The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

1

I can only guess, but whatever it is they’re doing, it must concern people’s eyes. About half the 13th floor’s employees have returned, each wearing sunglasses. They’re all the same type: grannie getters. Nobody’s supposed to say what’s going on. At least that’s what I’m thinking, cause nobody’s talking.

We’ve been told the event concerns insurance costs, and market levity...whatever that means. I first presumed a terrorist attack. That’s still up in the air. Today the situation has definitely advanced. I’ve never been under quarantine before, so I don’t know if this qualifies. After all, we did go home last night.

Beginning yesterday, right after the lunch hour—and starting with the top floor (the 16th)—a steady stream of employees began to cross the ‘corporate wood,’ and wander into the small med-assist building on the edge of the lot. It’s shaded by sycamore trees, and backdropped by thick Missouri forest which leads all the way to the Mississipi River.

We’re out a ways from the city, and out a ways from the suburbs. Construction has been halted here, on what was to have been a campus-style ‘corporate plaza.’ The groundwork was laid one year ago. Our building was the second to go up, and also the last. It dwarfs the only other structure. Working late, you can watch our shadow creep across the lawn, and swallow that medical facility some two-hundred meters away.

The plaza encloses two groomed acres of small trees and grass. The building facades were all to have faced this area. Those other structures being nonexistant, between our building and the single story med-assist, we have our own little private park.

My office is on the tenth story. I have a good view of that little building. Bright and early this morning, they erected a tent over its front doors. I’ve made out two big guys handing over dark plastic glasses, and returning cell-phones to the people coming out. This is much different, much more structured than when I went home last night.

After the visit, one by one, people sort of lolly back, recrossing the plaza on a smoothed-brick walkway. Every so often, five or six folks heading the other direction try to hail the person down, but are ignored. And I suppose their escorts, two more big guys in black glasses—really big guys—don’t encourage the exchange.

There’s something very sinister to the whole thing, but I don’t know what. I only half-know why I feel it.

I lose sight of the returning parties when they reach our steps. They walk a bit like zombies.

At precisely ten-thirty this morning, my own floor joined the escapade. Needless to say, whatever’s happening, it’s happening fast. They go five at a time, about every ten minutes. But they stay much longer. Nobody has returned from floors 11 or 12 yet. I’m thinking: invasion of the body snatchers.

Bill approached me a few moments after the first five names were called from this floor. I was standing in the commons, watching the substitute receptionist. At first, I was flirting, or trying to from a distance. I was sipping coffee, and watching her little hands fly around behind the desk, presumably selecting five more names to announce.

I have good instincts about potential. I’m thinking: I’d like somebody, like this sub sec, to get a really good position with my department. Sombody that will just go ‘at it’ with everything they’ve got.

I have to stop my head now, before it wanders into whole-another tangent.

I figure I’ll score some points by asking for her resume. It’s not unheard of. Some people—not a lot—but some start brilliant careers that way. I did. And I actually am sort of serious.

She looks up at me, stares a moment, then returns to her work. I realize what I’m doing is anything but flirting. I’m being creepy.

But she’s like a workaholic robot. It’s transfixing. And not to mention, she looks like a knockout sex-demon. I can imagine that airy black skirt falling off of her, her lips salted with kisses, her mouth warm and succulent; the blouse collapsing on itself; her chest heaving as those warm, young, perky breasts fall out of the silky black bra.

Maybe a scarlet bra.

Just when I decide to have a few words with her, maybe even spy on her, see if I can get some more information concerning the past two day’s events here—and also, perhaps, ask her out—that’s when Bill taps me on the arm. It was a rude intrusion on my fantasy.

His department is on the west end, directly across from mine. I don’t know if he likes me. I don’t know if he really likes anybody. I get the feeling he just tolerates us. He is, after all, probably the most productive employee this company has.

There’s a familiar confusion on his face when he motions for me to follow. I saw this same look earlier, in the bathroom, in the mirror. Reality returns, and makes a sharp click in my head.

We walk down the hall, and for the second time today, all of the hairs on my body stand on end. When I turn around, sure as hell, her eyes are on my back. It’s a thick stare.

I would’ve winked, but we just don’t do that sort of thing around here. We round the corner, and he stops.

“So, what’s this about? Do you know anything?” he asks.

He’s a little older than me, and always wears a suit. Most of his subordinates do the same, just to keep in step. The rest of us don’t even consider suits, hence his department’s collective name: the Stiffs. After he speaks, I notice the silence. There’s absolutely nothing happening on this side of the building.

“Where the hell’s the rest of your department?” I ask.

“Well,” he raises his shoulders and sighs, “Sam’s still in. The rest were interns, except for those five names you just heard called.” His shoulders drop.

“This is bullshit.”

Those five names are walking across that grassy vista this very moment.

He speaks like a news anchor, “I don’t know. But it is insane.” He eyes me. “You haven’t heard anything?”

“No,” I admit, “but it’s fucking creepy, isn’t it?”

“Well, I don’t know how exactly how creepy it is, but I don’t like all this secrecy.”

“Secrecy?”

He’s weighing my question. For a moment, I consider relating my first strange experience of the day, about Earl, the security guard. But I’m still not comfortable thinking about it, let alone discussing it. I decide not to.

Bill transferred here from Chicago, where office relations are, I assume, much different from here—probably much more formal. His face is betraying that formal training. Like the rest of us today, he’s feeling the need to ask, and to tell. But his familiars, the Stiffs, are all gone. And he sure as hell isn’t going to confide in Sam, his only competition for promotion off the tenth floor. In this business, it’s not good to show anxiety.

I suppose that was the weight: did my question outweigh his risks, and warrant an honest, unguarded answer? He’s probably thinking: it’s just Kurt. Kurt’s a veritable nobody. No competition here.

I’ve become the company’s blackest sheep.

Finally, he lets it out. Actually, he blurts it. Really though, he sort of pukes it out. “I heard some folks didn’t go home last night.”

I laughed. I shouldn’t have, but I did. He waves it off, and shakes his head. “I know I don’t need to help these people spread rumors. I just heard a couple of people talking when I came in.”

“Our girls?” I ask. He winces, not at my question, but my having said ‘girls.’

“No. From HR, I think. How’d you know they were girls?”

“Cooler talk,” I tell him.

“Oh. I guess so. But, that’s what they’re saying.” He’s really uncomfortable. So am I. Talking about it makes it seem more absurd. “Kurt,” he says, for once using my name, “they also said that, well,” he stops again, sucks on his tooth, and looks down at my shoes. This keeps happening with my shoes. They look absolutely fine to me, but for some reason people keep gawking at them. And they weren’t exactly cheap. He looks back up and continues, “the entire first and second floors have been cleared, but almost nobody knows about it having happened.”

“Cleared?”

“Nobody is down there.”

“Spruce Telecom?”

“Yup.”

“Where did they go?”

He smiles and shakes his head again. “Well, I called down there, and somebody answered, so I’m guessing they didn’t really go too far. But I don’t know.”

Time to go paranoid talk:

“I’m not really thinking this too much myself, but...do you think it was an attack?”

“Attack?” he says.

“Like a—”

“No, no.” Now he really sounds like a news anchor. “I think somebody might have done something maybe they shouldn’t have, but I don’t think it’s that. Not an attack. We’re not exactly a prime target for anything like that.”

Of course, he’s right. The old arch is definitely more a prime target than this claims and entertainment firm. Or Spruce. Or any of the other five companies crammed in the floors below us.

“But, Kurt...”

“Yeah?”

“I’m thinking maybe we should call Ken.”

“Can we?” I ask, and this strikes him as odd. Ken is a lawyer, a young one. He’s good though, and by word of mouth, has accumulated about half this company as clientel.

“What do you mean?” he says.

“Well, and I’m not trying to add to this whole conspiracy, but have you tried to make an outgoing call today?”

“No, not yet. I haven’t needed to yet.”

I can’t help but grin. It’s not a happy grin. “I’m guessing we won’t be getting a whole lot of incoming calls, either,” I say, watching his face. “They take your cell off you downstairs?”

“I don’t carry that thing anymore. I like to stay gone when I’m gone. I’ve got the Pitch though.”

“Yeah, but have you looked at it?”

“No.”

“Offline. At least mine’s is. And Charlie’s, and Kate’s, and Pam’s was before she left.” The Pitch is our special little portable. It’s half phone, half internet, and completely dysfunctional. We call it the Pitch cause it’s worthy of being pitched. It’s a total piece of trash. The only person that can get it to work is our tech, and he hates us. He’s missing in action this morning, by the way.

Bill pips up, “hey. And the internet too.”

I laugh. I’m almost serious: “we could make a run for it.”

“I know,” he says, and it’s just way too plausible for me to dote on.

I have a tendency to wander around at work. In a way, I’ve always been forced to sneak my way to the sixteenth floor. Leaving the office, especially as often as I do it, is highly frowned upon by Bill and the Stiffs. So I’m very careful about it. I don’t want to lose the priviledge. And it is a priviledge. Being the black sheep carries a lot of leeway.

That top floor is my sanctuary from these cubicles, glass partitioned offices, telephones, fax machines...and especially that damned intercom or paging service, whatever the hell it is that our receptionist smacks her gum into for ten hours a day. But today, like so many other regulars, Miss Pettijoan is not present. She’s been replaced with that stunning young blonde. I’m not altogether unhappy about that.

The girl’s name is Sharon. It says so on her big, blocky nametag.

We’ve been given instructions not to leave the building unless called. Another five have just filed into one of our four elevators. Food will be provided for those remaining in the building after 12:45. By that time, even if I’m called last, I’ll be gone.

Sharon doesn’t exactly stop me when I slide past her, and into the elevator lobby. I know she’s involved in this whole scheme, but she seems non-threatening. She does, however, pick up the phone. And as I turn to see those thick eyes again, I find her hand sheilding her mouth, and hiding whatever words she’s speaking. I can only assume she was on line with the front desk.

The events of an hour previous play over my thoughts. Where the hell is old Earl now? In the clink? Dead? And who was he trying to contact? More on this in a moment.

The elevator buzzes. Tossing out good manners, I do wind up snapping that little wink at Sharon after all, then hop into the elevator. I’m smiling. Then I’m just hoping the elevator door will hurry on up and close. Still, I’m smiling.

The whole thing’s remained more caustically amusing than dangerous. Until now. Until I reach the sixteenth floor.

Cindi Whitman is a sexy, busty thing. She has a heavy south bronx voice, though she’s originally from St. Charles. Recently she’s taken to this hideous, dewy, angry-lesbian haircut. But a man can look past that. After all, she’s one of my favorite people in the building, especially on that top floor. (Though we inhabit floors eight on up, Cindi’s not actually part of our corporation. The stale, windowless offices of the Double Wexx Windsheild Wiper & Accessories Company, to which Cindi is CFO, are surrounded by our own stately head-of-department rooms. And somehow—I can only guess how—Cindi has aquired one of these much-desired offices. Again, I can only guess as to the way she did it wink).

Cindi keeps a small, reversible, ENTER/EXIT sign on her doorknob. It says EXIT. I jostle the knob, my little way of letting her know I’m about to walk in.

I find her staring through that huge east window—the entire fourth wall of the room—and out across the corporate woods.

“You watching that happen?” It slips out before I remember she’s already been there. Already, I don’t trust her.

“Yes,” she says. The old cajole isn’t in her voice. It’s flat and expressionless. For a moment, I think of that secretary.

Cindi and I have buddied up pretty good over the last three months. Some days we exchange hours of playtime over the office lines (she also shares our service...hmm), not to mention vast chunks of time spent right in this particular spot. Or on the floor. Or on the desk. Or on the elevated vent against the window. We’re a bit infatuated with each other, but not in love.

Her present demeanor is unsettling, to say the least.

“Cindi,” I say, and wait. She doesn’t respond, so I continue. “What’s this all about? Did we get attacked or something? Bill the Stiff said that the entire—”

“It’s just a check up,” she replies, not turning around.

To justify my current paranoia, I need to tell you about Earl and Wint, the security brothers. Earl, who has a terrible speech impedemint, so bad that he communicates only through signing, regulates the security cameras. His brother, Wint, supposedly named after the season of winter because of his stark white hair, usually sits beside him, manning the front desk and directing the occasional visitor.

I arrived early this morning. The first thing I heard was the howl of a CB radio. It directed my attention to the far north corner of the lobby, where a scuffle was taking place. This building is very, very wide, I must add.

A giant of a man was dragging Earl in the direction of the service dock, a place out of sight. Another odd thing: a slender woman was in step with this clash, not flinching in the least. Her thin arms were tugging at Earl’s free hand. And even through this, in vain, and in wild desperation, it seems Earl was trying to babble something into that reciever.

He yelped, gasped, went quiet, and the woman ripped the CB from his outstretched hand. I thought she was going to strike him with it. I’m glad she didn’t.

The woman turned, and smiled at me. Every pore on my body prickled. I ducked her gaze, and my eyes found the front desk. And guess what? No brother Wint.

Cooly sitting in his place was a stonefaced man in sunglasses. At his side was a poorly concealed, black and ominous, stealthy looking carbine assault rifle. I could smell the thing from twenty feet away. Gun smell.

Just like Bill & the Stiffs, these three were all wearing suits. Except these were black, and tapered. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if they were fireproof.

The woman was still smiling at me. But that’s not entirely correct: it’s more like she was taunting me. I spoke. My voice was more choppy than I would have liked.

“What the hell is this?”

The guard behind the desk rose to his feet—no less a giant than Wint’s well-dressed antagonist. He motioned me to the elevators.

“No,” I said, adding some intention to my voice. “What the fuck is this?”

The woman was heading my direction. Her high heels clipped the tile. The guard rounded the corner of the desk. Then came the bell.

It was ridiculous, saved by the bell and all, but they both stopped. Much too far away, an elevator door slid open. I turned quick, looked at it, then turned back to the woman. I realized that some silly personal-comfort breach had caused my hands to draw up in defense, much like a squirrel. In one of them was my cell phone. On instinct, I dropped them immediately. Behind my back, I tried to hit the call button, but I’d put that damned leather case over it. At present, I’m quite sure it wouldn’t have worked anyway.

She was still grinning. I’ve seen leopards grin the same way. She noticed my reaction, because the smile dropped off her face. She held up her hand, like a stopping guard. That strange man whipped erect, and stood at attention.

She wasn’t exactly beautiful, at least not in that “I’d do anything to be her lover” sort of way. But something about her appearance was throwing me hard off-center. Way off-center. The woman was young, early twenties. She was lithe and long. Her dark suit ended in a business skirt, which stopped above her knees. She wore no make-up. I don’t think she needs any.

Penetrating eyes. Full lips, strong stare, perfect teeth. Slender neck, coy expression, curly brunette hair. Devastatingly sexy. I think such ways in times of duress.

“Just go to work,” she said.

The elevator doors rattled closed. It’s elevator 2. It always rattles.

“What is this?”

“We’ve already briefed your receptionist.”

She nodded at her own words, and turned to the man with the sunglasses. He bowed his head sharply, then raised it. She went on, “now please clear the lobby. Your secretary will give you whatever information you need to know.”

I think I grimaced. I definitely winced. Was this government? Was this CDC? Whatever it was, right now I was sure as hell being bullied.

The bell rang again, and elevator door reopened. She turned back to the guard. “Escort him to the elevator, Slim.” His name was Slim. What an asshole.

“No,” I said. She raised her eyebrows at me. The guard started to move, but she lifted her hand again. I turned my head toward the rattling, “and who the hell’s in that goddamn elevator?”

“I’m giving you ten seconds to clear out of the lobby, and get upstairs. I suggest you obey this command.” Something told me she meant it. That she was used to having orders followed, and that dire consequences followed the misbehaved. Maybe it was that final gasp from Earl still ringing in my head. She lowered her hand, and the guard started to move again. She whipped her gaze on the man, and growled “Slim!” He stopped.

Foolishly, I decided to say: “relax, Slim.”

If we were in a bar, and he was drunk, my ass would just have been kicked. But he did nothing. He didn’t need to.

Now beginning to shake visibly, I decided to do what she said, lest he kill me. “I’m going.” I bit my lower lip, and tried to eye her, but I couldn’t quite meet that pointed look. “I’m going,” I grumbled again, mustering the only pathetic menace I could, “but I might be coming right back down.”

She smiled again, that same fake smile, and said, “if you so choose. But do give us a few minutes before that happens. I’d rather not watch.”

She lifted her hand into the air and snapped her fingers. It was a very loud snap, echoing across the high marble walls of lobby, atrium, hallways, and everywhere. It was like a pair of two by fours whapping seamlessly together. I shifted my feet.

“One more thing,” she said, raising her eyebrows again, and smiling pleasantly. “Do you carry a cellular phone?” She tilted her head in the direction of the loading docks. Inadvertantly, I looked. Earl’s attacker rounded the corner, floating like a suited ghost. I’ve never seen such a big man walk so quietly. A guerilla in ballet shoes. “Please hand it over,” she said, adding, thick with saracasm, “it’s for your own protection.”

The elevator door rattled closed again. The monster approached. I thought my legs were going to buckle, but still, some childish, playground syndrome was keeping my chin up. He stopped at her side, still breathing heavily after manhandling the mute. There were teeth marks in his left hand. I stared at the bite. She reached her hand over to him, and covered the place.

“The phone,” she said, and held her other hand out to recieve it. She was looking at my shoes. I think the whole shoe thing only really started bothering me after this.

Under that gaze, a small convulsion whipped through my body. Those knowing blue eyes traveled up my torso, and I began to lose all sense of composure. Really, I stopped caring about holding my ground. I wanted the fuck out, I wanted to keep my cell phone, and I needed to run right now. But then her eyes were on mine. “Hand it over.”

Can you just turn and run out of that? Perhaps you can. I didn’t. Maybe the the doors opening behind me, the gust of warm air, and the nonchalant gait of Cindi Whitman swimming through the lobby sunshine, saying ‘hello Dr. Olivia, hello Kurt’ as she did so left me so absolutely dumbfounded, I didn’t notice my hand lifting, surrendering the cell.

There’s a cold front moving in. The sun’s been concealed. In the distance, the Mississipi’s just birthed white-caps. They look like worms rolling around on dirty satin sheets.

“It’s just a checkup,” Cindi says, exactly the same as before, still staring out the window. WIth the gloom building outside, and the marine view, her pose resembles that of some ship pilot preparing to go down with a doomed vessel.

In my department—which mainly handles heavy-transport clientel (and now see why my eyebrows were raised in question over the whole “insurance and levity” thing?)—we were instructed to send all interns away for at least three days. With them gone, we had decided to kind of loaf the rest of the week.

Initially, we were going to take client calls, but at a slow pace. After all, we’d just lost twenty percent of our workforce. Every single last kid had been evacuated at the same time as sixteenth floor.

First thing this morning, I called Stacey, one of the graphic design interns (they’re on our floor also), who is, by the way, also busty and sexy. She told me she’d had a checkup from a very nice doctor, and was then free to go.

“Olive?” I asked her.

“Olivia,” she said, almost whispering the name.

She went quiet. I asked for more detail. “What’s with the sunglasses?”

She replied in a sluggy, sleepy voice (it was just nine o’clock in the morning after all, and basically Spring Break 2.0 for these kids), “it’s just a checkup.”

Not knowing how many times I would hear those same words uttered today, I asked for more.

“What kind of checkup?”

“Just a checkup,” she said, and hung up the phone.

So, you can see why I’ve grown very sick of that answer: it’s a checkup. And coming from Cindi again, it was just awful. I wanted to strangle her for the lack of honesty, trust, or whatever it is we’re supposed to have. After all, we’re fucking on a regular basis. Just last week, I watched her clean semen off the same fucking window she’s suddenly so in love with.

She still hasn’t turned around. I approach her desk, and fondle the Betty Boop paperweight. More likely though, I was thinking of winging it against the wall. I take a deep breath. “Okay, Cindi... Alright. Why then... Cindi? Why a checkup? Level with me, will you? Should I be calling a lawyer or something?”

“It’s just,” she began, and finally turned around, “for a checkup. It’ll take you twenty minutes.” For a moment her face placates me. She’s the epitome of honesty, her expression somber and easy. She doesn’t blink an eye. There’s even a little smile on her face.

But she keeps staring, and still doesn’t blink. She’s staring right through me. In my head there’s a flash of white rooms, lab coats, dead bodies: horror novel shit. I think conspiracy. I think of that girl Cindi called “doctor” this morning. I think of the men-in-black security force. I think movies, fact, fiction, cover-ups and ebola. I realize just how very creepy this has become.

I try one more time, pleading with my voice. “Cindi, baby, level with me, please. What’s going on..?”

Before I get the last word out, her body snaps erect. The change is so immediate, and so suprising that I fall back a step. Her eyes have opened up wide.

They look just like this ( o ) ( o ).

My entire mammal ancestry goes to hackles.

It quickly becomes the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced:

There’s a gun at my back, I know it. I smell it. And now I feel it. The cold mouth of the terrible thing is pressed against my first thoracic vertabrae. I don’t know if this is a kill shot. It will kill me though. And I’m also certain that between death and life, it’s Slim at the trigger.

I always figured that if somebody put a gun to my head, I’d pull some kung-fu shit, and toss him through a window. But that didn’t happen. And it’s funny how time slows waaay the fuck down, just when something really awful is going to happen. I could have used this sensation a few times when Cindi was riding me on top of the air-conditioner. For some reason that blows me like a zit, and in less than two minutes. I don’t know why, but she likes that. I guess it’s my apologies afterword.

I watch Cindi’s blank eyes as they follow a small motion over my shoulder. Somehow I know this is a gesture telling her to ‘step out of the firing zone.’ She does that exactly. She takes one quick little step, right over. And in the glass I can see the woman. She’s looking at my reflection. She growls “don’t, fucking, you move.”

And she is so fast, I don’t have time to react to it. Like a viper. It lasts one millisecond. Slim is her shield. Her serpent arm whips around his body.

I thought it was a gun. It was silver, like a tiny pistol. The sting burst into my neck.

I see a white flash. I’m sure I’ve been shot through the brain. There’s no blood. No ringing. In fact, everything is very still, very sharp.

She’s grinning. She reads my mind: “oh, you’re not dead,” she says. “Far from it.”

I can’t believe I’m not bolting. I don’t know if I’m trying. I could do something, I could at least move. At least I could move. Move.

Move.

MOVE.

It’s not just fear. Now I know it. I’m trying to jump. Run. Anything. I fucking can’t.

I’m paralyzed. I can’t even talk.

But Cindi can.

The woman speaks first, her voice slow and paced, devoid of all empathy. It’s wholly engrossing, yet eery, sinister. “Cindi Whitman,” she says, still grinning, her eyelids rising, “I command you to look into my eyes.”

And defying the limits of all human expressions I’ve ever seen, Cindi’s big gray eyes open even wider than they were before. For a moment her pupils open and close, open and close. And then they slowly overtake the iris. I can actually see inside of her head. I really can. It’s horrible. It’s empty.

Her response to the woman begins with a perfect monotone “yess...” and it’s a high voice, bewildered, lost like nothing I’ve ever heard, “...sss, Olivia.”

I can now imagine, or see clearly, that this sort of exchange has been happening around here all day long. Yesterday also.

I lose it. I mean I really, really let go of it. Suddenly the white flash returns, this time as a flutter. My body begins to let go. I think: I can move, I can move.

But I can’t. It’s not me. My body is losing control. And my mind’s going right after it.

It starts with my mouth dropping, and this “hah!” popping out of nowhere. And the hard pinch of that gun barrel immediately skins my neck. It sears like alcohol poured in my eye, but I can’t stop, even when my hand goes there and is immediately struck the same way.

My next sound is like a sob, a child voice. I start to giggle. Sobs and giggles, they break out together. It hasn’t happened since I was ten years old, and I hope it never happens again. I’ve just gone absolutely mad. That’s the only way this is reality. This is no ruse, not some joke. This is full circle coming back to whang me in the ass. This scene, now playing out, right in front of me, is the product of what has been happening here across the last 24 hours, and that’s all there is to it.

I’m thinking: I’m dreaming. I’m in a freaking episode of Dr. Who.

The giggles seize my diaphragm, and I’m pleading them at Cindi, firing them at her one by one. I’m laughing at her, but I’m not. And still she doesn’t react. My balance begins to slip, I begin to fall forward. I strike my hand to my chest, as if this is going to help. It doesn’t. I do it again, and then again. I catch my reflection in the window.

My face is red, horrible. The veins are standing on my neck. My hand’s pounding my chest like some retard. It hits me: this is like acid. Maybe this is acid. I try to remember if I dosed or something, but I can’t.

My own freaked-out face is staring at me, and that Doctor is lifting a crystal pendant, and my Cindi’s rigid arms are rising up in front of her, like some whacked-out-zombie-lesbo Barbie Doll.

And me: I look like I’m fucking crying, but I’m not, and that only makes me laugh harder. And then harder. I wish I could talk, say something, but I’ve fallen to pieces, much like Earl. And so I’m actually happy when it happens, I remember this. I’m happy when whatever it is—I assume the butt of that carbine, but I don’t know because my eyes have closed—slams into my neck, and knocks me the fuck out.

But the creepiest thing of all, and what I float into the blackness with...in these last four seconds of consciousness, my cock’s as hard as a rock.

When I was ten, my brothers and I went to a series of camps at Lake Winnepsauke. I had two siblings: Jim and Stanley. They were twins, a year older than me. My father was a rear admiral in the navy, and had been called away on duty. Our mother was in Iran, on assignment with her Univeristy. Summer grants and such. So, for two and a half months, Jim, Stanley, and Yours’ Truly went from camp to camp, to camp to camp.

My mother was noted as a very eccentric anthropologist. In my childhood, her bedtime stories consisted of myths and legends, great battles, fallen cultures and the like. My brothers never really paid attention. She told me that.

And that’s why I was flooded with such tales, why I was favored, and why I had the only private bedroom in the house.

What held my attention most, and made her most happy to tell, was the genre: lurid and graphic tales of vampires, witches, changleings, green men, centaurs, harpies, mothmen, ancient-astronauts, phantoms; Olmecs, Aztecs, Stonhenge, Celts, Norsemen, Druids.

My mother was very frank with the material. I remember her once explaining that centuars fucked like horses, but kissed like humans. By most child psychologists, I believe this would have been looked down upon.

But it engrossed me, the way she spoke of it. If I ever have children, I believe I’ll be much the same way. Honest, that is. I may not talk about that, the centaurs, but I’ll be honest. Full truths are so much better than fiction. They’re so much more peculiar, and dare I say it, so much sexier.

And I guess those stories are why, that summer, at our final summer camp of the year, I grew so hopelessly fascinated with a girl named Tara.

She was a counselor. She was sixteen. She had this glorious red hair, and strange green eyes, within which a flower of yellow curcingled the iris. But what was best, she had this fervored disposition which could often reach such elevations your heart would hammer for want of her slightest meanings:

“You see this, Kurt? You know why they do this? see how how they’re connected? Look at their tails. Those are called their abdomens. See hers? That’s the ovipositors...her pussy. See his? Look at it. Go on, they won’t move. Get down close.” She was eyeing me. “You know what they’re doing? do you, Kurtie...”

“Sex?” I’d gotten down on my knees, but I wasn’t watching the dragonflies. I was watching her face. It was superhuman: full of color, wet with activity. I was yearning for some way to record it, to have anything permanent to hold onto.

She’d taken to me. And she’d made me somewhat of her daily tenant. I was at her every whim, always. But there was something more in the air today, something spectacular. I tried to muster all of what I called my memory power.

Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled. “Good boy,” she cood. “It’s too late in the season for babies, so why do you think they’re doing it?”

“Babies?” I grew aware how little my voice sounded.

“Yes. Why?”

“They do it cause it’s sex?” My face got hot. Real hot.

We were alone, in the woods. It was Saturday.

Either Camp Chelsea’s fifteen year legacy, or some shallow tradition had left it composed of an all female staff. Many of them were girl scouts. Some, like Tara, were absolutely not.

I knew full well we were alone, and for as long as she wanted. The rest of the counselors, and camp coordinators (mothers, blah), were busy preparing for the evening’s dance, or down at the lake pulling guard-duty for assholes like my brothers.

If I remember right, Tara’s family actually owned the property the camp stood upon. I suppose that’s why she was basically free to do anything she chose. She did.

There was a meadow next to the camp. It served five purposes: field day, volleyball, fireflies, the nightly bonfire, and the ‘big’ dance. On this particular Saturday of every summer, the coed counselors from Camp Copp—across the water (which would no longer exist after that summer), were invited to cross that narrow fjord. Every year this occurrence was sworn to be final, ended, as the invaders often wrought havoc upon the bland lives in Camp Chelsea.

The alcohol was never smelled, was brilliantly concealed, and fiendishly weilded by sixteen through eighteen year old males looking to make out, or screw.

Not suprisingly, the girls of Camp Copp despised the girls of Camp Chelsea, and vice verce. After all, the only boys in the region were either twelve and below, or, for three weeks, the sole property of Camp Copp.

Every summer of the past six, an eternity, there had been one mainstay to harbor much of the Copp girls’ distate. Their own boys, and for that matter all boys caused this. They drooled over her.

She was an ever present Foe; a famous, magnificent, hated arch rival. She had become the subject-incantation of bunk-bead threats and carefully plotted malices. She was the enemy, absolute. They seethed, they hated.

Tara Chelsea is a witch.

Or so the girls claimed. Had it not been for the legend of her face, those eyes, and her early development, perhaps the boys would also have shunned her—rather than become oddly quiet, lusting after the very thought of finally seeing the vixen. I can imagine them trying for quiet in their bunks, their hands hammering; or out in the trees, dotting the leaves with themselves, her name on the tips of their tongues. The rumor of Tara’s beauty blossomed brighter every year—though only two or three of the present Copp counselors had ever set eyes on her.

What energy those remote eyes couldn’t do to further the storm of wicked adolescence and female spite growing over Camp Chelsea, Tara’s fellows easily supplied. The girl scouts. Tara was a threat to everything they were: a group, a whole, a commons, a competive cloister, a tribunal cabinet. And this circle, which openly welcomed her to the nightly bonfires...had also embraced their solid fact that Tara, beautiful Tara, was an evil witch.

You wouldn’t think young ladies could have such fucking fancies. They did.

Though the male youth of my camp was enamored with her—this includes my jerkoff brothers—those damning words from the so many other, older, dominant females took precedence over their emotions. It was awful. I really don’t remember it so much anymore.

A rich voice, young, and calm, and sensual, wholly alluring: Go on, Kurt. Yes you do.

“Yes. I guess I do, actually. I do. I think of it all the time. Chelsea, that is. Tara Chelsea. Camp Chelsea. But it’s kind of lost. I don’t even know if it was real, but I know it was. Iniside of me I do. But I don’t see so well anymore.”

Yes you do, Kurt. You can focus. See it. In the woods, away from camp. Tara Chelsea.

“Who are you?”

It’s Tara. Speak to me.

“Tara’s dead.”

But you can see me, can’t you? Is that dead?

“Yes.”

No. Look at me. We’re in the woods. Remember our Saturday in the Woods, Kurtie. Dragonflies. Recall the dragonflies. Sex, me, and dragonflies. Look at me Kurtie. Can’t you smell the perfume of my hair? Look at me. You can remember. What has happened. What’s happened to you? And me. Tell me. Tell me what we did in the woods. I want to remember with you.

“You showed me the dragonflies. Your face was so amazing. It was like your eyes were on fire. And I was in it. I couldn’t pull out, and I was happy. And that smile, and those little freckles on your cheeks. But most of all I remember your eyes, and those laughlines around your mouth, and your lips. God, you were everything to me. And you knew it, too.”

I was down on my knees in the soft dirt. I could smell Tara’s perfume. It was just soap and shampoo, like all the other girls used, but it smelled better on her. That sounds like a cliche, but it’s absolutely true.

I did finally look at the dragonflies. And when I did, they jumped from the log as one creature, and flew, and kind of hovered above her. And that one on the right side was asleep or something, but I saw it raging, doing everything the other one told it to, like it had no choice. She said it was the male, and the female was making him that way.

“They’re called pheromones Kurtie. The females release them into the air. It makes the boys come to the her, and do whatever she says.”

“Naw,” I said. I started to laugh. And then suddenly I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bear it. I became suddenly convinced that what had happened to that dragonfly was now happening to me. Something within me was melting, or icing, or stretching and growing. For her. And it was only getting stronger. And it was so hot. My entire body started to smoke. And then I realized that it must have been happening all along.

She took a seat on the log, just where the dragonflies had been together. I was in that dirt, on my knees, my body now at her legs, at her feet. I was being overwhelmed. It seemed as though my head was floating in a wash of slow, little circles.

I dropped my head. I think I was trembling. For a moment, I suddenly lost my trust. She seemed a wicked, vile creature. I was looking from the outside in. I felt shame, weakness, and disgust for myself. Maybe even her. But that all stopped when the world washed behind me. Her warm, fragrant fingers slipped down my cheek, and to my chin.

“Do you believe me?” she breathed, lifting my gaze to hers. Her eyes flashed. I felt mine open. The wash of little swoons reoriented on her face. “Do you Kurt?” She pursed her lips. She blew a stream of floral warmth upon my face. I breathed.

I swear an aura of gold light exploded around her face, and then her body, and everything else was blotted into pale nonexistence.

She had lifted my eyes from the mud, and into glory. Finally, finally, finally I could see her. Really See Her. I could look at her. “You do now, don’t you...” Again she pursed her lips, this time over a smile, and blew that sweet rill of herself into me.

A feeling so strong—I mean something of absolute strength, certainty, and necessity—an intangible thing I would seek incessantly for the rest of my life, slid into my body, grew into my shape, and then took a solid form. I tried to throw my knees together when it happened, but I couldn’t detach. I couldn’t. I could do nothing at all. I was at her disposal: no will, no wings of my own.

All I could do was jolt. Again and again. Jolt. My hips ducked and shot forward. Even my blood began to convulse. Her aura then wiped me out.

As I regained sight, every last part of my being had recentricated on her face, and only her face.

There was no way to hide myself. I was wide open. I was totally hers.

I was sure my spine had splintered, or at least that my shoulder had fallen off. But there’s no pain. The area throbs, like blood in my temples, and I know my body is in agony, but my head’s registering none of it.

I’m sitting in Cindi’s high-back leather chair. It takes a moment for me to realize this, but that’s where I am. There’s a dried crust on my hands. I can’t move my legs. I can look down at them, but I can’t move them. And just looking down gives me the creeps: I’m overcome by vertigo. I turn my head up.

There’s a shadow across the ceiling. I hear chimes. I think I’m dreaming. No, it’s the clock. Cindi has a wall clock that chimes. One. Two. And I think it’s going to stop, but it doesn’t. It’s six o’clock in the evening.

The pins and needles begin. First, it’s in my feet. It feels both good and awful at the same time. I wiggle my toes. At least I’m not paralyzed.

Gun.

My head drops, and despite the vertigo, I reel my head around in a wild swing, seeking out one of those militant bastards. And the sudden feeling of somebody standing behind me, watching me, drives me up out of the chair. I fall, my body slaps against the desk, then slips to the floor.

The pins and needles race up my legs like electricity.

From this vantage, through the mechanics of the chair, I can see pantyhose. I can see the black heels. I hear her laugh. It’s a low, wicked laugh. But it rises into mirth. Suddenly I’m feeling better. But I don’t want to feel better. Her laugh is making me dizzy.

I have to remind myself this is not an episode of Dr. Who.

“Who are you,” I groan.

“Why, I’m Tara.”

“Tara what?” I say, resenting.

“I’m the Dr.”

“Doctor who?” I say. Fuck.

The heels push into the burgundy carpet, and then she’s moving. The chair is wheeled away. I didn’t realize my shoulder was resting against it. I thunk onto my back. Again, I’m looking at the ceiling. Then she’s standing over me. I try to pull my legs up, do anything, but all that happens is a jolt. A fucking jolt. And the next thing I know, all I can see is her face.

“Dr. Olivia,” she says, lifting her brow and cocking her head. She holds the tip of her tongue in her teeth, then speaks. “You’re quite the little psycho, aren’t you, Kurt?”

“Yeah.” I meant to say that—meant to say the word, but I didn’t mean to say it quite how it came out. I felt like I’d just agreed with her.

“It’s okay, Kurtie. I’m a therapist.” The way she says my name causes the pins and needles to rise all the way into my head. It feels like a tree is growing out of my brain. She steps back. Her hand is on the desk. Now her hand is in the air.

Four feet above my face, she’s holding a spray perfume bottle. There’s no label.

That predacious snarl of grin spreads across her face. She sprays once, and bares her teeth. Again she sprays it, and sprays it, and sprays it. I turn my head. I close my eyes. A blanket of vapor touches my cheek. It falls in sheets. I hold my breath.

I don’t remember taking another one.