The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Author’s note:

To new readers! This debut tale is set in the same fictional world as the Ancients and Corelle D’Amber. I will keep in mind those folks who may arrive to this fresh, but you will find a minimum of exposition about what has gone before.

This story follows the “Ecstasy” arc in chronology but stands alone. Reading any of the Ancient tales will increase your appreciation for this story.

My tales will often contain mc, fd, ff, and edi (Extremely Disturbing Imagination). All stories copyrighted.

The library of my stories and “Corelleverse” series characters are referenced at: http://www.asstr.org/~EyeofSerpent/library.html

* * *

Quick Wit

Eye of Serpent

Madrigal Feyen followed the pointing finger of Little Venik. “Back there,” Venik offered, “is where he’ll be. A booth at the very back. Give me my money now in case he kills you.” His smile was a yellow stain in the dim light of the club. The stain was ten centimeters above her eyes.

Little Venik was a cowardly snitch, but he was a big one.

The room smelled of hummus, roasted lamb and dark coffee in the Turkish style. Small kerosene lanterns sat in various styles on the small tables of the quiet cabaret. Madrigal shifted her eyes towards the near side hall, nodded at it, then walked there. She wasn’t going to hand over cash in the common room. Her wits were the only thing that might bring this to a success.

Little Venik grunted and trudged behind her. Once a step into the hallway, he complained, “I have quick hands and could have shielded you handing it over with my body. I’ve done this before, you know.”

“So have I.” She flipped open the leather satchel purse. She dug out the pre-wrapped amount. She watched him closely as she dropped the old bills into his hands.

The bundle vanished into his left sleeve. He nodded.

“Thank you, honored one. And now, I go. I ask you do not remember me.” He grinned and strode quickly away.

She made a disgusted noise deep in her throat where only she heard it. It was unpleasant to have to deal with trash such as Little Venik, but this man she sought had a reputation that most normal sources would not touch. Most street informants did not know he existed, though some only pretended so. Her slippery objective was a wanted felon in several of the countries of the Mediterranean coast. Libya still had a standing reward of three million dinars for information leading to his capture or death.

Here in Tunisia, such things had indifferent results, even though it still amounted to over a million dollars American.

Madrigal eased back to the main room, checking the visible quadrants. It would be so easy for Little Venik to sell his information to others, especially if it meant she disappeared here. Music from hidden woodwinds somewhere in the room softly covered what noise the few customers were making.

The place seemed quite undisturbed and normal. She moved deeper into the club.

Her senses strained for each scrap of information. She spotted the dark booth in the furthest corner and moved carefully in that direction. In the draped shadows there, a figure wearing the faded colors of a farmer or a common laborer slouched with a view of her approach.

She moved slowly and kept her hands visible. She stopped at the booth. If I’ve guessed wrong, I’m lost. The bureau won’t condone the things I’ve done to get here. She cleared her throat softly. “Please. I would like a few words with you, Ancient.”

The hooded figure didn’t move, as if he was in a stupor. She eyed the bottle half-empty on the table.

Allah preserve us, I hate drunks. I was so sure that Little Venik wouldn’t dare try to dump me with a con. Dogshit.

“Egyptian, yes?” The slouched figure straightened and gestured to the booth. “Why did you call me ‘ancient’?”

The voice was only a whisper. She slid into the hard leather seat. She had come this far and the informant money was gone. This might be what she had been looking for. She had to play it out. “I am looking for Fariq Lyr, sometimes called the Quick Knife. If you are he, then I believe the honorific is appropriate. Your career is a testament of five decades.”

A stained glove of pale leather moved to the bottle. She noted the slender hands and the long fingers. Slowly and carefully, the dark liquor poured into the tiny glass on the table. He murmured, “Ah, I see. I’d offer you a drink, but you didn’t bring a glass, my tanned dove.”

She looked into the gray shadows of the hood. “I am willing to pay. I have a sister who is lost to me. I want her back. You can get into the ‘Closed Club’ and get her out.”

The gloved hand tipped the glass up into the hood. There wasn’t a hint of sound.

Madrigal moved restlessly. “You know the Club? My sister—.”

“Forget her.”

“I won’t.”

“Go and supplicant yourself to the Owner. Beg. If you amuse her, she may let your sister go. It has happened.”

Madrigal sneered, “I’ve been there. I’ve seen my sister dance in the lights for men who aren’t fit to lick her feet. I’ve felt her blank eyes ignore me. I’ve talked to everyone in Cairo. I’ve tried money. I’ve threatened them with the authorities. The owner won’t see me. I’ve talked to the police. Nothing. They pretend my sister doesn’t exist. That’s why I need you to take her out by force.”

Silence.

She studied what she could see. Who am I talking to? A legend? Or a con artist? Could Little Venik have hired someone to play the part?

He slowly poured another drink. “Sure you won’t join me? I could get you another glass.”

“I will pay—.”

“It can not be done for money,” he returned in a voice so low she leaned forward to hear.

It can not be done for money. Her heart started a faster beat. This was the phrase she had been waiting for, the phrase that the Quick Knife was said to live by. He was never for hire. He only bartered service for service. He named a price for any service he consented to perform, always a trade of some kind. He never failed. That was what she needed against the owner of the Closed Club.

That was his reputation at any rate. She took a slow breath. By a hundred names, this man was known across Europe and the Middle East. If she had any chance of getting her sister out of that obscene den in Cairo, it had all come down to this man. This legend. Everyone else was terrified of the Closed Club. She had used her contacts with the Bureau. She had tried the “for-hires” of several levels of international crime.

She felt foolish anger. She wasn’t used to being unsure and ineffective, so many months to get to this point. “If you are Fariq Lyr,” she said coldly.

He reached up and edged back his thin hood. “Do you know what he looks like, this Fariq? How clever are you, my tanned dove? Eh?”

He surprised her showing his face this way. She looked back at his green eyes, shocked. He did not fit the sketchy descriptions she had. He wasn’t even Arab with that golden blond hair and pale skin.

Her angry thoughts cooled. Venik. I’ll find him and kill him. This is a hired boy. I’ve been conned.

His face was scuffed with fresh abrasions, probably from being thrown to the rough street after a night of drinking. He was dirty. His blond hair dropped in a wild spray over sleepy green eyes lacking spark. His skin was too pale. An opium dreamer might have such a face, long shielded from the day’s sun. A boy’s face, perhaps all of sixteen years.

In fact, he could be younger. The dirt and scrapes make him look older, I think.

He calmly examined her while he poured another drink.

She looked closer at him. Dogshit. I’ve been had.

She shifted, started to slide out of the bench.

“Don’t go, my dove. You haven’t had a drink.”

She scowled at him. “And I don’t—.”

He poured a second glass full, and then used the bottle lip to push the glass to her side of the table.

She froze. She consciously willed herself to relax as excitement stabbed through her thoughts. There wasn’t a second glass on the table. I know there wasn’t. He hasn’t moved. I haven’t closed my eyes. No one has approached the table. What just happened?

She eased back against the hard wood booth behind her. Her hidden hand slipped around to the holstered automatic in the small of her back. “Fariq doesn’t look like you, little boy. So are you his runner?”

He smiled for the first time. “I am Fariq, Ramone, Haziz, Christian, Aeos, Belloq, and a few others I’ve forgotten, not necessarily in that order.” His soft voice caressed the grimy table and dark surrounding air. “You have no idea who you are talking to. Here. If you want your gun, take it.”

His gloved right hand appeared and slid the small black weapon across to table to her.

Her thighs tightened. Her buttocks felt like frozen meat, the chill crept up her back. Then her hidden fingers touched the empty holster up under her jacket.

Her gun. She looked at it as casually as possible. She decided to leave it there, some show of strength while she gathered her wits.

That was her gun.

Impossible.

He flipped a shiny card onto the table. She stared at her Bureau identification.

“So you must really want your sister back, if you’ll cross your own principles and consort with scum like me. Or are you dirty as well? We can be honest here. It won’t affect my decision.”

She pushed her own worries aside again at the mention of her sister, Metis. She schooled her face. Focused. She was prepared for this. Pretending to be a ‘dirty cop’ was a backstory she had assembled coming here. One she had used successfully many times.

“No, I’m not.” Her eye ticked. What?! That wasn’t what she’d tried to say! Her thoughts burned even as the coldness in her spine spread to her armpits, freezing the dampness there.

“So you are an active agent of the ARE’s Federal Bureau. On holiday? Or tracking me? Is this really personal, or business?”

“On holiday. Definitely personal. I’m an active agent, but not the Federal Bureau. We just carry the FB identification. I’m with the President’s Spoken Word Bureau.” She squeezed her fingers hard on the small glass of liquor she did not want. She was babbling secrets as if this was a conversation between old friends. This was completely wrong.

Something registered with those green eyes watching her.

“Ah! SWB. Well, I’m honored to be speaking to one of Allah’s Faithful.” The tone was unmistakably mocking. His voice, always soft had taken on a cold glittery edge that pushed a button deep inside her groin. Fear. She felt her bladder about to go. That single element unlocked her mind and her body galvanized by reflex. Her cover was blown. Something was so wrong here it could not be made right. She whipped the glass and liquor at his eyes, shifted and rolled out of the booth, sweeping up her weapon and ID with her other hand.

Then she was running for the street door. Voices shouted behind her. A blinding stab of daylight and heat greeted her as she slammed through the door. She went left. She broke through strolling crowds of idlers. She confused her direction several times, and knew it had worked when no angry voices kept pace with her. She changed to a normal stride quickly and looked for a taxi. She slipped the weapon into the spring holster at her back.

Nothing in this district.

She crossed through an alley. A small figure was tending to a garden patch under a rusting metal awning. She passed with a smile, emerging in a better street, still deep in the poor district.

She saw a cafi with clean tables and good shade. She swung off the street and stepped under the canopy. Here she could think about what had just gone wrong. She sat a corner table.

Allah! She closed her eyes tightly as she pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. She had never run from an encounter like this, and this one had been the most important in her memory. Ah, Metis! My sweet tortured sister. I’ve failed you. With a desperate sadness, she began to wonder why she had panicked.

“Headache?”

She opened her eyes. The soft voice matched the drab colored clothes of the hooded figure sitting across from her at the table.

She jerked in place. She swallowed a scream. Her heart hurt, pounding in her chest.

Fariq Lyr leaned closer. “You are very good. Very fast. Did you try to get your sister out yourself? Yes. I think you have. I think you failed. I like desperate people. It makes business so much more interesting. Shall we order something?”

A smiling waiter crossed the outdoor space and stood at the table. Madrigal swallowed again, barely resisting a temptation to pull her gun and shoot the man she had sought for months.

“Coffee. Two. Strong.” The waiter nodded and left smiling. “I know your voice. I dreamed about it last night. I like you better in person. I think we have met before. Not recently, but definitely there is something about you that is familiar. How old are you?”

She felt overheated and exposed. She was sweating like a pig. In all her years, she had never felt like this. She thought fleetingly about the Koran. What did one do when forced to speak to demons?

The waiter returned, setting down two very black coffees. “Do you want cream?” he smiled below an inky well-tended mustache.

Madrigal brought her hands up and cupped her breasts, squeezing, “Don’t I look like I have plenty of cream?” she snapped.

The waiter’s eyes widened. He nodded once and retreated quickly. Very soft laughter came from her table companion.

Her face burned. She put her trembling traitorous hands on the table, ignoring the coffee. “What have you done to me?”

Fariq’s gloved hand tipped the cup upward into his hood. There wasn’t a hint of sound. He put the cup down. “Just a joke. Forgive me. I have a terrible sense of humor. It is just my way. I mean nothing ill by it. Did you see his face?”

“I saw it.” Her blood pounded furiously.

“He’ll have a story to tell.” Fariq chuckled and indulged in his coffee again. “I’m interested in your offer.”

“I withdraw it. I had no idea I would be dealing with a demon.”

He nodded as if acknowledging that she couldn’t have known. “Regardless. I’m interested. I’ll help you. I’ll get your sister out. Free her of the influence of Isis, which you didn’t think to ask for. I’ll return her to any place you mention that you think will be safe. I recommend outside of Egypt, just in case Isis wants her back. Tunis perhaps. You know my price will be fair.”

“I do not know it and I don’t want your help. You frighten me. The idea of you touching my sister makes my skin crawl. Our business is done before it ever started.”

“Don’t be foolish, my tanned dove. I am one of the few people in the world that can help you. Your destiny brought you here. I bow to it, even though I have never sought to cross The Temple That Walks. My life will be in danger on behalf of your sister and I must confess that my life is the most precious thing I own.”

She spoke the oldest blessing against evil she knew staring into the shadowed hood, “In the name of Allah, may this Thing be destroyed.”

Nothing happened. He put down his coffee cup empty. He whispered, “In the name of the Great River, may this bargain be sealed. A life for a life. Your sister shall be freed of her enslavement. You shall become my slave. It is done.”

She laughed at him. Tried to. Her voice failed to a weak gasp. Mind trembling, she seemed to feel a hot wind swirling through the shaded patio. She glanced around at the other patrons. They seemed to feel nothing. No!

I’ve agreed to nothing! Nothing! I would sooner die than—.

The scalding wind passed away. Gone as if it never was.

She looked back at the intent of her quest.

Gone. Gone as if he never was.

* * *

Madrigal Feyen followed the wandering streets of Zarzis. She stopped often along the way, making furtive glances over her shoulder. She looked into the reflections of shop windows to scan the faces behind her.

At the hotel overlooking the beach, she relaxed. She got her key from the front desk. No messages. She walked up four flights and opened her room.

On the bed was a package wrapped in fine creamy paper and tied with a black ribbon.

She stared at it knowing it could not be a good thing. She locked the door, and then carefully tested the package before opening it. It hardly weighed a few grams. More delicate white paper inside wrapped around and around something fairly flat and small.

She read the note in an exquisitely delicate hand. “Wear this tonight. Join me at Club Shame behind the Market at the twenty-second hour. I have many questions to ask before we start our business.”

It was unsigned.

She searched her wits for some way to break this surreal venture back into the real world. She pushed and pulled the beautiful papers until she had the contents of the box exposed. She stared, feeling revulsion.

Small black lace pasties studded with diamond-like chips at the centers were the only things in the box. Not even a whore would wear such things out for a night on the town. She felt her nipples hardened and burn with ache.

Then she remembered something she should have noted at the cafi. Fariq’s clothes had not been drenched in liquor. He’d told her she was fast. She’d thrown the full glass at his face from twenty centimeters and she hadn’t hit him with it. Not a drop.

Coldness settled onto the back of her neck. She remembered the hot wind at the cafi. I just have time to shower, eat dinner, and then dress again. Moreover, I have no idea why I’m going.

END