melinda, and they looked back at her, not completely convinced but willing to believe. As confident as she was going to get in this matter, she turned back to her suitcases and continued packing.