The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The man aimed the ray at me and shouted “Ha! Foolish Susan! Your mind is miiiiiiiiiine!” Purple rays of will-sapping energy poured out, swirling around me and into my eyeballs.

“No, it is you who are the fool!” I said, and the rays bounced off the giant silver headphones I was wearing. “My mind has already been taken over, in a sexy and yet liberating way which prevents me from being attacked by you! Ha ha!” The headphones were playing Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, thereby protecting (and enslaving) me.

“Curses, foiled again!” shouted the man, twirling his waxed black mustache. I laughed at him, noticing as I did that it was Lucas Jackson, who I’d had a crush on in junior high. I began to dance on the pole next to me, confident in the knowledge that I was doing this only because the theme of High Noon was instructing me to, and also because I wanted to. As Lucas wept with frustration at having missed his chance to get with corrupt incorruptible me, either via mind control now or possibly simply back in 10th grade, I noticed that we were fighting not on the roof of the White House, but in my office in the Nonlinear Physics Building.

Pretty much the only thing I remembered from the solitary freshman psych course I’d taken, most of a decade ago, was that Freud was basically totally discredited and that everything he’d ever said was wrong. Nevertheless, as I waited for the kettle to boil for my breakfast of oatmeal and instant coffee, I decided that interpreting the dream I’d just had was probably a valid option. It was also not exactly a mysterious task. River City was a terrible place to live in if you had the slightest idea what went on here behind the scenes; I did and it terrified me. I also had, or had taken on, or had thrust upon me, responsibilities, because I could help and other people couldn’t. I couldn’t just pack up and flee. Between those two millstones, my life was slowly being ground to powder.

So a dream where I found an out was not unexpected. Most of my dreams these days were that; that, or the other kind, the anxiety nightmares of failure, defeat, personal destruction. The big difference was what, exactly, my subconscious was throwing up as my escape route. Usually getting horribly enslaved was, well, a matter for nightmares (or waking nightmares, or anxiety attacks, or witching-hour sleeplessness—I said I was coming apart and I meant it). Tonight, some internal bureaucrat had defected; and I thought I knew why, although the answer hadn’t shown up in the dream. Instead I’d had a childhood schoolmate who I hadn’t thought about in several years (but I was reasonably certain that was just subconscious flotsam).

No, I was going to lay this at the feet of my boyfriend. Sort-of boyfriend. The man I was dating. Doctor Franz Maximilian Martin was an associate professor of Psychology at the university, an intelligent and interesting (if shy and introverted) person, good-looking, and generally seemed good relationship material. He was also a specialist in hypnotism, the sinister subliminal kind. After we’d met at a science department mixer, hitting it off through the medium of being antisocial together in the corner, he’d tried to seduce me via hypnosis, attempted across a surprisingly large number of media over the next couple of months. Nothing had taken, thanks to some luck and the paranoia I was working up living in this town, and he hadn’t worked up the nerve to actually ask me out like a normal person. So nothing went anywhere, until my hypnotism point woman and for-lack-of-a-better-term “friend” Laura got sick of dealing with us and told Franz to man up and ask me out already. I’d dragged her along anyways to make sure he didn’t try any funny business, she’d gotten sick of that even faster, and had told me last weekend that it was my turn to suck it up and spend some time with Franz, alone. Which was where I was now, modulo the part of my brain that had apparently given up and decided that, of all possible fates in River City, Franz was far from the worst. That was probably even true, but I wasn’t quite ready to throw myself into the abyss just yet.

On the other hand, I hadn’t talked to Franz in a couple of days—pretty much since Laura had dropped her ultimatum—and that wasn’t really his fault. I grabbed my cell and texted him. (I’d decided on SMS as the communication method least amenable to propagating mind control and thus least likely to drive my anxiety up the wall. I had resolutely refused to ask him or Laura whether this was in any way a real fact.)

> Hey sorry about the radio silence

A few minutes later.

> NP. Not anxiety problems I hope?

> A little bit yes

> Damn. :( Hope it’s better now. Just glad to hear from you. :)

> Thanks do you want to come over for dinner or something tonight?

Sent in a rush before my gut could rise up and choke me. An uncomfortable pause before the response.

> You OK over there Susan? :S

This stupid town.

> Fine Laura just laid the hammer down

> Hee hee. ;) She’s the worst matchmaker, eh?

> Its working out ok for her so far

> True enough. :P But you really want to get together tonight?

> Sort of but i know i probably should

> All right, if you say so. :) Pick you up at your office after work, maybe?

> Come by my apartment at 7 how about

> OK, that works too ;)

I exhaled and started pacing with nervous energy around the room. (The other advantage of text, of course, is that it’s easier to conceal panic.) Still, I felt a little better now that this was behind me. Franz was an OK guy, the date would go well, no matter what the nasty back corner of my brain was whispering. I texted Laura the good news.

> Asked franz out on date, you dont have to come

> What do you want, a prize?

A moment later.

> Sorry. Thats legit good. Congrats, itll be safe. Have fun.

It’s always 6:30 in the morning for Laura.

The first part of the date went… adequately. I distracted myself cooking and tidying the apartment, which took me nicely to the point where Franz arrived, and then kept the distraction up by babbling incessantly at him all through dinner. The two of us also ploughed through an entire bottle of wine before the pasta even got cold, which also helped take the edge off. My plan had been to move from there into a movie, see where things went, but by the time I put it in I was already too buzzed and horny on to pay much attention. Before the opening credits had finished rolling I had my hand up his shirt.

We were thus semi-drunkenly making out on the couch when the internal bureaucrat got to the front of my brain and I said “hypnotize me.”

“What?” said Franz, in confusion. Most of my brain echoed him.

But the treacherous little guy had gotten all his paperwork in order and I explained: “This relationship is all messed up, because I’m afraid of you messing with my mind, and I shouldn’t be, because you’re a cool guy, and so you should get it over with now so I can convince myself there’s no problem.”

“You’re drunk,” said Franz, firmly.

“No.” Well, sort of. “But we need to get through this sometime and I’d rather do it now when I’m decided.”

“Let’s just have sex,” said Franz, then giggled drunkenly a little. It’s certainly a weird thing to try and retrench to.

“No,” I insisted. “I’ve got no issues with sex.” Also technically not true, but not the point now. “I want to get through this specifically.”

Franz gave me a long look. “You’re really serious about this.”

“Yup.” The booze was doing a surprising job of smothering my anxiety. I really shouldn’t be this aggressive about getting hypnotized, but the part of my brain that had egged me on to this was right—if I didn’t do this soon, I might as well just kick Franz out on his ass now, because we were never going to go anywhere.

“You should really do this sober.”

“I won’t have the confidence sober.”

“And that’s not a warning sign?”

“There’s a long and storied history of boozing your courage to the sticking-place.” Franz rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Come on, pick something sexy and make me like it.” Well, that was a step too far. I needed to take it back, except that that would just confirm his worries that I was too drunk for this. Besides, he suddenly seemed to be considering it. That meant he had an idea now, which meant a kink he’d been too embarrassed to bring up in front of Laura (or me, so far, for that matter). Oh, Franz. Shy, awkward Franz. Thirty seconds after bringing up the subject of hypnotism, he was back to the plan of plastering over social issues with it. If I hadn’t been boozily confident that nothing could be worse than the hypnotism to begin with, I wouldn’t have gone on. “Come on.”

Franz made his decision. “You haven’t got, um, a focus in this place, have you?”

“A what?”

“No, of course you wouldn’t. And I didn’t bring mine because, well, I really wasn’t expecting this...” That was good of him. “All right. Just, um, lie down on the couch. Close your eyes.”

I lay down while he got up and moved to a nearby chair—I could hear him dragging it over to my head. “Don’t do anything too bad,” I begged, the booze suddenly deciding to take a holiday.

“I won’t. Just relax. Listen to my voice.” I listened. “My voice is soothing you, calming you down. You know you have nothing to worry about. Listen to my voice.”

I actually did feel a lot better. “How long is this going to take?” I asked.

“Um, it’s over,” said Franz.

“What?” I said, and opened my eyes. Franz was sitting a few feet away, smiling nervously. “No, you just started.”

“It’s been an hour,” said Franz. I looked at the wall clock involuntarily. It was half past ten.

“That was it? I... went to sleep.”

“You were under pretty deep. You’re a good subject.”

“What did you do?” I asked, the post-hypnotic relaxation ebbing as the anxiety parts of my brain went to DEFCON 1.

“Nothing bad! Just, um, a little kink.” Yup. Well, that was it for me. “Look at your hands.”

My what? I looked down at my hands folded on my stomach and -

I have sexy hands

I love having sexy hands

I love the way Franz is turned on by my sexy hands

I love turning Franz on with my sexy hands

Running my fingertips over my body is hot

I love running my nails across Franz’s body

It’s hot the way Franz reacts when I run my nails across his body

I love showing off my hands for Franz.

It’s hot the way no one else notices when I show off my hands for Franz

Women who wear nail polish are sexy and confident

I love wearing nail polish

Wearing nail polish makes me feel sexy and confident

- and on and on and on, great reams of it: rules for picking nail polish (Franz liked dark colours and, apparently, now so did I), ideas for shirts and gloves to show my hands off to best effect, a sort of... surreptitious exhibitionism thing... about the way the kink wasn’t generally considered, and on, and on.

“Huh,” I said.

“You ok?” asked Franz, with genuine concern. I was still gazing southwards. Man, how had I missed how ridiculously hot my hands were? They were practically my best physical feature.

“Um, yeah,” I said. I blinked and turned back to him. “So that was it, eh? Hardly worth leaving for hypnosis to put that across.”

“You say that now,” he said, awkwardly.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad a kink. And besides, I mean, my hands are really sexy.” I sat up and scratched my jawline idly with one fingertip and giggled at Franz’s obvious arousal. I loved turning Franz on with my sexy hands.

“Yeah, um. You wouldn’t have said that an hour ago.”

I considered this. That was probably true. “Um, ok. Give me a second here,” I said, and ran out of the apartment. OK, I had asked for this. All things told giving him the keys to my brain could have been a lot worse than abruptly acquiring a kink for hands -

I have sexy hands

I love having sexy hands

I love the way Franz is turned on—

- no, shut up. I was walking to the 24-hour drugstore around the block, I realized, and that was to buy some nail polish. I had no idea whether I wanted to or not. I mean, I did—my sexy hands would look significantly better with, say, some deep red to set them off and I had none at home—but I couldn’t tell where that was coming from. If I hadn’t known about Franz’s kink would I have done this? Well, obviously not, but that wasn’t quite fair. If I had known but he hadn’t ingrained the kink into me as well? I’d certainly done stupider things for boys before. All things told, this wasn’t that bad. I was dressing up for my boyfriend, just in a way that wasn’t quite as obvious as a tube top and some pom-poms. Which was pretty hot in and of itself -

Having a kink only you and one other person knows about is hot

- a sentiment I quite agreed with. I decided not to be overly put off by the fact that I couldn’t remember whether I’d have agreed with it last night. And I decided to ignore the voice that told me I was just coming up with justifications, as the cashier rang up my bottle of Bordeaux Red.

There was a cheap all-night coffee stop next door, and I went in there next and bought a coffee for the sake of the table, having decided that I was going to do my nails before I went back to Franz and my apartment. It had been long enough by now that Franz was getting worried.

> Susan? I’m so sorry. :S :(

> Its ok. You didnt do anything wrong

> You sure? :S :(

> Dont worry ill be back just give me a minute

The hypnotic instructions were complaining about my sloppy job, but I hadn’t put on nail polish since a sleepover in 11th grade (sky blue, a colour choice that now filled me with visceral disgust) and in any case I wanted to get back to Franz quickly before his self-doubt developed further. Plus, it was a way to prove who was still boss inside my own head. I was, admittedly, putting on a shade they had selected, to serve a compulsion I hadn’t had until moments ago, but damned if I’d take my time about it. This comforted me to an entirely inappropriate degree.

Franz had sent another worried text by the time I reached my door again, but I figured it would be better to just answer in person.

“Franz?” I said, coming through the door and then quickly stuffing my hands back in my pockets. This needed to be played for maximum impact.

“You all right, Susan?” asked Franz, coming around the corner from the living room.

“Yes,” I said, walking towards him. I was in sock feet and jeans but I swung my legs in front of each other like a catwalk model and when I got to within arms reach of him I said “I’m feeling better than all right” and grabbed the front of his shirt, taking meticulous but almost instinctive care to keep my sexy hand and its sexy blood red nails in his line of sight as I did so.

“Um,” said Franz.

“I’m feeling like a bitch in heat,” I said, and ran my other hand across my shirt, feeling my nipples harden at the touch of my fingers. I loved running my hands over my body. I loved how much it turned me on. I loved how much it turned Franz on.

“Um,” said Franz again.

“Oh?” I said, and pouted. “You don’t want this?” I let go of his shirt and stepped back from him. “You don’t think that this perfect, hot body is ready and eager for you?” I let my left hand keep circling my left breast, nails dimpling the skin through my shirt, while the right roamed my torso, showing off my curves and luring his eyes where I chose.

“Susan?” said Franz.

I couldn’t keep it up. “Oh, man,” I said, and doubled up laughing. “The look—on your—face! This whole thing—was totally—worth it.”

“Jesus, Susan,” he said, but sounded relieved. “You’re OK with this?”

“Yeah,” I said, straightening up again. “It’s cool. We’re cool. But —” and I seized the front of his shirt again “— this whole thing has gotten me so horny you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh?” he said, and sounded interested. I could see the front of his pants tented. Confused or not, he had been into my little show.

“Oh yeah,” I said, as I dragged him back into the bedroom. “Do you know what it’s like, being turned on by your own body? I practically started jilling off in the Tim’s just doing my nails. God, if I actually had started rubbing myself I couldn’t have stopped.” I’d never been an particularly regular masturbator but the idea of fingering myself had gotten one hell of a boost. My clit and my pussy being run all over by my hot, dirty fingers, every bit of pleasure that my body could yield being drawn out by my beautiful hands and my sensitive fingertips and my sexy, dark nails...

In the throes of passion, I clawed his back until I drew blood. He didn’t notice.

The next day I had off from the university, but not off in general; Tom from my other workplace called me up early in the morning. He was on a week-long vacation to NYC, had been talking about it for weeks, and had only now, six hours before his flight left, remembered to call me to ask if I could pick up his shift today. I did my best to let him have it but couldn’t muster the anger; I was still too gleeful from the night with Franz to work myself up much. Besides, this was exactly the story of idiot stunt Tom would pull. I had no idea why he was on the team—well, I did, and it involved the phrase “all the help we could get.” This stupid town.

Long story short, I managed to extract three shifts of my choosing from him, to be redeemed later, which I fully intended to spend banging Franz silly. Then I set off for Base Camp, a spring in my step and a song in my heart. I whistled “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,” which still had nothing to do with Franz or even mind control, but seemed appropriate.

I showed up, carded myself in, and wandered over to ops, where Mary, of the night shift, was sitting. “Hi Susan,” she said, without looking up. “Tom get you to cover him?”

“As of an hour ago, yeah.”

“Left it to the last minute, again? Well, we’ll make something of him, eventually,” said Mary, a little over-optimistically. She grabbed her bag and stood up, and as she did so I found my attention caught on her hands, zipping it shut and flexing as they grabbed the bag’s straps. “Susan?” said Mary, in confusion, and I remembered, as I probably should have been considering from the moment I walked into the office, that she was psychic. My thoughts then splintered as part of my brain started trying to come up with excuses, another section began screaming that she was going to throw me in the shit as a treasonous liability, and a third began calmly noting that

I love long nails

Dark red nails are sexy

Flexing your fingers is a hot way to show off your hands

in an internal register Mary would have no problem picking up.

Fortunately for me she was a decent human being and went for the incipient panic attack first. “It’s ok, you’re not in any trouble, it’s ok,” she cooed, and I flopped down in the ops chair, trembling and breathing raggedly. After a moment of internal struggle the two of us caged things up on one front, and the instructions ran out in the other, so I was able to relax again. Sort of. “So you, um, went for it,” said Mary.

“Yeah.”

“You, um, are aware that this whole hands thing is there because of posthypnotic suggestion?”

“Yes, I know. I asked him to.”

Mary gave me a penetrating look but apparently decided that not to press further. “OK. Just be careful.”

“I know, I will.”

There was a pause and then Mary giggled. She held one arm out in a fingers-spread stop gesture and gazed down its length, a pose pretty much straight out of the

It’s hot that I know how sexy my hands are

textbook. “You really have it bad, don’t you?”

“Please don’t,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “This is embarrassing enough as it is.”

“All right,” conceded Mary. “Your secret is safe with me. After all,

It’s fun to tease with my hands when no one around will notice

.”

“Get out,” I mumbled, still not looking up. Mary chuckled and gave me a sidehug, which somehow—and by “somehow” I mean “psychic”—managed to convey sympathy for my plight, and then left. I sighed, and turned to the computers. I suppose she would have found out eventually, and she did seem sympathetic, or at least not judgmental. It would have to do.

I gave the computer screens another once-over, and pulled the bottle of nail polish out of my bag. Shifts here were dull as dishwater (interrupted, like war, with the occasional moment of extreme terror), and doing my nails would be a way to pass the time. I resolutely refused to examine the fact that this was now something I was content doing for hours at a stretch.

An indeterminate period of pleasant activity later, I had completed touching up both hands and moved on to considering whether I should buy a file to buff them up a little—the algorithm had firm opinions on this, which meant “consider” was probably too strong a word. I heard the door to the office open. “Tom? Is that you?” I said.

There was the sound of heels clicking on the lino. That wasn’t Tom. Unless he was under some kind of transvestite-themed mind-control, which I wouldn’t put past him. The kid had the mental fortitude of a soaked poodle. But either way it meant trouble. I stood up from the computer. There was a woman leaning casually, arms folded, against the wall of the office. She was dressed in a tight green jumpsuit—unzipped well past her cleavage—and green heels. Her hair was green, and her skin had a jaundiced cast to it.

Her eyes were yellow and slitted, and as soon as I glanced at them I knew I’d made a mistake. “You’re not Tom,” I said, stupidly. I had one hand half raised to shoot her but couldn’t move it further; I couldn’t even look away from her eyes.

“Neither are you,” said the woman—Lamia, I knew, although I’d never seen her in person before. Snake-lady is a hard look to forget, even just from pictures. One of the many, many mind-controllers in this stupid town. “He was sssupposed to be here today.”

“He went on a vacation,” I managed. Everything but my mouth was still frozen.

“Ssstupid boy,” said Lamia, shaking her head slowly, so as not to break eye-contact. I had to agree. He’d, what, given her the door code so he could get some hot supervillain sex? Maybe she’d whammied him some time back and he’d neglected to tell anyone afterwards because, hey, snake-tits? All that and he’d endangered his stupid, dangerous, treacherous, stupid affair, and me, because he’d forgotten to tell her he was going on a vacation he’d had planned for several weeks?

I had no idea if any of that was true, but it seemed exactly like Tom. He was going in the shit so badly when he got back. Sooner, if I could somehow get away from Lamia now. She still hadn’t broken eye contact, but she was walking towards me in, inevitably, a sinuous sort of motion. I craned my head to keep my eyes locked on her, stumbling a little as I had to adjust my footing.

“You’re not as handsssome as that boy,” she said as she approached. “But you’re a very pretty moussse, nonethelessss, aren’t you.” She ran one cool, dry finger down my nose and onto my lips; I managed to bludgeon

Running my fingertips over my body is hot

down with

Green is an unattractive colour for nails

. But while I was doing that my arm dropped stiffly to my side.

“What are you —” I started, but she kept her finger to my lips and hissed “shhhh”. I stopped. After a moment she leaned in and kissed me. It was the creepiest kiss I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t close my eyes and she didn’t, so I stared helplessly into her inhuman yellow orbs while her cold tongue probed my mouth.

She drew back a moment later. “Not so eager as our Tom, are you, moussse?” she said, confirming my furious suppositions.

“Please,” I begged. I would have shot her if I’d had the chance—it the damnable woman had just blinked—but with my heart bursting in my chest and dark, unbearable thoughts bubbling out of the recesses of my mind, I was in no position to be proud.

“You’ll like it sssoon enough,” Lamia said, which was the opposite of a calming statement, although my body didn’t move. I heard her unzip her jumpsuit further, although I couldn’t see it; this close to her face I could barely see anything except her eyes. She wriggled and move closer to me. I could feel the tips of her breasts pressed hard and sharp against me through my shirt. “Touch me.”

Without my willing it—although my will was pretty fragmented under the panic attack I was silently undergoing—my right hand reached out and stroked her belly. “Down,” she said, and my hand slid down over her pelvis. She was hairless down there, which I guessed was the result of physiognomy rather than practice. “Don’t teassse,” she said. I wasn’t. My hand was moving by virtue of her gaze rather than anything kind of coherent plan. But her admonition got it moving southward again, into her cool, dry vagina. I hoped it was a vagina. One of the dark thoughts took a momentary break from screaming ‘rape’ to casually suggest I had just stuffed my hand in her cloaca. “Mmmmm,” she said, without moving, and then as my right hand began moving back and forth, she kissed me again.

I was tearing up by now, more as a function of the time since I’d last blinked than anything else. Her vagina—let it be her vagina—was still bone-dry, but the thing I assumed was her clitoris was swelling and her muscles were staring to tense up, so I supposed I was accomplishing something. The sooner I got her off, the sooner she’d leave and I could blast her head into slag. That was my long-term plan. In the short term I was fending off a malevolent swirl of thought, doing its best to break the psychic paralysis through sheer mental collapse.

Lamia began to twist her body against mine, everything from her knees to her shoulders undulating side to side, soft and naked against me. Her head didn’t move. She didn’t blink. Neither did I. “Yes, yesss, yessssss, yessssssss, yessssssssssss,” she said, flat and uninflected, her body still moving sinuously and steadily as my hand sped up; if I hadn’t felt her walls starting to spasm I would have thought she was feeling nothing at all. After a moment she abruptly stopped moving and slapped my hand out of her vagina.

“Good little moussse,” she said. I stood there, dead still and breathing evenly while my mind screamed and flailed. “Next time you will wear a shirt with buttonsss, to take off easssily, and you will play too.”

I had control of my mouth again. “Next... time?”

“Oh yesss. You are much better than that sssilly boy. You ssstruggle in my coils. I will find you again.”

“I, I, I’ll stop you.”

“Ssso much fight in you! But no. You will ssstay here, and tell no one.” With that she turned and walked briskly from the room. I willed myself to shoot her, but instead I folded without a noise as all the muscles in my body went from rigid to limp in the space of a heartbeat. I lay in a painful, pitiful heap on the floor, trembling, until long after the door shut behind her. Then I screamed, long and loud.

“Susan?” said Franz, in confusion, as I burst through the door of his office. I had never been here before—too afraid, although I suppose he could hardly have a policy of brainwashing everyone on entrance. I was too terrified, and angry, and sick, to bother caring now.

“You’re going to Laura me up, now,” I said. I was shaking.

“Are you all right?” asked Franz, superfluously. I took a seat and trembled in it instead while he closed the door. “What in God’s name happened to you?”

I couldn’t tell him. Of all the things to stick with me once I was out of her mesmeric stare, it was Lamia’s “tell no one” that was still there. I had tried to phone Mary, couldn’t make the words form, and then just slammed the office panic button and fled before anyone else arrived. By the time I’d reached my car I’d decided what I needed to do. What I should have done the moment I’d had that dream. “You’re going to hypnotize me so deeply no one else can ever get in my head ever again.”

“Susan, for God’s sake, what happened?”

I realized, distantly, that I was clutching my right wrist in my lap so tightly my knuckles were white. Hadn’t even taken the time to wash it, clean it, scour it bloody. I let it go, let power flow down my arm. Light gathered around my hand as I raised it, glowing brighter, hotter, unbearably bright, unbearably hot. I stared into the pure white fire. The air rippled with heat. The room was black, but for the furnace. Burn it off.

“— Susan! Susan!” Franz was shaking me by the shoulder—the left shoulder, from behind, so he didn’t have to go near the inferno of my right hand. I gasped and let it ebb. The light dissolved back into the room. My hand, unharmed, perfect, sexy, burgundy-nailed, clean as an autoclave, hung in the air for a moment, then dropped back to my lap.

“I—I—L —” My throat sealed tight as I tried to speak her name.

“Someone did something to you,” said Franz, holding me tight. I managed a nod. “Oh, God.”

“I —” I swallowed, choking. “I need to stop—to stop—must be stopped. By me. And I need to be ready. You need to make me ready. Armour me. Against—armour me. Please.”

“Susan, talk to me,” begged Franz, but I was out of words. He seemed to make a decision: he let go of my trembling body and walked back around his desk, kicked a Newton’s cradle into action. “You see the cradle?” I nodded. “Watch it. Follow it. Let it absorb all your attention, all your thoughts.”

I felt tired, suddenly, very tired. “So you’ll do it?”

“That’s up to you,” he said. I noticed he’d stripped down to his shirt, sweat beading his forehead; the sun had moved in the window behind him. I’d been under again. “If you still want I can—I can try to do my best, but I’ve never done anything like that before. I don’t know how safe from Lamia you would be.”

I felt a tiny fireburst of pride inside me. He’d beaten the fucking bitch already, gotten the story out of me. He could do it, I knew. “I want —” I paused for a moment. He’d somehow boxed the trauma off while I was under, and the unbearable tide of emotion was isolated a little; I could think a little clearer. I was doing something stupid, I knew, even if he did exactly what I asked with the best of intentions and the purest of motives. But I couldn’t go on like this. Coming apart by inches, terrified, nothing but a sheet of paranoia stretched over a stormcloud of anxiety, slowly breaking down even before I finally got unlucky -

“I want you to do it,” I said. “Take me over. Make me yours so completely that no one else can ever touch me.” And then walked over and kissed him, long and hard. I stood there, wrapped tightly around him, with him, for an interval. Then I sat back down in the chair, and he nodded slowly.

“Focus on the cradle,” he said. I watched. He lifted the ball at the end, and I held my breath and waited for it to fall.