The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The castle levy came for him at sunset.

That was the way of things. The noss, rulers of the world, lived at night, as ordinary people lived by day. Therefore, their mortal servants the ren also worked by night. It was not the hour of their coming which was to be feared, but that they came at all; for those they took by night seldom returned. And when they did, that, too, was a thing to fear.

Donald Fenton had always known that the castle’s Lady, Magda, was interested in him. When he was still a child, Father Justin had reported to her on his unusual curiosity and quickness to learn; after that, she had encouraged the red-robed priest to offer him more than the simple education others received. Where others’ schooling ended with simple reading, writing and arithmetic, and many received not even that, he went on to read books most people never saw. Pre-Downfall literature, history, geography, science—even the Bible, the forbidden book of the outlawed Old Believers who had persecuted the noss in the old times. He had grown up strange, increasingly separated from his age-mates and even his parents by the things he knew and they did not.

Now the Lady Magda was harvesting the crop she had sown.

As the carriage clattered toward the castle, high on its hill overlooking the village, Donald couldn’t resist looking out the window. The road they were traveling followed the shoreline. Across the water, he could see the ruins of the old city. Even in the dark of night, it glowed faintly with its own light.

Once, he knew, vast multitudes had lived there. No longer. Those who had not perished in the Day of Fire, or in the Longest Night which followed when smoke and ash had blotted out the sun for half a year, had fled. In the two hundred years since, no one had returned. It was said the ground itself there was poison, to mortals and noss alike. Perhaps that was true, perhaps not; Donald had no interest in finding out the hard way.

At last the carriage stopped. One of the blank-faced men riding up front dismounted and opened the door, gesturing with his weapon for Donald to get out. The weapon itself was something he had never seen, a handgun from the old times. It had obviously been carefully maintained, for despite its age, it looked almost new. It would certainly fire.

Donald got out. Prodded forward, he passed through the castle gates.

Inside there was light, coming from elaborate candelabras mounted in the ceiling and small fixtures on the walls. Such light! Accustomed to the flickering illumination provided by candles and hearth fires, Donald had to squint for a few moments as his eyes adjusted.

Others who had visited the castle on festive occasions, or on official business, had spoken of this light, calling it noss magic. From his reading, though, Donald knew what it had to be.

“Electric,” he breathed.

“Excellent, Donald,” a rich feminine voice complimented him. “I see the good Father’s efforts haven’t been wasted.”

Donald’s eyes swung instantly toward the voice. Its owner was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: an inch taller than his own five feet ten, with wavy dark-brown hair cascading down her back to waist level, framing a heart-shaped face with flawless skin and large green eyes. She wore a shimmering green gown of some material he didn’t recognize, which clung to her almost like a second skin; it was cut to reveal long expanses of leg when she walked, and a great deal of cleavage. He gulped. He knew at once who it was; he saw her portrait every Sunday in church, where it hung behind the altar.

“Lady Magda,” he said, stunned. After a moment, he collected himself enough to bow. “Yours to command, immortal Mistress.”

The woman chuckled. “So handsome, and so polite. We’ll get along famously together, you and I, I think.”

She studied him for a few moments, then added, “For now, perhaps a hot bath, food, rest. Tomorrow, my servants will instruct you in your formal tasks here. And tomorrow evening, when I wake,” her smile was dazzling, “I’ll see you again, and we can get . . . better acquainted.” She looked directly into his eyes for a moment, and suddenly her eyes were all he could see, a twin whirlpool of green into which he plunged gratefully.

He stumbled, and the spell was broken. The Lady, watching him, murmured, “Sleep well this night, and may your dreams be pleasant.” Then she turned and swept away.

Servants in clothes which resembled the formal garb he had seen in a few old pictures escorted him to a tiled room containing a big tub. One of them turned a couple of spigots at one end of the tub and water came out of a faucet. It steamed! Another demonstrated a different device, a basin which flushed water at the press of a handle; its purpose was obvious. Another, smaller basin had spigots like those in the tub, and a mirror set into the wall over it. All of these luxuries were things he’d seen only in books until now.

After a luxurious bath—it felt so good that Donald didn’t even care that one of the servants remained, watching him, the whole time—he was draped in a soft robe and escorted to a nearby room, which contained a comfortable-looking bed and a small table. A tray made of some flexible material rested on the table; a hot supper of sliced beef, mashed potatoes and carrots was on it, complete with gleaming utensils. He ate eagerly. Afterward, replete and sleepy, he went to bed. The same blank-faced servant who’d supervised his bath turned out the room’s lighting by flipping a switch on the wall. Very soon thereafter, Donald’s own lights went out.

His dreams were fevered. In them, the Lady came to him, wearing a strapless red gown whose fabric glistened in the light and clung to her every curve, and long white gloves whose sleeves covered her arms to well past the elbows. She embraced him; then they both cast off their clothes and sank down, coming together in passion, and there was pleasure as he thrust himself into her, pleasure for himself and his beautiful mistress alike. At last, she cried out and plunged her fangs into his neck in ecstasy. The bite burned through him like ice and fire, a pain he would do anything to experience again.

When he awoke in the morning, he was soaked with sweat, and more: he had come in his sleep. He had not had so intense a dream since his teen years, and never about one of the immortals. It was so vivid in memory that he checked himself in the mirror in the bath room for signs of the Lady Magda’s bite. He saw nothing. He felt as if he should have been ashamed, but he was not. He looked forward to the next night’s slumber—and before then, to seeing the Lady again while awake, as she had promised he would.

As he stood before the mirror, which was mounted above the small basin with spigots which the servant who’d supervised his bath had called a “sink,” he noticed that a cake of soap and a small shaving razor had been left there. Remembering how that servitor had made the water run in the tub, he turned the spigots carefully; as he’d hoped, water emerged. He lathered his face and shaved. He managed not to slice himself. Here in the castle, he sensed, it might not be wise to offer too great a temptation by way of open cuts. However pleasurable the Lady’s bite had been in dreams, he knew the noss could kill a man easily by taking blood. He had been present once, as a boy, when the Lady had executed a cross-bearer heretic in just that way, after her ren servants had arrested him and seized his offensive relics.

When he returned to his bed chamber, the servant from the night before was there, waiting, and fresh clothing was laid out. The servant assisted him in putting on the garments; the trousers, in particular, used an unfamiliar closure with interlocking metal teeth in place of the buttons or drawstrings he was used to. When he was done, his companion guided him through the castle’s corridors and down several flights of stairs to a basement room.

When he saw what the room contained, Donald gasped. “A generator!” he exclaimed, stunned. “An electrical generator, like those they had before the Downfall!”

“Just so,” the servant replied. “Milady has ordered that you be assigned here, as a technical assistant. Doctor Friedrich will supervise you.”

An older, balding man wearing a long white coat over the rest of his clothes stepped forward. “I am Doctor Friedrich,” he said. His voice contained just a hint of some unfamiliar accent. “And you are the new assistant. Fenton, ja ?”

“My name is Donald Fenton, yes, sir,” Donald responded.

“Gut, gut,” the older man said. “Milady had me brought over from my old home in Germany to run this place, when she had the equipment installed—but even in the old country there are too few with the knowledge, and she could not persuade my old lord to part with others to help me. So I must find workers here, and there are never enough. Another is always welcome.” He held out his hand; Donald extended his own, and Dr. Friedrich clasped it in a vigorous handshake. Then he introduced Donald to the other assistants: Harcourt, a gaunt fellow of indeterminate age, and Richards, a blond, heavy-set man of about Donald’s own age, who eyed the new arrival with hostility. Apparently, the Doctor didn’t bother with his workers’ first names; at any rate, he didn’t reveal them to Donald.

The hours passed quickly as Donald was shown how to maintain the generator. It was an important job. The Lady Magda derived prestige from having a fully electrified household; there were noss centuries her senior who did not. Any power failure would count against her among her fellow immortals. Donald suspected that one reason Doctor Friedrich never had enough workers was that over time, despite all precautions, embarrassing breakdowns happened, and the Doctor’s assistants took the blame—and the punishment, likely fatal. The generator itself was a bulky affair which looked as if it had been made from scavenged pre-Downfall parts. Donald knew from his reading that the old-time power generators commonly ran on coal, or fuels made from petroleum, or were even sometimes driven by the same power which had destroyed the old cities, but none of those were available; the castle’s machine was made to run on alcohol, which could be distilled from crop leavings. At last, Doctor Friedrich pronounced himself satisfied that his new worker had learned enough for one day. By then, it was nearly sunset. The Lady Magda would be rising soon, and would call for him. At that thought, he felt himself rising as well, though he did his best to conceal his excitement. Eventually, as he had expected, the servant who seemed to have become his assigned companion arrived to collect him. “The Lady requests your presence,” the servitor announced, quite unnecessarily, before leading him away. By now, Donald was uncomfortable with the other’s namelessness. As they moved through the castle’s passageways, he asked, “What’s your name, anyway? What should I call you?”

No use. The reply came back: “I have no name. I am my Lady’s servant; nothing more.”

Donald tried again. “But you must have been given a name. Everyone has one!”

For just a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of something in his guide’s eyes; then it was gone. “I had a name before being called to service, yes. But it is gone. My Lady said I no longer needed to remember it, or any of my life before. So I do not. My Lady summons me, and I hear and obey. Nothing else matters.”

Donald gave up. One heard stories of the power the noss had over the human mind, but to—erase—a person like that . . . He shuddered. Was that going to happen to him?

They met the Lady not in the great chamber where he had first seen her, but in what appeared to be her private suite. The rooms were luxuriously made up, with decorative hangings on the walls, rich carpeting, and exquisitely-crafted furniture. She had her own private bath room and a small kitchen and dining area—somehow, he hadn’t imagined the immortals would need such things. The largest room contained plush chairs, a desk, lamps, and a large, soft-looking bed. That last item was another surprise; the stories all said the noss rested in coffins, on soil from the spot where they had crossed over from mortal life. Donald wondered what else the legends had gotten wrong.

“You may leave us now,” Lady Magda said to the servant. Silently, he did so. Donald shuddered again.

“Come,” the Lady said, addressing him. “I’ve had food prepared for us. Come, eat with me.” She led him into the eating area, where plates of several kinds of meat and vegetables rested on a dining table flanked by two chairs. At her gesture, he sat; she took the other chair.

Donald was hungry, but couldn’t bring himself to start eating at first. Lady Magda guessed why.

“You’re surprised that my kind eat?” She smiled. “You thought we fed only on blood?” Her smile widened at his involuntary nod.

“Such has been the belief among mortals for many hundreds of years,” she observed. “At least those who knew of our existence; no doubt you’re aware, from your education, that we had come to be considered imaginary by most mortals, before the Downfall and the Long Night allowed us to emerge and reclaim our rightful place in the world. But if we had fed that way, we would have perished long since. After the Downfall, with the human population so drastically reduced, we would have starved.”

Her smile faltered for a moment. “Many of us did anyway. But we endured—because we need blood, human blood, only as a,” she hesitated, “a supplement to ordinary food. There is something in it, some substance we need, and even animal blood will not do—but most of our nourishment we take just as you do.” With that, she selected several slices of meat and an assortment of vegetables, forked them onto her plate, and began eating. Donald followed suit.

After a bit, her plate empty, the Lady set down her utensils and looked across the table at Donald. He laid down his own eating tools, not only out of politeness but because he felt full himself.

“Did you sleep well last night?” she asked him. “Were your dreams pleasant?”

Donald flushed. How could he tell this immortal aristocrat he had had erotic dreams about her? She would surely think him impudent! His embarrassment was only heightened by the fact that the dress and gloves she was wearing looked very like the ones she’d worn in his dream.

Her smile broadened at his silence. “I see they were,” she murmured. “You need not feel embarrassed, Donald. Your dreams were as they were because I made them so. When we first met, and you gazed into my eyes, I sent you a suggestion that you would have such dreams. It is a minor thing that we can do.”

“But, but,” Donald stammered, “why?”

“I have watched you since your childhood,” came the response. “I have seen you grow from an infant into a handsome, intelligent young man. And immortal or not, I am a woman.” The Lady gestured at herself, and, looking at her beautiful face and flawless form, he could hardly argue with her about that.

“I grow lonely,” she went on. “My servants are no help in that; either they are too old, like Doctor Friedrich, or they are too dull—or they are ren, who are little more than tools. Tools can be used, for the moment,” her expression turned wry, “but I seek more than that.”

“You . . . you want me for—!” Donald couldn’t say it. “But what about your own kind?”

The Lady Magda was silent for a moment, studying him with an enigmatic expression. “We of the nosferatu—what you call the noss—tend to find permanent relationships . . . difficult. Among us, the most successful bondings are between generations: that is, between an older noss and one he or she has brought across. In such cases there is no struggle for power within the pair, for we retain a measure of mental control over younger noss we have personally made. ‘Blood is the strongest bond,’ we say.” She sighed. “Even then, it can be difficult; for us, after all, a ‘permanent’ relationship is much more so than among you short-lived humans. That is one reason we tend to live apart, each to a separate domain, rather than clustering together as mortals do.”

Uncertain what to say to that, Donald simply nodded.

“Come,” said the beautiful noss. “Enough talk. I did not summon you here merely for a conversation. Pleasant though that has been, I have . . . other pleasures in mind for the two of us to enjoy together.” She rose from her seat and swept majestically into the bedroom, gesturing for Donald to follow. Stunned, he did so.

Once both of them were inside, the Lady addressed him again, her voice compelling him to face her. “I want you,” she said huskily. She stretched lazily, extending each arm in turn and peeling the glove off it with the other hand, letting each glove sway slowly in front of his eyes before dropping it. Each time, his eyes followed the motion, back and forth, back and forth, until she let go. Then, smiling, she reached behind her and undid some fastening; her gown slid down, revealing her perfect body. She had been wearing nothing beneath the dress. She stepped out of her shoes and stood before him, swaying in time to the tune she was humming.

Donald was speechless, his body and mind on fire with need. The Lady saw it, and was pleased. She came to him, and swiftly stripped his own garments away; then the two of them sank onto the bed, the Lady Magda atop him.

Some feverish while later, Donald suddenly caught sight of his Lady’s face has she prepared to descend on him for another kiss. Her eyes had changed, to blank ovals of blazing red, and her open lips exposed twin needle-sharp fangs. Instinctively, he cringed.

Immediately, her eyes changed again, blazing a brighter red. His own were drawn into that fire, deeper, deeper. He sighed and relaxed as he forgot his fears, forgot everything but those eyes, and desire.

“That’s better,” came his Lady’s voice. Those were the last words he remembered before words ceased to make sense and his body became a mindless steed for the Lady Magda to ride to climax again and again.