The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The day was a blur. Is a blur. Will be a blur. But when Callum’s hands rose, illuminating the insides of the derelict barn with hundreds of flittering, shining lights… that’s where the clarity begins in my memory. I can still see the cobwebs, hanging in the spaces between every surface; the hay that shifted and crunched beneath our bare feet; the smiles that pulled our lips wide under the orange, glowing lights.

“You think it worked?” he asked me.

I’d been too busy studying his eyes, his lips, his brow. They moved while he worked, concentrating both on the spheres surrounding us and on the objects he moved. Old wheels, planks, rotted-out boards. “Hm?”

“With the boy. Immen.”

I hadn’t even known his name until hours before, when we’d finally seen Dess and her husband standing outside the door to their home. Nightmares had broken loose within. I could see shattered window panes as we drew closer, could smell the debris within, the soot on their clothes…

Callum snapped his fingers, snapping my mind back to the present, and he sent a shower of sparkles leading up a rickety ladder. “After you,” he said, giving me a bow and grin.

I laughed, curtsied, and rose through the tunnel of dancing lights. With each step, he made the specks climb with me, up and up and up, until I stood in the hayloft and the lights still whirled around me, nearly blinding with their brightness. I reached out to touch them, as though they were embers or fireflies, things I could truly feel—as soon as I had, they all shot away; some fading, some tucking into the eaves and canopies, joining the starlight that leaked through the roof slats. Callum stood there, hands in his trouser pockets, trying to look modest. “You still didn’t answer,” he reminded me.

“I still don’t know,” I sighed to him, finding the pockets of my coat on reflex. “Dess seemed pleased enough.”

“She was pleased before you even did anything. Said so, while I waited outside.”

I turned my head away from him, sought for dust and forgotten things to focus my eyes on, instead of his piercing stare. “I’m sorry that I made you wait.”

“I’m not,” he chimed.

I went on. “I had to… had to make sure it would be safe. With the boy. His powers—”

“A much ruder awakening than my own,” Callum chuckled. “When I was five years old, I turned a teapot invisible. Far cry from trashing the whole house with gale-force winds.”

“Not the whole house. It is still standing…”

“Because of you?”

I paused. Held my breath.

Callum watched me, then spoke. “Truth. I know you didn’t come here, come all this way, just to talk to him. That’s what I was for. I could feel the magic—all that power coming off of you, just washing everything else out…”

“You weren’t supposed to see it,” I muttered. “Feel it. Hear it. Any of it.”

“Turns out, there’s only so much you can hide.”

I frowned. He smiled. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“What for?” he asked.

“Lots of things. Maybe everything.” We’d sunk to the floor, by then, and my eyes stayed as far away from him as I could keep them. “I brought you all this way for people you don’t even know. People I don’t even know.”

“That’s sort of what good people do, isn’t it?”

“Only I’m not good people.”

“Then what are you?”

I looked back into his searching eyes. The light still swam around us, distant but comforting, and the hole in my heart still ached to think of speaking. I wanted to run. By the saints, I wanted to run, jump, fly away from him, and scream the whole way. Just as I’d done before.

But this time… my want to keep him close fought my want to keep myself far. And if I couldn’t be honest with him, I knew that I could never be honest with myself. And if I could never do that… he would never stay close.

I wanted him close. I wanted him closer. I wanted him, more than I wanted to be alone with my familiar fears, my comfortable secrets.

Maybe he had realized that much. Maybe he had realized more. “Do you know what I am?” I asked. A fine start.

He shook his head ‘no.’ And I felt… relieved, yes; but surprised, as well? He was bright. Clever. Attentive. He noticed things, he knew things, so how had he not deduced it? I rolled up my sleeve, tapped the black band with two fingers. “So… you don’t know what this is for.”

“I know what it does, which is close enough to count,” Callum insisted. “It inhibits you. Unfocuses you. Makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get a grip on your abilities; and just as much for them to get a grip on you.”

I nodded, and my hand moved to pull out the other ring. It took half a moment for it to appear, suddenly lit while it had been held in the open. Callum had needed the time to figure out how each of the many, many lights would refract off its silvery, shiny surface, and to paint it into being. “And you know what this is for?”

He shrugged. “It’s your focus, or near enough to one. It lets you do… the things you do.”

“And what is it I do?”

“I’m being serious here, Truth.”

“So am I.”

“No, you’re being coy. Playing a game. And you’re smiling about it.”

I touched my face. Huh. So I am. Both bands came to rest in my lap, with only a pause to feel the chaos and confusion drain out of me. In its place… was a surprising clarity. Simplicity. I couldn’t run this time. I couldn’t flee. And I hoped I couldn’t hurt anyone, myself included.

“I wasn’t born here,” I began. “I grew up here, but I was not raised here. My parents, my real parents…”

“Lived close to the border?” Callum offered.

I smiled ruefully. “No. Over it.” That had set the gears turning in his mind. I imagined the bobbing lights moving to the pace of his thoughts. Continuous. He would reach the conclusion, eventually, but I had to make the way smooth first. “I can barely remember anything about them. But they weren’t upset with me, weren’t afraid of me, angry with me; that’s not why they gave me away. They were glad to give me up. Honored to. Eager to.”

“What parents could feel that toward their own child…?”

“My parents,” I answered. “Dolocite parents. Parents of a child with too much magic, and nothing to do with it, in a land ruled by those who have too much to do with it.”

“I don’t understand,” he admitted, perplexed.

“You wouldn’t, of course, you never lived it. Jir-Qan is a kinder place, a safer place. Why?”

He thought for a moment. “Because we overthrew our oppressors. We took our land into our own hands. Same with our futures, our children’s futures…”

“... and we took our minds into our own hands,” I sighed.

“The Pact,” Callum whispered.

I scarcely heard him. “All of Doloc is ruled by it. Controlled by it. It is religion, it is government, it is culture, it is art. To them, it is beauty. That is how it wins. It corrupts the mind until it becomes natural. Until all unsanctioned thoughts become seditious, then alien, then gone entirely. Were you to step across the border, you would feel different. The press of magic there is thick, so very thick, but it would welcome you gladly. In an hour, you would seek to travel deeper and deeper into it. In a day, you would forget that the border existed. In a week, you would be trading your traveling clothes for petitioner’s clothes, and in a month you would be smiling, nodding, singing the hymns with all of the faithful. Your brothers and your sisters.

“For those born there, it is worse. When the bodies and minds that produce a child are so deeply bound, the child so becomes. You are delivered by a midwife, and handed to a Pactkeeper, who performs your blessing and your binding. You learn to speak in the language of the Pact. You learn to read from the words that hold you captive. You sing from it, paint from it, learn from it—”

“—And you escaped?” Callum interrupted. “You fled, when the revolt came. But you’d never had a teacher, your magic was wild, Rigorious helped you smother it and—”

I stopped his patter with a raised hand. “I had teachers. I had many teachers. The finest ones possible for a power as terrible as mine.”

“Doloc doesn’t excel in any magic,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Unless you mean… in the Pact itself?”

“The revolt was about more than just geography. It was about people. So when the peace talks began, and the lines were drawn…” To stop now would mean to admit it, own it, leave it there with no explanation. I had to finish it. “Jir-Qanni leaders saw that they had fought only for themselves, their people, not the whole of Doloc. They wanted more, more freedom. And likewise, the Dolocites saw that they were to cede humans they could no longer control. Who would not bow to their words and spells any longer. So… a deal was struck. Hostages were exchanged, if you could call them that.”

“Children.” Callum’s eyes widened. “You.”

“Not just children, not just hostages. Weapons. Cursed blades, waiting to be picked up. Those most gifted with magical potential, trained just enough to know how to wield it. Judges,” I said. “That’s what I would have been. That’s what we all still could be.”

The apprentice sat staring. I kept talking. “The barriers between our countries are too strong now for any influence to be exerted. But from within? A single Judge let loose could bring an entire city, a whole province to heel. In Doloc, they can smell when the Pact is broken. They can know the face, place, and thoughts of the dissident, and they can appear there in a fraction of a second, with a fraction of a thought. And that dissident and all others for a mile around could just as easily decide that their right and just penance would be to snap their own necks, and do it with a smile.”

“I thought they were only… stories.” His voice was low. At a shaking sort of calm. “Tales from parents and schoolmasters to frighten children.”

“Do I look like a story to you?” I asked him.

“That’s not what I…” He had reached for me, but he withdrew his hand. Many of the lights had faded, now, outnumbered by the stars. We sat in near-darkness. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for?” I asked. My throat was dry, voice hoarse, head heavy with thoughts and worry. My face had long since frozen itself into a half-scowl.

“All that?” His face bore a frown in our last dregs of light. “That you can still be a danger, that it could get even worse. That you’ve got to sleep in a hayloft, for the good you’ve done today, instead of a comfortable bed. That you’ve only got me for company, and that… I don’t know what to do?”

“You could run,” I offered, trying a darker smile. “You could leave the monster alone to sleep in all this trash and dust.”

“Was what you did for that boy monstrous?”

“Of course it was. I bent his mind, just like all the rest. I twisted it to my desire. He didn’t need the Pact in his head when I could have him forge new rules to follow for me.”

“And what rules did you give him?”

“I told him…” I swallowed. “I told him that… if he tried, it would be alright. That he wouldn’t have to feel alone. That he wouldn’t have to feel so angry and powerless to stop himself. All he’d have to do is just… stop. And he could be calm, instead of destroying a home, or… or hurting someone that he loves.”

Callum had come close enough to put his arms around my shoulders. I felt too numb, too weak to recoil or run. “That doesn’t sound like a monster’s doing to me,” he said softly.

I heard myself sniffling, felt my hands trembling. “I didn’t want him to hurt. Not like I do.”

“And he won’t.”

“But isn’t that wrong? I’m not… I took away his choice, to feel how he wants to feel.”

“Would you ever choose to feel like this, Truth?”

I shook my head. He held me closer. “If I were him, I’d have listened to you, too,” Callum said. “I think he chose to do that. Just like you chose to help him, Truth. Not to hurt him, or me, or anybody else.”

“But I’ve done it to you. Before, at the inn, I…”

“I don’t care.”

I blinked at him. “Why?”

“Because you’ve helped me, instead of hurting me. Because you’ve taught me, instead of robbing me. Because you’ve made me feel like I could help people, too—like I could help you. Even if I don’t know how. Even if I feel like a fool just sitting here trying. Even if you… hate me for it.”

“I could never hate you,” I whispered.

“And as strong and scary and clearly malevolent as you are, I don’t think you could ever force me to hate you.” He smiled at me, and his arms hugged me tighter. “You’re so strong, Truth. I couldn’t do any of this.”

“Neither could I.” My hands found his back, held to him for safety and warmth and hope. “I could’ve spent my whole life on the farm. Never spoken to anyone. Never helped anyone, never helped myself. I… I still want that, I think.”

“There’d be nothing wrong with it,” he murmured.

“But this…” I sighed, staring at his eyes while I blinked away the wetness in mine. “I think this is better.”

“And what is… this?”

“Sitting in a broken barn with a caring, clever, handsome young man?”

“Oh, but I’ve got that beat,” Callum laughed quietly. “I’m sat here with a powerful and beautiful woman, who could surely make her enemies shit themselves with just a few magic words.”

“Be glad you’re not one of those,” I giggled.

“Even if I were,” he said, “it would still be a pleasure just to know you, Truth. To be anywhere close to you. Even if my pants were soiled.”

I laughed at him. Shoved him, then pulled him closer, tighter into my embrace. I held him there for longer than I needed to, but just as long as I wanted to. And that want grew with each passing moment. “I don’t want these things to change,” I muttered into his ear.

“Then don’t change them,” he told me, hugging me just as tight. “Don’t stop doing this kind of good. Don’t be so afraid of yourself. Don’t try and push me away again.”

“I won’t.”

“Perfect,” he sighed. I could see the warmth of his gladness in every light that swelled to brightness, dwarfing the stars and the cold sky above. “But there’s only so long we can stay in this barn. Dess’ generosity must have limits, and your horse will get antsy with us.”

“Patience can wait for a night,” I said, kissing the apprentice’s ear and watching how all the lights twinkled with delight. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Me either,” he said around a shiver. “... and, Truth?”

“Mm?” Another kiss, against his neck, the lights bobbing and flickering faster.

“Ahh… I was wondering if I might see you naked tonight?”

“I think that you might.” His jaw, the flecks bursting like overstuffed sacks, spilling into dozens more zipping spheres.

“And… if I could pleasure you this evening?”

“And many more evenings to come.” His lips, the colors blazing through my shut eyes.

He had one more entreaty, as he broke away panting from my kiss. “... and if I should, um, at some point, well… i-if I wanted to feel your magic upon me again?”

“You need only ask.” I pushed him to the floor, falling with him, hands planted on his shoulders with my silver band flashing on my arm in the emberlights. With the power coursing through me came focus, honed to a pinprick, entirely devoted on the next kiss, the next touch, the next motions above him. There was no blur to my movements, no lagging thoughts, not while I stripped naked in his lights, danced my body through them, came to rest atop him.

And when Callum pleaded for a taste, just a sliver of a spell… I was not too quick to oblige. I was just quick enough; to find the thread of his care, his loyalty, and to tie it with a twirl of my fingers, a roll of my tongue, a stroke of his cock that left him breathless, open, and ready for a pact of my own making: to feel pleasure, from my pleasure. To feel desire, from my desire. To feel joy, from my joy. To share in these emotions, feelings, sensations; for them to redouble his own, for them to drive him to the brink of ecstasy as I rode him, as he bucked beneath me, as he moaned louder than my own cries of delight.

And for us to cum with a snap of my fingers, a snap that darkened the lights and the stars and the whole world in a most blissful, most beautiful shared slumber.