The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Willow sat in the dark, waiting. It was quiet out behind the back of the cottage. The only sounds were natural: the water of the lake shifting, leaves on the greenery around rustling, and the faint hum of nightime insects.

If Willow strained to listen more carefully, she would be able to make out the light chatter coming from the house. But she didn’t strain. She preferred listening to the quiet sounds of the night settling into place.

It was a dark night. The moon was waning. In a few more days it would disappear into a new moon again, but even while it lingered it failed to give much light. There were only traces of illumination from the moon’s feeble rays, leaving the rest of the night in shadow.

Willow didn’t mind. She liked the shadow just as she liked the nightime soundscape. It was one of the best parts of getting away to the cottage, and she wouldn’t have traded either element for anything. She could sit out here basking in the nightly atmosphere indefinitely.

She was probably capable of sitting out indefinitely. The chairs out the back of the house were comfortable. She and Reese had gotten outdoor pillows to put on their wooden seats. Though they always had to remember to bring them in when it rained, the pillows were more than worth it.

The sound of the sliding door opening added itself to the soundscape, but Willow didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“You waited up for me,” Reese said, as she crossed the grass to the other chair next to Willow’s . “When I lost track of you in the party, I thought maybe you slipped upstairs to go to bed early.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t miss a night like this,” Willow said, not taking her eyes off the lake ahead. “There aren’t many summer nights left. And we’ll be back in the city before we know it.” When she heard Reese take a seat beside her, she finally looked away from the water. “Did everyone else leave?”

“Yes, I just said my goodbyes to the last stragglers,” Reese confirmed. Willow looked back to the water. “It was a good party, I thought. One of the better ones we’ve thrown.”

“I noticed,” Reese said, in an amused tone of voice. “You lasted almost three hours before you slipped away to be on your own again. I think that’s a new record for you.”

“I really enjoyed it,” Willow said, this time looking back up to the sliver of the moon that remained. “It’s always good to catch up with all our friends up here. But after awhile, I just find my attention coming out here… and I can hold that off for a little while more, after my attention starts to drift, but eventually I just can’t put it off any longer, and then I have to come out and be in it… just to be a part of a night like this…”

“It’s no offense to me,” Reese chimed in. “Seeing how long you stick around before you slip off is entertaining. I actually take it as a compliment when you stay in as long you did tonight; then I know the party is good enough to make you stay put, even when something else is tempting you away.”

Willow had nothing else to add to that. She turned her attention back outwards to her surroundings. But Reese spoke again. “Would you like me to improve on this night for you?”

Willow’s first thoughts of response— it’s impossible to improve on a night like this— gave way rapidly when she understood what Reese was really asking her. “Yes,” she responded eagerly.

Reese didn’t say anything in reply, but Willow felt Reese take her hand, and lower it into her lap.

Then, she felt Reese’s fingers touch down on the base of her palm, softly, and trace across. She let out a sigh, the touch already making her feel more distant from herself, and closer to the night around her.

It was a touch that had been invented on nights like this; a touch that they carried back with them into the city. There were other inductions for other days, but this one could only ever belong to nights like this, and even in the city, when Reese touched her this way, it always brought Willow back here.

Reese kept the repetitive motion, tracing the same line along the base of Willow’s palm in an unending cycle. This was the only induction that had a place in a night like this: words would be jarringly out of place against the silence of the space around, and no visual could compete with the shadowed nighttime world surrounding them.

Reese’s fingers traced their line again, and the night sharpened. Willow’s mind shrank in response to the same move. Her identity grew more distant from her with every pass of Reese’s hand. But while her identity grew fuzzier, the night grew ever sharper. The tracing of Reese’s fingers was an invitation to step out of her own body and forget its existence. But though they invited her to, she couldn’t do it; not yet. She needed to wait and let the feeling in her grow stronger; needed to wait and let the night grow sharper. She was so eager to go that it came out of her: “I want to go— I want to be part of the night again…”

“You were most of the way there when I came out, weren’t you?” Reese asked, softly, as her fingers traced their line once more. The words already seemed far behind Willow . She couldn’t answer to them, though she had spoken only seconds earlier.

Her attention was not on the sensations in her body. It was projected outward; every stroke sent her awareness from her and into the space around them. The further into the induction Reese sent her, the more Willow felt she was not Willow but an awareness that was blending with and becoming the night around them.

Dimly she felt Reese’s fingers again stroke along her palm, but now they seemed a million miles behind her. The wind was whispering through the leaves of the bushes, and somewhere a loon called out from a hidden corner of the lake, and that was where Willow was, not the wooden chair behind the cottage. She wasn’t even Willow anymore; not entirely. She felt kin to that whispering wind, kin to the calling loon.

The night was drawing her deeper into itself, and all memory of being separate from it was fading as the seconds ticked on. The sky was dark enough that all the stars were visible, and they bolstered the trace remnants of the moonlight. The lake reflected them back, on its glass-smooth, still surface.

The night could pull her up into those stars; or down to bottom of that lake. Or it could pull her across the lake to the land on the other side, those remote forests only accessible by boats that were all at rest for the night.

It was calling her to all these things at once, because all these things were a part of it, and so was she; she was the lake, she was the stars, she was the forest on the island in the center of the lake. She could feel the wind moving like it was part of her body, could feel the faint ripples in the lake’s surface like it was a system contained within herself.

She had awareness of the nocturnal creatures in the island forest; she had awareness of the aquatic creatures in the waters of the lake. She was kin to all of them, and they were kin to her. They all belonged to the same night, they were all together in it, and making up pieces of it in their own way. The night was so much bigger than them, and yet it contained them all, and they built it up to be even bigger still. It was an endless moment of perfection.

She only understood after the fact what happened next: Reese lifted her hand from Willow’s palm, to Willow’s forehead, and traced a line once across it, and called Willow back to her body. And she was aware of her body again, of her name, of her very disappointingly human identity.

Willow looked back to Reese. “How long was it that time?”

“An hour or so,” Reese said, releasing Willow’s hand. “I’m sure it felt longer than that for you.”

“It felt timeless,” Willow said. “But then, it always does. I guess it was already pretty late when you came out,” she granted.

Reese nodded. “It’s getting into the early hours of the morning. Unless we want to spend all of tomorrow sleeping, we should get to bed.”

It was reasonable, but Willow always felt a twinge when she had to leave the night behind her and give herself over to the day that would follow it. Still, she stood and followed Reese back into the house, only briefly pausing at the sliding door to look back at the lake.

There was a snapshot of this night— of every other night she’d ever been a part of— that Reese could send her back into with that same line along the base of her palm. It was a small reassurance… the summer was already coming so near to its end, and in only two more weeks they’d drive back up to the city.

At least when they went, Willow would carry this night back with her, locked up safe in her mind.

She turned from the door, closing it behind her, to follow Reese the rest of the way into the house.