The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Light and Shadows III: Effulgence Rising

by J. Darksong

* * *

I.)

Sorry. I’m not home, but if you leave a message, I’ll be sure to call you right back. Thanks!

“Hello Katie? It’s me, again. You know, Jess? As in your best friend?” Sigh. “Look, It’s been two weeks now. We really need to get together and talk about what went down in Miami, yanno?” Another sigh. “I am a bit weirded out about things too, yanno? I mean... what happened there, what we experienced... it was... it was like...uuugh. Shit. I can’t talk about this on the phone. Call me back, Katie. Soon. Please?” Beep.

End of messages. To delete this message, press seven. To save this message in the archives— BEEP! Message deleted. End of message. Check erased messag—

Click.

* * *

Okay. I felt really bad about blowing Jess off that way. Really bad. Honest! But, I just wasn’t ready to deal with everything that had happened during our vacation to Florida. Not yet. I was still feeling a bit shaky. After I’d run out of excuses, mom and dad pretty much insisted that i go visit Aunt Eva at her clinic, and let her give my brain the psychic once-over. Which turned into three, four, and five times over. Apparently the inside of my mind was a really big mess, with bits and pieces of psychic trauma and mental tampering left behind from other adventures during my time as Luminaire. ‘Psychic scar tissue’ she’d called it, made worse by the way I’d broken free of Madrigal’s control.

Yeah. Fun thing, that. It wasn’t as much of my mind breaking free of her control as it was my mind breaking, which freed me from her control. I’d heard stories growing up that something similar had happened to mom when she fought the Mind Five, and to Aunt Sarah back when she first encountered the Nesatealia when was captured by Yanta. Huh. Nice to know I’m keeping the family tradition alive. At any rate, even with my mind shattered, I somehow managed to function well enough to lay the smack down on Astrid Madrigal, and help free all of the other girls she’d turned into her helpless pets.

So, that’s something, i guess.

Long story-short, I was back to normal again, but not really. Aunt Eva had removed as much of the brainwashing as she could. but there was some still there, bits and pieces, threads from a larger string, all tangled up and knotted, deep inside my skull. So, even though I felt like myself, how could I truly know for sure that I was myself again? The cell phone in my pocket buzzed, and I took it out, tossing it onto the bed. Then I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breath deep cleansing, steadying breaths.

Jess. Fuck. What the hell was I going to do about Jess?

Groaning softly, I walked over to the balcony, willing my clothes away, standing naked in front of the glass door. I wasn’t quite sure I really trusted Dad’s new Neuroweave system yet, but I had to admit, it was kind of fun being able to change clothes with just a thought. Closing my eyes, I focused my mind on my costume, on my pink and black uniform, picturing it firmly in my mind. With a effort, I brought up just a speck of my power, letting my light pulse gently through my skin, and through the microscopic transdermal receptors imbedded lightly in my skin. In a flash, the Neuroweave fibers reformed, covering my body in a colorless sheet, which reconfigured itself to my body, pressing against my flesh almost like a second skin. I actually moaned out loud as it formed around my waist, cupping my pussy, rubbing against my clit. The feeling only increased as the sensation spread, surging out from the soles of my feet, along my toes, up my thighs... mmmm... and between... gaaahh...up my chest, along my br... breasts.. and nip... ples.. .fffuucck Dad, you never said it would feel like this...

In reality, it only lasts for a second, maybe half a second. But the sensations? Imagine every nerve ending in your body, every erogenous zone, even ones you wouldn’t normally THINK of as erogenous, strokes, caressed, feathered, licked, nibbled, and suckled, all at the same time, for an instant in time. That’s what it felt like. In fact, it was very tempting to do nothing more than phase my uniform on and off and on again. But... that wouldn’t really accomplish anything. So, fully dressed once more, I opened the balcony doors, and Luminaire, the Light of Justice, took to the skies.

* * *

There’s nothing better than flying. Nothing. My twin brother Jimmy used to say the same thing about streaking down the highway doing a hundred and fifty miles per hour in his Charger, but it all boils down to freedom. Whether it’s hovering a few inches above the ground at high speeds or flittering through the clouds, it’s all about a feeling of being... disconnected. From your body, and from the rest of the world. For me, flying high, looking down on the world below, it’s hard to feel sad or depressed. It’s as if you’ve left all of your troubles and problems back on the ground below.

Floating over the city under the evening sky, just as the sun dipped over the horizon and the city lights came up, I was treated to the most beautiful sight in the world. River City is certainly no Metropolis, or Star City, or Midas City, Seattle or New York, but at night it is without a doubt one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen. Few people get to see it the way I can, from above. It’s calming, soothing, and oh so relaxing. It’s the kind of image you’d just love to be able to share with someone... special.

Sighing softly, I drifted down onto the roof of a high rise building, sitting down on a ledge. Dang it. Even up here my thoughts keep circling back around to Jessica. I need to deal with this, and decide what I’m going to say to her. I’ve been avoiding it. To be honest, I’m actually a little bit scared to try. With everything that’s happened to me lately, I can’t really be sure that what I think and feel are really real.

Back in Florida, Jessica and I were brainwashed, made to believe we were nothing more than the anthromorphic pets of out Mistress, mere sexual toys for her amusement. We ended up together, sharing a bed, and each other, bonding and becoming closer than mere friends. When I broke free of Madrigal’s control and attacked her, it was Jess that moved in to defend her, trying to kill me in order to save her Mistress. And I know, deep down, that she was being controlled just as I had been, that she was only doing as she was commanded, defending Madrigal from an enemy attacker. Still, I felt conflicted... like she’d chosen Astrid over me. What was that? Not betrayal... not truly. Jealousy? Maybe. But... why? What did I feel for Jessica now? And why? Was it real, or just what Madrigal had programmed into my head?

That’s what it all boiled down to, in the end. I... think... maybe I loved her. I certainly lusted after her. Every night since returning from Florida, I’d dreamed about her, about us, and our time together. I reluctantly mentioned it to Ms. Snow the first time she dug around inside my brain, about the conflict I felt. Before Florida, we were just friends, best friends, yes, but purely platonic. I was interested in boys, had a couple of boyfriends in high school, though we’d never really done more than kiss a few times. Certainly nothing near the attraction I now felt for Jess. Even after Aunt Eva had uprooted the gnarled tangled mess inside my brain, the feelings I felt for her were even stronger than before.

But are they real? I asked myself for the millionth time. I can’t decide what to do about this. What if Jessica doesn’t feel the same way? What if she DOES feel the same way? How can I move forward if I’m not even sure what I feel right now will last in a few days, or weeks or months?

Heady stuff to contemplate. Relationships were difficult enough to manage even without having my brain twisted like a pretzel. Fighting criminals is much easier. I almost wish there was one here now... I glanced to the side, my eyes attracted to a bright flash of color. I blinked, not sure for a moment if I was actually seeing what I thought I saw. Huh. You don’t see that every day. Guess I should be careful for what I ask for. Shrugging, I pushed off from the edge of the roof and dropped... hovering a few feet below the building’s fifteenth floor.

Just a few feet away from me, a young dark haired woman in a plastic kitty cat mask and a motley colored spandex costume was climbing up the side of the building. She had suction cups fastened to her knees and elbows, and a rather large cloth sack cinched into the utility belt around her waist. As I watched, she held out a gloved hand, flexing her fingers slightly, causing a set of razor sharp claws to extend from the fingertips. With a simple slash, she cut through the glass around the window’s lock, slid a hand inside, and unlocked it.

“Ahem,” I said, clearing my throat loudly. She whirled around, gaping at me in surprise. “What? Did you think you’d be the only one you’d find up at this height? You must not be from around here.” I crossed my arms, giving her my most disapproving glare. “While I have to give you points for originality, I can’t say much for your color scheme. White, brown, red and orange spots aren’t exactly stealth colors. Not very smart for a cat burglar.”

The woman laughed. “Thanks for the tip, but I’m not the kind of girl to hide in the shadows. I prefer the spotlight. Oh. and the name’s Manx. I was going to go with ‘Calico’ but I hear that name’s already been taken.” Moving with amazing agility and speed, she planted her hands firmly against the ledge, and kicking out with her feet, slipped into the open window and into the office.

“HEY!” I yelled, trying to follow, struggling to slip my modestly small but buxom self through the narrow window. “Come back here!” Dammit! How did she do that? She must be a contortionist or something! With a heave, I slipped through, landing lightly on the carpet, only to find the room now empty. Moving into the hallway, I found the building completely dark, utterly pitch black.

“Ut uh,” the burglar’s voice called out from somewhere nearby in the darkness. “Looks like some unscrupulous person cut the power to this floor before making their way up here.” She laughed softly. “Luckily for me, I came prepared for such an eventuality. What about you, hero? Are you afraid of the dark?”

“Not even slightly,” I replied issuing forth a small floating orb of light. With a flick of my wrist, I sent it floating up to the center of the hallway, and with a thought, increased the brightness, illuminating the entire room. “I guess you have no idea who you’re messing with.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Manx calls out, this time from directly above me. Before I can even blink, she pulled some kind of globe from her belt and cracked it open in her hand. A fine grey soot pours down on my, all over my uniform, and suddenly, it’s all I can do to keep standing. My entire body feels extremely heavy, as if I’d somehow become magnetized, fighting my attraction to the ground. With a cry, I sank down to my knees, then all the wall flat against the floor. Adding insult to injury, Manx dropped down nimbly from her perch, leaning down to stare at me, her smiling cat face inches from my deeply scowling one.

“So, how do you like my Gravity Powder?” she asked, running a gloved finger along my cheek. “It temporarily quadruples a person’s weight, making it extremely difficult to move around. Really rare and expensive... you should be honored, hero. Normally, I rely on standard issue tranquilizer darts, or knock out gas cartridges. More than enough to take down a security guard or two... but somehow I doubt it would make much of a dent in you.” She shrugged, getting back to her feet. “You hero types are always full of surprises. And an ‘honest’ working girl like me has to be ready for any kind of situation I might find myself in.” She turned to leave, heading further down the hallway.

“Hold... it!” I growled, pushing up against the floor, trying to get back to my feet. Now that I understood what I’d been dosed with, I knew how to fight against it. “You’re... not... getting away... that... easy!” I managed, huffing and puffing, but managing to get my feet underneath me. My costume was covered in a thin layer of fine grey powder, like dust, but luckily, my hair was mostly dust free. Mentally thanking my father for coming up with his newest quick change gadget, I willed away my uniform, covering my naked flesh with a thin cocoon of light as the Gravity Powder dispersed, raining down onto the carpet. I willed my now dust free uniform back a second later, and lifted up, hovering a few inches off the ground, grateful for having regained my mobility.

“Damn, you’re a tricky one,” Manx grumbled, taking off in a sprint, with me flying right behind her. Wanting to put an end to this farce, I pointed a hand towards her, gathering energy, and sent a light rope at her feet. “Sorry,” she laughed as, to my surprise, she leaped, dodging it easily without even glancing back. “You’ll have to do better than that, hero!” Making her way to a nearby stairwell, she paused for a second to wink at me, and then darted downstairs.

Shit! Alright, cat girl, no more Miss Nice Heroine!

Okay, I’ve always been more of a ‘leap before you look’ kind of girl. It’s pretty much my nature. Not because I’m stupid or impulsive, though I certainly don’t consider myself a genius. I just usually rushed in headlong, because for as long as I can remember, my luck has always cleared the way for me. If you’ve never broken a bone or fallen out of a tree, you’re generally not overly cautious when climbing one. If you have no fear of falling, it’s not only not a concern, it’s usually not even a consideration. And even with Manx deliberately baiting me, drawing me in, having already tasted the effects of one of the little surprises from her belt, I charged straight down the stairwell, heedless of whatever tricks or traps she might have set for me.

Like the one I practically ran straight into.

“What the hell?” I yelled, finding myself suddenly tangled in some kind of sticky web like substance. Caught off guard, I thrashed wildly, panicked, bumping into a wall, nearly knocking myself senseless. I could hear her laughing from further downstairs, at least two or more floors below. Grumbling, really freakin’ pissed now, I ripped through the sticky fibers, tearing the net apart, and continued down after her... a little more cautiously this time.

I found her several minutes later on the ground floor, in the bank depository room. The vault door was already open, and she was sitting, cross-legged, in the lotus position, in the middle of the floor. Not taking any chances this time, I conjured a light cage around her, pinning her in on all sides. Nonplussed, she continued to sit there, calmly. as I approached. as if she had not a care in the world. When I was less than five feet away, she finally spoke.

“You know, I have a confession to make,” she said, holding up a hand. “I do know who you are. I mean, everyone in River City has heard of the blonde beauty, the black and pink protector, the Light of Justice, Luminaire!” She sighed softly, placing a hand gently against the edge of the cage. “Oooooh... tingly. You know, I kind of thought it might be hot to the touch, like a laser beam or something... that it would slice a person in half if it made contact.”

I scowled at her, crossing my arms. “I can control the intensity. Besides, a heroine doesn’t slice people in half, even the really bad ones. So, Manx, care to explain what you think you’re doing here? If you’re quick enough to get here and open the vault with enough time to spare to practice mediation here in the middle of the room, then you were quick enough to get away clean. What’s your game?”

“My game? Texas Hold’em,” she answered by flippantly. “I love it. Absolutely love it. You know that show ‘Poker After Dark’? I watch it all the time... well, on nights when I’m not working, that is.”

I was about to lose it and start pounding Cat Girl in face. “Cut the crap, Manx. You know what I mean. Why are you here? And why didn’t you run away when you had the chance?”

“The thing I love about that particular program,” she continued on, as if she hadn’t even heard me, “is that it mixes professional players with semi-pros and amateurs. You see, the game is completely even, with equal chance of anyone coming out on top. No matter how skilled a played you are, if luck is not on your side, you can easily find yourself out of the game!”

That brought a bit of a grin to my face. “Yeah. I know a little something about ‘luck’ myself. And you, Miss Kitty, are out of luck, and out of the game. Whatever you were after, you won’t be getting it. I’m going to alert the police and have them pick you up, and we’ll see if maybe you’ll answer their questions.” I turned to head out, when she spoke up again.

“Wait! Wait wait wait a second!” she called out after me, one hand outstretched. I paused, taking a step back towards her. “I haven’t even told you the best part. You see, Luminaire, there’s also the flip side of the coin. Luck is important, yes... but even the luckiest player alive can still lose if she doesn’t play her hand correctly. Luck and skill... two sides of the same coin.” She held out a small silver coin, flipping it lightly over her knuckles and back. When it landed on her thumb, she flipped it high into the air. As I followed it with my eyes, she grabbed something from her belt, and when I glanced back at her, she blew a handful of fine grey powder into my face.

“Ahhh... bitch!” I yelped, coughing slightly, waving a hand to disperse the cloud, and powering up to light blast her into the middle of next week. “What the hell? I already showed you I know how to deal with your Gravity Powder...” I frowned, feeling suddenly lightheaded, and slightly dizzy. I shook my head as a wave of euphoria hit, leaving me feeling more than a little giddy, as I slid slowly to the floor. “Whoa.. wha... what was in that... what did you does me with?” I stared, fascinated, at my hand, as it moved, my softly glowing fingers leaving visible trailing after images.

“Heliostatic dust,” Manx replied cheerfully from somewhere sounding both very close and very far away. “Isoferrotanic cyclochlorpromazine-50, with a few other inactive ingredients. Goes by the street name of Icarus Powder. As I recall, it was originally supposed to be used with light therapy for treatment of depression, but the FDA banned it when the euphoria it caused went above and beyond approved medical usage.” She chuckled. “Still, it IS effective... and more on some people than others. ”

She was right. It was definitely working on me. I knew about Icarus Powder. Knew the story too, of the Greek guy and his kid, stranded on the island, escaping with wings of wax, until the boy, Icarus, got fascinated, spellbound, by the light of the sun, so entranced by it that he kept flying higher and higher, ignoring his dad’s warnings, just going closer and closer to the light until... zap! Except with me, I was the sun, burning brightly, with no way to zap myself, nothing to do but fall deeper and deeper under the spell of my own light, my need drawing it out of me, wanting more, needing more...

“Wow, you’re really bright when you choose to be,” Manx whispered in my ear. She was no longer in her cage... was there even a cage? Had there ever been one? The thought popped like a dragonfly lured too close to a bug zapper when her lips slid delicately along my cheek, nibbling my ear, forcing a deep moan past my lips as her hands began a teasing exploration of my prone and helpless body. “Mmmm... you seem to be enjoying yourself right now, sweetie. So far be it for me to ruin it for you. Here’s what’s going to happen now. You’re going to make that cute little pink uniform of yours poof, just like you did before... and I’ll help you feel soooo much better. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetie?”

“Yyyeeeaaahh,” I moaned, nodding softly, my pretty sparkly warkly bright bright world tilting crazily as my head shook. “Wanna... feel good... more... please...” Ohhh goddess did I want more... need more... not even sure more of what, just more of whatever I was feeling...

“Ah! Good girl!” Manx purred, and I gasped, eyes crossing, as her gloved fingers stroked along the edges of my tender nether lips. My costume had vanished, either by reflex, or unconscious thought. I hadn’t willed it away—I had virtually no will left at all at this point. No will, just need, and glorious, sparkling bright blinding all-consuming light...

“Now, sweetie, I need for you to listen to me for just a few more minutes, okay?” she cooed softly. I whined, my body writhing into her touch as much as my mostly limp form could manage. “In a minute, I’m going to take my cut of the treasure locked up in the vault, and leave. And when I do, you’re going to spread those sweet silky little legs of yours nice and wide, and use that oh so wonderful light of yours to create a nice, thick, hard dildo... and you’re going to slide it deep deep inside your wet dripping little snatch, and work yourself over ’til you cum hard enough to pass out.” She chuckled softly, sliding her leather covered digits just inside my needy pussy, as my hips rose up to meet her.

“Ohhh, sorry, sweetie,” she replied, pulling away, making me whimper. “I’d love to spend the entire night here, petting your eager little pussy, and lapping up your cream... but this alley cat needs to make tracks. But don’t worry, luv. I’m sure that lovely scattered and broken mind of yours can come up with a suitable fantasy while you’re fucking yourself silly to make the event truly memorable.” Raising her mask for a moment, soft cool bright pink lips pressed against my hot fevered ones. “Sorry things didn’t work out for you, Luminaire. I’m not a black cat, but it was unlucky of you to have crossed my path.”

After that, she left. With my waning strength, I conjured the thickest, hardest, phallus I could, and began, literally, fucking myself, all the while, my body continued to glow brighter and brighter. The light I was giving off at this point must have been blinding, and possibly visible from space. I felt cold inside, like my insides were being pumped full of liquid nitrogen, yet I was sweating like a stuck pig in a barbecue pit. When the first orgasm hit, suddenly, out of the blue, I felt the universe tremble, as if all of reality was shaking from the intensity. When the second came, following the coattails of the first, a wrenching sound accompanied it, sounding like the heavens were being ripped apart. My throat felt raw, and I realized, dimly, that the rending sound was me, screaming out in pleasure. And yet, as blissfully wonderful as this was, I still needed... more.

I needed Jess.

Like a magic talisman, the mere thought of her brought for yet another orgasm, another bright pulse of light, now so bright people in nearby galaxies would like to wear sunglasses. Jess... oh, my sweet sweet Jessy... my sweet tender little Bunny Girl... ooooh... ohhhh gaaawwddd... And just like that, I was back in the dream, in that wonderful perfect place, that perfect existence, not Luminaire, not Katherine Frasier, just Kitty, a sweet humble little pet, snuggled up tightly against my lover, my dearheart, the missing piece of my soul... as I came for the last time, every sensation, every touch, smell, tastes, sight, and sound of that experience rose up in me again, burning itself, searing it into my very soul...