The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Lacie Frasier was flying, floating, soaring like an angel. She twisted as she went, an eagle in the wind, admiring the high flying clouds and the slow spin of the earth below, reveling in the joy and wonder of her powers. There was surely nothing better than this. She was Omega Girl; she was invincible, and this was her domain.

She steadied, and looked down on River City. From this height she could see the districts and their boundaries laid out like a map. There was the financial district, shiny glass towers glinting in the low sun. Behind, boats bobbed prettily on the Pacific. To the left lay the industrial park, and she could make out the R&D campus of Frasier industries. In the near distance the rolling fields and gardens of River City’s elite. And clustered around the centre, the wrong side of the tracks, a sweeping no-man’s land of old warehouses, tenements and projects, where so many bad things had happened, and where many more still would.

There; the blackened swathe of destruction left by the recent battle with James Phelps—Zero, the grey monster—who’d required all their collective efforts to finally bring down, all too fresh in her mind.

She held up her hand to her face, blocking out the ugly scar of dilapidation and leaving only the glimmering modern wonder of River City itself. She didn’t want to think about the rest of it right now.

Reluctantly, she started her descent; it was time to go meet her husband, Eugene Frasier.

The woman—a girl, really—was slight, perhaps a head shorter than Lacie. She was standing at the door of the main uptown office of Frasier Industries, looking around her, seemingly lost. The buildings towered around her, glittering glass and steel. Nobody else appeared to be paying her any attention, the office workers on the evening sidewalk streaming past her unnoticed, as a river flows round a rock. Lacie nodded in passing at Yvette, Eugene’s secretary, hurrying home for the day.

As Lacie approached the building, the girl looked up, staring at her wide-eyed.

“You’re Omega Girl, aren’t you?” she said.

Lacie grinned. It was always a pleasure to be recognized; it never got old being Omega Girl.

“Herself.” She indicated the office doorway. “Are you here for Frasier Industries?”

“Yes. You could say that. I’ve come for Eugene.”

Lacie frowned, puzzled. Her husband hadn’t told her about any meeting.

The young woman had an accent Lacie couldn’t place. Not American; somewhere in Europe, perhaps? Her eyes were blue and widely spaced in a pale and delicate heart shaped face, with just a hint of epicanthic fold. Her bobbed hair was almost white blonde, reminding her of Eva. Scandinavian, thought Lacie, and then she thought of the Nornir.

“He’s expecting you?”

“No. I asked. He’s not in.”

She’d half expected that. Eugene ran away from head office and its tedious administrative duties whenever he could. Lacie guessed Eugene had probably escaped headquarters at the first available opportunity, claiming some vague emergency. Right now, he was almost certainly over the other side of town in the R&D building, tinkering with some wonderful new prototype gadget for Armor Man. She was equally certain he’d insist on explaining it and demonstrating it in endless detail later. Well, she thought, genius is as genius does, so let him have his toys. She’d fly there now.

“Goodbye, then.”

“Wait.” Less of a request than a command. “Where are you going? We haven’t finished.”

Lacie was already a few feet off the ground when the young woman spoke. She stopped. Something was nagging at her, something about the girl; her calm voice, her strange words. She floated gently back to the sidewalk, eyeing the young woman. Her eyes really were very blue. She smelled of flowers.

“Very well. I’ll bite. What’s your name?”

“Mardröm. Mara, for short. Winter sent me.”

“He did?” Lacie was none the wiser. “Where are you from?”

“Next door. Winter, too.”

“And Winter is?”

“Just a man.”

Lacie was bemused. Perhaps English wasn’t the young woman’s native language, she thought. She glanced at the buildings next door. One was a bank. Was she here to sell Eugene some secondary finance? The young woman—Mara—didn’t look the type. She looked more like a hippy in that flowery dress. The building the other side was an anonymous collection of serviced offices, which could signify anything from software to high end dentistry.

“I see,” said Lacie, although she didn’t. “Your accent—you’re not from River City, are you?”

“No. I’ve never been here before. I don’t like it. It’s as Winter told me.”

Puzzling. What on earth was there not to like about River City? It was charming, thought Lacie; extraordinary in every sense of the word. Aside from the temperate climate and generally high standard of living, through a happy accident of geography and fate, thousands of people in this little city had some kind of superpower. Tourists flocked to see them, and a glimpse of Omega Girl in flight was the most precious prize of all. Surely River City was the most interesting place in the world.

“You don’t like River City, Mara? Why?”

“It’s unpredictable. You never know what’s going to happen. We don’t have this, next door. You’re a Norn, aren’t you?”

This flummoxed Lacie. Public property she was in many ways, but this was not common knowledge, and certainly didn’t feature in any guide books. “Yes, half at least. How did you—”

The young woman frowned, pursing her lips. “Norns. I know all about those bitches.” She sighed, and waved her pale arms, indicating the city. “And as for the rest of it, it’s just not right. Impossible speed, impossible strength, impossibilities everywhere. Cat people. Flying dykes. Shapeshifters. Supersight, superlight, supersound, fire, cold, electricity, even gravity, for Uku’s sake. Superpowers everywhere, here. You can’t be messing with the world like that. The laws of physics. It’s not natural.”

She almost spat the last word with distaste. There was something intensely strange, almost alien, about the woman, Lacie thought.

“Not natural? That’s rather insulting, missy. It’s perfectly natural here, thank you. In Crystal City, too. You don’t have any supers, where you come from, Mara?”

“No. Just a few people like me.”

Lacie folded her arms, and drew herself up to her full height. “People like you? And what can you do?”

“Oh, lots. You’re very pretty, aren’t you?” And Mara reached up and very gently stroked Lacie’s face.

There was a fractured instant where Lacie felt something tickling at the base of her skull, and then her world turned red with lust. Suddenly the air seemed thick with pheromones, alive with possibilities. That guy there, looking at her. What would he taste like? she wondered, and shivered with a rush of unfocussed desire. How would it feel to turn herself over to him, to let him do what he wanted with her? And that woman, in the spike heels; what would it feel like to take her to bed right now, and feel her tongue licking Lacie all over, working slowly, methodically down towards the sweet spot between her thighs...?

Dimly, Lacie realized her body was out of control, flushed with endorphins and unreasoning, animal arousal. It took all her willpower not to just grab hold of the nearest man, pick him up, and fly; yes, she’d strip him in the air, take off her own costume too, just watch their clothes flutter down over River City, and then turn herself round, spread her legs wide and embrace the sweet thrust as he entered her...

Mara stood on tiptoes and kissed Lacie, long and deep and slow. The other girl’s lips were soft, her tongue quick and alive, and with a moan Lacie closed her eyes and responded in kind. She couldn’t help it.

Mara stepped back a few paces, watching Lacie panting in the throes of utterly random, irresistible heat. A small knot of people had gathered, talking amongst themselves, wondering what was going on. River City was used to bizarre behavior of all kinds, but anything involving Omega Girl was instantly, endlessly fascinating. Lacie willed herself to maintain dignity. She had a reputation to protect, after all.

“What have you done?” she finally managed to say. The semiotics of sex crowded in from every angle. Images, too; sensations of all kinds, a welter of unbidden urges. Her skin shivered at imagined touch. The feeling was overwhelming.

There was real danger here.

Lacie closed her eyes, trying not to think of sex, summoning her Norn abilities. She would trap this Mara, paralyze her perhaps, pin her down into a personal time loop until she could find a way to deal with whatever the hell she was. But there was no purchase to be had. When she opened her eyes again, Mara was just looking at her, completely unscathed.

“I told you. I know how to deal with Norns.” The last word snapped out with contempt.

“Do you? Well deal with this!” She grabbed for Mara, fast, but the lust made her uncoordinated; the young woman was fast too, and she skipped away from Lacie, almost childlike. Lacie tried to summon up a weapon of last resort, an Omega Blast; just a little one would surely incapacitate this slip of a girl. But all she could think about was sex.

“Are you liking your new thoughts? Just a little trick my mother taught me. All entirely natural, such urges. It’ll only last about three hours.” Mara’s voice was quiet, utterly calm. She chuckled. “But a lot can happen in three hours.”

Lacie looked around her, wild-eyed and afraid. Three hours? She had to fly to Eugene, urgently, and get him to bed—no argument, Eugene!—or she would succumb to this, lose control and do something she’d regret, and in three hours’ time she’d hate herself. She stood, paralyzed by confusion and arousal. She could taste man in her mouth, and she salivated, and then shuddered.

She felt so dirty. She willed herself to move, to fly, to find Eugene.

“Yes. You go find him now, and tell him I’ll be here in the morning,” said Mara, and she stroked Lacie’s face again. “Tell him Winter knows what he’s going to do; he’s seen it. Tell him the people next door want a little word with him about that.”

Bewildered, Lacie finally managed to collect herself, and summoning all her resolve she flung herself off the ground, free of gravity, free of mundanity, free of this weird young woman, Mara, free to speed to Eugene. She would find him, make love to him, and get this strange urge out of her system. And then she’d tell Eugene, warn him, and then together they’d work it out and deal with this Mara, whoever—whatever—she was, just as they’d dealt with so much weirdness before.

But there was something wrong; as Lacie lifted off, her breath caught in her throat, and her heart started pounding with irrational fear; another push and she was thirty feet up, and dizzying panic took over.

She was going to fall, she knew it; she was certain. The world blurred at the edges; her head span; with a wide-eyed shock she realized she was afraid, up here. Afraid of flying. It was a shocking, overpowering feeling. She shuddered in the air, filled with unreasoning terror, her limbs spasming. Vertigo: she was going to fall, she knew it, and then she’d crash, and she’d hurt herself, and she’d die.

Carefully, slowly, shaking uncontrollably, Lacie floated back down to the sidewalk, to safety. Precious solid ground: an unfamiliar wave of blessed relief flooded over her as her feet touched down again. And then the relief was submerged beneath a tidal wave of sexual heat, even worse than before.

“Another little gift. Just so you know I’m serious,” said Mara. “You can walk to him, like normal people.” She laughed; an odd light sound, wind in trees. “Hurry along, Lacie Frasier, and don’t be fucking any strangers on the way.”

The young woman turned away, and was suddenly gone.

Eugene was surprised all right, but he didn’t object or argue, and afterwards they lay together in bed.

“I don’t know what’s got into ye, Lacie, but I’m nae complaining,” he said. Even after all these years there was still a thick Scottish burr in his voice.

Lacie cuddled him and considered how to explain. In the end, she told him the whole weird story straight while he sat up and listened, his expression first amused, then disbelieving, then utterly serious.

“Very curious,” he said at last. “And that’s an understatement. Nae idea at all who she is?”

“No clue. The whole thing had the air of someone talking a different language.”

“Let’s start with what she said, then. Y’said she called herself Mara? We’ll ask Annie.”

‘Annie’ was another of Eugene’s casually brilliant inventions; like Google, only without the annoying ads. He tapped in the word.

“Mara. A girl’s name. Aye, we know that already. Mara. A genus of the cavy family, a kind of large guinea pig. Patagonian. Does that sound like the mystery lass?”

“Not exactly…”

“Mara. Sanskrit. The demon that tempted the Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara’s daughters… Mara personifies unwholesome impulses, unskillfulness, fear, the death of the spirit…”

“Hmm,” said Lacie. “Closer. She certainly gave me some unwholesome impulses…”

“Like I said, nae a complaint from my side. The flying’s a thing, though.”

“Unskillfulness? Fear?” said Lacie.

“Aye. But who believes in demon spirits? And y’say she knew about the Nornir.”

“Yes. Not only that, she’s immune to them. I couldn’t touch her. And she’s very fair. Scandinavian, I thought.”

“What else, then?”

“She said it was short for Mardröm? And she mentioned a word, ‘Uku’.”

Eugene keyed all this into Annie, and was quiet for a moment, processing. “There’s a lot to think about here. ‘Uku’ is a Baltic god. There is consistency, nae question; ‘mara’ or ‘mardröm’ are all variations on Swedish or Norwegian myths. Nightmares, possession, ye name it. Same as the Sanskrit, actually. It feels like one of those universal myths.”

“She wasn’t a myth. She was as real as you and me. What about Winter?”

“Could be anything. The world is full of Winters.”

Lacie thought. What else had the girl said? “She said Winter thought supers were dangerous. She said we weren’t ‘natural’. That they didn’t even have supers, where she came from.”

“Hmm. Aye, it’s true that there’s hardly nae a super in Europe. Seems to be mainly an American phenomenon. Although there’s that fellow Orcus in Rome, remember?”

“Oh, I remember him, all right.” Lacie shuddered. “The self-styled tormentor of evildoers. Tormentor of women, more like. Terrible beard, wandering hands, always smelled of wine. What a lech.”

“Stacks up with the Scandi thing, though. Nae supers in Stockholm, to my knowledge. What else?”

“She said this Winter’s seen what you’re going to do.”

“What on earth?”

“I don’t know, Eugene. And what did she mean by ‘next door’?”

“It’s all too vague, even for Annie. Aye, we need to bite the bullet, Lacie; we need to talk to this mysterious mind-controlling Mara.”

Lacie shivered. “It wasn’t like mind control. When she touched me, it was more like… ideas, thoughts, urges. They felt like my own, irresistible. How can you fight your own mind, your own thoughts? And Eugene… nobody’s invulnerable, not even me. Not even Omega Girl. She’s dangerous, this Mara. I can feel it.”

“We’re dangerous too, my darling.”

They went to the office early, and had been waiting for an hour before Mara showed up. Lacie was curled in an armchair, scanning a magazine, trying and failing to relax. Eugene was sat behind his desk in full Armor Man mode, attempting to type with fingers that weren’t built for the job, pecking away at the keyboard. Lacie thought he looked ridiculous. Armor Man behind a desk, indeed.

“If the world was managed by robots, this is what it would look like,” she’d said. Inside his suit, he’d grinned.

At nine-thirty precisely, Mara arrived. She waltzed past reception and security at Frasier Industries with disturbing ease, and up in Eugene’s top floor office they followed her progress on CCTV. They still have the film, and sometimes even now Eugene watches it, trying to understand.

Look there: she hands the receptionist something. Their fingers touch for a second. The receptionist indicates the elevators.

Look: the security guard wants to see her pass. A touch of the arm; the guard waving her through without even a scan, looking the other way, as if she wasn’t even there.

A man bumps into her, busy on his email, not looking where he’s going. She stumbles, scowls. He turns to apologize, taking her hand in supplication; his eyes widen in terror, his face turns white, and he falls to his knees in the lobby, crying, his arms flailing at the air. People rush to help him. He strikes at them, screaming.

She is still wearing the same simple floral dress. Her pretty face has no makeup at all. She looks harmless, ethereal.

Look: two secretaries are talking by the elevator. She stops, approaches them, asking them something; which floor for Eugene Frasier, perhaps. She touches their shoulders, seemingly in appreciation of the help. As she moves on, the two women look at each other for a long moment, and then begin to kiss, tongues working in a sudden inexplicable frenzy of passion.

Mara presses the elevator call button. They watch her watching the women as they tear at each other’s clothes; one has her blouse off now. A man is clapping them on. Mara smiles faintly. She glances up at the camera, and smiles wider.

The elevator doors open. A knot of people rush out, jostling Mara unthinkingly in their rush to get where they’re going. Three seconds later a fight breaks out. One man is down at once, blood streaming from his mouth, clutching what looks like a broken wrist.

Mara steps into the elevator without even a backward glance. The camera in the elevator car shows her standing alone, calm and still, hands clasped in front of her body, nodding faintly in time to the Muzak. On the fifth floor a man gets on; he immediately gets off again, shaking his head in confusion. She laughs.

The top floor elevator doors open. On CCTV they see Mara pause, looking left and right. She’s walking down the corridor now, playing with her hair, as if strolling on a summer’s day. Now she’s at the door of his office.

Look: Eugene’s personal security guard puts his hand up, challenging her. He is saying something to her, asking her something; who she is and why she’s here. She smiles sweetly, says something back, and then touches his hand. His eyes bulge in his head, and he’s suddenly running, this hardened veteran of a dozen campaigns, running for his life.

The door of Eugene’s office opens, and Mara walks in.

She looked at them for a second, one to the other. Nobody spoke. Slowly, Mara approached the desk.

“You are Eugene Frasier.”

“Aye. I am; Armor Man, currently.”

Mara eyed him warily. “Winter said you were human. You look like a robot.”

“The clue’s in the name, lassie. Underneath, I’m all man. And are ye human, Mara? I’ve just been watching your very interesting arrival here. Ye present very much like a myth grown real. Like Lacie’s Nornir.”

“Of course I’m human,” she said proudly, and then she turned to Lacie with a scowl. “Not like her.”

Lacie bristled in her chair; he ignored the insult. “Ye wanted to talk to me. Why?”

“Winter sent me. To stop you doing something dangerous. Something unnatural.” And she lunged across the desk, grabbing for his hand. The scent of flowers was suddenly strong.

Nothing. She jerked back, shock and anger suddenly etched in her pretty face. He sat there, impassive.

“Ye cannae get to me in here,” he said calmly. “Ye cannae touch me. I’m Armor Man, remember?”

Mara stood back, fists bunched, her eyes alive with fury. From within the protective shell of his suit, Eugene saw the whiteness of her knuckles, her bared teeth, clenched in a feral grimace, and wondered if she was completely sane.

“Very clever,” Mara hissed at last. “Mister clever boots. I can’t get to you. But I can get to her.” She span and leapt for Lacie, springing like a cat, claws out.

But Lacie wasn’t there. She was up now, her back against the ceiling, looking down. She smiled, and gave Mara a little wave. “Tough luck, weirdo. You can’t get to me, either.”

Mara screamed up at Lacie, her face contorted. “I can get you, superbitch. I will get you. I’ll turn you into a filthy cocksucking nympho. River City’s very own superslut. Omegawhore, they’ll call you, and you can suck forever when I’m finished with you, and you’ll fucking love it, too.”

For all her powers, even safely up high, Lacie quailed at the young woman’s demented anger. Chilled, she instinctively pressed herself flat against the ceiling, flattening herself there like a threatened animal. Mara jumped for her then, trying to touch Lacie, her hand stretching as high as it could go. Again and again Mara leapt, furious and frustrated, straining every sinew to reach her. Too high; there was no way she could get to Lacie up there. Mara fell back, panting, staring at Lacie with hate.

“Not so bad, being super, is it?” Lacie taunted her, remembering yesterday’s humiliation. “Not so bad, being able to fly. Bet you wish you were unnatural, like me, you Scandi cow.” Eugene flashed her a quick look: Don’t wind her up.

Mara spun in the middle of the room, spitting frustration and anger. “You all just think you’re so great, don’t you?” she shouted up at Lacie. “So fucking ‘super’. I’ll show you, you bitch coward…”

This was too much. Anger flared in Lacie, obliterating the fear. “Coward is it? Do you have any idea what we’ve done here in River City? What I’ve achieved? The number of times we’ve saved the fucking world from the evil, from the insane, from people like you?”

Mara shrugged. “Your world. Not mine. Why should I care? And if you’re so powerful, why don’t you come down off the ceiling and face me then, Norn?”

There was a low whine as Eugene powered up the suit. Armor Man stood, then hovered, all systems alive and glowing. Weapons modules clicked into place, bristling with menace, and all pointing straight at Mara.

Eugene spoke at last. “Ye have your powers, we’ve ours. Ye’re a locked-on target, lassie. So stop trying to hurt my wife, or I’ll hurt ye right back.” His voice was like steel. “Ye’re just flesh and bone. Armor Man could destroy ye easily, right here in this office, just like a tank could crush a rabbit. Mind aside, ye’re just a wee girl. I could obliterate ye. There’d be nothing left. Nothing.”

Lacie started, unsure if the threat was empty. They had never killed before; that was surely a line that couldn’t be crossed. But this felt different, somehow. From her perch on the ceiling, she heard the edge behind Eugene’s words and felt something new. Perhaps he really would do such a thing. She said nothing, dreading the idea, pushing it away.

Armor Man was humming intimidatingly now; a subsonic nuclear sound, the sound of raw power ready to be unleashed.

Mara regarded the threat. “You could. But I’d still live, and another Mara would be back. Or next time maybe I’d send my mother.”

“Settle down, then. We could do this all day and get nowhere. Now, ye wanted to talk to me, specifically.”

With a resentful glance at Lacie up on the ceiling, Mara conceded; she flopped down into the big chair opposite Eugene. He powered down, descending gently into his chair. They faced each other across the desk.

“Tell me what you want. What is this all about?”

“Eugene Frasier, inventor; head of Frasier Industries, River City. You’re good with technology, the best here. And you’re dangerous. You’re going to invent something, a Calabi-Yau machine. You’re the only one smart enough to do it, here. Winter says to tell you not to, or else.”

Eugene thought. Calabi-Yau? Complex mathematical shapes, impossible to visualize; multiple dimensions all squashed up small. String theory. The deep structure of things, down below, on tiny scales beyond imagining. He knew it, of course, but what on earth was this ‘machine’ she was talking about?

“I doubt it, young lass. I’ve nae even thought of such a thing, nor even ken what it is, nor what it would do. It sounds nigh impossible. Frankly, the energies involved would be—”

“But you’ve thought of it now,” interjected Mara. “Because I’ve told you, and you’d think of it soon enough anyway. Winter’s seen. And it can be built, because Winter did it. What it does, Winter says, is blow all the little dimensions up so they’re big.” She waved her arms, miming expansion. “Big enough to send things through to next door. Things like me. Do you see?”

Suddenly he did see.

“And if you do it,” Mara continued, her voice small now, “then anything can happen. Anything at all. Winter says it would be the end of causality, of consistency, of control. Randomness will rule. He says that won’t do at all.”

“Aye. I see... and Winter is who, exactly, next door?”

“He’s older than he used to be now,” she replied. “But still involved in things, next door. He lives in the north. If you asked him what he does, he’d always say: ‘Troubleshooting, firefighting. That sort of thing’. Do you see?”

He did see, he thought.

“So he sent ye to ‘troubleshoot’ me, did he? To stop me building something I’ve nae heard of nor considered, which I probably wouldnae build anyway? Okay, I’ll buy it. But ‘or else’? What’re ye threatening, here?”

“If you don’t promise, I’m going to stay. Right here in River City. I’m going to go around just touching people, giving them little gifts. Thoughts, memories, dreams; ideas fixes, obsessions, neuroses, all the little things I’ve picked up on my travels, stuck that way for good. Just like the gifts I gave her.” She fixed Lacie with a cold stare. “Shouldn’t just have left it at three hours, should I, you freak?”

Lacie shivered at the thought, and remembered Gene, in bed, and how she’d thrashed beneath him like a wildcat, possessed and insatiable; and before that, the long trudge across town, afraid to leave the ground, horny and desperate. What would it have been like, to be that way forever?

Omega Girl could cure any illness, heal any wound, she knew, except the sicknesses of the mind.

“And they won’t be able to hide on the ceiling, will they?” Mara continued. “Soon they’ll be fighting in the streets, for no reason at all; they’ll be scared of the dark, scared of the sun, running away from their shadows, terrified of each other, of themselves. They’ll be fucking in alleyways like animals, because of the voices in their heads, the voices that will never stop. And I could make it so that it spreads, like a virus, from one touch to another. A pandemic of depravity. Doesn’t that make your precious River City sound nice?”

Lacie imagined the horror of it; every touch mental poison. A city gone mad. “Mara,” she said from the ceiling. The woman looked up at her, stony faced. “Mara, don’t. Please. You can’t do that, can you?”

Mara laughed, a wicked sound now. “Maybe I already have.” She turned to Eugene. “Aren’t you wondering where your pretty little secretary is this morning, Mister Big Shot Armor Man?”

Eugene started at that. Yvette hadn’t been in when they arrived. She was normally so diligent.

“Don’t you want to know what I did last night, you superfreaks?”

They listened while she told them, and up on the ceiling Lacie felt all the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise.

Mara had been frustrated and bored. She’d expected to confront Eugene there and then, and now she had to wait. She found River City all too… different. It was the supers that did it, she thought. She was glad there were none next door. It just wasn’t natural. It changed everything.

There was a hotel near Frasier Industries, and she needed somewhere to stay the night.

It had been easy to persuade the receptionist to give her a room; the honeymoon suite was free, as luck would have it, and a simple touch ensured no money needed to change hands. She picked up her key card, and left the receptionist with a simple but irresistible desire to run to the lavatory, lock herself in a cubicle, and bring herself to climax as loudly as possible. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the receptionist struggling with the urge, her face working as she tried to resist the sudden desire to leave her post and pleasure herself. She saw the receptionist’s hand reach down and was pleased.

She always enjoyed seeing people trying to fight themselves.

There was a woman in the bar, sat alone on a stool, and Mara recognized her at once. Mara had an excellent memory; eidetic, in fact. She thought about that for a second: in many ways, memories were what had created her in the first place, and were at the heart of everything about Mara. Her memories, other people’s memories picked up along the way. Dreams, fears, desires, urges, phobias, accreted and secreted at will through the most fleeting touch. Because she was Mara, and Mara was as Mara did.

She approached the woman. “You work at Frasier Industries.” A statement of fact; she had seen the woman leave the building earlier that evening and had been struck by her flaming red hair.

The woman turned to her with a puzzled smile, but proud too. “Yes I do. I’m Mister Frasier’s P.A., actually. The CEO. Do I know you?”

“No.” Mara gracefully mounted the stool next to her, and as she did she brushed her arm, the lightest of touches. “But I know you, now, Yvette. What a nice coincidence.”

Yvette’s eyes widened slightly at that. Mara knew she saw what everybody saw; a slight, innocent looking young woman, faintly hippie. A flower child, in her flowery dress. “Well I never. And what’s your name?”

“Mara. Do you like girls?”

Yvette’s mouth tightened at that. “Excuse me? No, I’m sorry. I’m waiting for my husband. We have a date, a babysitter tonight—”

Mara grabbed Yvette’s hand, and looked her straight in the eye. “But you do like girls. I can tell.”

The other woman pulled back her hand as if stung, but Mara knew something had changed. She could see from the way Yvette’s cheeks were suddenly slightly flushed, her pupils dilated as she regarded Mara. She could see from the way her nipples stood out against the sheer fabric of Yvette’s blouse. Mara waved her key card. “I have a room.” She smiled. “The honeymoon suite.”

She smiled wider, watching the turmoil in Yvette’s mind express itself in her face, knowing there was only one outcome. She positively grinned as Yvette stepped down from the stool. She offered her hand.

Yvette was breathing hard in the elevator, still trying to fight her arousal, but feeling it as her own idea. “My husband—we’ll have to be quick—”

“Quick? Slowly, slowly is the way to go. He’ll understand, when you tell him.”

The honeymoon suite was a pink lined affair. Mara switched the lighting to the appropriate mood, and it was like being inside a womb. Appropriate, she thought.

She turned to Yvette, who was positively panting now. Mara knew she’d given Yvette exactly the right memories for this, exactly the right dreams and obsessions and urges and desires, and she would now be very wet indeed.

“Take all your clothes off, Yvette.”

Yvette obeyed, never breaking eye contact. Mara slipped out of her dress. She wore nothing underneath; she never did. Mara gently squeezed one of the other woman’s breasts, feeling the tightness of the nipple. With her other hand, Mara stroked Yvette in her most precious place. Yvette closed her eyes and moaned gently. She was as warm and wet as Mara had expected.

“Do you want to lick me, Yvette?”

Confused, aroused, unable to resist, unable to speak, Yvette dropped instantly to her knees, looking up at Mara.

“No hands though.” Mara looked around for what she needed, and quickly secured Yvette’s hands behind her back with a belt from one of the bathroom robes. Kneeling, Yvette wriggled on the spot.

Mara stood there, legs spread wide, as Yvette obediently leaned in and began to lick down there, her tongue soft between Mara’s lips. The feeling was exquisite; Mara had gifted her the thorough and dedicated technique of a professional. Faster, deeper she licked, her tongue exploring every millimeter. Mara put her hand on Yvette’s head, urging her on and on, until she finally came.

“You can call me Mistress, now,” murmured Mara. “Get yourself onto that bed.”

“Mistress.” Yvette struggled to her feet. She was panting hard, and her nipples were engorged.

Mara undid the tie binding her wrists; Yvette lay obediently down on the big pink honeymoon bed. Using both of the robe cords now, Mara tied her wrists to the headboard, one to each corner, and stood back.

Yvette was lost in some erotic dream now, Mara knew. She moved and writhed mindlessly on the bed, moaning absently. Mara leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I can do anything I want with you now, can’t I?”

The other woman said nothing; Yvette just writhed faster, secured on the bed, her legs spread wide, her breathing ragged. Mara regarded her, considering, and stroked her breast. Another gift; why not?

She left the honeymoon suite, Yvette squirming helplessly in situ, and closed the door gently behind her.

Back in the hotel lobby, she noted a handsome man standing by the bar, anxiously looking at his watch and checking his cell phone. What a nice clean-cut family they must be, thought Mara, Yvette and her husband and two perfect children, living in this city of intolerable wholesomeness. So loving, so faithful; so dedicated to each other.

She turned away from the anxious waiting husband, towards a knot of vaguely rowdy suits. Mara walked over to them, and tapped the tallest of the men on the shoulder. He turned, looking down and smiling when he saw her. “Hello, Miss?”

The other men turned too. She held out her hand. “I’m Mara. I’m in charge here. I just wanted to say hello.”

Simple protocol: one after the other, the five of them shook her hand and unknowingly received her gift.

“There’s a woman in the honeymoon suite,” she said, handing the tallest man the key card. “She’s waiting for you there. All of you.”

Mara turned and walked out.

Eugene glanced up at Lacie on the ceiling. She was staring, open mouthed at Mara.

“What have you done? An epidemic of submissive bisexualism?”

Mara laughed. “No. Only Yvette, last night. I’m just telling you I could do it if I wanted.” She turned to Eugene. “You’d better go and get her before it all becomes completely reinforced, irrevocable. That’s the thing about these memories, these dreams. They can become conditioned; lodged completely, an obsession. God knows what her husband’s going to say…”

Eugene interrupted angrily. “Remember, I’m Armor Man. I could crush ye like a—”

She interrupted. “Really? You could? You’d crush an innocent young woman, would you? I don’t think so, Mister Big Shot. You’re all too goody-goody for that, ’round here. You’re the heroes, remember?” She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “No. You’ll do as I ask. You won’t build the machine, and I won’t turn your world into a madhouse. It’s a fair deal.”

Lacie was looking down from the ceiling, wide-eyed. He realized he’d never seen his wife quite this scared before. He pondered this, and pondered Mara’s words. This mysterious machine was irrelevant; how had this ‘Winter’ character even got the idea that he, Eugene Frasier, would build such a thing? He hadn’t even got a clue where to start. All right, there was nothing to lose, and everything to gain. The deal could stand.

“Aye. Very well, then. Go home, Mara. Go back next door.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “I can’t see your face. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Warily, Eugene removed the helmet of his suit and placed it on the desk. Mara scrutinized him. “I need to touch you, to really know.”

“No, Eugene!” shouted Lacie. “Don’t let her—”

“It’s all right. Touch me, then, Mara.”

She leaned across the desk and lightly stroked his face.

A welter of images flashed through his mind. A dark forest, hidden in northern gloom. The forest people themselves, mysterious, crepuscular. The Põrguneitsi; the Virgin of Hell. The Maiden of the Grave, who rode young women at night, feeding on their souls, stealing their memories. Possession; an archetype of human myth. All the stories, the dreams, the night-riders, the demons; all the stories layering and growing in people’s minds until she—Mara—finally became real, an independent thinking entity, a story with a life of its own. A living meme, of sorts, travelling by touch through the ages, giving and taking as she went.

The Mara were real, next door.

He jerked back from her touch. “I see. But we’re nae in the forest now, are we? We live in River City. There’s nae place for ye here.”

Mara stepped away, satisfied. “You have no intention of building the machine. You’re stupid. You don’t even know how. I will tell Winter. Goodbye.”

She turned and walked towards the office door. As she reached for the handle, she paused, as if remembering something important. Mara turned back to Eugene. Up on the ceiling, Lacie held her breath.

“One more thing.” Mara smiled, an innocent sunburst. “Don’t forget about Yvette, will you? The clock’s ticking. If you don’t get her soon, she’ll be stuck that way forever, a compliant empty vessel for anyone who wants her. Idée fixed, the slut.” She paused, and grinned. Her teeth were very white.

“Or maybe you should just leave her exactly as she is. She could be your little sex toy, superfreaks, your pet. You could use her however you want. She wouldn’t mind, she’d love it. Would you like that? Yes, and she could be your little reminder of Mara, and what I might do if I ever have to come back to this unnatural fucking hell hole.”

She closed the door gently behind her and was gone in a waft of flowers.

Lacie floated gently down from the ceiling, touching down gracefully as always.

“She’s leaving, then? You’re sure?”

“Aye,” Eugene replied. “She’ll go back next door, now.”

“Thank god.” She hugged him. “Next door sounds like a nightmare. And what she did to me…”

“What? Don’t ye fancy being Omegawhore, the insatiable superslut? Sex drive as a superpower—what’s not to like?”

She laughed. “Only for you.”

He was suddenly serious again. “Lacie, I learned some things, when she touched me. About things that live in your head. The Mara. Living stories. Aye, and her mother, much worse, believe me… But is it so strange? Stories do have power; a life of their own. It’s why they recur, in every culture, time and again, all too real in their own way. Living memes. Like the story of the Mara.”

“Living stories? Memes? Mental warfare? It’s beyond strange,” Lacie said, “It’s terrifying. Next door can stay exactly where it is, thank you.”

Eugene stroked her hair, pensive now. “Aye. But think… next door exists. A whole other universe. So close it almost touches at every point; at the same time an infinity of light years away, depending which dimension you use...”

“Well I’m glad we’ll never see it. The last thing we need is another universe to worry about. River City’s quite enough for me.”

Eugene smiled at her reassuringly, but behind his eyes his mind was racing. Thoughts whirled in his head.

If this Calabi-Yau machine could be built—and by definition it could, and had already been built by the people next door, and Mara was the proof—then it implied that the universe, the multiverse, actually, was so much bigger than he’d ever imagined. So much more interesting. The scientist in him, the explorer, thrilled with the excitement of the unknown. There would be so much to see. What might there be out there, next door, and next door to that? Might there be universes with other supers, with other powers, in other cities? Yes. Surely somewhere there were more people like Lacie, like him, like the others.

They’d encountered seemingly altered realities before, of course, like the Jeremiah King affair. Neither of them had ever sure if that had been truly real though, or just an illusion. But now, direct evidence: it was a fact that other worlds, other realities, existed.

His imagination ran riot. Just think: in an infinity of universes everything was possible; ridiculous as it sounded, there could even be worlds where men had the power of a scorpion, an ant; even, who knew, a spider…

New challenges, too; there must be many worlds without supers, just like next door; more worlds to save. What would it be like to live in such a world?

Imagine someone living next door, just an ordinary person going about their business, confident in the supremacy of the human condition by right. Then imagine someone else—perhaps Lacie, Omega Girl herself—suddenly appearing, the only super powered being humanity had ever known. Imagine the impact that would make, the power she would have.

He looked at his beautiful wife, smiling up at him. She would be like a goddess, there; no, not ‘like’. She would be a goddess.

Such a device could change the world. It could change all the worlds.

The reverie was interrupted by Lacie. “Come on. We need to go rescue Yvette. And we’ll need Eva, for the trauma, I think. I’ll call her now.”

“Aye. Let’s go, then.”

He put the helmet back on and powered up ready for flight. A press of a hidden button and the window slid aside. Lacy went first, leaping and tumbling joyously in the air, and then they were both flying. River City glittered far below, pristine and safe under their protection. For now, at least.

It was fantasy, of course, but he couldn’t help wondering. What if he, Eugene Frasier, really could build such a machine here in River City? They would be able to come and go as they pleased, do as they pleased, just like Mara. What might they experience? What might he do, next door and beyond?

As they flew, his heart fluttered in a wild surmise, and equations began to churn in his mind.