The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

WISDOM’s regional offices were located in a modern steel and glass tower not far from the campus lecture hall where the Women’s Symposium presentation had taken place. Rather than go to the trouble and expense of parking again downtown, Jolie and I simply walked the few long blocks to the offices.

It was one of those warm, almost sensuously lovely Indian summer afternoons that seem to ambush us in the midst of our grim preparations for autumn, and the winter that will inevitably follow it. By the time we reached the complex, and ducked into the lobby to look up WISDOM’s floor on the directory, my light wool-blend suit was sticking to me uncomfortably, and little rills of warm perspiration were trickling down my ribcage. I cursed the gorgeous, charmingly incompetent KLMN weatherperson under my breath, and wished I had put a blouse on underneath my jacket, so that I could take the damned thing off.

“Six-oh-two,” Jolie read aloud off the directory board, turning toward the bank of elevators on the far wall of the lobby. I trailed along in her energetic wake, feeling rather like a soft frosted sweetcake melting slowly in the heat of some Royal Street bakery window. When the elevator disgorged us on the sixth floor, I nearly moaned aloud in pleasure at the rush of chilled air that greeted us as we stepped out of the car, and into the lobby of WISDOM, Inc.

Sparsely, but tastefully furnished with chrome, expensive leather, and smoky glass predominating, the plushly carpeted reception area was brightly lit by two expansive skylights set in the high ceiling. Several living plants were positioned about the area, among them a hibiscus, and a huge white plumeria that filled the lobby with its pungently sweet tropical perfume. I was duly impressed; I had never seen such a large, and healthy specimen growing anywhere this side of Hilo, and NEVER indoors. The restfully pale peach walls were sprinkled with very expensive-looking lifts of all the major impressionists, and some post-moderns and cubists as well; a Klee and a Picasso particularly caught my eye.

Money’s no object for THIS little non-profit endeavor, I thought to myself cynically.

“May I be of some assistance, ladies?” The young receptionist was solicitous, low-key, and devastatingly attractive. Impeccably attired and coiffed, she exuded a brittle efficiency and the competent assurance of someone ten years her senior—for she couldn’t have been more than twenty.

“We’re here to see Bea...Dr Mackay, please,” Jolie responded to the girl’s inquiry.

“And may I say who is calling?” she asked, not a hair out of place, nor the hint of any expression at all to trouble her lovely, unlined face. I was reminded of those coolly efficient automatons in that old film, about the synthetic women in that small town...what was the name of that movie, anyway...

“Jolene Eubanks and Van Worth,” Jolie answered, smiling warmly into the girl’s impassive face.

“Just one moment, please...Won’t you have a seat, I’m sure that Dr Mackay will be right with you.” She gestured at the chairs scattered around the oval glass coffee table, and, after punching a few buttons, discreetly turned away to speak into the phone. Jolie took a seat, and thumbed through a copy of Bitch (this caused me to raise an eyebrow as well—I wondered where they put such fare when their more conservative touches were expected), while I discreetly appraised the artwork on the walls at greater length. The realization shot through me all at once like an electrical current: the Klee that I was looking at was no lift—it was real.

“My God,” I murmured sotto voce. “Where in the world does a philanthropic women’s outreach group get that kind of money...”

“A gift, Mrs Worth...from a good friend of the organization, and one of our great benefactors. It’s called ‘Dream City’—are you familiar with it?” I turned away from the Klee to see Dr Beatrix Ashwood Mackay bearing down on me across the reception area.

“She is a great believer in our work, and wished to express her solidarity with us in a more personal, and individually expressive manner than simply through her usual very generous gifts of monetary support. Striking, isn’t it?” She held out a perfectly manicured hand to me and I took it, barely having time to make note of its coolness before she withdrew it again.

“I’m so glad that you could come,” she continued, taking my arm firmly and guiding me toward a Brazilian mahogany door behind the receptionist’s huge comma shaped desk. She gave a brief, amicable wave to Jolie as the girl started to rise from her chair. “Be a dear, Jolie, and go see Erica for a moment, would you, darling? She’s all in an dither about the seating for the banquet at Founders Hall this evening...something about not having enough space at the head table for all the Century Club members...” Dr.Mackay flashed that dazzling smile at Jolie, and my friend beamed back, like a puppy that has just been rewarded for doing a new trick.

“Sure thing, Bea...glad to,” she sang out. “See ya later...and Van, pay attention here...You might even learn something, if you can keep your big yap shut for five minutes running.” She grinned at me, and with a gay little wave, started down the hallway at the opposite end of the reception area.

“Such a sweet girl,” Dr Mackay said, settling my arm firmly in her own, and steering me down the hallway toward her own office. More priceless paintings, and sculpture and carvings were on display in this softly lit corridor. My head felt as if it was on a swivel as we glided noiselessly over the cream carpeting. I was in the presence of more fabulous treasures than I had ever seen outside a good-sized city’s major art museum. A particularly bold sculpture caught my eye, arresting me in mid-stride just outside the doorway to her office.

“A Tesfaye,” Dr Mackay said in answer to my unspoken question. “It is my favorite piece. She is quite a fervant supporter of our work as well. Fanayé represents the far-reaching nature of our efforts here at WISDOM. She is Ethiopian, as I’m sure you know. There is so much to be done in that part of the world to advance the cause of women’s freedom. You know, of course, that mutilation of the most barbaric sort is still practiced on young females in Somalia, and Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia and other radically Islamist societies in that area of the globe. Fanayé herself was arrested, and tortured brutally, for her radical views on women’s rights during the Islamist jihad in Somalia in the early ‘Nineties...” I sensed her watching me closely as she said this last.

“So much to do...” She smiled, gesturing toward the door to her office. “But please, do come in...”

Her personal office was a mirror of the stylishly Spartan lobby and reception area. More priceless works of art dotted the walls, and rested on pedestals around the room. She crossed to a desk roughly the size of Rhode Island and flipped a switch; the windows looking out over the city slowly darkened, plunging the suite into an artificial twilight created by the soft, indirect lighting.

“Jolene has told me a good deal about you, Mrs Worth. She is quite enamored of you, you know. You are a sort of hero to her, I’m afraid.” She paused at the frosted glass and chrome sideboard to fill a brandy snifter with an inch of some amber liquid, and crossed the room, offering it to me.

“Armengnac,” she smiled, as I took the delicate, paper-thin crystal bowl from her.

“Aren’t you having any?” I inquired, looking at her curiously, still wondering about the ‘I’m afraid’ portion of her penultimate remark.

“No, unfortunately...I must keep my wits about me for a while yet. Still so much to do before the dinner at the university this evening, I’m afraid.” She made a conspiratorial little moue of regret, as if to say we girls knew how it was, that a man could drink himself into a near-stupor as guest of honor at a public function and still be thought a wonderful speaker and a jolly fellow, but just let a woman try to get away with that...

She motioned me to a chair, and took a seat herself behind her desk, watching me appraisingly for a moment.

“Yes, Jolene has told me quite a bit about you, Mrs Worth. I believe that she has something of a crush on you, in fact...not surprising really, given your background and experience. Women who have lived, who have experienced the world, both the sour and sweet, are very attractive to a young girl just embarking on life’s journey herself.”

I returned her smile noncommittally, taking another sip of the sticky, faintly smoke-flavored cognac.

“ So, let me see now...,” she homed in on me suddenly with those laser-like pale green eyes. “Summa at Smith, passed on an advanced degree to go to New York City and start your own magazine, a modest little slick-cover vanity press journal for young female writers, that failed in eighteen months. While you were considering going back for your MA, you met a handsome young investment banker; after the stereotypical whirlwind Big Apple-in-the-fall courtship you married, and moved to the west coast... where you promptly opted out of your life to raise a family and become an attractive, charming and witty adjunct and hostess cum houri for your up and coming spouse-on-the-make...”

I gave her a quizzical look, a bit nonplussed by this frank little thirty-second précis that neatly trashed my life to date.

“The real work, the real uphill struggle, is not with the so-called ‘backward’ cultures of the less developed world, you know. It’s with women in our own western societies, women reared and immersed in our culture of materialistic comfort, and spiritual, as well as physical indolence. Women who have been seduced into believing that because they have all the creature comforts that their revolving credit accounts can purchase, in return for simply coupling with a marginally suitable male provider, their lives are the epitome of enlightened modern feminism. Otherwise intelligent, capable women who feel that they can opt out of any contribution to the struggle to liberate the world from the destructive tyranny of violence and sexual subjugation that our male dominated institutions have immersed us in, outside of banal cocktail conversation and a yearly tithe to their favorite cause.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, and took on a brighter, harder glint.

“Women such as yourself, for instance, Mrs Worth.”

My fuse, not the longest under the most favorable of conditions, was burning perilously short now. I started to rise from my chair, only to fall back limply into it as my muscles refused to respond to my brain’s rather simple instructions to them. I heard the cognac snifter hit the carpeted floor with a muffled ‘thunk’. I opened my mouth to reply to this completely unprovoked and unwarranted personal attack, but my tongue would not obey me either. It felt like a sausage in my woolly mouth. I was certain that I was the very image of comically surprised outrage, slumped back in my chair, my mouth working soundlessly to capture words that were even now rapidly retreating from my grasp. Dr Mackay rose and stepped around her desk to my side, taking my arm and assisting me to my unsteady feet.

“Don’t be alarmed, Mrs Worth,” she breathed into my ear. “Nothing serious, or permanent has been done to you...yet.” She turned me like a slow-witted child toward the pistachio colored wall on my left. I gaped idiotically as a portion of the wall slid open, revealing the carpeted interior of a small elevator car. She guided me into it, and the pneumatic doors whispered closed behind us...