The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

POLITICS AS USUAL

by Downing Street (dowstreet@yahoo.com)

PART I

“Thank you, Oscar. You won’t regret this decision.” Mayor Downs hung up the phone. He stared at it for a few seconds. “He’s going to seriously regret that decision,” he said, to no one in particular.

“You don’t have an awful lot of friends on City Council,” said a man sitting nearby. “It might be best to protect the ones you have.” The speaker was a middle-aged man with a lined, avuncular face and hair greying at the temples. He was wearing a well-cut grey suit.

“We’re still friends then, aren’t we Trevor?” the Mayor asked.

“That depends, I think, on how much you need me in the next election. Or to get your next cock-a-mamy proposal through Council.”

Mayor Downs waved a hand. “I can afford to burn a few bridges. I’m not running for election again.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I mean it this time. I done.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Bah!” The Mayor lurched to his feet. He was a stocky, balding man, wearing a dark suit and suspenders. His tie was loose. His dark hair was inclined to curl. He left his desk to approach a large window along one wall of his office.

City Hall nestled in the heart of downtown. The Mayor looked out over the city from his vantage on the fourth floor; houses and buildings rose in orderly blocks that decayed into random curves and narrow streets in the old city; traffic pulsed along the streets like blood cells pumped through arteries of brick and glass; white smoke drifted up from the industrial area to the west. Here and there, patches of summer green announced parks and playing fields. The whole scene was bisected by a wide, blue river, itself spanned by half a dozen bridges.

“I can’t stand this job,” Downs announced. “I can’t get anything done. I’m opposed at every turn. City Council hates me.”

“Council doesn’t hate you,” Trevor replied. “I’m on Council and I don’t hate you. We just want you to stop hiring your relatives.”

“Bah!” the Mayor repeated. “Look at this from my position. The city employees hundreds of people; what does it matter if a few are related to me? But if I try to find placements for some of my innumerable cousins—all within their qualifications, mind you—I get grief from City Council. If I don’t, I get hell from my mother.”

“Hardly your responsibility to find employment for your whole family.”

“You haven’t met my mother.”

“Sir,” said the third man in the room. “I’m not sure all of your relatives are as fully qualified as you imagine.” He was a smaller man, diffident by nature, but his voice was gravelly. His brown suit jacket hung over the back of a chair.

Mayor Downs turned on him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, Sir, your cousin Maybelle, for example, that you pressed us to hire in the Finance Division. Uhm, her previous experience was as a checkout clerk at SmallMart.”

“Which means she works with numbers all day. Adding prices, calculating discounts, assessing taxes. Is accounting very different from that? I’d say she was eminently qualified.”

“Technically, Sir, the point-of-sale computer does all those calculations.”

Mayor Downs glared at him. “Who are you, again?”

“Uhm, Fielding Wentworth, Sir. Your senior policy advisor.”

“Right, right. Fielding. Next time my mother calls, you talk to her. City Council raked my ass over the coals for merely suggesting that Arthur Downs should be promoted to Senior Food Inspector when the previous chief—what was her name?”

“Kristina,” Wentworth supplied.

“And ‘raking my ass over the coals’ is a weird metaphor,” Trevor added.

“Never mind. When Kristina went berserk. Sure, Art happens to be related, but the man has worked in the City Health Commission for nine years. He has a family. He has experience. But City Council, in their arrogant wisdom, insists that we hire a woman. And someone from outside. New blood.”

“And not a blood relative?” Trevor suggested.

“Exactly!” The Mayor pounced on it. “So we hire this inexperienced outsider with an impressive resume over a more seasoned hand and how long does she last—two days. Two days! She just stops showing up for work. No explanation, no resignation, nothing. She went off to check out some greasy spoon that should have been shut down years ago, and never came back. So much for hiring fresh blood.” He paused. “Did anybody follow up on that? Where did she go?”

Trevor and Fielding exchanged a glance. The councillor said, “As far as we know she is working as a waitress at the restaurant she was inspecting. Rather an abrupt career change, you’ll agree. There is something . . . odd going on down there. The establishment is far too successful for a back-alley diner with plastic menus and multiple health citations. Their customer base is mostly women, extremely loyal, and . . . growing.” He emphasized the last word.

Mayor Downs absorbed this information thoughtfully. “What’s the name of the diner?”

“Buster’s”

“Buster’s! But, but—that restaurant belongs to—”

“Eric Downs, Sir,” Wentworth finished for him. “Another of your cousins.”

“I have a lot of cousins,” the Mayor said. “Too many. Still, that new inspector turned out to be utterly unreliable, despite all her fancy qualifications. Should have promoted Art.” A pause. “We should always be promoting art, come to that,” he went on, more to himself. “Maybe we should have an open house at the city gallery.”

“Sir, it’s not really about qualifications,” Wentworth insisted. “The public have a strong sense of fair play. Putting family members on the payroll creates an impression of favouritism and, well, sleaze. Not a good image to project during an election year.”

The Mayor sat down again. “That doesn’t matter. I’m not running for Mayor again.”

“Sir, you said that before the last election.”

“The difference is that this time I mean it.”

“Sir, you also said that before the last election.”

Wentworth again found himself on the receiving end of Mayor Downs’s glare. His Honour said, “The only reason I keep this ruinous job is because the moment I step down the misguided voters of our fair city will elect that moron Ritterson instead. It’s bad enough I have to put with him on City Council. The man cares about nothing but business. Lower taxes for business! Street improvements for business! Less red tape for business!

“Ritterson has no idea what a city is: a place were people live and play and die and get married. Probably not in that order. Ritterson would turn the whole damned city into a giant industrial park. I’m doing this city a great public service, not by being Mayor but by keeping Ritterson from being Mayor. Which means I am stuck in this bureaucratic hell until I’m defeated or Ritterson retires. Which has to be soon now, right?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir,” Wentworth replied.

Trevor said, “He can’t be more than, what, forty-seven, maybe forty-eight?”

“Definitely under fifty.”

“He could be in the game for another decade.”

“Oh hell,” Downs said. “Fielding, what was my win margin in the last election?”

“Forty-eight per cent. Ritterson pulled forty-five per cent.”

“Too damned close. And his campaign gets funding from all the big players in the city.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to think a perfect society has no rich people. No, check that, a perfect society has no poor people. Or maybe a perfect society has fewer poor people and more rich people who give a damn about poor people. Or maybe everyone should be middle class? Wait a minute. What happened to the other seven per cent?”

“Sir?”

“The other seven per cent of the votes. In the election.”

“Those votes went to Emilie Watson.”

“Right, right. Watson. She’s that nutcase who wants to build a maglev monorail to replace busses. Put solar panels on top of all the apartment blocks. Connect the green spaces along the river into one big park.” He blinked. “You know, that’s not half a bad idea.”

He turned to the fourth person in the room. “Genevieve—I mean, Ms Belleflueur. Can you get in touch with Emilie Watson? Set up an appointment for me. Sometime next week if you can.”

Genevieve Belleflueur was sitting in one of the big chairs in front of the Mayor’s desk: slender, blonde, and immaculate. Her hair was neatly pinned in a bun atop her head. She sat straight and tall, without touching the back of the chair. Her eyes were blue; her lips were thin and red; her complexion was flawless.

She wore a long, grey skirt and matching jacket over a white blouse. She had her knees crossed sedately, a tablet balanced on one knee. Hose glinted on well-turned ankles above her black pumps. For a second, before she spoke, the men in the room took in every achingly perfect detail.

“I’ll call her right away,” Belleflueur said. “Do you wish to meet at your office or hers?”

“She has an office?”

“She’s a senior administrator at the hospital.”

“Is that so. I never imagined. I’ll go see her. Get me out of City Hall for once.”

“Very good Sir.”

“What’s next this afternoon, Genev—Ms. Belleflueur?” He corrected himself just in time. Belleflueur’s glare could freeze water.

“You have a meeting with Parks and Recreation at three.”

“Park and Rec? Why?”

“To explain why you cut their budget by twenty per cent.”

“I didn’t do that! City Council cut their budget, damn their eyes.”

Trevor said, “Actually, Council wanted ten per cent. You insisted on twenty.”

“Why on Earth would I do that?”

“To free up funds to repair Belmont Bridge.”

“Right, right. Belmont. No help from upper government so we’re left to fix it ourselves. Meaning we do without maintained football pitches or risk a bridge tumbling into the river. We have too many damned bridges. Whoever thought it was a good idea to build a city with a river in the middle of it?”

Wentworth said, “Sir, most cities have rivers in them. Historically, they were the principal means of transporting goods.”

“Oh were they. How very organized. Look, I have to get ready to be pilloried by Parks and Rec. Go away somewhere and write me a speech.”

Wentworth retrieved his jacket. “Whatever you say, Sir. What should the speech be about?”

“About ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Something general I can use in a hurry. Make it grand but not fulsome, eloquent but simple, inspiring yet grounded in reality. And be sure to open with a joke.”

“I’ll get right on it.” He headed for the door. He furtively surveyed Genevieve Belleflueur as he went by. Her slender fingers danced on the tablet, taking notes.

“I’ll be going too,” said Trevor, rising. He followed Wentworth toward the door. He paused with a hand on the doorknob.

“Poker on Friday?” he wondered.

The Mayor groaned. “Absolutely not. If I lose any more to you lot I’ll have to remortgage the house. Or start embezzling. But squash? Thursday after work?”

Trevor grinned. “Sure thing. You lose either way.” He wandered out the door.

“There is one more thing,” Genevieve Belleflueur said. “Someone named Churchill Downs is waiting in your outer office.”

“Churchy? What the hell is he doing here?”

“He said only that it was important. He’s been waiting for some while. Shall I send him in?”

Mayor Downs glanced at the grandfather clock standing against the far wall. “Absolutely. I have time before the meeting. Haven’t seen Churchy in half of forever.”

Belleflueur rose gracefully to her feet. Her grey skirt was long but narrow. The Mayor studied the rear view as she hip-swayed out the door.

Less than a minute later the door opened again. A tall, lanky man with a weathered face and curly hair like the Mayor’s strode in. His casual dress revealed that he didn’t work at City Hall. He carried a satchel over his shoulder and a long, rolled-up, white paper in one hand. “Streeter!” the man almost shouted. “Good to see you, man. How’s the Mayor of Everything these days?”

Mayor Downs came around his desk to greet him. “Philip! Call me Philip. Nobody calls me Streeter here.” He shook hands with the newcomer.

“Why not? Streeter is your name.”

“No, Streeter is an utterly silly name and I am in politics where silliness is not tolerated. A streeter is a race car with licence plates. I am the victim of Dad’s love of stock cars and weird sense of humour.” He gestured toward a table and chairs along one side of the office.

“Could be worse,” the newcomer said. “Your name could be Churchill.” Both men sat.

“True enough. Tell me, how is life up there at the big research institute? Made any progress my administration can take credit for?”

The other man grinned. Grinning seemed to come easily to him. “We’re on the cusp of a major breakthrough. We are always on the cusp of a breakthrough. But not this week.”

“Too bad. I have someone preparing a glorious speech. Churchy, I’m delighted to see you, but this is rather unexpected. My EA said it was important.”

The other man nodded. “It is. I think I’ve stumbled onto something. About us. The Downs family, that is. It’s—well, let’s say it’s highly unusual. And it may help you win the next election.”

The Mayor waved a hand. “I’ve already decided I’m not running again.”

“You say that before every election.”

“And this time I mean it. I’m definitely out.”

“You say that before every election too.”

“Look, I’ve had enough of being pushed from pillar to post by City Council, getting no respect, no time off, and nothing done.”

“I hear that Ritterson has already decided to run again.”

A long silence. Eventually the Mayor said, “I hate you. What have you got?”

For answer, Churchill began pulling papers and files out of his satchel. “Have you ever wondered why you win elections you properly should lose?” he began.

“I always thought it was my personal charisma coupled with sound policies, fiscal responsibility, and an abiding commitment to repelling Ritterson as a city wall repels barbarians.”

Churchill grinned. “That’s probably part of it. But I think there’s more to it than that. A family connection, if you will. I got curious when Eric started boasting about how well his diner was doing.”

“You mean Buster’s?”

“That’s the one. Well, you know Eric, he could barely run an ice-cream stand, and that dive he owns should have gone out of business long ago. Almost did, more than once. Suddenly he has swarms of customers scooping up the greasy slop they serve, and then coming back for more.”

“That is a touch odd,” said Mayor Downs.

“It gets odder. I visited Buster’s one afternoon. The experience was surreal.

“The diner was busy. The customers were all single women, or sometimes couples. And the women were uniformly, and I mean without a single exception, fantastically full-figured, gorgeous, dumb as fenceposts, and horny as a kennel of bitches under a full moon. Even the staff! Just being in the room for five minutes is enough to give any straight man a boner. And the women would notice it, believe me.”

“All right, so Eric has found the perfect menu to attract overbuilt bimbos. What has this got to do with civic elections?”

“No, you don’t understand. These bimbo-dolls didn’t come to the restaurant because of the food. No one would. They became bimbos because of the food. And right quickly, too. Something in the food at Buster’s stimulates women—and only women—to pack on weight, develop giant boobs, grow long, thick hair, shut down much of their higher brain function, and replace it with insatiable sexual appetite. Streeter, I watched a waitress—a walking blow-up doll with a chest out to here and a figure like the number eight—actually hump herself on the corner of a table when she thought no one was watching.“

Mayor Downs stared at him. “How—how is such a thing possible? Is Eric putting drugs in the food? Hormones or something? Vitamins?”

“I’m not entirely sure how it works. But Eric is definitely putting something in the food. Or rather, his son Hugo is doing so.”

“Hugo! Wait, I remember Hugo. Nice kid. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer but a decent fellow. He works in the diner?”

“As a line cook. And Streeter, here’s the point. The additive that makes their food so addictively good and so . . . transformative of women who eat it, is—" He paused for a second—“Hugo’s ejaculate.”

“Now that’s just repellant. Did you come here to tell me dirty stories?”

“I swear by all that is right and true. There is something in Hugo’s semen that triggers a complete overhaul of women who ingest it. That something is, or was, very powerful. One . . . uhm, ejaculation is enough to dose the food for most of a day.”

“I’m not sure I believe any of this.”

“Let me show you something.” Churchill pulled out his mobile and thumbed through the pictures. “Take a look at this. The fellow on the right is Hugo, of course. That’s his new girlfriend.”

Mayor Downs studied the picture. He recognized Hugo, though he couldn’t remember ever seeing the kid with such a satisfied grin on his face. He looked like he had won the lottery.

The woman beside him was a phenomenon. She was unbelievably curvaceous, for one thing. Stunningly heavy-chested, but with a narrow waist, flaring out to wide hips and a round bottom. Her skimpy clothing was bursting at every seam. A mass of wavy, long hair tumbled down past her shoulders, so brightly blonde it almost glistened. Her face was part pin-up girl, part blow-up doll, but every inch of it erotic. She was gazing up at Hugo as if he were the answer to her prayers.

The Mayor didn’t speak for a very long time. He straightened his tie. Even a picture of Hugo’s girlfriend was enough to reset his hormone balance. Then a weird understanding came to him. “That—that woman—I mean, Hugo’s girlfriend, she’s—that’s Casey Calhoun!”

“Who’s Casey Calhoun?”

“Our latest Senior Food Inspector. She made a formal visit to Buster’s, as I understand it, and . . . never came back. I met her once, during the hiring interviews. And she sure as the dickens didn’t look like that.”

“I doubt that she’ll ever come back. She is slavishly devoted to Hugo. I saw them together. It was almost embarrassing. I don’t think she would make much of a food inspector now either.”

The Mayor was still trying to make sense of the situation. “And all this because of Hugo’s, you know, ejaculate?”

“Yes. And there’s more.”

“More? How could there be more?”

“The condition appears to be inherited.”

“WHAT?”

“I talked to Hugo and the restaurant manager, fellow named Mark. They explained that our grandfather, Upsen Downs, had a similar gift, though it wasn’t, uhm, expressed in quite the same way. Our late uncle Drew allegedly had it too. I never knew our grandad. I decided to do a little research.”

He unrolled the blueprint-sized sheet of paper and laid it on the table. “This is our family tree, as much as I could discover in a couple of weeks. Start at the top, with Upsen Downs. He married at twenty-five, not an unusual age at the time, and his bride, Grandma Myrtle, was twenty. She bore seven children, shown by these solid lines.”

Mayor Downs was studying the chart. “None of us ever knew grandad. Very rich and very eccentric. What are all the dashed lines?”

“Those are the other children he fathered, with various mistresses.”

“But . . . but . . . there’s so many.” He stared at the forest of lines.

“And those are only the liaisons that produced heirs. Presumably he had other women who didn’t bear children. Grandpa was a busy man.”

“By all the saints, I’ll say he was. But . . . all this time he was married to Myrtle?”

Churchill scratched his chin. “For fifty-seven years. Either she didn’t know about the other women, which seems unlikely, given the sheer numbers, or she knew and felt she couldn’t leave. Which also seems unlikely, given what I’ve read of her character. That leaves a third possibility.”

“Which is?”

“She knew and she was okay with it.”

Another pause while the Mayor digested that. “You’re saying that whatever Hugo has, Upsen had it too.”

“Or something very like it. I have seen photos of some of his companions. They are all beautiful. Did he seduce many beautiful women or did he make many women beautiful by seducing them? Same difference.”

Mayor Downs traced the lines on the paper. “And the next generation?”

Churchill ticked off the names on the chart. “Uncle Drew screwed everything in a skirt from the time he was seducing his teachers in high school. Were it not for a weak heart he would still be doing it. My dad, Hannmee Downs, no chance. Eric, definitely not, but his son Hugo has it in spades.

“Uncle Hunter, your father, no, but Uncle Clement, I’m not sure. He’s a career navy man, and I hear rumours about a girl in every port. Or maybe ten girls in every port, and all of them pregnant. Also, he may have been transferred to a different ship after he impregnated several of his shipmates. And his commanding officer. Not sure if that’s true. Also not sure if it happened more than once. Anyway, the other two children are our aunts, Feather Downs and Thistle Downs; women don’t seem to express the power.”

“Have you ever noticed all the weird first names in our family?”

“Yeah, I wondered about that too.”

“What does this mean?” The Mayor gestured at the last row on the chart. “All our cousins. Do they all . . . ?

Churchill shook his head. “I don’t think so. The power is inherited, therefore genetic, but that doesn’t mean everyone gets it. My guess is that it’s sex-linked and recessive, like colour-blindness, but carried on the Y chromosome.”

“Churchy, you lost me. I’m a politician.”

“And I’m a biochemist, not a geneticist. The point is that the power crops up here and there, now and again, to this one and that one. As long as you are a male descendent of Upsen Downs.”

The office door opened. Genevieve Belleflueur was standing there, tablet in hand. “Sir, your meeting with Parks and Recreation begins in three minutes,” she said.

“Tell them to wait, Ms Belleflueur,” the Mayor replied. “I’m in an urgent meeting.”

“Very good, Sir.” She disappeared again.

Mayor Downs drew a deep breath. “Churchy this is all fascinating, but I don’t see how it affects me. Grandad didn’t leave me any money and he certainly didn’t leave me a gift for seduction.”

“Are you sure of that?” his cousin said mildly.

“Of course I am. Look, you saw my EA. She’s a work of art. Would she insist on Ms. Belleflueur’ and radiate the warmth of a glacier if I had any magical mojo?”

Churchill only shrugged. “The power expresses in different ways in different people. Which brings us back to the mystery of how you keep winning elections—against an opponent who is deeply experienced, better organized, better financed and better looking. Plus he presents a coherent platform and doesn’t hire family.”

“Thank you for reminding me about Ritterson. That soulless automaton. That adding machine with legs. But . . . wait a minute . . . are you saying that I’m . . . what, exactly?”

Another shrug. “I have a theory. A hunch, really. Maybe you have the power but it’s latent, simmering on the back burner but never boiling over. Expressed enough to convince women, some women, to vote for you, even when their husbands don’t. Maybe just enough to give you an edge? Nothing much happened to Hugo until he realized he was a nineteen-year-old virgin who really, really wanted to get laid. Then suddenly—well, you saw the result.”

“Hugo was a virgin?”

“Until recently. Ms. Calhoun and several other enhanced’ young women have thoroughly relieved that condition.”

“A nineteen-year-old virgin. Didn’t know we still had those.”

“We have one less. But Mark the manager tells me that since Hugo started getting lucky, the potency of his potion has plummeted profoundly. Still strong enough to keep them in business, I’m sure, but not enough to remake every woman off the street into a porn star.”

Mayor Downs got to his feet. He leaned against the side his desk. “Do you really think it’s possible that I’ve inherited Upsen Down’s special ability? I’m a bachelor for god’s sake.”

Churchill shrugged again. “I’m not saying it’s definite. Only that it would provide a convenient explanation for why you aren’t working in a bank. And just think what you could do—" he paused dramatically,—“if you knew how to make it boil over.”

The Mayor stood up. He looked hard at his cousin. “I could win the election,” he breathed. “I could win decisively. I could get Ritterson off my back, once and forever. If he retired, gave up trying to displace me, then I could retire, which is not only wonderful but wonderfully ironic. I could go work in a bank.“

Churchill was gathering up his papers. “The key to it all,” he said, “is to figure out the trigger. It can’t be in your dick because, if I’m right, it is mildly affecting women across the city. But it has to be something organic, an odour, an exudate, whatever. Something that women can sense and respond to when in your presence. Beyond that I have no idea. You will have to figure it out yourself.”

He slung the satchel across his shoulders and picked up the rolled-up genealogy chart. Mayor Downs walked him to the door. “Thanks for coming in Churchy,” he said. “This is a staggering bit of news you’ve delivered. Right now I have to visit the Parks and Recreation Division, where they will no doubt attack me with gardening implements. If I survive that, I’ll work on finding the trigger. If there is one.”

The two men shook hands. “Bear in mind,” Churchill said cheerfully, “that I could be all wrong, in which case you will make a complete and utter ass of yourself.” Grinning, he passed out the door.