The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”

—Josiah Stamp

A Touch of Green

Chapter Ten

Stress affects me as much as it does anyone else. I seemed to have drawn an entire different stress lately. I wanted so much to clear away these pressures from all directions. I ought to be able to now. It should be a simple matter.

A new talent gave me new responsibilities.

I wondered, how did I get here from before, when I just needed to go to work and pay the bills? Why had the world become more complex? I know. There are no clear answers to anything about just living.

I wonder if it would be easier if I was a simpleton with limited activities.

The clouds of thought around me acted like a fog, making it harder and harder to see paths to where I should go. Off the paths was a fiend waiting to devour me. I was sure of it.

It really wasn’t much I wanted. It was just so hard to get there.

* * *

Metro North trains passed from Westchester into Manhattan above ground but at ninety-seventh street they slip into the tunnels leading to Grand Central. The terminal is a morass of underground tunnels for trains to be brought into the various platforms, dark yet lit in eerie ways.

Celia’s train came in at track twenty-four. The plastic seats were uncomfortable but they had sufficient space. Her eyes were closed for most of the trip, though she remembered the stop at Tuckahoe for some reason. Probably because it took longer than usual for the stop.

She just had to catch a number one uptown, then she’d be home. Things around her seemed bizarrely quiet for the city as she made the trip the rest of the way home. It was only a few blocks to walk from the stop to the apartment building. Briefly, she considered picking up some pizza for herself. Instead she decided she might order something in and just went on home. The elevator always seemed slow.

Soon she was at her door with a handful of mail from the week she’d been gone.

Once the mail had been placed on the table and her duffel in the bedroom, she plopped into her one armchair in the living room. What to do about food? She had no specific ideas and felt a little isolated at the moment, having spent time with her family and friends up in Westchester. Yes, she had a nice little comfortable niche there, but she felt she belonged here.

In her mind, she was still dealing mentally with the idea Ginny had been kidnapped. She decided to call Ben to see what had happened. To ease her own mind about not having been around to be supportive for a friend. The memory of his kiss was still brilliantly present in her mind too. Just a brief thought about that and her body seemed to respond immediately. Dammit, she thought, she was a strong woman, not a weak little whiny bitch. Why, she wondered, did she respond as though she wanted to have him ravish her?

She should call. If only to find out what had happened to Ginny.

Where was the phone? She had her phone right here and Ginny’d given her the number

“Hello,” came the voice on the phone.

“Ginny? You’re back? You’re safe! My god I’m so glad.”

“I’m back! Yes, I’m back. It’s great to hear your voice,” Ginny folded her legs under herself on the couch. “Sir came to get me, there were detectives and oh, I hit this big guy with a pole. Well not a pole, but a wood, oh never mind. Sir says it’s a belaying pin.”

Celia laughed. “Not a bowling pin then?”

“No. Not a bowling ball either.”

“I just got in from visiting my parents. I am so glad you are safe.”

“I have some bruises from the ropes and stuff. Master has been pampering me though.”

Celia just let the term Ginny used for Ben to slide right by.

“We’ll have to visit. I only dashed out of town for a bit. It occurred to me I should have stayed and tried to be supportive for Ben.”

“Oh pish. He was very busy and had to deal with the police and a bunch of FBI guys. Oh! The FBI guys turned out to be crooked!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes! One of them tried to kill one of the detectives!”

“Oh my.”

“I was tied up at the time, so I didn’t see it. But I heard about it. They were talking about how they’d been a gang of some sort.”

“So everything is okay?”

“We’re a little out of the normal routine, obviously. My boss was all mad at me for not calling in so they knew I wouldn’t be in,” she giggled. “Sir came down and had a private word with him about what happened. Pete has been nice to me ever since.”

“He was angry you didn’t call in ‘Kidnapped’ for the day?”

“I know! Is that perverse and insane or just selfishness, or what?”

“I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact someone kidnapped you. I didn’t think Ben had any money for a ransom.”

“I’ve no idea. My money is my money and his money is his money. I offered to help with the bills once.”

“What did he say?”

“No. Kind of straight forward. Not what I expected but hey… I’m not arguing.”

“So he does have money.”

“If he did, wouldn’t we really be living somewhere more ritzy?”

“You’re right. It’s not likely with his off the shelf cloths either. Then again, he might be one of those people who never make a big deal about having money. He might just be one of those people who has a standard of living he likes so extra money is just a safety pad.”

“Huh. Could be. If he tells me, I’ll know. It’s up to him what he shares with me. He’s the Master.”

“We talked about the submissive stuff before. You guys are really twenty-four by seven, aren’t you?”

“I… Yes. And I like it that way. You don’t hate me for it, do you?”

“NO! No. It intrigues me and… I don’t know.”

“Oh Celia. I am so glad to hear from you. I was worried when you weren’t home.”

“Hell. No one would bother to kidnap me. I’m boring.”

“So am I. I have no idea what anyone thought they’d get out of it. Sir didn’t let them get away with it.”

“or the Police didn’t let them get away with it.”

“There is that too. Come up and see me. Soon.”

“Sure. As soon as I feel settled in again. Visiting people up state always seems to sap my energy.”

* * *

Trapped in his wheel chair, the old man simmered angrily. Georgiy was gone. His operation’s most important tool. The man did well thinking for himself and was mobile. Now he was gone.

The commissioner filled him in on the arrests and interrogation results so far. The high level people who answered to him warned intervening would be a very bad idea. Despite that, he had Georgiy brought by. The man’s talent was completely gone. Totally erased as if it never existed. He couldn’t alter anything inside Georgiy either. It was as if it the lump of meat in front of him was an empty shell with only the pieces inside that slipped away if he tried to affect them.

He let them take Georgiy away again. He saw little option other than to look for new talent to replenish his support network. The people already in place were still intact. There was no immediate threat. Just a great gaping hole in his organization. On top of everything else, assets had been burned he’d developed with the federal agencies. Replacing those would be especially difficult without a strong more mobile asset of his own.

The operation really required field actives who were telepathic. First Carlos, then Margaret, now Georgiy. This deadly new mentalist was endangering all his plans. He needed to re-examine all the steps he’d put into his efforts so far.

The worst thing was it would be difficult to find new toys to play with. New ‘clients’ as it were. He needed that outlet. It was a hunger he had to feed.

* * *

Things seemed to have settled down. Last week passed without any further visits from mysterious telepaths. Ben was certain Georgiy had been the right hand man of this ‘Wizard’ guy. The puppet master’s organization was crippled. At least for now. So there was little reason to expect further telepathic intrusions.

He had learned one lesson from the experience recovering Ginny. Anyone, even someone who hadn’t been modified by a telepath could be hired to do things to him. It took some exertion at first, making it almost an autonomic activity, scanning those in range with hostility or ill intentions towards him.

At first, that had been a pretty useless mechanism. People were hostile and had ill intentions towards him who just didn’t like him. The maintenance dude for the apartment for instance. He had always wondered why it was so hard to get the guy to do repairs. Amusingly, it wasn’t him specifically the man disliked. He despised all the tenants because he didn’t want to have to do anything. The thing he liked most was collecting key money for the waiting list for the building. Once someone got in though, he just disliked him. An awkwardly capitalistic mechanism of corruption, but the norm in the city. Ben fixed that a bit. The guy would still get the key money he collected from people on the waiting list. The work was going to be done though. More cheerfully too.

He’d revised the method to be specific threats, checking people who had been telepathically altered, and for telepaths. It was unclear to him he would spot any, but if he did, he wanted to find them as early as possible and in as low key a way as he could.

Monday night on the way home though, his internal warnings did catch his attention. It appeared to have triggered on spotting someone who was telepathic and a person with the telepath who had been touched by telepaths. Or a telepath. Since the only telepaths he’d encountered so far had all been hostile, he tried to trace the person.

Soon, he was able to identify a building the man was in. It was a professional building with medical offices in it. Trying to identify the individual was elusive though. The little response he had from scanning went in and out irregularly. It seemed to come and go as the person was doing things with the altered person in the building.

Ben got on the elevator and tried to triangulate to the specific floor, finally getting out on the eleventh floor. He was wondering what a telepath was doing in a medical building. Someone who had gotten themselves injured and had been seeking medical help perhaps, he posited. Walking the corridors on the floor, he found himself coming closer to the intermittent activity. Shortly he was standing in front of an office door.

The sign read: Dr Jacob Stanley M.D. and Dr Alison Moore, M.D. Counseling Services, Psychotherapy & Medication Management. Suite 1113

He opened the door and walked into an empty waiting room. There was someone at the front desk. A woman, artificially red headed with a set of blue scrubs that allowed her features to jut out a bit looked up at him.

“May I help you?,” she asked.

“Are both doctors in?,” he responded.

“I’m sorry, do you have an appointment?”

With the least tendril of connection he could do, he flicked her to be honest with him specifically and cooperative. It was a very tiny light touch but he worried whoever the telepath was would catch the action. Despite that, there was no reaction from the on again, off again telepathic activity only a door or two away.

“Dr. Stanley is out today. Dr. Moore is with a patient. Would you like to set up an appointment. They’re both taking new patients. Dr. Moore won’t have an opening for a week though. Dr. Stanley will be available for an appointment,” she had flicked through some screens on her desktop computer, “at around eleven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“I need to have a few brief words with Doctor Moore then.”

“I’m sorry, she’s booked up until seven PM tonight.”

“Do you have any paperwork you need me to fill out to get an appointment?”

Suddenly she thought he seemed much more reasonable. The faux redhead handed him a clipboard with four or five sheets of paper on it, and a pen, but quickly called him back.

“I’ll need the HIPAA form signed too,” she told him.

He nodded. He could do what he needed to do from out in the waiting room. He didn’t require a face to face interaction.

Tentacle like threads slipped from his mind to the telepath in the room. Until he touched both the occupants in the room he was not certain the telepath was the doctor. Once he’d touched the normal, he knew it was the woman.

She was remarkably vulnerable to his intrusion. Never detecting it, she went right on with her activities, which were purely handling the psychiatric case she was dealing with. The man had apparently had some kind of trauma. She was slowly relieving that with her talent, taking his mind gently in her embrace and giving him tools to isolate the pain, to breath peace back into his thoughts.

Ben quietly watched for a while as she interacted with the man, all while pretending to fill in the forms. This woman was actually unaware she was using telepathic tools at all. It came and went because she only acted to moderate the man’s mental state when his agitation about something became easy to identify. Gently, Ben assured himself he could take control of her if she reacted badly when he contacted her. His paranoia relented as from afar, he discerned her actions were beneficial and completely subconscious.

Idly he wondered just how many telepaths out there were benefiting others with their little bits of emotionally grafted help. Bartenders, teachers, maybe officers, possibly judges, even priests, who knows, perhaps even a handful of hookers, all of whom would be unaware of their special talent. He’d bet there were a number of supposedly charismatic politicians too. There might even be a small but noticeable group that merely got their way all the time without having a clue how they did it.

This doctor though was working wonders with the trauma damaged gentleman. He’d probably be well on his way to normal again in a couple weeks. It could be done faster, but no doubt she had no clue how. It could be she had no idea she was doing it at all.

Ben decided he would reach out to her.

‘Hello, my name is Ben,’ he projected into her mind.

She didn’t respond. Ben could tell she’d frozen, then looked around the room, thinking perhaps she’d not had enough rest lately.

‘I assure you, I am not a sleep deprivation hallucination. I am a telepath. As you are.’ He projected this to her without speaking aloud. The woman at the desk already thought him an odd bird who probably needed mental help badly. Which, not a surprise, he found funny.

She now tried to form words mentally in her head to send to the mysterious voice she was hearing.

‘Who are you? Where are you? What’s going on here?’

Aloud in her office she was telling the gentleman there to take a deep breath and relax a few minutes while she looked something up.

‘I’m,’ what the hell was he doing he thought, ‘not hostile. It may not seem that way from how I am contacting you.’

Touching the man in the room with her, he put the patient to sleep.

‘Just how are you contacting me?’

‘Telepathy. You are a nascent telepath yourself and I stumbled across your activity on the way home. Collect me from your waiting room and we can talk normally.’

In her office, Alison Moore looked at the patient who had dozed off. Her eyebrows lifted. It wouldn’t be the first time a patient fell asleep during a session but it was awfully convenient to her mysterious visitor.

A few minutes later an unseen door opened behind the office nurse at the desk. Words were exchanged and the nurse said, “Ben? Will you come with me please?”

He smiled and handed the blank forms back to the woman in blue scrubs. She noticed they were blank but managed to keep her mouth shut about it. Far be it from her to question Doctor Moore.

He stepped through the first door, through the very short corridor to Moore’s office.

“Hi there,” he said. The woman before him was perhaps in her middle fifties. There was gray in her hair and years of concern in her eye wrinkles. She appeared to have one of those extremely serious medical expressions, where the neutrality of the doctor in all circumstances was not to be questioned. Obviously she was used to being in control.

He looked around the room for a place to sit. The patient was on the one soft armchair in the room and a classic leather couch was positioned under a window with burgundy drapes. He let out a chuckle as he looked at all the books on the shelves behind her desk.

He walked over and around her desk which startled her. He opened the right hand drawer of the desk and pressed a red button. “I don’t think we need to be recorded.”

“How did you,” her surprise was palpable.

“No worries. I told you. I’m telepathic. I can read minds. I can control other’s minds. I’m not hostile or an enemy. I just want a chat.”

“You’ve interrupted my session with Mr Michaels.”

“You’ve already cured most of his trauma issues. If you like I can finish it off completely or you can keep seeing him in session with your own telepathic powers to help him clear those problems in your usual skillful manner.”

“My what? Telepath?”

“Yes, you’re a telepath. I detected you on the way home from my own job. I could see you working gently to help… what was his name? Michaels? With his issues from time trapped under the collapsed building.”

She knotted her fingers together and looked at him, then at Michaels. “Did you?”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I put him to sleep so we could talk.”

“You’re telepathic? How long have you believed you had this ability?” Despite all evidence to the contrary this was totally beyond Dr Moore’s ability to accept. “Do you hear voices?”

“Honestly, Alison. You need to move past disbelief and embrace your own ability. You did invite me in to the office without me speaking directly to you, after all.”

“Why do you think this is something I can do?”

“Because I sensed you doing it with my abilities. I’m a much stronger telepath than you seem to be. And I admire how you are using your skills. Healing minds. A noble endeavor. People like you must be why I keep detecting so many altered minds in the city.”

“Wait, what?”

‘Pay attention Alison. Telepathy is real. You are a telepath,’ he sent her without using his voice.

“How can it be real, seriously. I can get you help.”

‘No, you can’t. You need to help yourself see first. Shall I help you with a tour of Mr Michaels and what you’ve done for him?’ He stuck to mental communication. Sooner or later she would realize he wasn’t actually speaking.

“A tour of Mr. Michaels? What the hell are you talking about?”

Tugging gently at her consciousness he drew her mind along side his own and led her into the sleeping thoughts of her patient. Slowly but surely he showed her all the things inside that she’d helped with and what was giving the man so much anxiety. Moment to moment she could have pulled away but didn’t. For Alison Moore it was an experience of a lifetime and directly conflicted with some of the training she’d received in psychiatry.

‘You have been doing significant good. I applaud you for that.’ He released her mind again and she gasped audibly.

“My god!,” she exclaimed. Opening a drawer she pulled out a shot glass and a bottle, pouring herself a shot of something. He didn’t bother to pay attention but she threw it back as if there was just water in the glass.

“You’re for real.” It was a deadpan statement. She just stared at him as if a demon had appeared from the beyond to collect on her soul.

“Yes. Now. About that. I think I’ve triggered a few things in your talent to let you function better with it. Not intentional but you’re the first telepath I’ve come across that wasn’t actively trying to kill me.”

“Who would want to kill you? Now you are saying things which sound paranoid. Telepathy. Granted, real. But paranoia still seems like something a telepath could exhibit serious symptoms of.”

“Last week a group of other telepaths tried to kill me. They kidnapped one of my girlfriends and tried to lure me into a trap. Almost successfully I’ll have you know.”

“Persecution is a common...”

“I can have the two detectives from the case contact you if you doubt me.”

She was quiet and solemn for a bit. He just watched her, waiting for her to come to grips with the revelation she herself was telepathic. She honestly had not known she was using the skill to help others with mental issues.

“I bet you have a very high success rate with your patients.”

“Yes. Yes I do.” She was proud of that though now it seemed she had more skills involved than she’d thought. The education didn’t seem to be useless but it seemed interesting she was somehow projecting means of healing to her patients.

“What is it you want of me?,” she finally said.

“I wanted to meet another telepath that was not a monster.”

“Not a monster?”

“I’ve been a bit of a monster myself. Ethics kicked in and I’ve been trying to be better. For a while though, I could be described as abusing the power to get things I wanted.”

“So do you see yourself as a monster?”

“Hell no. I see myself as someone who did some self examination and learned not to abuse others despite the ease with which it can be done.”

“Why would someone try to kill you?”

“I’m not sure yet. I think I was a threat to their little telepathic gang though. How? I have no clue.”

“Why would you care if there was a telepath who wasn’t hostile?”

“Peers? A familiar person with the same ability to exchange ideas with, to explore the ethical challenges, to work out a moral and reasoned manner of using such talents?”

“I see. If I have the telepathy too, wouldn’t I have similar problems?”

“You do have the telepathic ability. You’ve been using it in dramatically ethical ways. I just wanted at first to find out if you were one of the threats. You weren’t. Then I wanted to find out what you were doing. You’re being most altruistic, though I presume it is very profitable. And you were not the least bit aware you had the talent.”

“Perhaps all true. What makes you think anyone can be altruistic?”

“That’s an old argument that could almost be a solipsism. That idea that you’re the only one that matters. Altruism though is built into the racial survival genetically. It’s why animals help other animals that are in danger though it’s not in their own interest. It’s all about how we help each other to keep the species from danger. What’s-her-name, I forget at the moment, the author who promoted essentially self centered wealth oriented social value. She was a sick mind, an outlier. Probably sociopathic.”

“Are you able to be empathic to others?”

“Oh damn, you have no idea. The thought my girlfriend was in danger sent me through the roof with worry. No concern about my ability to have empathy there. I do have compassion. Just not towards the telepaths that tried to kill me.”

He spent about fifteen minutes describing the prior week’s events. When she was doubtful, he projected the images as he experienced them so she could see them through her eyes.

“What does this say about free will?,” she finally asked. “If we can’t control our own thoughts...”

She started to withdraw a bit into a thoughtful state. Philosophically considering the implications on a greater scale.

“I don’t know. But what do you care? You’re an atheist anyway. Fatalism isn’t in your world view.”

She looked at his eyes as though trying to detect something more behind them.

“You can’t read my mind. I’ve had to set up a whole series of defenses.”

“You’ve given me a lot of things to consider. Can you come back to talk?”

“Sure, but I’m not paying for it.”

She laughed aloud.

“I find I now can actually hear what’s going on inside Mr. Michaels’ head. I suspect I might need you as a tutor as much as you want a sounding board.”

“Is that what I want?”

“Maybe. You didn’t have to come in once you knew what was going on in here. You could have done everything from the hall, or the waiting room, or even downstairs. As near as I can tell anyway.”

She flicked a switch, “Marilyn, put Ben...” she looked up at him.

“Madison.”

“Madison on the schedule for tomorrow, around five.” She looked at him again asking “Is that a good time for you?” He nodded. Speaking to the box she went on, “I know that’s past the normal schedule, but it’s important.”

“Yes ma’am,” the voice came from the little box.

Ben headed home, having new things to consider about telepaths in general.

* * *

Ginny was so happy when Sir came home.

She’d put on her sexiest outfit, as she thought of it. It was a pair of fishnet stockings, a thin white lace top that showed everything if you looked carefully, a pair of four inch heels, and the black silk choker Sir had given her, which she thought of his collar of ownership. She made every effort to be clean and pristine for him to enjoy her as would please him.

When the door opened and he came in, she dropped to the presentation position quickly. Kneeling, hands behind the small of her back, her chest out as much as possible and the brightest smile she could manage. She wanted so badly for him to be proud of her.

“Hello pet,” he said as he put down his coat. “You look lovely. I am so very proud of how you have recovered. Not to mention how proud I am of you.”

She beamed but remained quiet. He liked to get settled in before he did anything with her. She knew that and was determined to be the best possible possession he had.

Tonight though he swooped in and lifted her into his arms. She gasped and he just carried her to his arm chair, settling himself in it with her on his lap. This, as far as she was concerned, was serenity itself. Sir was happy and holding her. She loved belonging to him more than anything else. She was delighted she was able to please him.

He kissed her, taking her lips as much as just being sensual. She drifted in her joy at his happiness in consuming her the way he was. He wasn’t doing much, but it was so clear he was the one with control, which what she wanted most. She’d wanted someone to be in control since she had left junior high school but never met someone before who wasn’t either abusive or just ignorant of her need. This was a dream come true to Ginny.

She had tried to explain it to Celia. She believed the other woman actually might understand.

* * *

The peace was undisturbed as Cain kept going over information from the arrests. Ben told him there was another man, a ringleader of this group. He had learned to believe Ben was not fibbing about the things the telepaths he was fighting were. The trail was there with this guy Ben turned over to him. It was trying to follow that trail that lead to dead ends.

Clearly he was going to need to drag Shaw uptown to see Madison again. Though the immediate case with the kidnapping had been resolved, with both of them receiving commendations, the chief villain remained at large. He was of two minds when it came to Ben, but mostly his experience with the telepath had been useful, beneficial, and over all it had not been harmful to anyone who wasn’t a criminal.

He knew the Queens detectives were rolling up the Skulls right now because of the half dozen members Ben had turned into unwitting witnesses and informants. That alone might save dozens of lives. Though he knew there was always another gang ready to step into a vacuum. You get a few of them though and the rest become far more pliant and reckless.

He wondered who this ‘Wizard’ character was the Russian dude talked about. Ben was probably the only one who could deal with the guy. Still, they had to try tracking the boss man of the gang. So far the phone numbers and meeting locations they’d been given had ended up without any actual connection to a specific person. The trail went dead in a hurry.

* * *

Ben sat in Janet’s office. She was maintaining her professional demeanor quite well. No instability in her career goals while in the office. He know though there was a simmering under current to her desire she was holding in check. To relieve that, he’d made a major decision.

“It’s been over a week now. I’m so sorry we had such problems and I had to be out for a couple days last week,” he said.

“I know it’s not your fault. We do have the Oberman contract to review and might be late on our presentation to the Bormasons.”

“About that,” he folded his fingers together with the fingers interwoven. He really didn’t want to hurt her job here. She lifted her eyebrows and looked at him.“Due to my interest in things outside my job here, possibly a woman I’d like to see periodically, I’ve been considering my position on staff here.”

“What?!” She was surprised. It brought up a conflict inside her. She didn’t know which would be worse, losing him as a relationship option or losing him as a copy writer for her staff. He was so useful as a copy writer and assistant, losing him could impact her own career. On the whole she’d rather be able to see him outside the office than have his subordinate role in her department personally. So long as he didn’t interfere with her career. Or maybe so long as he didn’t mind her having a career. Or maybe if he was willing to … oh, hell. Which was better, she wondered, if he was working for her or was dating her. She was at a total loss at the moment.

“I’ve decided to give two weeks notice. I’m going to change careers so I won’t be working for a competitor, but I really can’t work here and … I want to be able to see you outside work.”

She wondered if he really willing to give up his career here, and in marketing, to be able to see her? She hoped he meant her.

“Honestly, I have enough capital at this time I don’t have to work,” he told her. “I’ve been doing well in my personal investments. I’m not willing to let work interfere with my personal relationships.”

She was stunned, delighted, and concerned. She didn’t want to lose him. In any way, manner or form.

“What do you mean,” she tried not to sound shocked.

“I mean I’m giving my two weeks notice. I also want to know if dinner on Tuesday is out of the question?”

“um.” She knew she wanted to have dinner with him and something. Something more. More personal that is. Personal as in, in her bedroom. Bedroom, as in, naked and intimately very messy together.

It took her a minute of thought to realize he was fixing her problem with HR and career by stepping out of the work equation. She both liked and disliked that. He had been instrumental in the success they’d had lately and knowing it she’d intended as his manager to reward him. Personally though, she’d just as soon be able to date him without it impacting her career either. Balanced on both sides of the fence she didn’t know what she wanted but he had made the choice for her.

After he left, she started to compose a new requisition request for a replacement.

* * *

“I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it,” said Shaw.

“Me either.” Cain was sipping a coffee in the car they had been assigned. Shaw had been cleared for duty. While the paperwork may still be clearing, all the defendants had either confessed or plea bargained for lesser sentences. That the lesser sentences still amounted to over a decade behind bars didn’t dissuade them from making deals. All of them. It saved the feds from embarrassing trials of their own agent and employees. It saved the department a lot of grief in the courtroom.

“He did make it easy for us.”

“Yes, he did. I’m still wavering as to whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy masquerading as a good guy, to tell the truth. Not that we could do anything about him other than outright kill him. I’m not convinced we can do that either.”

“He has offered to help us with future cases when he’s available. It seems he’s quitting his job too. That little nest egg he has is pretty substantial.”

“Whether he got that legally or not would be up for dispute, but I doubt anything, even another telepath, could prove it.”

“My feeling on the matter is to give him leeway to see which way the wind blows. I don’t distrust him but I can’t trust him either.”

“Who knew telepathy would turn out to be a thing? Much less the problem of how to apply law to it.”

* * *

The assassin missed. He missed because Ben had detected him a quarter hour before he fired and had screwed with his visual acuity. The shooter went off to find the person who hired him. It was the first one. There were three others before they stopped showing up.

None of them really came close. Normal assassins weren’t going to be able to get to him.

* * *

The door chime rang.

Ben knew before he answered it that the mind on the other side of the door was the one and only he’d encountered so far he was unable to directly control. If he had his choice, he wouldn’t have to.

It opened to reveal Celia. Her hair was like a golden halo about her head. The gentle soft pink lips accented the smoothness of her lips, but the hazel-green eyes always stunned him. Her hour-glass form was pleasing but never so clearly imperative to him as the images he saw behind her pupils. He could only see her as if Elysian Fields had opened and invited him to joyfully bound with pleasure in them.

“Please Celia, come in.”

She looked down as though she was unsure and entered. With a hand motion he guided her to the seat in the living room where she could be unrestricted by his immediate physical presence.

“I thought I should come by.”

Ginny’s head popped out of her room a moment. “Hi Celia!”

“Hi Ginny. May I talk to Ben alone a few minutes?”

“Sure thing. I’ll be here if you want to hang out and visit though.”

The cheerful nature Ginny exuded belied the fact she’d been through a kidnapping recently.

“So, wanted to talk to me alone?,” he asked as he settled on the end of the couch near her.

“Yes. Last time I was here,” she started to become a little more pink as she thought about what happened. “You. And I. I mean. I’m interested but I don’t know much about...”

“I told you it is your choice. Still...”

That word made her look at him, wondering.

“I have to share with you some other things about me you don’t know before you make any serious decisions that involve me.” His eyes were steady. Telling her about himself was important to him. If she was going to trust him with herself, he had to do some fair sharing himself. He’d made this decision talking to Dr. Moore. Not because she had suggested such a thing but because it seemed he needed to work on his own inward self examination.

“This is going to be difficult for you to understand.”

“What could it possibly be? You’re making this sound ominous.”

Raising his hand to touch his temple, “I’m a telepath.”

She looked at him. If he had grown six arms suddenly she might be less disturbing to look at while she gave him a ‘you’ve gone totally nuts’ gaze.

“Before you ask, I can’t prove it with you for a couple reasons. First off, I can’t read you at all. You’re there obviously but the mental stuff that is you is protected somehow.”

She snorted, not knowing if she should just leave now. “Yeah, uh huh.”

“Second of all, I’d rather not use that talent on you.”

She stood up. “I think if you wanted me to go away there are better stories you could have told.”

“I don’t want you to go away. I just want to be honest and up front about this in case you see it in action some time.”

“Right. I’m so out of here.”

“Celia, why do you think those people kidnapped Ginny after having failed to grab me at the restaurant I was at?”

She’d taken a few steps towards the door, paused and turned back to look at him.

“They never asked for a ransom. I know, the news people say they did, but it’s true there was no ransom involved.”

“So maybe someone else you know or Ginny knows has amounts of money that can be used for a ransom.”

This was not going well. Somehow in his head, Ben had imagined telling the truth to her would be easier. Not that it would go well, but at least that she’d believe him. Accepting it and still trusting him was a different issue he would need to work through with her. He did not want to lose her but he had chosen to be completely open about himself to her.

“Look. I can prove this. I know you’re skeptical but I am willing to do something to demonstrate the truth of this.”

“Oh? How do you propose to do that? You can’t read my mind you said.”

He called out, “Ginny, come in here.”

Celia was still standing halfway to the door. Ginny popped her head out the door with her usual happy countenance. She walked into the room, snuck a hug to Celia and then knelt in front of the couch where Ben was sitting.

“Hello pet. Relax. I just wanted you in here so there’s no question of someone doing something peculiar.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Please. Come sit back down. I’m going to order us a pizza.”

“What?!” She seemed flabbergasted. “How in the world will that prove a thing?”

“What would you like on it?”

“Pepperoni I guess but what has this to do with anything?”

“You’ll see.” He tried to keep from displaying a wild grin. “Tell me, is there anything you’d like the pepperoni shaped like to make it interesting and different?”

Her nose scrunched up as she peered at him. Her thoughts were he’d lost his mind. His thoughts were, finding a way to prove this to someone who could not be affected was not so simple.

“How about a heart shape. That ought to be simple enough.”

“Done. It will be here in about fifteen to twenty minutes. Would you like to drink something while we wait?”

“Wait. You mean you ordered it in advance?”

“No, I mean I just told our favorite pizza place across the street to deliver. Telepathically.”

“Oh brother,” she buried her head in her hands. In her mind she was thinking about how she managed to stumble across all the lunatics in the city. How could she have known Ben would turn out to be one of them. To think she was seriously considering starting a relationship with him and Ginny.

“It’s important to me you understand this, Celia,” he said. “Though the kidnapping was an attempt to get rid of me because of the telepathy thing, there were other activities going on.”

“Like what?”

“It’s not just mind reading or sending thoughts to people.”

“So what else, it gives you a big boner whenever you want?”

He tilted his head. Ginny was trying not to laugh while in a presentation position.

“Interesting idea. I wonder if it could work on my own physiology.”

“Oh, so I found a new idea for your strange mind to contemplate. Hot damn. I’m so useful.” The sarcasm dripped acerbically.

“Maybe you have. No. I meant I can control people. When the delivery arrives, is there something you’d like to see the guy do that can prove this to you?”

“Oh sure, he can pat his head and rub his stomach. Though. He’d have to give the pizza over first, wouldn’t he?”

They tried to make more harmless small talk while they waited. Celia kept checking the time. Ben on the other hand was undisturbed. “He only just entered the lobby downstairs,” he told her. She shuffled her feet in mild disgust and looked at him, still dealing with disbelief.

The door chime finally sounded, and as was the habit of the pizza delivery guy, a loud few knocks as well.

“You get it Celia. It would be better if you have a clear view of everything.”

She got up, going to the door, unlocking the bolt, then opening it. There stood, not the usual delivery guy, but the cook she knew from the place across the street. He handed her the box with the pizza. Then promptly started patting his head and rubbing his tummy.

Celia looked back at Ben who just spread his hands.

“How much do we owe you?”

Without pausing at all in the pat and rub activities he said, “No charge today.” Still patting and rubbing he started to walk to the elevator. Shocked, she opened the lid of the box. The pepperoni was indeed laid out on the pizza in the shape of a heart.

Celia just stood there. Ben didn’t say a word, certain that she needed to assimilate this new information. Then she closed the door and reset the locks. Without a word she walked over and put the pizza box on the table. After that she plopped back down in the chair she’d been in before.

“Pet, how about you get all three of us a slice, on the good plates. Probably something to drink too.”

Ginny got to her feet and scampered to the kitchen after grabbing the za box from the table. Celia just sat staring into space.

“That has to be a trick of some kind,” she finally said.

“Yes, it’s a trick called telepathy by most people. I started thinking of it as a special talent. I can’t tell where it came from. I can’t tell why it can’t affect you.”

“You’d just control me to make me into a,” she looked at Ginny who was coming back from the kitchen. “My god!” Suddenly Celia’s shock seemed to shift into fear. None of this was working out the way Ben had imagined ahead of time.

Seeing how she was looking at Ginny, he knew the worst fear she had was the absence of having her own choices.

“Ginny is an interesting case,” he said. “She was a submissive long before I came across her. Isn’t that so pet?”

Ginny looked at Celia. “That’s true, I had been looking a long time for someone to give my submission to, but most of the ones I met either thought it was all about sex, or allowed them to be abusive.”

She headed back towards the kitchen to get the drinks.

“So, what, you use it to know exactly what she wants you to do with her?”

“Heck no. She wants to please me,” he leaned back “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though. I was something of a monster at first when this started. In Ginny’s case, we’re now mentally intertwined in ways I can’t change without harming her. At least, that’s how complex it became after I found her. Yes, I used the ability to make her satisfy me. I didn’t change her from being her though and what she wanted is what our relationship really is.”

Celia hadn’t stopped cringing in her chair. Ben sighed. This was going all wrong. Totally and irretrievably wrong. He would rather it went wrong though than lie to Celia about it.

“I couldn’t let you get more involved with me, with us, without explaining all this stuff to you. There’s another woman, my boss, who I did manipulate enough to steal a kiss. That unlocked an obsession she had about me. I feared it could cost her the career she’s build up, so I resigned this week. She still wants to date me.”

“So there are others you’ve controlled.”

“Yes. In the first several weeks after the talent manifested, I acted like an adolescent boy that had just discovered sex and could get all I wanted.”

“You compelled women to have sex with you. That’s what you wanted to do with me!?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he said it, “It did occur to me. But I didn’t try to touch your mind until you noticed the odd eye thing that seems to happen now and then.”

She didn’t know whether to get up and flee or to just keep listening to him to understand what the hell he was talking to her for.

“So you found out you couldn’t control me.”

“Which was not really an issue because I’d decided not to. Not that you can be certain of that.”

“Hey, what is with the eye thing anyway?”

“I don’t know. It just happens from time to time. I can’t even tie it down to when I’m specifically using the talent.”

“Weird. But back to this control freak with telepathy thing. You ran around for a while and made women you didn’t know have sex with you? Can’t you see how wrong that is?”

“The word Detective Cain used was ‘rape’ before pointing his gun at me.”

“He what? Gun? ‘rape’?,” her eyes were sharp green he noticed. “I think the word applies very aptly. So you raped Ginny and still are.”

“I’m not entirely convinced that fully applies in Ginny’s case. The only thing about the situation with her is she did not give prior consent, but she would have if she’d known where things would go.”

“I’ll grant you skipping over Ginny at least for the moment. She and I have talked. I do know she wanted a Dom long before meeting you, so you just accelerated her willingness to match up with you. Maybe. There were others.”

“Yes, there were. I’m not going to make an excuse for that. I stopped after realizing it didn’t get me what I wanted.”

“What? You got the sex you wanted. Isn’t that the entire purpose for controlling a woman so she’s got to go to bed with you?”

“Hell. You’d think so, right?,” he smiled. “Remember Angelika?”

“So you found here and did her? She was such a bitch I never saw why you two dated at all, but okay. So you did it to her.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. After her I tried going places to meet women. Before this telepathy thing cropped up.”

“I seem to remember seeing you going out once in a while looking like you’d tried to clean up for some reason.”

“The thing is, I was not merely unsuccessful.”

“So nobody liked you for your spiffed up self. And what, you wanted to do mean things?”

“Yes. And NO! I wanted to get laid. I wanted some company. I wanted to get even for all the rejection.”

“Everyone gets rejection, you dolt.”

“I’m used to just plain decent rejection. That didn’t bother me.”

“So, what happened then?”

“Humiliation types of rejection, brutal personal attack rejections. Human beings can be remarkably cruel to others. It took me a couple weeks of being able to,” he stopped.

“Being able to rape the women who dealt rejection that way to you?,” she was still angry and scared both.

“I did figure out it was wrong. For whatever it is worth, Detective Cain claims first dibs on just plain killing me.”

“Why doesn’t he arrest you, if he knows all about this?”

“Because I’d be able to free myself in just seconds, turn it around, prevent juries from convicting me, make judges just dismiss the charges, etc.”

“I don’t know what to think,” she said. There were long minutes while they ate the pizza while no one spoke.

“He’s very kind to me,” whispered Ginny. She didn’t want to get involved in this argument. What she wanted was for her Sir to know she was there for him. Sadness that Celia was upset had welled up within her but Sir was more important to her. Being owned the way she was had been something she’d wanted for so long before she’d met him, she couldn’t imagine going back to the scene people trying to find someone else.

“I need to think about this,” Celia said. “This is not the conversation I came up here to have. Obviously.”

“I know. This conversation was necessary though,” answered Ben. “Trust is very fragile to begin with so I realized if I didn’t explain, didn’t tell you, eventually you’d find out and then it would have been much worse.”

“Yes. At least this way I know what kind of person I’m dealing with.”

She got up, collecting her things. Pausing before walking out she went back to Ginny and gave her a hug.

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Great!,” replied Ginny, back to her usual cheery self.

When the door closed Ben got up to lock the deadbolt. He let out a sigh. Then he settled into his armchair.

“It will be okay, Sir.”

He smiled at Ginny. Then crooked a finger at her and patted his lap. She was delighted. In moments she was in his lap, head on his shoulder, holding her arms around his neck, clinging to her Sir.

It had gone so wrong, he thought.

* * *