The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

A Simple Day In the Life Of An Ordinary Girl:

Miles almost didn’t notice her at first. It was that kind of day, really; morning rush at a coffee-shop usually meant that you didn’t have time to do more than smile and nod at each customer while making their change. So even though she was a regular, Miles barely registered anything more than ‘tall girl, dirty blonde hair, kind of chubby’ as she approached the register until she suddenly got a panicky look on her face.

“Um...” she said, blinking sleep out of her eyes with sheepish embarrassment. “I forgot my purse at home.” She was holding her coffee with the desperate look of someone who had clearly just managed to make it out of the house this morning and was relying on caffeine to clear away the cobwebs, and it was probably that same early-morning befuddlement that made her forget her purse.

At most other times of day, this wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar, but the shop was packed with commuters who needed their fix of wakefulness as they headed off to work. Already, the line was backing up behind the girl (Miles had never learned her name, she always paid cash and there was never time for chit-chat at this time of day), and customers were beginning to look at her with the kind of irritation that only coffee-deprived people can muster up.

Miles looked around. He barely stifled a grimace when he saw that his manager had noticed the situation. If his boss hadn’t been looking, Miles could have just waved her through—she wasn’t particularly good-looking or anything, but Miles tended towards sympathy when it came to people having to pay four bucks for a cup of coffee, and it wasn’t like she made a habit of this. But Jim was looking. That meant letting her slide was out of the question.

The man behind her gave both of them an angry glare, and the girl winced. She had eyes like a sad puppy...Miles sighed. Fuck it, he decided. He’d tell Jim she was a regular and that they’d get the money from her tomorrow. That would still get him in a little trouble, but Jim probably wouldn’t write him up or anything. “Go on,” he said, gesturing with his head towards the exit from the line. “You can pay for it tomorrow.” He made sure to keep his voice very low. He did not want the other customers getting the idea that they could start up a tab.

She smiled gratefully and darted away to one of the tables with a muttered, “Thanks!” Any second, Miles expected Jim to swoop down on him, but when he got a chance to look around, Jim caught his eye and shrugged nonchalantly. Miles smiled nervously back at him and returned to work. That was...unexpected, he thought. Jim was cool about some things, but giving away freebies was most definitely not one of them. He’d expected a lecture at the very least, but Jim seemed willing to look the other way.

Miles glanced over at the girl as he made change. She was sitting there, drinking her cappuccino and looking back at him with a sort of dreamy hero-worship expression on her plump face. Now that he thought about it, Miles realized she’d spent an awful lot of her mornings looking over at him until her bus arrived. She didn’t have a crush on him, did she?

Then again, she was kind of cute. It was the smile, he decided. It really transformed her whole face. You could tell an awful lot about someone when they smiled, and the girl—he suddenly wished he knew her name—she just seemed to radiate approachability. Friendliness. Miles gave her a little smile back in between customers, and the way she blushed in a sort of mix of shyness and adoration gave him a warm fuzzy feeling in the back of his head.

In fact, he decided, maybe he should think about going over there and talking to her in a few minutes, once the rush subsided a little. Just to say hello, maybe let her thank him again for the rescue. Find out her name, get to know her just a little—

But it was not to be, at least not today. She saw the bus pass by out of the corner of her eye, and looked down at her watch with an audible yelp. Miles watched her sprint out of the shop in a panic, and he chuckled to himself. Even the ditziness seemed kind of cute on her.

He hoped he’d see her again tomorrow.

Carla glared angrily at the girl who sat down across the aisle from her. It represented a major change of focus from her previous activity, which involved glaring angrily at the bus driver up at the front of the bus. But when the stupid bimbo had walked down the aisle and had the nerve to plant herself right next to Carla, well...she was about five seconds away from giving this goddamned ditz a piece of her mind.

It seemed only fair, really. Carla was the one who was going to have to walk into work and get yelled at by her boss, and she was the one who was going to have to explain that the reason she was late was that the bus had spontaneously stopped to pick up some dumb girl who hadn’t been at the stop and had apparently sprinted almost a full block to get the driver’s attention...and then spent two minutes in whispered conversation with him, during which time the bus hadn’t moved even one inch. So if Carla was going to have to deal with that, she could at the very least pass on some of the misery to the person who caused it all.

“Just who do you think you are?” she hissed across the aisle. The girl looked over at her, slightly startled. “This is public transportation, you know. For the benefit of everyone. It’s not your personal limousine.”

The girl at least had the decency to look apologetic. “I know,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry, this day just hasn’t gone well at all, I forgot to set my alarm and I’m really sorry for holding everyone up, but I forgot my purse and the driver didn’t want to let me on without my bus pass—”

“You forgot your alarm, you forgot your purse, but it’s the rest of us that are going to have to pay for it, you know!” Carla was in full flow now, and she noticed one or two of the other passengers nodding appreciatively as they overheard. “Have you ever thought of maybe taking the time and effort to get your own life in order, just the tiniest little bit, instead of inconveniencing everyone else with your antics?”

Carla was really more irritated with the bus driver than the girl, when she started thinking about it, but the girl was there and the bus driver wasn’t. “Honestly, he shouldn’t have even stopped for you, much less gone ahead and let you on without paying! Do you do this in other areas of your life, hmm? Just decide not to pay for things and expect other people to support you? Off to the unemployment office now, perhaps, to throw away that five-dollar cappuccino and pretend you don’t have two dimes to rub together so that my taxes can go to paying for your lifestyle?”

She expected the girl to perhaps defend herself about that, try to stammer out that she had a job or something, but instead all she did was sit there and grin. “What’s so funny?” Carla spat out. The smile infuriated her more than anything else. If the girl had been genuinely sorry, Carla’s ire might have blown itself out, but to see her look back at Carla as though she was overjoyed to be yelled at just redoubled Carla’s fury.

“Sorry, it’s just...you’re angry with me,” the girl said. “You’re absolutely furious. You’re chewing me out, humiliating me in public.”

“Yes?” Confusion was starting to replace anger, or at the very least overlay it. Was this girl on drugs? Was that why she was acting so happy that someone was mad at her? “And?”

“And I’m letting you,” the girl said with a beatific expression on her face.

Carla felt a twinge of worry when she heard those words. The girl didn’t look dangerous in the slightest; she was clearly out of shape (she’d been panting for breath simply from the run to the bus), and they were in a public place surrounded by people. But Carla had read enough stories in the news about crazy people snapping, taking a gun or a knife or something and not caring who saw when they...“What do you mean, you’re letting me?” she asked, her voice suddenly a bit uncertain.

“I’m not stopping you,” the girl said, suddenly taking notice of the change in Carla’s attitude. “I mean, I’m...no, it’s okay, don’t be afraid.” That just made Carla worry even more. She hadn’t said anything, but somehow this girl knew Carla was frightened of her. Wasn’t that true of crazy people? Weren’t they supposed to be able to sense fear, like dogs? “No, no, I...look, please, just forget I said anything.”

Carla didn’t like the way the conversation had gone. Ever since she’d asked the girl...asked her...she’d asked her something, and the girl had said...Carla shook her head slightly. No, whatever it was, it was gone now. Stupid bitch probably hadn’t said anything particularly intelligent anyway. “I...um...I expect you were probably late because you’d been smoking some weed the night before, or getting drunk with your slacker friends,” she said, getting back into full flow. She must be on the right track, she knew, because the girl certainly wasn’t smiling anymore.

Ryan frowned as he watched Mimi chattering with Jada. Jada caught the hint and cut the conversation short, returning to her work, but Mimi seemed a little bit lost in her own little world. Which wasn’t exactly a good idea, for someone who was already just the tiniest bit in her boss’ bad books for today. Although technically speaking, she hadn’t actually done anything wrong—she’d made it in a few seconds before the clock hit nine, and gotten to her desk with a minimum of dawdling—but he preferred his employees to get to work without a cartoonishly theatrical sprint to make it to the office before he considered them to be late.

Still, at least she’d made it in on time today. After three weeks of employment, it was clear that punctuality just wasn’t Mimi’s forte. Along with a host of other necessary office skills, really. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Mimi. She was a nice girl, everyone thought so. But she was a slow typist, her phone skills were terrible, and worst of all, she just never really seemed to care about her work. Ryan sighed. He was beginning to wonder why he’d ever hired her in the first place.

He stood up abruptly. No point in dwelling on the past, he decided. Whatever his reasons had been, they weren’t important now. Mimi was here in his office, and it was Ryan’s job to take her and mold her into a data entry powerhouse. And it was time to start now, before lunchtime hit and the business of digestion made everyone even less productive than they already were.

He walked over to her desk and was rewarded with a widening of the eyes and a sudden flurry of activity. “Mimi,” he said, “I wanted to check in with you, see if you had finished putting in the numbers for the Haussmann account.”

Mimi stifled a tiny yelp and started looking through the papers on her desk. “Um, I’m almost done with that,” she said. “I just got sidetracked with the changes to the Kurtz file, and then I set them...”

Ryan let out a sigh. He’d been told his sighs were very good, definite upper management material, and certainly the effect they had on Mimi bore the statement out. “The Kurtz changes,” he said, “were supposed to be done two days ago.” Really, her desk said it all. Papers everywhere, no kind of rational filing system, three empty coffee cups, paperclips scattered all over...Ryan tried not to be one of those micro-managing office Nazis who ran their department like a military base, but he sometimes suspected that a girl like Mimi needed exactly that. She just had a tendency to coast through the day when left to her own devices, and unfortunately, Ryan didn’t have the time to spend keeping her on track. He began to wonder if training Mimi might not be an actual impossibility, or at least enough of one that he’d have to let some other boss at some other business do the work. As much as he hated to fire anyone, especially a sweet girl like Mimi, she just didn’t seem to be getting better at being responsible.

She looked up at him with sincere misery in her eyes, and Ryan instantly relented. “It’s alright, Mimi,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “We all make mistakes from time to time. I know I’ve been forgetful myself from time to time.” Ryan couldn’t quite think of any recent examples, but the important thing was keeping Mimi from getting too down on herself. The poor girl looked like she’d had a hard day already, and Ryan didn’t want to make it any worse.

In fact... “Mimi,” he said, surprising himself a little, “why don’t you go ahead and take the rest of the day off? I’m sure those files will keep a bit longer, and you look like you could use a little break.” Mimi looked pathetically grateful as she stood up. “With pay, of course. I wouldn’t ask you to take a pay cut for this. We’ll just write it off as a sick day.”

In the back of his head, Ryan kicked himself for his sudden burst of generosity. It wasn’t so much that he felt like Mimi didn’t deserve another day off with pay...although she probably didn’t, he admitted, realizing in his heart that this wasn’t going to help her learn any kind of office discipline and that he’d probably need to stay late to finish the files that could not, despite his claims, wait a bit longer. It was really more that he worried about the rest of the girls’ reactions. Despite her generally sweet demeanor and ability to get along with everyone else in the office, Mimi was bound to become the target of some nasty gossip if she kept getting preferential treatment like this. (Ryan wondered briefly why he kept giving Mimi this kind of preferential treatment, but he shrugged the thought off. He needed to stay focused.)

He glanced around the room surreptitiously as Mimi gathered up her things and said, “Oh, thank you so much, Mister Pezzini!” But surprisingly, nobody else seemed to mind Mimi’s early departure. In fact, they seemed to be giving him supportive looks. Perhaps everyone else had noticed how frazzled Mimi looked, and thought she could use a day off as well. Or maybe they just felt like the office was more productive when she wasn’t there. He dismissed the thought as unworthy. No, they just all liked Mimi as much as he did. He smiled. Just call her the office mascot, he thought to himself.

Mimi walked out the door with a last wave to the group, and Ryan returned to his desk with a smile. Nice girl, he thought. He was definitely glad he’d hired her.

“So how did today’s little exercise in futility go?” Vincent asked archly as one of the girls (Mimi never bothered trying to figure out which one was which, and she suspected that neither did Vincent) showed Mimi into his study.

“D-minus,” she said, collapsing into an overstuffed chair. A girl brought her over a glass of brandy, but she waved it away. She never liked drinking around Vincent. It wasn’t that he probed—he’d always been very respectful of her shields, which was more than she could say for a few telepaths she’d met. But she didn’t trust herself not to do anything silly after a few drinks. “And that’s me being generous. Three times before I got to work—four if you count my making the manager of the coffee shop not notice what I did to his employee—and I gave myself the day off by eleven o’clock.” In fact, she didn’t trust herself, period.

“Well, it’s easy to give yourself a generous grade when you make up the rules,” Vincent said, taking a sip of his own brandy. He was sitting in a chair with his feet up on one of the girls. She’d never seen the point of using a human being when there was a perfectly good footstool in the corner gathering dust, but then again, that was just one of the differences between her and Vincent. “Which is rather the point I’ve been trying to make all along, Mimi. We make the rules. We don’t live by other people’s.”

“Oh, not this again,” Mimi groaned. She mentally ordered one of the girls to go get her a glass of orange juice. She knew Vincent had to have some around the house; how else could he make a screwdriver? “I’m not asking you to try to do what I’m doing, Vincent, just to try to understand how I feel. I just want to be able to be...normal! I want to have a conversation without the other person agreeing with everything I say, I want people to be able to think thoughts I didn’t put into their heads, I want...I want to feel like I did before I got these powers. Just a little.”

Vincent gazed out the windows, staring at the New York skyline. “Oh, it’s an admirable goal, Mimi,” he said. “There are really only two problems with it. One, it’s undesirable, and two, it’s unworkable. But apart from that, I certainly know exactly where you’re coming from.” One of the girls refilled his brandy without needing to be asked.

“Undesirable?” Mimi said, her frustration beginning to boil over. “Vincent, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells! Like the human mind is just too fragile to touch without screwing it up! This morning, all I had to do was look at a cute guy and he started flirting with me. I can’t keep dealing with people like this, not without forgetting that they’re people at all. I feel like I’m losing myself, Vincent. Like I’m starting to divide the world up into telepaths and toys.”

“Like me, you mean?” Vincent smiled a crooked smile at her. Even without being able to read his mind, she could tell he was enjoying her discomfort as she tried to decide how to answer.

She finally decided on honesty. “Yes,” she said. “Like you.” It was odd, she thought. She and Vincent were able to lie to each other, a rare commodity for someone of their gifts, but yet they both told the truth just about all the time. Maybe being a telepath just gave you a different perspective on the lies people told each other. “I won’t tell you how to live your life, Vincent, but I don’t want to stop caring about people. You’re not the worst telepath I’ve ever met, but I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me you’re not a monster.”

Vincent chuckled and shifted position in a way that deliberately dug his heels into the back of the girl he was resting his feet on. Mimi sensed nothing from her but pleasure. He’d adjusted all the girls in his service, made them feel nothing but overwhelming pleasure from serving his will. Even pain felt good to them, if they thought it was pain that Vincent wanted. “Oh, I have no illusions about that, my dear. I’m a monster. We’re all monsters. This girl, the one I’m currently making into a convenient footstool? She’d be a monster, too, if she had the chance and the power. That’s the thing about being a telepath, it gives you a rather unique insight into human nature. All of those normal people out there, the ones you profess to want to be like? The one thing they all have in common is that secretly, they wish they were like you and I.”

The girl brought in Mimi’s orange juice, and she snatched it away angrily as Vincent continued. “If I were to restore free will to this girl’s mind, allow her to remember everything I’ve done, and tell her that you wanted to be normal like her, how do you think she would respond? Do you honestly think that she would even be able to wrap her head around that idea, even a little?”

Mimi frowned. “No. But...” She took a gulp of her juice. “But I have to have rules, ethics, a code of behavior to cling to. Something.”

Vincent shook his head. “And you think that will make you ‘normal’ again? It won’t, Mimi. Because that’s the other thing. Even if you do manage to learn the self-discipline to tolerate the hell that is other people, to paraphrase Sartre, you’ll never escape the fact that you are merely tolerating it. You go to your job every day not because you have to, but because you think it somehow makes you a better person to submit to life’s little indignities. You’ll never be able to really relate to these people, not ever again.” He waved his hand towards the window as though he were encompassing not just New York City, but the whole world. “Because you’re not trapped like they are.”

Mimi sighed. “Thanks, Vincent,” she said. “You know just how to cheer a girl up after a long day.”

“Long day?” he said, taking another sip of brandy. “It’s not even one o’clock!”

Which left a lot of the evening free, after she left Vincent’s house. Mimi occupied it by hanging out in chat rooms. It was one of the only places left where she felt like she could carry on a normal conversation, and she happily immersed herself in pointless debates about Star Trek, aimless political discussions, and healthy bickering. But even here, in her sanctuary from her own powers, Vincent’s words haunted her.

‘You’re not trapped like they are.’ Was that really how Vincent felt about the rest of the world? She wondered briefly what his life had been like before he’d discovered his telepathic powers. It wasn’t something he ever talked about. He looked to be about forty-five, and Mimi knew from her experiences with other telepaths that most of them gained their powers in their late teens or early twenties, just like her. That left a lot of time for him to cultivate his lifestyle as a debauched sybarite without leaving any scars. Or at least not any that showed.

Mimi wondered what she’d be like when she was that age. Three years with these powers, and already she felt like she was losing her humanity. Would she have empty-headed young boys serving her when she was Vincent’s age, she wondered? Would she laugh at the innocent young women who came to her, with their talk of ethics and morals that she indulgently listened to while she gave in to her every perverse fantasy with men who couldn’t help but please her?

She pushed down the arousal that image brought up. No, she decided. Vincent was wrong. He was wrong because he had to be. She would find a way to be normal. She had to.

She looked up at the clock. Time to get to bed, she decided. She didn’t want to be late again for work tomorrow. No sense in making things harder on herself.

A Normal Day In the Life Of A Common Girl:

At first, Miles didn’t even remember her. He just thought it was kind of odd that the tall, chubby girl that he’d just given back change to had decided to hand him some more money. Then she said, “For yesterday,” and it clicked.

“Oh, right,” he said, nodding. “Remembered your purse today, huh?”

She smiled shyly. “Yeah,” she said, sounding a little tongue-tied. Miles smiled back. He was right, he decided. She definitely had a crush on him.

The customer behind her coughed meaningfully, and Miles got his mind back on his job. He took the money, rang her up for another coffee, and gave her another little smile as she stepped out of line to take a seat.

She still kept staring at him, though. Miles felt flattered. False modesty aside, he’d always known that he was pretty good-looking. He’d certainly never had any problems attracting women. But somehow, this girl’s adoring little gazes meant more than anyone else’s compliments. He felt like he was being singled out by someone special for attention, even if he didn’t know exactly who she was. Was she famous, perhaps? He certainly felt like she was standing out in his attention, as though she was in color and everyone else in the room was in sepia tones.

He didn’t even know her name, really. She came in every day, she looked at him with those puppy-dog eyes, and he hadn’t ever managed to really exchange more than even ten words with her before today. He suddenly hoped she didn’t think he was being rude or stuck up. She seemed like a really nice girl, and he’d hate for her to think that he was acting this way because he didn’t like her or anything.

In fact, he decided, he should really go over there right now and talk to her before she got the wrong idea, or before her bus showed up like it did yesterday and dragged her out of his life. He looked at the growing line of customers, and his heart sank at the realization that with the morning rush in full swing, now, there was no way for him to get out from behind the register, not for even a second. He looked around helplessly, but everyone else was just as busy as he was. They wouldn’t even be able to cover a bathroom break, let alone give him time to go hit on a pretty girl.

He glanced over in her direction again. She was still smiling at him, and he felt another twinge of aching guilt at the thought of leaving her all alone like this. He looked back at the line of customers in an agony of indecision. Surely there was something he could do, wasn’t there? He didn’t want to lose his job, but at the same time, the urge to go over there, to find out her name and see what she was like, if she was single, if she was really as interested in him as she seemed...it tugged at him like an addiction. (Miles briefly thought of his girlfriend, but somehow she felt far away, distant, unimportant. She was all the way over by the cappuccino machine, not right here watching the prettiest girl he’d ever seen give him that beautiful smile again...)

Miles couldn’t take it anymore. He just had to go over there and at least say hello. He slipped out from behind the counter, noticing with an internal sigh of relief that Jim took over for him almost as if he’d been expecting Miles to walk away from his station, and walked over to the girl. “Hi,” he said, sitting in the chair next to her. “I’m Miles. And you are...?”

“Mimi,” she said, blushing just a little. She had an adorable blush, really. She seemed uncertain for a moment, as though wrestling with some great and momentous decision. Even her sudden, unaccountable shyness seemed to add to her charms. She was gorgeous in that moment, with the early morning sunlight shining on her face as she looked at him with a mixture of worry and lust in her eyes, and Miles decided to take the initiative. He kissed her, full on the lips.

For a moment, she froze up, and he almost thought that he might have been too forward. But his instincts told him that this was exactly what Mimi wanted, and sure enough, she melted into his embrace in moments as the two of them kissed. She pressed herself up against his body, and he could feel the heat of her through their clothes. It felt right, somehow. He could tell Mimi understood too from the way her arms found their way around his body to caress his back through his shirt.

The kiss felt like it lasted forever, and Miles almost wished it would. But with every second he spent with his lips pressed against hers, his body started whispering to him of other needs, more insistent and powerful needs that he couldn’t deny any longer. He thought about taking her back to his apartment, out to the parking lot and the backseat of his car, even just into the restrooms, but that would mean breaking the kiss and Miles knew that the only way he could even imagine breaking the kiss now would be so that his lips could find other places on her body.

Just the thought of kissing his way down Mimi’s breasts, down her belly to the wonderful delta between her thighs seemed to arouse them both all the more, and Mimi squirmed in his embrace as his hands roamed over her. Miles tried to tell himself that they needed to find privacy, that the police would come if they gave into their passions completely right here in a public place, but all the arguments of his mind seemed to give way to the single, powerful, throbbing demand of his suddenly-aching cock. His hands slid under Mimi’s blouse, touching her bare skin, feeling its feverish heat under his fingers. He felt her moan into his mouth, and he couldn’t imagine a more erotic sensation.

He couldn’t help himself now; thoughts of police and staring eyes just melted away from his mind as he unbuttoned her blouse to expose her breasts, so full and lush and the nipples so hard under his thumbs that he finally managed to break the kiss to move his head down and suckle at them, alternating from one heavy tit to the other and feeling a rush of pride at the way Mimi’s fingers wrapped in his curly hair to hold him in place. It felt like he knew every secret way to arouse her, knew just where to touch her to make her writhe in pleasure and whimper for more. His fingers brushed at her side, just at the swell of her breasts, and he was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath as she stiffened in pleasure. It was such a wonderful sound, he just had to...to...

He straightened up, and lifted her up to sit on the table. All around him, the café’s other patrons, his co-workers and boss stared straight past the two of them as though they didn’t exist...or as if nobody else existed but the two of them. It felt like the world itself had made a perfect special place where they could feel nothing but passion, and Miles dropped to his knees and slid his head under Mimi’s skirt to inhale the powerful scent of her arousal. He could see how she’d soaked through her panties with lust, and he quickly pulled them down to her ankles to get them out of the way so he could slide his tongue into her hot, wet pussy and lick.

Even moreso than before, they just seemed to be resonating on that same perfect frequency, and he knew exactly where and how to eat her out to make her scream in ecstasy. Her thighs wrapped around his head as she spasmed in unbridled lust, and it all just felt so perfect that he knew he could do this forever, that this was all he ever wanted to be—on his knees, between her thighs, giving Mimi the orgasms she needed and wanted and deserved and...

Then the old certainty gave way to a new one. Somehow he knew, absolutely knew, that Mimi needed to be fucked right that second. She needed his cock inside her and as soon as she needed that, he needed it too and he pulled his pants down with manic urgency so that he could pound his cock into her pussy. She slid forward as he thrust into her, and he was balls-deep inside her with a single swift motion. The sheer perfect clench of her cunt around his cock almost made him cum right then and there, but something in the back of his head resolutely refused to allow his dick the release it craved. Instead, he just channeled that arousal into more vigorous motion, more powerful strokes, more of the fucking that he knew Mimi wanted and needed and craved and...

And then she was shuddering, shaking and quivering and her legs were wrapped around his as she came, he knew she was coming and that knowledge finally pushed him over the edge into his own orgasm, and he grunted as he shot his load into her pussy and the two of them finally sagged into each other in exhaustion.

He held her, never wanting to let her go. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

He was surprised when she responded by bursting into tears.

Mimi burst into Vincent’s study, almost before the girl could let her in. She headed straight to the brandy decanter, grabbing a glass and filling it with shaking hands. “You know, the girls can do that for you,” Vincent said as he watched her with a slight frown.

Mimi downed the entire glass in one coughing, spluttering gulp and filled it again. “I don’t want anyone doing things for me right now,” she said harshly.

“Bad grades today, I take it?” Vincent said, taking a small sip of orange juice. “Even I don’t usually start drinking this early.”

“Fail,” she said, her voice as shaky as her hands. “Epic fail.” She grabbed the decanter and took it back to the chair with her. “Total failure, complete and total fuck-up on every possible...” Mimi realized she was babbling, and steadied herself with another swallow of brandy. “I raped a man this morning, Vincent.”

Vincent raised an eyebrow at her. “Either he was an extremely poor physical specimen,” he said, “or you’re stronger than you look.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” she shouted. “You know damned well what I mean! I might not have used physical force, but I raped him just as surely as if I held him down and forced myself on him. I made him want it, I made him ignore his girlfriend who wasn’t even twenty feet away, I made everyone else ignore it happening, I was horny and he was cute and so I flipped all the little switches in his mind and made him fuck me right there in the middle of a crowded room. Oh god, oh god oh god...” She gulped down the rest of the glass of brandy and poured herself another one.

Vincent just watched her. His look didn’t betray any sort of amusement at her shame, she was grateful for that, at least, but it didn’t give her any particular sympathy, either. “And then what?” he asked, his tone neutral.

“I made him forget it. I made them all forget it had ever happened and I came here. I couldn’t go to work, not after that, I couldn’t be around anyone who couldn’t defend their minds.” She looked up at Vincent with bleary, red-rimmed eyes, slightly unfocused from the sudden infusion of alcohol. “How do you stand it?” she said. “How do you kill your conscience, Vincent, because I can’t do it and I can’t stop myself from doing things to people and I can’t live like this!” She flung the glass aside, hearing the satisfying crack as it smashed against the wall.

Vincent sighed heavily. “Well, I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but if you will insist on wasting good liquor like this...” He stood up. “I thought of a way to help you, Mimi,” he said, his tones devoid of their usual wry sarcasm. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to trust me. Do you trust me, Mimi?”

Mimi looked up at him. She really wished she wasn’t pausing like this—whenever someone looked you in the eyes and asked if you trusted them, there was an instinctive urge to reassure them—but she realized that she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about Vincent, not even after two years of daily chats with him. He seemed harmless, but that wasn’t necessarily the same thing as trustworthy. She’d trusted him with her secrets, she’d trusted him with her fears, she’d trusted him enough to sit in his house and eat his food and drink his drink, but was that really the same thing as trusting him?

She thought about Miles, his mind bent to love by the simple pressure of her desires, and wondered if she had a choice. Vincent just looked at her, his face finally giving back some of that compassion she’d needed to see as he offered his help, and Mimi knew that couldn’t have been easy for him. “I guess so,” she gulped out.

“Alright, then,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and ultimately, I think the problem is that you need more than just self-control. With the amount of power you have, self-control is never going to be enough. But if you have more than just that going for you...I can put mental blocks around your abilities, make them harder for you to access. We can fine-tune it later, once you’ve had some time to get used to it, and make them as difficult or as easy for you to use your powers as you want. Perhaps even shut them off completely, if that’s what you decide you really want—” He raised a hand to cut her off before she could speak. “But I don’t think that’s a decision you should make today. Not without taking some time to see how you really feel.”

Mimi nodded. “Alright,” she said. She felt hollow, like what she really wanted to do was just curl up into a little ball and cry. But she knew she had to face this. She had to find a way to live with herself, and Vincent was offering her the only way out that either one of them could think of. “What do I have to do?”

“Just lower your defenses,” Vincent said. “Relax your shields, and let me into your mind.”

At first, Mimi wasn’t even sure if she knew how. She felt Vincent’s tentative, questing probes against the edges of her thoughts and her mind instinctively tensed up, the same way it always had when another telepath had tested her. It took a lot of effort to consciously force those shields to relax, to let Vincent’s thought-tendrils into her mind without automatically repulsing his mental probe.

“That’s it,” Vincent said. He was still a few feet away from her, but somehow he felt like he’d closed the distance between them without moving. “Just relax, just don’t try to fight it...”

Mimi concentrated, putting all her effort into relaxing and allowing this to happen. Her instincts kept telling her to tense up, to fight the intruder, but she closed her eyes and soothed those worried nerves and jangled thoughts into submission and let Vincent inside of her. She felt his thoughts, sliding down into her brain, wrapping themselves around the source of her power, the source of those very same shields, and then she felt a soft, soothing, stroking touch on her mind as he enfolded them in his own will and slowly, gently quieted them into sleep.

And then she couldn’t even feel his thoughts in her head anymore. She knew they must still be there, but it felt like there was a thick layer of cotton muffling all those extra senses and she couldn’t hear his voice in her head. For the first time in three years, she heard nothing but silence in her mind. It felt like she was letting out a breath she hadn’t even noticed holding. Mimi almost wanted to cry in gratitude. She was finally safe from herself.

Vincent was probably still inside her mind, but she couldn’t feel her telepathic defenses at all, now. Her eyes widened as she realized she also couldn’t stand up. Had something gone wrong? she wondered. She couldn’t move her arms or legs anymore. She looked at Vincent, about to ask what was happening, but she suddenly realized her vocal cords weren’t working either. Speech, movement, everything just seemed to be shutting down. Vincent must be doing something, she realized. But she knew she’d never know what, not unless she could...she struggled, trying to find the part of her mind that held the power to fight back, but Vincent had already put those blocks in place and the part of her that could break through them was on the other side of that mental wall.

Mimi started to panic, but she couldn’t scream and then she couldn’t remember why she wanted to panic and she couldn’t think and the last image in her head before her world rocketed down into blackness was the sight of Vincent’s gently smiling face.

An Average Day In the Life Of A Working Girl:

The sun had barely dipped below the horizon, but Mimi had already been out on the streets for close to an hour. Not much choice, really; Mimi didn’t have the looks some of these other girls had. She had to hustle twice as hard for every trick she could pull, and that meant getting out here earlier than the other hookers and staying out until after dawn. She adjusted her stockings slightly. It had been a quiet night, so far, but things usually picked up when night fell.

They did, but not in the way she was hoping for. She spotted a cop ambling down the street, pretending to be casual even though she could tell he’d spotted her. She leaned up against the light post and tried to pretend she was just a normal New York party girl, just some carefree young thing waiting for her ride while dressed up for a night on the town...she knew it wasn’t going to work. Fuck. A few hours later, and she might have enough cash scraped up to bribe him into looking the other way, but she didn’t have a dime in her pockets right now, and that meant she’d probably be spending tonight in a holding cell.

A car pulled up to the curb. Not now, you idiot, she thought. At least if the cop caught her hanging out on the corner, the worst he could do was bust her for indecency. But if this moron tried to pick her up with the cop watching, she’d definitely be screwed.

He leaned out of the window, a handsome gentleman in his mid-forties. “Hello, there,” he said, shouting to be heard over the roar of traffic. “You wouldn’t happen to be for rent, would you?”

She shot a glance at the cop. He was looking straight at them. He must have heard the man talking; there was no way that anyone on the block had missed that. She looked him square in the eyes, the word ‘no’ forming on her lips. “Yes,” she said instead.

Her eyes widened in panic. Why had she said that? Why had she been just as stupid as this old fucker? Now they were both headed for the cells. But the cop didn’t seem to be in any kind of a hurry to head over with the handcuffs. Instead, he just stood there, staring at them with this weird look on his face, like he wasn’t really seeing them at all.

“Well, then, dear, hop in! I believe there’s a hotel a few blocks away with rooms by the hour.” He had this weird voice, sort of a fake British accent and this tone like he thought this was the funniest thing in the whole world. But he was paying, and Mimi definitely wanted to be anywhere but on this corner right now.

She got in the car. “Hi, baby,” she said. “My name’s Mimi. What’s yours?”

“Call me Vincent,” he said. He pulled ahead into traffic, driving the short distance to the motel. “So how much does a girl like you cost?”

“That depends on what you want to do,” she purred seductively.

“I want to fuck you,” he said in irritated tones. “What did you think we were going to do, discuss poetry and compare our tastes in foreign films?” He pulled up to the curb again, getting out of the car and putting a quarter in the meter.

“Sorry, baby,” she said, even though in the privacy of her head she was furious. It didn’t pay to pick a fight with the johns, but this guy was already being an ass and she hadn’t even gotten undressed yet. She dearly wished she could tell him to try fucking himself for a change, but she needed the money too badly. “That’s a hundred bucks.”

“Fifty,” he said as he passed through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby. “Take it or leave it.”

She almost left it. She wanted to leave it. Mimi knew she wasn’t a real hot number, but this was New York. There was always a convention in town or a guy away on business or someone who was looking to find willing company for a little while, and Mimi knew she could get a hundred from just about any of them. But she couldn’t quite seem to convince her legs, because she walked through the revolving doors right after him, and she couldn’t quite seem to convince her lips, because she found herself saying, “Alright, baby, fifty it is,” and what made it worse was that she knew she didn’t want to say it, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt like she was in an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’.

“Alright,” he said. He walked up to the desk, and the clerk handed them a key without asking them for money. Mimi wondered if he knew what he was doing and couldn’t stop himself either, or if he just didn’t even think about the cash. “Come on,” Vincent said. “We’re just down this hall.”

Now Mimi definitely wanted to take off. Money or no money, this was one scary fucked-up trick and she didn’t want any part of it anymore. Fifty bucks wasn’t worth this kind of spooky craziness. But she walked three steps behind him the whole way down the hall, and she couldn’t even seem to look up from her own feet. She probably looked like one of those Muslim women, only dressed like a hooker.

He let them both into the room, and sat on the slightly shabby bed. “Take off your clothes,” he said. Mimi couldn’t stop herself; that strange compulsion pulled at her and she found herself peeling off her outfit without any kind of conscious effort on her part.

“You know what’s going on?” he said as he slipped his own clothes off.

“You...” Mimi wasn’t even sure at first if he’d let her say it, but she seemed to be able to control her mouth, at least for now. “You’re doing something. To my head.” She climbed onto the bed, got onto her hands and knees. “You’re making me do shit.”

He got around behind her, grabbed her hair and pulled it tight in his fist. “And how does that make you feel?” he said. She could feel his cock pressing just a little at the entrance to her pussy, but she couldn’t move. Not to get away or to get closer. She desperately wanted to get away, but she felt a sudden sick certainty that if Vincent decided to, he could make her want to get closer instead. He could make her want to fuck him. She felt even worse when she realized that the knowledge wasn’t even her own. He’d put it in her mind.

“Scared,” she said. She tried to keep her voice calm. She didn’t know why she was bothering, he had to know exactly how fucking scared she really was, but she found herself dealing with him the same way she would any other freaky john. Just try to keep your shit together, she told herself. Let him get his rocks off, and he probably won’t hurt you.

He slid into her. “But only probably,” he said, and she let out a tiny little scream as she realized he’d heard her think that. “You know that, right?” He started pumping his hips, and Mimi felt tiny little warning bells go off in her head as she realized belatedly that he hadn’t put on a condom, that he might give her VD or AIDS or even just knock her up, but she couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t stop him from doing anything he wanted to do to her, anything at all.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Then you do know. I could do...unnnh...I could do anything I wanted to you right now. I could kill you.” His other hand moved from her shoulder to wrap around her throat, not grabbing hard enough to cut off her oxygen but hard enough that she’d have bruises by this time tomorrow. “You couldn’t stop me, I could even make you beg me to do it. Even if I let you scream, nobody would come to help you.” He was pumping faster now, his voice getting shaky as his cock slid in and out of her pussy. “How...how does that make you feel?” he asked, strain in his tones.

“S-scared,” she whimpered.

“No!” he shouted, twisting her hair in her grasp and yanking her head back painfully. “How does that make you feel?”

“I...I don’t know,” she pleaded, knowing that he’d kill her if she couldn’t figure it out, knowing that the knowledge wasn’t real, just something he’d implanted in her head to make her even more frightened and desperate, but not being able to shake it despite that. “I...I...”

“How does it make you feel?” he shouted, his fingernails digging into her throat.

Tears streamed freely down Mimi’s face now, as she thought about dying on a stained bedspread in a motel room far from home. “Helpless!” she cried out, the words a desperate plea as much as an admission.

Vincent strained his hips, and she knew he was cumming inside her. “Very good,” he said, pulling out. “Then it looks like you have everything you wanted.” He let her go, and she suddenly collapsed onto the bed, all the strength in her muscles turned to water by the adrenalin backwash. He slid off the bed and pulled his clothes back on. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” he said as he took out his wallet, pulling out a few wrinkled twenty-dollar bills and throwing them on the floor. “Keep the change.”

He closed the door behind him as he left, but Mimi couldn’t stop herself from shaking as she cautiously climbed off the bed. She snatched up the money from the ground and began pulling her clothes back on. Everything I wanted? she wondered as she slipped the money into her bra. What could possibly make him think she wanted a life like this?

She took a deep breath and headed back out into the hall, back out into the night. She might not want it, but it wasn’t like she’d been given a choice.